Crime and Retribution

by Nic Saint

  “Calvin!” I hissed again.

  “You keep saying ‘Calvin!’ as if that’s supposed to mean something to me,” he said blithely.

  “Keep it cool,” I said.

  “I am cool. I’m Mr. Cool.”

  “Thank you so much for your time, Mrs. Shelley,” I said, ignoring him. “And I wish you good luck with the legal fight.”

  “I’m going to need it,” said the woman. “My sisters are arriving this evening. They couldn’t get away sooner. We’re going to clean up the house and put it on the market. At least salvage something from this wreck.”

  “Your mother didn’t bequeath the house to Mariana?” I asked.

  “It wasn’t hers to bequeath. Our father gifted this house to us before he died. The stipulation was that Mom could live out her days here, and then the house would revert to us. And good thing he did, or else Mariana would have gotten his greedy paws on my childhood home as well.”

  “Phew. She was obviously not Mariana’s biggest fan,” said Calvin after we’d said our goodbyes.

  “Can you blame her? She stole her inheritance.”

  “As I see it, that money was Gilda Paisley’s to do with as she pleased. If she wanted to give it all away to Mariana Piney, that was her call. Though I agree that if she really wanted to help out the transgender cause,” he added when I started to protest, “she’d have done better donating the money directly to TransCent.”

  “Mariana just spent it all! None of that money will help transgenders.”

  “Well, it helped one transgender,” said Calvin.

  “I don’t think that’s what Ada’s mother had in mind when she drew up that will.”

  “Just goes to show you can’t be too careful nowadays. Very hard to trust a person—even if you’ve known them for years.” He cast a meaningful look at me.

  “What’s that supposed to mean!”

  “A little birdie told me you and Detective Munroe were caught kissing at Bell’s Bakery. Right before you had a lovers’ tiff.”

  I should have known. In this town, people are all over everybody else’s business all the time. “What little birdie?”

  “Hah! So you’re not denying it!”

  “He told me my kissing was mediocre, so I had to prove him wrong.”

  “Of course you did. You should never have kissed him in the first place.” He wagged a warning finger in my face. “You’re playing with fire, Saffron.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We had a fight—though not a lovers’ quarrel as your source wrongly told you—and I’m pretty sure there will be no more kissing.”

  “Good. What did you fight about?”

  “I asked him about the state of his investigation and he told me—very bluntly—to butt out. Said I only kissed him because I wanted him to share information with me, and that my family might be able to buy the Mayor and the Chief of Police but we can’t buy him as he’s a cop who strictly plays by the rules.”

  Calvin laughed. “Phew. Wow. Talk about a burn. I hope you told him where to put it.”

  “I told him he was missing out on a great collaboration.”

  Calvin looked dubious. “That’s all you said? He basically called you a prostitute and our family a bunch of shady sleazebags.”

  I stared at him. “You’re right. I might have let him off easy.”

  “Next time I see Detective Munroe I think I’ll give him a piece of my mind.”

  “Just let it go, Calvin. It’s obvious the guy has it in for us.”

  “Yeah, you’ve got that right. But I’m not going to let anything go. Nobody accuses my sister of being a prosti and my family of being corrupt. I think I’ll have a word with Mayor MacDonald.”

  “The man whose parrot Dalton stole?”

  “Tried to steal. Apparently he never got anywhere near the damn bird.”

  “Looks to me like you’re creating a lot of karma, Calvin,” I said. “Antagonizing a cop? Launching a smear campaign to get him kicked off the force? Are you sure this is what a Karma Corps agent is supposed to do?”

  He stared at me, momentarily lost for words. Then, finally, he said, “Hell, yeah.”

  I was already sorry I’d said anything. I didn’t think Logan meant what he said. He was just like me: in the heat of the moment he’d said some things he later regretted. And now I’d gone and told Calvin, who already didn’t like the cop. Things were quickly spiraling out of control. Not exactly the way I’d imagined my first case as an agent to go.

