“He wants it done on a rounded surface, not a flat one.”
“And why do you think he wants that?”
Lori paused, her brow wrinkling as she concentrated.
“I’m not sure.”
“Consider the anatomical location of the tattoo,” Joanna hinted.
Lori’s eyes brightened.
“It’s from the upper arm. And a rounded surface would show us how the tattoo looked in its natural setting.”
“So Jake’s idea wasn’t so bad after all, was it?”
Lori nodded firmly and looked up at Jake.
“Your suggestion was a damn good one, and I thank you for it,” she said, totally disarming him.
“Any time,” Jake said.
“Now let’s shine that baby up on the screen.”
Joanna watched Lori, who was setting up the projector so it would show the tattoo now mounted on a transparent surface. She would have to talk with Lori about her temper, although she doubted it would do much good.
“Here we go,” Lori said.
Everyone leaned forward and studied the tattoo. The letters MONT were now clearly visible. The other letters appeared badly faded and out of focus.
“Somebody get the lights,” Jake said.
The room went dark.
Lori refocused the projector, and the other letters sharpened. Under the tattoo was the word MONTERREY.
“I’ll be damned,” Lori said, impressed.
“How did you know that would bring those letters out?”
“Tattoos can go fairly deep beneath the skin surface,” Jake explained.
“So even when the top layer of skin is abraded away, the letters may still be faintly imprinted on the bottom layer. But you can only see the bottom letters when you shine a bright light through them.”
“You think he’s from Monterey, California?” Lori asked.
“Monterrey, Mexico. It’s spelled with two r’s.” Jake told them about the interview with the widow of the eyewitness. He detailed how Stonehauser believed one of the Mexicans was from Monterrey based on
the man’s Spanish dialect. “So, according to Mrs. Stonehauser, the terrorist group consisted of two Caucasians, both of whom we think got away, and four or five Mexicans.”
“There were four Mexicans,” Joanna said.
“Are you positive?”
“Pretty much so,” Joanna said.
“Come along and I’ll show you why.”
She led the way out of the laboratory and down a wide corridor. They came to a large metal door with a pull-down handle. Joanna used a key to open the locked door. The group entered and immediately felt the cold air.
“This is a cold storage room that we used as a temporary morgue for the blast victims,” Joanna told them.
“The victims have all been identified and removed, so I converted the room into a model of the blast site.”
The room was twenty-five by twenty-five feet and had no furniture. The floor was cement, the walls stainless steel, with a walk-in freezer at the rear. In the middle was a red-and-white-striped pole with a sign attached that read explosion center. It was surrounded by wooden stands, each with a photograph of the body part that was discovered at that location. It reminded Jake of the bomb site with its fluttering miniature flags.
“According to the various body parts, we can safely say there were at least two people in that house,” Joanna said, breaking the silence.
“When we did blood types on the parts, we found four distinct types. And that told us there were four people.”
Jake asked, “What about DNA typing?”
“That will take another week to complete,” Joanna replied.
“But I think it will only confirm what we already know.”
“And we’re still no closer to knowing who the hell they were,” Jake said sourly.
“Well, we know one of them was very sick,” Joanna said, and she walked over to a stand directly west of the explosion center.
“We found a piece of torso with liver stuck to it at this location. The liver was studded with nodules of adenocarcinoma.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed.
“What does that mean?”
“That means he probably had less than six months to live.”
Farelli made a guttural sound as he thought about the new evidence.
“Maybe the guy figured, “What the hell! I’m as good as dead. I may as well blow up something.”
” “Could be,” Jake said, confused by the myriad of unrelated clues.
Nothing fit together. Nothing. He looked down at the wooden stand next to him. It showed a photograph of the plastic heel found under the debris at the bomb site.
“What about the heel insert or whatever it is?”
“I sent it over to our Bioengineering Department,” Joanna said, reaching into her pocket for a small book of phone numbers.
“Let me give them a call and see if they’ve made anything of it.”
She went to a nearby wall phone and punched in numbers. While she waited, she stretched her back and neck, relaxing tense muscles. She did it again, and her vertebrae began to crack pleasantly.
Jake watched her, thinking she was getting even more beautiful. And she just didn’t seem to age, not even a little. There wasn’t a single sag or unsightly bulge on her body. Her form-fitting silk blouse accentuated her bust and narrow waist.
With effort Jake pried his eyes away. Next week, he decided, he’d call and take her to dinner. Maybe they’d go to their favorite Greek restaurant in Long Beach and drink wine and throw dishes and start again. And maybe this time he’d get it right.
Joanna came back to the group, shaking her head.
“It gets stranger and stranger.”
“What?” Jake asked, quickly clearing his mind.
“That plastic heel was part of a prosthesis,” Joanna said.
“One of those terrorists had an artificial leg.”
“Are they sure?” Jake asked, wondering how many places in the Los Angeles area made or sold prosthetic legs.
“Beyond any doubt,” Joanna said.
