by Twisted
“The irate detective,” said a mellow voice. Dr. Bob.
“Sorry about that, Dr. Katzman. It’s been a tough week.”
“I imagine you get plenty of those.”
You, too, being a cancer doctor. “Thanks for returning. As I mentioned, Sandra Leon was a witness to a murder and we’re having trouble tracking her down.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t help you with that,” said Katzman. “She’s no longer my patient. And I could never track her down either.”
“Where’s she getting her chemotherapy?”
“Hopefully nowhere, Detective. Sandra doesn’t have leukemia. Though she wanted us to think she did.”
“She lied about being sick?”
“Lying,” said Katzman, “appears to be one of her primary skills. I guess I misspoke when I said she was no longer my patient. She never was under my care in the first place. That’s why I have no problem talking to you.”
“Talk away, doctor.”
“She showed up last year with a letter from a physician in Oakland saying she’d been diagnosed with AML—acute myelogenous leukemia—was in remission and needed to be followed. The letter also stated that she was an emancipated minor living with some cousins and would require financial assistance. Our social worker sent her to all the right agencies and booked her for an appointment with me. Sandra kept her appointments with the agencies but was a no-show at Oncology Clinic.”
“What kind of agencies are we talking about?”
“There are several county and state programs set up for kids with cancer. They offer medication, transportation and housing vouchers, wigs when the patients lose their hair. Co-payment for treatment.”
“Ah,” said Petra.
“You bet,” said Katzman. “And once a child’s registered, the family also gets hooked into the general welfare system. Which gets you access to food stamps, et cetera.”
“So Sandra got goodies but didn’t show up for her appointment.”
“For the agencies it wasn’t a problem, technically. All they require is that a patient be diagnosed, not actively undergoing treatment. I found out later that on some of the application forms, she was listed as an active patient.”
“Forms Sandra filled out herself.”
“You’ve got the picture.”
“Did you ever see her?”
“Months after talking to the social worker. The first time she didn’t show, we phoned the number she listed on her intake form, but it was disconnected. That concerned me but I figured she’d moved. Or changed her mind and went to another doc. Then some of her forms came in for me to sign off on and I went back and checked and wondered what was going on. I sent the social worker out on a home visit. The address Sandra gave us turned out to be a mail drop.”
“Where?”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Katzman. “Maybe Loretta, the social worker, would.”
“Last name, please,” said Petra.
“Loretta Brainerd. So Sandra witnessed a murder?”
“Murders,” said Petra. “The Paradiso shootings.”
“I heard about that,” said Katzman.
“In Baltimore?”
“I left the day before it happened.”
“You finally saw her,” said Petra. “How’d you find her?”
“I had CCS—Children’s Cancer Services—send her a letter to the effect that she’d lose her benefits if she didn’t show up for her checkup. She was there the next day, right on time. In tears, all apologetic. Going on and on about some family crisis, having to travel suddenly.”
“Travel where?”
“If she said, I don’t recall. To tell the truth I wasn’t listening. I was annoyed because I felt she was jerking me around. Then, when she turned on the faucet, I wasn’t sure. She’s a pretty good actress. Most important, I wanted to check her out medically because I didn’t like what I saw. Her complexion was yellow, especially the eyes. Jaundice can be a sign of relapse—infiltration of the disease into the liver. I ordered a full panel blood workup. Depending on what that turned up, I was ready to do a bone marrow aspiration and a lumbar puncture—more intrusive tests, even the most compliant patients don’t like them. But when I mentioned that to Sandra, she stayed calm. That made me wonder if she’d ever been through them in the first place. I ordered the tests back stat, scheduled her for a five P.M. recheck that day. She said she was hungry so I gave her some money to get a hamburger in the cafeteria. She and her cousin.”
“Her cousin?”
