The Last Clinic (8 page)

“Naturally. You may contact me whenever you need me.”

He set the espresso cup down, and before she could stand, he walked to her and offered his hand, helping her to her feet.

She took his hand—the large, soft, smooth, powerful hand—and allowed herself to be lifted.

“I’m afraid, much as I am enjoying your company, I cannot be of much help to you,” he said. He released her hand, walked to the door and opened it for her.

She wanted to shake his hand again, but didn’t. “It’s very likely you’ll need a lawyer,” she said, playing it like a cop just one more time.

“I appreciate your concern. Detective Reylander offered the same advice, but in a far less friendly fashion.”

“I hope you didn’t call him an asshole.”

“Not in English, I didn’t.”

His comment made her remember the recorder. It was still on the table. She scooped it up, making a point of turning it off.

“Come on, in Italian. Say it in Italian.”

“Next time, maybe. We’ll see.”

He had the door opened for her. She walked through, not sure if she’d said goodbye.

Next thing, she was out on the sidewalk. Her mind tried to reconstruct the meeting, sorting out the facts of the case, her impressions of the doctor, and what her intuition was telling her.

The entrance to the clinic was jammed with protestors. There were close to fifty now. No doubt, Bobby Goodhew had his people working the phones on behalf of The National Rights of the Unborn. Three of the new people, men, had the imitation crosses. A couple of them even had on the long gunnysack robes. Their taunts were getting louder.

The security officer had arrived and was standing guard at the entrance, not quite sure what to do.

“Sorry, I’m late,” he said. “Detective Reylander told me I could take my time.” Tommy was pulling crap already.

“I’ll see if I can get you some more help. In the meantime, don’t let the media people block the sidewalk,” she said, thinking Josh Klein and the WJAK crew would be back for the rush hour feeding frenzy.

“One more thing: keep an eye on the ones with the crosses. Those pointy ends can be used as weapons.”

Driving home, her mind was still on Dr. Nicoletti. It was true what Lulu said. He was mesmerizing. Not that it mattered. Stephen Nicoletti was sure to be arrested for murder in another day or two.

8

Location, Location, Location.

It was an axiom of his profession. Different assignments posed different challenges, each demanding its own approach. Some assignments called for a considerable amount of time and preparation. He might easily spend days, even weeks of analysis and planning. Other jobs, he could walk right in, size up the situation, and have a feel for what to do. Some jobs were straightforward; some had a number of variables that needed to be factored. Frequently, there was a hitch, and things didn’t go as he planned. He would be forced to be flexible, alter his approach, and improvise. Other times it was a simple matter of executing the game plan and moving on.

His current assignment should be as easy as they come. He would be in and out the same day.

It was all about location—the proximity of one venue to another. Fortunately, these venues were located in perfect proximity.

The primary target was situated at the end of the strip mall, next door to a greasy Chinese take-out joint called Kan Wang. It was the only Chinese restaurant in Bellowville, Texas. It was a stroke of fortune—perfect.

If things went as planned, no one—not the police, not the local newspaper, not even the target—would have a clue as to what had gone down, which, from his client’s point of view, was the whole idea.

Early Monday afternoon he checked into the Bellowville Motel 6, four miles to the east of town. The motel had forty-eight rooms and was located right off the interstate. Most of the guests were one-night stopovers. Given the amount of turnover, it was unlikely that a desk clerk would give much notice to his comings and goings.

He paid in cash for one night (he always paid in cash), telling the clerk he would be leaving before dawn Tuesday morning to attend a sales conference in Amarillo later in the day. This was a lie. He would be headed in the opposite direction.

Once in his room, he plugged in his laptop, went online, found his assignment dossier complete with a photo of the strip mall, a blue print of the restaurant interior, plus photos of the owner, and even a menu. It was typical down-and-dirty Chinese. Six pages of items—the usual hodge-podge of Canton, Hunan, Szechuan.
A hundred items and they’ll all taste the same
, he thought.

