Thicker Than Water

by P J Parrish

  “I’ll find my own way out,” he said.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Louis took a sip of his coffee and scanned the pedestrians. He was sitting in a café a block away from the courthouse, waiting for Ellie Silvestri.

  He had not wanted to see her in Bernhardt’s office. He was hoping that, here, away from her memories of Spencer Duvall, she would talk about him openly. She hadn’t asked what he wanted to talk about, but he had the feeling she knew and even wanted to talk.

  Ellie was coming toward him, a blur of blue and white weaving through the lawyers and shoppers. He stood, pulling out a chair. Ellie sat down, setting her purse on her lap.

  “It was nice of you to come, Miss Silvestri,” Louis said.

  “You had me intrigued, Mr. Kincaid,” she said. “With all the stuff in the paper about the Kitty Jagger case, I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  Louis waved to the waiter. Ellie ordered an iced tea.

  “Why did you want to see me?”

  “My role in Spencer’s murder has changed since we last talked, Miss Silvestri. I’m not working on Spencer’s homicide anymore. I’m working for Scott Brenner.”

  Ellie drew in a deep, slow breath. “Scott Brenner . . . he’s the one trying to get a new trial for Jack Cade.” She paused, the creases in her face deepening. “I’ve heard things. They think Spencer did something wrong, don’t they?”

  He knew this was coming, but it was still hard to meet her eyes. “Yes,” he said. “That’s why I’m here. I was hoping you could help me figure out why.”

  The waiter brought Ellie’s iced tea and she took a sip. She still looked distressed. When Louis drew out his notebook, she looked down at it, then back up at him.

  “What do you want to know?” she asked softly.

  “Tell me what was going on during Cade’s trial. How was Spencer doing during that time?”

  Ellie sat back, her hands clasped over her purse. “Spencer was working really hard. We couldn’t afford investigators, so he was doing the legwork himself. There was a point early on, that he seemed optimistic, but that didn’t last. It seemed that the longer the trial went on, the more depressed Spencer got. I think he felt he couldn’t help Jack Cade and he took it really hard.”

  “Candace told me Spencer was taking antidepressants. Did you know that?”

  “Not at first. I thought he was just sick . . . you know, from working too hard. He was almost living at the office and he began to look ill. I remember one night, I begged him to get a checkup.”

  Ellie seemed to draw away, and her eyes became teary. “A few days later, he came out of his office in the middle of the day and told me he was going to see a doctor. I was so relieved.”

  “Did he tell you this doctor’s name?”

  “I’m not sure . . . Dr. Mufisso, I think it was. Yes, that was it. I remember he came out of his office and he looked really pale. He said, ‘Cancel everything, Ellie, I’m going to see Dr. Mufisso.’ ”

  Louis wrote the name down, knowing he would have to follow up on it later, although he doubted the doctor would break confidentiality.

  “I guess he was a psychiatrist,” Ellie said. “I found the antidepressants in his bathroom.”

  “Did Spencer get better after that?”

  Ellie nodded. “A little. The trial ended with the plea bargain and Spence was more himself. Lyle joined us shortly after that and we got really busy, especially with the Kermit case. That lasted for months.”

  Louis was about to ask her more about Spencer’s state of mind, but Ellie was off in memories again. “George Kermit,” she said. “He was the president of Florida State who was charged with misappropriation of alumni funds. He ended up losing his position, but Spencer kept him out of jail. It was a big deal.”

  Louis looked up from his notebook. “Florida State, that’s in Tallahassee, right?”

  She nodded.

  Louis pulled out the copy of Gulfshore Life magazine and opened it to the society photo of the Duvalls. He pointed to the face next to Duvall.

  “Why, that’s Senator Brenner,” she said. “My, he looks young there.”

  Louis already suspected the answer to his next question, but he needed to be sure. “Did the Senator refer Kermit to Spencer?”

  Ellie hesitated. “Yes, I remember the Senator did call. And after we won, he sent me flowers and Spencer a box of cigars. I had forgotten about that.”

