Thicker Than Water by P.J. Parrish

his girlfriend.
    â€œCade,” Louis said sharply.
    Cade shook his head slowly. “Fucking foreigners. Can’t even get away from them in jail.”
    He finally let his eyes drift back to Louis. “Haitians. Washing up on the beach like goddamn fish. They ought to toss them off a boat in the Bermuda Triangle and see if they can swim home past the sharks.”
    Cade was waiting for Louis’s reaction. But Louis wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing his disgust.
    â€œTell me about the night Duvall was killed,” Louis said. “Why did you go back to his office that night?”
    â€œI didn’t.”
    â€œThey’ve got a witness who ID’ed you.”
    â€œA homeless drunk.” Cade smiled.
    â€œWhy were you going to sue Duvall?”
    â€œI told you.”
    â€œYou said he was incompetent. How?”
    â€œI never said he was incompetent. Incompetent means somebody doesn’t know what they’re doing. Duvall knew exactly what he was doing.”
    The Haitian prisoner was getting more agitated. His girlfriend was crying. Cade’s eyes lasered onto the couple.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Louis asked.
    â€œDuvall sold me out.”
    â€œHow?”
    Cade shook his head.
    â€œCade, look at me.”
    Cade shifted, his breathing turning hard. “It’s fucking over. I got no way to get anything back now. My life is down the drain because of Duvall and I got no way to get anything back because the sonofabitch is dead!”
    The guard was eyeing Cade.
    â€œYou’ve got to calm down here, Cade,” Louis said.
    â€œShit . . .”
    â€œYou’ve got—”
    Cade leaned into the plexiglass. “Don’t tell me what I gotta do,” he said. He took a deep breath and leaned back, running a hand over his hair.
    â€œMy kid was here yesterday,” Cade said. “He’s lost most the yards on his routes,” Cade said. “Folks are telling him they don’t want their lawns paying for his scumbag father’s defense.”
    Louis let out a long breath. “Look, Cade . . .”
    â€œThat sonofabitch lawyer took away my life and now he’s taking away my kid’s. He owes me.” Cade leaned forward, his eyes glistening. “You hear me? He owes me!”
    Louis was quiet for a moment. He decided to play his card.
    â€œYou couldn’t have sued Duvall anyway,” he said.
    Cade looked up at him.
    â€œStatute of limitations on legal malpractice is two years in this state,” Louis said.
    Something passed over Cade’s eyes momentarily and was gone, like a final dissipating swirl of smoke from a dying fire.
    â€œYou didn’t know that, did you?” Louis said.
    Cade was silent for a long time, head bowed as he picked at his hands. The Haitian’s creole mixed in with the hum of the florescent lights.
    Suddenly, a hard twisted smile came to Cade’s face. “I should have known, man, I should have known.”
    â€œKnown what?” Louis asked.
    â€œThat it wouldn’t work,” Cade said. “The cards aren’t stacked that way for guys like me.”
    The black woman in the next cubicle started to cry softly again. The Haitian man just sat there.
    â€œWhen I was in the joint,” Cade said, “this guy who knew something about the law told me I could sue Duvall for a million bucks when I got out. I didn’t believe it. I mean, a fucking jury giving a guy like me a million bucks.”
    He looked up at Louis. “Then I got out and saw how bad things were for Ronnie and I figured what the fuck, what do I got to lose?”
    He gave a sharp laugh. “Now you tell me I couldn’t have gotten anything anyway. Ain’t the legal system fucking great?”
    Louis was silent. The Haitian man had started up again. But his angry chattering was muffled, pushed to the back of Louis’s mind.
    If Cade thought he stood to get a big settlement