He looked up the web page for the Bellowville Community Fire Department. It was amazing what you could find on the internet. Their home page—their only page—featured a freshly painted, aging fire truck and ten volunteer firemen. He noted that the firehouse was located at the opposite end of town from the target. Yet another piece of good fortune. By his calculation, it would take at least ten minutes from the time the call went into the firehouse until the fire truck arrived on the scene. That would be more than enough time to achieve the desired result.

He found himself with a few hours to waste. Bored, he visited a couple of online poker sites and ended up losing two hundred playing Texas Hold ‘em, but it didn’t matter. Gambling, an occasional prostitute, and first-rate dining when he was in the right city, were indulgences he allowed himself—perks for the inconvenience and loneliness of a life on the road and the pressure that accompanied each assignment, even the easy ones like this.

At sixty-thirty in the evening, he unpacked his bag, assembled his small kit, and placed it into the specially created inner lining of his windbreaker. He checked himself out in the mirror and noticed there was no bulge. That was good.

He drove around the area for twenty minutes to be sure he had the lay of the land, and arrived at strip mall at seven p.m. Kan Wang was open for business. The rest of the establishments (including his target) were closed for the night. It was your typical Monday evening in small town America.

He parked his car, a silver late-model Toyota Camry—a rental—four spaces from the entrance to Kan Wang, where it couldn’t be seen from the inside of the restaurant. If asked later, the chinks at Kan Wang would remember a stranger coming in and might be able to provide a general description, but they wouldn’t be able to tell the authorities what kind of car he drove.

Kan Wang was empty except for the two that ran the place. He recognized the owner from the photo, an elderly Chinese woman. His notes said she served as hostess, waitress, and cashier. The cook, another chink, looked young enough to be her grandson.

The woman, with nothing better to do, sat behind the cash register playing solitaire on an iPad. He asked the woman for a menu, studied it for a minute, and ordered sweet and sour pork, egg rolls, and shrimp fried rice. Not very original, not that it made any difference. He didn’t eat Chinese food anyway. All that MSG. He’d dump the order once he left the area and pick up a burger along the way.

After placing the order, he asked the lady if he might use the rest room.

“For employ only,” she said.

“I, really…Please. I’ll just be a minute,” he said, doing his best to look like the matter was urgent.

She rolled her eyes and pointed to the back of the store, and then in Chinese shouted his order to the cook. It always sounded to him like the chinks were yelling at each other. He wondered if that’s how it sounded to them.

He had to walk past the kitchen to get to the bathroom. He did so without looking at the cook. Once inside the bathroom, he bolted the door and got right to it. He lifted the lid on the tank, turned it upside down, and sat it gently on the floor without making a sound. The plastic explosive that he’d placed in his windbreaker pocket was equipped with a timed device. It would fit nicely inside the lid. He taped it in place, making sure that the tape made a good seal on the enamel, just in case some water splashed up on it. Then he taped it again, taping the pack at a ninety-degree angle, just to be doubly sure. He set the timer for four hours, flushed the commode, and waited until it had refilled. He lifted the lid, right side up, and placed it back on the tank, just as he had found it. He took a paper towel, wiped the lid free of fingerprints and used the towel to open the handle to the bathroom door, both inside and out, just in case something went wrong and the device was discovered. This was an unnecessary precaution, he knew, but one could never be too careful.

His order was bagged and ticketed when he returned to the front of the restaurant. He paid the lady, thanked her without making a big deal about it, took his change, leaving the customary tip in the jar next to the cash register, and left.

He exited the parking lot at the far end, without crossing in front of the restaurant, and pulled onto the interstate. He drove until nearly midnight, about 200 miles, until he crossed the Oklahoma border. He found a motel with a lighted vacancy sign, checked in, took an Ambien, and after twenty minutes, fell asleep, confident that matters would go as he had planned.