  Chapter 25

  We walked into Dr. Jennsen’s office and I was surprised to find it so… underwhelming. Somehow I’d expected the office of a top surgeon to be more something out of a Marvel Studios movie, with bookcases reaching all the way to a high, vaulted ceiling, a wide mahogany desk laden with mementos from patients he’d lost, and presents from patients he’d saved, and of course a creepy skeleton in the corner. Instead, the room was square, white, and clinically clean, empty save for a desk and a couple of chairs.

  “Is this your office?” I asked, just to be sure.

  Denby Jennsen, who looked like George Clooney when he was still a doctor on ER, laughed. “Yes, it is. And it isn’t. Happy Bays Memorial Hospital has recently adopted a clean desk philosophy. We don’t have our own personal offices anymore. We simply appropriate one of the many empty offices at our disposal, like this one.”

  “But… where are the pictures of your family?” I asked. “Or your dog?”

  “No personal mementos are allowed, I’m afraid,” he said. “It’s supposed to distract us from our mission, which is to serve our patients.”

  I thought back to my own office, crammed with personal mementos. I didn’t think I liked this clean desk philosophy one bit. Probably some sicko manager’s idea of terrorizing his staff into compliance.

  “Besides, I don’t have a family,” said the handsome doctor with a smile. “Or a dog. But I do have limited time, I’m afraid, so…”

  “So it is our understanding that Mariana Piney was your patient?” asked Calvin.

  “That’s correct. I monitored Mariana’s progress as she went through her transition.”

  “Monitored her progress? What does that mean, exactly?” I asked.

  He gave me one of his patented doctorly smiles. “Well, I monitored her hormone levels, adjusting dosages, checked up on the physical changes in her body as a consequence of the treatment, advised her on laser hair removal, recommended a speech therapist to adopt a more feminine speech pattern, kept abreast of Mariana’s emotional state, consulted her on possible Sexual Reassignment Surgery… It’s a complex process that requires constant supervision.”

  I stared at him. “I didn’t know it was so complicated.”

  “That’s part of my job. To enlighten and inform.” He smiled. “A lot of people don’t know that part of transitioning is to have your Adam’s apple reduced. It’s called a trachea shave, or chondrolaryngoplasty, and will reduce the thyroid cartilage by shaving it down through an incision in the throat. Breast implants are another possibility, as hormonal replacement therapy will only get you so far, usually an A cup.”

  I inadvertently reached for my own modest A cup puppies.

  “And then there’s plastic surgery to alter certain masculine aspects of one’s face. Like getting rid of that strong chin or that broad nose. And, finally, vaginoplasty, of course.”

  “Chopping the pee pee,” Calvin muttered.

  The doctor inclined his head agreeably. “Converting the penile and scrotal tissue into a vagina, clitoris and labia.”

  “So much to consider,” I said, awed.

  He ticked the points off on his fingers. “Legal matters, like petitioning the court to have your name changed. Coming out to your friends, family and co-workers. Informing the human resources team at your place of work… As you said, a lot of things to consider.”

  “And how far had Mariana gotten?” asked Calvin, as blunt as ever. “I mean, did she…” He mimicked a snipping motion with his fin
gers.

  The doctor’s smile slightly faltered. “I’m not sure I’m at liberty to discuss Miss Piney’s medical records.”

  “We’re her insurer,” Calvin said. “She signed all the documents, which my brother forwarded to your staff.”

  The doctor briefly glimpsed at the laptop that was open on his desk. “Yes, I’ve received your request. Lucien Diffley?”

  “I think you’ll find that everything is in order,” Calvin insisted.

  The doctor seemed to make up his mind. “Of course. No, Miss Piney never underwent any surgery. She limited herself to hormonal therapy, with surgery as an option. In fact, when she came to visit me last week, she intimated she wasn’t happy with her new life as a woman, and was considering transitioning back.”