“And they detected a small trademark under the bloodstain. It was made here at Memorial Hospital.”
“Well, well,” Jake said, rubbing his hands together.
“Now we’ve got an artificial leg made at Memorial. That narrows it down a lot.”
“Not as much as you’d think,” Joanna told him.
“The prosthetics unit at Memorial is the biggest and best in California, and they get referrals from everywhere.
I’ll bet they’ve made thousands of artificial legs over the years.”
Jake began pacing the floor, hands clasped behind him.
“So one of our guys has got an artificial leg? Do we know if he’s Mexican or not?”
Joanna came over to the wooden stand and studied the information listed under the photograph of the plastic heel.
“We typed the blood on the heel and compared it with the blood type of
the tanned scalp with black hair attached. They were identical. Same blood, same guy. The man was Mexican.”
Jake nodded and continued.
“So we’ve got a Mexican with an artificial leg. Can the type of prosthesis tell us how he lost his leg?”
“Not really,” Joanna said after thinking for a moment.
“He could have lost it in an accident or had some congenital abnormality, and the prosthesis would have been the same.”
“Maybe he lost his real leg in an earlier explosion,” Lori suggested.
Jake stopped and stared at her.
“Good idea,” he said and nodded approvingly.
“But no. Bombers lose hands and fingers, not legs.”
“Maybe he lost a hand too,” Lori countered.
“You’ve got a point,” Jake said and started pacing again, concentrating on the prosthesis and what information it might yield. He needed an expert on artificial limbs.
Turning to Joanna, he a
sked, “Was the plastic leg actually manufactured here at Memorial?”
Joanna nodded.
“By our prosthetics unit.”
“Let’s go see if they can help us find our way.” Friday, March 26,2=40 p.m.
Joanna and Jake walked out into a gray, overcast day and crossed Wilshire Boulevard. A block away from Memorial they turned onto a smaller street and came to a Bank of America branch office. They stopped near the drive-through teller’s window to let a car exit, then moved on.
“Why is the prosthetics unit separate from the rest of the hospital?” Jake asked.
“Because it’s so big,” Joanna said.
“It’s not only a prosthetics unit, it’s the entire Institute for Rehabilitation. It could easily take up several floors at Memorial.”
Ahead Jake saw a large, newly constructed building, three stories high, with a polished granite exterior. Steps and broad ramps led up to closed black-glass doors. He slowed to look at the bold letters engraved in stone just above the entrance. It read john
EDGAR WALES INSTITUTE FOR REHABILITATION.
“Here?”
“No,” Joanna said.
“This will be the home of the new rehab institute. It’s supposed to open in another month or so.”
“Who is John Edgar Wales?” Jake asked, wondering how many millions the building had cost and why they’d wasted so much money on polished granite when brick would have done equally well.
“Wales was a bomber pilot who got shot down over Hanoi and lost an arm while imprisoned there.”
“So he was a Vietnam war hero, huh?”
“No more than a lot of others.”
“Then what makes him so special?”
“His brother, Josiah Wales, is the director of the institute.”
“What’s the brother like?”
“A real handful.” They came to an old two-story building with a green plaster exterior that was cracked and peeling. It had steep steps with no railing and a narrow entranceway. A sign read, handicapped access AND RAMP IN
REAR.
“This place can make you cry,” Joanna said.
“Particularly the children.”
They entered a large reception area that was crowded with patients, standing and sitting. Most were Caucasian or Hispanic, a few Asian, all missing one limb or another. A baby cried out from somewhere, but Jake couldn’t see it.
He followed Joanna past the receptionist and into a huge clinic area. People were milling about on a linoleum floor, some walking cautiously on new prosthetic legs, others attaching lifelike artificial arms to their stumps.
Their ages ranged from preschool children to bent old men. No one was smiling.
Across the room a burly man in a white coat waved to Joanna and held up a finger, indicating he’d be with them in a moment. He was talking to a woman holding a toddler in her arms.
“That’s Josiah Wales,” Joanna said quietly.
“Jesus,” Jake hissed.
“He’s as big as a mountain.”
“And twice as strong-willed.”
Jake studied the mother and child next to Wales, looking for a deformity or missing limb but not seeing it. His gaze went to Wales and the long, white laboratory coat he was wearing. A small American flag was sewn on the sleeve.
“He’s a real patriot, huh?”
“He wakes up singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,”
” Joanna said, her tone hardening.
“And he makes sure everybody hears him.”
Jake detected the hostility in her voice.
“I take it you two aren’t exactly friends.”
“We’ve had our differences.”
“Over what?”
“Assault weapons and Saturday night specials.”
“What!”
Joanna stared at Wales, remembering their vehement argument a few years back.
“Some time ago the faculty members at Memorial, me included, tried to pass a resolution that would ban the sale of all assault weapons and Saturday night specials. The resolution was going to be sent to Congress and to the State Assembly in Sacramento. That sounds reasonable and civic minded, doesn’t it?”
