except for homeless who come in from the boulevard.”
Unzipping his file case, Raul showed her a mug shot of Lemuel Eccles. “Like him?”
“Sure, that’s Lem, he comes in once in a while.”
“For what?”
“You’d have to ask his doctor.”
“Who’s that?”
“Dr. Mendes.”
“First name?”
“Anna Mendes.”
Raul kept the photo in her face. She turned to the side.
He said, “So Lem comes in but this white guy”-switching back to the drawing of Huggler-“you don’t know about?”
“Correct. Do these guys know each other or something?”
“You could say that.”
“The other one, too? The psychologist?”
“What else can you tell me about Lem?”
“Just that he comes in,” she said. “He can be difficult but mostly he’s okay.”
“Difficult, how?”
“Nervous, kind of wired. Talks to himself. Like he’s crazy.”
“Like?” said Biro.
“We don’t judge.”
“Do you have a list of the other receptionists?”
“I don’t keep any lists and I don’t know who they are ’cause when I’m here, they’re not.”
“And you all volunteer.”
“Yeah.”
“Through what agency?”
“No agency, I do it for community service.”
She was too old for a high school student, didn’t look like an ex-con, any kind of troublemaker. “What kind of community service are you doing?”
“It’s for a class. Urban issues, I’m a senior at Cal State L.A.”
“You think maybe upstairs in the church office they’d have a list?”
“Could be.”
Biro said, “Okay, I’m going to leave you my card the way Mr. Harrie did, but please don’t throw it out.”
She hesitated.
“Take it, Leticia. Good people need to be good even when they’re not volunteering.”
Her mouth dropped open. Raul began climbing the steps to the church’s ground-floor lobby. One of the women in the lawn chairs said something in Spanish. Too soft for Biro to make out the words, but the emotion was obvious.
Relief.
As he headed for the church office a young man in a white coat and carrying a box crossed his path. M. Keefer, M.D. Resident in medicine at County General.
Ninety-hour work weeks but he had time to volunteer.
Raul said, “Hi, there, Doctor. Ever seen this guy?”
M. Keefer said, “No, sorry,” and bounced down the stairs.
The church office was locked, the magnificent marble sanctuary unoccupied. Raul returned to his car and got a number for an Anna Q. Mendes, M.D., in Boyle Heights.
This receptionist answered in Spanish and maybe it was Biro responding in kind, maybe not, but she said, “Of course,” and a moment later a warm female voice said, “Dr. Mendes, how can I help you?”
She listened to Biro’s explanation, said, “The thyroid case. Sure, I referred him for the scan. He came in for a refill of his Synthroid but his medical history was patchy. He looked a little underdosed to me and he was well overdue for a good look at his neck. He was reluctant but his therapist helped me convince him.”
“His therapist?”
“Some psychologist came with him, I thought that level of care was pretty impressive. Especially because the psychologist’s office was in Beverly Hills and Huggler clearly wasn’t a paying private patient.”
The ease with which she tossed out facts surprised Biro. Not even an attempt at resistance and he wondered if she’d been the anonymous tipster.
He said, “Did the psychologist give his name?”
“He did but I can’t recall.”
“Dr. Shacker?”
“You know, I think that’s it,” said Anna Mendes. “He readily agreed that in order to optimize the dosage we’d need better data. In the meantime, I upped Mr. Huggler’s dosage a tiny bit and wrote a scrip for three months’ worth.”
“Anything else you can tell me about Huggler?”
“You said you were in Homicide,” said Mendes. “So obviously he killed someone.”
Biro hadn’t mentioned Homicide. And obviously Huggler could’ve been a victim as easily as an offender.
Definitely the tipster.
“Looks like that, Doctor.”
“My brother was murdered six years ago,” she said. “Stupid wrong-address drive-by, the imbeciles shot him with an AK while he slept in his bed.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“They never caught the bastards who did it. That’s why I’m talking to you. Someone kills someone, they should get what they deserve. But no, that’s really all I can tell you about Huggler.”
“What was his attitude?”
“Quiet, passive, didn’t say much, didn’t make eye contact. In fact, he was so quiet that even before the therapist-Shacker-came in, I’d started wondering about some sort of mental illness.”
“Could that be because of his thyroid?”
“No way,” she said. “If he was a bit hypothyroid like I suspected he might slow down a tad, maybe lose some energy, gain some weight, but nothing significant. He might also feel cold, which is the first thing that tipped me off. He was overdressed for the weather, big heavy fleece-lined coat. I never confirmed my hypothesis, though, because he never came back with any lab results.”
“Could we expect him to get sicker?”
“Not if he takes his meds. Even with his old dosage this was no weakling, just the opposite. I checked him out and his muscle tone was really good. Excellent, actually. He had huge muscles. In clothes you couldn’t tell, he looked almost pudgy.”
“Overdressed because he felt cold.”
“Or maybe it was a symptom of mental illness, you see that from time to time.”
Biro said, “Speaking of mental patients, they told me at the clinic that Lem Eccles was your patient.”
“Was? Something happened to him?”
“Afraid so,” said Biro. “He’s dead.”
A beat. “And that’s connected to Huggler?”
“Could be.”
“Oh, wow,” said Mendes. “Well, if you’re going to ask me did I see them together, I didn’t.”
“Could you check your records and see if they happened to be at the clinic on the same day?”
“I could, if I was at my other office in Montebello where I keep all the clinic records.”
“Kind of a strange system,” said Biro. “Doctors taking the paperwork with them.”
“Big pain,” said Mendes, “but they insist upon it. That way they’re not an official clinic, just donate space.”
“In case La Migra asks.”
Mendes laughed. “It’s not very subtle, is it? I don’t get involved in any of that. I treat patients, politics isn’t
