Trouble in Mind

by Michael Wiley

  ‘Sure.’ Malinowski used a key. ‘But I’ll tell you this as someone that cares about you – the only reason you’re walking out of here is you used to be a cop. Another guy, the prosecutor might charge and let you sit in jail or scratch together bail. But Peters has your pistol. If ballistics matches the bullet from Felbanks’s head, you’ll be right back at this table, and you won’t be talking with me. You sure there’s nothing else you want to say?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Kelson said, ‘let me the hell out of here.’

  NINE

  Back at his apartment, Kelson stood in the shower and spoke to the showerhead as if it was a microphone – about bad luck, bad timing, the woman who arrived in his office calling herself Trina Felbanks, the SWAT team bursting in less than five minutes after he went into the condo, his memory of stepping away from Christian Felbanks’s bed, his fingerprints on pill bottles he’d never touched, accidents and coincidences, and his certainty that the woman who called herself Trina Felbanks had set him up.

  ‘Yep,’ he told the showerhead, ‘she walked in, wiggled her butt, laid money on the desk, and told a story. And I bought it. Then the minute I went into the guy’s condo, a SWAT team raided. As if she called in an emergency. As if she held a surprise party.’

  The showerhead spat at him.

  ‘But how the hell did she get my prints? Wouldn’t be so hard. I throw out pill bottles. Someone could dig them from the trash, strip off the labels, set them on a stranger’s night table, and … surprise. Wouldn’t be so hard. Dozens of ways to do it if she put her mind to it. The question is’ – he turned off the faucet and watched the water trickle and stop – ‘why?’

  He dressed, walked out into the cold March morning, and flagged another taxi. He had the driver take him back to Christian Felbanks’s condo, where his car was still parked, with two tickets on the windshield. Then he drove to his office with its plain walls and sat at his plain desk.

  He expected that when he dialed the phone number on the contact sheet the woman gave him, he would get a disconnected number or a Chinese restaurant or a bowling alley, but he dialed it.

  It rang twice, and the woman answered. He said, ‘Trina?’

  ‘I’m supposed to give you a message,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah? Who told you to do that?’

  ‘I’m just doing what he’s making me do. I’m supposed to tell you, this is from Alejandro Rodriguez. Bicho.’

  The name felt like a fist in Kelson’s belly. His uncertain memory of the night in the alley cross-wired in his mind.

  Bicho shot Kelson, blowing off a corner of his forehead.

  Then Kelson fired back, hitting Bicho in the chest.

  Or did it happen the other way – Kelson shot first and Bicho shot back?

  ‘Who told you to do this?’ Kelson asked the woman.

  ‘A man you should never screw with.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You want to know what I call him? Mengele. You know why? He’s like a doctor, but instead of fixing your head he wrecks it. You ever hear of Mengele?’

  ‘Everyone’s heard of him. The Angel of Death.’

  ‘You know the stories about him giving chocolates to the Auschwitz kids, then torturing them – injecting them with oil, draining their blood, cutting off parts of their bodies? He got off on loving them and then seeing them suffer. The man who’s after you is like that.’

  ‘Sounds like a lie. You know, I can trace your phone.’

  ‘You can try,’ she said. ‘It’s not mine. Mengele stole it, or maybe it’s a throwaway.’

  Kelson said, ‘Look, we need to meet and talk.’

  ‘That would get us both killed,’ she said. ‘Goodbye, Mr Kelson. Good luck.’ She hung up.

  Kelson dialed the number again. She didn’t answer. He knew that no matter how many times he dialed she wouldn’t.

  ‘Maybe that’s it,’ he said into the phone anyway. ‘Maybe she’s done with me – whoever she is. Or he is. Mengele. They wanted to scare me. It worked. Maybe it’s over.’ He stared at one of the bare white walls. Across the city, Detective Dan Peters would be digging into Kelson’s records as a narcotics cop. A forensics specialist would be looking through a microscope at the bullet pried from Christian Felbanks’s skull, comparing it with bullets test-fired from Kelson’s Springfield. The bullets wouldn’t – couldn’t – match, though before this morning Kelson had also thought his fingerprints wouldn’t appear on Felbanks’s pill bottles. Who knew what the woman – or the man behind her, if he was real – planned for him? They’d scared him and made him feel the powerlessness of a jailed criminal. ‘Goddammit,’ Kelson said to the wall.

