THE REINER CLINIC,
RANDALLSTOWN, MARYLAND
David Reiner was nothing like Monica Reyes had imagined he would be.
In her mind, she had constructed a picture of an aging but sternly authoritative figure, but while Reiner carried an air of authority he was surprisingly young and, she thought, extremely good looking. Fit and tanned, he stood at almost six-six and had an engaging smile and an easy manner.
"So what can I do to help the FBI?" he asked as his personal assistant, a beautiful young blonde, showed them into his office before returning to her desk at the other side of the same office. It was next to a door that, from the layout of the building, had to lead to a private room.
"We were hoping you could help us with this," said Doggett, handing him the doll.
"Hmm, it's certainly one of ours," he said, noting the stenciled buttock, "and with a bit of luck I'll be able to tell you who had it last."
He bent the doll's head forward, lifted the wispy hair, and read out the tiny numbers printed there.
"Look those up for me please, Sylvia."
His p.a. typed the numbers into the computer on her desk, her long polished nails preventing her from doing so quickly, Monica noted.
"I'm sorry, David," she said, smiling ruefully, "but according to our records that doll is still in our storeroom."
He returned her smile and, from their body language, Monica decided their relationship was probably more than just professional. Not that this was any of her business.
"Looks like I can't help you, I'm afraid" said Reiner, apologetically.
"Oh, I think perhaps you can, Dr Reiner," said Doggett, sliding a photograph across his desk. "This shows the couple who were last in possession of the doll. It was taken several months ago as part of surveillance during an investigation into a baby-trafficking operation. Yours was one of several clinics staked out by our colleagues. If you look closely, you'll see this pair were caught on film entering this very one. How do you account for that?"
"I'm not sure what it is I'm supposed to account for," said Reiner. "Whoever these people are, it seems likely they were the ones who stole the doll."
"Let me tell you what I think happened," said Doggett. "I think that you used to run a baby-trafficking operation out of this very clinic. There are childless couples desperate for children who will pay upwards of $30,000 for a healthy, white baby, and poor parts of the world where such babies are available, if not always legally. What better place to hide such children and arrange the handovers than in a clinic such as this? Somehow, you got wind that the FBI was onto you and you closed the operation down. Recently, you started it up again, only now instead of doing the handovers here at your clinic, which could still be under FBI surveillance, you're doing them at places like the Marriott. In the case of the couple in the picture, you closed down before they got their baby and so they were one of the first to take advantage of the new procedure. That's what's going on here, isn't it?"
"You certainly have a fertile imagination," said Reiner, "but that's complete nonsense. This clinic is a legitimate business. Now, unless you can prove this allegation, I really must ask you both to leave."
"We're going," said Doggett, "but you can bet we'll be back."
As they headed for the door, Reyes noticed Sylvia watching her with an expression that was an odd mixture of glee and... hunger? Stopping at the door, she turned, reached into her pocket, and pulled out the replica of the Medallion of Zulo.
"Does this ring any bells?" she said sweetly, holding it aloft.
The color drained from Sylvia's face, her jaw dropping in shock as she stole a nervous glance at the door next to her desk. Reiner's face betrayed less obvious emotion, but his jaw was clenched as he ushered them out of the room.
"What was that about?" asked Doggett as they headed for the reception area.
"Testing a hunch," said Reyes, "I wanted to see if they recognized it, and they did. Which casts a whole new light on what's going on here."
"What do you mean?"
"Wearing the medallion and touching clothes worn by someone else to it turns you into a copy of them, remember? So if you're running a baby-trafficking racket what better source of material to use for that purpose? And as for who you turn into those babies... I think we've just discovered where all those missing gangsters went."
"Are you kidding me?" said Doggett, stopping dead in his tracks. "You think all along they've been making babies with a magic medallion?"
"Not all along, no. I think that when Boudreaux and Billings first investigated it the operation was trafficking babies brought in from Eastern Europe and the like. What I think happened three months ago is that someone found the Medallion of Zulo and realized how it could be used to restart the operation."
"Well I'm not gonna believe that thing operates the way Mulder claimed it does unless I see it with my own eyes." said Doggett.
They had stopped in the lobby. Doggett listened in as a nurse congratulated a waiting husband on the birth of his son - "Congratulations, Mr. Petersen!" - then headed for the main doors.
"Now what?" asked Reyes, as they exited the building.
