The First Victim

CHAPTER 59

A woman detective from vice named Laura Stowle was dressed in nursing whites to play the role of clinic receptionist. LaMoia commented on how a tightly packed white uniform had irresistible effects upon him, and how, based on this rare opportunity to see Stowle’s darkly handsome face and ‘‘well-rounded personality’’ in such a tantalizing costume, he needed to ask her out.

Boldt told him to keep it in his pants.

The clinic had gone along with the substitution because the receptionist required no medical training and until a doctor or paramedic became involved in the process there was no legal expectation of privacy.

‘‘The only problem with Stowle in this assignment, Sarge, is that even with her hair pulled back, she’s a little too cute, a little too much like a soap opera star instead of the minimum wage ethnic receptionist we’ve all come to expect.’’

‘‘One of these days that mouth of yours is going to get you into more trouble than it can talk itself back out of,’’ Boldt warned.

‘‘This mouth of mine ought to be registered as a weapon, what it can do to a woman.’’

‘‘You’re not scoring any points, John. Go inside and take a chair. You want to stare at Stowle? Permission granted. At least I won’t have to listen to you.’’

LaMoia occupied the chair in the far corner for two hours, wondering why it was that waiting rooms offered only grossly outof-date magazines and wall clocks the size of pizzas. He was bothered by how young the people using the free clinic were, and how much of its traffic seemed involved, one way or another, with drugs and addiction. Only seven people had arrived as a result of Stevie McNeal’s broadcast.

Each of the seven times, Stowle had signaled all four of the undercover cops inside, and Boldt in the control van. The lavaliere microphone was hidden in her dark hair, its wire running down the back neck of her dress. Seven different people, all seeking the RH-340 flu shot-all health care workers or dockhands who had been on the scene of the container recovery.

The eighth time Laura Stowle signaled LaMoia it was for a tall Hispanic male wearing a dark sweatshirt with a hood. LaMoia buried his face into a six-week-old copy of People; the janitor with the bucket and mop kneeled down to work a piece of gum from the stone floor; a wiry-looking woman in hot pants and platform shoes pulled out her lipstick and used the mirror of her compact to get a good look at the door behind her; a woman in civilian clothes, typing at a station behind Stowle, took her fingers off the keyboard and took hold of her weapon, beneath the table.

The big man was told to wait. He took a seat two chairs away from LaMoia, who had the audacity to turn to the man and say, ‘‘How ya doing?’’

‘‘Feel like shit, man,’’ the other said, his nose running, his voice rough.

‘‘I hear that,’’ LaMoia said, returning to his magazine.

After five minutes the Hispanic male was handed a form to fill out. He looked at it with contempt. Standing in front of him, Stowle explained in a bored voice, ‘‘We need your name, place of employment, if any, and relevant phone numbers for notification of follow-up. They’re very important. If you need the Spanish form-’’

‘‘Yeah,’’ he grunted.

She returned with a different clipboard and spoke Spanish. ‘‘You can skip the insurance part because the treatment you’ve requested is free. Fourth line, date of exposure, is extremely important because it will determine the extent of treatment you receive and therefore the effectiveness of that treatment. Repeated exposures don’t matter to the physician. It’s the initial exposure that is critical to proper diagnosis and subsequent treatment. If there’s anything I can help you with-’’

‘‘You could speed things up a little,’’ LaMoia said, interrupting in English. ‘‘Or maybe a drink after you’re through here.’’

Stowle glared at him.

The Hispanic sniffled, coughed and scribbled his name onto the top of the form in crude but legible handwriting: Guermo Rodriguez.

Stowle returned to her place behind the counter.

LaMoia was called a few minutes later under the name Romanello. ‘‘ ’Bout time,’’ he said, placing the magazine down. ‘‘Good luck, man,’’ he said to the other. ‘‘You’ll be a couple years older by the time they call you.’’

Rodriguez stood simultaneously and returned the clipboard and form to the receptionist, who passed it on to the officer at the keyboard station behind her, the woman’s loaded weapon still available on the shelf by her knees.

LaMoia passed into the back and took up a position in the examination room adjacent to the room where Rodriguez would be examined, effectively blocking any use of the building’s back exit. They had him cornered now. LaMoia waited impatiently for information back from downtown. The keyboard operator’s input of the outpatient form was not headed for the clinic’s medical records but instead was connected by modem to the department’s criminal records bureau. The name Guermo Rodriguez came back negative: no criminal arrests or convictions. The system also failed to kick a driver’s license or a registered vehicle. Guermo Rodriguez did not exist. He was, however, a man who might ride the city buses. Rodriguez had more than likely listed a bogus address on the clinic’s form, as well as a bogus phone number. Rodriguez was probably himself an illegal, a connection that could easily put him into service for a corrupt INS official.

‘‘He’s gotta be our guy,’’ Boldt announced over the radio. ‘‘The sweatshirt matches what we saw on the videos. We go with it.’’

A few minutes later Rodriguez was given an injection of a placebo, told to take aspirin and drink plenty of water, and released.

By the time Guermo Rodriguez left the clinic, SPD had fifteen officers in ten vehicles assigned to his surveillance-the largest surveillance operation conducted by the department in the past eleven months.