I wonder how come Robyn didn’t do any waiting.
“Follow me,” the hostess says to him.
They head for the dining room and I follow like it’s a party of three. I split off for the bar and pick a spot in between occupied stools where backs are turned so I can get a good, long, unnoticed look at Robyn and her date.
Dr. Larry Adkins, I think, and I’m looking at his slender face—deep-set eyes, deeper lines—but I can’t place him. I didn’t see him at Sacred Heart, or St. Elizabeth, or in the newspaper’s photo spread.
As he looks over the wine list, the waiter summons the sommelier. Adkins makes a selection and then the two servers take turns agreeing about it. When they leave the table, the cheeky looks they exchange suggest they just sold Adkins an expensive bottle, or they just shared a view of Robyn’s cleavage, or—
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
I feel shoulders part so I turn around—apparently, I’m ma’am, and the bow-tied bartender has found me—the only woman without a drink.
I take off the beanie so he’ll see my forehead. As I’m doing it I think I’ll get some sympathy, but he does a real good job pretending I’m as fine as anybody.
“What are you drinking?” is what he wants to know. Not even if I am.
“I’m okay,” I say, because I didn’t bring Walter’s bag inside and even if I had, I forgot my wallet at the hospital. “I’m just waiting on someone.”
“The same someone who’s about to share oysters with the spiky blonde?”
Now I’m getting some sympathy.
“He’s very familiar,” I say.
The bartender stirs whatever’s in his shaker, tips some out into a shot glass, and passes it to me. “That’s not cool,” he says. “Consider this your parting shot.”
So it wasn’t sympathy. It was this guy thinking I’m the problem.
I decline the shot, salute him, and make my exit before he blows my thin cover.
Back in the car, I drive around the block and park where I can see the restaurant’s entrance. I don’t really want to wait for Robyn and the doctor, but I don’t have a better plan.
I dump Walter’s bag on the passenger seat in search of the burner. I might as well call Weiss, see if he turned up anything I can use when Robyn does finally leave. Also, I remember the mints.
Among Walter’s things, I see the Tylenol two-pack.
And then I remember Dr. Larry Adkins.
I get the phone and get online. I search “Irish pub” and “Forest Park.” I find six Irish places on the main street, and then the one with a leprechaun on the bar sign, and then I ditch the surveillance idea and head toward Doc Ryan’s—yes, the bar in front of Calvin’s—most likely before Robyn and her medico-beau have decided on surf or turf.
I shoot out on the Ike and I’m exiting at Harlem when Weiss calls. I roll up the windows and try to sound sleepy. “Hello?”
“How you feeling?”
“Like somebody wants me dead.”
“Well, Gina, I’m not sure Heltman’s the one. I just cased his office and I think about the only thing that could get him into trouble is the set of pictures he’s got tucked in his desk of a young brunette on his boat posing with her boob job.”
“What about St. Claire?”
“No bikini shots.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I made a copy of her file. I’m looking at it now. And obviously, I’m no attorney, but everything seems aboveboard.”
“I want to see it,” I say and then I regret saying it because I don’t want to sound like I’m inviting him to swing by the hospital. “Better yet, will you read me the details? Give me something to Google?”
“Okay, well, you were right: Heltman drew up the trust. His invoice is here. Then there’s the trust itself, and paperwork from the funds—one from Champion mortgage and one, a life insurance policy that’s worth over three-fifty—”
“What I want to know is who gets the money.”
“Says here the beneficiary is Johnny.”
“Just Johnny?”
“He’s the only one listed.”
“And Christina, is she the trustee?”
“No. The trustee is a company called Legacy Investment and Management, LLC.”
“I thought a trustee had to be a person.”
