Ill Will Read online

  “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.

  Chapter Six

  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.

  And she coughed on me when she opened the door. Only once, but how many coughs was too many?

  Denial is a powerful thing. Don’t want to take your drugs and don’t want to deal with the disconcerting thought that you might be killing yourself by not taking them? Just come up with a way to rationalize it—get a bogus test that tells you don’t have the disease. Claim you can’t get an appointment when your records show that you’ve been coming in on a regular basis.

  Maybe she would go in and see Cordelia and maybe my gorgeous girlfriend could talk some sense into her.

  Mission—sort of—accomplished. I had seen Eugenia Hopkins, talked to her about seeking medical care, and she seemed in right enough of a mind that she could make her own decisions. Even if they were the wrong ones.

  I could only hope that I’d have better luck with Reginald Banks.

  Chapter Seven

  Reginald Banks’s house was even in more need of paint than Eugenia’s. At least it was a sedate creamy beige instead of what-were-you-thinking pink. As I had at her place, I drove past it, parking near the corner. This area had flooded; several houses appeared abandoned, with green vines twining up the clapboard and onto the roof. One of them was almost more plant than house. But other houses were restored, one even with the tamed nature of potted plants lining the porch. This wasn’t a bad neighborhood, but it wasn’t a good one either. Down the block I could see a laced-together pair of old sneakers tossed over a power line, often the signal that you could get drugs here.

  But on this sunny afternoon, few people were out. Maybe it was early enough that people weren’t interested in going to the methamphetamine mall.

  I got out of my car and walked back to Reginald’s house.

  The first knock got no response.

  Neither did the second.

  Three strikes and you’re out. My third try was as unproductive as the first two.

  The door to the house next door opened. A woman poked her head out. “You lookin’ for Reginald?”

  “Yeah, you have any idea when he might be back?”

  “I don’t know he left. Saw him coming in about a week ago—maybe two weeks, it was around my aunt’s birthday ’cause she mentioned all the leaves on the roof and that was three weeks back—not sure—carrying some groceries. I occasionally have him do some work so I asked him about cleaning my gutters. He said he was not feeling well and needed to eat and rest. Haven’t seen him since then.” She pointed across the street. “That’s his car over there. It’s been sitting there the entire time.”

  I glanced at his car. Early springtime (aka still winter elsewhere) in New Orleans is high pollen season, and his car was covered with a greenish tinge that indicated it probably hadn’t moved recently.

  “So you haven’t seen him in at least a week? Have you called anyone to check up on him?”

  “Nope, don’t know anyone to call.”

  Cordelia is right, I am good at this. Right now I wanted to ask this woman why the fuck she hadn’t called someone like the police if she didn’t know anyone else to call, but I didn’t do that. I kept a pleasant smile on my face, like, yes, of course, if someone tells you they’re feeling sick and then you don’t see them for over a week, it makes perfect sense to do nothing.

  “You seen anyone go in or out? Or heard any noises from over here?” I asked.

  “Nope, haven’t seen anyone or heard nothin’.”

  “Maybe we should call the authorities,” I said. “He might be sick.”

  “You want to go check on him? He gave me a spare key a while back, just in case he lost his.”

  Somehow I managed to keep my pleasant smile on my face. She had a key, she could have checked on him but hadn’t, instead waited for some random stranger to show up and do it for her.

  “Let me see if he answers his phone,” I said. I had his number on the information sheet Lydia had given me. I hadn’t called initially because the doctors had already tried contacting him by the telephone.

  I dialed his number.

  After a beat or two I could hear it ringing inside. It rang three times, then switched to his voice mail. I hung up, counted slowly to ten, and dialed again. Three rings and voice mail. I got the same result the third time I tried.

  I put my phone away and banged loudly on the door. “Reginald? Are you in there? Are you okay?”

  “We call him Reggie,” his neighbor ever so helpfully let me know.

  “Reggie, we’re worried about you,” I called. “I’m from your doctor’s office and we need to make sure you’re okay.”

  Nothing.

  Very faintly, I thought I heard a thump, like something—or someone—falling. It was hard to hear if it came from the house or not. Or it I had been listening so hard I was imagining it.

  I pounded on the door again. “Reggie? Are you in there? Make a noise, anything and I’ll come in.”

  I listened. Cars blocks away, the remote call of a bird, the shush then cease of wind. The quiet stretched, only small sounds that never really went away in a city, tires on asphalt, distant voices, real and electric.

  It was probably time to call the police.

  But then it happened again, a faint thump. It could have been inside the house, or a block away behind it. Some noise, some movement.

  Something human.

  I put the key in the lock.

  It turned slowly, as if it had been dry and dusty for a week.

  I opened the door, not yet stepping in. “Reggie, are you in here? I need to check on you.”

&n
bsp; Again, I listened. Nothing. Too silent for a house that should have someone living in it.

  I stepped over the threshold, into the dim stillness.

  This is when smart detectives call the police, I told myself. But it could be hours before they arrived, this wasn’t a murder or a break-in, just a man who hadn’t been seen recently and an indistinct sound.

  I took a step in, then stopped to listen again.

  The room had no lights on, no TV or radio anywhere. The furniture was old and secondhand, a hodgepodge that seemed assembled more for function than style, an olive green stuffed chair clashing next to a turquoise sofa, an end table that was glass and a coffee table that was colonial. A glass sat on the coffee table, but it was empty, rings of evaporation that had dried long ago. In the far corner, on a rickety table, was the phone I’d heard, cheap and ice blue in color, another clash of hues. It was old enough to be plugged into the wall.

  “Reggie,” I called as I crossed the room.

  No answer.

  The kitchen was in shambles, dirty dishes in the sink, plates and soup cans left on the counter, the smell of rotting food that had gone past ripe. I opened the refrigerator, but that was a mistake. Rotted food was oozing down the shelves and the bearable smell turned into a putrid waft that sent me back into the living room.

  His electricity had been turned off and had clearly been off for days, long enough for anything in the refrigerator to have rotted into green and gray. Only the phone still worked, and only because it wasn’t cordless. In a day or two, it would probably be cut off as well.

  I covered my nose with my hand. My instinct was to leave, barrel out of the house and the stench and dial a number that would bring someone else here, wash my hands of it. If he was here, he was dead, and it is not my job to discover the dead.

  I turned to leave.

  And heard the noise again. Somewhere in this house, something fell or pushed or moved, a small, faint sound. A cat or a dog?

  It was a little house, two bedrooms at most. I just needed to do a quick search, find the animal left behind, then get out of here. At least I might save a furry life.