Thicker Than Water (4 page)

The sky was still bruised with clouds by the time Louis made his way across the causeway to Sereno Key. The Dodies lived on the key, so he knew his way around, and he headed the Mustang quickly through the small town center and up to the north end, looking for Mantanzas Trail. Sereno Key was a small island, comprised of trailer parks, marinas and neat little canal-laced retiree neighborhoods like where the Dodies lived. The key also was the home to half a dozen wholesale nurseries that grew native palms for the landscapers replanting the scorched-earth tract-home developments springing up around Fort Myers. There was a building boom going on in Southwest Florida, and money was being made digging up century-old oak trees and replacing them with scraggly palms.

But prosperity had apparently bypassed J.C. Landscape. The sign that greeted Louis outside the chain-link gate said
WE MEET ALL YOUR LANDSCAPING NEEDS
, but what he saw suggested Ronnie Cade's business could barely meet its own.

The grounds, puddled from the rain, were dotted with scrubby palm trees and plats of plants struggling to stay upright. A five-foot pile of black plastic pots was heaped against a shed next to pallets of mulch rotting in their faded bags. A small tan and black dog was laying near the door, chained to the shed, and it raised its snout to sniff the air as Louis got out of the Mustang, then went back to sleep. The smell of gasoline and manure hung in the air.

Ronnie Cade had heard the Mustang's door and came out of the shed, wiping his hands on a dirty rag.

“You found the place,” Ronnie said.

“It wasn't hard.” Louis looked around. There was a double-wide trailer parked behind the shed. It was fronted by a small concrete patio that held a barbecue grill and some plastic chairs clustered around an old wooden electrical spool. Huge purple thunderheads were piling up again in the west.

“You have a lot of land here,” Louis said.

Ronnie squinted out over the grounds. “Yeah, ten acres,” he said flatly. “Come on inside. We can talk while I finish up.”

Louis followed, stepping over the comatose dog. Inside, it was cool and smelled of cut grass. The shed was filled with bags of fertilizer, compost, power mowers, edgers and other gardening tools. Ronnie went to a workbench, where the guts of a gas-powered leaf blower lay exposed under the glare of a florescent light.

“I was surprised when you called,” Ronnie said, picking up a screwdriver. “I thought when I didn't hear from you, you decided to blow me off.”

“I went and saw your father,” Louis said.

Ronnie turned to look at him, but then went back to poking the screwdriver in the blower. “So?”

“He didn't give me any compelling reason to take your case.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“Maybe you can.”

“Can what?”

“Give me a reason.”

“I already did. I told you, my father is innocent.”

“What about twenty years ago?” Louis said.

Ronnie turned and stared at him. “I don't want to talk about that.”

“Well, I need—”

Ronnie pointed the screwdriver at Louis. “Look, it doesn't matter. I don't want to talk about it.”

Louis heard a motor outside and the sound of air brakes releasing. He looked out the door and saw a yellow school bus pulling away down Mantanzas Trail.

A moment later, a boy came to the door, stopping in the threshold when he saw Louis. He was about thirteen, gangly, with unruly dark hair and sunburned arms exposed in his Van Halen T-shirt.

“Hey, Dad, what are you doing home? I thought you were cutting Bay Beach today?” he asked, eyeing Louis.

“Got rained out. What about you?”

“Teacher work day. Half day.” The dog had come in, and the boy dropped his backpack to scratch its ears.

“Go get changed,” Ronnie said. “I need some help loading that sod before it starts raining again.”

“Oh, man . . .”

“No lip, you hear?”

He heaved a sigh. “I'm hungry.”

Ronnie wiped a hand over his brow. “Okay, there's some of those pizza things left. Then get back out here, okay?”

“Do I nuke 'em on high?”

“No. Half-power or they splatter up the inside.”

With a lingering look at Louis, the boy left, the dog trailing after.

“Your son?” Louis asked.

Ronnie nodded, concentrating again on the leaf blower.

Louis was thinking how much the boy looked like Jack Cade. He remembered that Ronnie had said he lived with his son and wondered if the boy's mother was in the picture. He had the feeling she wasn't; there was something about this place that had the forlorn aura of men living alone.

“He helps you around here, I take it?” he asked.

“Eric? Yeah. He's a good kid. Not like me when I was his age. I gave my dad a lot of shit. He even had to bail me out of jail once when I did something stupid. But he kept me straight after that. Maybe that's why I feel I owe him this now.”

Ronnie glanced at him. “You got any kids?”

Louis shook his head quickly.

