finally settled for relative quiet. An assault’s occurred in your
parking lot. We need you to file out one by one and answer some
questions.”
“What kind of assault?
“Is he okay?”
“Who was it?”
“Was it a doctor?”
“Which lot did it happen in?”
Perkins did the slit-eye again. “Let’s get this over with as quickly
as possible, folks, and then you can all go home.”
The man with the white Fu Manchu said, “How about telling us what
happened so we can protect ourselves, Officer?”
Supportive rumblings.
Perkins said, “Let’s just take it easy.”
“No, you take it easy,” said the blond man. All you guys do is
givejaywalking tickets out on the boulevard. Then, when something real
happens, you ask your questions and disappear and leave us to clean up
the mess.”
Perkins didn’t move or speak.
“Come on, man,” said another man, black and stooped, in a nursing
uniform. “Some of us have lives. Tell us what happened.”
“Yeah!”
Perkins’s nostrils flared. He stared out at the crowd a while longer,
then opened the door and backed out.
The people in the lobby twanged with anger.
A loud voice said, “Deputy Dawg!”
“Damned jay walking brigade.”
“Yeah, buncha stiffs-hospital sticks us across the street and then we
get busted trying to get to work on time.”
Another hum of consensus. No one was talking anymore about what had
happened in the lot.
The door opened again. Another cop came through, young, white, female,
grim.
“Okay, everyone,” she said. “If you’ll just file out one by one, the
officer will check your ID and then you can go.
“Yo,” said the black man. “Welcome to San Quentin. What’s next? Body
searches?”
More tunes in that key, but the crowd started to move, then quieted.
It took me twenty minutes to get out the door. A cop with a clipboard
copied my name from my badge, asked for verifying identification, and
recorded my driver’s license number. Six squad cars were parked in
random formation just outside the entrance, along with an unmarked
sedan. Midway down the sloping walkway 0 the parking structure stood a
huddle of men.
I asked the cop, “Where did it happen?”
He crooked a finger at the structure.
“I parked there.”
He raised his eyebrows. “What time did you arrive?”
Around nine-thirty.”
“PM.?”
“Yes.”
“What level did you park on?”
“Two.”
That opened his eyes. “Did you notice anything unusual at that
time-anyone loitering or acting in a suspicious manner?”
Remembering the feeling of being watched as I left my car, I said, “No,
but the lighting was uneven.”
“What do you mean by uneven, sir?”
“Irregular. Half the spaces were lit; the others were dark. It would
have been easy for someone to hide.”
He looked at me. Clicked his teeth. Took another glance at my badge
and said, “You can move on now, sir.”
I walked down the pathway. As I passed the huddle I recognized one of
the men. Presley Huenengarth. The head of hospital Security was
smoking a cigarette and stargazing, though the sky was starless.
One of the other suits wore a gold shield on his lapel and was
talking.
Huenengarth didn’t seem to be paying attention.
Our eyes met but his gaze didn’t linger. He blew smoke through his
nostrils and looked around. For a man whose system had just failed
miserably, he looked remarkably calm.
Wednesday’s paper turned the assault into a homicide.
The victim, robbed and beaten to death, had indeed been a doctor. A
name I didn’t recognize: laurence Ashmore. Forty-five years old, on
the staff at Western Peds for just a year. He’d been struck from
behind by the assailant and robbed of his wallet, keys, and the
magnetized card key that admitted his car to the doctors’ lot. An
unnamed hospital spokesperson emphasized that all parking-gate entry
codes had been changed but admitted that entry on foot would continue
to be as easy as climbing a flight of stairs.
Assailant unknown, no leads.
I put the paper down and looked through my desk drawers until I found a
hospital faculty photo roster. But it was five years old, predating
Ashmore’s arrival.
Shortly after eight I was back at the hospital, finding the doctors’