Wolf Hour

8 Wolf, October 2016

‘I understand you have to consider your oath of confidentiality, Dr Egeland, but what we’re dealing with here is a possible murder.’

‘You said murder on the telephone, Detective Oz, not possible murder.’ Egeland repositioned his newly polished spectacles on his nose. The policeman sitting on the chair in front of him, normally occupied by patients, was wearing clothes of a cut and colour that Egeland was inclined to associate with Mafia bosses and pimps rather than police officers: a coat that was almost orange, red silk tie and brown shoes that looked a touch too elegant and delicate for a Minneapolis autumn. But there had been nothing suspicious about the credentials the man had shown him, and it was hard to imagine someone going to all this trouble just to trick a bit of information out of him about a diabetes diagnosis.

‘Since you have Gomez’s label then you already know he’s diabetic,’ said Egeland. ‘So you really don’t need any confirmation from me.’

‘No. But there are a couple of things I’m wondering about. The first is, do you have any information at all about where we can contact Gomez?’

‘I have his address in Jordan.’

‘Phone number?’

‘No.’

‘OK. My second question is, when will he need to renew his prescription?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There was one used injector pen left in the box. The usual thing would be to keep the pens in the box and throw it away when the last needle was used, right?’

‘It’s perfectly possible.’

‘I don’t know if this is the last box, but I know that when he runs out he’s going to have to contact his regular doctor, which is you. So can you check his journal on your computer and see when he’s going to need to renew?’

Egeland looked sullenly at Detective Oz. He disliked the man. He had that air of arrogance you find only in someone who doesn’t care if people like him or not.

‘The reports from the hospital are pessimistic,’ said the police officer. ‘Delete possible and think of this as a murder.’

Egeland thought about it. Weighed that word up against his own vow of confidentiality. Murder. This was the exception. The place where ethical discussions stopped. He sighed, then worked his keyboard as he studied his computer screen.

‘He’ll run out in ten days.’

‘So before then he’ll turn up here?’

‘No, most likely he’ll phone and I’ll email the prescription to a chemist close to where he happens to be calling from.’

Egeland watched Detective Oz as he leaned forward and, placing the notepad on the desk as though it were his own, began to write. ‘Now listen, Egeland. When Gomez contacts you I want you to call MPD on the number I’m writing down here. We want to know the name of the chemist where he’s going to be picking up his insulin, and we want you to wait until we’re in place there before you send the email prescription. Understood?’ Oz tore out the sheet of paper and pushed it across the desk.

Jakob Egeland was astonished. ‘You want me to cooperate with the police in the arrest of one of my own patients? Don’t you understand—’

‘Dr Egeland, what I want most of all is for you to cooperate with your own conscience and in doing so prevent Tomás Gomez from killing a number of other people. If the moral algebra of that is too complex for you then I can leave and come back with a judge’s order.’

Egeland stared at the number on the sheet of paper as though the figures were an equation that could be solved.

‘I’ll do it,’ he finally conceded. ‘But I would like a written judge’s order.’

‘Fine, but I can’t promise we can arrange that before Gomez contacts you. So can I still count on your assistance?’

Jakob Egeland nodded.

Detective Oz pushed the notebook back into his pocket and stood up.

‘He’s a quiet man,’ Egeland said in a faint voice. ‘But bright. The first time he came to see me I was surprised at how much of my legal Latin he understood.’

Oz remained standing.

‘So I was surprised again when he was due his first biannual check-up and he took off his shirt and his upper body was covered in tattoos. You know... gang tattoos.’

Oz sat back down.

‘Which gangs?’

‘I don’t know them all, but on his back he had X-11 tattooed.’

Oz nodded slowly. ‘X-11. And the others?’

‘He had a tattoo of a wolf which I’ve seen as graffiti. So I presume that’s a gang too.’

The police officer tapped on his phone, raised it and showed Egeland an image of a black wolf tattooed on a naked back. ‘Did it look like that?’

‘Yes, it could well have done.’

‘And now you’re worried that if you help us catch him his gang will want to take revenge on you?’

Egeland looked up in alarm. ‘No. No, that didn’t occur to me until now.’ The doctor’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. ‘Ought I to...?’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Oz as he stood up again. ‘We have a duty of confidentiality too. No one will know that you were my source of information.’

‘No one?’

‘Absolutely no one.’ Oz gave a quick smile. ‘I’d better be getting back over to the right side of town. Have a nice day and hope to hear from you soon.’

It was five thirty and already dusk as Bob Oz walked along the corridor of the Regency Hospital. It had been a fairly good day. A day, finally, with a little meaning. He had been able to work undisturbed on the Gomez case since no one else at the Homicide Unit was involved or interested in what he got up to and, so far at least, he’d managed to keep off the Assault Unit’s radar. Luckily for him he’d always managed to keep in with Kari at the Fraud Unit. When necessary, she helped out the Homicide Unit and had always been of invaluable assistance. As he reached room 531 Bob showed his ID to the police officer on guard outside. ‘Anyone from Aggravated Assault been here?’

‘No,’ said the police officer. ‘He’s just come round after the operation.’

‘OK,’ said Bob and walked in.

The fat man lying in the bed shifted his drugged gaze away from the wall and onto Bob.

‘Marco Dante.’ Bob pulled a chair up to the bed and looked at the apparatus the fat man was hooked up to. ‘I’m from MPD. I want you to take a look at this drawing.’

