The Fraud by Brad Parks

may have been an insurance company trying to weasel its way out of its fiduciary responsibilities.
    I rang the doorbell again, getting the sense it was empty. Then, from next door, a woman dressed in nurse’s scrubs peeked out.
    “He don’t live there no more,” she said, then added matter-of-factly; “he died.”
    “I know. I’m looking for his family.”
    “They don’t live with him. You with the city or something?”
    “I’m a reporter with the Eagle-Examiner . I’m writing a story about him. Did you know him?”
    “Some.”
    I pulled out a notepad, took down her name, and went for the open-ended question approach. “I’m just trying to get a sense of what kind of guy he was. Tell me about him.”
    She considered this. “I don’t know. He was pretty quiet, you know? We shared a wall but I never heard a peep from him. He was always very polite. He had lived here maybe three years? He and his wife were divorced.”
    Which explained the two-bedroom pad.
    “What kind of work did he do?” I asked.
    “I’m not sure. I know he went on business trips sometimes, because he’d tell me he’d be gone for a week or two and ask me to look after his place. I think he traveled back to Nigeria, but I don’t know what he did there. He didn’t talk about that much.”
    “What did he talk about?”
    “His kids, mostly. He was really proud of them. Two of them were off at college. The other one is a senior at Arts High. That’s where I went to school, so he would tell me about her a lot. She won a lot of awards for stuff. Maryam, her name is. He was always like, ‘Maryam, she was student of the month. Maryam, she won the National Merit scholarship.’”
    The woman had mimicked a deep bass voice and a West African accent for the last part, doing her best Joseph Okeke impersonation.
    “What about the other two kids?” I asked.
    “I don’t know. One’s a boy, the other’s a girl. That’s all I know.”
    “Do you know where they go to college?”
    She shook her head. “I’m sure he mentioned it, but I’d just be guessing.”
    “Did the kids ever come over here?”
    “No. I asked him about it one time and he said he and his wife had decided that the kids ought to have one home, not shuttle back and forth between two all the time. They wanted the kids to have as stable a life as possible. If he wanted to see them, he went over there.”
    “He and his wife must have been on okay terms, then?”
    “I don’t know. I never met her.”
    I looked down at my notebook, as if this would help me divine more information.
    “What else. Any hobbies?”
    “He was in Rotary. I know that. He’d talk about that sometimes…”
    Her voice trailed off, then she added, “I’m sorry. I wish I could help more. I kind of have to get going to work now. I didn’t really know him that well. I mean, we were neighbors and I liked him. We’d chitchat every now and then when we saw each other, but that was it. It’s sad what happened to him. This city—”
    She finished the thought with a headshake. Sometimes there was nothing more to say.
    “I appreciate your help,” I said, then let her go.
    She had given me a solid start. And I was liking the picture of Joseph Okeke that was emerging. Here, of course, I was just being selfish on behalf of my story. As I said earlier, having a good victim is absolutely critical. Nothing ruined an otherwise heartrending tale faster than an unsympathetic victim. If Okeke had been some man-about-town divorc é , trolling around in his BMW 328i while he blew off his family, it made him less of a tragic figure.
    But that’s not who he had been. He was an involved father, bursting with pride for his children. He was a businessman who was working hard to provide for his family. He was living a peaceful, quiet life.
    And he was in Rotary. I liked that detail. Rotary had an element of business networking to it, sure, but it was a primarily a service organization. He helped others in his