Ill Will

by J. M. Redmann

  “I’m telling the truth. I didn’t send anyone after you.”

  “When you were a baby out of the womb, you were probably crying lies.” I knew he wasn’t going to admit guilt; he had too much swindler experience to fall into that trap. Prejean was an experienced con, and crocodile tears—and acts of innocence—were his specialty. “I wanted to give you a message in return. Your big boy messed it up. He didn’t land a blow. The cops probably have him run down by now. I don’t do illegal, but I have friends who do. Friends who owe me big-time. You leave me alone; I’ll leave you alone. Mess with me again and I’ll make you regret it in ways that you don’t want to think about. Got it?”

  “I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” he claimed.

  I tossed his truck keys halfway across his lawn. He started to turn to them, but wisely decided to keep his eyes on me.

  As I kept mine on him. I backed to my car, keeping him in sight the entire way, my hand on my waist just below my gun. I even backed my car halfway down the block so I could keep him in view. He didn’t move at first. Only when he realized I really was leaving did he retrieve his keys.

  I did a hasty U-turn and was down the block before he got back to his truck.

  What have I gained, I wondered as I drove back to my office. Of course he had played possum, but that was expected. He did seem surprised, and a bit shaken, to have me show up at his house. Most cons are smarter than Prejean appeared to be—he clearly hadn’t bothered to consider how I’d react to his threat. Maybe he didn’t expect me to seek him out, but he should have expected some reaction. Perhaps what had seemed a nice idea in a bar with Dudley Dude making promises didn’t seem so smart now that the consequences boomeranged. Maybe Prejean would have the sense to back off and move on to more lucrative swindle victims. Perhaps not a nice wish on my part, but he was going to con people; he could at least do it without making a mess in my life.

  My trip back to the office was convoluted. I wanted to make sure no one was trailing me or could easily guess where I was going. I was so busy checking my rearview mirror I came close to running a red light.

  When I finally got back, my routine was the same—drive by, around the block, park outside and wait, then get into the building as quickly as I could, then slowly up the stairs. The spider still lurked, but nothing and no one else was about.

  And it wasn’t even noon yet.

  Deciding that offense was still better than defense—or at least better than sitting around waiting to see if I got attacked again—I contacted the Grannies.

  I didn’t become a private eye because I wanted to sit and stare at a computer screen. But the Internet and its troves of information treasure were an important tool. I solved my screen-staring dilemma by hiring out.

  Illegal grandmothers? Who better to skirt the law than little old ladies? Sarah Clavish used to share the floor with me. Her side was still unused. After retiring, she had found her vocation in computer sleuthing. “I get to sit all day in the air-conditioning,” as she said. She turned out to be quite good at it. Over time she had recruited several of her friends and they became Grannies Online, Inc.

  But her sister and brother-in-law had decided that they could ride out any hurricane; they always had before. Their house was high, they had a boat. They lived down the river. She had gone there the day before Katrina to convince them to leave—this one was different. But her brother-in-law wasn’t willing to abandon his house, his wife wouldn’t abandon him, and in the end, Sarah didn’t abandon her sister. He was able to get in the boat, but the violent waves took the two sisters.

  Her two cohorts continued the work and I continued to use them. I can do the computer stuff, but much of it is tedious reading of some of the most boring documents in the world over and over again before finding anything useful. I’m just as happy to send it out. Plus, I don’t have the hacking skills the Grannies have.

  “Hey, Alma, I need a favor.”

  “You going to bring cookies again, honey?”

  Alma called everyone “honey” save for those she called “scalawags.” “Any kind of cookies you want,” I promised. Then I asked for my favor—anything and everything about Carl Prejean and his aliases, with special emphasis on his burned house and the insurance claims made on it.

  “Oh, and if anything happens to me, assume he’s behind it and you may let loose whatever computer evil you wish.” And I had to explain—yet again—what had happened.

  They promised to dig “to the center of the computer earth.”

  As I hung up I thought that if the clock weren’t just striking noon, I’d be ready to go home.