Bob held his phone up in front of Dante. He’d downloaded the police artist’s sketch from the MPD’s internal site. The face was Latino, broad, prominent eyebrows. Bob guessed that the people at Assault had used Mrs White to help the police artists. ‘I wonder what it is that this man Tomás Gomez has against you.’

Dante’s gaze slid over the phone screen and back onto the wall again. ‘No idea who it is. Or who you are.’ The voice was thick, with an Italian accent straight out of The Sopranos.

Bob hadn’t spotted any sign of recognition on Dante’s face when he saw the drawing. Maybe it was a bad likeness. Or maybe Dante was a good liar. Or maybe Dante and Gomez had never met.

‘I’m the man who saved your life,’ said Bob.

Dante looked at him, furrowed his brow.

‘Mouth-to-mouth,’ said Bob.

Dante pulled a face. ‘You’re lying.’

‘Nope. You threw up your breakfast. Some kind of pasta, right?’

Dante blinked.

Bob pulled his chair closer. Someone from Assault could come barging in at any moment.

‘I think a gang is after you, Dante. You fallen out with any of them recently?’

‘I don’t know nothing about any gangs.’

‘No? Not supplied X-11 with any weapons?’

‘I’ve no idea what X—’

‘Don’t bother, Dante. We know you supply them with cheap guns in return for them letting you sell your hardware on their territory.’ Bob had called the MPD’s Weapons Unit who knew Marco Dante’s name but could neither confirm nor rule out any link to X-11.

‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ said Dante and yawned loudly. ‘I run a car repair business in Jordan. Jordan isn’t X-11 territory, it’s Black Wolves. Don’t you know your gang map, Detective?’

‘As far as I know X-11 operate wherever they please. Speaking of weapons, you recognise this?’

Bob held up his phone again, this time displaying a photo he’d taken in Gomez’s apartment.

‘No.’

‘That’s funny, because according to Weapons Unit this is a case for an M24. Now I don’t know much about weapons, but even I know this is a classic sniper’s rifle. One of my colleagues checked the weapons register and it says there that you recently purchased a gun like that.’

‘So maybe it also says there that I reported it stolen.’

‘Yes. Maybe you should be a little more careful about how you keep your weapons. In the last twelve months alone you’ve reported weapons stolen from you six times. Altogether twelve rifles and sixteen revolvers.’

A thin smile appeared between the narrow black strips of hair on the gun dealer’s face. ‘What can I tell you? I live in a very rough area. So as long as the MPD refuses to patrol there then I’m thinking the break-ins will just keep on happening.’

Bob nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I guess they will.’

He heard voices outside in the corridor. Time to get out of there.

‘Well, thanks for your help, Dante.’

‘It’s nothing... what you say your name was?’

‘And get well soon,’ said Bob Oz. He pushed open the door and headed out into the corridor.

‘Hey, Bob!’ It was Rooble Isack. Bob knew Isack from when he was the new guy in the Homicide Unit. Rooble had come from Mogadishu as a thirteen-year-old, part of a family that clung on tenaciously to Somali traditions. His father dyed his beard orange and his mother worked in a henna store in the Somali shopping mall on 29th and Pillsbury. Rooble was one of these young and ambitious immigrants, so naive in their faith in the promise of a country with equal opportunities for all, and so energetic in their pursuit of a better life for themselves and their families. So it was well deserved when, after two years with Homicide, he was offered a detective posting in Aggravated Assault.

‘Hey, Rooble.’

‘What are you doing here, Bob?’

‘Murder case. We’ve got a gun we can connect to Dante. I’m guessing you’re here in connection with the assault?’

‘Yes.’ Rooble nodded to his partner, a boy who blushed when he introduced himself and whose name Bob had forgotten by the next time he breathed in.

‘This is Bob Oz, the man who taught me everything I didn’t know about being a detective,’ said Rooble to the boy, who was trying to look interested. ‘A living legend.’

‘I think you learned quicker than I could teach.’ Bob looked at his watch.

‘How’s Alice?’

Bob’s face stiffened into a smile. ‘She’s fine.’

Rooble showed no noticeable reaction to the reply. ‘It’s been a while. Wasn’t it that barbecue with Homicide, in your backyard?’

‘Could well be,’ said Bob as he tried to convey in body language that he didn’t have time to engage in the local custom known as the Long Goodbye.

‘Holy buckets, all those pork chops we cooked.’ Rooble laughed. ‘Me and Hani brought our own barbecue, remember?’

‘Yes. Listen, I have to go. Say hello to Hani.’

‘Sure will. Actually she’s pregnant again.’

‘Wow, good work. See you.’

‘See you.’

But Bob stayed where he was.

‘Something?’ said Rooble.

‘Hey, I just remembered, Hani was pregnant that time too. You went home early and left your barbecue at my place. I put it in the basement.’

‘Oh, sorry, I forgot. Want me to come and fetch it?’

‘No, no, I’ll bring it over. Tomorrow.’

Bob noticed Rooble’s look of surprise. ‘Thanks, Bob, but that isn’t necessary.’

‘I insist.’

Rooble frowned. ‘It was just one of those cheap ones — we’ve got a gas barbecue now.’

‘You never know when you might need two,’ said Bob with a broad smile. He waved and hurried off down the corridor.