Free Bad to the Bone by Stephen Solomita

at the chance to use a psychic in the search for a missing girl. The psychic turned out to be a miserable asshole who’d led him from one vacant lot to another. “This is the one I see in my vision. This is the one I see.” Moodrow had dug up half of Brooklyn before he dumped the psychic. The girl was never found.
    “That’s a good idea. I’ll get the lawyer to get the cops to call the hospital. You never know what’s gonna happen down the road.”
    “There’s one other thing I think we could do. I think we should trace the kid, Michael, through pediatricians.”
    “That’s another good idea.” Moodrow was a little surprised by the ‘we’ in Betty’s suggestion, but he let it go. “How would you go about that?” he said, pointedly.
    “I guess I’d call pediatricians in Manhattan and ask them if they’ve ever had a patient named Michael Alamare.”
    “Forget it. You’re talking about a thousand doctors. At least. You’d never get to them on the first call and most of them wouldn’t cooperate, even if you did. You’re not even law enforcement. Just a private citizen taking up time when the doctor could be making money. Most of those offices are geared up to bring in three hundred bucks an hour and the last thing the doctor wants to do is spend twenty minutes bullshitting with a lawyer.” Moodrow had spent most of his career canvassing neighborhoods. Or contacting ‘every car rental agency in the city.’ Sherlock Holmes would not have understood, but the main thing separating good from mediocre detectives is efficiency.
    “So what are you saying? Give it up?”
    “Not at all. You just have to be a little smarter. First, do it by mail. You can address, stamp and seal a thousand envelopes in one day, if you organize it right. Second, Connie Alamare has a picture of the kid when he was around two years old. Get it blown up and copied. Third, write a tear-jerker letter: ‘Please help me find my grandson.’ No mention of any criminality. Just a missing kid and ‘can you help me.’ That’ll get the attention of whoever opens the envelope. The Medical Society’ll be glad to supply you with a list of New York pediatricians.”
    “Why do I get the feeling I’m being hustled?”
    “When you thought you were doing the hustling?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I think your idea is good. I just don’t have the time for it, right now. I’m gonna spend the next few days trying for a quick pay-off. I got an interview with Davis Craddock.”
    “I can’t believe he’s willing to talk to you.”
    “First call I made. No problem. I’m gonna see him on Monday morning, after I track down a few ex-Hanoverians. There’s a special NYPD squad that keeps track of cults. I got one of the detectives to give me a list of Hanoverians who’ve left within the last two years.”
    “You think they’ll cooperate?”
    “I think so. There’s bound to be some who’re nursing a grudge. Maybe they lost their money or something. Anyway, all I need is one to either put Flo Alamare in the cult or say that she left when Davis Craddock says she did. I don’t wanna go out there with a closed mind, one way or the other. I saw Flo Alamare’s picture when I was in the apartment and she looked like the Virgin in all the paintings. A small face, all dark eyes and curly dark hair down over her shoulders. There’s no doubt in my mind that she could trade that beauty for a free ride, if that’s the way she wanted to go.”
    They got as far as the Queens Boulevard exit on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway before the traffic stopped dead. Moodrow waved his miniature retired cop badge at a cruiser, then asked for the cause of the problem. A jacknifed tractor trailer, he was told, on the far side of the Kosciusko Bridge, with a resulting fuel-oil spill. A story so commonplace that alternate routes had already been prepared. Moodrow, still thumbing his notebook, steered the Mercury onto the Queens Boulevard exit ramp. He’d weave through