  “And what did you advise?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Ultimately it’s the patient who decides. Miss Piney told me at the outset of our relationship she wasn’t happy with the gender she’d been assigned at birth, and wished to change. Now she told me she’d changed her mind, and wanted to reverse the process. Naturally I asked if she was sure. If the gender dysphoria she’d experienced before had perhaps been misread.” He spread his arms. “She said she was sure this time. That she was unhappy as a woman. That she made a mistake and wanted out, as she expressed it.”

  “And was it possible to reverse the process?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yes, it was. Since no surgical alterations had been made, it would be a matter of months before the changes were reversed.”

  “Does this happen a lot?” I asked. “People changing their minds?”

  “It’s rare,” said the doctor. “In fact Mariana is the first patient I’ve treated who’s expressed the desire to detransition.”

  Calvin cleared his throat. “There are some people who claim Mariana Piney was only in it for the money and the attention. And that detransitioning was her way of gaining even more of the same as it was such a rare thing.”

  “You can hardly expect me to comment on that, Mr. Diffley,” said Dr. Jennsen. “She appeared sincere to me, and I very much doubt whether her original motive for transitioning was a monetary one. The entire transition is a very costly affair, and would have set her back several tens of thousands of dollars. So I find it hard to believe she would have been in it for the money. As far as attention is concerned…” He pondered this for a moment. “It is true that Miss Piney struck me as a lonely woman, looking for a way to connect to others. Perhaps becoming a woman was her way of finding those all-important connections we as human beings all crave? I for one wouldn’t discount that.”

  “Did Mariana ever talk to you about any enemies she had?” I asked. “Any threats she’d received, people who wished her harm?”

  He shook his head. “No, I can’t say that she did. There were the usual crackpots, of course. She told me about a woman who would call her all kinds of names. A woman by the name of Hysteria. But she laughed it off, and didn’t seem to take it seriously.”

  “Yes, we talked to Mrs. Wisteria,” I said. “She seems to harbor a deep resentment against transgenders.”

  The doctor gave me a wistful smile. “Miss Diffley, you would be surprised how many people despise my patients. While they’re just people who feel as if they were born inside the wrong body. And who among us ever feels one hundred percent happy with the body they’ve been given? No one, I would imagine, right? Only my patients have decided to do something about it. We should all be so courageous.”

  Chapter 26

  “That was enlightening,” said Calvin as we walked out of the hospital. The huge, Y-shaped building towered over us, all glass and concrete, and I was actually glad to feel the sunshine on my face again. No disrespect to the men and women who selflessly labored to improve the health of the men and women in their care, but hospitals were not exactly my favorite places. Though that probably went for most people. Good that they’re there. Better when you can avoid them.

  “Yeah, I didn’t even know it was such a complicated process,” I said.

  “No, I mean, that guy was totally hoodwinked by Mariana Piney.”

  I frowned. “That wasn’t the impression I got. People change their minds, that’s all. Or they decide on a certain course of action and then discover it wasn’t what they were looking for after all.”

  “Come on,” said Calvin as he rounded the back of the Taurus. “He never committed! Just took a bunch of meds, and then when the time came to take the leap, he went and turned back. He never wanted to become a woman in the first place! He just figured the money was good, and so was the attention, and if he detransitioned, more of the same would be coming his way. What a scam.”

  I got into the car. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re not. Too soon to tell.”

  “So what’s next?”

  “Let’s pay another visit to Marelda. I want to know what she thinks.”

  “She thinks Mariana—or Mariano as I think I’ll call him from now on—was in it for the money. She made that clear last time we talked to her.”

  “But she also said Mariana was her best friend. Even after the fight they had.”

  “She was duped! Just like the doc, and Gilda Paisley, and everyone at TransCent who thought she was going to bring money into their coffers and then didn’t. Which reminds me, we never got to ask Dr. Jennsen about the money Mariano was supposedly going to be donating to the new center.”

