“Yes sir,” Ryan said, shaking his head at Jessie, who had opened her mouth to protest.
“All right then,” Chief Laird said. “Good day.”
The line went dead just as they pulled up in front of the Wilshire Medical Center.
“So I guess we’re turning around then?” Jessie asked playfully.
“Is that what you’re thinking?” Ryan asked, his eyebrows raised.
“Well, let’s see. Since we started on this case, members of the organization we work for have covered up details about the death of an underage porn actress, likely threatened my sister’s safety, surveilled our movements, and quite possibly tried to hit us with an unmarked car. I think I’m gonna take a pass on going back to the station. I think I’m gonna stick around here and see what I can find out. You?”
“Considering I was being sarcastic,” he replied, grinning widely, “I think I’ll hang out here too.”
“Then it’s settled. Let’s get in there.”
*
Forty-five minutes later, they still had nothing.
There were a total of five doctors in the building’s lobby directory who had the initials D.K. but none of them matched the photo. It was possible that D.K. was someone other than a doctor but that seemed less likely, considering the cost of Michaela’s services.
After going through the list, Ryan suggested that maybe the building was simply slow to add recent doctor names to the board. As a result, they’d been reduced to checking the list of doctor names outside each office individually in the hope that they’d come across one who hadn’t been listed in the lobby directory. When they reached the sixth and final floor, Ryan showed Jessie a text he’d just gotten from Captain Decker. It read:
We have passed insubordination. Your phone shows that you are in Beverly Hills. You were supposed to be at the station fifteen minutes ago. Captain Laird is demanding your arrest. I am en route to your location. Turn yourselves in to avoid additional penalties.
“Well,” she said. “We’re on the top floor. If we don’t have luck here, we may as well turn ourselves in. At least we can cut through traffic if we’re in a squad car with sirens, right?”
“You are a ray of light, Jessie Hunt,” Ryan said, smiling through his anxiety.
“Remember that when they’re slapping the cuffs on you,” she replied.
They took opposite sides of the hallway, checking the names on placards for a match. Jessie looked at the four doctors listed outside Wilshire Plastic Surgery Associates. When she got to the third name, she stopped in her tracks. After a moment, she quickly typed it into Google. When the image came up, she stared at it for several seconds.
“Ryan,” she called out as she checked additional images for the doctor, “can you come over here?”
He walked over and she showed him the photo on her phone. Then she pulled out the picture of the sleeping guy from Michaela’s picture.
“Hard to be sure,” Ryan said. “But they definitely look similar. What’s his name?”
“Dr. Richard Kallas,” Jessie said. “I wonder if he goes by the nickname Dick.”
Ryan’s eyes lit up.
“D.K,” he breathed. “I’m thinking maybe we should have a chat with the good doctor.”
“Me too,” Jessie said.
Ryan started to open the door but Jessie stopped him for a moment so she could get out her phone. She typed a message to Decker and before Ryan could stop her she hit “send.”
“Why did you do that?” he demanded.
“Gut feeling,” she said and gave him a wink.
Shaking his head, he opened the door and followed her in.
The receptionist looked up, startled.
“Oh, I’m sorry. We’re closed for the day. I guess I forgot to lock the door. But you can make an appointment online. We have openings in about four months.”
Jessie looked at the clock. It read 5:11 p.m.
“We’re not here for a consultation,” she said. “We need to speak to Dr. Kallas.”
“I’m afraid Dr. Kallas isn’t available,” she said impatiently. “But as I said, you can…”
“We’re with the LAPD,” Ryan interrupted. “Is he in his office?”
The receptionist glanced down the hall uncertainly.
“Yes,” she said. “He’s finishing patient charts.”
“Why don’t you take us to him?” Ryan asked, though it wasn’t really a request.
The receptionist nodded and led the way down the hall. As he had on the way to Aaron Rose’s office, Ryan gave Jessie a friendly reminder.
“I know we’re not worried about it getting out that we’re still investigating the case. That ship has sailed. But don’t forget, even if this guy did sleep with Michaela, that doesn’t mean he killed her. Let’s try not to add any lawsuits for defamation to our pending disciplinary action.”
Jessie nodded her understanding, if not her agreement. She wasn’t worried about lawsuits right now, just getting to the truth.
The receptionist stopped outside the last, slightly ajar door at the end of the hall and knocked softly.
“Yes?” someone said in a soothing voice.
“Dr. Kallas, it’s Maya. I know you’re working on charts but you have some visitors who need to speak with you.”
“We’ll take it from here,” Ryan said, pushing the door open and stepping inside.
Jessie followed close behind. As she entered she took a deep breath and pushed all the chaos of the day out of her mind. She needed to focus completely to determine if Richard Kallas was just a scumbag or something far worse.
Kallas stood up as they entered. He had an untroubled smile on his face. The second she saw him, Jessie knew he was the same man from Michaela’s photo. Kallas was handsome in a creepy, manufactured way.
His brown hair was shockingly full and vibrant for a man who looked to be in his early forties, without a hint of gray. Jessie suspected it was aided by a transplant and colored often. His skin was golden and his teeth were brilliant white. He looked to be in great shape, with a trim waist and muscles that strained at his dress shirt.
Behind him on the wall, Jessie saw a collection of photos from marathons and Iron Man competitions, just above a series of what appeared to be vintage scalpels and surgical blades, some of which looked more like weapons than precision tools. In some of the pictures, his face looked dramatically different from the man standing before them now.
Part of it was simple aging. But part of it was also due to artificial attempts to defy age. The real-life Kallas had smooth skin and no visible wrinkles near his eyes or on his forehead, both of which made him look weirdly like a plastic Ken doll.
His nose and chin were different from some of the photos as well. Both had been sculpted. The chin was broader and squarer and the nose was smaller and sharper than before. The skin below his cheekbones looked tightened as well, giving him the permanent appearance of someone sucking them in. Even his ears looked slightly different, as if they’d been tweaked so as to not stick out as far.
No wonder Agent Dolan’s FBI people hadn’t been able to match the photo she gave him to the man in front of them now. Being asleep in that picture couldn’t have made it easy. But in addition, if Kallas had most of the work on his face done recently, after his driver’s license photo was taken, it might be hard for even a computer make the match.