  He called a criminal lawyer he’d seen defend dealers back in the day. Edward Davies was a smart, competent man with a nasal voice that somehow wormed into jurors’ brains and persuaded them. Davies listened to his story but said he could do little unless the police charged him.

  ‘Then what should I do?’ Kelson asked.

  ‘Relax,’ the lawyer said. ‘This will play out whether you stress about it or not. Do something that makes you happy. No harm in that.’

  ‘Good advice,’ Kelson told the wall after he hung up. So he dialed his Nancy and told her he would pick up their daughter Sue Ellen after school.

  ‘That’s big of you,’ Nancy said, though she’d just done a double root canal, which normally would give her pleasure.

  ‘Typical meanness,’ Kelson said.

  Three months before he and Nancy split for good, they saw a marriage counselor – a little woman with bristly blonde hair. ‘With most men,’ the counselor told him, ‘the problem is too many lies. With you, it’s too much honesty.’

  ‘And your problem,’ he said, ‘is you look like a toilet brush.’

  When they found a new counselor, she asked, ‘Can’t you just shut up when you have something unpleasant to say? Can’t you grit your teeth and keep your lips closed?’

  ‘No,’ Kelson said.

  ‘He can’t,’ Nancy admitted. ‘I’ve seen him try. It’s like a mouthful of centipedes.’

  ‘Hmm,’ the counselor said. She had a pleasant voice and Kelson told her so.

  ‘I liked him better before his accident,’ Nancy said.

  ‘Gunshot wound,’ he said. ‘Attempted murder. Not an accident.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Nancy said.

  Kelson told the counselor, ‘Nancy’s insistence on calling it something it isn’t bugs the hell out of me. It’s like I’m one of her patients whose tooth she’s about to yank out, and she’s saying, “This won’t hurt …” Sometimes I need to leave the room.’

  ‘Be nice,’ the counselor said.

  ‘I’m not trying to be unkind.’

  ‘You’re being rude,’ she said.

  ‘Does it count as rude if I can’t help myself?’

  ‘Yes,’ the counselor and Nancy said together.

  ‘I’m just being truthful,’ he said.

  ‘Try lying a little,’ the counselor said.

  ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘Nancy’s always been mean.’

  ‘But you like mean,’ Nancy said.

  ‘Hmm,’ the counselor said.

  Now, on the phone, he asked Nancy, ‘Can Sue Ellen sleep over tonight?’

  Nancy said, ‘I guess she’d like that.’

  ‘So would I.’

  ‘You’re good with her,’ she said, warming to him as she still sometimes did. ‘Maybe good with no one else, but good with her.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  ‘So don’t screw it up.’

  ‘I understand,’ he said.

  When he hung up, he said, ‘I do understand. You’d think Sue Ellen would show emotional bruises. But she bounces. Rubber girl. I’d never hurt her. Never.’

  TEN

  He had four hours before Sue Ellen got out of school, so he drove to Lakewood Pharmacy, where Christian Felbanks used to work.

  Raima Minhas, the pharmacist he talked to the last time, stood at the drop-off counter again. Sh
e tore into Kelson before he could speak, as if he’d never left the store. ‘If you go to grocery store and the checkout girl has blonde hair, do you tell her you like it? If you see a bald white guy, do you tell him you like the shine on his skin?’

  Kelson stepped back from the counter. ‘Well – maybe—’

  As if she hadn’t heard him, ‘Then why’s it OK to ask about my braid? Just because of where I’m from?’

  A pasty-faced man who looked as if he might be her manager watched from the oral hygiene aisle.

  Kelson told her, ‘It looked different – and nice, that’s all. You looked different.’

  ‘Different?’ she said. ‘I’m a goddamned cliché. What would you think if you came to my counter and I said, “May I help you, you racist, sexist dickhead?” You see, I haven’t met a lot of you people – you’re different – so I don’t know how to talk to you nice.’

