Thicker Than Water (15 page)

Brenner, Brenner and Brenner. Louis stood in the lobby, looking at the gilt letters on the door. He knew that Brian Brenner had a brother named Scott. The third had to be the father, he guessed.

His eyes caught a portrait on a far wall. It was of three men, all wearing gray suits. Brian was on the left, his somber doughy face made thinner, his wispy hair thicker by the artist's kindness. The man on the right was about Brian's age, with thick hair the color of coffee beans and eyes to match. Had to be the older brother, Scott. The artist had given Scott a small smile, but God had obviously given him the looks in the family.

The older man in the middle had to be the father, a distinguished looking white-haired man of about sixty. His eyes were so blue they jumped off the canvas. It was the only spot of real color in the painting.

“What are you doing here?”

Louis turned.

Brian Brenner stood at the door to his office. His suit coat was off, and the collar of his white shirt open, the blue tie loose. He was holding a wadded-up tissue in one hand and a file in the other.

“I was hoping you could see me for a minute.”

“I'm a busy man.”

“So am I.”

Brian tossed the file on the secretary's desk and went back in his office, leaving the door open. Louis followed him in.

Brian's office was stacked with files and storage boxes. A conference table near the large window was covered with papers. The two women at the table both looked up at Louis. Brian waved his hand toward his door.

“Give us a minute, would you?” he said to the women.

The women rose slowly and disappeared while Brian noisily blew his nose. He looked terrible.

“Allergies acting up again?” Louis asked.

“Something in bloom,” Brian said, waving a hand at the window.

Another door opened and a man emerged from a bathroom. Louis recognized him from the portrait outside and quickly extended a hand, hoping to warm up Scott Brenner before he assumed the same cool posture as Brian.

“Scott Brenner? I'm Louis Kincaid, private investigator.”

Scott offered his hand and a warm smile.

“He's working for Outlaw and Jack Cade,” Brian said.

Scott laughed softly. “Chill out, little brother. Everyone has to make a living, even defense lawyers. What can we do for you, Mr. Kincaid?”

“I just have a few questions.”

Brian came back to his desk, still clutching the tissue. He looked like he was choking. Or maybe just having an asthma attack.

Scott perched on the edge of the large desk and leaned a forearm on his knee. It looked like a pose out of a Paul Fredricks catalog. Louis found himself staring at Scott's gleaming oxblood wingtips. Before he could talk, Scott took the lead.

“Brian told me you asked about Spencer's divorce. How did you find out about it?” Scott said.

“People talk.”

Scott offered a ten-thousand-dollar smile to match the three-hundred-dollar Bally shoes.

“Yes, they do. Fortunate for us, isn't it?” he said. “How else would we ever win a case?”

“People lie, too,” Louis said, looking at Brian.

Brian was dabbing at his nose with the tissue. He looked up at Louis.

“Why did you tell me Candace Duvall didn't know about the divorce?” Louis asked.

Brian frowned, looking at his brother before he came back to Louis. “What are you talking about?”

“I was just over at the Duvall house,” Louis said, not adding that he didn't talk to Candace.

“I told you the truth,” Brian said. “Candace told you different?”

“No, her lover did.”

Brian's mouth dropped open. “Candace has a lover?”

“Now you're going to tell me Duvall didn't know that?” Louis said.

Brian looked at Scott and shook his head. “Spencer couldn't have known. He would have mentioned it to me.”

“Did he forget to mention that he was gay, too?” Louis asked.

Brian blinked. “That's a lie.”

“I don't think so.”

Scott rose off the desk slowly. “Somehow I don't think this is what you came here to talk about, Mr. Kincaid. What does this have to do with your case?”

“Maybe nothing, but things like affairs, divorce and sexual secrets make interesting reading for a jury, don't you think?”

Scott nodded. “Most definitely. Throw enough bullshit at a jury and they'll acquit every time. Is that Susan Outlaw's plan?”

Louis was watching Brian Brenner. He had sat down and was pulling at the Kleenex, his eyes on the floor.

“It might work,” Scott said. “Worth a try, anyway. Who do you plan on throwing out as a possible suspect? Candace? Her lover? How about
his
lover?”

Brian was sitting there like a rock, shredding the Kleenex.

Scott nodded. “Maybe that's why Spencer was divorcing Candace, to be with his lover. Have you considered that?”

“It occurred to me, yes,” Louis said.

