Head Case

by Michael Wiley

  ‘I’ve grown up a lot in the last month. What do you know about Josh?’

  ‘I’m looking into how he died.’

  The girl came back down the path. She hesitated, then leaned into the passenger window. Up close, the effect of her skin was stronger. ‘You could be made of soap.’

  She stepped back from the window. ‘Keep it in your pants, creep. Are you a cop?’

  ‘Ex-cop. Now people pay me to look into things the cops aren’t interested in. Or things people don’t want to go to the cops about. Not that I’m very good at keeping secrets from the cops – or anyone else. You know, I can almost see through your skin. It’s unearthly. In a good way.’

  The girl snapped. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘I got shot in the head,’ Kelson said. ‘Three years ago. And the arm. Recently. But when people ask, they usually mean the head.’

  As if she didn’t hear him, she said, ‘My boyfriend died. I’m seventeen – I’m a kid – and now I’m visiting my dead boyfriend’s mom because she’s even more fucked up than I am. My mom and dad won’t talk to me since they found out where I was that night. And you sit in a car and tell me I look like a fucking alien.’

  ‘I didn’t say—’

  ‘And you make creepy comments as if I’d ever, ever—’

  ‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t. I didn’t mean it like that. I—’

  ‘Fuck you, old man. Fuck you.’

  Kelson stared at her. ‘Was Josh drunk?’

  As if his words took the last energy from her, her knees bent. She sank to the concrete and sat. ‘No,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t drunk. I brought the wine. I stole it from my mom and dad when I snuck out. We had, like, two sips at the Econo Lodge. To celebrate. We’d been dating a year. I just wanted to celebrate being together.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Kelson said.

  She looked at him, teary-eyed. ‘Yeah. But what good does that do?’

  SEVENTEEN

  Kelson drove back into the city at 9:30 that night. He knew better than to call Dan Peters or Venus Johnson in the CPD homicide room. Before he could ask for information, they would start quizzing him – and he would talk and talk and talk. Not that dealing with them in person was much better, but when they went face to face, he tended to annoy them and short-circuit their questions. He couldn’t hang up on them in the middle of an in-the-flesh conversation, but they couldn’t hang up on him either.

  He parked outside the Harrison Street station, went in, and asked the man at the front desk if Dan Peters was on duty.

  He wasn’t.

  ‘Venus Johnson?’

  The man called the homicide room, then printed a pass, and sent Kelson in through security.

  Johnson was eating a hamburger in the cubicle she shared with Peters. An open green binder, scattered papers, and a Styrofoam cup littered her desk. The air smelled of stale sweat. Johnson looked as if she’d survived on that air for a long, long time. Her desktop computer – the volume muted – showed a YouTube video of waves breaking on a tropical beach.

  ‘Wishful thinking,’ Kelson said.

  ‘What do you want, Kelson?’

  ‘Daryl Vaughn.’

  ‘Who?’ she said.

  ‘Homeless guy. Got beaten up by a bunch of other homeless guys a few days before Christmas. Died in the hospital – maybe from unrelated causes.’

  She bit into the burger and asked through her mouthful, ‘What about him?’

  ‘Tell me what you have on him?’

  She drew a long drink from a bottle of Coke. ‘Nope.’

  ‘I’m trying to find out—’

  ‘One, does this look like an information desk? Two, even if it did, we wouldn’t have your guy in the homicide database unless he died because of the assault. Even you’re smart enough to work that out.’

  ‘Take a look at general records?’

  ‘Dammit, Kelson, this is my dinner break.’ To prove it, she bit into her burger again.

  ‘But you’re eating at your desk.’

  ‘Yeah, I am.’ She chewed. ‘As if I don’t see enough of it when I’m on the clock.’

  ‘By your computer.’

  ‘Which is helping me achieve mindfulness – or was until I made the mistake of telling the desk officer to send you back.’

  ‘I promised to look into the guy.’

  ‘I care?’

  ‘I’ve put in twelve hours today.’

  ‘Still don’t care.’

  ‘I just got back from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Six-hour round trip.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. If I check, will you shut up and leave me alone?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘Forever and ever?’

  ‘For as long as I can control myself.’

  She slapped the remainder of the hamburger on to her desk. She exited the tropical video. ‘Spell the name.’

