The Innocents

by Nathan Senthil

  “Oh… no, no, no. It’s like saying that speed law doesn’t apply to you because you bought your car before the law was implemented.”

  “Worst analogy ever.”

  “But you get what I’m saying. There’s no way to circumvent HIPAA. A few years ago, a hospital down south ended up paying a multimillion-dollar lawsuit when they failed to follow HIPAA. And making the FBI bleed out millions of dollars just weeks after they promoted me will put a damper on my career, don’t you think?”

  “This is one real shot we have at Lolly, and I’m not going to let bureaucracy ruin it. I will break into the hospital if I have to.” Gabriel glanced at Bill. “Won’t be our first time committing a little evil to defeat a greater evil.”

  Another smile from Bill, if only a little. Nostalgic, again.

  “Please don’t do that,” Conor implored. “You’re too old for that maverick shit.”

  “This is very important.” Gabriel explained about the bald spots, about Alopecia Areata and how one of Lolly’s partners might have suffered from it.

  Conor was quiet for a few seconds, then he said, “So I assume you want to go through all the medical records from that hospital?”

  “Uh-huh. Mostly from the dermatology department.”

  “If you need just a few, then a local PD can help you with the warrant. Now to sift through thousands of records, you need a really powerful authorization from a really powerful person.”

  “Who?”

  “US Department of Justice’s Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division.”

  Gabriel felt good. AAG was the head honcho in the country when it came to criminal matters. Seeing that Lolly was the most wanted bank robber in the US, the AAG would authorize it, no fuss.

  “Why’re you still on the call?” Gabriel asked.

  “Don’t hold your breath. She isn’t on my speed-dial. Give me time. I’ll arrange everything and let you know.” Conor hung up.

  “So what do we do now?” Bill asked.

  “Get Lolly’s DNA.”

  * * *

  Big golden teeth grimaced from within the plastic cover. Gabriel turned it over, and the back of the black cloth was smeared with dried puke. They had analyzed it and found that Lolly had ramen for breakfast that fateful afternoon thirty-eight years ago.

  Lolly’s DNA had been extracted from it and uploaded into CODIS.

  Gabriel handed the evidence bag across the table to Captain Wheeler.

  “They were good men. Great detectives. I’m sorry for your loss, Agent Chase.” Then he looked at Bill. “Sorry for both your losses, I mean.”

  “Thanks, Captain,” Gabriel said and Bill nodded.

  “I should have known this was coming.”

  Gabriel frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Wheeler frowned in return. “Because someone made an attempt on their lives?”

  “What the?!” Gabriel leaned forward, and Bill sat up straight. “What are you talking about?”

  “H-he didn’t tell you?” he asked.

  “No!”

  Wheeler shook his head and told them the story about drive-by shooters trying to kill Joshua and Peter on Livernois Avenue, on April 8.

  The same day his dad drunk dialed him. Now Gabriel understood why he had been out of it that day. He had never been shot at in his life. Traumatized but being too adamant for his own good, Joshua drank to let some steam off and calm his nerves. He had gone to Detroit with a purpose and he neither half-assed his work nor bailed in fear.

  But the story didn’t add up. It had a huge gaping hole in it.

  In his notebook, Joshua wrote something that Gabriel researched and found to be true.

  Lolly never missed.

  Chapter 34

  May 11, 2019. 05:01 A.M.

  A series of impatient knocks on the door startled Gabriel out of his sleep.

  That was not Bill.

  He grabbed his Glock from the bedside table and crouched to the door. The peephole was dark. Had it always been like that?

  Not willing to take a chance, he picked a shoe and put it over the fisheye. If the person on the other side was an adept criminal element, Gabriel’s knockoff Adidas would be blown to smithereens.

  But it wasn’t.

  He chucked the shoe and saw through the hole.

  A chubby woman with blonde hair and in a pantsuit stood outside, her arms tied across her chest.

  Since there was no axiom that soccer moms couldn’t moonlight as hitwomen, he took cover behind the wall and asked, “Who is it?”

  “Agent Chase?” the woman said. She had the voice tailor-made for oratorical jobs, like podcasts, motivational or unboxing videos. “This is Carla Brooks with the OCR.”