  The phone rang. Assuming it was Alma with additional questions, I answered, “Yeah, honey pie, what kind of cookies do you want?”

  “Micky?” Cordelia.

  Good thing for me that she knew about the Grannies and about my cookie baking payment to them (cold hard cash as well, I do not take advantage of charming little old ladies and their sweet tooth) so my explanation just squeaked into the bounds of possible.

  After which I added, “I’m free for lunch if you’d like to get together.” On saying it, I realized it was true. Yesterday felt like such a jumble that it seemed we’d barely seen each other.

  “I’d like to,” she said wistfully, “but it’s crazy here. I’m afraid I’m going to ask you for another favor.”

  Just the tone of her voice told me it was something that I probably wasn’t going to want to do, so I hedged, “I’ll do it if I can.”

  “Reginald Banks is in a coma. I just got the news from Lydia. She went over his records and realized that he had made an appointment and come in for it. His insurance was billed and they paid and there are notes in his chart. He was Tamara’s patient. Lydia even called her, but she couldn’t remember, although she was distracted by a screaming baby. So we can’t understand why he deteriorated so quickly.”

  “I can’t see how I’ll be much help there,” I said. “Take two aspirin is about as far as I get in the medical department.”

  “One possibility is that he was taking something that interfered with his treatment.”

  Ah, light dawned. “You want me to go back to his house and see what he might have been taking.”

  “I hate to ask…”

  “But you’re going to anyway.”

  “It might be his only chance. Admittedly not a great one, but if he was on drugs or even taking something like St. John’s wort, it might shed some light.”

  “Would you consider carrying a gun?” One obnoxious request deserved another.

  “A gun? You know how I—”

  “A very bad man might be stalking you. At least until he’s caught.”

  “So if I agree to carry a gun, you’ll check out Reginald Banks’s residence?” she asked.

  “Yes, I would do that.” I couldn’t believe that she’d agree.

  “Would you do it if I don’t agree?”

  “I want to keep you safe,” I argued.

  “Micky, if I truly thought it would keep me safe, I might agree. But first, I don’t know how to fire a gun, so it might be more danger than not. And second, I took an oath. ‘First do no harm.’ I take that seriously. I don’t know if I could fire a gun at another person.”

  “Not even to save the orphans, widows, and puppies?”

  “I might shoot one of them rather than save them. No, I can’t carry a gun. Does that mean my request is off the table?”

  “No,” I conceded. “I’ll call the cops I saw there yesterday and see if they’re okay with letting me in. I won’t do B and E. Will that suffice?”

  “Thank you.”

  “And you have to do the laundry.” I couldn’t handle another set of stench-infused clothing.

  “Deal. Thank you. I do mean that.”

  I knew she did, I could hear it in her voice.

  “And sex, lots of sex.” But she had already hung up. However, laundry was the challenge—she had never been shy in the lots-of-sex depar
tment.

  I gave myself a bathroom break before digging through my desk to find the cards from the cops I’d spoken to yesterday. They had gone into my I’ll-never-need-this-again pile. Which was why I found them so easily—it’s only the stuff I think I’ll need that I can’t find. I glanced at the two cards. Mr. Foul Play got tossed back into the desk—same pile.

  First ring was answered by the woman cop.

  I told her my mission.

  The stars were in alignment. Against me. She still had the key and was willing to meet me there. In half an hour.

  There would be no lunch today. No time now, and I doubted that I’d feel like eating after being in that house again.

  I grabbed a big flashlight and a bottle of scented moisturizer. Noxious toxic sites are places I avoid, so I wasn’t exactly prepared to deal with unwanted odors. Sandalwood rose was my only option. Also several pairs of latex gloves. This wasn’t a crime scene, not of the prosecutable kind; they were more for my protection against the rot and decay.

  No wonder the bad guys win, I thought as I again headed downstairs. It’s impossible to be ever vigilant, always prepared for something that might not happen as I caught myself sauntering down the stairs as if spiders were my only worry. I managed to perk up my wariness by the time I was on the bottom steps. The memory of what had happened when I’d walked out this door was too recent for my animal brain not to go on alert when I reached it.

