Bad Company

by Jen Schoenbein

  “Hiya, Doctor!” I replied, slipping into my guise. “I’m so glad you called!”

  “Miss me already?” he chuckled.

  I vomited, metaphorically of course.

  “I have the name of a couple of horses I think you’d be interested in, but really I recommend one in particular.”

  “Ooh, I’ll definitely want your recommendation,” I oozed with phony excitement.

  “Black Magic Fever,” he announced triumphantly.

  I remembered being in the horse barn and seeing that name on a stall. I also remembered a couple arguing in the stall, but nothing about what they were saying.

  “Sounds mystical. I love it!” I proclaimed.

  “I had a feeling you’d like it,” he preened. “The horse has already been winning races, but the owners have decided to sell.”

  “Why is he selling if the horse is winning?” I asked.

  “Maybe he needed the money” he answered, brushing me off. “I don't know really, but the horse isn’t doing nearly as well as he could be. I could give him some real potential. I already talked to Mr. Baird and I think you can get a good deal on him.”

  He gave me the number for Mr. Baird so that I could contact him to inquire on the sale and promised to follow up soon.

  I went to the bathroom to wash my hands after the phone call. Creep.

  I made a pot of coffee and sat back down to look up the regulations on drugs and horse racing. After a couple of hours of good research and several cups of coffee I found out that racehorses were thoroughly tested for a wide range of performance enhancing drugs and the list expanded all the time.

  There was a zero-tolerance policy and racing authorities took drugs very seriously. I really wondered how McSleazy was getting away with his ‘supplements’. Maybe they were just a really new drug, not yet identified. I also tried to do more research onto McSleazy, but found nothing that I hadn’t found before.

  I thought about going over my books again and pushed away from the desk. I had been sitting long enough. I needed to get out of the office. I felt like I was circling the drain in this case, my leads weren’t going anywhere concrete.

  I picked up my phone. Might as well follow up with Mr. Biard.

  “Hello?” He answered on the third ring.

  “Hiya!” I kept persona up. “I’m Moll. Dear Dr. Millwood gave me your number about that beautiful horse, Black Magic Fever!”

  “Oh, yes!” Mr. Baird perked up. “Give me a moment, while I go into my office. Okay, sorry about that. So, you’re interested in buying a racehorse?”

  “Oh, definitely,” I assured him.

  We talked a bit about the horse’s lineage and Mr. Baird gave me a dollar figure.

  I didn’t know much about horses, but it seemed a little low to me.

  “Sir, excuse me for asking. But can you tell me why you’d be wanting to sell him?”

  There was a pause on the phone.

  “Well, it’s just the right thing to do right now for our family,” he replied. “We have some family issues we’re dealing with. Better to not have to worry about a horse in the mix.

  “Oh, I get that,” I nodded. “Let me talk it over with my husband and get back to you. Give us a little time to think it through.”

  “Well don’t sit on it too long,” he pushed. “I can’t exactly hold the horse, not at that price.”

  “I completely agree,” I promised. “Thank you.”

  I climbed into the Jeep to see where she would take me to today and found myself pulling into the parking lot at News-Star, the one of the other local papers for neighboring burgs. I patted the hood of the Jeep, she always took me interesting places.

  I wasn’t sure which reporter would have covered or not covered a story like that, but since a paper like the News-Star was fairly small, I just asked to speak to whoever covered the police and fire articles and that I had a story idea to pass along. I thought I’d take my chances.

  The receptionist gave me a calculating look and told me to sit down. A few minutes later a slim blonde woman edged around the corner. She was mid to late 20’s and looked more than a little nervous.

  “Hello,” I introduced myself because she didn’t look like she was going to. “I’m Mal. Do you handle Police & Fire?” I smiled to put her at ease.

  “Uh, yes?” she answered with a question, wringing her hands slightly. “I’m Erin Stone.”