“Another girl, around the same age,” said Katzman. “The two of them showed up with a man, some guy in his forties. He dropped them off at the clinic and left but the cousin stayed. The blood workup came back negative for leukemia but positive for Hepatitis A—viral hepatitis. Which isn’t as bad as Hep C but it should be followed. I was ready to admit her for observation but she didn’t show for the recheck. Big surprise. That’s when I phoned the doctor from Oakland. He’d never heard of her. Wasn’t even an oncologist—a family practitioner working out of some Medi-Cal clinic. She must’ve gotten hold of some stationery and forged the letter.”
“Is she in danger from the hepatitis?”
“Not unless her resistance gets bad and something else hits her. Hep A is generally self-limiting. That’s doctor-talk for goes away on its own.”
“Her eyes are still yellow,” said Petra.
“She came in . . . I’d guess four months ago. By six months, patients are usually better.”
“How do you catch it?”
“Poor sanitation.” Katzman paused. “Prostitutes and other promiscuous people are at risk if they engage in anal sex.”
“You figure Sandra for promiscuous?”
“She was flirtatious, but that’s all I can say.”
“During the time she was in the system,” said Petra, “how much money did she squeeze out?”
“I couldn’t begin to tell you.”
“The cousin,” said Petra. “What do you remember about her?”
“Quiet girl. Sandra was more outgoing, nice-looking kid, despite the jaundice. The cousin just sat there.”
“Was she about Sandra’s age?”
“Maybe a little younger.”
“Shorter than Sandra? Chubby? Curly reddish hair?”
Silence. “That sounds familiar.”
“Did she happen to wear pink sneakers?”
“Yes,” said Katzman. “Bright pink. I remember that.” He sounded amazed that the memory had returned.
Petra said, “What else can you tell me about their relationship?”
“I wasn’t noticing. I was concentrating on Sandra’s jaundice.”
Petra tensed; had she touched the girl that night in the parking lot?
“Would you consider her contagious, Doctor?”
“I wouldn’t exchange body fluids with a Hep A, but you’re not going to get it by shaking hands.”
“What can you tell me about the adult male who came with the girls?”
“All I remember is his dropping them off in the waiting room and leaving. I noticed because I’d stepped out to see a patient off. I was planning to have a talk with him—responsible adult and all that—but he was gone before I could turn around.”
“What’d he look like?” said Petra.
“All I really saw was his back.”
“You noticed his age,” said Petra. “In his forties.”
“Amend that to ‘middle aged.’ From the way he carried himself. Thirty to fifty.”
“What was he wearing?”
“Sorry,” said Katzman. “I’d be getting into the realm of fantasy.”
Lots of that going around. Petra said, “Would Loretta Brainerd know more about any of this?”
“I wouldn’t think so, but feel free to ask her.”
“Thanks, Doctor.”
“There is one thing,” said Katzman. “Sandra gave her age as fifteen, but my guess is she’s older. Closer to eighteen or nineteen. I can’t back that up scientifically; it’
s just something that came to me after I realized I’d been conned. There was a certain . . . I wouldn’t say sophistication . . . a certain confidence.” He laughed. “About her confidence game.”
She called Brainerd. The social worker barely remembered Sandra Leon.
Hanging up, Petra thought back to the parking lot interview. The girl had just witnessed the violent death of her “cousin” but had displayed no shock, no grief, none of the emotionality you’d expect from a teenage girl confronted by tragedy. On the contrary, she’d been dry-eyed. Tapping her foot . . . impatient. As if Petra was taking up her precious time.
The only thing that had sparked anxiety in the girl’s eyes had been initial eye contact with Petra.
Cool about the homicide but nervous about the cops.
Claiming to be fifteen when she faked her patient status, but that night she’d given her age as sixteen.
Her dress and makeup fit with Katzman’s guess that she was older.
Dolled up fancier than the girl in the pink sneakers. Party garb, down to the appliqué mole. Celebrating what?
An adult male had accompanied both girls. Sandra had mentioned a convict brother, a car thief. Petra flipped through her notepad, found her hastily scrawled shorthand.
