Ill Will (9 page)

“And people just tell you?”

“Mostly. If they say he’s such a nice guy, I tell them I’m looking for him because an uncle left him a small bequest. If they bitch about him always parking right in front of their house, then I say he owes major parking fines.”

“You lie,” she said, in an appreciative tone.

“I consider part of it protecting client confidentiality, not revealing the real reason I’m looking for the person. I’m ethical enough to only use negative reasons for people who are scumbags anyway.”

“What do you do if the neighbors don’t tell you anything?”

“It depends on what other info I have. With your patients I have just about everything I could wish for. I can track them using various databases—the Internet has really made it much easier to find people. There are some pretty powerful ones that you pay to use—which I do. The magic is if one method doesn’t get results, I try another and then another until I get the results. I probably know a few more ways to search for people, and it’s my job, so I can put a big part of my day into searching, unlike most people.”

Of course we talked about our days, what we did. But it had been a long time since Cordelia asked me these kinds of questions, wanted to learn more of what I did and how I did it. I was enjoying the chance to show off to her. She was the doctor, highly trained, well respected for what she did. Sometimes my career felt insignificant compared to that. She saved lives. I found husbands who had decided to ditch their wives and start over in Vegas. It felt good to see the admiration in her eyes as I talked. I was glad I said yes to this, welcoming the chance to use my skills to help her and prove that what I did could do more than just locate errant spouses.

“I guess it seems magical because you do it so well,” she said. “It actually takes a pretty special skill to just knock on random doors, talk to people and get the information you want from them.”

“You do it with your patients,” I pointed out.

“Yes, and to my credit, I’m pretty good with that. But it’s different. They’ve come to me with the structure in place and expectation that we’re going to talk about their health. I’m their access to care, prescriptions, a diagnosis. That’s different from being someone on the street. I can do what I do; I don’t think I could do what you do.”

Annoyingly, our food arrived and interrupted her singing my praises.

She sparingly poured the dressing on her salad. I covered my French fries with ketchup.

But before she took a bite, she covered my hand with hers and said, “Hey, I kind of like us working together. It’s nice to see you this way.” Then she stole a French fry.

“It is nice,” I agreed. “Let me pay for this and I can call it a business expense.”

Just to make sure it was a legitimate expense, I asked Cordelia questions about the patients. I got the expected lecture on sickle cell disease, HIV, and TB. She is actually good at explaining these things. I suspected she’d dealt with enough patients who lacked formal education that she was well versed in breaking things down into easy-to-understand terms.

Once she had finished telling me more than I really wanted to know about TB—I’d spend the next six months wondering if everyone who coughed behind me in the grocery line might infect me—I asked, “Did you treat either of them?”

“No, not really. I briefly saw Eugenia when she came in for a blood draw. She had some bruises that appeared for no reason. I told her mixing alcohol and TB meds could cause bruising. She swore she hadn’t been drinking, but I got the feeling she said it because it was what she thought she was supposed to say. I also got the impression giving up drinking wasn’t something she was willing to do; not for bruises anyway.”

“That was it?” I cut a quarter off my burger and put it on her plate. She was envying me my fat and grease too much.

“Yep,” she said, not objecting to the burger.

I speared a tomato in exchange. “Did she give you the impression she might be someone who would just flake out on medical treatment?”

“Hard to say. She wasn’t happy about all the meds she was supposed to be on, but her record indicated she was keeping her appointments. That’s one of the reasons Lydia flagged her. It seemed she understood how important this was. I was a little surprised by the drinking, but maybe it hadn’t been explained to her clearly.”

“What about the other patient?”

“A name in a file. No contact with him.” She finished my last French fry. “I should get back.” She didn’t immediately move. “This has been nice. Maybe we should do this more often?”

The hesitancy in her question told me she was unsure what my answer would be. I smiled, looking in her eyes. “Maybe we should. Lunch during the day, or maybe meet after work and go out. I’d like that.”

Her sudden smile told me she had been worried I might not really want to create that kind of space for her.

The waitress chose this moment to give us our bill. Cordelia’s cell phone rang. It was a text message from Lydia asking if she could get back ASAP, as both yesterday’s and today’s one p.m. patients had just shown up early.

“I’ll get the bill,” I told her.

“Thanks,” she said as she stood up. She bent down and kissed me full on the lips before hurrying away.

I tend to be the one who’s more likely to say, “Let’s do it in the street and scare the horses,” and Cordelia leans toward discretion, occasionally holding hands in the French Quarter or at Pride, but mostly no public displays of affection. Kissing me in public in the middle of the day near where she worked was a major departure for her.

I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The woman is a good kisser
, I reminded myself as I walked to my car.

That very pleasant thought got me serenely through the traffic tangle of the CBD and past the drunken tourists of the Quarter to my office.

I needed to show the woman who kissed me in public that I was pretty damn good at my job. Time for some magic private detecting.

Which consisted of pulling up a map and entering their addresses.

Eugenia lived not that far from my office, a bit farther down in the Bywater on Rampart Street. Reginald lived in Mid-City, near Broad and Orleans.

If I was lucky I might have this case closed before the day was done—if these were still their addresses and if they were home and willing to answer the door and talk to me.

At the very least I could report progress this evening, I thought. I grabbed my things, securely locked the door, set the alarm, and headed first for Eugenia’s.

Her house was ramshackle, in need of paint, a faded pink that hadn’t been a trendy color in years, and probably then only in fashion and not in houses. She probably rented, so I couldn’t hold her responsible for the paint job.

