Sympathy Between Humans

3

A small storm moved across Hennepin County that night, toward Wisconsin. I slept through the thunder, yet woke abruptly before daylight. A brief moment of disorientation-Where’s Shiloh?- and then things came together in my mind, and I realized that the telephone was ringing.

“Hello,” I said, my voice rusty with sleep.

“It’s me.”

“What the hell, Gen?” My voice had become stronger, but also more irritable. “It’s five-”

“I know what time it is in Minneapolis. This is important.”

The note of dismay in her voice brought me from awake to alert. “What is it?” I asked.

“You know this is the last thing I wanted to have happen-”

“Just tell me.”

“I think they’re investigating you for Royce Stewart’s murder,” Genevieve said.

Relief warmed me. “Oh, that,” I said. “I’ve known that for a while, but don’t worry; I think it’s dead in the water. Nobody from Blue Earth’s been up here since they interviewed me six months ago.”

“Six months?” Gen’s voice, very clear despite the fact that she was halfway around the world, carried a distinct note of disbelief. “You’ve known about this for six months and you never told me?”

“Don’t be mad, but I knew before you even left for France,” I said. “I was tipped, but I didn’t tell you, because I knew you’d react just this way. Overreact, I mean.”

“Who tipped you?” Curiosity briefly diluted her alarm.

“Christian Kilander,” I said. “You know him; he hears everything.”

“Has he told you anything lately?” she said.

“What do you mean, ‘lately’?”

“A man came to Doug and Deb’s house asking questions. He was there yesterday, Deb said.”

“Yesterday?” I sat up in bed, sheets sliding away.

Deborah and Doug Lowe were Gen’s sister and brother-in-law. Gen had lived with them at their farmhouse in Mankato after her daughter’s death, and it was to their place that we’d returned, late at night, after Stewart’s death. Naturally, they’d be of interest to an investigator.

“I asked Deb his name, but she couldn’t remember.” She listened for a response. “Are you there?”

“I’m here,” I said. “Look, everything will be fine. They can’t put Stewart’s death on me. I didn’t kill him.”

“That’s faulty logic and you know it,” she said.

“Let me handle it,” I said. “Promise me you won’t worry.”

“I can’t promise that. This is-”

“Gen,” I said, “I’m really not going to discuss this anymore.”

The silence on the other end of the line suggested something repressed, a sigh or a sharp word. Finally she yielded. “You sound hoarse,” she said. “You’re not getting a cold, are you?”

“I’m never sick,” I told her. “I’m probably hoarse because I just woke- oh, wait.”

I was thinking back to a day ago, the time I’d spent shivering in the cool early-morning air, soaking wet.

“What?” Gen prompted.

I explained to her about the boys and drainage canal.

When I was finished, she chided me. “What is it with you? You’re like a dog. Always this headfirst impulse to rescue people.”

I smiled, because she sounded like the older sister and teacher she’d been in the days of our partnership. I, too, fell into my role. “Not true,” I said. “I went in feetfirst.”

“Go back to sleep,” Genevieve said gently. “Call me sometime when you’ve got a day off.”

“I will,” I said.

That evening I made a very convincing streetwalker, wan and surly. My throat felt raw and wet, and I knew Gen’s words, You’re not getting a cold, are you? were true. But my sullenness seemed to have an aphrodisiac effect on the men on the street. I would have beaten my record for busts in one night if I hadn’t taken a half-hour break for a prearranged meeting with Ghislaine Morris.

On the way there, I tried to recall what it was that Shiloh had said about her. I did remember that he’d hesitated before handing off Ghislaine’s number.

“I don’t really talk to her much anymore,” Shiloh had said, sorting through the cardboard box of his things, long legs kicked up on the coffee table.

“Why not?” I said. “Is she not useful?”

“No, Gish is a sponge,” Shiloh said. “She hears everything.”

“So what’s the story?” I’d said.

He’d shrugged. “No story. Something about her just bothers me. I don’t know what, exactly.”

I’d pressed him to elaborate, but he wouldn’t, and when Shiloh doesn’t want to talk about something, it’s over.

So I’d met with Ghislaine personally, a month or two later- I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t who’d showed up.

Ghislaine Morris was 22, not thin, but not fat either. She had a sweet, open face and full hips. Her blond hair was cropped in a short, boyish style, and her brown eyes were friendly. She was pushing a stroller, with a then six-month-old baby in it. He had curly brown hair and cinnamon skin and huge eyes that took in the world like documentary cameras.

Over an inexpensive meal, Ghislaine told me about her life, about Shadrick’s father, who was “no longer in our lives,” and about her parents in Dearborn, Michigan, who’d kicked her out of the house when they’d found out she was pregnant with a child whose father was black, so that Ghislaine had to come to Minnesota to stay with a friend. She had a shoplifting bust on her record, but had gotten probation. She told me she wanted to go back to school as soon as she could.

