Bad Medicine: Andy Blake Mystery, #1

By Richard Whitten Barnes

Enormous profits from counterfeit prescription drugs secreted into the USA from Canada are funding a Neo-Nazi group dedicated to changing the ethnic face of North America.Windsor Ontario police inspector Andy Blake is recovering from a line of duty knifing that sends her home to beautiful St. Joseph Island, at the headwaters of Lake Huron. Instead of a peaceful recovery, Andy is thrust into the middle of a murder investigation that involves Grant Stacey, the boy she left behind twenty-five years ago.The investigation pits her against killers ruthless enough to do anything to keep their supply from Canada intact, as well as the Islanders who are supplying them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781613090305

Book preview

Dedication

To Finian:

Happy days ahead on St. Joe.

Acknowledgement

Thank you to the many citizens of St. Joseph Island for their encouragement and suggestions in the writing of BAD MEDICINE.

Jackileen & Brian Rains, Diane Holt, and the many others who are fortunate enough to know this beautiful place.

RWB

One

There was no response from inside the apartment. Andy Blake secured an errant wisp of dark brown hair behind her ear. She checked her weapon and nodded to, Joey Turner, holding the battering ram.

Windsor, Ontario has its share of crime. Its proximity to Detroit, and that city’s own problems, assures it. The two large cities separated only by a strip of river that delineates an international border can result in its share of shenanigans, a brisk prostitution trade included.

After months of success, the largest vice ring in Southern Ontario’s history was about to be dismantled by the capture of one Jerome Pinky Welner, now alleged to be hiding in his brother-in-law’s basement apartment. Andrea Blake of the Windsor Police Investigative Services, Major Crime Section, wasn’t entirely responsible for this success, but her boss thought so.

Police! Turner shouted, for the second time.

They’d secured a warrant this February morning to enter the apartment of an Arnold Finger, a small time punk who did what he was told. She was backed up by Turner and two uniformed Windsor police officers. In retrospect, she should have requested more.

The door yielded at the lock set, but remained shut. Andy pointed inches higher. Inside bolt, she said.

The door opened on Turner’s second try, exposing the shabby, sparsely furnished flat. High, street level windows admitted dull light, giving a film noir quality to the place. On a low table in front of a sofa lay an open pizza box, some uneaten crusts.

Andy motioned Joey to check the adjoining room on their right, while she went left into the kitchen, and what looked like another bedroom beyond.

Pinky! she called. Make this easy. No response.

The kitchen was littered with empty bottles and takeout cartons. A plastic garbage bin was filled to the brim with more of the same. A rear door led up to the street where two uniformed police covered any attempt of an exit.

"Clear in here, Joey Turner called.

Andy carefully checked under the counters. Kitchen’s clear. She moved to the room off the kitchen. A single, unmade bed, a dresser. The overhead light was on.

Turner joined her. She motioned for him to check under the bed while she moved to the closet door. He rose from his knees, shaking his head, no.

There was a musky smell that emanated from a large pile of dirty laundry, as Andy slowly pulled the closet door open. With her foot, she prodded the pile. Nothing.

Christ, it stinks! Turner said.

Andy prodded a little deeper, touching something hard. She pulled a pair of soiled trousers away to reveal a western style boot. It refused to move. This boot seems to be attached to a leg, sergeant, she said for the boot owner’s benefit. Might as well come out, Pinky.

Obediently, the pile of laundry came to life. First, an arm, then the balding head and shoulders of Jerome Welner. Calmly, wordlessly, he stood, put his hands on the wall and allowed Joey Turner to pat him down while Andy watched.

Clean, Turner said.

Hands behind your back, if you please, Andy instructed. She reached behind her back for her handcuffs.

I’ll let the guys on the back door in, Turner said.

Andy had one cuff on Welner when he lifted his leg and extracted something from his boot. She didn’t see the knife until it slipped neatly between her eleventh and twelfth ribs.

She was more angry at her laxity than at Welner, and displayed it by a very hard knee to his scrotum. The ensuing scream brought Turner back into the bedroom in time to secure Welner, but too late to do anything more but report Officer down on his radio.

The knifing resulted in a punctured lung. Andy arrived at Windsor Regional Hospital in time for the emergency staff to successfully re-inflate it. Two weeks later, a nurse wheeled Andy out to a waiting taxi. Looking back on the incident, she concluded it hadn’t been her finest hour.

THE MENTOR LOOKED DOWN from the pulpit, smiling benevolently. His congregation of one hundred and sixty—about one half from here at the commune, and another of equal size from the surrounding area—packed the converted barn. No need for fire and brimstone. His tone was even, his message was pure. It was time to conclude.

"And so, when the hard working Europeans settled this great country, made a constitution and established a work ethic that made this country what it is—or, once was, can it be expected that we allow groups of lazy, mongrel races to shoulder their way in and change our way of life and values?

This is our country and we must—we will—take it back. The mongrels are growing faster than you and I, the white founders of our homeland! That is why Lebenborn, and The Perfect Path, will save the white culture in America. I am so proud of you, my flock, you who have set the standard for two new Lebenborn communities this year, one in Nebraska, and, I have just learned, one in Arizona.