“It’s probably assigned to someone within the company. Somewhere in here Legacy is described as a third-party servicer. That means—well, let me read it to you … I think it’s here … here: ‘neither principal nor income of any trust nor any beneficiary’s interest therein, while undistributed in fact, shall be subject to alienation, assignment, encumbrance,’ etcetera, blah blah blah—never mind, that’s the spendthrift clause—let’s see. Payment to beneficiary. Here: ‘the trustee’—that’s Legacy—‘may make any payments of income or principal directed to be made to any beneficiary under any provision of this Agreement, including any distribution on termination’—shit. That’s not it, either. But basically, what this says, wherever it says it, is that Legacy will be paid a portion of the principal in exchange for distributing the funds to Johnny. People usually hire companies like this when the beneficiary doesn’t know how to handle money. For tax purposes, protection from creditors, all that. Sometimes protection from the beneficiary’s spending habits. That way, they can avoid family disputes—”
“How come you know so much about this?”
“I had a friend who … died. He’d wanted to leave everything to his wife, but there were some legal issues. Because some of the money was stolen. Different sad story. Anyway: this isn’t so bad. This will probably set Johnny up for life.”
“I can’t believe Christina was completely boxed out.”
“Well, I’m sure there’s still a will. And she’ll get dibs on whatever’s outside the trust via probate. The house, all the stuff. Maybe St. Claire figured it’d even out.”
“How much money did you say Johnny gets?”
“About a half-million dollars. Minus the service fees—I don’t know what the going rate is for a hired trustee. Could be pretty significant.”
“That still doesn’t seem fair.”
“You think Johnny’s ever had it fair? And he’s what, in his fifties? That means he’s still got twenty more years of medical expenses, minimum. This way, St. Claire knows he’s got someone looking out for him. And she knows he isn’t spending it all on soda pop.”
“You seem sure about this.”
“The only thing I’m sure of is that Heltman runs a tight ship. If there’s a scam here, it’s not on paper. I’m going to have to go talk to him direct. See about that boat ride.”
“I’m sure he’ll be impressed by all your absurd nautical references.”
“Don’t you think?”
“No. But I do admire your ability to amuse yourself at a time like this.”
“Someone has to.”
“Call me after Heltman throws you overboard.” I’m smiling when I hang up.
* * *
Calvin’s place looks just like I remember it—what I remember of it, anyway: a white-sided two-flat that’s seen more renters than repairmen. The lights in his front windows flick blue and white, the television going. It’s nearly eleven, so I’m hoping he’s in there, alone, and sticking to his mental guns about not needing any kind of security.
I leave my actual gun under the driver’s seat and use the rearview to see what Calvin’s going to see. It ain’t pretty. But this visit isn’t going to start a romance anyway, so I smile at myself and go.
When Calvin opens the door he is pleasantly surprised and then not surprised and then not at all pleasant. “What,” he whispers, “you just show up to re-up?”
“No,” I say, “I am here to give you one chance to tell me what the fuck is going on at Sacred Heart.”
“Or what?”
“I’ll have you arrested for selling illegal prescriptions.”
“You’re going to do me like that? After the other night?�
��
I get a foot in the door, let that be my answer.
“Shh,” he says, “Sabrina’s asleep.”
“Then tell me quietly.”
He steps back, letting me in, conceding.
We pass the front room where we’d been all over each other three nights ago and I see a little girl curled up on the couch. The apartment is hot, and she’s naked except for pink underpants, her sweet face undisturbed despite the harsh soundtrack from the grown-up show playing on TV. When she stirs, I imagine her sugarplum dreams are fevered, typical on nights at Daddy’s.
Calvin leads me into the bedroom and pulls a sheet across a curtain rod over the doorway for privacy. I hadn’t noticed it before. I’m sure that’s not the only thing.
He lights the lamp next to the bed and sits down, same side he slept on. Then he looks up at me and says, “I’ll tell you what I know, but please, you of all people: you’ve got to understand that everything I do is for my baby girl.”
“I can promise you. I understand.”
“I swear: I’m not in on what they do there. I just put my head down and do my job and that’s how I keep my job.”
I cross my arms. “What about all the prescription samples in your garbage can? What part of the job are those?”
“I sell scrips. You didn’t seem to have a problem with it the other night.”