  “What’s an OCR?”

  “Office of Civil Rights, from the Department of Health and Human Services. Got a call from the Attorney General’s office last night. And I would rather have this conversation with a human than a talking door.”

  Except Conor and Bill, no one knew about this new lead. So Gabriel pocketed his pistol and grabbed the doorknob. He invited Brooks in and directed her to the only chair in the room while he took a seat on the bed.

  He said, “Waking me up this early means you have good news.”

  “I’m sorry, but I was told it’s urgent. And yes, I do have good news.” Brooks proceeded to explain. HHS and AAG of the Criminal Division came to an agreement. Lolly must be caught at any cost, but they couldn’t bypass HIPAA by giving unsupervised access to protected health information.

  So the HHS temporarily appointed a person from OCR, Carla Brooks, to supervise the operation and make sure nothing got lost. Meaning they would allow Gabriel and Bill to read all the medical records, but Brooks would act as a proctor.

  Gabriel had to laugh because the billing services of almost every hospital in the US exported their PHI, aka medical records, to Eastern hemisphere call centers.

  She took out an envelope and a pen from her suit and passed them to Gabriel. “Inside it is the agreement. You have to sign it before we let you near the medical records.”

  Gabriel never partook in pissing contests that sprouted from ego and misplaced sense of self-esteem. He would do anything to establish justice, even break the law, or in this case, give in to this inconsequential mandate.

  He skipped to the last page of the agreement. It was approved by the Assistant Attorney General from the DOJ and Deputy Secretary of HHS.

  When he signed it, Brooks said, “That’s a bummer.”

  “What is?” he returned the documents and pen to her.

  “That you signed it without any protest. I had a whole argument prepared on my drive here.”

  “It’s alright.” Gabriel stood up. “You give your presentation while I bathe and get ready.”

  * * *

  Brooks rode shotgun and Bill sat in the back. She had got his signature too as soon as she met him. After that, no one spoke for around fifteen minutes. Then Bill broke the silence.

  “I’ve been thinking, Agent Chase. About how Lolly’s friend has this condition and that’s helping us track him?”

  “Yeah?”

  “We can apply the same method with Lolly.”

  Interested, Gabriel asked, “How do you mean?”

  “Like you did yesterday, I performed an internet search last night about the causes of indigestion and heartburn.”

  “Because the old lady said that Zesty is used to soothe acid reflux?”

  “That’s correct. The results were too many to be useful. And then I repeated the same search,” Bill paused. “But this time for kids.”

  To Gabriel’s surprise, Brooks chipped in. “Because that problem is fairly uncommon in a younger and brisker anatomy.”

  Gabriel glanced sideways.

  “What?” Brooks asked. “I know. I’m a mom.”

  “That’s correct,” Bill said. “Kids don’t suffer acid reflux as much as adults do. But Lolly was using Zesty in 1981, when he was a kid. He continued t
o use it until 2019. So I assume he suffers from some sort of chronic indigestion problem and he uses Zesty for the symptoms.”

  Gabriel pondered over the bridge robbery. Lolly had vomited before killing the security guard, not after. Maybe guilt and disgust with himself wasn’t the reason Lolly puked. Maybe it was because of acid reflux, which only worsened when doing something that released a busload of adrenaline into the body. Like T-boning a fucking truck with a backhoe and pushing it off a bridge.

  “Okay?” Gabriel said, proud of Bill. “What do you suggest we do now?”

  “These problems with the esophagus are relevant to what the Internet calls gastroenterology. Since we’re already on our way to the medical record archives of the Children’s Hospital, it wouldn’t hurt to sieve through that department, too.”

  Gabriel angled the rearview mirror and caught the eyes of the depressed but brilliant police officer. “Bill?”

  “Yes, Agent Chase?”

  “It’s time you take up the detective exam.”

  Chapter 35

  May 11, 2019. 06:37 A.M.

  In the hospital, Brooks took them across a grand echoing lobby, straight to an elevator in the corner.

  “You know this place?” Gabriel asked.