  “I asked Dr. Jennsen’s assistant while you were looking for the bathroom. She said Mariana told them the money was coming, but so far hadn’t donated anything.”

  “See! Hoodwinked! Played for suckers. Oh, man. That guy was good!”

  “I still think it wasn’t as cut and dried as you seem to think. There’s two sides to that story.”

  “The side of Mariano, and the side of the losers he duped.”

  “Let’s just hear what Marelda has to say. She seemed to know Mariana the best.”

  “Mariano. She never had the procedure.”

  “But she still identified as a woman.”

  “Oh, my God!” he said, rolling his eyes as he started up the car. “You’re just as bad as Dr. Jennsen. According to him all transgenders are superheroes. Huh!”

  “Human beings, Calvin. They’re human beings, just like us. Have you never felt uncomfortable in your own body?”

  “Never. Not ever,” he said emphatically.

  “Not even when you were covered in pimples and everybody called you zithead?”

  “That’s different,” he said as he dumped a coin in the slot and drove past the barrier. “Everybody tries to look his best.”

  “Exactly. You weren’t happy with your body so you pleaded with Mom to buy you a ton of zit cream.”

  “There’s a difference between using zit cream and growing a pair of boobs.”

  “I don’t see the difference.”

  “Then you’re a moron.”

  “Hey! Take that back!”

  “No way! You are a moron if you can’t see the difference between zits and boobs!”

  “I didn’t say they were the same thing.”

  “You did, too.”

  “Did not!”

  “There’s a limit to where you can take this thing, Saffron. I may not like my nose, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to have it cut open by some hinky surgeon.”

  “What if your nose was completely deformed?”

  “Then maybe I’d consider it.”

  “So? What’s the difference between you and Mariana?”

  “The difference is that I know where to draw the line. Look, when I was a kid I wanted to be the Incredible Hulk, all right? But did I ever go to Dr. Jennsen and ask him to turn me into a big green monster? No! Why?”

  “Because Grandma would have kicked you out?”

  He grinned. “That, and when all was said and done I figured I’d just have to accept myself the way I was, and not try to change myself. Except for those pimples.”

>   “I still think you’re wrong,” I said.

  “And I think people should just lighten up. Or else they’ll all end up like Mr. Christmas, with a bunch of Christmas lights sticking out of their—”

  “Don’t say it,” I warned him.

  “—ass.”

  “Calvin!”

  “What! It’s all part of the human body. Learn to love it, baby.”

  I groaned. What had I done to deserve a brother like Calvin? Probably something very bad in a previous life. Then again, I was a karma agent, so I wasn’t supposed to have karma. So why did I end up with Doofus #1?

  Ten minutes later, we were once again seated on Marelda’s couch, bookended by piles of magazines. Out of sheer habit, Calvin had picked up a copy of Oprah Magazine, and was soon engrossed in an article listing the ‘four signs that you are your own worst enemy.’

  “I wanted to ask you,” I began. “We just went and talked to Dr. Denby Jennsen over at the hospital, and he told us Mariana was detransitioning.”

  “Uh-huh, that’s right. She told me the same thing. Came as something of a shock to me, I have to confess.”

  “Do you think…” I hesitated, not knowing how to phrase this without being blunt.

  Calvin looked up from his magazine. “Do you think Mariana figured she’d milked the trans community for all she could and wanted to go for another round by detransitioning and bilk the community a second time?”

  “Calvin!” I said.

  “What? You dribbled, you bounced the ball, passed it to me, and I slam-dunked it!”

  “You’re such an idiot,” said Marelda, amused. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  “No woman in her right mind wants him,” I said.

  “People keep telling me I’m not in my right mind, so if you want my number, you’ve got it,” said Marelda.

  “Um, no disrespect, Miss Morato,” said Calvin, “but I don’t even know how that would work—technically, I mean.”

  She laughed. “Let me worry about the technical side, Calvin. You just bring your A game.”