Bro. GTA. Lompoc.
She called the state prison, spoke to an assistant warden, learned that two “Leons” resided within the walls: Robert Leroy, age sixty-three, fraud and grand theft, and Rudolfo Sabino, age forty-five, manslaughter and mayhem. The warden was kind enough to check both inmates’ visitors’ lists. No one had been to see Rudolfo Leon for over three years. Sad case, he was HIV positive and suffering from dementia. The older man, Robert Leroy Leon, had a bevy of visitors but no Sandra, no one close to the girl in approximate age and appearance.
Another lie?
Sandra Leon had progressed, officially, from witness to Person of Interest.
Petra paged Mac Dilbeck and told him about the scam.
He said, “She knew the vic but wasn’t upset. So maybe she knew it was going to happen.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“Good work, Petra. Nothing else on this adult male?”
“Not yet. I’m wondering about something else. Leon quoted me her rights and I asked her if she had experience with the law. She told me a story about a brother locked up at Lompoc. Turns out to be another load of b.s., but why would she volunteer the information when it would tie her in with a criminal? Why not just dummy up?”
“Maybe your question threw her off,” said Mac. “She’s a liar but still in training. So she blurted out a half-truth, covered with a phony detail.”
“A relative in the system,” said Petra, “but not a brother. Maybe even a brother but not at Lompoc. That cancer scam was sophisticated, not the kind of thing a virgin would try. This girl’s had experience, I wonder if she’s part of a criminal enterprise—a family thing.”
“Some kind of gypsy thing? Like the Tinkers. Like those Somalians we busted last year. Yeah, why not? If there’s an Inmate Leon somewhere in the system for scamming, that would be really interesting.”
“Robert Leon’s locked up for fraud and theft but he’s too old to be her brother.”
“Interesting.”
“Maybe the murder’s related to some scam thing and the girl in the pink shoes was the intended victim,” she said. “They set it up to look like some gang thing. Sandra wasn’t freaked out because she knew.”
“Cold,” said Dilbeck. “Very cold. Okay, time to check the entire system, state and federal pens, even county jails.”
“Who’s going to do it?”
“You mind?”
“I’m doing it solo?”
“Well,” said Mac, “Montoya’s already been assigned a fresh case and the rest of my day is committed: meeting with the hotshots downtown. Gonna sit there while they explain why they’re so much smarter than we are. Course, if you want to trade places . . .”
“No, thanks,” said Petra. “I’ll go fetch my magic wand.”
She ran cons named Leon through NCIC and the rest of the data banks, came up with way too many hits. Time for a little logic. Sandra Leon had brought Katzman a letter from a clinic in Oakland, meaning she, or someone she knew, had spent some time there.
She focused on Bay Area Leons, which narrowed the search to twelve.
Two inmates—John B., twenty-five, Charles C., twenty-four—fit the brother age-range. Both were from Oakland and when she pulled up their stats, she knew she’d earned her share of the taxpayers’ money.
John’s middle name was “Barrymore,” and Charles’s was “Chaplin.”
Katzman’s take on Sandra: She’s a pretty good actress.
Then she learned that the men were brothers and allowed herself a grin.
A passing detective said, “You’re sure happy.”
Petra said, “Once in a while.”
John Barrymore Leon was serving a five-year sentence at Norco for mail fraud and Charlie Chaplin Leon had earned himself two years at Chino for theft—breaking into vending machines in an Oakland arcade.
The wardens at Norco were unavailable and the guard supervisor was new on the job. But his counterpart at Chino turned out to be a font of information. The Leons were members of an Oakland-based crime group called The Players, and several of their cousins had done penitentiary time. His estimate of their membership was fifty to sixty, most related by blood, but some who’d married in or had been informally adopted. The majority were Hispanic—Guatemalan Americans—but there were plenty of whites and blacks and at least two Asians.
Petra said, “Diversity in the workplace.”
The Chino guard laughed.
“They use violence?” she asked him.
