“Nice tie,” Mack commented as we entered the front doors of the hospital. We got as far as the first nurses’ station before being told that Mr. Baxter was unable to receive visitors. We flashed our badges. The overworked woman behind the desk stared at me flatly. Right.
“Do we know when Mr. Baxter will be awake to speak with the police?” I asked, eyeballing a guy bouncing a wailing baby on his hip. I’d arrested that guy once. Gang-related issues, stabbing a rival gang member outside a corner store in East LA, and now, here he was with a sick kid. His gaze met mine. He spun on his heel and bounced that crying baby all the way down the corridor and out of sight.
“As soon as the doctors say so,” she informed us, then waved at the people in line behind us. Mack and I left, stepping out into the sunny day. The palms swayed. The clouds rolled past overhead. The sound of an ambulance careening into the ER entrance on the other side of the hospital floated by.
“Okay, well, next step. The lunch I had with Oliver was fruitful,” I said as we made the long-ass hike to that stupid yellow Honda.
“Oh, it’s ‘Oliver’ now?”
I ignored the comment but took note of the familiarity and corrected mentally. “Mr. Cowan recalled seeing the offender with a picture from a bulletin board in his hand as he made his escape.” We paused at a crosswalk to let an elderly man push his wife across the road. The wheelchair got stuck in a pothole, so Mack and I lifted the old gal free, then gently set her on the sidewalk. Both of them gushed about what fine men the LAPD had working for them. Mack and I blushed, then returned to our hike. “Take a look.”
I showed him the photo I’d taken during the initial sweep we’d made of the scene.
“Huh, that’s odd. I wonder if he was trying to hide something that he or someone he is close to was involved in. What did Cowan say the image was of?”
“Some sort of fundraising hike they did for the clinic a few years back. We might be able to run some facial recognition if we could find another copy of the photo.”
“Or we could go to the clinic and talk to Lazlo Richter. He’s the reception guy with blue hair. Seemed very willing to talk to us yesterday.”
“Why don’t we do both?”
“You could reach out to Timothy.”
I groaned. Timothy was an evidence technician with the force. Nice guy, I guess, but desperate to get into my bed. Even a horn dog like me had some lines in the sand. Fucking a guy you worked with frequently was never a good thing. I’d not call him back for a second go, and he would get pissy, fingerprints would get lost, which would sabotage a potential case, and then I would have to punch Timothy-the-tech in the nose. I’d get fired. Timothy would sue. And I’d end up living in a rundown trailer on the beach, just like Jim Rockford.
“Yeah, no. Shit.” Thatwouldspeed things up. I glanced at Mack with big puppy eyes.
“Nope. I’m not doing it. I did all the paperwork this morning.”
“I gave you a hash brown.”
He stood firm. I cussed him and his kilted forefathers, then sent a text to Timothy asking if he would do me a huge favor. The reply was an enthusiastic yes if I would meet him for a margarita some night. I agreed. Some night could be tomorrow or in ten years. If nothing else, I was a master at avoiding romantic entanglements.
“He’s on it.”
“He’d like to be on you.”
“Just drive us to the clinic before I tell Elena you snuck a hash brown.”
Mack murmured under his breath all the way to the Haven of Hope clinic. We ambled in. The place was up and back in business, although the aura was subdued. Sitting behind the glass panel at the reception desk was a lean guy with vibrant blue hair, pale blue eyes, and a spiky earring in his left lobe. He was dressed corporate casual. His eyes flared when he spied us coming towards him.
“Mr. Richter, do you remember us?” I asked and got a nod. “Good. If you have a minute, my partner and I would like to ask you some questions.”
“Umm sure?” He called out to a harried-looking older woman in a pink sweater. She took his seat while staring at us openly. “Through that door.” Lazlo pointed at a door in the waiting room. We nodded, pushed through, and met him on the other side. “We have a room open down here.”
As we tagged along behind the office worker, the hushed sounds of people talking behind closed doors met us. A baby cried down the hallway. The place smelled of cleanser. Strong cleanser. The door to Joe’s office was still taped off. Lazlo gave the yellow tape a glance, then rushed past it, as if to outrun the memory of the day before.
“In here.” We stepped into your standard exam room. No duckies on the wall in this one, just posters asking where your pain tolerance was. I stared at the sad face for number six and could relate. I really needed another couple of Tylenol. Lazlo stood while we sat, his thin arms folded protectively over his chest. “Is Joe dying?”
“Not that we’re aware of. We’re here to see if you can shed some light on the photo in the background here?” I pulled out my battered Android, flipped through a hundred or so shots, then held up the image of the bulletin board that Lazlo had found. It was a little blurry given the photo had been taken of Joe sitting at his desk from a year ago, but it was the best we had. Mack sat beside me, recording the questioning. “Do you remember that photograph?”
Lazlo bent over to stare at the screen. “Oh sure, that’s the first Haven of Hope Clinic Hike. That was before I started working here, but we do it every year. A bunch of us will drive out to Mount Baldy and do the trails.”
“Sounds nice. Can you tell us who the people in this image are?” I asked once more.
“Are they in trouble?” Lazlo enquired, the eagerness to help now feeling tempered.
“Not at all. We’d just like to touch base with everyone who worked here or knew the victim to ensure we’ve not missed a potential clue.”
