Cade shrugged. “Okay, so he was a horny kid who couldn’t get laid. He found the panties and jacked off in them. He didn’t do nothing wrong.”

Louis stared at Cade. ”You lying sonofabitch. You found those panties that morning and you jacked off in them.”

For a moment, they just stared at each other. Then Cade wiped his mouth with his arm. “You’re going to believe what you want about me,” he said. “Just like everyone else.”

Louis turned away, walking toward his car. Thunder rolled overhead as shadows from the clouds moved across the ground.

“Hey, Louie,” Cade called. “Who’s going to handle this lawsuit thing for me? That bitch lawyer?”

Louis didn’t turn. He was finished here. “She can’t. Find someone else.”

“I don’t know any fucking lawyers,” Cade hollered, hurrying after him. He grabbed Louis’s arm, spinning him around. “You need to find me someone.”

Louis jerked his arm free. “I don’t need to do anything for you.”

Cade glared at him, then turned, heading back to his trailer. Louis started to get in the Mustang, but paused. He could see Ronnie and Eric over Cade’s shoulder as they tried to load a large potted plant onto the truck. It tipped, scattering dirt at their feet.

Louis shook his head slowly. Damn, he wasn’t finished. He did need to do something.

“Cade!” Louis called out.

Cade turned and waited.

“I’ll find a lawyer,” Louis said. “But for Ronnie and Eric, not you.”

Cade gave him a wave of his hand and kept walking.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The Guilty Party was packed with lawyers, a smokey blur of white shirts and loosened ties. Louis spotted Scott Brenner in the back, a pool cue in his hand.

As Louis wove his way through the crowd, Scott saw him and waved him closer. Scott extended a hand, which Louis took.

“Give me a minute here, would you, Louis? I’m about to kick some very expensive ass.”

Louis watched as Scott sank the last of the striped balls, then snapped the eight ball into the side pocket. His opponent, a small man with thin brown hair handed Scott some bills and moved to the bar.

Scott turned toward Louis. “You want to play?”

“No thanks. Like I said when I called, I need to talk to you about Jack Cade.”

“We can talk and play. Just for fun. Let me get you a drink first. Name your poison.”

“Brandy and water.”

Scott handed Louis the billiard rack. “Rack ’em while I’m gone, would you?”

Louis racked the balls and picked up a cue stick, trying to remember the last time he held one. Had to be years. He was chalking it when Scott came back. He set both drinks on the table.

“I like to break,” Scott said. “Do you mind?”

Louis motioned toward the table. “Be my guest.”

Scott broke, sinking the six. He circled the table, looking for another. He paused behind the two ball, eyeing the angles. Louis noticed there was an easier shot with the ten.

Scott gave Louis a grin then took aim at the two. It rolled toward the pocket and stopped short. Scott shook his head, his grin never fading.

“You had a sure thing with the ten,” Louis said.

Scott picked up the chalk. “The victory is sweeter when the odds are greater. Your turn.”

Louis took a shot and missed. Scott started circling again, deciding finally on the fourteen ball. He bent over the table, his arms extended, his stick poised behind the cue ball.

“So, what about Jack Cade?” Scott asked.

“I thought you might be able to do something for his family.”

Scott’s eyes flicked up to Louis, then back to the table.

“And that is?”

“Make a motion for a new trial.”

With a crack, Scott sent both the fourteen and the twelve balls zipping across the table. Both hit their pockets.

Scott came over to Louis, resting the butt of his stick on the floor. “I like a challenge, but I like winning even more. Give me a reason to believe I could.”

“He didn’t rape Kitty Jagger and we can prove it.”

A flick of interest lit up Scott’s eyes and his lips tipped up in a slow smile. He set his cue back in the rack. He picked up his drink and started toward the rear of the bar, nodding for Louis to follow.

Scott slid into a wooden booth, moving aside a small unlit candle. He leaned back, his fingers around his glass, the smile still on his face. Louis slid in across from him.

“You have my attention,” Scott said.

Louis quietly gave Scott the whole story, starting with the AB-negative blood in the report and ending with the theory that whoever killed Kitty shot Spencer Duvall and took the 1967 Redweld in an attempt to protect himself.

Scott reached for his drink, saw that it was empty and set it back down. He sat back, his gaze drifting to some far place of the bar.

“What do you think?” Louis asked.

Scott’s fingers were tapping lightly on the empty glass. “We called him Creepy Cade back then. Everyone did. We all thought he did it.” He paused. “God, twenty years of his life down the drain.”

“Will you consider taking this on?”

“I’m not a criminal attorney, but I can make a motion for a new trial. If it gets that far, I can either pass it off or take on a second chair.”

“The Cades don’t have any money.”

Scott waved his hand. “I wouldn’t expect any for this. Jesus Christ, Louis, there comes a time when you just have to do something human. This poor man wasted twenty years.”

“But there is something you want, right?” Louis asked.

Scott leaned forward, the alcohol shimmering in his eyes. “You know what I want, Louis? I want a shot at lawyers like Spencer Duvall, who treat the legal system like their own personal toilets. And prosecutors who would walk over their mothers’ bodies if they thought they could convict. And the fucking state of Florida that doesn’t give a damn how many innocent men they fry.”

Louis had a feeling it was the potential publicity and not any real sense of altruism that was getting Scott Brenner fired up. But he didn’t care. He knew that Scott Brenner, with his connections and experience, could help Ronnie and Eric.

“Besides,” Scott said, “if we pull this off, I want the civil suit.” He was trying to catch the waitress’s eye. “Lot of potential for big money.”

“What about the chances for a new trial?”

“Before we go any further, can I ask you a question?” Scott said.

“Sure.”

“You want to be in on this?”

Louis took a drink. “Yeah, I do.”

“Okay, this is how it is. The whole key is new evidence,” he said. “The vaginal semen sample you mentioned isn’t new.”

“But it was never submitted in trial.”

“The law doesn’t care,” Scott said. “If Duvall had that report and didn’t use it, too bad. Having had a stupid lawyer won’t get you a new trial, either. Nor does the probability of innocence. We’ve got to find something new.”

For the first time since he had started talking to Scott, Louis felt a twinge of discouragement. “There isn’t anything, Scott,” he said. “Believe me, I’ve been over all the files, all the records. There isn’t anything we can dig up.”

Scott took a long, slow drink of his vodka. He leaned back in the booth and leveled his brown eyes at Louis.

“Oh yes, there is,” he said. “Kitty Jagger.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

The mechanical clamor stopped and the quiet rushed in. The hush stretched over the cemetery and then was broken by the chirp of a bird. Then came the beep-beep-beep drone as the backhoe crept away from the hole in the ground.

Louis watched as two men jumped down and secured the straps around the concrete vault. He looked up, his eyes traveling over the knot of people standing in the shade of a tree a few yards away. There were a couple of Lee County uniforms and a guy Louis assumed was the detective Mobley had just assigned to the case, all with the usual stone cop faces. There were also two men in suits. The shorter one, the cemetery administrator, wore the benign expression of a man used to watching the dead unearthed. The other was Scott Brenner. He was standing a few yards away, his eyes locked on the hole, his expression determinedly stoic.