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.”

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?”