“Where do you get them?”
“One of the docs.”
“Are you talking about Dr. Larry Adkins? Because he’s a known associate of the caregiver who’s stealing money from Kay St. Claire—”
“That’s him. He pharms, but I don’t know anything about him otherwise. Everybody’s real careful since the lawsuit.”
“What lawsuit?”
“Last year. A group of patients sued for wrongful procedures. Tracheotomies, if you can believe that—”
“I saw a patient there with a trache tube. How does someone wind up with that when they don’t need it?”
“Because Medicaid cuts a big check for that procedure.”
“How many were in the lawsuit?”
“Only three—three who came forward anyway. The hospital wound up settling and the couple doctors who were named got fired. Things have been pretty straight on the topside since then. I mean, they’ll still snow you and slip in an unneeded test or two—they stick by that policy—I told you, they call it ‘diagnostic certainty.’ And maybe there’s a kickback—I mean a consulting fee—here and there. And I swear, some days they’re looking to do traches, even just to prove themselves. But for anybody who’s curious, Sacred Heart is clean. And clean broke, which is proof they’re clean, isn’t it? Plus they had those layoffs, and the state’s intervention. I mean, they’re actually being given money by the government to stay up and running.”
“So what’s on the underside?”
“More like the outside. Outside, all a doctor needs is one friend in Big Pharma. But that’s not as profitable as it used to be, back when the docs would get paid to push drugs. Some of them even got straight-up sponsorships. Now a doc is more likely to take a meeting with a drug rep and come away with a free week in Bali or a five-star meal or a round of golf. It’s the same result for Pharma: the docs still write scrips aplenty. But they aren’t seeing cash anymore.”
I think of Robyn and Dr. Adkins who are, at this moment, probably sharing a slice of comped black forest cake. “The money is safe, though,” I say, “already spent.”
“Yes. And there’s some of that inside the Heart, too. All they need is one prime patient—someone who isn’t going to get better. Then it’s diagnostic tests, trial-and-error drugs, aftercare. I can’t prove they keep people sick but, damn, I don’t see many get cured—”
“By aftercare,” I say, “do you mean home care?”
“You seeing that safe money now?”
Ding. Ding. Ding.
“It starts inside,” Calvin says, “and it’s safe, because the money doesn’t go through the hospital.”
“Does it go through Complete Care, LLC?”
“That’s the one.” Calvin looks up at me. “But hey, I don’t know what happens once somebody’s discharged. I only know they’ll probably be back.”
“Do you know which doctors are involved?”
He shrugs. “Any. All. You got an M.D. after your name? You’re either smart enough not to get caught up in it, or else you think you’re so smart that you won’t get caught doing it.”
I sit down next to him. “These people, they threatened my little girl.”
“I’m sorry.” Calvin puts his arm around me and I don’t expect it at all but it doesn’t seem wrong. In front of us, on the dresser, Sabrina smiles from the photographs I saw Saturday morning, the smiles he probably depends on most of the week.
“What would you do?” I ask. “If it was Sabrina?”
He takes his arm away, makes a fist. “I’d fucking kill them.”
28
It’s midnight when I get in the car and make my way back to the city. About two minutes into the trip, I realize I’ve still got Robyn’s license plate on mental repeat, so I text it to Walter on the security app to see if he can ping her address.
I tell myself not to freak out when he doesn’t respond right away; he did say he’d be getting coffee with Monica.
Then I freak out over every other possible reason for his silence, most of them based on Walter being discovered by hospital staff—corrupted or not.
Too late now.
When I get back to Kay’s, it’s been nearly three hours since I followed Robyn from here, but there are no signs she’s returned. The front of the place is pitch-dark and I’m kind of surprised Kay would be here alone without so much as a night-light. What if she’s thirsty? How can she read the signs that tell her where to get a drink?
Maybe she’s so medicated she can’t get up. Or maybe, who knows? Maybe Robyn tied her to the bed.
