Jodi Compton - Sympathy Between Humans

Shiloh, with his typical concern for the unfortunate, had gone out of his way to intercede for Lydia and to keep her out of prison. She’d done some time in the workhouse, and checked in with a probation officer afterward. She’d also become Shiloh ’s informant, and when he left the MPD, I’d inherited her name and number.

I hadn’t seen Lydia in some time, mostly because she wasn’t the most useful informant anymore. She’d gotten a good job in a South Minneapolis salon, and the new and better boyfriend she’d found had recently become a husband. That sort of rehabilitation was the point of the intervention Shiloh had made, but it also meant that she didn’t associate with criminals much anymore, and so she didn’t get to hear interesting things. It’s a truth the public doesn’t want to hear: good citizens often don’t make for good informants, and good informants are necessary to police work.

But I had to start somewhere in my search for Prewitt’s unlicensed doctor, and Lydia still lived close to the ground.

Her job made it particularly convenient for me to stop by. For obvious reasons, I didn’t identify myself as a cop when visiting informants. It was useful, for that reason, to be a female investigator visiting a women’s salon; it raised no antennae among bystanders. More good fortune: she was working in a narrow back room of shampooing stations when I arrived, with no one close enough to overhear us.

“Hey, Detective Pribek,” Lydia said. Hard plastic clattered as she rinsed a set of curlers with a jet of water from the hose, her brown hands moving in the sink.

“Sarah,” I corrected her.

“You want a cup of coffee?” she asked me.

“No, thanks,” I said. Her courtesy made me uncomfortable, because I didn’t feel I’d built any personal rapport with her; rather, I sensed she tolerated me because she’d liked Shiloh. “I’m not going to take up too much of your time,” I went on. “I just need to know if you’ve heard about something.”

When I explained my errand, something flickered in Lydia ’s eyes.

“You know who I’m talking about?” I prompted.

“Not by name,” Lydia said. “You hear him whispered about, but that’s all.”

“So what’s his story?” I asked. “Is he even a doctor, or is he an unemployed vet, or what?”

Lydia shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t know any of those things.” Then she added, “I think Ghislaine knows him.”

“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know you knew her.”

Ghislaine Morris had been another of Shiloh ’s informants. He had given me her number, too, but I hadn’t had much opportunity to deal with her.

“She was my roommate,” Lydia said. “Before the bust.” She meant her own arrest for transporting.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll talk to Ghislaine.”

Lydia slid a clear plastic bin of rollers into a cabinet above the line of shampoo bowls and closed the door. I moved into the doorway but didn’t leave.

“How’s married life?” I asked.

“Good,” Lydia said.

“You like it?” I added lamely. She just said as much, stupid, I told myself.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Well, I’ll let you get back to work,” I said.

But she spoke as I turned away. “Detective Pribek,” she said, hesitant.

I turned back.

“I noticed… I don’t mean to pry, but I noticed that you don’t wear your wedding ring anymore.”

“Oh,” I said. Self-consciously I touched my ring finger. “I’m doing a detail on the street that doesn’t allow me to wear a wedding band.” I didn’t say the words prostitution decoy, but Lydia probably got the picture.

Maybe she sensed even more than that. “ Shiloh ’s okay, isn’t he?” she said.

Had she read the papers? Did she know about Blue Earth? Her dark eyes gave me no clue.

“I’ll tell him you asked about him,” I said, evading her question, “the next time I see him.”

The next time I see him. I hadn’t been back to Wisconsin since the visit I’d made shortly after Shiloh was sent there. We were separated by more than simple geographical distance. Blue Earth lay between us. My trip West to meet his family lay between us. Things that were too difficult to speak about. Even in the good times, Shiloh could be unnervingly quiet; for my part, I was never good at putting feelings into words. I suppose it was inevitable that in hard times we’d fallen back on old ways. We’d fallen silent.

A small storm moved across Hennepin Countythat 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.”