  Louis had a feeling the rewards went way past cigars. The Cade and Kermit cases probably weren’t enough to make a career, but together they would have been a helluva launch.

  “Did the Senator send other business Spencer’s way?” Louis asked.

  Ellie nodded slowly, like she was beginning to understand. “And sometimes favors.”

  “So Spencer and Senator Brenner were friends?”

  She shook her head vigorously. “Oh, heaven’s no. I mean, they saw each other at all the things Candace dragged him to. But truth be told, Spencer disliked the Senator. He disliked the whole family.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. They just weren’t his type.”

  Louis set down his coffee mug. “Tell me about the Brenners. Tell me their history.”

  Ellie hesitated. Louis knew she was wondering where he was going with this, but he had to hope she would just trust him. Or maybe trust Spencer.

  “Well, let’s see. The Brenners have been in Fort Myers for generations. Charles was a big attorney here in town for many years, then went on to become a state senator. That was just after his wife, Vivian, died.”

  “What did she die of?” Louis asked.

  “I’m not sure, but the girls in my garden club back then always said it was pure exhaustion.” She leaned close and lowered her voice. “We used to say it was her husband’s fault, making her have all those babies just so he could have a bunch of sons. He was always going around town talking about how his sons were going to run his firm someday.”

  Louis was about to interrupt when she went on.

  “After Brian was born, we said maybe the poor woman would finally get some rest,” she said. “You know, because the senator finally had his heir and a spare.” She paused, shaking her head. “But Vivian had another miscarriage and died. Brian was only a baby.”

  Louis remembered the Brenner family plot and the infant tombstones. “Scott told me the babies were called blue babies or something,” he said.

  Ellie ran her paper napkin along her glass, rubbing away the condensation. “Blue babies . . . I haven’t heard that term in years. Of course, they weren’t really blue. That’s just what they called stillborns in the old days.”

  She was off on a tangent again, and Louis was just about to pull her back when she said something that made him listen.

  “It was because of the Rh-negative thing,” Ellie said.

  “Rh-negative?” Louis said.

  Ellie nodded. “My sister was Rh-negative, so that’s why I know about it. Well, poor Vivian, she just kept on having miscarriages and stillborn babies. Back then, doctors couldn’t do much about it.”

  Louis didn’t know what he was hearing, but he knew there was something important in Ellie’s meanderings.

  “My sister Cecile lost two and she wanted to stop,” Ellie said sadly. “But then she got lucky and the next one was negative. That’s my nephew Alan. He’s a dentist in Houston.”

  Louis was trying to make a connection in his mind. “Only the negative babies survive?” he asked.

  She looked at him, like she was coming back to the present. “It depends on the mother. If the mother is Rh-negative, like my sister Cecile . . .”

  “Or Vivian Brenner?” Louis interrupted.

  She nodded. “Yes, if the mother is negative and her baby is positive, her body responds to the growing baby like . . . well, something foreign and attacks it.” She paused again. “How sad it was for poor Vivian . . . thinking her own body was killing all those babies and she couldn’t stop it.”

&nbs
p; Louis sat back. He was thinking again of all those little markers in the Brenner plot.

  “So that means that any baby that survived had to have Rh-negative blood?” Louis said.

  Ellie paused. “Not exactly.”

  Louis sighed in frustration. “Ellie, this might be important. Explain this to me slowly.”

  Ellie looked at him oddly. “Well, if the mother is negative, the babies have to be negative, too, to survive. Except the first baby. That one can be positive and live.”

  “Why does only the first positive baby survive?”

  “It has something to do with the first pregnancy triggering the antibodies to attack any other positive babies.”

  Louis set down his pen, his mind working.

  “Ellie,” he said, “is Scott Brenner the oldest?”

  She stopped to think. “There was Scott, a couple of stillborns, and then Brian came along.”