It was a meeting that I’d left rather confused. I had no earthly idea what it was that Shiloh saw in her that he didn’t like. Shiloh was a preacher’s son; if he had a flaw, it was his judgmental streak. Maybe he couldn’t overcome a Puritan’s disapproval of single motherhood at such a young age. For my part, I’d found her chatter infectious and her devotion to her son palpable. If her ambitions to go back to school and “make something” of herself were somewhat generic, who was I to judge?

Tonight, she was late to our meeting at an unassuming little diner. I ordered a mug of herbal tea and sucked on a eucalyptus cough drop. My throat had started to stiffen up when I swallowed.

“Holy shit,” Ghislaine said when she arrived, pushing Shadrick in his stroller. “I didn’t even recognize you.”

She settled into the booth across from me, her eyes widening guilelessly. “So this is what you look like when you’re undercover?” I’d already warned her on the phone about my vice-detail look.

“Undercover’s a strong word,” I said. “This is just soliciting busts. It’s not a complicated sting operation.”

“Wow,” she said, and opened the menu.

The waitress, approaching on crepe-soled shoes, set a mug of tea down in front of me. “You ready, sugar?” she asked Ghislaine.

“I’d like a cheeseburger with curly fries, and a strawberry milk shake,” Ghislaine said, folding up the menu and handing it to the waitress.

“We’ve got booster seats, if you want one for him,” the waitress told Ghislaine.

“No, that’s okay,” Ghislaine said.

“He’s a handsome little guy.”

“He sure is,” Ghislaine agreed.

As if he knew he was being discussed, Shad squealed, a surprisingly loud sound. Ghislaine leaned out of the booth and put her hands on the sides of his face, on his cheeks. “That’s right, you’ve got a fan club, don’t you!” she said cheerfully.

The waitress disappeared into the kitchen. I cleared my throat, and Ghislaine straightened up. “So what’s up?” she asked, turning to business.

“Like I told you on the phone,” I said, “I need some information.”

“Really?” Ghislaine said. “How much?” She was asking how much it was worth.

“Let’s wait and see if you know anything,” I said. “We’ve been hearing some things about a guy who’s practicing medicine without a license,” I said. “Out of a private residence, maybe in one of the projects.”

Ghislaine’s expression turned sour. “Oh, him,” she said. “Cisco.”

Jackpot. That was fairly easy, I thought. I’d only had to ask two informants.

“Cisco who?” I said.

“I don’t remember his last name,” Ghislaine said.

“You’ve seen him?” I asked her.

The waitress reappeared at our side, setting down the burger and fries, then a long tulip-shaped glass of strawberry milk shake and the extra in the silver tumbler. A curly fry fell from the plate.

“Anything else?” she said.

“No,” I said for both of us. The waitress moved off.

“You’ve been to see this guy?” I asked Ghislaine. “In a professional capacity?”

Ghislaine picked up the fallen french fry and leaned out of the booth, handing it down to Shadrick.

“By professional, you mean medical?” she said. “Yeah, I did. I had this thing that wouldn’t go away. In my lungs, like bronchitis.”

I was curious. “Why not just go see a doctor?”

Ghislaine shrugged. “I heard he was good,” she said.

I heard he was good. That was something people said about someone they were looking at for an elective surgery, not someone working for cash under the table. But I let it slide. “Did he help with your bronchitis?”

“I don’t know,” Ghislaine said. “It went away. But I wouldn’t go back and see him again.”

“Why? Did he seem incompetent?”

She shook her head.

“Was his behavior toward you inappropriate?”

She shrugged unhelpfully. “I don’t know, I just didn’t like him.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“I just didn’t. Are you going to bust him?” Ghislaine applied her rosebud mouth to her straw.

“If this guy’s doing what people say he’s been doing, then yes, we will,” I said. “Where does he live?”

“You know where the towers are, right?” She named a main thoroughfare in South Minneapolis, referring to a pair of public housing buildings that stood there.

“Sure, I know them,” I said. “What’s the apartment number?”

“I forget,” Ghislaine said. “But he lives on the very top floor. You just get off the elevator and it’s the second door down on that side of the hall.”

“Top floor of which building?”

“The one closest to the street,” she said.

“You’re sure?”

She nodded.

“Don’t I need to call first?”

Ghislaine shook her head, drank a little more of her milk shake. “He’s drop-in, all hours,” she said. “This guy’s an agoraphobic or something, never goes out.”

“Thanks,” I said. I laid several bills on the table. “That should cover the tab, and the help.”