He placed his hands atop his belly, bowed his head, and raised it.
“Honorable Buddha on duty. Honorable Buddha counsels as following:
Shoot all bad guys. I’et some other deity sort them out.”
“Be good to know who the bad guys are.”
“Exactly. That’s why I suggested background checks. At least on your
prime suspect:” “That would have to be the mother.”
“Then she gets checked first. But as long as I’m punching buttons, I
can throw in any others as a bonus. More fun than the payroll shit
they’re punishing me with.”
“What would you check for?”
“Criminal history. It’s a police data bank. Will your lady doctor
friend be in on the fact that I’m checking?”
“Why?”
“I like to know my parameters when I snoop. What we’re doing is
technically a no-no.”
“No. let’s keep her out of it-why put her in jeopardy?”
“Fine.”
“In terms of a criminal history,” I said, “Munchausens generally
present as model citizens-just like your carpet cleaner. And we
already know about the first child’s death. It’s been written off as
SIDS.”
He thought. “There’d be a coroner’s report on that, but if no one had
any suspicions of foul play, that’s about it. I’ll see what I can do
about getting hold of the paperwork. You might even be able to do it
yourself-check hospital records. If you can be discreet.”
“Don’t know if I can. The hospital’s a different place now.”
“In what way?”
“Lots more security-kind of heavy-handed.”
“Well,” he said, “you can’t fault that. That part of town’s gotten
real nasty.”
He got up, went to the fridge, found an orange and began peeling it
over the sink. Frowning.
I said, “What is it?”
“I’m trying to frame some strategy on this. Seems to me the only way
to solve something like this would be to catch the bad guy in the
act.
The kid gets sick at home?”
I nodded.
“So the only way to do it would be to surveil their house
electronically. Hidden audio and video. Trying to record someone
actually poisoning the baby.”
“The Colonel’s games,” I said.
That made him frown.
“Yeah, exactly the kind of stuff that prick would delight in He moved,
you know.”
“Where?”
“Washington, D.C. Where else? New enterprise for him. Corporation
with one of those titles that tells you nothing about what it does.
Ten to one he’s living off the government. I got a note and a before,
and we can build up something to get a warrant. Old Charlie’s taught
me well-you should see me ride those data bases.”
“Don’t put yourself in jeopardy,” I said.
“Don’t worry. The preliminary searches are no more than what an
officer does every time he pulls someone over for a traffic stop. If
and when I dig deeper, I’ll be careful. Have the parents lived
anyplace other than L.A.?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I really don’t know much about them, better
start learning.”
“Yeah, you dig your trench; I’ll dig mine.” He hunched over the
counter, thinking out loud: “They’re upper-crusties, which could mean
private schools. Which is tough.”
“The mother might be a public school girl. She doesn’t come across as
someone who was born to money.”
“Social climber?”
“No, just simple. He’s a college teacher. She might have been one of
his students.”
“Okay,” he said, opening his note pad. “What else? Maybe military
service for him, maybe officer’s training-another tough nut business
card in the mail a while back. Congrats for entering the informational
age and some free software to do my “He knew what you were doing?”
“Evidently. Anyway, back to your baby-poisoner. Bugging her house.
Unless you got a court order, anything you came up with would be
inadmissible. But a court order means strong evidence, and all you’ve
got are suspicions. Not to mention the fact that Grandpa’s a I,
pooh-bah, and you’ve got to tread extra carefully.”
He finished peeling the orange, put it down, washed his hands, and
began pulling apart the sections. “This one may be a
heartbreaker-please don’t tell me how cute the kid is.”
“The kid’s adorable.”
“Thank you very much.”
I said, “There were a couple of cases in England, reported in one of