with a wrench, pushing his fanny pack to the side. A scattering of tall trees, mostly pines, framed the edges of the buildings and the parking structure.
The van drove down the ramp into the subterranean ambulance bay and idled alongside an ambulance double-parked at the left curb. UCLA CRITICAL CARE TRANSPORT was block-lettered on the side; the back windows were blacked out. Yale slid the van door open and stepped out and immediately through the back doors of the ambulance. Dalton followed suit, slamming the ambulance door behind him. The two officers sat on small stools, peering out the one-way rear windows. The shuttle van U-turned in the narrow space and passed them, heading up out of the ambulance bay. Concrete pillars, painted blue at the bases, set off the parking strip to their left. Beyond that, near the entrance, a chain-link fence enclosed a utilities storage area. Plenty of natural light spilled down the ramp, and the rows of fluorescent lights overhead colored the far reaches of the ambulance bay a tired yellow.
From their seats, Dalton and Yale had a clear view up the ramp; any incoming traffic or pedestrians would have to pass right by them. Beyond the ramp, a patch of grass was visible, as well as the parking turnaround and the edge of a kiosk.
'Well?' Yale asked.
'Nice touch, finding Mexicans for the gardeners. You pull them from Southeast or 77th?'
'From 77th. How'd you make 'em?'
'For starters, there's an LA sun overhead and no sweat stains on their shirts. The fanny pack couldn't be more obvious-what the fuck, are they European gardeners? Plus, their hair's a bit high and tight, but not much we can do about that.'
'What else?'
Dalton tilted his head back and closed his eyes. 'Oh yeah,' he said. 'I went through the academy with Garcia.'
Yale pressed his lips together to keep from smiling. 'And here I thought it was your keen detective skills.' His fingers found the microphone beneath his shirt and pushed the button. Since they were on TAC12, there was no need to speak in code. 'Garcia, Garcia, Yale.'
Outside, Garcia faked scratching an itch beneath his shirt and activated his mike. 'Yale, Yale, Garcia. Go ahead.' Since he barely moved his lips, his vowels were better enunciated than his consonants.
'You got a friend who wants to say hello.'
Dalton smiled as he spoke. 'Garcia, you lazy spic, if you're not gonna work out there, at least fake it well. Splash some water on your shirt in the front, and a bit beneath your arms. Tell your buddy too.'
'Hugh Dalton, you motherfucker. I was sure you'd never get promoted.'
'Every mutt has his day. Did you check the sprinkler timers? We can't have you getting doused out there and looking like a rookie.'
'Already taken care of. Hey, I was sorry to hear about Kathy.'
Dalton's face shifted, the folds and wrinkles rearranging themselves but staying the same. 'Thank you,' he said.
'She was a good cop.'
Dalton nodded, as though Garcia could see him. His voice was a bit raspy when he spoke again. 'Also, you gotta lose the fanny pack up front. Too obvious, especially with the drawstring.'
'I already got my portable beneath my shirt. If I move the gun to my waistband, I'll bulk up even more.'
'It'll still be less conspicuous than a big black brick strapped to your dick.'
'All right. Over.'
Dalton sat staring through the tinted windows of the ambulance, not looking over at Yale. 'You gonna ask me what happened to my wife?'
'No.'
'She was killed on a routine traffic stop last year. Pulled someone over and was approaching the car when a semi swerved and clipped her. Guy wasn't drinking or anything. He just leaned over, reached for the radio.' His hand flared, then clapped to his knee. 'She was a good cop. Great lady. Twice my IQ and four times my looks.' He smiled faintly. 'Not that that's saying much.'
Yale pulled his Revos down over his eyes, despite the fact they were in an underground garage. 'Kids?'
'Two girls. Nine and twelve.' Dalton reached for the picture in his wallet but stopped himself. 'Forget it.'
Yale didn't insist.
Dalton cleared his throat, a little too loud. 'Tell your homeless guy to wear shittier shoes tomorrow. The spanking-white Reeboks are a no-brainer. The overhang to this entrance is a parking area. Have him patrol up there from time to time in case our psycho decides to drop an alkali balloon down on a pedestrian. And have a UCLA PD car come by and roust him every now and then to make him look legit. That's all I got. I hope you didn't put anyone up a tree-they might be stealing our guy's hideout.'
'No trees. We got a black female working reception inside, and a white male orderly standing by near the other entry control point.'
'Just one other ECP?'
'Yeah, there's one hall into the ER from the hospital proper, but I'm pretty sure our guy's looking to hit here again. More open, closer to the streets, easier.'
'So he thinks.'
Yale nodded. 'So he thinks.'
'Getting bolder, isn't he, the fucker? He hit Nance up on the sidewalk. Took the second girl just about where we're sitting.' Dalton looked down, as though he could see through the ambulance floor. 'Came down here, right near the ER doors.' His head snapped up. 'What do we got east of the hospital? Anyone in the Botanical Gardens?'
Yale shook his head. 'There are a lot of good hiding places down there, but we figured someone coming in from the east would've been picked up by the CCTV on the kiosk.' The only closed circuit television camera near the ambulance bay entrance was mounted on the front parking kiosk, angled down and eastward, catching cars as they pulled through and paid. It recorded a wide scope and would have caught any pedestrian traffic looping around into the ambulance bay entrance from that direction. Yale had spent more time than he cared to recall watching the footage. Aside from the occasional woman in a low-cut dress, he'd found very little of interest. 'We couldn't pull more than six undercovers,' he continued. 'I figured they were best used elsewhere.'
Yale and Dalton had decided on a stakeout after several other angles had led to dead ends. Though the consistency of the assault location pointed to the hospital as the primary connection between Nancy Jenkins and Sandra Yee, Dalton had also been investigating the possibility of it being secondary. If both victims stayed in the same hotel attending a medical conference, for instance, they might have been selected by the suspect off the hotel guest list. Unfortunately, they'd taken no trips at the same time and had not attended any similar conferences. According to the women's credit card bills and records, there had been no overlap between workers and servicemen they'd had through the house in the last six months. Dalton had been briefly excited when he'd discovered they'd both received FedExes on the same day, but a few phone calls had confirmed that the packages had been delivered on different routes. The hospital files had been difficult to get hold of, but conversations with other physicians and nurses revealed little regarding patients Nancy and Sandra had treated together. It was looking more and more as though they'd been targeted merely because of their association with the hospital.
Yale had been slogging through pending lawsuits against the hospital and had yet to uncover any solid suspects. No reports on disgruntled ex-employees. No alkali- or even acid-throwing incidents had come back from PACMIS or CCAB. A car accident victim who felt he had received poor ER treatment last year had sent hostile letters to the hospital board, but he now lived in Massachusetts. Yale had run him through the Automatic Wants and Warrants System anyway and had found no red flags.
When Yale stretched, his hands touched both sides of the ambulance interior. Dalton shifted on the small stool and groaned, then checked his watch. The first two assaults had occurred in the early morning, two days apart. The last attack had been Tuesday, and it was now Thursday morning.
Someone was due to be attacked.
The stools inside the ambulance became increasingly uncomfortable as morning dragged into afternoon. Yale and Dalton received the occasional alert from Garcia and gave a few heads-ups to the officer working reception inside, but the majority of the patients and workers coming in were not suspicious. Blake had an argument with a