  Kelson laughed and said, ‘I like you. You talk too much.’

  The pasty-faced man stepped beside him. ‘Raima?’ he said.

  She turned on him and said, ‘This guy’s a jerk. Two days ago, he—’

  ‘Take a break,’ the man said to her. ‘A half hour. No, take the rest of the day. I’ll talk with Mr—’ He looked at Kelson.

  ‘Kelson. Sam Kelson.’

  ‘I’ll take care of Mr Kelson,’ he said. ‘You go get yourself together.’

  She opened her mouth to argue.

  ‘Now,’ the man said. He glowered until she left the counter and disappeared into a back room. Then he said, ‘I’m sorry. She normally … well, she just heard terrible news. Her fiancé died … suddenly.’

  ‘Really?’ Kelson said. ‘Christian Felbanks?’

  The man looked surprised. ‘Did you know Christian?’

  ‘Met him only once,’ Kelson said. ‘Or – he was already dead. I went to his place to talk to him about—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the man said, ‘I’m not sure who you are. Is there something I can help you with?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Kelson said. ‘But here’s the deal. I got tangled up with Felbanks – wrong place, wrong time, you know, except someone wanted me in that place and time – so I’m suspicious—’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ the man said.

  ‘Right,’ Kelson said. ‘Was Christian Felbanks stealing drugs from the pharmacy?’

  The man considered him. ‘We’re making our records available to the police. I assume you’re not with them.’

  ‘I used to be a cop. But ever since I got shot in the head, I’m on my own. Knocked out a chunk of my brain. Can’t be a cop when you’re missing a chunk of your brain. Didn’t even want me for desk duty.’

  ‘I see,’ the man said. ‘Well, Mr—’

  ‘You’re not real bright.’

  ‘I’m afraid if you want information about Christian Felbanks’s employment here or our inventory audit, you’ll need to get it from the police.’

  ‘Won’t happen,’ Kelson said. ‘They’d rather throw me in jail. But you already told me what I need to know.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘You’re doing an audit because you don’t know if Felbanks was stealing drugs, right? How long did he work here? How long did it go on?’

  ‘Ms Minhas is right,’ the man said. ‘You’re a jerk.’

  So Kelson left the store and got in his car.

  And waited.

  Three minutes later, Raima Minhas came out, wiping her eyes. She wore a plaid jacket and a scarf, against the March chill. She’d tucked her long black braid inside.

  Kelson rolled down his window and said, ‘Hey …’

  She stopped short. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’ She scurried away.

  Kelson got out and followed her. ‘You know, I found him,’ he said.

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ she said. ‘The police did. They—’

  ‘I was there. In Christian’s condo when they came in.’

  ‘They didn’t say anything about you.’

  ‘They had no reason to. I found him in his bedroom, a bullet in the head right here’ – he touched his skin where the nose meets the forehead.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said.

  ‘Seven or eight pill bottles on the table next to him.’

  ‘He didn’t do drugs,’ she said. ‘He didn’t even like aspirin. Only vitamins.’

  ‘Funny thing for a pharmacist,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, and tears came to her eyes. ‘He was funny.’

  ‘A health nut?’

  ‘Yeah, he was a nut,’ she said, and more tears came.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘He didn’t steal the drugs,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I would’ve known,’ she said. ‘I would’ve seen it.’

  ‘Did he talk about his sister?’

  ‘Trina? Only a little. She’s at a group home in Iowa. Why?’

  ‘A woman calling herself Trina Felbanks paid me to talk to Christian. She said he was supplying his friends.’

  ‘She was lying.’

  ‘I know that – at least about who she was.’

  ‘She lied about all of it.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘Are drugs missing from the pharmacy?’ he asked.

  The question made her hesitate for the first time since stepping from the store. ‘Who exactly are you?’

  ‘Ex-cop,’ he said. ‘Spent eight years on the narcotics squad. Five years undercover. The department retired me on disability. Now I run a private firm. Mostly unsuccessful because I talk too much. Recently divorced from a woman who seems to hate me for the same reason, but we have a daughter, Sue Ellen, who’s the greatest thing in my world.’

