Louis shook his head. “I can’t get access.”
Louis waited for Ahnert to say something, but he just chewed on the cigar, watching Louis through the sunglasses.
“I have reason to believe that Duvall buried the semen report and let an innocent man go to prison,” Louis said.
“Duvall was a winner. Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about two killers? You consider that?”
Was Ahnert talking about Cade and Ronnie acting together? It was sickening, the image of Ronnie raping Kitty and then Cade killing her to shut her up. Was that what Cade meant by blood being thicker than water?
“Cade and Ronnie. . together?” Louis asked.
Ahnert said nothing, just moved the cigar to the other side of his mouth.
“Sergeant,” Louis said, “was that where you were going with this twenty years ago?”
A lone white egret took sudden flight and Ahnert watched it rise and disappear against the bleached sky. “April 9th. That’s the day she was killed. I remember it was hot, like summer was coming early.” He paused. “ ‘April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.’ ”
He looked back at Louis. “It doesn’t matter where I was going twenty years ago.”
“It mattered. It still does,” Louis said. “I think you still want to solve this case. I think you’re the only one who does.”
“Besides you, you mean.”
“Yes.”
Ahnert was silent for a long time, looking out over the desolate landscape.
“It’s over for me,” he said. “She’s yours now.”
Louis was surprised to hear a hint of relief in Ahnert’s voice. What the hell had happened to this man twenty years ago? Had he been so obsessed with finding Kitty’s killer that it had destroyed his career and the rest of his life?
He suddenly heard Mobley talking to him as he leaned over the bar at O’Sullivan’s.
He stole an item that belonged to the victim. A gold necklace. Some kind of heart-shaped locket. Guess Ahnert needed the money.
Ahnert hadn’t needed the money a cheap gold necklace would have brought, and he wasn’t obsessed with finding Kitty’s killer. It was her he was obsessed with.
“Why did you stop investigating?” Louis asked.
“I was told to.”
Louis shook his head. “I don’t believe that.”
Ahnert finally looked back at Louis. “I was hung up on a dead girl.” He looked away. “It’s sick, isn’t it?”
Louis ran a hand over the back of his neck. It wasn’t the sun that was making him sweat.
“I’m just trying to give her justice,” Louis said quietly.
Ahnert didn’t answer. He tossed the cigar into the sand and squashed it out with his boot. Then he picked a bit of wet tobacco off his lips and flicked it away.
“Forget justice,” he said. “Give her some peace.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It was on the drive back to Fort Myers that Louis remembered something Ronnie Cade had said the very first time he had gone out to J.C. Landscaping. Ronnie had mentioned that his father had bailed him out of jail when he was a teenager. That meant Ronnie probably had a record. And there was a slim chance that the record could lead to a blood type on file somewhere. But he needed Mobley’s help to get it.
The reception area outside Mobley’s office was empty when Louis got there. He looked at the wall clock. Past five. Mobley’s door was shut, the lights off. He was about to leave when the Amazon came in, carrying a freshly washed coffeepot.
She smiled at him. “What are you doing back here?”
“I needed to see the sheriff.”
“Too late. He cut out early today. He won’t be back ’til Monday.”
“Damn,” Louis said under his breath.
“Can I help?” she asked.
Louis almost told her no, but nodded. “Yeah, maybe you can. Can you check to see if someone has a record?”
“Sure. What’s his name?”
“Ronnie Cade.”
She gave him a look, but went to the computer terminal at the back of the room. Leaning over the chair, she brought the monitor to life and looked back at Louis.
“Got a social or a birthday?”
“Sorry.”
She typed in the name, then looked back at him. “I got two. Ronald John or Ronald Walter?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Do you have birth dates or anything else there?”
“I got one in nineteen-forty-nine and one in nineteen-thirty-two.”
“It’s got to be forty-nine.”
She pecked at the keys, then the printer in the corner started pumping out a piece of paper. She ripped it off and brought it to Louis.
Ronnie Cade had one charge: a DUI from 1976, the result of an accident with injuries. Finally, a break. Any accident victim who had been treated at a hospital was always tested for alcohol. And they were routinely blood-typed.
“Excuse me,” Louis said.
The Amazon had been putting away the coffee filters and she looked back at Louis over her shoulder.
“Is there any way you can check to see if the hospital records for this accident are in his file?” Louis asked.
For the first time, she gave him something other than a smile. “Hey, I’ve clocked out. I gotta go pick up my kid at the baby-sitter.”
“I wouldn’t ask-”
“But you really need this. . yeah, yeah, yeah.” She heaved a big sigh. “We don’t usually have hospital records.”
“Sometimes they’re put in the files. Can you check?”
She took the computer printout back. Louis paced while she made the call. He was looking up at Dinkle’s portrait when she called his name.
“This must be your lucky day. We’ve got them,” she said.
Louis came toward her quickly. “I just need to know his blood type.”
She spoke into the phone and looked back. “O-positive.”
Louis let out a sigh. He was relieved for the sake of Ronnie and Eric.
The Amazon had hung up the phone and was now stuffing things into her big purse.
“Can you tell me how I can reach the sheriff?” Louis asked.
“No way. He would kill me.”
“I doubt that. Come on, it’s important.”
She hesitated, then shrugged. “Okay, but don’t tell him I told you. He’s a partner in a supper club down in Naples-La Veranda. He’ll be there tonight and tomorrow night. I’ve been there. Fancy place. Men gotta wear ties to get in.” She smiled. “I can drive you down, if you want, after I pick up my kid.”
Louis smiled. “Maybe some other time.”
Outside, he paused on the sidewalk. He knew he needed to call Susan. The fact that neither Cade nor Ronnie had raped Kitty could still be important to her defense. If he could tie Kitty and Duvall’s deaths together. And if she would listen.
But there was something else, and it bothered him when he recognized it. He just plain wanted to talk to her.
He turned and walked a block to a café, ducking inside to a pay phone in the back. He dialed her office number and it rang ten times before she picked it up, breathless.
“Susan, don’t hang up,” he said.
She hesitated. “I wasn’t going to.”
“I want you to listen to me without saying a word.”
There was another pause. “Okay.”
Louis took her through his day, laying everything out for her, from the unreadable slide to Bob Ahnert’s revelation about the AB-negative sample. He finished up with the fact that neither Jack nor Ronnie Cade raped Kitty.
She said nothing.
“Well?” he asked.
“I’m a little stunned,” she said softly. “I’m trying to figure out what I can use.” There was a pause. “Can you bring me this report that says Kitty’s rapist was AB-negative?”
“Not exactly.”
“Can I subpoena it from someone?”
“No.”
A long pause this time. “Where is this report?”
“It’s in Jack Cade’s trial file from 1967, which was on Spencer’s desk when he was shot. The cops picked it up along with everything else.”