  Louis sat back, looking out across the street, the granite buildings and gray sky seemed to blend together in a milky pool. Things were coming together, connections being made. A negative-blood baby. A teenage boy with no parents to watch him. A powerful client seeking out a backwater lawyer. A weak man with an ambitious wife.

  He looked back at Ellie. She seemed to sense that he had been inside himself and she was waiting patiently for him to say something.

  “Ellie,” Louis said, “the doctor Spencer went to see, the one you thought was a psychiatrist?”

  She nodded.

  “Could his name have been Mephisto?”

  She looked surprised. “Yes, come to think of it, I believe it was. Why, do you know him?”

  Louis closed his notebook. “No. But I know someone who did.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  On the elevator up to the Brenner offices, Louis tried to put the pieces together in his head. All he had were some suspicions, a connection between Duvall and Senator Brenner and a gut feeling that Brian Brenner had something to hide. Maybe he just wanted to see Brian’s face when he said Kitty’s name.

  The elevator doors opened and Louis stepped into the reception area. The receptionist recognized him and told him Scott was due back soon. When Louis told her he wanted to see Brian, she waved him past with a smile.

  Brian’s door was open. He knocked but didn’t wait for an invitation to come in.

  “You got a minute?”

  Brian looked up. He was sitting behind a mountain of files at his desk. He looked paler than normal, his big bland face blending in with the stacks of manila folders on the desk. There were dark circles under his eyes.

  “Scott isn’t here,” Brian said.

  “I can wait,” Louis said.

  Louis came further into the office. He could feel Brian’s eyes on him as he moved to the window.

  “Ah, maybe you’d be more comfortable out in the reception area,” Brian said.

  Louis ignored him, pretending to look down on the street and river below.

  “Nice view,” Louis said.

  Brian didn’t answer.

  “You know, I’m getting to like Fort Myers,” Louis said, perching on the edge of the sill. “It’s a nice town, big but not too big. A place where everybody knows everybody else.”

  His eyes went up to the diploma on the wall behind Brian. He did the math and figured out that Brian had been sixteen or seventeen when Kitty was killed.

  “You grew up here, right Brian? Went to high school here?”

  Brian looked like a cornered cat.

  “Oh, yeah,” Louis said. “That’s right. Your family has that big old crumbling house over on Shaddlelee Lane. Have you unloaded it yet?”

  Brian reached for a tissue and wiped his nose. “No, we just got it appraised.”

  Louis smiled slightly. “I like old houses.”

  “You already told me that,” Brian said flatly.

  “Yeah, but your family’s place, it has . . . charm. Why did you decide to sell it now, after all these years, Brian?”

  “It was time.”

  Louis shook his head slowly. “Too bad you’ve got to let it go. How does your brother feel about selling it?”

  “He thinks it’s worth saving,” Brian said tightly. “But Scott likes all lost causes.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” Louis said.

  Louis went toward Brian’s desk, Brian watching him closely. Louis pulled a chair close and sat down. Brian looked uncomfortable, like he wanted to tell Louis to leave but didn’t know how. He plucked another tissue from a walnut box on his desk and blew his nose.

  “I’m not interrupting anything important, am I?” Louis asked.

  Brian threw the tissue hard into the trash can near his feet. “What do you want?” he asked.

  “I just came by to run a few things by Scott about Kitty Jagger.” Louis paused a beat. “You remember Kitty don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Maybe I could run them by you.”

  “I’m not part of that case,” Brian said, moving papers. “That’s Scott’s project. I don’t know anything about it.”

  “Do you think he did the right thing?” Louis asked.

  Brian looked at him questioningly. “What do you mean?”

  “Exhuming the body.”

  “I don’t know,” Brian said flatly.

  Louis leaned back in the chair, crossing his ankle over his knee. A part of him didn’t really want to talk about this, but he was getting angry, sitting across from Brian and thinking about what he might have done.

  “I saw Kitty the other day,” Louis said.

  Brian just stared at him.

  “She looked good,” Louis said. “All dressed in pink. Had a rose in her hand. For a minute, I thought maybe I could just walk over to her, wake her up and ask her who murdered her.”