"Now we go sit in the car and wait for Reiner and his assistant to leave," he said, "and after they have, we bluff our way in. There's something not right here and I'm betting we'll find some clues in that room off Reiner's office. First, though, I'd better check in with Billings. I promised I'd keep him informed of our progress."
Doggett took out his cell phone and called the Baltimore field office while Reyes fetched the car. He was frowning when she returned.
"That's odd," he said, climbing into the passenger seat, "the woman who took my call said Billings was away on personal business and wouldn't be back until tomorrow. When I asked after his secretary, May, she said the same thing. I can't believe they're off somewhere together. She seemed to hate him."
Reyes shrugged. She knew that appearances could sometimes be deceiving.
"Woody Billings is a creep," she said, "but the sort of creep some women find attractive, though Lord knows why."
As per Doggett's plan, they sat in their car for a few hours waiting for Reiner and Sylvia to leave. Eventually, they were rewarded by the sight of the pair leaving the clinic, arm in arm. They paused at Reiner's Porsche and kissed before getting in and driving off. Reyes had a good idea what they would be doing when they got back to Reiner's house, and she found herself envying Sylvia.
"Time to rock'n'roll," said Doggett, a few minutes after the car had vanished.
Once back inside the clinic, Doggett walk straight over to the reception desk.
"Hi," he said, "I'm Fred Petersen and this is my wife, Winona. We're here to see my sister-in-law; she gave birth today."
"Ah, yes," said the receptionist, running her finger down a list on her clipboard, "she's in room thirty-six. Just follow the signs."
"Thank you, ma'am," said Doggett, setting off down the corridor with Reyes in tow. Fortunately, it was the one they needed.
"'Winona'?" said Reyes, as they walked, "Whatever possessed you to come up with Winona?"
"I almost said 'Wilma', but caught myself at the last second and that's how it came out," explained Doggett.
"I thought you said you didn't pay attention to popular culture?"
"The Flintstones wasn't popular culture, that was art."
Doggett's delivery was so dry that Reyes couldn't be sure whether or not he was pulling her leg.
"Did you notice the security camera in the reception area?," said Doggett. "When I leaned over the reception desk I could see that's where the monitors are. The only other cameras are at the rear fire exit and in the nursery."
"Parents these days are so paranoid about someone coming along and stealing their babies there's no way they'd entrust them to somewhere that wasn't covered," said Reyes.
"Yeah, but fortunately Reiner was too cheap to put in full surveillance," said Doggett. "He put in the bare minimum necessary to make parents feel secure. There's not one near his office, which is lucky for us."
Reyes kept watch while Doggett opened the door to Reiner's office with his lock picks. She breathed a sigh of relief when they slipped inside and closed the door behind them. Doggett then employed his skills on the door to the inner office, giving them access to the room where they expected to find answers. At first glance it was pretty unprepossessing, containing a closet, a wall-safe, a desk with a computer on top, and very little else. While Doggett tried getting into the computer, Reyes opened the closet. She gasped in surprise. In the closet was a row of men's clothes, each set enclosed in a plastic cover to separate it from its neighbors. On the front of each cover was a photograph and a name. The first belonged to Chuck Boudreaux, the second to Darryl Johnson, and others to the missing members of the Ameche family and various of their lieutenants.
"What the hell?" said Doggett. After trying unsuccessfully to get into the computer, he had opened the desk drawers and pulled out two large, Tupperware containers. Both held the plastic wrist-tags clinics put on babies to identify them, complete with names, individually sealed in plastic bags. Those in one box had been taken from baby boys, those in the other from baby girls.
"It all fits," said Reyes. "Reiner keeps those tags when babies leave the clinic, giving him a regular supply of different babies he can turn people into with the Medallion of Zulo. The clothes in the closet are what those people were wearing at the time they were transformed, and also provide a wardrobe of identities anyone using the medallion can use whenever they want. That's how whoever really killed Vincent Clay got to look like Chuck. I'd bet good money that computer contains a list of who all those missing people are now and who adopted them. And I'll bet the medallion itself is locked away in that wall safe."
"Unfortunately, my skills don't extend to safe-cracking," said Doggett, "but what I think is in there is the gun that killed Clay and the others. Either way, that closet full of clothing ties Reiner to the missing gangsters. We've found enough to take him down, whatever's actually going on here."