“Not that I’ve heard. They concentrate on scams, run a lot of welfare schemes. They like to think of themselves as actors because the boss tried to be one.”
The boss was a failed actor with a forty-year history of property crimes. Robert Leroy Leon, sixty-three, aka The Director. Currently residing at Lompoc. Lots of visitors but no Sandra.
Mac had been dead-on: The girl had slipped, blurted out a partial truth.
Petra pressed the Chino guy for everything he knew about The Players. He gave her the names of some possible members but not much more. She wrote down copious notes and booted up her computer.
Logging on to Google, she plugged in “The Players” and came up with 1,640,000 hits. “Players scams” pulled up exactly one website, a protest against corporate malfeasance.
It was nearly seven P.M. and she was suddenly tired and overwhelmed. She was staring at the screen and wondering where to go next when Isaac’s voice drew her away from all those zeros.
“Hi,” he said.
Her eyes shot to the bruise on his cheek. Faded—no, covered up. He’d tried to mask it with makeup. The result was clumsy, a flaking splotch.
“Hey,” she said. “I hope the other guy came out of it worse.”
CHAPTER
22
Isaac blushed through the makeup.
“No big deal,” he said, too casually. “The hallway was dark when I got home and I bumped into the wall.”
“Oh,” said Petra.
A few flakes of makeup had landed on the shoulder of his blue shirt. He saw her looking at them and flicked them away. “I was wondering if there was anything I could do for you.”
It was seven thirty-two P.M. “Working late?” said Petra.
“I had obligations on campus all day, figured I’d come by here, see if you needed me.”
One million six hundred forty thousand hits.
Petra smiled. “As a matter of fact . . .”
She gave him the info on Sandra Leon and The Players and watched him hurry over to his laptop.
Thrilled to be busy.
She was worn-out and hungry.
She returned to Shannons, took the same stool at the bar and ordered a Bud and a corned beef sandwich. The flat screen was tu
ned to an infomercial. None of the boozers at the bar were interested in buying cubic zirconium mystical bracelets.
New bartender on shift, a woman, and she didn’t squawk when Petra asked her to put on Fox News and format it so the running border was visible.
“Yeah, it’s annoying,” the woman said. “You want to read something and it cuts everything in half.”
Three other boozers nodded agreement. Older guys, grizzled, in wrinkled work uniforms. The bar smelled of their sweat. The color in their faces said St. Patrick’s Day had started early.
One looked at Petra and smiled. Not a lecherous leer, paternal. Crazily, she thought about her dad, the shockingly rapid Alzheimer’s fade.
She chewed on her sandwich, drank her beer, ordered another, shot her eyes to the TV when she heard “Tel Aviv.”
Charred and twisted outdoor furniture, ambulance howls, Hasidic types cleaning up body parts. The death toll had risen to three—one of the wounded had succumbed to “injuries suffered in the blast.” The number of wounded was now precise: twenty-six.
Hamas and one of Arafat’s groups were each claiming credit.
Credit.
Fuck them.
The sandwich steamed up at her. Her nose filled with brine and her stomach began churning. She threw money on the bar and left.
The female bartender called out, “Everything okay, honey?”
When Petra reached the door, the woman shouted: “Can I at least wrap it to go?”
She drove around the city, aimlessly, recklessly. Listening to the horn blares of those she’d offended and not giving a damn.
Spaced out, she pushed the Accord through traffic as if it was on tracks. Not looking at people the way she usually did. Off the job—a job that never really ended.
But tonight, it had. Tonight, she wanted nothing to do with cons, scumbags, felons, and miscreants. Had no patience to look for furtive glances, suspicious moves, the sudden popcorn-burst of violence that changed everything.
Twenty-six injured.
Eric had phoned her, so he had to be okay.
But Eric was stoic about pain. After the stabbing, when he’d come to, he’d refused analgesics. Perforated, and he claimed he didn’t feel a thing. The doctors couldn’t believe he could tolerate it.