Chapter 12

It was after six when I got to the clinic, though not much after – there was still a very little light over the western horizon. I drove through the parking lot while I was there, seeing nothing suspicious – which was what I'd expected to see. But if I hadn't checked, and there'd been a guy slouching furtively along with a bomb in his hand and the fuse spitting sparks onto the pavement, I'd have kicked myself later. Of course even when there were enough bomb-throwing anarchists to make them a political cartoon staple, I doubt that many if any of them stood around with round black bombs in hand, fuses lit. They weren't suicide bombers, and they wanted to toss their bombs without getting caught.

Having seen nothing in the lot that shouldn't have been there, I turned back toward the clinic, which was toward the west end of the shopping center – two or three doors down. I parked out in the lot, for I don't like getting right up on top of the building. And though just then there weren't many cars in the parking lot, I've gotten in the habit of parking away from other vehicles when I can. It's not that I'm worried to death about dents – if I put great importance on the Blazer's appearance I'd wash it once in a while – but that I hate having other people's mirrors and doors blocking me in so tightly that I have to turn sideways to get there.

As I parked I saw movement under the awning in front of the clinic, and figured it was the guard. I got out of the Blazer, and since the threat seemed real took a moment to get my gun out from under the seat and clip it to my belt. I didn't have to check it – it always has a full magazine, with the chamber empty, the hammer down, and the safety on. If I go into a situation where I think I might need to shoot, I take the time to put a round up in the chamber, but I didn't expect it here. I was just being careful, that never having hurt me yet.

I walked slowly toward the clinic, my hands visibly away from my body. I might be facing just another rent-a-cop, but I proceeded as though he were a professional. If he weren't, I hadn't lost anything, and if he were he'd recognize what I was doing, and appreciate it. As I got closer to the building I saw the guard. He was behind an SUV – a Toyota Land Cruiser, I realized – leaning on the hood. That put him behind the engine block, which was a good move – if I started shooting, that hunk of metal would have a lot better chance of stopping the bullets than the doors and seats.

When I got within easy hailing distance – about 20 feet away – I stopped. "My name's Darvin Carpenter. I talked to your boss earlier and he said he'd tell you I was coming. Just so you'll know, I've got a nine mike on my left side." I meant a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, "mike" being how you say M in the phonetic alphabet I'd learned while a Red Hawk cop.

The guard nodded. "He did. You seem to know your stuff. I figured you had a gun, the way you held yourself."

"I was a cop for a couple of years, and I've been a PI for nearly 20 years. I make it a point to be careful, 'cause the one time I ain't is the one time I'll wish I had been."

Now he came out from behind the vehicle. There are two security guard stereotypes – the decrepit old retired cop who's willing to stand at the bank door in order to wear a gun and a badge again, and the big beefy bullet headed guy who's got more muscle than smarts. I've never yet met a security guard who fit either stereotype. This guy certainly didn't. He was lean, about my height, and I could see that he had long hair in a pony tail down his back. In the fading light his skin seemed pale, as though he always worked nights, and he had a pointed goatee that reminded me somehow of 19^th century European nobility.

He came up to me and extended his hand. "Frank Van Owen." We shook. "Dale tells me you're investigating this."

"Yeah. I guess Dr. Bernard decided that while it's good to have a guard, it would be better if someone could find out who the problem is and take care of him."

"So what exactly are we dealing with?"

By tacit agreement we'd been walking slowly through the parking lot. I noticed that Van Owen's eyes never stopped moving. He'd look at me occasionally, but he made sure he knew what was around him. If he was typical of Volker's operation, the place might be in good shape. "What we got," I said, "is the usual assortment of threats – plus some really nasty stuff that seems to all come from one guy. You know how it is – something like abortion, all the nutcases crawl out of the woodwork, and you just have to watch out for people who have a freaking pie." He didn't seem to get the allusion to Robert B. Parker's Looking for Rachel Wallace, which had just popped out without my planning it. "But—" I stopped, and then changed gears. "Lemme tell you what I've got. They've been saving letters, and taping phone calls. I've got copies of all of it, and I went through it today. When you put all the usual suspects stuff into one pile, you've got another little pile of calls and letters which promise some very graphic, painful, and humiliating things. Summing it all up, I guess you'd say that they threaten the female employees with sexual torture, or maybe torture with sexual overtones is how you'd say it. The threats only name Dr. Bernard specifically, but they leave room for other women too.

"The voice on each of these phone threats sounds the same. The letters seem to all have the same style. I think they're the same person."

"What does APD say?" He meant the Albuquerque Police Department.

"They're investigating," I told him, repeating what Dr. Bernard had told me.

"That sounds like they're not taking it very seriously."

"They might not be. If the detective who caught the complaint has a lot of other cases, or he's tired, or he was in a bad mood that day, or whatever, it could get low priority. I've never dealt with this particular sort of thing before – I've never worked for an abortion mill at all – so to me the viler threats stand out. But if you handle umpteen cases a year, probably another set of threatening letters and phone calls doesn't grab your attention. Maybe the guy who's got the case will eventually have a chance to go through it like I have, and then he'll get real interested. But I've been a cop, I know how it works. It's not that cops are all stupid, or all corrupt, or all part of a conspiracy to let the innocent suffer. It's just that they don't have enough people or money to do what we insist that they do."