At the front door, he knocked and waited. The door opened and a small brown face with black-rimmed glasses appeared behind the screen.
“Hello,” the boy said.
Louis smiled down at him, but the boy did not smile back.
“Hi, is your mother home?”
“Benjamin, who is it?”
“Just some guy, Ma!” he hollered over his shoulder.
“I told you never to open the door-” Susan stopped, coming up behind him. Her face registered first surprise, then irritation.
“How’d you get my address?” she asked.
“I’m a PI.”
“He probably looked it up in the phone book, Ma,” Benjamin said.
“You should’ve called,” she said.
“Sorry. I took a chance. We need to talk.”
She nudged Benjamin aside and stepped to the screen. Her hair was pulled back in a tight knot and there was a white powder sprayed across the front of her red T-shirt. The front of the shirt read: A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle.
“Is this a bad time?” Louis asked.
Susan pushed open the screen. “Come on in. But don’t look at the house. It’s a mess. I’m baking.”
Louis stepped inside, expecting to see a messy house, but the living room was neat, furnished with a trim blue sofa and a wooden rocking chair with a quilted seat pad. The pale yellow walls were bare except for a large, black-framed poster of the Eiffel Tower. There was a scattering of magazines on the coffee table along with a Clue board game. A small entertainment center with a TV took up one wall, flanked by bookcases overflowing with novels, law books, and a set of Encyclopedia Britannica. As Louis followed Susan through the small dining room, his eyes traveled over the table. It was covered with stacks of folders, yellow legal pads, books and an open briefcase-except for one end where an arithmetic book lay open next to a Star Wars looseleaf binder.
Nice house. Tidy, attractive, but all business. Just like the lady herself, Louis thought as he followed her into the kitchen.
The kitchen was painted a bright green in an attempt to match the ugly ’50s tile. There was a Winn-Dixie bag on the floor with some groceries still stacked on the counter-a box of Stove Top stuffing, a can of cranberries, some potatoes. Louis could see a frozen turkey sitting in one side of the double sink.
“You shouldn’t let that sit out,” he said.
Susan was standing at the counter and turned.
“What?”
“The turkey,” he said, nodding.
“It needs to defrost by tomorrow and it won’t fit in the refrigerator,” she said.
“Put it in some cold water.”
“What, you working for the Butterball hotline now?”
Louis shrugged.
She went back to ripping away at something sticky in a big bowl. The stuff vaguely resembled cookie dough.
“Looks too dry,” Louis said.
She threw him a look as she struggled to work the wooden spoon through the dough. “I followed the recipe,” she said.
“Recipes don’t always work,” Louis said. “Add some water.”
Susan grabbed a measuring cup, turning to the sink to fill it. She leaned down, watching the water carefully as it rose to the line.
“How much are you going to add?”
“Enough to make it look normal.”
“Then you don’t know how much you’re going to add?”
“No.”
“Then why bother to measure it?” Louis asked.
She turned. “Look, you came to talk, not cook. So talk.”
Louis watched her pour the water into the dough. She began to work it in, her hips swaying in sync with the rotations her hand made around the bowl.
“I went and saw Cade,” Louis said. “He knows now that we’re a package deal.”
She nodded slowly. “I talked to my boss. He said I can add you to the payroll as an investigator. You are now an agent of the PD’s office.”
Louis looked up at her, not comfortable with the title, especially with the name Jack Cade attached to it.
“Hold on,” Susan said. She left and returned a minute later. She held out a beeper.
“I’m not wearing that,” Louis said.
“Don’t be crazy. I have to be able to get ahold of you.” She slapped it down on the table and returned to the sink.
He picked up the beeper, turning it over in his hands. “Does this mean we’re going steady?”
She threw him a look and went back to the cookie dough. Louis saw something out of the corner of his eye and turned. Benjamin was leaning against the door jamb, watching them. He was a skinny little thing, huge brown eyes behind the big glasses, twig-brown arms poking out of a Star Wars T-shirt.
“You really a PI?” he asked.
“Kind of.”
“You track down murderers and stuff?”
Louis looked at Susan for help, but she was busy.
“What kind of gun you got?”
“I don’t carry a gun right now,” Louis said.
The boy made a face. “What kind of car you got? Sonny Crockett has a Ferrari Spider but it’s not really his-”
“Ben, go do your homework,” Susan said.
“I did it already.”
“Then go watch TV.”
The boy made a suffering face. “Oh man, I wanna stay in here.”
“No. Get.”
“Can I lick the bowl first?”
“I told you before it’s not good for you.”
Louis suddenly recalled something his foster mother Frances used to say to him, and he turned to Benjamin.
“It’ll give you worms,” he whispered.
Benjamin trudged off and fell to the floor in front of the television. Seconds later the Jeopardy theme song came on. Louis watched as Susan opened the oven door. The sweet scent of chocolate chip cookies filled the kitchen. He knew he needed to tread carefully. This was her case, after all, and he had to respect that. He had to find out what her plan was before he tried to force one of his own on her.
Susan started cleaning up the mess on the counter.
“Can I have the bowl?” Louis asked.
She turned. “What?”
“The bowl.”
She gave him a weird look, then brought the bowl over to the table, sitting across from him. He scraped the spoon around the rim and began to eat the dough.
“That junk’s not good for you,” she said.
“Yeah, I know, it gives you worms. I need to know what your trial strategy is going to be,” Louis said.
She swiped a finger in the bowl and nibbled at the dough, like she was afraid to experience it all at once. “My strategy is that Jack Cade didn’t shoot Duvall. Someone else did. A powerful man like Duvall had lots of enemies. My staff, such as it is, is working on his financials now to see if there was anything hinky there.”
“What about that witness who saw Cade at Duvall’s office?”
“A bum named Quince,” Susan said. “He hangs out at the bus stop across the street and he said he saw a man leave Duvall’s office just after nine-thirty. Never saw Cade’s face, just said he looked out of place. He described a black leather jacket. They never found a similar jacket when they searched Cade’s house. Quince doesn’t know what he saw. He’s a homeless drunk who served time.”
“Being an homeless ex-con makes him blind?” Louis asked.
“There you go, thinking like a cop again.”
“Okay, what about the fingerprints? Mobley said Cade’s prints were on the credenza, like he was looking for something.”
“Cade was in the office that morning. Says he leaned against things.”
“They find the weapon?”
“No, and Cade doesn’t own a gun. He can’t.”
“Not legally anyway.”
“Well, they don’t have anyone stepping forward to say they sold him one illegally either.”
“What caliber was the gun used on Duvall?”
Susan thought for a minute. “A seven-point-six-two by twenty-five.”