Chapter 6

"Not to sound like my wife…"I threw a look at my partner as we crawled our way towards the hospital, my mouth so full of fries I probably appeared like an unkempt Rescue Ranger. "But if you chewed your food, you'd get more satisfaction from it. Also, and this is proven…" He stopped at a red light next to a beater Ford packed full of kids listening to Bad Bunny. The thumping beat made my fillings throb, which did not go well with the lingering headache I was enjoying. "Chewing one hundred times helps you feel more full."

The teens flipped me off. I returned the gesture. Today was not the day, kids. They sped off as my partner droned on about exercising your choppers.

"Ever since you got married, I don't recognize you," I said around the last bite of my burger. Mack glanced my way in shock. "No, hear me out." I burped into my hand. "Oof, onions. Okay, so before you tied the knot, we'd talk about good stuff. Like sex."

"I am not discussing my sex life with you. Elena wouldn't like it."

I pointed a finger coated with mustard at him. "See, that's what I mean. Now we talk about your piles, or your mother-in-law, or how many times a man should chew his burger. Is that what married life is all about? Hemorrhoids and mastication? Because if it is, I am so glad I've never fallen in love."

I stuck my finger into my mouth to clean off the mustard. Mack made a quick left as he stewed on my words.

"Do you want to talk about sex?" he finally asked as we pulled into the packed parking lot of Holy Trinity Hospital.

"No, not really. You'll have to go to the upper lot." I went to wipe my wet finger on my tie, then saw that I had forgotten to dig a cleanish tie out of my desk drawer before leaving to meet with Oliver. "Shit, I wore this tie to lunch. Why didn't you remind me to change it?"

"What am I? Your wife? Shit, I hate trying to find a place to park here."

"How dare all these people get sick?" I quipped. Mack shot me a look. "Try the upper lot."

"This is the upper lot."

"Try the upper upper lot."

"Maybe I should just slap the flasher on top of the roof."

"Nah, don't do that. Last time someone used their red and blues to get through the line entering a Lakers game, Cap gave them desk duty for a year."

"Oh yeah, Kendall. I remember him. He transferred out to La Jolla. Nice house. The wife and kids love it out there."

My sight flew from my dirty tie to my partner. "Don't you even think about going suburban on me, Mack. Oh there, on the right of that Pontiac."

"Got it." He whipped into the slot, parked, and exited. I took off my tie, then rummaged in Mack's glove box for another. Elena kept about ten in there, all rolled up neatly as those puff pastry pinwheels she packed for his lunch. Maybe having a significant other wasn't all bad. Clean ties and baked goods were okay.

"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." That would speed 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."

He seemed okay with the standard cop sidestep. I wasn't about to divulge any information to someone who might let something slip. We liked being a step ahead of the criminals, if at all possible. Not that the people in the snapshot were criminals, but one learned really quick not to ignore any possibility. Sometimes the most innocent-looking people were the most dangerous.

"Most are employees. A few have moved on," he explained, his shoulders up around his ears. He was getting tense.

"Any family members?" Mack asked as I worked up my best hangover smile.

"Not in that picture," Lazlo replied stiffly. "I know that Joe takes it down sometimes and has it on his desk, but maybe he's just reliving the memory or… look, if someone is in trouble…"

"No one is in trouble." I stood slowly. "We're just looking into all possibilities. Could you possibly get us a list of the people in this photo? Names, addresses, that sort of thing. It would save us a lot of time compared to doing it back at the precinct."

"Okay sure." He seemed displeased to do as requested, but ten minutes later, we had a list of the people who were in that missing photo. "Heloise might know more about who's in the photo; she's been here longer than me."

"On it," Mack said and wandered away to find the poor woman from the closet.

I met Mack back outside, the sun making me squint, so I put my sunglasses back on and waited to see if he had anything to add.

"Nothing more to add to what Lazlo told us," he said. "She gave us the same names he did, in between crying."

I wanted to feel sympathy, but we really needed names.

"So, out of the ten people in the old photo, only one is working today? A nurse, Belinda Waters."

"Yep, I asked her to come find us after finishing with her patient."

She arrived as if we'd conjured her, a small woman who looked close to retirement. She didn't have much to add. She remembered the photo, knew it was something Joe kept on his board, didn't recall anything special happening the day it was taken, and that was it.

We'd talked with her for about five minutes before she was called off to assist a stand-in physician from the medical center two blocks over.

"Shall we spend the rest of the afternoon visiting these hikers?"

"Elena said to be home by six."

I assured him we would be done by then.

We weren't. He got bitched at, but got fed. I got to go home and spend the night with a dead orchid and a microwave meal.

Who was the winner in that scenario?