“I raised Eric by myself,” Ronnie said, his fingers deep in the blower's greasy bowels. “His mother split when he was seven. Hand me those pliers, will you?”

Louis scanned the bench and held out the pliers. Ronnie's face was screwed in concentration as he took another stab at the wounded motor. Finally, he threw the pliers down.

“Fuck! The fucking thing is stripped. Shit!”

He ran a hand over his brow and took a step back, staring at the mess of metal on the bench. He looked at Louis and gestured to the bench. “The fucker's shot!”

Ronnie spun and kicked at a metal stool, sending it crashing against the wall. He stood there for a moment, hands on his hips, head bowed. Then he turned to Louis.

“I can't pay you,” he said, his voice strained.

Louis held out his hand. “Look, Cade—”

“No, you're not hearing me. That five hundred I said I'd pay you?” Ronnie was shaking his head. “I haven't got it, man! I have two-hundred and thirty-three dollars in my checking account and if I don't use it to buy a fucking new blower, I can't go to work tomorrow!”

Louis saw something move in the corner of his eye and glanced over to see Eric Cade standing at the door. He had changed into cutoffs and a frayed man's dress shirt that looked too big for him. He was holding a pair of leather work gloves, staring at his father.

Ronnie saw him and look a deep breath. “Eric, go get started. I'll be there in a minute.”

The boy hesitated.

“Go! Now!”

The boy spun and disappeared outside. A low rumble of thunder came from the west.

“Shit,” Ronnie whispered.

Louis stood there, not knowing what to say.

“I'm sorry, man,” Ronnie said. “I lose it sometimes.” His lips twisted into a grimaced smile. “Brat attacks, Cindy used to call them.”

Ronnie's eyes focused again on the leaf blower on the bench and came back to Louis. “They want half a million bail for my dad,” he said.

“You'd only have to come up with fifty thousand,” Louis said.

“Fifty thousand,” Ronnie said softly, his eyes still on the leaf blower. “I was thinking I could get a mortgage. The land's free and clear. It's the only thing I own, except my truck and that piece of shit trailer.”

Louis didn't know how mortgages worked, but he suspected that it would be tough for a man like Ronnie to get a bank to even listen to him. It started to rain, a soft tattoo on the roof of the woodshed.

“I don't want to lose this place,” Ronnie said.

“I can understand that,” Louis said.

“My dad bought this land in the fifties after he got back from Korea,” Ronnie said. “There was nothing on the key in those days, but he knew it was going to be worth something someday. He was always good at taking care of plants, so he started growing some palm trees. We were the first landscaping business on Sereno.”

Ronnie picked up the screwdriver again, making a half-hearted poke at the metal. “It was tough at first, but Dad and me, we made it work. After a couple years, we had contracts at the golf courses and built up a good client base taking care of the yards over in Hyde Park.”

Louis recognized the name. It was a neighborhood of old homes along the Caloosahatchee River, an enclave of grace that had survived the financial vagaries that plagued Fort Myers' downtown core.

“What happened?” Louis asked.

Ronnie's hand paused over the metal, but he didn't look up. “What happened?” he said. “They found that girl's body in the dump, that's what happened. Everything changed after that day.”

Louis wished he had more details about the Jagger case. “What made them think your father killed her?” he asked.

Ronnie was silent.

“Ronnie?”

“A tool,” he said. “They found one of his tools next to her body.”

The rain had stopped. Louis could hear a grunting sound out in the yard. Through the open door, he caught a glimpse of Eric Cade stacking slabs of sod onto a flatbed.

“He didn't do it,” Ronnie said softly. “I don't know much else about what happened but I know that much. He didn't do it.”

Eric Cade appeared at the door, the front of his shirt streaked with mud. “Dad, you want that Bahia grass loaded too?”

“Yeah, we gotta take it over to Frencko this afternoon.”

Eric was staring at Louis, brows knitted slightly.

“Go finish up,” Ronnie said quietly. When the boy didn't move, Ronnie added, “Go finish up and I'll let you drive out to the corner.”

Eric's face lit up. “You mean it?”

Ronnie smiled slightly. “I'll be there in a minute and we'll head out.”

Eric left. Ronnie put down the screwdriver and turned to Louis. “Look, I don't know what the bank is going to say about the mortgage thing. If that doesn't pan out, there's this developer that's been bugging me. If I have to, I'll sell off some of the land.” He paused. “I'll find a way to pay you.”

Louis hesitated. “All right. I'll see what I can do.”