  “Yes. Sometimes we conduct random drills to check if staff are following HIPAA compliance.”

  After entering the elevator, she pressed -2.

  When the doors parted, they turned right and walked to a room at the end of the corridor. It had metal shelves like the ones in libraries. Also like a library, the place was hauntingly quiet.

  Before they began, Brooks asked them for their cell phones, and papers and pens if they had any.

  “Why?”

  “Sorry guys. HIPAA.”

  They handed over their phones. “No paper or pen.”

  Gabriel looked around. The shelves were categorized by departments—pediatric neurology, cardiology, and other -ogies—and the rows were labelled with years.

  “There must be thousands of records here,” Gabriel said. “Is there an expiry on the warrant?”

  Brooks shook her head. “You have all the time in the world.”

  Bill said, “Then we go through each and every single record, page by page, line by line. It’s the only lead we have.”

  “I agree,” Gabriel said. “But let’s concentrate on records from the late seventies to the early eighties. That’s when Lolly and his bald friend were kids. They might have started visiting adult hospitals later.”

  Bill nodded.

  Gabriel turned to Brooks. “So where are we sitting?”

  Brooks picked up a stack of files from the year 1975-1980 in dermatology. “Follow me.”

  Gabriel took a stack from the same section and obeyed her, Bill walking behind them. She led them to the end of the room, where a broken hospital bed without mattress and a bunch of wheelchairs were discarded.

  Brooks placed the records on the bed and started towards the shelf. After unloading, Gabriel held Bill’s shoulder and sat him down in a wheelchair. “Let me bring the files for you. What’s that word again? Gastro…?”

  “Gastro-enter-ology.”

  Gabriel nodded and went to work. He did not bother to keep count of how many trips he made after the 8th. The bed eventually overflowed with files, and they had to use the floor.

  By the time Brooks and Gabriel plunked down onto their respective wheelchairs, they were sweating profusely.

  They had two piles of medical records. One from dermatology, the other from gastroenterology. The latter was twice as voluminous as the former.

  Gabriel took the first file from the dermatology pile and started reading.

  “Brooks.” Bill motioned at his pile. “Mind giving me a hand?”

  “Sure.” Brooks picked a file and asked, “What am I looking for?”

  “Any symptoms relating to indigestion,” Bill said.

  “Okay?” she said, her eyes glued to the medical record. “Symptoms like?”

  “Vomiting, nausea, acidic taste, acid reflux, heartburn, lack of appetite, stomach pain. And they aren’t exclusive. Ask yourself one question: will the symptom make me take antacid? If yes,” Bill pointed at an empty wheelchair with his crutch, “put that file over there.”

  Gabriel felt proud. Again. Bill did his homework last night.

  “Got it.” Brooks closed the file and dropped it on the floor before taking the next.

  * * *

  Gabriel bought food and snacks as he’d finished first. His pile was easier. Not just because it was smaller; all he needed to do was scan for the words ‘hair loss’ or ‘Alopecia Areata’. But as a lot of keywords were associated with indigestion, Bill’s pile took a while to get through, even with Brooks’s help. It was evening when the work was finally done.

  In the end, Gabriel had isolated 102 kids that had hair loss in their medical records. Twenty-eight suffered from Alopecia Areata, nineteen among them were blacks. Bill and Brooks had picked around 780 kids, 630 of them blacks. So in total, they had narrowed down to 649 entries.

  Brooks, the only one with access to a cell phone, had notated the names and dates of births from all the selected entries.

  Gabriel regarded the 649 files. Bill’s idea increased the number tremendously, but they were now twice as likely to succeed.

  “What do we do now?” Brooks asked.

  “We have a plan,” Gabriel said.

  “What plan?”

  “Cross reference what we’ve collected so far with NCIC.”

  “What’s that?” Brooks said.

  “National Crime Information Center, a database created by the famous Edgar Hoover,” Bill answered. “If you have a criminal record, you’re in NCIC.”

  “How’s that going to help?”

  “From this 649, we’ll look for anyone who served a sentence from 85-87,” Bill said. “That’s the time period Detective Chase, um… I mean Senior Detective Chase, hypothesized Lolly was in prison.”