  ‘Got it,’ Raima Minhas said.

  ‘I could tell you more, but I would rather you tell me if any drugs are missing.’

  ‘But you talk too much. So if I tell you drugs are missing and ask you to keep it confidential because I could get fired or maybe worse, you would tell others?’

  ‘Anyone who asked,’ he said. ‘If I was standing with strangers and it crossed my mind, I might tell them too.’

  She considered him. ‘Then, no. No drugs are missing. All right?’

  ‘All right …’

  ‘Sorry for calling you a racist, sexist dickhead,’ she said.

  ‘You were upset.’

  ‘No, you’re a racist, sexist dickhead, but I didn’t need to say it.’

  ‘I would’ve,’ Kelson said. ‘If I thought you were one, which I don’t, I would’ve told you.’

  That got a broken smile from her. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Maybe something’s missing. Maybe some OxyContin last week. Maybe other stuff before. Maybe a couple of cases were broken into. Nothing I’ve seen, if you understand what I’m saying – nothing I would swear to. Nothing you can say I told you. But maybe.’ Then she hurried away.

  ELEVEN

  Kelson drove to his office, got his laptop from the top desk drawer, and searched for the name Felbanks in Sioux City, Iowa. There were seven families with the name. But the town had fewer than a hundred thousand residents, and he figured they might know each other – maybe even be related. He typed in the name Christian Felbanks and found a high school photo. He typed in Trina Felbanks and got nothing.

  He said to the computer, ‘His mom and dad will be here now. Meeting with the police. Asking questions no one will answer. Collecting the body. Taking it home. Should’ve asked Raima Minhas.’

  He made two more searches and found a phone number for one of the Felbanks families. Although he figured no one would answer if he called the right one, he dialed it. On the third ring, a man picked up, and Kelson said, ‘I’m looking for Christian Felbanks’s family.’

  He’d reached Christian’s uncle, who confirmed his guess – Christian’s parents had driven five hundred miles east from Sioux City to Chicago when they got the messag
e from the police.

  ‘I hate to ask,’ Kelson said, ‘but what can you tell me about Christian’s sister?’

  ‘Oh, she’s been at the center since she was fourteen. Too much for my brother and his wife to handle. God knows, they tried.’

  Kelson thanked the man, told him he was sorry about Christian’s death, and hung up.

  He leaned back in his chair. He’d followed the only obvious leads. Now, unless he tracked down Christian’s parents wherever they were staying in Chicago, or walked into Dan Peters’s office and demanded information the detective would never give him, he was done. His wallet felt a little thicker with the cash from the woman who lied about being Trina Felbanks, his credibility a little thinner, and his overall circumstances about the same as where they’d been since he got out of rehab. He should take the lawyer’s advice – stop worrying, relax, and make himself happy. ‘No harm in that,’ he said as he put on his coat. No harm until the next trouble came. ‘It’ll come,’ he said as he left his office. ‘Over my right shoulder. Over my left. Straight on like a truck.’

  He drove north through the city to Hayt Elementary where Sue Ellen was in sixth grade. At three fifteen, she came from the building, squealed at the sight of him, and clambered into the Dodge Challenger.

  They spent the afternoon at his apartment, playing a game of Stump Dad – which Sue Ellen invented when she realized she could ask Kelson anything and his cross-wired brain would compel him to answer. Today, she started easy. ‘If you could be any animal, what would it be?’

  ‘A tiger,’ he said.

  ‘Would you worry that you were an endangered species?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If a hunter tried to kill you, would you eat him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you worry that you were a cannibal?’

  ‘Only if you were the hunter,’ he said.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she said, then turned to body functions. ‘Do you fart in the bathtub?’

  ‘I take showers,’ he said.

  ‘Do you ever blame someone else when you fart?’

  ‘Not since I got shot in the head.’

  ‘Before?’

  ‘All the time.’

  Her laugh sounded like music to Kelson. Then, as she often did, she got personal. ‘Do you still love Mom?’