Ronnie didn't smile, but wiped his hand on his jeans, then held it out. Louis shook it; it was hard and calloused, the grip firm.

“I need your help with something,” Louis said.

“What's that?”

“Susan Outlaw,” Louis said. “I need you to run interference for me.”

Ronnie nodded slightly. “I'll talk to her.”

A truck's engine roared to life outside, followed by a horn beeping. Louis looked out the door and saw Eric Cade sitting behind the steering wheel of the truck.

“I gotta get going,” Ronnie said.

Louis followed him out into the yard. Ronnie paused by the passenger door of the old truck, his eyes traveling over the grounds of the nursery. “I was just trying to keep things afloat until Dad came back,” he said. “Things are rough right now, but they'll get better. I'll get you your money.”

“I believe you,” Louis said.

Ronnie got in. Eric gunned the engine. Ronnie leaned out the window and gave a tentative smile. “Thanks, man.”

Louis nodded. He watched the old Ford bump out of the lot and jerk slowly up Mantanza Trail, the brake lights blinking every few feet. He took a final glance around the downtrodden nursery. He had the feeling that J.C. Landscaping wasn't the only thing Ronnie Cade was trying to keep afloat.

The elevator jerked to a stop and the door wheezed open, letting Louis out on the ninth floor. He was in a plain, uncarpeted hallway. A sign with an arrow pointed left to
DUVALL AND BERNHARDT, ATTORNEYS AT LAW.

He had expected a hotshot lawyer like Spencer Duvall to have an office in one of the new buildings on Jackson Street overlooking the river. But Duvall's address turned out to be an old building on a side street just off Martin Luther King Boulevard.

He found the entrance and went in. It was nice inside compared to the exterior. Hushed, tasteful, lots of dark mahogany and framed prints of English hunting scenes. The blue carpet gave like a sponge. The receptionist's desk was empty, but there was a lipstick-ringed Garfield coffee mug on it.

Louis went to the window. Nothing to see but the tarred and tiled roofs of downtown Fort Myers with a glimpse of the green-gray Caloosahatchee beyond. No view for the hotshot either.

“Can I help you?”

Louis turned and looked down at a tiny woman with a fluff of gray hair. She was in her sixties, wearing a tan suit with glasses dangling from a chain around her neck.

“I'm Louis Kincaid. I have an appointment with Mr. Bernhardt,” Louis said.

The woman's eyes swept over him. “Mr. Bernhardt had to leave early. I called your office but there was no answer.”

Office . . . it was his home phone. He had to get an answering machine. He stifled a sigh at the wasted trip. He was hoping to at least get a look at Duvall's office. He glanced at the closed door over the secretary's shoulder. Damn Bernhardt. He was probably in there, ducking him.

He thought about trying a smile, but then realized it wasn't going to break the ice with this old biddy. “Look,” he said, “I really need to see Mr. Bern—”

“Ellie?”

The secretary jumped to her desk and punched a button.

“Yes?”

“Is Pearson here yet?”

“Is that your boss?” Louis asked.

The old lady ignored Louis. “No, he's not, Mr. Bernhardt,” she said into the phone, “but Mr. Kincaid is.”

There was no answer. The secretary hung up and gave Louis a frown. “I hate lying for him,” she said.

Louis was about to speak when a man in a blue suit appeared. He was short, overweight, about fifty but looked older, with thin gray-blond hair and the ashy skin of a future coronary patient.

“Lyle Bernhardt,” he said briskly, extending a hand.

Louis accepted the soft, damp handshake. “Louis Kincaid.”

“I don't appreciate being strong-armed,” he said.

“I had an appointment,” Louis said calmly.

Bernhardt frowned. “Well, come in, then,” he said, motioning Louis toward his office.

“I was hoping I could see Spencer Duvall's office,” Louis said.

Bernhardt hesitated. “What? Why?”

“It's just routine, Mr. Bernhardt. Part of any investigation.”

Bernhardt pursed his lips and glanced at the secretary. She was watching him closely.

“I don't think that would be proper,” he said. “Besides, it's all been cleaned up now anyway.”

“The scene's been cleared?” Louis asked.

“Yes, thank God. Terribly distracting, if you know what I mean. Our clients were most uncomfortable. Why don't you come into my office?”

Bernhardt led Louis into a large office done in the same pseudo-English manor style as the reception area. Louis took a chair across from Bernhardt's imposing desk. The desk was heaped with papers and fat legal files. Bernhardt stared at the piles for a moment, as if confused.

“Sorry for the mess. Things have been in such an uproar since . . .” Bernhardt's voice trailed off. “The police don't seem to appreciate the fact that business must go on no matter what.”