  But the only threat was a cloud covering the sun, a hint of rain later.

  I made it to Reginald’s house in twenty-five minutes.

  The woman cop—Pam Ferguson—was there right at thirty minutes sans Mr. Foul Play.

  “Fancy that,” she said cheerfully. “He offered to do paperwork rather than come back here.” She held out the key for me. “However, if it’s all the same with you, I’ll hang out here and let you do the inside work.”

  I gingerly took the key. Then rubbed the sandalwood rose under my nose.

  “Good excuse to moisturize,” she said as she watched me.

  “Bad excuse,” I said as I dabbed a bit more, giving myself a lotion mustache. “Lousy excuse.”

  There was nothing to do except put the key in the lock and open the door. At least here I had a cop with a big gun watching my back.

  The house felt different, or maybe it was just that I knew now how empty it was. Even though there was enough daylight to see, I turned on the flashlight. Whatever had happened to Reginald Banks shouldn’t have happened, and those tragedies can haunt a place.

  Using the strong beam of light, I did a quick sweep of the living room, looking for anything like a pill bottle or a container that might hint that he was taking something that wasn’t doing him any good. The obvious answer was illegal drugs. After donning latex gloves, I did a rapid search under the sofa and chair cushions, places where crack pipes or joint butts might fall. Only a few crumbs were there.

  I started to bypass the kitchen, but decided that it was better to hit that while the lotion under my lip was still fresh.

  It was the same chaos it had been yesterday, a few flies now buzzing around. I didn’t bother opening the refrigerator; I decided that it would be too much of a rotted mess to find anything useful. I might give it a quick check on my way out, but only if nothing else turned up.

  The beam of the flashlight revealed dirty dishes with rotting food on them, probably placed in the sink with hopes that tomorrow he would feel better and be able to clean up. The place wasn’t a pig sty, as if he always lived in a mess. Cordelia and I both had the same miserable cold once and neither of us was up to doing chores, so the dishes had piled up for three days. We could manage to microwave soup and put the bowl somewhere in the kitchen, and that was about it. But we got better and cleaned everything up. It looked like something similar had happened to Reginald, only he was sicker longer and never recovered enough to wash the dishes and take the trash out.

  If he was eating something weird like kelp/seaweed smoothies, there was no way to tell in this mess. From what I could see, there were several empty microwave boxes in the trash, soup cans, half a loaf of bread still open and now covered in green mold. Some of the plastic microwave containers were in the sink, half-eaten as if he only could manage to consume a little at a time.

  Why hadn’t he called someone? Anyone? Even 911? If he could push pill bottles to the floor, he should have been able punch buttons on a phone. There was a cordless receiver in the kitchen. I picked it up, then realized that without power, it wouldn’t work. The plugged-in, working phone was about as far from his bed as it could be in this house. The phone close to him didn’t work and the one that did was too far away. Maybe that’s what had happened. Possibly he wasn’t that good about bills, so had forgotten to pay Entergy. I’d once rented half of a double in which the other side was rented by an ER doctor who was continually forgetting to pay her power bill. Several times she had her power cut off. I knew because they’d messed up in the back shed with the laundry and my side was wired to hers, so when she didn’t pay up, my washing machine didn’t work. The next day the power was back on—no lights is a powerful reminder to pay your bill.

  Maybe that was what happened to Reginald. But when the power went out, he was too sick to drive to a local office and pay his bill. His phones were out if they were all cordless. But didn’t everyone have a cell phone these days?

  This isn’t your mystery to solve, I reminded myself. My sole duty was to do a brief search for illicit pills and vamoose back to the sunshine and fresh air.

  Next stop was the bathroom. The flashlight came in handy here. There was only one, small window, blocked by curtains. The sink and counter tops revealed only what I’d expect to find. Shaving stuff, soap, toothpaste, hair gel, a few metrosexual grooming products like cologne.