  “Is there anywhere we can talk, Erin? I just had a news story idea I wanted to run past you.” I smiled again, reaching out to shake her hands.

  She looked at the receptionist, then down to an empty hallway with a windowed meeting room. She pointed to the room, the receptionist nodded, and I followed her in.

  I was getting a little suspicious.

  “You have a story idea?” she repeated back to me, sitting down slowly.

  “Yes, in fact, I do,” I replied. “But I also wanted to talk to you about the fires we’ve been having.”

  Erin was back on her feet immediately.

  “Easy,” I said standing as well, my hands raised to appear less threatening. “I have no agenda here. I just have a few questions.”

  She remained standing, eyeing the door.

  “I can tell something happened here, but I assure you. I am not those people.”

  She considered and sat slowly.

  “Then what do you want?” she asked.

  “I know you published an article about a dumpster fire a while back, but I’m wondering if there were other fires in the area that you didn’t write an article about.”

  Again, Erin looked like a flight risk, so I added, “I know Paul over at Inside-Booster was threatened.”

  Erin balked at me, “Is he okay?”

  “Right now, yes,” I assured her. “He’s not taking many visitors at the office.”

  She nodded, “Mary is helping me out front. She’s on the lookout. But since I haven’t written anything, I haven’t gotten any more visitors.”

  “Who came and when?” I asked.

  “I can’t tell you that!” Erin exclaimed. “I promised.”

  “Can you tell me why they came?” I prodded. “Was it because of the dumpster fire?”

  “No,” She said shaking her head. “I don’t think so.”

  She looked around the room and out the window to the hallway, considering.

  “Someone came by to ask about an article I was writing on a fire in Edgewater,” she said finally. “They said they had insider information for me. Naturally I was excited.”

  “But they didn’t want to give me any information at all. They threatened me, like Paul.” She spread out her hands to explain. “I have a daughter at home. She’s two. I can’t risk her.”

  I nodded. I understood it. These guys really had to be stopped. It wasn’t right pushing people around like that, threatening their kids.

  “Did they say anything specific?” I asked.

  “They said I couldn’t really talk about it,” she replied, leaning forward, eyes wide. “They just said I wasn’t to report on any fires for the foreseeable future.”

  “Just fires in general?” I asked.

  “Any fire, any community center or anything condemning the mayor.”

  “The mayor?” I replied, incredulously. That was new.

  She nodded. “And I haven’t.”

  I knew she wasn’t going to give me anything else, so I thanked her.

  She nodded her head and stayed sitting.

  When I walked through the lobby I noticed their newest paper sitting on the coffee table and picked one up. Dessi was smiling back at me on the cover.

  Startled, I asked the receptionist if I could have the copy. She nodded, and I headed back to the Jeep. Once there, I flipped through the article. It was an article on Arlington Racecourse and the most recent wins. It was a generic article on the season and upcoming Derby party next month. But most interesting was the picture on the cover.

  Fabian Dessi was standing there with his ar
m around a winning horse. According to the caption it was Black Magic Fever. Curious and curiouser, I thought.

  Meanwhile, in a heavily guarded, but technologically advanced fortress.

  “Heya, Suz?” called Sam, face buried in his computer.

  “What’s up, hon,” Suzy replied, coming around the corner.

  “I found some info on that doctor Mal was telling us about,” Sam said excitedly, pointing at his computer.

  “Really, what did you find?” Suzy said leaning over his shoulder.

  “Well,” Sam said rubbing his hands together. “Dr. Millwood used to specialize in sports medicine, looked like he was trying to expand his career with athletes, DNA testing and therapy. He was trying to find some venture capitalists at one time, looked like some type of niche market he was trying to break into. But he got in trouble using drugs without proper trials. There were some charges against him, his license was suspended.”

  “What happened?” Suzy asked, her eyes rounding.

  “Well, nothing really,” Sam replied. “That’s what’s weird. The charges were dropped, his license was reinstated, but no record of anything happening. And now all of a sudden, he’s working on horses, but I’m not finding his name tied to any of their veterinarian records.”

