Free Ill Will by J.M. Redmann Page B

the feeling she said it because it was what she thought she was supposed to say. I also got the impression giving up drinking wasn’t something she was willing to do; not for bruises anyway.”
    “That was it?” I cut a quarter off my burger and put it on her plate. She was envying me my fat and grease too much.
    “Yep,” she said, not objecting to the burger.
    I speared a tomato in exchange. “Did she give you the impression she might be someone who would just flake out on medical treatment?”
    “Hard to say. She wasn’t happy about all the meds she was supposed to be on, but her record indicated she was keeping her appointments. That’s one of the reasons Lydia flagged her. It seemed she understood how important this was. I was a little surprised by the drinking, but maybe it hadn’t been explained to her clearly.”
    “What about the other patient?”
    “A name in a file. No contact with him.” She finished my last French fry. “I should get back.” She didn’t immediately move. “This has been nice. Maybe we should do this more often?”
    The hesitancy in her question told me she was unsure what my answer would be. I smiled, looking in her eyes. “Maybe we should. Lunch during the day, or maybe meet after work and go out. I’d like that.”
    Her sudden smile told me she had been worried I might not really want to create that kind of space for her.
    The waitress chose this moment to give us our bill. Cordelia’s cell phone rang. It was a text message from Lydia asking if she could get back ASAP, as both yesterday’s and today’s one p.m. patients had just shown up early.
    “I’ll get the bill,” I told her.
    “Thanks,” she said as she stood up. She bent down and kissed me full on the lips before hurrying away.
    I tend to be the one who’s more likely to say, “Let’s do it in the street and scare the horses,” and Cordelia leans toward discretion, occasionally holding hands in the French Quarter or at Pride, but mostly no public displays of affection. Kissing me in public in the middle of the day near where she worked was a major departure for her.
    I thoroughly enjoyed it.
    The woman is a good kisser , I reminded myself as I walked to my car.
    That very pleasant thought got me serenely through the traffic tangle of the CBD and past the drunken tourists of the Quarter to my office.

Chapter Six
     
    I needed to show the woman who kissed me in public that I was pretty damn good at my job. Time for some magic private detecting.
    Which consisted of pulling up a map and entering their addresses.
    Eugenia lived not that far from my office, a bit farther down in the Bywater on Rampart Street. Reginald lived in Mid-City, near Broad and Orleans.
    If I was lucky I might have this case closed before the day was done—if these were still their addresses and if they were home and willing to answer the door and talk to me.
    At the very least I could report progress this evening, I thought. I grabbed my things, securely locked the door, set the alarm, and headed first for Eugenia’s.
    Her house was ramshackle, in need of paint, a faded pink that hadn’t been a trendy color in years, and probably then only in fashion and not in houses. She probably rented, so I couldn’t hold her responsible for the paint job.
    I parked down a little from her address and used my rearview mirror to scan the street. Telling someone they missed a doctor’s appointment isn’t the same threat level as telling someone their wife wants the child support to be paid, but this was habit. There weren’t many cars around; probably most people were at work. If Eugenia was trans she might have a hard time finding a traditional nine-to-five job. People can be so irrational about bathrooms—“the person in the next stall has to have a natural born vagina just like me or I can’t pee”—and that makes some places reluctant to hire trans people. Which often leaves the option of working in places like bars. Or the sex trade. If