“But you haven't found Spencer's friend, I take it.”

“Not yet.”

Scott opened a drawer, pulling out a Hershey's bar. He unwrapped it slowly, breaking off a piece. He held it out to Louis. Louis shook his head.

“The other woman . . . or maybe man,” Scott said, eating the chocolate square by square. “Not bad, not bad. The jury ought to eat it right up, given the way most people look at gays. Homophobia . . . what a great defense strategy. Give the good folks of the jury someone even more disgusting than Jack Cade, right?”

Scott was baiting him. Louis was about to reply when he remembered something Brian had said the first time they spoke back at the Brenner mansion: “There is no other woman in Spencer's life.”

Shit, Brian knew Duvall was gay.

Louis looked over at Brian again. He was just sitting there, watching his older brother, his hand massaging his brow like he had a headache. Louis suddenly remembered a cop back on the force in Ann Arbor, a bigot who was too afraid to say what he thought about blacks but thought nothing of telling Louis that he “could spot a faggot a mile away.”

Louis studied Brian, his clothes, his hair, his posture. He had known a few gay men in college, but they were all guys who were open about it. What about the ones who weren't?

Brian suddenly met his gaze and Louis looked away.

Shit, Kincaid, there's no way you can tell from just looking at him.

“Mr. Kincaid?”

Louis looked back at Scott.

“I asked you what it was you wanted to talk about? Why you came here?”

Louis needed to find a way to switch gears. He had a feeling Brian was hiding something, but there was no way to get anything out of him with the big brother here protecting him.

“Jack Cade was planning to sue Spencer Duvall,” Louis said.

Scott nodded. “I heard. Legal malpractice. Fascinating . . .”

“Susan Outlaw told me your firm specializes in malpractice cases. I was hoping you could shed some light on it.”

Scott smiled. “Well, I can try.”

“You're familiar with the details of the Kitty Jagger case, I take it,” Louis began.

“Not all of them. Just what the newspapers have been dredging up lately.”

“Scott, we've got work to do,” Brian said tightly.

“In a minute, Brian. Christ, go take an Alprazolam or something.”

Brian got up and left the office. Louis watched him, then came back to Scott.

“I'm trying to find out if Cade had a chance of winning his suit against Duvall,” Louis said.

“It would have been very difficult,” Scott said.

“Because of the statute of limitations.”

“Theoretically.”

“Theoretically?”

“Well, a smart lawyer could argue that the statute of limitations begins when the victim—or client in this case—came to believe malpractice actually occurred.”

“So assuming Jack Cade discovered this last year, he could still sue?”

Scott nodded. “He could make a legitimate attempt, yes.”

“What could he get?”

“He would have to show a tangible economic loss and sue for things like breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation and of course fraud. But the client would have to prove it was intentional.”

“And not just stupid,” Louis said.

“Right. But let me assure you, Spencer Duvall was not stupid.”

“So what could Duvall have done to sabotage Cade's case?”

“Theoretically?”

“Theoretically.”

“Duvall would have had to deliberately withhold or alter evidence, or provide Jack Cade with information he knew not to be true or commit some other act that cost Jack Cade his right to a fair trial or intentionally force an action that would not have otherwise occurred.”

Scott smiled. “Sorry, let me know if I'm talking over your head.”

“I'm still with you.”

“Has Cade told you Duvall did anything like that?”

Louis shook his head. “Cade gave up on the lawsuit when Duvall ended up dead. He said you can't sue a dead man.”

Scott ate another square of the chocolate. “Well, that's not really true. You can bring suit against almost anyone or anything. Like I said, that's how we pay the rent here.”

“So Cade could have sued Duvall's estate?”

“And his law practice, most likely.”

Scott wadded up the Hershey wrapper and tossed it into the trash.

“Two points,” he said. “The crowd goes wild.”

Louis's beeper went off and he turned it off without even looking at it.

“Need to use the phone?” Scott asked.

Louis shook his head. “No, but I better get going.”

Scott walked him to the door and opened it. Louis extended his hand. “Thanks for your time. You've given me a lot to think about.”

Scott shook his hand. “Any time, Mr. Kincaid. Glad to be of help.” He paused. “You know, even if Jack Cade is convicted, he can still bring suit against Spencer Duvall.”

He saw the look of surprise on Louis's face and added, “The law is a hocus-pocus science.”

Louis shook his head grimly. “Susan Outlaw says no judge will ever look at Jack Cade's suit now.”