  “Sam you’re a genius!” Suzy said, wrapping her arms around Sam’s shoulders from behind his chair. “You’ve got to call Mal!”

  “Wait, you haven’t heard the best part,” he smiled.

  “What’s that?”

  “I found his name in one place online recently, but only one.” Same held up his first finger.

  Suzy leaned forward expectantly.

  “On the list of doctors that manage the drug testing for the racehorses.”

  Suzy’s eyes went wide, and she grabbed the phone to dial Mal.

  Holy shit! I thought, getting off the phone with Sam, my head spinning. It looked like the doctor was cleaning the records for ‘his’ horses. I bet this was why he was using his ‘physician’s assistant’ Ty. The poor kid was probably signing off on everything that the bad doctor was doing. If they got caught, he’d take the fall.

  Dessi was such an asshole. Dr. McSleazy was a bad guy through and through, but Dessi played at being a good guy and I was sure he was orchestrating the whole mess.

  I was really impressed with Sam. I knew he had to be good at computers, with his successful business and all, but he was also good at putting together important information.

  I decided to run out and get a late lunch, stopping by home instead of Mariano’s today. If I was honest with myself it was because I didn’t want to run into Rhodes. Good thing I wasn’t.

  I stepped into my apartment, dropping my keys and watering my dead ivy again. The soil was dry. I still had some cold coffee in the coffee pot, so I set to warm it in the microwave while I pulled out some lunch meat, eggs and an avocado half. Eggs were a quick easy meal.

  I ate at my kitchen counter, between slugs of burnt coffee. I really needed to get a life, I thought.

  My cell rang. I glanced at the name to see it was Jen calling.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Mal! Just calling to see when you’d be free for lunch,” came Jen’s voice.

  I glanced at my empty plate. “Just finished today’s lunch.”

  “You just now ate lunch?” Jen said in disbelief.

  “Yep, eggs,” I replied smiling.

  “Again, yuck,” I could hear Jen rolled her eyes. I’d seen it enough.

  “Eggs are good,” I said defensively. “And good for you.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Jen laughed. “I just can’t do them every day.”

  It was my turn to roll my eyes.

  “How about tomorrow, then,” Jen asked.

  “Can’t,” I replied slugging more coffee. “I’m in the middle of hot leads.”

  “Well, I’m going out of town this weekend to see my folks. My grandma’s getting a knee replacement and I told my mom I’d come help out for a few days.”

  “That’s nice of you,” I replied. “How about next week? I could probably do Monday.”

  “Monday’s good,” Jen said. “We can go to Cuba 312 for ropa vieja. It’s been forever since we’ve been there.”

  My mouth drooled at the thought of the Cuban food, even though I had already eaten.

  “Sounds great,” I replied. We decided to meet at noon and I wished her good luck on the weekend.

  “I heard you talked to Officer Harris,” Jen started.

  “What an ass,” I interrupted.

  “Sorry about that,” Jen apologized. “I didn’t know he was going to be like that.”

  “No worries,” I reassured her.

  “I’ve never actually met him myself,” she insisted.

  “I believe you, Jen” I said. “It’s really not your fault.”

  “Anyway, you should stop by the bar again sometime, too. The guys really liked seeing you,” Jen said.

  “I will,” I promised, and hung up.

  Chapter 20

  I drove back to the office, I liked researching there better, just in case someone wandered in needing a PI. I needed a new case. I didn’t quite have the time, but I could use the cash flow.

  Sitting down at my desk again, I started jotting down my evidence against Dessi and Dr. McSleazy. I really needed to get the doctor on tape saying that he was the mastermind behind Ty. I also needed to get him to implicate Dessi. Otherwise, McSleazy would hang and Dessi would walk, again.

