Beyond Recognition

59

Boldt was both annoyed with and concerned about Bobbie Gaynes. She had called in to dispatch an hour earlier, explaining she was going to walk to Seattle University-the location of Garman’s surprise bicycle disappearance-and had not been heard from again. She didn’t carry a cellular phone and she was clearly away from her vehicle, because she wasn’t answering radio calls. She was one of only two detectives to whom Boldt could turn for his surveillance team, and he felt forced to chase her down.

He drove to the corner of Broadway and Columbia and immediately spotted her department-issue four-door parked a half block down the hill. At that point, his concern gave way to worry.

He parked and walked quickly through the small campus, eyes and ears alert. There was no more daylight left, only a strong twilight glow off the clouds, bouncing back a muted, ambient light that stuck to anything pale in color. Gaynes could have covered the area in no time, he realized, wondering why she had not returned to her car and reported back to dispatch. He had no time to chase detectives around the city. Increasingly impatient, he widened his area of search as he believed she would have. He had been on foot for twenty minutes when he found himself waiting for a car to pass at the intersection of Broadway and James.

He looked up at the many office buildings surrounding him, at first taking in their contrasting brick and concrete architectures, preferring the older brick look, but then assessing their purpose as professional buildings-medical offices. The area was known as Pill Hill. All at once he knew why he had lost Bobbie Gaynes; she too had made this same discovery. Medical offices, and their suspect with a reconstructed face.

Boldt began to run in the direction of Harbor-view, where he hoped to catch Dixie, still in his offices. As medical examiner Dixie would have access to professional listings. The man often worked late; Boldt felt he had a chance.

Each building he passed had some connection to the medical world. The signs, the names shouted out at him. He couldn’t run fast enough. He cut across to Boren and down Boren toward the hospital, out of breath but not slowing his stride.

They had run driver’s license and vehicle registration checks on Garman, he recalled. Had LaMoia run credit checks and medical records? He couldn’t remember. But then he thought they must have, because they knew the exact date of Jonathan Garman’s admission for severe burns in the hospital at Grand Forks. And, if so, they had not discovered any record of medical insurance or they would have had an address to run down, even if only a mail drop.

Think, think! he told himself. And as the idea struck him, Boldt pulled an abrupt about-face, cut back across the street, and ran at a full sprint back toward the school campus.

Less than five minutes later, he burst through the door of the First Hill Medical Clinic, a welfare outpatient service only a block south of the university. It operated out of an old dry-cleaning shop, the rusted mechanized clothes hanger chain still suspended from the ceiling like recovered dinosaur vertebrae.

Bobbie Gaynes was standing at the counter, halfway through a serious pile of paperwork. She viewed a sheet and turned. Viewed and turned. She took no notice of Boldt until he stood panting only a few feet away. Then she glanced over at him and said, “Well, don’t just stand there, Sergeant, take a chunk of this.” She passed him two inches of paperwork. As if they had been discussing the case together, she said, “Shifts changed at six o’clock, so no one here now saw him come in today. But one of the girls recognized the description. Garman uses the clinic, though she says the name doesn’t sound right. She says the plastic surgery was a lousy job-it’s always infecting along his ears. They’re not so pretty, evidently; he wears the sweatshirt hood up to hide them. And they’re real painful. If he was in today, he’s in these piles. And if he’s in these piles they have some paperwork on him. Everyone has to register here. It’s kind of like an uninsured HMO.”

A female nurse called another patient’s name into the crowded room. A male nurse answered the phone and sat down at a computer terminal.

“You didn’t call in,” Boldt said. Leafing through the doctors’ reports, he asked, “What do I look for?”

“An injection of this.” She passed him a Post-It that bore the handwritten name of an antibiotic. “That word will be in this space here,” she said, indicating a box on one of the forms. “But doctors can’t write, so it’s hard to know what you’re looking at. How can guys who spend ten years in graduate school write like they never made it through sixth grade?”

“How could you go an hour without checking in?”

She indicated the pay phone. There was someone on it, and a line waiting. “This place has been jumping. I figured, Do the job at hand. I know it’s a long shot but-”

“No, Bobbie, it’s a stroke of genius.” He didn’t often hand out that kind of compliment, and it stopped her for a moment.

“When that gal said she knew the disfigured guy with the sweatshirt-well, it kind of felt like Christmas. I wanted to unwrap the present for you. That’s all.” Suddenly she barked, “Got it!” and tugged one of the forms from the pile. She shouted to the male nurse at the computer terminal. “Jonny Babcock! Everything you’ve got on him!” The man hesitated, having no idea who Bobbie was. Boldt and his detective both produced their shields nearly in the same movement.

Boldt announced them: “Police!”

The resulting commotion behind them sounded like a stampede. Boldt turned around in time to see four youths already out the door and sprinting down the sidewalk.

Typing the name into the terminal, the male nurse observed, “Well, that’s certainly an effective way to thin the waiting room. Thank you. I’ll have to remember that.” Looking back at his screen he said, “Babcock, Jonathan. No phone. Apartment Two-C, 1704 Washington Street South. You want me to print it for you?”

Not hearing an answer, the man turned around. The two police officers were already out the door.