Ill Will (22 page)

Well, no, but I didn’t say that. With his muscles and puppy-dog eyes, he probably did well with women—his easy come-on to me indicated he expected a yes—and he was used to getting the answer one usually gets from a brand-spanking-new love interest, an answer that rarely involves a cold, hard slap of realism.

He wasn’t finished. “Plus my mom and dad take these every day and they’ve told me over and over again what a difference it makes. I have a college friend of mine who wasn’t doing very well, childhood disease. I gave him the same sample packets I gave you and he was off the crutches in two days. It was amazing.”

Vincent was a true believer. Maybe his intentions weren’t evil like a scammer, but the result could be worse. True believers weren’t lying, so there was no falsehood to detect. True believers invested not only their money, but their ego and honor. When they had that much at stake, it was hard for them to believe their grail was fool’s gold.

I was skeptical—and educated enough to know about the placebo effect. (Well, and I was living with a doctor who liked explaining things to me.) Thirty percent of people get better—or feel like they have—with just a sugar pill. It’s not fake; the mind is a powerful thing, and believing you will get better often makes it true. Clinical trials for new drugs have to do better than placebo effect, otherwise they’re no more effective than the proverbial sugar pill. People like cause and effect—if they take a pill and get better, then the pill—or being outside, or resting in bed—made the difference. It couldn’t just be random, because no one wants to live in a random world. But colds run their course; people recover, even if all they do is eat chicken soup. Some diseases, like multiple sclerosis—or sickle cell—often improve with only time as a remedy. But if you take a pill and get better, or exercise and take a pill, then life isn’t random and you have control over your fate. It’s a very seductive answer and Vincent had been seduced by it.

But he looked like a man very close to thirty, and Marion McConkle was a shriveled-up women, held together more by money and its access to good medical care and a comfortable lifestyle than the natural supplements she was gulping. Maybe they helped. Maybe Marion would be a little more shriveled and Vincent would look in his mid thirties instead of late twenties without them. There was nothing in the evidence that called for zeal either for or against.

I was willing to be skeptical both ways. Some of the herbal remedies might well help. Hell, I took fish oil pills. Joanne swore that glucosamine and chondroitin helped with joint pain. The medical establishment could be closed-minded as well.

But the true believers—on both sides—scared me. Nothing is perfect; nothing with benefit is without cost.

However, I wasn’t here to have a debate with Vincent, I was here to get information for a case. And to get home and out of this pink dress as soon as possible.

“That sounds pretty convincing,” I said. “But why not do more research, like what they do with regular drugs?”

“Those fake trials?” he replied. “They don’t want people cured. They want people on their drugs for the rest of these lives. Their snake oil has to keep people just well enough so that they can keep on spending their money.”

“So why is spending their money on your stuff better than spending it on medications that at least went through clinical trials?”

“Because our stuff is better and we’re not in it just to make money. We charge as little as we can, just barely cover costs, so as many people as possible can afford these.”

“I don’t know, thirty-five dollars for a remedy for gas seems kind of expensive to me.”

“Not for what you get. It’s all natural, carefully processed so nothing is lost. And it really works.”

“Drug companies do something called compassionate use. Do you do anything like that?” I asked.

“What’s that?”

“If you can’t afford their drugs but you need them, you can get them for free. Admittedly, your doctor has to fill out a bunch of paperwork and jump through some hoops, but at least it’s a way for people to get needed medications.”

“Please, they get a tax break, and given how much money they earn—they spend more on marketing than research—it’s the least they can do.”

That was hard to argue with—especially since I’d heard some quite knowledgeable people say pretty much the same thing.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I’m not saying the drug companies are great, their bottom line is making money, not saving lives. But there are some scams out there.”

“This isn’t one of them,” he retorted. Just like a true believer.

“I’m not saying it is. You’re much too nice and sincere to be doing that. I saw how caring you were with Marion, trying to get her to eat right and all that. It’s just so hard to know.”

“Come with me for a cup of coffee and I’ll be glad to give you more details.”

I suspected I’d get the facts only as pillow talk, and I just wasn’t willing to go there for a case. “Can’t. I really do need to be going. Is there any place I can learn more?”

“We’re having a community event next week. If you give me your e-mail, I can get you the where and the when. Come to the session and then you’ll get the facts.”

He was persistent. “Damn, I’m all out of my cards. Give me your e-mail and I’ll send you mine.” He did and I scribbled it down.

And then it was adios to Vincent and his puppy-dog eyes.

He was parked in front of me, a new red truck. I fumbled with my seat belt long enough to let him drive away, keeping my license plate safely out of his sight. I noted his, quickly scribbling down the numbers as he pulled away. He might have been savvy enough to have gotten mine before he came in, but that wasn’t likely save in my suspicious brain. He didn’t know the car was connected to me then. I could have been a random stranger parking here. Plus, he was a cog in a multilevel marketing scheme, not a security expert. Noting license plates probably wasn’t part of his everyday thinking, like it was mine.

I drove away slowly, wanting to let Vincent get blocks away. Maybe my recent brush with a raging muscle man make me wary of anyone with a bulging bicep, but I wasn’t used to men coming on to me in such a sexually aggressive way. I wondered if he’s really been okay with me turning him down or if he thought I was playing a game, one he’d eventually win.

I cut up to Freret Street, heading home through the ’hood, a poor area slowly coming back after the flooding of the levee failures. I didn’t want to worry about Vincent, and this was his least likely route.