  Louis paused. Brian looked like had stopped breathing.

  “I wonder what she would say,” Louis added.

  Brian reached across the desk, grabbing another Kleenex. Louis watched him snort into it, then toss it away. Louis stared at the tissue, sitting on top of crumpled paper.

  “Something’s in bloom again, huh Brian?” he said.

  “I don’t know. Look, I have work to do. I think you should go.”

  Louis rose. He glanced at a closed door. “Can I use your john first?”

  Brian started to protest, but finally just waved his hand.

  Louis went into the adjoining bathroom, closing the door. He turned on the light and picked up the brass trash can. It was partially filled with used tissues. He glanced around. Paper cups. He picked out what looked like a thickly stained tissue, and slipped it in a cup. Folding the cup flat, he put it in his pants pocket. Then he flushed the toilet and went back out to Brian’s office.

  Brian was standing by his office door. “You need to leave now.”

  Louis threw up a hand. “Hey, I understand. You’re a busy man, Brian. I’ll catch Scott tomorrow.”

  Louis walked out and Brian shut the door behind him.

  When Louis reached the reception area, Scott Brenner was just coming in, carrying his briefcase. Scott smiled broadly when he saw Louis.

  “Louis! Perfect timing. Come on in, I have some great news.”

  Louis hesitated, but Scott had already gone into his own office, leaving the door open. Louis followed and stood at the door.

  “God, what a day,” Scott said, tossing the briefcase on his desk. “Sandusky tried to get a prohibitory injunction to stop the sheriff’s office from reopening.” Scott yanked off his tie. “Of course, this dealt more specifically with who actually had control over the old evidence—”

  Scott stopped, smiling. “Shit, you don’t want to know all that. Bottom line was, Sandusky didn’t want the old evidence reexamined.”

  “You won the argument?” Louis asked.

  “Yes!” Scott said, pumping his arm. “Sandusky looked like a man who had just had his tongue pulled out through his ass. It was magnificent. We need a drink. Brandy, right?”


  Louis nodded, leaning against the doorjamb. He was watching Scott, but thinking about Brian in the next office. He had to be sure first; he couldn’t do to Scott what he had done to Ronnie. He couldn’t make an accusation until he had proof. But once he did, how was he going to tell Scott that his brother might be a murderer?

  Scott pulled open the doors to a built-in bar and made two drinks. He brought Louis his glass, then held up his own in a toast.

  “Let justice be done,” Scott said.

  Louis hesitated, then clinked his glass against Scott’s.

  “Though the heavens may fall,” Louis said softly.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Louis dropped two quarters into the vending machine and punched at the button. The can of Dr Pepper tumbled to the bottom and he pulled it out.

  As he took a drink, he looked down the hallway to where Octavius was loading linens into a closet. Louis looked up at the clock, then in the window of the autopsy room. There was a body laid out, but it wasn’t Kitty. Vince must have put her in storage until the Sheriff’s department released her.

  Louis walked the hall, slumped down in a plastic chair, then rose again, walking the other way. What the hell was taking Vince so long?

  A door opened and he saw Vince coming toward him, carrying some papers. He was wearing jeans and a polo shirt instead of his usual green scrubs, but still had earphones looped around his neck. As he grew closer, Louis could hear the tinny whine of Marvin Gay singing “Ain’t That Peculiar.”

  “First you bring me fossilized jism, and now you bring me a snotty Kleenex,” Vince said. “Louis, this has got to stop.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. Were you able to type it?”

  Vince nodded. “AB-negative.”

  A strange mix of emotion passed through Louis. The excitement of knowing he was closing in on Brian was tempered by the knowledge that one more person was going to get hurt by all this. He still had to face Scott.

  “Louis, you want this too?” Vince was holding out the papers.

  “What is it?”

  “Kitty’s updated autopsy report. You want to take Scott Brenner his copy?”

  Louis nodded, taking the report from Vince. He opened it, then saw Vince moving out of the corner of his eye.