“It was just you and Mr. Duvall, right?” Louis said.

Bernhardt nodded. “That's the way it's been for almost twenty years now. I wanted to expand, but Spencer wouldn't hear of it. Now I'm left with all of it.”

“You could hire someone now,” Louis offered.

Bernhardt looked at him like he was nuts. “You don't just go out and find someone overnight. At least not someone who can handle the kind of cases Spencer did.”

He was rubbing the spot between his eyebrows. “What a mess he left me with,” he muttered, staring at the files on the desk.

Finally, he looked up at Louis. “Ellie said you're a private investigator. For whom?”

“Ronnie Cade.”

“Ronnie? He doesn't have any money. He's nothing but a lousy mow-and-blow guy. And his father is broke. You're wasting your time, son.”

Bernhardt made a point of looking at his watch. Louis felt himself starting to bristle.

“Just because a man's broke doesn't mean he isn't entitled to a decent defense,” Louis said.

Bernhardt's expression was piteous. “Oh, come on. Don't start with that liberal claptrap.”

“Jack Cade—”

“—is a lying, murdering sonofabitch who should have been electrocuted twenty years ago. If he had, my partner would still be alive right now.”

Bernhardt began rubbing vigorously at the spot between his eyebrows again.

“Your partner was the one who got Cade the plea bargain that kept him alive,” Louis said. He could hear his words, but it was almost like someone else was saying them. Being on the other side was going to take some getting used to.

“I don't need you or anyone to remind me of that.” Bernhardt leaned forward. “Look, Cade is an ungrateful moron. He should have gotten down on his knees and kissed Spencer's shoes. Do I think Cade shot him? Yes, I do. He's as guilty of shooting Spencer as he was of killing that girl twenty years ago.”

“You weren't involved in that case, Mr. Bernhardt ?” Louis asked.

Bernhardt shook his head. “Spencer was working alone in those days. We got together about a year later. I would have never defended a man like Jack Cade. But Spencer, well, he never could resist a challenge.”

“Do you think Cade really intended to sue your partner?”

“No, he intended to kill him. Revenge is a powerful, primitive emotion, and Jack Cade is a primitive man.”

The phone intercom beeped. Bernhardt punched the button. The secretary's voice came on. “Mr. Pearson's here.”

“Send him in,” Bernhardt said. He rose. “I'm sorry, but I have a client to see.”

Louis pushed himself out of the chair. “Thanks for your cooperation,” he said, not bothering to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

“Of course.”

Louis left, passing a burly man in a business suit. The door closed behind him. Louis stood there for a moment, collecting his thoughts. What there was to collect anyway.

He felt someone's eyes on him and looked over to see the secretary staring at him.

“Do you want to make another appointment?” she asked.

“Think it will do me any good?”

“Nope.” The intercom buzzed. “Yes, Mr. Bernhardt?”

“Ellie, where's my Rules of Court?”

“On the shelf where it always is, Mr. Bernhardt.”

“No, it's not. I looked—”

“The shelf to your left, Mr. Bernhardt.”

“What? Oh. Here it is.” He clicked off.

She looked up at Louis. “His regular secretary is out on maternity leave. I'm filling in.”

Something clicked in Louis's head. Ellie . . . he remembered the name from the newspaper articles. Ellie Silvestri had been Duvall's secretary.

Louis watched as she busied herself with some papers. It occurred to him that she had the air of someone in mourning. The newspaper article said she had been with the firm for twenty-five years . . . a long time to work for one man, longer than most marriages. He suddenly remembered that Ellie Silvestri had found Duvall's body when she came to work the next morning. Gunshot to the head. He knew what that could look like.

“Mrs. Silvestri—”

She looked up at him, surprised he knew her name. “It's Miss.”

She had clear green eyes, unclouded by age. Eyes that probably didn't miss much.

“I was wondering if you'd be willing to answer a few questions,” Louis began.

“About what?”

“Your boss.”

Something shifted in her expression. Then, suddenly, she teared up. She yanked a Kleenex from the box on her desk.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

“No need to apologize,” Louis said.

She blew her nose. “What did you want to ask me?”

He wanted to ask her about finding Duvall's body, what the scene had looked like, but that was out of the question for the moment. “That elevator,” he said, pointing out the glass doors. “Is it locked after hours?”

“No, the building is filled with attorneys and they come and go at all hours. The downstairs lobby is always open too.”

“Did Mr. Duvall normally work late?”

