“She always had some cash, so the roomies suspected she’d been turning tricks. Sixteen years old. It doesn’t get that way overnight, does it?”
Before I could answer, he shot to his feet, marched away slapping his notepad against his thigh. Nothing avian about
Bear on the prowl. Definitely a bear.
I followed, not sure what I was.
We returned to the car and cruised along the campus’s eastern periphery.
I said, “Daney works the system. I wonder if he’d dip into his own pocket for an abortion.”
Milo slowed. “Bastard knocks up a ward and bills the state? He’s been getting away with everything else, sure, why not?”
“It’s one thing,” I said, “that we could elevate from theory to fact.”
Olivia said, “Officially, the files are confidential, so I’m not sure you could use it in court.”
“Let’s see if there’s anything to use,” I said.
“Your call, darling. It could take some time.”
“You’re always worth waiting for.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “My girlish allure.”
My cell squawked as we drove up the Glen, a mile before my house. “Some time” had been five minutes.
“Nothing under ‘Ramos,’ ” Olivia said, “but the termination of Wilfreda Lee
She recited an address on the six thousand block of Whitsett. Short ride from the Daneys’ house, more of that same tight net.
“Did an adult accompany her?” I said.
“That wouldn’t be in there. State supreme court nixed parental consent back in 1998.”
“Even with her being in foster care?”
“Even with. In fact, with the girl already on the rolls, billing would’ve been a cinch, just toss another code into the mix. Codes, plural. Looks like she also got a full physical, ob-gyn checkup, pregnancy counseling, and AIDS education.”
“Thorough,” I said.
“Sounds like major league chutzpah at play here.”
“You don’t want to know, Liv. Would you do me a favor and run another name through? Leticia Maryanne Hollings, seventeen years old.”
“Another one,” she said. “So it’s worse than chutzpah.”
Leticia Hollings’s abortion had taken place a month before Lee Monahan’s. Same comprehensive billing.
Same clinic.
The Women’s Wellness Place stuck in my head but I couldn’t say why. I asked Olivia to cross-reference the two girls who’d left the Daneys and had reached majority.
One, a girl named Beth Scoggins, now nineteen, had also terminated a pregnancy at the Women’s Wellness Place. Two years ago, when she’d been a foster ward.
Olivia said, “This is getting yucky.”
I told Milo about Scoggins. His eyes blazed and I could hear his teeth grinding as he snatched the phone. From the soft, gentle way he thanked Olivia, you’d never have known.
We pulled up in front of my house and I rushed ahead of him into my office.
Thirty-eight hits for Women’s Wellness Place. Most citations referred to legitimate programs at major hospitals. Three matched the North Hollywood clinic.
The first explained my deja vu.
I’d come across it before, researching Sydney Weider. Fund-raiser, eight years ago. Weider and Martin Boestling among the donors. Publicity photo taken during better times.
The other two citations were dated two years later, also parties to finance the “compassionate, nonprofit programs” of the clinic. No mention of Weider or Boestling; by then they’d split up and dropped several social rungs.
What the two hits did offer was a roster of Women’s Wellness’s professional staff.
Alphabetized list. A name as blatant as a scar, sandwiched among M.D.s and Ph.D.s, chiropractors, counselors, art therapists, massage specialists.
The growling noise behind me raised the short hairs on the back of my neck.
“Maybe he gets a kickback,” I said. “Percentage of total billings. An additional incentive to get them pregnant and terminated.”
“Additional?”
“Something like that is never just about money.”
We moved to the kitchen and I brewed coffee.
“At the very least, this guy’s abusing young girls,” said Milo. “If he’s done everything we’ve wondered about, he’s a dimestore Manson. Problem is I can’t do a damn thing about it because officially I’m not allowed to have access to the girls’ medical files. Even
“As a psychologist, I’m obligated to report abuse,” I said. “The rules of evidence don’t apply.”
“How much proof do you need in order to report?”
“The law says suspicion of abuse. What that means is unclear. Every time I’ve tried to get clarification- from the medical board, my lawyer, the state psych association- I’ve failed. I know colleagues who’ve gotten into trouble for reporting and those who’ve been screwed because they didn’t.”
“The law’s an ass,” he said, bypassing the coffee and getting a beer from the fridge. “One thing puzzles me, Alex. Even with kickbacks, Daney getting all those girls pregnant would be dangerous. Be easier to get them birth control, or use some himself, than risk their telling someone.”
“They haven’t told yet,” I said. “Or maybe they did and no one listened.”
“The poor Ramos kid.”
I nodded. “Even if Daney didn’t murder anyone else, if he was the father of her child, he’s responsible, on some level, for her death.”
He popped his beer but didn’t drink. “So how do I find out?”
“How about this: I could try to talk to Leticia Hollings and Beth Scoggins. Couch it as a general inquiry into