  A glance in the trash can showed a pile of used tissues, several cardboard toilet paper rolls.

  And an empty bottle.

  I couldn’t read the label; it was canted almost upside down. Switching the flashlight to my left hand, I tentatively stuck my arm—thankfully gloved—into the trash can and retrieved the plastic bottle.

  The label read Nature’s Beautiful Gift, potent immune system booster. The bottle was empty. Hidden under it in the trash was another bottle. Nature’s Beautiful Gift, herbal aid to circulation and blood disorders. Also empty.

  I tried to read the ingredients, but the print was tiny and it was hard to juggle the flashlight and the two bottles. Even if it was important, it probably wouldn’t mean anything to me. I took the two bottles out to the living room, placed them on the coffee table, reapplied the sandalwood rose, and went back to the bathroom.

  The medicine cabinet was disappointing. It was mainly empty save for a bottle of aspirin that was almost empty and a razor and extra blades.

  The smell was starting to get to me—and that this felt like ghoulish digging through someone else’s life, one I had no business being involved in. I dashed back into the kitchen to grab a plastic grocery bag. I covered my nose with my hand, hoping to create a little sandalwood bubble, and went into his bedroom. I did a quick look around the room. The bed covers were flung back; the pillow still held the indentation of his head. Scattered on the floor were bright new pieces of packaging left by the EMTs. Mixed in with them was other debris, half a slice of bread, candy bar wrappers, drink cans. On the bedside table were a number of medicine bottles, several of them prescriptions; others bore the now familiar Nature’s Beautiful Gift label. The ones on the floor—that Reginald had knocked over in a desperate attempt to let someone know he was here—were all Nature’s Beautiful Gift. I wondered if that was coincidence or if there was a message in his choices.

  I didn’t dare take a deep breath, but sucked as much of the sandalwood scent into my lungs as I could before removing my hand. I gathered all the various bottles and loaded them into the plastic bag.

  I stooped to retrieve the ones from the floor, then swept the ones off the nightstand into the bag
. My oxygen was running out. I took a shallow breath, then regretted it as I started to gag. Quickly clamping a hand over my nose, I left the room, returning to the front room and its kinder atmosphere. After another application of the lotion—and a few deep breaths of sandalwood, I returned to the bedroom. As unpleasant as it was, I wanted to make sure I didn’t overlook anything. It would be even more unpleasant to have to come back.

  I gave the room another hasty sweep with the flashlight. Maybe he was so hungry he ate the moldy bread—but I wasn’t going to take that with me. Gripping the flashlight between my thighs, I took out my cell phone and snapped several pictures of the state of the room. Perhaps they would find some medical clue in that. There was a drawer in the nightstand.

  Please don’t let me find his sex toys, I bargained as I opened it.

  Fate was kind. No sex toys, not even a condom. On top was several pieces of paper, and one opened envelope with a letter inside, like he has shoved correspondence in the drawer. Hidden under the paper were more bottles. But these weren’t Nature’s Beautiful Gift; instead they were wrapped in a plain dark blue label with white lettering. Slightly larger letters said The Cure. Under that the label continued: Suppressed by the government and powerful corporations, this is what they don’t want you to have—a powerful, natural cure for many of life’s most tragic curses—cancer, heart disease, AIDS, aging, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and many others.

  Fate hadn’t been kind to Reginald Banks. It gave him a disease with no cure and people who promised him something he desperately wanted, to be free of that disease.

  I scooped the bottles into the plastic bag. My work here was done. I quickly left the bedroom and went back to the living room and breathable air.

  Then my curiosity stopped me. Why had Reginald put that letter in his nightstand? I hurried back to his bedroom and hastily snatched the letter out of the drawer, then back to the living room.

  I glanced at the letter. It was a denial of service from his insurance company. A lot of the codes and jargon they used made no sense to me, so I had no clue as to what was denied, but something wasn’t right. He was almost dead because he didn’t get the medical care he needed.