  Kelson spelled Daryl Vaughn and added, ‘Died at Clement Memorial. End of December.’

  She typed Vaughn’s name on the keyboard. She stared at the screen. She said, ‘Nope. He’s got trespassing and vagrancy violations two or three times a year going back four years, petty stuff before that. But nothing in December.’

  ‘How can that be?’ Kelson said. ‘If he was beaten that bad—’

  ‘Don’t know, don’t care.’ She picked up the hamburger and bit into it. Kelson watched her chew, watched her swallow. She said, ‘Look, if a squad responded, there’s a good chance he had no ID. They’d shove him into an ambulance as a John Doe. No reason he’d show in the database.’

  ‘Can you look at EMT records?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can’t or won’t?’

  ‘Won’t. I’ve got one bite of dinner left, and I’m going to enjoy it while watching waves breaking on the bright white sands of Cornwall Beach in Montego Bay.’

  ‘Then will you look up two other names? Patricia Ruddig and Josh Templeton?’

  Johnson’s eyes got big with fury.

  ‘Or just the EMT records,’ Kelson said. ‘And I’ll get the hell out of here.’

  ‘Dammit,’ Johnson said. ‘I’m going to give a shoot-on-sight order to the desk officer.’ She slapped the hamburger back on the desk. She brought up a new database. She searched for Daryl Vaughn’s name. She sighed. ‘Fine. December twenty-three. Unconscious male, later identified as Daryl B. Vaughn. Transported from South Wacker at Monroe. Paramedics took him to Northwestern Medical.’

  ‘You mean Clement Memorial.’

  ‘No’ – she tapped the screen like she meant to break the glass – ‘I mean Northwestern.’

  ‘He died at Clement Memorial.’

  She exited the database. She started the tropical video again. She said, ‘Don’t care.’ She shoved the last bite of hamburger into her mouth.

  When Kelson got home, he fed Payday and Painter’s Lane, then boiled spaghetti for a late dinner. He ate alone at the dining table, glancing now and then across the apartment at the window. Nothing happened outside the window – nothing he saw. ‘Probably for the best,’ he said. Payday rubbed against his ankle, then leaped into his lap. She sniffed at the table, sniffed at the marinara at the edge of the plate, and gave Kelson a dirty look. ‘Probably for the best,’ he said again.

  After he scraped his plate into the garbage, he carried his phone to the window. The bitter cold kept most people inside, though a pickup truck idled at the curb across the street, its exhaust half obscuring it under the streetlights. ‘The best,’ he said.

  Then he dialed Jose Feliciano.

  ‘Hola,’ the bull rider said after the third ring.

  ‘I did it,’ Kelson said. ‘I went to Patricia Ruddig’s building. I drove to Fort Wayne. I made an enemy of a cop I wasn’t friends with to begin with. I asked the kind of questions a lot of people won’t answer. This time they answered. They mostly told me nothing. Yeah, there’s some strange stuff, but strange stuff happens all the time and that’s all it is – strange stuff.’

  ‘OK,’ Jose sa
id, sounding only a little discouraged. ‘What’s next?’

  ‘Nothing’s next. We’re done. I’m done. You can send me the three hundred for a long day’s work. It’ll about cover gas and meals.’

  ‘What’s the “strange stuff,” amigo?’

  Kelson told him. The hit-and-run bicyclist and Patricia Ruddig’s houseguests. Josh Templeton overshooting the exit for DePaul and the evidence of impact on both sides of his old Camry. The record showing Daryl Vaughn going to Northwestern Medical instead of Clement Memorial.

  ‘Muy bien,’ Jose said.

  ‘Muy nothing.’

  ‘This is what I thought. The same for all three.’

  ‘No.’ Kelson kept his voice low. ‘It’s not. It’s totally different for each one. There wasn’t a pattern before. There isn’t a pattern now.’

  ‘I think you aren’t so smart, amigo. With all of them, something happened that shouldn’t have.’

  ‘That’s why we call these things accidents,’ Kelson said. ‘No one means for them to happen, but they happen. Except with Daryl Vaughn. Someone meant to beat him up. Then, someone made a mistake with the records. Another accident.’