  I called Dr. McSleazy back and scheduled lunch for the following day, grateful I had left lunch open just in case. This time, however, I’d be wearing a wire. I just needed him to repeat most of what he said the first time, but to dig into the Dessi aspect. See what I could get him to say about Dessi. Now that I had the newspaper article, I had reason to bring him up.

  I pulled up some of the articles on the city programs, the ones that Sully had been supporting. I finally noticed something I had missed before; the Mayor was also supporting them. It made sense, being a city-sponsored program. But, something about how chummy they looked in some of the pictures online had me curious. I wondered what the story was there.

  I had no trouble finding articles on the Mayor. The Tribune had several glowing articles on him. My suspicions grew even more.

  I made a pot of coffee at the office instead of walking over to Grounds. I needed to continue this line of research. I was having trouble finding a tie between the Tribune and the mayor, though.

  I tapped my pencil against the desk. If I could run the license plate, I could follow up on that lead at least.

  Duh!

  I cursed myself for not thinking about asking Sam earlier. Then I smacked the heel of my hand to my head and picked up my phone to call him.

  “Hello?” Sam replied.

  “Hi again,” I said. “You know, Sam, you really are a researching rock star.”

  “Thanks, Mal!”

  “I bet you could find anything online,” I said, crooning.

  “Alright, alright,” Sam laughed, getting my angle. “What do you need?”

  “Well, I have a license plate number…”

  “Hold on while hack in!”

  I laughed, shaking my head.

  A few minutes later Sam had a name for me, Jermaine Lewis.

  “Uh, Mal.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I also found an article here on Jermaine that I think you’ll be interested in, but I think you’ll want to read through it yourself. How about I email it to you?” Sam asked.

  “That’d be great, thanks,” I replied, hanging up.

  I chucked as I pulled open my email. Sam really was a funny guy, but he was a good person, too. His email had already popped up in my inbox. I settled back into my chair to look through it.

  The article talked about Jermaine Lewis, who had been arrested the previous year for violently attacking the Mayor. It didn’t really say why he had attacked him, other than it was unprovoked. Jermaine w
as arrested on assault and battery and sentenced to 6 months.

  Huh, there’s the Mayor again, I thought, tapping my pencil again.

  The article also had a picture, so I was able to confirm that it was Jermaine that I had followed after the fire. I was pretty sure he was behind the fires, I just wasn’t sure why.

  All I had on him was that he was at the scene of the last fire and that he had assaulted the Mayor last year. But the Mayor was also backing the community programs, which were getting burned. I nodded, yes that felt like good enough to go on for an arrest. Or at least to take in for questioning.

  I looked back at the email Sam had sent. Sure enough, he had also included a current address and phone number for Jermaine. Sam, you beautiful man, I thought.

  I debated calling Harris, but he didn’t deserve to get this one, not from someone who was so obviously not competent enough to handle a case. I was certainly not calling Rodriguez and Jen would have wanted to include Rodriguez. I hoped Jen wouldn’t be too mad.

  I picked up my phone as I headed out the door. It took me about 35 minutes in the afternoon traffic to get across town, but Officer Mathews and her partner were already waiting at the curb. I hadn’t seen her since the fire in Roscoe Village, but luckily she had remembered me when I called, eager to help.

  I had filled her in on the way here, giving her what info I had, and my suspicions on the Mayor and Sully. As as police officer, I knew she’d be careful to accuse a city official or a government employee without just cause.

  We approached the door cautiously, Mathews knocking, as we stood to the side. Her partner, a tall older guy, went around back in case he was a runner.

  Jermaine answered on the second knock, took one look at the two of us, glanced at the police car by the curb and said, “It’s about damn time.” He turned away, shuffled back into his house, plopped down into an old recliner.

  Jermaine looked like he had been sleeping, a tall beer sitting on the side table next to him and several empty ones on the floor around us as we walked in.

  He looked up at us through bleary eyes and said, “You can have the guy around back come on in, too.”

  I gave him a questioning frown.

  “There’s always a guy around back,” he shrugged.