“So far,” Jake agreed. Saturday night specials were used in most
holdups. Assault weapons were meant to kill people; they had no other purpose.
“But Wales didn’t go for it. Right?”
“That’s the understatement of the year,” Joanna said, still remembering the harsh words Wales had for her and anybody else who opposed him.
“He stood up before the entire faculty, ranting and raving about our constitutional right to bear arms and protect ourselves. And then he looked me straight in the eye and said and I swear to you these were his exact words: “Anyone who favored the resolution is an enemy of the Constitution and is trying to unravel the fabric of America.”
” “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Joanna shook her head.
“And the scariest part was that he meant every word of it.”
“Did the resolution pass?”
“No way,” Joanna said disgustedly.
“Murdock jumped in and squashed it. Wales, you see, comes from a very wealthy family, and he and his friends contribute heavily to Memorial. They and the federal government put up equal amounts of money to build the new institute.”
“Sounds to me like Wales may have bought his way onto the faculty at Memorial.”
“No, no,” Joanna corrected him hastily.
“He’s very good at what he does. That I can tell you for sure.”
“I can tell you something else about him for sure,” Jake said hoarsely.
“What’s that?”
“He’s never been shot with an AK-forty-seven.”
Jake watched Wales, who was patting the shoulder of the woman holding the toddler. The doctor stepped away, and now Jake had a good view of the mother and child. The little boy had one real leg, one artificial. Jake swallowed hard and looked down at the linoleum floor.
Involuntarily Joanna straightened the front of her white coat as Wales approached them. She forced herself to make and keep eye contact with him.
“Well, Joanna,” Wales said without warmth.
“What brings you to the low-rent district?”
“We need your help,” she said, skipping the amenities.
“This is Lieutenant Sinclair from the LAPD.”
The men sized each other up for a moment, then nodded briefly.
“What can I do for you?” Wales asked, his face closing slightly.
Joanna reached into her pocket for the broken plastic heel and handed it to Wales.
“What can you tell us about this piece of prosthetic foot?”
Wales examined the piece carefully and handed it back.
“It’s part of a heel, and the circled M trademark means it was made here.”
“Is there any way to determine who it belonged to?”
“No,” Wales said at once.
“We’d need a serial number for that. And the number is imprinted higher up on the prosthesis, not on the heel.”
Jake made a mental note to take a team to the bomb site and go through the rubble again with a fine-tooth comb, searching for a piece of plastic with a number on it.
“Is this number stamped on or what?”
“It’s engraved, just like the trademark,” Wales said.
“You can see it with the naked eye.”
“How high do the serial numbers go?” Jake asked.
“We’re somewhere in the twenty thousands,” Wales answered, then squinted an eye.
“What’s all this about?”
“The piece of heel was found at the bomb site in West Hollywood,” Joanna told him.
Wales thought for a moment before asking, “Do you think this prosthesis belonged to a victim or one of the terrorists?”
“That’s what we’re trying to determine,” Jake lied.
“Well, that’s all I can te
ll you,” Wales said, glancing at his watch.
“Now we’re all busy, so I ” “We’re going to need a little more of your time,” Jake interrupted.
“I’m very, very busy,” Wales said, his voice deep and controlled.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jake said, taking out his notepad and flipping pages until he came to the one he wanted. He looked up at Wales, staring back at the man who was trying to stare him down. Wales was at least six-five, with broad shoulders, a massive head and thin lips that seemed pasted together. He was probably damn good at scaring the he jesus out of people.
“We think the guy with the artificial leg was Mexican or Mexican American. Would that help you narrow down the number of people that leg could have belonged to?”
“Ha!” Wales forced a laugh.
“California has a population of over thirty million, and a third of it is Mexican. That’s ten million people, Lieutenant. Does that narrow
it down for you?” “Not much,” Jake admitted.
“And that’s not counting the two million illegals that are here,” Wales added disapprovingly.
“Our borders are like a sieve, and the federal government does nothing about it.”
“Ah-huh,” Jake said, now envisioning Wales on a hilltop at the border, armed with a high-powered rifle and shooting at anything that moved. Jake quickly cleared his mind.
“Do you keep computerized records of all your patients?”
“Of course.”
“Do you record the patient’s race?”
“No,” Wales said promptly, again glancing at his watch.
“Just age, sex, diagnosis, and prosthetic device.”
“Is there any other medical information?” Joanna asked.
“Things like distinguishing features, such as scars or tattoos?”
Wales shook his massive head.
“This is not a diagnostic clinic, Joanna. We do rehabilitation here.”
“So,” Jake said, thinking aloud, “the only way to find out who is Mexican is to go through all of your records and pick out the Mexican-sounding names.”
“Correct,” Wales said.
“Then we’ll do it.”
“Whoa!” Wales held up a hand that looked as if it could grasp a watermelon.
“You can’t just go through our medical records. They’re strictly confidential.”
“That’s no problem,” Jake said easily.
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