It doesn’t matter. I’m going in.
I chew a bunch of mints—their strength much more straightforward than advertised—and then I open up Walter’s glove box to see if he’s got anything of use to someone who’s about to break into a home. I find cords, chargers, plugs, and batteries. One city map and a hundred old parking receipts. And a Halloween-grade stash of Dum Dums. I take two.
I put my gun in the front pocket of Walter’s bag and stuff everything that’s left on the passenger seat back into the main compartment. Then I get out of the car, shoulder the bag, and jam the burner into my back pocket.
I chew the root beer lollipop off its stick and start on the other one. I can’t tell what flavor it is. I go through the church lot to the alley again and look both ways before I tip one of the garbage cans, a step stool to get over St. Claire’s fence.
Once inside the yard, I peek in the garage—no Benz. I creep along the fence to avoid the motion light and take the gangway to the front of the house.
I climb the front steps, and then I use the lollipop sticks to pick the lock.
Except I can’t. In part because it’s an old tumbler lock, maybe some rust inside, and also because the sticks are made of paper and they fray right away. And then there’s that other part where I can’t feel my fingers. I’m pretty sure I have a better chance of breaking in using my bad leg as a battering ram.
I sit against the siding below the bay windows and give myself a minute. My back is killing me. I’m losing strength. I should go back to the hospital. Get some sleep. Have Walter or Weiss help me in the morning. I’m fucking tired, and there’s a part of me—I’d like to think the rational part—that wants to curl up and close my eyes. Just for tonight.
If I knew Isabel was safe, I would.
And all I need is confirmation: I need to know if it was Dr. Adkins who sent Kay home from Sacred Heart with Risperdal and all those other meds, too. If he’s the one who prescribed her ruin.
I get up and try the lock again, a dumb idea to begin with. Dum Dum. Heh.
I can’t. I quit. I lean
back, paraspinal muscles aching, my reluctant wings. The drug-coated, sugar-spiked feeling I’d been riding is wearing off, and so is the confidence that came with it.
I close my eyes. I feel the breeze, and hear it move through the trees. I marvel at the quiet, the middle of this wild city. I take a slow, deep breath.
And then I wonder if I’m about to die, because I suddenly smell my house—old wood and dry powder and wet diapers—and if olfactory hallucinations can be a precursor to a stroke, here I go.
I get up on my feet and smile and raise my arms and say, “The sky is blue in Chicago,” just to see if I can pass the FAST stroke test.
That’s when I also see that Kay’s bay window is cracked open, and the smell is her house, not mine.
That’s right: old people, new people. Same life stink.
And, yes, that’s right: it’s pretty simple to get into an open window.
Inside, I take Walter’s girlfriend’s shoes off and leave them by the easy chair with the backpack. I tuck my gun and cross the room, the no-slip of my socks like suction on the hardwood, the tick-tock of the cuckoo clock timing my steps.
Kay’s bedroom door is open and inside, there’s a faint intermittent glow from a blinking Lifeline base station charging on the vanity. It gives off enough light to show me there is no one in the adjacent bed.
I make for the kitchen, the pills. That’s when I notice two thin streams of light under the bathroom door at the end of the hall.
I train my gun and edge in as I get close to the door. I stop short. I focus on the shadows for movement. I wait and I wait and I know somebody’s in there. But nobody moves.
“Kay St. Claire,” I say, official, police.
No answer.
“Kay St. Claire,” I say again, moving around the door to get on my dominant side.
And then I feel something soak through my no-slip socks.
I step back. I say, “God damn it,” because the something is urine, seeping out from under the door, pooling where the floor is warped.
I reach across and try the handle. It turns. I push the door with my forearm. It’s stuck. Something is blocking it.
I step forward and push harder and I feel like I could bleed out, the weight on my leg, but I get the door to give enough to see Kay’s lower half, prone and contorted, one knee wedged beneath her, underpants pulled taut from her good ankle to the broken one, and shit everywhere in between.
The Lies We Tell Page 28