“Well, let's just say Miss Outlaw is not a malpractice attorney.”

Louis could see Brian out in the lobby, pouring water from the cooler into a paper cup. Louis turned back to Scott.

“Mr. Brenner, would you consider representing Jack Cade's family in a civil suit against Spencer Duvall's estate?”

“Now there's an intriguing idea.”

“Would you consider it?”

Scott's mouth tipped up. “Let's just say I'd be interested in seeing the evidence first.”

The beeper went off again.

“Sure you don't want to use the phone?” Scott asked.

Louis switched the beeper off. He was eager to call Susan, but he didn't want to do it here. He finally had something to take back to her. Lyle Bernhardt, Candace, Hayley Lieberman—any of them had something to lose if Jack Cade had sued. He also had something to take back to Ronnie—that one of the top malpractice lawyers in the state was willing to take a look at his father's civil case.

“Thanks, Scott, I'll keep you posted,” Louis said.

“We'll be talking, detective,” Scott said.

He was on the road to Immokalee first thing the next morning. It was Saturday and traffic was light, so he opened the windows and pushed the Mustang up over seventy, heading east on Corkscrew Road.

It didn't take long for the small subdivisions to fade away, and then he was out in the scrub lands that formed the northern border of the Corkscrew Swamp. As he passed through a preserve, the light grew dimmer and cooler, filtered through the canopy of slash pines and ancient live oaks. He was only about thirty miles east of Fort Myers. But out here, away from the coast and in the vast nothingness of Florida's gut, it was another world. Or maybe just another time, before man had left his mark.

He slowed, seeing signs warning:
PANTHER CROSSING
: Only 60 Left.

He thought of Susan and how happy she had been with what he had found out about Hayley and Brian Brenner. He had called this morning, catching her and Benjamin just as they were going out the door to Benjamin's Bible study group. She had been so pleased, she told him to take the day off.

Orange groves lining the road led him into town, where a Rotary sign declared “Welcome To Immokalee, ‘My Home'.” The air grew ripe with the smell of rotting fruit. He had never been to Immokalee before, and had heard only two things about it: It was a farming town of Mexican migrants who worked for big fruit cooperatives, and that you didn't want to pick a fight in the bars on Friday nights.

The directory had listed Stan Novick's address on Armadillo Drive. A guy at the Sunoco station directed Louis west of town toward Lake Trafford. Louis found the house, a small but well-kept ranch house, its yard facing the entrance to a cemetery. He went to the door and rang the bell.

Someone was screaming. Louis could hear it through the closed front door. He rang the bell a second time, then opened the screen and knocked hard.

Finally, the door jerked open and a woman peered out at him.

“What?” she demanded.

She was in her mid-thirties, a shag of flaming red hair around a pale freckled face. Except for the lines around the eyes and thirty extra pounds, Joyce Novick looked pretty much the way she had in Kitty's old snapshot.

“Mrs. Novick?”

“Yes?” she said warily.

“I'm Louis Kincaid, a private investigator.”

She used her forearm to brush her hair back from her face. “Is this about Sean?” Her voice sounded tired.

Louis shook his head. “No, Kitty Jagger.”

Her pale blue eyes widened slightly, then she blinked rapidly several times. “Kitty . . . good God,” she said quietly.

“Do you have time to talk?”

She hesitated. “I . . . Christ . . . Kitty.”

Joyce Novick had gone even paler, if that was possible, as if a ghost had just knocked on her door.
Maybe it had,
Louis thought.

“I'm working,” Joyce Novick said finally, gesturing weakly behind her.

“I'd appreciate it if you could take a few minutes,” Louis said.

Joyce wavered. It was obvious she didn't want to talk.

“Please, Mrs. Novick. I wouldn't bother you if it wasn't important.”

She hesitated, then nodded. She opened the door wider so Louis could come in. “I have to finish up,” she said. “Do you mind waiting?”

“No problem.”

Louis followed her through a small living room decorated in the country style that mandated plaid sofas, stuffed roosters and the cloying smell of cinnamon potpourri. In the tiny kitchen, two boys were sitting at the table, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The smaller one's face was tear-streaked; he must have been the one screaming. They eyed Louis as he followed Joyce out a door and into the garage.

Off in one corner was a teenage girl, sitting in a swivel chair in front of a big mirror. Her body was covered with a green smock and she had big rollers in her hair.

