Louis slammed the bottle on the table and jumped up. “You’re firing me? I don’t fucking believe this.”

The saxophone playing stopped suddenly. Susan glanced out toward the porch, then looked back at Louis.

“I don’t have any choice,” she said, her voice low. She paused for a second. “It’s better this way.”

“Better for who?” Louis said.

“Don’t yell at me, Kincaid.”

“Better for who?” Louis repeated.

“Everyone. Cade, me. And you.”

Louis shook his head. “Don’t you see what Cade is doing, Susan? He’s protecting Ronnie again! He doesn’t want me going after him.”

“Louis,” she said firmly. “It’s my job to protect Jack Cade. And that is what I have to do.”

“So you’re going to just ignore everything I just told you?”

She was looking at the door. Benjamin was standing in the doorway, holding his saxophone, watching them both.

“Go get in the car, Ben,” Susan said.

“We going home?” he asked hopefully.

“Yes. Go wait in the car.”

Ben glanced at Louis, then turned. Louis watched him pack the sax back in its case and head out to the Mercedes. Susan rose, went to the chair and picked up her purse, taking out her keys.

“I’ll try to get my boss to pay you through the end of the month,” she said.

“Don’t bother,” Louis said.

Susan hesitated in the doorway. “Look, you did good work for me. That stuff about Hayley and Candace, I can use it.”

“Winning the case, that’s all it’s about to you, isn’t it?” Louis waited for her to fight back.

But she didn’t. There was no fight in her eyes. All that was left was something perilously close to pity. Her gaze dropped to the picture of Kitty still in his hand.

“You can’t save her, Louis, it’s too late.”

Louis tossed the picture down on the table. But he still couldn’t look Susan in the eye.

“Your son’s waiting,” he said.

She started to say something but didn’t. He didn’t see her leave, just heard the slap of the screen door.

Save her? She was already dead, for God’s sake. He knew that. Didn’t he? Or was he starting to hear her talking, just like Bob Ahnert had warned?

He heard a ringing somewhere in the back of his mind and it took him several seconds to realize it was his phone. He grabbed it.

“Louis? It’s Vinny.”

“What do you got, Vince?” Louis asked.

“I got nothing. No report, no sample. They said the policy back then was to return or destroy everything after a few years.”

“Damn it.”

“Yeah. Sorry, Louis.”

Louis hung up, letting out a long breath. He went out on the porch. Through the gray mesh of the screen, he watched the red taillights of the Mercedes disappear down the dark island road.

Chapter Twenty-Six

It was rare when he drank alone anymore. Since leaving Michigan, he had slacked off, and when he did drink, it was usually over at Timmy’s Nook, where Bev treated him like a son and there were plenty of people to talk to. People who kept a man from thinking about the parts of his life that drove him to the bar in the first place.

But he wasn’t in Timmy’s now. He had wanted to go someplace where no one knew him and he didn’t know anyone. So he had found his way over to Sereno Key and to the scarred wood bar of the Lazy Flamingo.

Louis picked up the Heineken and finished it off. He considered leaving, but didn’t want to go home to the empty cottage. There was a ripple of laughter from the group in a booth as Billy Joel’s “Innocent Man” came on the jukebox.

Louis waved at the bartender, a thin man with a shaggy mustache. “Hey, bring me a shot of brandy, would you?”

Louis’s eyes drifted to the two men at the end of the bar. One was chubby, with a trim gray beard and a colorful tropical shirt. The other was younger, his blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. He wore a neon green tank top. They were laughing, the older man’s arm on the younger man’s shoulder.

The bartender set the shotglass in front of him. Louis reached for it, gulped it down and closed his eyes, giving a slight shiver as it burned its way down to his belly.

He was about to get up to go home when he felt a slap on the back and spun around.

Dan Wainwright’s beefy face was grinning at him.

“Hey, Dan.” The words came out in an edgy breath.

“Jeez, you’re jumpy. What the hell’s the matter?” Wainwright said.

“Sorry. Thought you might be Jack Cade.”

“Cade? Why?”

“He’s real pissed off at me right now.” Louis waved for the bartender. “What are you drinking? My treat.”

“I wasn’t. I just got here and saw you sitting here. Bud’s fine.”

Wainwright waited until the bartender brought their drinks. “I heard you’re working for Cade’s defense.”

Louis waited for the look of reproach, but there was none in the Sereno chief’s eyes.

“I was. He fired me today.”

“What did you do to piss him off?”

“Long story,” Louis muttered.

Wainwright didn’t press it. Instead, he gave Louis a smile. “It’s good to see you,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to call you.”

“Same here,” Louis said.

They fell into an awkward silence that was broken by a trio of laughing women who had squeezed up next to Wainwright. Wainwright tapped Louis on the shoulder and motioned toward a booth, walking away.

Louis sucked down the second brandy, then picked up his water glass and followed.

Wainwright settled into the booth and Louis slid in across from him, his gaze drawn to the window. It was a pitch-black, moonless night, and the green and pink floodlights cast a surreal glow on the fluttering palms.

“So why’d Cade fire you?” Wainwright asked.

Louis rubbed his face. “I accused his son Ronnie of murdering Kitty Jagger.”

Wainwright’s expression didn’t change, but his eyebrow twitched. “Can you prove it?”

“There was a semen sample and it’s disappeared. I can’t prove shit without it.”

Wainwright took a drink. “What semen?”

“The shit inside her,” Louis said, irritated. Then he realized that Wainwright didn’t have a clue as to what he was talking about. Susan was right. No one gave a rat’s ass about the Kitty Jagger case. It was ancient history, yesterday’s papers.

He let out a breath. “Sorry, Dan,” he said. “Bad day.”

Wainwright put up a hand. “No problem. Tell me about this sample thing.”

Louis hesitated. He wanted to talk about Kitty, but no one had wanted to hear it. Maybe Wainwright would understand.

“Two semen samples were taken,” he said. “One from Kitty Jagger’s panties, the other vaginal. The results from the vaginal sample are missing from the original police files.”

“The state lab?”

“No record. I tried. No one has a record anywhere.”

“The prosecutor’s office would have it.”

“Yeah, Vern Sandusky is just going to hand it over. Right.”

“He might.”

“Give me a break, Dan. There isn’t a prosecutor in the world who would voluntarily reopen a case where there’s been a conviction. You know that.”

“What about Spencer Duvall’s records? He would have it too.”

Louis looked up, his mind trying to work through the slosh of the brandy. “Mobley has that.”

“What?”

“Jack Cade’s old legal file. It was on Spencer Duvall’s desk when he was shot, so the cops took it.”

Wainwright took a long swallow of beer. “Kiss that idea goodbye. Mobley’s an idiot.”

Louis shook his head. “Maybe not. I might be able to convince Mobley to let me take a look.”

Wainwright leaned back in the booth, considering Louis. “I got to ask you this, Louis.”

“What?”

“Why bother? Why bust your balls on a closed case?”

Louis stared at him. “Because someone has to, damn it.”

Wainwright drew back ever so slightly. And the look on his face was the same as the one Louis had seen on Susan’s, like he was nuts or obsessed or something.