  ‘Those weren’t accidents,’ Jose said. ‘Who rides a bike on a sidewalk on New Year’s Day? Who leaves a lady lying on the ground? Who hits a car and makes it crash? Who beats up a bum?’

  ‘Jerks,’ Kelson said. ‘There’re a lot of them around.’

  ‘I’ll come to your office in the morning,’ Jose said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To bring your money. Three hundred dollars. And another nine hundred so you can keep asking questions. In the morning, you can tell me what’s next.’

  Kelson sighed. ‘You’re as exasperating as I am. I still don’t get it. Why do you want this so much?’

  ‘You’ll never break the spirit of a bull that’s worth riding, you understand?’

  ‘No,’ Kelson said. ‘Not at all. I don’t, and I don’t appreciate your getting metaphorical with me.’

  ‘If you have talent, you ride him eight seconds and you walk away without dying.’

  ‘I’m sure that means something.’

  ‘A man should always ride an animal bigger and meaner than he is. That’s what the police who killed my sister’s daughter were, but I can’t fight them. That’s what Clement Memorial is too. A great big bull. And we can do something about it. I rode some rank bulls – some of the meanest God ever made. You looked at their faces and you saw fire. I think Clement Memorial is a rank bull. You know why? It’s almost invisible. How does a man ride a bull he can’t see? I’m going to figure out how to ride it. You can be my flank man.’

  ‘I think you’re full of shit,’ Kelson said.

  Shortly before midnight, he turned out the lights. He went to the window again and looked down at the street. The exhaust-spewing pickup was gone. The streetlights shined on empty pavement.

  He went to his bed and climbed in. Payday and Painter’s Lane jumped on to the foot of the bed, kneaded the covers with their claws, and curled up to sleep.

  He closed his eyes.

  Then, outside in the freezing night, a green Land Rover turned the corner and drove toward Kelson’s building.

  Eyes closed in his bed, Kelson said, ‘Goodnight, Payday. Goodnight, Painter’s Lane. Goodnight, goodnight.’

  The Land Rover paused in front of the building. A man gazed up through the windshield at Kelson’s window. Then the Land Rover accelerated into the dark.

  EIGHTEEN

  In the morning, Jose Feliciano laid a roll of twenties on Kelson’s desk.

  ‘I can’t take your money,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Mine to spend,’ Jose said.

  ‘Mine to refuse. I don’t like robbing you or anyone else – no matter how deluded they are.’

  ‘I have an idea, my friend. You take the money. You spend three more days asking questions. If you find out I’m right, you keep the money. If I’m wrong, you give the money back because you don’t want to rob me.’

  ‘Sounds like the risk is all mine.’

  ‘Or you can keep the money. I don’t mind risk.’

  Kelson stared at him. Jose grinned back. Kelson picked up the roll of twenties. He slipped the rubber band off it and divided the money in two. He put the rubber band back around half of the bills and set them in front of Jose. He slid the others into his top drawer with the laptop. ‘I’ll put in one more day,’ he said. ‘If I find anything worth going after, you can pay me the rest, and I’ll be on the job. If I don’t find anything, I quit. You can throw your money at some other lost cause.’

  ‘This time, you should get your partner to help.’

  ‘DeMarcus? Now you’re telling me how to do my job?’

  ‘If he asked me a question, I would answer. That’s all I’m saying. I’ll pay him too.’

  ‘Leave,’ Kelson said. ‘Let me give you a full day’s work.’

  ‘OK, amigo.’ Jose stood up. ‘I think today you’ll get lucky.’

  When Jose was gone, Kelson opened the top desk drawer again and stared at the twenties – money he didn’t know how he would earn. Then he opened the bottom drawer and removed his Springfield. He popped out the magazine, checked that it was loaded, and snapped it back in place. He put the gun in the drawer.

  Then his phone rang. He touched the answer button and said, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Know what?’ The caller was Caroline Difley, the blond orderly from Clement Memorial.

  ‘Sorry,’ Kelson said. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I got the records.’

  ‘What—?’

  ‘The records,’ she said. ‘The supply room inventory. The missing medications.’

  ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘Do you believe in magic?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Three minutes ago, I was told I would get lucky today.’

  ‘I’ve had the records since yesterday afternoon. I didn’t know if I should let you see them. You don’t seem entirely dependable.’

  ‘What made you decide?’