I parked down a little from her address and used my rearview mirror to scan the street. Telling someone they missed a doctor’s appointment isn’t the same threat level as telling someone their wife wants the child support to be paid, but this was habit. There weren’t many cars around; probably most people were at work. If Eugenia was trans she might have a hard time finding a traditional nine-to-five job. People can be so irrational about bathrooms—“the person in the next stall has to have a natural born vagina just like me or I can’t pee”—and that makes some places reluctant to hire trans people. Which often leaves the option of working in places like bars. Or the sex trade. If Eugenia was in those last two, midafternoon might be the time to find her.

A cloud covered the sun, dulling the pink to a more sedate color. Time to knock on the door.

There was no knocker or buzzer, so I rapped my knuckles on the screen door frame.

No answer, no movement inside.

But a lot of being a private dick is being a persistent dick. I knocked again. This time I heard footsteps.

This third time, my knuckles were starting to sting. I pulled out my PI license since it looked sort of official and would at least prove I wasn’t trying to save her soul with my particular brand of religion.

The footsteps came closer, as if sidling up to a window to see who would be out here.

“I’m looking for Eugenia Hopkins,” I called out, giving my hand a break.

“Who’s lookin’?” came a voice from the other side of the door.

“My name is Michele Knight, I’m a private investigator. You’re not in trouble and I’m not selling anything.”

One lock and then another was thrown and then the door opened.

Except for the Adam’s apple, that she was several inches taller than I am and had hands the size of catcher’s mitts, no one would have guessed the Eugenia had once been Eugene. Life and genetics have an infinite sense of irony.

“What do you want?” she demanded. At least the voice was high and almost girlish.

“To make sure you’re in medical care.”

She cocked an eyebrow at me. “They send PIs to do that these days?”

“Not usually,” I admitted. “But my partner is one of the doctors there and they felt with the scheduling screwup being their fault, they needed to go the extra mile.”

“I feel fine, I don’t need to see a doctor,” she said. And coughed.

“That’s the thing with both HIV and TB, you can feel fine, but they’re doing their damage.”

“I don’t have TB,” she said.

“True, you don’t have it” (Yes, Cordelia, I was paying attention) “but you’ve been exposed and to make sure you don’t get it, you have to stay on your meds long enough to fight it off.”

“Naw, I don’t have it. Not at all. So I don’t need to be on those stupid meds.”

“I’m not a doctor,” I said, “but it probably wouldn’t hurt to have it checked out just to make sure.”

“Are you deaf?” The hand was now on the hip; any second she’d pull out a cigarette holder and blow smoke in my face. “I did that, I had it checked out. Those stupid meds I was on were making me sick; I couldn’t even get an appointment to get changed to something else, so at one of our hormone sessions I asked if they knew anything about TB. They gave me some natural stuff that boosts the immune system and can get rid of it. The hormone folks tested me a week later and it was gone, nothing. I don’t have it. They’d have to stop the hormones if I had TB.”

Cordelia had said I was good at this. Right now I wasn’t feeling so good. “I guess there was some confusion,” was the best I could come up with. “What about HIV? Did you get retested for that as well?”

The hand left the hip and she crossed it over her chest. “Yeah, no change there. Didn’t get a two-fer.”

“Who’s looking after you for that?”

“At the moment, me, myself, and I. I just don’t want to deal with meds and doctors right now, ’kay? So, no nagging.”

“No nagging. But I’m old enough to remember people getting sick and dying. I lost a lot of friends when I was young.”

“I’m not your friend, doll.”

“No, you’re not, but you’re someone who doesn’t have to die like my friends did. Go ahead and take a break right now if you need to. But don’t wait too long.”

“I won’t, don’t worry. Once I get my tits taken care of, I can do more other doctor stuff.” Then the hand was back on the hip. “Hey, you said your partner was one of the docs there? That mean you’re queer?”

“My partner is a woman, yes.”

“So you’re a dyke dick?” She guffawed at her joke.

I’d heard it enough times that I couldn’t join in her merriment. I merely smiled and said, “Some people do call me that.”

“Hey, is she that big old dyke?”

I didn’t think of Cordelia as big, old, or stereotypically dykey.

“She’s got that blondie hair, tiny, barely there pearl studs for earrings. Big bazooms and hips. Bit of a stomach. This high.” Eugenie held her hand just under her almost breasts.

She was describing Lydia.

“Nope, that’s not her. My partner is the tall one with the auburn hair. You’re not a patient of hers, but you did talk to her once.”

She looked puzzled for a moment, then remembered. “Oh, yeah, her. She was pretty nice. Real cool about the transitioning, you know.”

“She’s a lesbian, she should be.”

“Doesn’t always go that way. Some people who are out are looking for someone to be further out so they can feel superior. If I go back, can I see her?”

“If you come back soon. She’s temp, covering for a doctor on maternity leave.”

“Doctors do temp work?”

“In post-K New Orleans, we all do what we have to do.”

“Good golly, Miss Molly, ain’t that the truth. You need anything more from me, or can I go back to my beauty rest?”

“Nope, just wanted to check up on you, make sure you’re okay and that you know you should be seeing a doctor somewhere.”

“Your job’s done. You tell that gorgeous woman of yours she needs to be her own doctor. She could see a lot of trans folks.”

“I’ll pass that on.”

Eugenia shut the door. I headed back to my car.

I didn’t immediately pull away. Truth is usually some muddy ground between two people’s versions of what happened. But Eugenia seemed worrisomely further away from the middle. She claimed she didn’t have TB, but her doctors were treating her for TB. I remembered Cordelia’s explanation—exposure vs. infection. Maybe Eugenia was confused. But she still needed to finish the treatment in either case. I probably should have quizzed her further about where she was getting her hormone treatment—conflicting and possibly inaccurate advice could be the cause of her confusion. Or at least it gave her an excuse to believe what she wanted to believe.