A murmur of approval in the congregation. The Mentor lowered his voice conspiratorially.

Our struggle is finding traction. This fall, when I address the Aryan Front annual meeting in Iowa, I will shine your example as a beacon for the others to follow. Now let us pray to our heavenly Father for the courage to continue in this most noble of causes: the rightful dominance of the white race.

Over one hundred and fifty heads, a majority of them women’s, lowered. An electric organ played a hymn, followed by recessional. The congregation emptied the barn, some to cottages and trailers on the premises, others to cars and pick-ups parked along the rural road. All filled with new energy and righteousness.

THE LAST OF THE PERSONAL items from her desk was in the cardboard box, and Andrea Blake gingerly lifted her forty-three year old, five foot eight frame from the chair. The stiffness in her side was somewhat better, but still aggravating. She made her way past cubicles to Jack Carmichael’s office, where a sign on the open glass door announced:

Superintendent

Investigative Services

Major Crime Section

John V. Carmichael

Andy checked her reflection in the mirrored door, ruefully aware of the five pounds put on in the hospital, and gave the jamb a rap.

Jack?

Carmichael looked up. Already, Inspector?

She smiled at the formality. There wasn’t much. Most of the important stuff I handled at the hospital.

Take all the time you need to get healthy, Andy, Carmichael said.

A little disingenuous, Andy thought. He couldn’t afford to lose an experienced investigator, especially one with the creds of Andy Blake. Ten years on the job in Toronto, an MS in Criminology, before accepting the Windsor Superintendant position she now held. She’d found she hated the admin side of the job, and had no stomach for departmental politics. Her request to take an inspector slot was granted. For Jack, she was the perfect employee: a top notch detective—and not after his job.

What are your plans? he asked.

Andy looked out of Carmichael’s window across the river to where the Detroit skyline sparkled on a bright, late April day. It belied the blight that still existed behind the façade, despite that city’s attempts at recovery. I may go home for a month or two—up north.

He stood, walked around his desk, offering an awkward embrace. Get well, Andy...and get back soon.

And that was it. A hug for Joey Turner, some additional good-byes and good wishes from the few not on the phone or on the street, a fast elevator ride down three floors, and she found herself walking across Goyeau Street to the car park.

A strange feeling of detachment enveloped her,

a balloon, freed from a child’s fingers, drifting nowhere. Do I really want to go home? She’d returned to visit only rarely over the years. After the death of her mother and father three years ago, and only three months apart, she had stayed away completely, for reasons she could, or would, not verbalize.

Rationally, she knew it was the right thing to do. She loved the island, had been happy growing up. Now, she finally had some time to take care of things. The family house needed to be sold or leased. Still, the same old reluctance to return was there, hanging on her.

THE YOUNG MAN HAD EVERY right to be frightened. He sat in the straight back chair, hands on his knees to keep away the tremor.

Tell me again, Asa. The older man behind the desk leaned forward. He wasn’t a large man, somewhat squat: Edward G. Robinson, perhaps. It might have been the eyes, slightly magnified in the square, black framed glasses that frightened Asa so.

Tell you what, Mentor? He took his eyes away from his hands to look into the Mentor’s face, but quickly averted his glance, finding the sign on the wall above the Mentor’s head. The message was unhelpful, under the circumstances.

THE PERFECT PATH

...why you came home without the entire consignment, the Mentor prompted.

I...had no choice. I was alone. There were two of them!

You had a choice. They knew the terms of the agreement. It would have been better for you to have simply walked away, paying nothing. You were weak, and now they know they have set a new standard: three quarters of the goods for the same price.

They would have killed me, Mentor!

Nonsense. They were testing you because you were new. I warned you before you were sent there. I am very disappointed in you, Asa. Now I will have to repair your mistake. He leveled his eyes on the cowering figure. You may return to your family.

The boy named Asa rose and exited the farmhouse that fronted on the rural Michigan road. He walked, head down, toward one of the several smaller structures and trailers in the rear of the property. It would be his last chance to serve as one of the Mentor’s cadre.

Preston Bidwell removed his black-rimmed glasses and rubbed his eyes. Twenty adult males in the commune and all with shit between their ears. Loyal, yes, but not a brain among them. Some of the women had ability. No, best to keep them in their place.

Now this. It could not continue unchallenged. The drugs, counterfeits of brand name stuff from the likes of Squibb, Lily, Novartis, Roche, GSK, brought in through Canada and sold for half price in the USA. It was the main source of income for the Church of the Perfect Path, making the tithes from members and income from the communal farm insignificant.

But keeping the farm was an essential part of his mission. It was a base from which he could operate, recruit soldiers to good work for his Aryan Front. He was proud of what he had accomplished in the time since splitting away from his uncle’s organization.

They’d never taken him seriously, despite the years of loyalty to the Michigan True Race Militia. His Uncle Elmer was a bully, always belittling Preston’s squat, five foot four inch stature and bookish ways.