What I’d learned wasn’t going to please my client—or Mr. Williams. From what I could see, Nature’s Beautiful Gift was a legitimate company, selling a legal product. Marion McConkle was crazy, but not in a way that anyone would consider certifiable. She was a competent adult making her choices. I suspected those choices were swayed by Vincent and his puppy-dog eyes, but I didn’t think he was deliberately trying to con her or get her to buy things she didn’t need. He could have pushed  anything and everything to her, but he confined his sales pitch to things that seemed to meet her complaints. He truly believed he was selling something that could help her. She believed the supplements were helping her. He was probably selling because of the time he spent with her. Clearly they talked about things like her eating habits that had nothing to do with a sales pitch and everything to do with him helping her live a healthier life.

If Fletcher McConkle wanted a larger slice of his aunt’s money, he had to man up and visit regularly and fuss about her health. That would be his best line of defense against Vincent and Nature’s Beautiful Gift.

Of course, I still had more work to do. I wanted to see what the Grannies had dug up. It would be interesting to see if NBG had any complaints against it, or reports of adverse reactions. Or financial malfeasance. Either—or both—of those could give me additional ammo to hand to Fletcher. I was reluctant to attend the “naturalist” session. I suspected it would be a high pressure, even if in a low-key “we’re all just friends” way, sales sessions, with enough true believers there to exert enormous peer pressure. And perhaps a few not-so-true believers who understood that NBG was a pyramid scheme and that it was the people at the bottom who got screwed. Plus Vincent might be there and I’d have to wear a pink outfit–type costume again, as I’d have to go as Deborah Perkins. On the other hand, it might give me greater insight into their products and sales methods.

I hit the Central Business District just at the end of lunch. The only saving grace was that most of them were going in the opposite direction of where I was headed.

I had to return to my office if I wanted to shuck the pink dress there and get back in my regular clothes—which I did want to do. This was a PI costume, and it needed to stay with the PI costumes in my neatly arranged closet. Nor did I want to explain to Cordelia why I left in jeans and returned in pink.

When I got there I started to drive around the block again before realizing Dudley Dude was in the hospital. I didn’t need to worry about him for a long time. I parked in front, a lightness in my step as I got out of my car. Of course, normal precautions were still needed, but it was much easier to deal with the random insanity of some mugger who happened to be on your block as you were getting out of your car than someone crazed meth user waiting for me specifically. Just as I got to the door I remembered the bags I’d taken from Reginald Banks’s place. I didn’t want to leave them in my trunk, so I grabbed them. I could leave them in my office, not a much better solution.

I pushed open the downstairs door and almost ran into the first-floor tenant. He was an artist who had at some point in his life smoked or imbibed too much of something. He could wax on about his show in Paris, but that was a long time ago and he now mostly made his living by hanging out around Jackson Square and painting tourists. He looked like he had never seen me before. The only excuse I’d give him was he’d never seen me in pink before. I hurried past him with a mumbled hello lest I be again treated to the glories of his art show. Someday I’d have to ask him if it was Paris, France, or Paris, Texas—if I could ever actually be annoyed enough with him to be that snarky.

On the landing I called back to him, “Hey, remember to keep the downstairs door locked. We’ve had some muggings here lately.” I kept going up the stairs, only hearing an indistinct reply what contained the word “Paris” at the end.

The first order of business was to get out of the pink dress. Annoyingly, the pantyhose had already developed a run and had to go in the trash. I already have about five pairs with runs in them in case I have to be the kind of person who would wear pantyhose with runs. Since some of these were from pre-Katrina, it’s a role I mercifully don’t have to often undertake.

Once safely changed into real clothes—jeans and a nice V-neck T-shirt—I did the usual routines of checking messages and e-mail. Two hang-ups and Mr. Charles Williams inquiring whether any time had opened in my schedule or if he’d have to wait until later in the week.

Oh, yes, indeed you will
, I thought as I erased his message.

And then I was changed and comfortable and not sure what to do next. It was past three, almost time to go home. I was hoping I’d hear from the Grannies, but there was no message from them.

I glanced at the bags I’d taken from my trunk. His death nagged at me. It was probably only my irrational guilt—he was alive when I’d found him—that made me pick them up and empty them on my desk. The papers and the pills weren’t likely to give me any insight into what had happened. But if I simply threw them in the trash because I assumed they were useless, then I’d never know for certain that they were.

First I turned my attention to the pills, taking one from each bottle, both NBG and The Cure. I placed that pill in front of each of the bottles, as if their size and shape might reveal secrets.

There were eleven bottles total, seven from Nature’s Beautiful Gift and four from The Cure. Several of the NBG ones were the same ones I’d seen at Marion McConkle’s place, including the one for “bowel regularity,” making me glad that Cordelia insisted on a diet high in veggies and fiber. The other overlaps were for glowing skin and eye health. Reginald also had “virility enhancement”—he was a man after all. (Maybe that was Vincent’s problem; he was taking too many of these.) Two of the bottles were the same, for promoting healthy blood production, and the last of the NBGs was for immune function.

The Cure dispensed with the properly legal wording on the NBG bottles and claimed, as its name suggested, that it cured “All Blood Disorders.” He had two bottles of that one. The next one promised to cure all circulatory dysfunction, and the last promised a healthy and robust immune system: “Never get a cold or the flu again.”

But Reginald hadn’t been cured or saved. What had gone so wrong? Had he been even crazier than Marion McConkle and given up completely on the medical establishment?

I looked again at the pills; they varied in color from a cream white to a dusky hazel-green, and in size from small and round, to oblong horse pills that must have been a challenge to swallow. The NBG pills were all different in shape and color. The pills from The Cure looked very similar, large, dark greenish-yellow. I pulled out my magnifying glass, having to rummage in my bottom drawer to find it. Curiously, both the NBG “immune function” pill and all the pills from The Cure looked alike, same shape, close to the same color. On close examination, I could see some color differences. The Cure appeared to be slightly darker.