Joyce Novick saw Louis staring at her. “I do hair,” she said.

The makeshift beauty salon was stuffed in one corner of the dark garage. An old a/c wall unit wheezed away above the mirror, trying to defuse the garage's odor of mildew and car oil.

Joyce Novick moved in behind the girl and picked up a brush and a big pink foam roller. “How did you find me?” she asked cautiously.

“Ray Faulk told me about you,” he said.

“Ray . . . I haven't thought about him in years,” she said softly, winding a strand of hair.

“It took me a while to track down your address.”

Joyce smiled wryly. “Immokalee isn't exactly the center of the universe.”

“You moved out here after high school?” Louis asked.

She shook her head. “I dropped out before senior year. Moved out here right after I got married. My husband Stan's a foreman over at one of the cooperatives.”

Louis looked into the mirror and caught the eyes of the girl in the chair. She was looking between Louis and Joyce, trying to figure out what he was doing here.

“Time for the dryer, Rachel,” Joyce said.

The girl let Joyce deposit her under the dryer, wedged next to a tool bench. It was only when Joyce was sure the girl couldn't hear anything that she turned back to Louis.

“I'm sorry I acted so weird at the door,” Joyce said. “I thought you were here about my oldest kid, Sean. He's eighteen and been in some trouble. I haven't heard from him in a while.”

“Can we talk about Kitty?” Louis asked.

She began to pile the pink rollers back in a box. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything you can remember.”

Joyce nodded. “I used to think about her all the time, even though I didn't want to. Then the years went by and it got easier to forget.”

“I'm sorry I have to bring it all back.”

She looked at him. “Oh, it wasn't just you. It was that man, seeing him on TV after all this time.”

She was talking about Jack Cade, but Louis knew she didn't want to say his name. He slipped a notebook out of his pocket. “I just have a few questions, Mrs. Novick. What can you tell me about the night Kitty disappeared?”

She sat down in the swivel chair, holding a hairbrush. “God, I can still remember that night like it was yesterday.”

Joyce's pale blue eyes grew distant. “It was April 9th. And it was hot and sticky, like summer was coming early that year. All the kids were out cruising. We were very busy, I remember.”

“Do you recall anything out of the ordinary?”

Joyce shook her head. “Kitty punched out at eleven, just like always. I waved to her as she walked toward the bus stop. She turned and waved back. That's the last time I saw her.”

“She didn't leave with anyone?”

Joyce shook her head slowly.

Louis pulled up a stool and sat down opposite the swivel chair. “How long did you know Kitty?” he asked.

Joyce was staring at something on the opposite wall. Louis followed her gaze, but all he saw was a bunch of tools hanging on a pegboard.

“Mrs. Novick?”

She looked back at him.

“How long did you know Kitty?”

“We met in sixth grade. I remember the first time I saw her.” For the first time, Joyce smiled. It transformed her, made her look younger. “Kitty was in the girl's john ratting her hair and making spit curls. I was in awe of her. None of the other girls ratted their hair in sixth grade.”

“That's when you became friends?” Louis prodded.

“Yeah, I lived a couple doors down so we walked to school together, slept over at each other's houses. We were like sisters.”

She smiled as another memory came to her. “When we were thirteen, Kitty came up with this big plan to run away to London, because she was in love with Paul McCartney and I was in love with George. But she decided she couldn't leave her father. We used to talk with English accents and make up false identities. Kitty wanted to be called Lady Kitrina Jaspers. I was Lady Joy Heartsfield. Joy . . . Kitty came up with that for me.”

Joyce's smile lingered; she was still lost in the past. Louis waited, not wanting to interrupt.

“What was Kitty like?” Louis asked finally.

Joyce blinked, coming back. “Like? Oh, geez, she . . .” She shook her head, like she didn't know how to answer.

“She loved to swim, especially at night,” Joyce said. “Once, when we were in eighth grade, she made me sneak out of the house and we rode our bikes over to the municipal pool. It was closed, but Kitty just climbed the fence. I was so scared we'd get caught. But Kitty wasn't. I can still see her laughing and jumping off the high-dive board.”

Louis had a vision of the two girls giggling in the moonlit water.

“Kitty wasn't afraid of anything,” Joyce went on. “But I was. That night at the pool, I was afraid to jump off the high board so I kind of scooted down and hung from it. I was hanging there, scared stiff and she was yelling up at me, saying, ‘Don't be afraid, Joyce, just let go!' ”

Joyce fell silent. The only sound was the wheeze of the air conditioner and the steady hum of the hair dryer.