The division between Preston and his uncle widened as the nephew grew older and more sure of his conviction that the Militia, despite Elmer’s bluster, never accomplished anything except a show of force at parades and rallies.

Preston wanted action, and believed he knew how to attract the most zealous followers. Twelve years ago, he broke away, forming the Church of the Perfect Path. The major tenets of the church would be white supremacy and Lebensborn, patterned after the organization founded by the German National Socialist Party in the late 1930s to promote a purer Aryan population.

The church would espouse the practice of bigamy, getting around the law by sanctioning common law unions. There need not be a marriage in the eyes of the Church of the Perfect Path. Contraception was a taboo. Children were a priority.

Then twelve ago, Elmer died. His followers were absorbed by a group in Ohio. Surprisingly, Elmer died intestate, with no heirs other than Preston. A fifteen acre farm, summer home in northern Michigan, and a few vehicles were left to him. The Church of the Perfect Path had a home.

Eva, he called in a voice only slightly raised.

A girl in her twenties, almost elfin in appearance, materialized from the next room. Mentor?

Bidwell did not look up. "Fetch me Brother Hoffman and Brother William.

Yes, Mentor. She evaporated away on her errand.

THE AXE CAME DOWN ON the maple log with a satisfying chuck as the two halves fell apart. That should be enough to keep her mouth shut for a day or two, anyway. He moved his lips in sync with his thoughts. The mornings still had a chill, and Glenda Hoffman had been at him for lack of a fire in the stove.

Hoffman threw the last of the wood into the wheelbarrow and headed for the low, rambling house. Glenda would have the two younger women stack it on the porch. She was doing less herself these days, happy with the inclusion of the latest new wife.

He saw Eva walking from the main house, and felt his groin respond. Piece of ass there! He watched the wind push her thin dress against her thighs as she walked, and thought bitterly how the Mentor had claimed her for himself, knowing how he, Hoffman, had made his feelings clear.

He dropped the wood at the house and watched, thumbs stuck in the wide belt that girded his tree trunk torso, as young Eva approached.

Good morning, Brother Hoffman, she said, using the only name anyone in the commune knew. If he had a first name, he’d never revealed it. Others were called Brother or Sister followed by their first names.

You want something? he said.

I’ve come with a request from the Mentor.

Hoffman waited.

He has invited you and Brother William to join him in The House. She didn’t wait for an answer, knowing there would be no need for discussion, and headed back.

He watched her retreat, the warm south wind blowing her hair, wondering if that old man was screwing her.

Glenda! he shouted. The screen door opened half way revealing a stout woman in jeans and flannel shirt, black hair parted in the middle and pulled back severely into a single braid. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

What?

Here’s your wood. I’m going to The House.

She closed the door without a word.

Bitch, he thought, but he really had no problem with Glenda. She ran an orderly household, reigning like a queen over the two younger women and the five children.

They had been married for eleven years. Both fed up with the fucking ragheads and nappy heads in Detroit, they were among the first to join Reverend Bidwell at his new commune near Mount Pleasant. Like other selected male members, he had earned the right to claim more than one wife.

Hoffman and Glenda were legally married; one of the five children a nine year old girl, was theirs. The other four were Mary’s who had been awarded to Hoffman for his firebombing of a storefront mosque in Hamtramck. Fertile Mary delivered her four over just a six year period. The new girl, Sandy, was a runaway from Coldwater, saved from a life of sin by the Church of the Perfect Path. She was pregnant with her first.

Hoffman considered changing out of his damp work shirt, but decided the personal visit by Eva meant sooner rather than later. He headed for the faded blue trailer propped up on cinder blocks to pick up Billy Sweet, and see what the old man wanted.

ANDY’S SUBARU SLID smoothly into the single car garage of her Roseville Gardens town house. She’d bought the place immediately after relocating to Windsor from Toronto, and she loved it. Her enjoyment of furnishing and decorating the place had not diminished over the five years since taking the Windsor job.

But today, for the first time, the house felt odd as she came through the garage entrance into the foyer. The home she’d so lovingly filled with her own personality now seemed as if it belonged to a stranger.

She was sure her sense of being hadn’t changed since the attack. That, she’d taken in stride—part of the job. It was something else, her decision to go back to St. Joseph, possibly severing connection with the island forever. It was as if she were looking for something here to confirm her decision to sell the family home there, but there was nothing in the condo that had anything to say.

Andy changed into sweats and went to her desktop computer in Tim’s bedroom. A check of her email resulted in two SPAMs and a short note from her eldest sister in Alberta, concerned after hearing of her hospital stay.

A picture of Tim, handsome in his high school cap and gown, stared back at her, looking alarmingly like his father. Thank God, that’s where the similarities ended. Tim was a rare one, brought up by Andy and her landlady for much of his life, one could have expected the boy to have all kinds of issues. Andy’s job had terrible hours, especially in the early days as a junior grade Toronto police officer. Then, when she decided to get her MS at the University of Toronto Centre for Criminology, she had even less time for him.

In spite of it all, Tim never went through the troubled teen years so common in even the most adjusted boys. Now, finishing his