Red City Blues by Tom Fowler

Author:Tom Fowler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Widening Gyre Media

For a published author with such a natural gift of gab, Maurice Reid’s detailed history was lacking. I conducted cursory research on him before. Now, I probed deeper. The problem was Reid’s background lacked depth. He could fill a ledger book with things from the last dozen years. Before then, however, he made barely a peep in any context. High school diploma. Bachelor’s degree. One credit card. An apartment and a car, the same of both for many years. Only the very basics. Some people lived like this, but I smelled something fishy.

My good friend Joey Trovato is an expert at two things: eating and creating new identities for people. The order of Joey’s proficiencies depends on his appetite, but he’s been in the ID business much longer than I’ve worked as a private investigator. I frequently sought his opinion in my cases, and all it cost me was the considerable expense of a meal with an Italian of boundless appetite. I didn’t want to bust in on Joey’s vacation, however, so I tried to apply maxims he taught me. One of the first was a spotty history past a certain number of years was a likely sign of a fake. Most background checks only went so far. Clearance investigations peaked at ten years. A decade of made-up history was enough to fool most people.

I tried my damnedest not to be most people.

Where was Reid’s history beyond the twelve-year mark? I checked the high school he claimed to have graduated from twenty-six years ago. The friendly lady in the office told me they had no record of a Maurice Reid or anyone else with a variety on spelling his last name even attending around the listed time. Another woman at the small southern college Reid supposedly got a degree from from told me the same thing, except with a drawl making me yearn for sweet tea. I could have looked further but didn’t see the point. Reid was oh-for-two so far. The swings and misses would only get worse the more I probed.

Instead, I focused on the recent events. Reid legitimately earned his doctorate degree, though now I wondered how closely Coppin scrutinized his undergrad work. Morgan seemed happy with him; they certainly wrote about him and trumpeted his appearances and speeches sufficiently. His students held more mixed opinions. Interestingly enough, both Dante Johnson and Andre Carter left Reid negative reviews on Ratemyprofessor.com. They both mentioned his love for hearing himself talk. Having been to a speech, I could confirm it.

Earlier, I found Reid’s talk by checking his university calendar, but I only looked a day ahead. Now I checked the upcoming weeks. Tomorrow, Reid ran a support group for people and families affected by gang violence. The schedule showed it running twice a week. Maybe I would need to alter my opinion of Reid—after all, shameless self-promoters rarely involved themselves in helping people.

I added the support group meeting to my calendar. Might as well check it out in person.

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