The next morning he made coffee in the room, and checked the TV. Two of the network affiliates ran stories about a massive explosion at a popular Chinese carryout restaurant in the North Texas town of Bellowville. Both stories mentioned in passing that the resulting fire also destroyed two adjacent businesses—a dry cleaning establishment and a locally operated women’s health care clinic, the only medical facility in the area that performed abortions. The fire started with an explosion in the restaurant and broke through into the dry cleaners. The chemicals in the dry cleaners created a second explosion that quickly consumed the women’s health clinic. No one was present at any of the establishments at the time of the explosion and there were no injuries. Police and insurance investigators were still trying to determine the exact cause of the explosion. Chances were good, most of the town people would blame the chinks, those greasy woks they cook in. Or they’d blame the dry cleaners, what with all the chemicals.

Mission accomplished. No civilian causalities. Nice and clean. The client would be pleased. It was an easy payday.

9

Keys to the Kingdom.

The Southern Church of the Holy Redeemer didn’t look like a church. Not to Darla. At least they didn’t look like any church she’d seen growing up in South Philly where churches, Catholic in most cases, were hundred-year-old structures built by old world craftsmen. You found them wedged between row houses or perched on double corner lots, guardians of the neighborhood. They had grammar schools attached to them, rectories, and each a blacktop-covered playground with a basketball hoop, surrounded by a chain link fence that was too tall to climb unless you were running from someone. Each one had two designated parking spaces in front of the church; these were used for funeral hearses or wedding limos. Nobody drove. Everybody lived within walking distance of the church.

By contrast, the Southern Church of the Holy Redeemer looked more like an indoor shopping mall. It was a sprawling, low-slung, one-story set of brick buildings with a thin steel cross jutting out skyward, like an antenna for a wireless operator. Add to this a baseball diamond, a soccer field, two basketball courts, and a parking lot with about five hundred spaces. A blinking neon light across the top of the building broadcast the scriptural message of the day, as well as any relevant church news. Today’s message: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:10.

Darla found the office of Ralph Higgenstone, the church’s treasurer.

He was a small-framed, sandy-haired man with a face that seemed frozen in a perpetual smile. The church grin, Kendall called it. “You won’t get anything out of him. Ralph Higgenstone wouldn’t say shit if he had a mouth full,” Kendall had said.

Darla introduced herself, showed him her badge, and placed the recorder across on the desk between them.

“It’s voice activated,” she said.

“You work for Detective Reylander?” he said, doing his best to ignore the recorder.

“We’re colleagues.”

“Well good, good.” He made it sound as though his heart had been warmed by this bit of news. “I guess you know, Brother Tommy is part of our choir—the featured singer. We feel quite privileged. Sometimes Brother Tommy dresses in one of his Elvis outfits when he sings. You know Elvis loved gospels, and he sang them in his Las Vegas show.”

“I may have heard that.”

Everybody in Mississippi went on as if they knew Elvis Presley personally—as if Elvis was a cousin they grew up with. It was the same way they talked about her husband, only more so. In Jackson, the bigger name you were, the greater the number of people who claim to be your intimate friend.

“Well now, I suspect you’ve heard him sing. If you haven’t, Tommy sounds just like Elvis. Course Tommy is a little shorter and more…How should I say it? More on the husky side of things. But if you close your eyes when he sings, it’s like, well, like…”

“Like Elvis is in the building.”

He pointed at her and snapped his fingers. “You took the words right out of my mouth.” He sat back and beamed at her for no apparent reason. “Now, how can I help you?”

 “We found three thousand dollars in Reverend Aldridge’s SUV. I’m trying to figure out who the money belongs to.”

She studied his face, looking for a reaction.

The smile was still there but he furrowed his brow. “Three thousand dollars, you say? Goodness.”

“Yep. Three thousand dollars cash, all of it in small bills—fives, tens, twenties. It looked to me like a lot of walking around money for a minister. Detective Reylander seemed to think the money might be something Reverend Aldridge collected on behalf of the church.”