  ‘The patient deaths. There’s a problem. Can you meet me?’

  ‘Right – yeah, of course.’

  ‘In an hour,’ she said. ‘A restaurant called Kiko’s, on Lincoln Avenue. Do you know it?’

  ‘I can find it.’

  ‘An hour,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t believe in magic either. In case you’re wondering.’

  An hour later, Kelson walked into Kiko’s Meat Market & Restaurant. Caroline Difley sat in a green vinyl booth across from a tall, round-shouldered man in his forties. The orderly had a cup of coffee, the tall man coffee and a plate with a meat pastry on it. The man slid to make room for Kelson, but Kelson pulled a chair from a nearby table and sat at the end of the booth. ‘Because it’s a little strange,’ he said. ‘With strangers.’

  Caroline Difley glanced at the tall man and said, ‘I told you.’

  The man offered to shake Kelson’s hand. ‘Aleksandar Kovacic,’ he said. He had an Eastern European accent.

  ‘Aleksandar is head custodian at Clement Memorial,’ the woman said. ‘He got the records for me.’

  Kovacic had a broad face. ‘I have keys to every room.’

  ‘Before he came from Bosnia,’ the woman said, ‘he studied medicine.’

  ‘In Sarajevo,’ he said. He touched his left arm at the same spot where Kelson wore a bandage over his gunshot wound. ‘I have one of these also. From the fighting. Since then, I will not be a doctor. I have bloody dreams.’ He smiled. ‘I don’t even like knives. I’m like a monk.’

  ‘A monk who knows pharmacology,’ the orderly said.

  The man turned his broad face to her. ‘I pay attention. That’s all.’

  A waitress came. She set a cup of coffee in front of Kelson without his asking and refilled the other cups. Kelson pointed at Kovacic’s pastry and said, ‘One of those, please.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the waitress said, with the same accent as Kovacic’s
.

  The orderly said to Kovacic, ‘Tell him what you found.’

  ‘What I did not find,’ he said. ‘I did not find epinephrine. Twelve vials last August. Ten vials in September. Thirteen in November. All missing.’

  Kelson considered that. ‘One medicine? From what I hear, the people died different ways. Patricia Ruddig had a heart attack. Josh Templeton stopped breathing. Daryl Vaughn had something with the kidneys.’

  ‘Renal failure,’ the tall man said. ‘Also a heart attack. Epinephrine overdose can do these things.’

  ‘I thought doctors used it to save people,’ Kelson said. ‘EpiPens and all.’

  ‘Yes, but too much can stop a heart. It can cause edema – the lung drowns. All the missing vials. It’s enough.’

  ‘Wouldn’t the hospital detect the drug afterward?’ Kelson said.

  ‘Maybe.’ Kovacic drank his coffee. ‘Epinephrine is adrenaline. When bodies are hurt, they make adrenaline. When people have heart attacks or cannot breathe, doctors inject epinephrine. These dead people, they might have a lot of adrenaline, a lot of epinephrine. Maybe no one is surprised.’

  The waitress brought Kelson his lamb borek. He forked a bite into his mouth. He said, ‘The three of them would’ve had way too much in their blood, right?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Kovacic said. ‘But doctors make mistakes. If the mistakes look like they happened when the doctors tried to save a life, maybe no one chooses to notice.’

  Kelson wasn’t convinced. ‘Do you think someone killed these people?’

  Kovacic raised his round shoulders. ‘Maybe.’

  Caroline Difley said, ‘That’s his way of saying yes.’

  For twenty minutes, Kovacic explained his thinking. Epinephrine starts a heart after a heart attack, but can also damage the heart muscle. It relaxes airways and keeps a person from suffocating, but can also fill lung tissue with fluid. It makes blood vessels constrict, stopping kidney-destroying anaphylaxis, but in big enough doses can cause veins and arteries to collapse, injuring the kidneys or worse.

  ‘Who’d’ve thought it?’ Kelson said.

  ‘There are other ways,’ Kovacic said. ‘Dilantin. It is for seizures. Heparin. It is a blood thinner.’

  ‘Spooky stuff to know so much about,’ Kelson said. ‘You ever hear about arsonists who hang around to watch the fires they start? Or killers who volunteer their help as cops investigate a murder?’