She smiled wanly. “A man doesn't become a legend working a mere forty hours.”

“Besides Jack Cade, did Mr. Duvall receive any threats recently? Maybe from dissatisfied clients?”

The secretary shook her head slowly. “The police already asked me that, and that woman defense attorney.”

“What can you tell me about the relationship between Mr. Duvall and Mr. Bernhardt? How did they meet?”

“In law school at Tallahassee, I think. But they didn't become partners until 1968.” She sighed. “It was just Mr. Duvall and me in the beginning. It was very hard in those days, let me tell you. Mr. Duvall did all his own investigative work. He was very good at it, better than Matlock, I think. Some weeks I didn't get paid. We both ate a lot of baloney sandwiches.” She fell silent again, lost in memories.

“But business picked up,” Louis prodded.

She smiled slightly. “Oh yes. Mr. Duvall was very, very good at what he did. Word got out, especially after the Cade case.”

She teared up again.

“I don't know what's going to happen now,” she said softly, staring off at the rooftops. “I mean, I don't know what we're going to do.”

She hadn't said it, but he could see it there in her eyes. She meant she didn't know what
she
was going to do.

“Miss Silvestri,” Louis said gently, “are you going to lose your job here?”

She grabbed another Kleenex. Louis felt like kicking himself. “I'm sorry,” he said. “That was—”

She waved a hand. “No, it's all right. Fact is, I'm an old dinosaur here. Lyle will let enough time go by to look decent, then he'll hire some young thing with big boobs.” She grimaced. “Lyle is big on appearances.”

He noticed she had switched to calling Bernhardt by his first name. “And Spencer Duvall wasn't?” Louis asked.

She smiled slightly as she shook her head. “Not at all. I mean, even after the money started coming in, Mr. Duvall didn't change. He was born and raised here. He never got the sand out of his shoes.”

Her eyes drifted to the hallway, toward Lyle Bernhardt's closed door. “Come with me,” she said.

“Where?”

“You said you wanted to see Mr. Duvall's office.”

He followed her down the hall, passing Lyle Bernhardt's door. At the end of the corridor, she slipped a key from her pocket and unlocked the door. She ushered Louis quickly inside, shutting the door behind them.

The office was larger than Bernhardt's, but it couldn't have looked more different. A massive old cherry desk dominated the room, with a pair of well-worn wing chairs and a small round table facing it. The floor had been left uncarpeted and the rich oak planks were covered with a softly faded Persian carpet. The lamps were brass, the walls a sun-bleached moss green paper. On the wall behind the desk, there was a framed degree from Florida State School of Law. On the wall opposite the desk was a group of old photographs of Fort Myers street scenes and a Victorian beach house. There was a scarred wood glass-front bookcase, its shelves filled not with books but with carefully displayed conch shells. The place looked more like the den of somebody's eccentric old uncle than a law office.

“Nice,” Louis said, turning.

Ellie Silvestri was staring at the room. “My God,” she said softly.

“What's the matter?”

“I've never seen it this . . . clean.” She came forward, scanning the old furniture and walls. “Mr. Duvall was a pack rat and he hated it when I tried to tidy up. He didn't even like the cleaning lady coming in here.”

Ellie moved to the desk. It was clean; the crime scene technicians had taken everything. She was looking at the powder smudges.

“That's from the fingerprint techs,” Louis said, feeling the need to explain.

Ellie nodded slightly, her eyes still scanning the room. Again, Louis wondered what Ellie Silvestri had seen that morning when she walked in.

He glanced behind the desk, trying to visualize the scene. There was an old credenza, marked with smudges. The chair was gone; the police probably had it.

The newspaper article said only that Duvall had been shot in the head. A big chunk of the Persian rug under the desk had been cut away, a bloodstain probably. Louis looked at the desk. He spotted something dark in a crack and bent down for a closer look. It was blood. Which meant Duvall probably had fallen forward.

“Damn,” he said under his breath. There was nothing here to see, nothing to give him a sense of what had happened.

He smelled smoke. He turned and was surprised to see Ellie Silvestri lighting a cigarette.

“I'm sorry, do you mind?” she asked softly. “Lyle doesn't let me smoke in the office. Mr. Duvall never cared. He always let me come in here when I needed my fix.”

“Go right ahead.”

She drew on the cigarette, her eyes wandering over the office. Louis went to the window and pushed back the curtain. The view was of a dilapidated building next door. At least you could see the river from the lobby window. There was nothing to look at from here. But maybe that's the way Duvall wanted it; some driven people worked better with nothing pretty to distract them.