  Brooks said, “How are you gonna check it against the NCIC? We have no computer here.”

  “Not us. The new SAC from the FBI.”

  Brooks shook her head. “Sorry, guys, no can do. We’re strictly prohibited from sharing PHI. Can’t send it anywhere.”

  “Technically, we aren’t smuggling PHI.” Gabriel came for Bill’s rescue. “It’s just names and DOBs. Call your boss and ask if you want.”

  Brooks actually called her supervisor and disappeared along the aisle. A few minutes later, she returned. “Okay, where do I send them?”

  Gabriel gave her Conor’s email ID.

  * * *

  It had been more than two hours since they sent the list to Conor. Gabriel and Brooks were putting the stacks back into the respective shelves while Bill was reading the files Brooks had isolated. Micromanager or a perfectionist, Gabriel didn’t know. But a good detective. He had come a long way since the Mr. Bunny investigation.

  When they were done and took their seats, Bill was gripping a file. Gabriel’s stomach churned because Bill sat motionless. He was frowning deeply, his eyes welled. Knuckles white, his hands shook.

  Brooks touched his shoulder. “Are you okay there, bud?”

  He looked up at her, then at Gabriel. He was biting his quivering lower lip and a teardrop fell, bouncing off his cheek.

  The frown slowly loosened, giving way to a smile. Not a lame half smile, but a full toothy grin.

  And no words were needed.

  “A-are you positive?” Gabriel asked, a chill traversing his spine.

  Bill nodded, passing the open file to him.

  A newspaper article from Detroit Free Press was pinned to a page. It had colored photos of two kids on the front.

  One of the kids was black. With blue eyes. Gabriel read the name under it.

  Ryatt Durant.

  The world stopped moving, static electricity vibrating across his skin, bristling his hair.

  The rush was unlike anything Gabriel had ever felt. The lun
gs seemed to consume more oxygen, the heart thumped and pumped blood faster, while his brain rewarded all the hard work by releasing a soup of euphoric chemicals.

  While floating in bliss, he read the newspaper article. A swimming pool contamination blinded two kids and infected dozens more. Keratitis, they had written, caused by amoeba.

  “What is it?” Brooks asked.

  Gabriel stood up and handed the file to her. With a tearful smile, he walked over to Bill who sat straight and opened his arms. Gabriel hugged him, whispering, “We got the fucker.”

  He gave a final squeeze and let go.

  Brooks asked, “Why do they have a newspaper section on a medical record?”

  “The doctor was required to provide an expert witness in court,” Gabriel said. “So he must have attached each file of the infected kid with the article to differentiate them. When the case was over, he returned the files to the respective departments.”

  “It says Durant is blind.”

  “Eye transplant. Conor will either confirm or deny our presumption shortly,” Gabriel said. “What digestion problem does he have?”

  Bill wiped his face with the heels of his hands. “Something called Dyspepsia. Symptoms include acid reflux, burning sensation, and nausea with or without vomiting. That’s why he sucks onto Zesty, a ginger-extract candy.”

  Just then, Brooks’s phone blared and she answered it.

  “No— I switched off their phones— It’s protocol— Please listen— What did you say? Oh screw you, pissant—” She tossed the phone to Gabriel. “It’s for you. What a prick.”

  Gabriel said into the phone, “Conor?”

  “You fucking did it again, Chase. There was only one person on that list who served a sentence from 85-87. You got the guy—”

  “Ryatt Durant,” Gabriel said.

  Conor did not speak for a few moments. Then he said, “How did you— forget it. I can’t decipher the way your brain works. Anyway I forwarded his address to you. He’s unmarried and lives with his mom, Iris Durant.”

  Chapter 36

  May 11, 2019. 10:49 P.M.

  Iris Durant lived in Indian Village, an upscale part of Detroit. The streets were flanked by trees with lush low-hanging branches that sprinkled the blacktops with autumn leaves. The Camaro turned onto Burns Avenue, which really did seem like it was burning, due to the fiery orange leaves of the trees on the sidewalks. Houses had no fences or guard dogs. Old people walked briskly, holding colorful dumbbells.