“Yeah, he had a scar in the shape of aZ, you know, like Zorro.” Mack and I both nodded. “I remembered seeing him waiting outside the clinic a few weeks ago. He was there with his baby mama. Some tiny thing with a newborn, her name is Karen Snipes. Like Wesley Snipes. You can find her file at the clinic. I don’t know his name, but I bet she does, since she and her baby got into his car after the appointment.”
“Thank you for this information. We’ll be in touch. I hope you recover quickly,” Mack said as I nodded along.
“Do you guys know what’s going on?” Lazlo asked. We did, but we weren’t at liberty to say a thing yet. So, we did what all cops do when they really want to help ease a victim’s mind but can’t.
“We’re working on things and hope to have news for you soon. Thank you, Doctor.”
Mack eased out of the room. I followed, and we were hustling ass to get to Mack’s car. We’d have to find Karen Snipes’ records back at the clinic. That was the easy part, or, I should say, the least dangerous part. All we had to do was tell the manager of the clinic that the files possibly held information vital to apprehending a suspect in a crime. HIPAA rules gave us the right to grab medical records without a warrant in order to identify a suspect, witness, fugitive, or missing person. And I was sure that Joe would give that file over with all haste, as his clinic would be teetering on the brink of financial ruin if we didn’t get this mess cleaned up fast.
I glared at the banana-yellow Honda as we moved toward it. I should have insisted we take my car, but I’d caved when I met Mack at his place. We folded ourselves into the car and off we went to the Haven of Hope clinic. Mack was driving, and I was on the phone, trying to contact anyone to unlock the clinic so we could get into Joe’s files. Turned out Joe was out of hospital, and the man finally answered and was more than agreeable to give us what we needed. Again, I knew Joe was stressed to the max and filled with questions, but he’d have to wait a little longer. All would be revealed in due time.
I wished I could contact Oliver to fill him in. Instead of doing something that would be a major no-no, I sent him a fast text saying that I was flexing myHill Street Bluesvibes. That got me a reply with a meme of Sergeant Esterhaus and his famous, “Hey, let’s be careful out there” line.
I promised I’d be, then added anXbecause I guess I was doing that now. If anyone had told me I’d be signing off on texts with kisses two months ago, I’d have laughed in their face.
* * *
The clinic was in disarray,yet again, when Mack and I met a pale and shaky Joe outside.
“Should you be back so soon?” I asked.
Joe shrugged, then winced. “I’ll go stir-crazy at home,” he said, and I wasn’t going to argue with that.
The front door had been sealed with plywood, the blood stains in the reception area were being mopped up as we spoke, and a scraggly little yellow cat was napping on the desk where Lazlo should’ve been seated.
“File room is back here,” Joe told us, leading us past the remaining staff who were working madly to get things set to rights. There were people out there who needed this place badly. “I’m surprised any of them even showed up to work. I wouldn’t blame anyone for quitting, given how dangerous this clinic has become.”
“They’re dedicated to serving, just like you,” I said softly and got a funny look from Joe, who still didn’t seem as if he should be scrubbing blood from tiles.
“Seems to be a thing with some of us, huh?” He stopped outside a small office, opened the door, and waved at walls of files. “We keep paper files, as well as storing them on the computer. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to know I have paper in hand when Skynet takes over the world.”
“Smart man,” Mack said, as he, too, disliked our reliance on technology.
“Anything you can tell me that I can pass along to my staff?” Joe asked.
We fed him some of the standard lines, but were able to add that Lazlo would be discharged as soon as his brother arrived from Oregon. That news cheered Joe up, our lack of information fo him did not, and I was sorry for that.
Once inside the file room, we dug out Karen Snipes’ folder. The girl was just twenty and had given birth a month ago. Her file, which went back about four years, was filled with questionable injuries that had strongly prompted the attending physician to suspect domestic abuse. Karen fell down stairs a lot. Karen tripped into open cupboards a lot. Karen lived with a man named Philip Miscotti, aged thirty-two, who was recorded as the father of her newborn baby girl, Poppy. Mack placed the call to run Miscotti through the database, while I read over the long list of broken bones and black eyes Karen had presented with over the past two years.
Good old Phil’s criminal background report was a cornucopia of run-ins with the law since he was fourteen. Phil liked to rob people, beat up people, and terrorize people. Phil also had been in prison twice on two different charges of possession of illegal prescription medications with the intent to sell. Both times, our buddy Ivan Baladin’s lawyer had bailed him out and acted as his counsel. Coincidence? Not likely. Smirking at the link between these two scum balls, I relayed what Berke had found out online for us, then set a few things into motion as Mack and I left the clinic to go visit Karen Snipes.
“So what? Ivan sends this Phil guy to get whatever he was after when he sent in that Periapsis asshole?”
“Maybe so.”
“For passwords.”
“Yep.”
“He’s a fucking idiot.”
I set up some backup for when we went to visit Ms. Snipes and her boyfriend—who was assumed to be living with her—as well as tracking down a judge willing to cough up a warrant. I managed to get an unmarked with fellow detectives, as well as a lone marked that would show up at the address as soon as we had it. The warrant didn’t arrive for two hours, which gave Mack and me time to stop and buy some hot dogs and devour them. We lingered around the public housing apartments on Sunset Boulevard, cramped and hot inside Mack’s Honda, until the warrant came down. Then, we met with our backups, had a short talk about how this was hopefully going to go down, and went to knock on Karen’s door on the fourth floor of the massive low-income housing complex. Mack and I alone, with our fellow police officers on standby.
Berke and Mason were in the lobby, loitering about while trying not to look conspicuous, while our newest additions were parked out front in unmarked cars.
Mack knocked on the door of 487, which set off a baby’s wail. A male voice inside bellowed. The baby cried louder. Mack gave me a sideways glance. I stood quietly, listening, wary. Any time you paid a known violent felon a friendly visit, things could get screwed up in a heartbeat.
Karen opened the door. She was a tiny thing, tired brown eyes, long brown hair knotted into a bun atop her head. Her bottom lip was discolored and puffy.
