In Plain View by J. Wachowski Page B

head.”
    “Right.” He sounded embarrassed.
    The parking lot of the DQ was filling up. A couple of teenagers in a rusty Volvo circled for the third time, hungry for our parking place.
    “Use your phone. Try the biggest hospital in the area. I’ll try the community college.”
    Ainsley took his phone in one hand, chocolate shake in the other, and bounced his thigh against the steering wheel to the beat of oldies rock, while I entered my own phone purgatory. Pressing. Holding. Pressing. With my free hand, I dug through both gear bags and realized I was low on important stuff.
    “You got any aspirin?” I asked.
    College nodded toward the glove compartment. “We’ve got our choice,” he reported between phone-mail-to-live-human maneuvering. “Do we want an expert on suicide, an expert on sexual deviance or someone who studies Amish psychology?”
    No question. “Sexual deviance.”
    “Okay.” More conferring, then he says, “Guy’s out of town and won’t be back for a week.”
    “Suicide?” I asked, hopefully.
    “…Uh, that guy can only be reached on Mondays and Wednesdays. But she’d be happy to leave a message with the service,” Ainsley added.
    “Shit.” No matter how much I tried to turn this into something that would look like ratings-happy TV, it seemed the Amish were my destiny. The sad thing was I found it pretty intriguing. “Amish psychology is our winner. But ask her to leave a message for the suicide guy, to be safe.”
    After three and a half more minutes of listening to him try to pin down an appointment, I held out my hand. “Gimme the phone.”
    “What?” he complained. “She keeps asking me to wait.”
    The standard whiney operator came on the line. “Who you holding for?”
    “This is Maddy O’Hara from WWST and I’m trying to reach the doctor for a television news interview.”
    “An interview? On TV?”
    “That’s right. We’d like to use the doctor in an investigative report we’re doing on a local public suicide.” I hit that detail hard. Nothing wins over a gatekeeper like a juicy nugget of gossip. “Unfortunately, I’m having trouble getting through to someone who can schedule us. Can you help?”
    “Oh, I’m sorry you’ve had to wait. Hold just a moment.”
    I had the doc on the line in under sixty and we were cleared to interview in less than that. Ainsley shook his head slowly, part admiration, part disgust.
    “Dues you must pay,” I intoned in my best Yoda imitation. “Eat much shit, then you, too, can use the force over secretaries. Let’s go.”

    3:09:13 p.m.
    We followed a major strip-mall route all the way to the western edge of the universe where the county hospital barely held the line on civilization. From what I’d heard, this hospital served a clientele that included everything from the average yuppie heart attack to the pavement drunk with a tire-track headache.
    My sister worked there for years before she died. There.
    I’m not fond of hospitals.
    “Your aspirin bottle is empty, College.”
    “It’s not mine. Somebody left it in there.”
    “Right. Add this to your critical equipment list. Pain reliever—we don’t leave home without it. We should be stocking ibuprofen, extra-strength Tylenol and Tums, oh and breath mints—in the glove compartment. Got it?”
    “Why?”
    That got a laugh. I hope that’s why he asked.
    It took us as long to park the van and wind our way through the Escher-like interior of the hospital as it had to drive to the edge of the county. Of course, I had no reason to complain. Ainsley did all the hauling. Our doctor’s office was tucked in a dead-end hallway. There were plastic chairs along the wall, a small side table and eight copies of the same 1998 issue of Prevention magazine, all labeled Do Not Remove.
    The inner sanctum receptionist greeted us and buzzed the doctor.
    “Ms. O’Hara? I’m Dr. Graham. Please come this way. We can talk in my office.”
    Dr. Graham was in her late forties. She had a cap