“I never figured out what she saw in me,” she said. “She was so pretty and I was, well, I was kinda plain and a little chubby.” Joyce blushed slightly. “I figured I could just get her rejects.”

“Her father told me Kitty didn't date.”

“That's right,” Joyce said, nodding. “I haven't seen Mr. Jagger since—” She hesitated. “I was going to say since the funeral, but he didn't come. He spent a fortune on the coffin, mahogany with these beautiful brass handles. But then he was so upset, he couldn't even come to see her.”

She looked at Louis. “How is he doing?”

Louis thought a moment before he answered. “Still confused.”

Joyce nodded slowly. “I should go see him. I always meant to afterward, but I got pregnant with Sean and we moved out here. Twenty years . . . goes by before you know it.”

Louis thought of Mobley's words about the greasers, the “wild crowd” girls: They got pregnant.

Joyce glanced over at the girl under the dryer. “Excuse me a moment.” She went over, checked the dryer and came back.

Louis wasn't sure how to phrase the question that was in his head. “Ray told me boys tried to come on to Kitty all the time. You never saw her go with anyone?”

“Ray would drive her home once in a while, but she never went with anyone else.”

“Was there any boy who was more aggressive than others?”

Joyce frowned. “Well, they all flirted with her, especially the football players. They'd cruise in after a game in their cool cars, all puffed up with themselves. Lonnie Albertson, Jeff, Tony Cipolli, Lance . . .”

“Lance Mobley?” Louis asked. “Did Mobley come on to her?”

“Lance came on to to anything that breathed, even me once. I think he thought we were easy, you know, because we were from Edgewood.” Joyce's eyes grew distant. “Lance Mobley . . . he was a good-looking boy. He's sheriff now, isn't he? I guess he did all right for himself.”

“Did any of these boys get angry when she rejected them?”

Joyce shook her head. Louis could tell she was miles—and decades—away from the dingy garage.

“Ray told me Kitty was saving herself for a rich guy,” Louis said. “So Kitty was . . .” He wasn't sure how to make this sound anything but judgmental.

Joyce looked up abruptly. “Kitty was smart, she could've gone to college if she had some money. But she knew that wasn't going to happen.”

“So she wanted someone to take care of her,” Louis said.

“Don't we all,” Joyce said softly.

She noticed Louis writing in his notebook. “Look, Kitty wasn't a gold digger. She just wanted nice things. She wanted to go live in England someday, meet a guy with manners, like James Bond or something.”

Louis remembered the poster of
Goldfinger
on Kitty's bedroom wall.

“Tell me more about Ray,” he said.

Joyce let out a sigh. “Poor Ray. He had such a crush on Kitty. It was kind of pathetic. We were mean to him. We teased him behind his back.” She hesitated. “I remember one of the other girls told us he copped a feel behind the grill. She was afraid to tell his Dad because she thought she'd get fired.”

She looked up at Louis. “Why are you asking me all these questions about Ray?”

Louis debated how much to tell her. “You said Ray had a crush on her. It might be helpful to me to know about anyone like that.”

“But why now? What's the point? Kitty's dead. Why are you bothering with this now?”

She was looking at him strangely, like she suddenly could read his mind, or like he was some weird voyeur, like poor old Ray Faulk.

“It might have some bearing on Jack Cade's present case,” he said.

She stiffened at the name and something flashed over her face, like she had remembered something she had tried very hard to forget.

“I saw him once,” she said softly.

“Cade?”

Joyce nodded. Her eyes went to the girl who was sitting under the dryer, absorbed in her
Cosmopolitan.

“When I was walking to school,” she said. “I was walking past this house, one of those pretty places over near the park.” She stopped, her eyes downcast. She was playing with the brush, rubbing the bristles over the palm of her hand.

“Was Kitty with you?”

Joyce nodded. “His truck was at the curb, an old beat-up red Ford with that landscaping sign on the door. He was pushing a lawn mower and he saw us walk by on the sidewalk.”

She stopped again. The air conditioner droned on.

“I looked up,” she said, “and I saw him watching us.”

She was gripping the brush, pushing the bristles into her palm. “He looked at me and . . . he touched himself.”

Louis looked up from his notebook. Her head was still down, the brush gripped in her hand. When she finally raised her head, her eyes were bright, her face red.