“I’d like to take the unusual step of asking this anonymous citizen what her name is.”
“Patricia Amos,” replied the woman, tucking her short dark hair behind her ear.
In her periphery, Caroline watched Simon’s face go as white as the projection screen.
“Please tell the council what your profession is,” Caroline directed the real Patricia Amos.
“I’m a licensed vocational nurse. For the last eight years, I’ve worked at Meadowlark Convalescent Hospital in Burbank, California.”
“And where were you before your current job?” Caroline asked.
“Immediately before? I lived on the streets.” Patricia’s tone held no shame at the admission.
“Please tell the council how that happened.”
“I’m a trained nurse. I graduated fifteen years ago. I worked at various facilities for about seven years. Toward the end of that period, I had some substance abuse issues. I’m lucky I didn’t lose my license, but things got pretty grim there for a while, and I ended up on the street. I’m clean now. I’ve been clean for almost a decade.”
“Were you ever a resident of Oasis?”
“I sought refuge there for a time.” She looked over at Simon. “I remember Mr. Reed. He was always working in the administrative offices there. He was quite friendly to all of us.”
“Did you take part in any of the Oasis job training programs?” Caroline asked.
“No. I didn’t need job training. As I said, I was already a nurse. I just needed a roof over my head and a chance to get right. Fortunately, I managed to kick my addiction. I’ll always be grateful to Oasis for its substance abuse programs.”
“Have you ever run into any credit issues?” Caroline asked.
The council sat forward, listening for Patricia Amos’s answer.
“Yes, but not in the way that you’d think. I would get these solicitations for these investment opportunities. I assumed everyone was getting them. I didn’t think much of it until about five years ago. Some lender called Great Southern Bank offered me a line of credit based on my past performance with the bank.”
“Did you ever look into it?” Caroline asked.
“I did,” Patricia confirmed. “I ran a credit report with my Social Security number and discovered that I apparently took out a big loan from Great Southern Bank several years before.”
“Did you, in fact, take out that loan?”
“No. It had been repaid, so I guess I’m lucky it didn’t wreck my credit, but . . . wow.”
“In other words, your identity had been stolen,” Caroline concluded.
“Clearly, yes.”
“Thank you, Ms. Amos. You may step down.”
As Patricia retreated to her seat, Caroline said a silent thank-you. The real Patricia Amos had been surprised by Caroline’s phone call. A respected nurse who’d lived clean for many years, she’d been reluctant to discuss her past. But when Caroline had asked if she’d lived at Oasis, everything had changed. And when Caroline had probed about identity theft, Patricia had expressed outrage at what Caroline believed Simon had done.
Even so, Caroline hadn’t known whether that outrage would translate into willingness to attend the hearing—and share her story. Caroline was grateful that it had.
Now, she turned back to the council, whose evening plans were long forgotten.
“Patricia Amos is one of many people whose Social Security numbers appeared on those little cards that Simon told you about—the ones he digitized,” Caroline continued. “Simon has used the army of ghost identities he created from those Social Security numbers to raise funds to pay for his projects and, when the market goes down, to keep him afloat.”
“But this must all show up in Greenleaf’s accounting,” the president protested.
“Greenleaf’s accounting?” Caroline echoed. “You mean the accounting that Gregory Parsons is in charge of? If he’s kept any accounting at all, you can bet it’s not worth much.”
Caroline paused to let the audience consider her words.
“For years, Simon has avoided getting caught. But the economic downturn has made things harder. Selling projects in this market is tough,” she said.
“So then why would I be building another project?” Simon asked, looking at the city council, his eyes imploring the members to see the holes in Caroline’s indictment.
“Simon needs this project to cover the loans that are coming due on his other projects,” Caroline answered. “He’s going to use the funds you give him to pay his other debts. He needs this deal, not just so he can stay afloat but so he can avoid falling behind on any of his other projects. He is deathly afraid of triggering the boilerplate terms in the contracts among Oasis, Greenleaf, and the city, allowing an audit if a project falls behind.”
Caroline brought up an image of the contract to reconstruct the County Law Library.
“This is a standard contract. Every one of Simon’s contracts with the city contains similar default provisions—if Oasis or Greenleaf fails to meet benchmarks, it can be audited. This is the real reason that Simon is so desperate for this project, for new cash flow. When your investors are ghosts or a shell game with public funds, you’ve got a lot to hide. You cannot let yourself be audited.”
“I’ve hidden nothing,” Simon began, but Caroline ignored him again.
Instead, she brought up a screenshot of a recent article quoting DA Donita Johnson about her campaign to prevent government waste and her efforts to ensure that public-private partnerships weren’t resulting in overpayment by the cash-strapped city.
“In the current political climate, Simon has had to be extra careful about not falling behind,” Caroline said, nodding toward the boilerplate contract language that the city had recently become interested in enforcing. “But cash has been running low. Ever since the downturn, he’s been struggling to stay in the black. So he came up with a new venture. He ramped up the job-training program at Oasis for certified nursing assistants—a program he’s figured out how to use to dupe elderly nursing home residents into leaving funds to Oasis.”
Vizzi leaned toward Simon and Thibodeaux and whispered something before opening up a laptop and typing furiously.
The dogged expressions on the faces of the three men worried Caroline, but she had no time to worry about what they were planning.
“Here’s where it gets personal,” Caroline said. She let her eyes linger on Simon for a moment before turning back to the council. “I’d like to tell you the story of what happened to my grandmother. It’s a story that’s been repeated many times with many other families.”
She quickly described her grandmother’s handwritten last will, and the bequest of her grandmother’s entire estate to Oasis, including the watch. While Simon wasn’t wearing it, Caroline noticed some council members looking at his wrist as she finished her story.
“Again, I don’t expect you to blindly accept my statements about what happened to my family,” Caroline said. “Instead, I’d like to call the last person on your agenda to speak.”
Turning back to the gallery, Caroline found the face she sought.
“Concerned Citizen Number Three, please come up here,” she said.
With a thick swallow, Federica Muller rose.
A stifled gasp from the long table told Caroline that Vizzi had recognized Federica and knew what she was about to say.
He leaned toward Simon, whose pale-blue eyes blazed with fire.
“The panel appreciates Concerned Citizen Number Three’s desire to provide comments,” said the president, “but we have strict rules about when our meetings are supposed to end. We are already past the termination time for these proceedings. We must conform to protocol.”
Caroline swallowed thickly. She’d hoped to avoid this moment. By inviting Federica up to the podium herself, she’d tried to circumvent what she’d known was coming: a last-ditch effort by Simon and his allies to keep the most torrid part of the scheme from coming to light.
Sending silent thanks to the deputy city attorney, Caroline opened her mouth to speak. But Thibodeaux cut her off.
“I cannot allow my client to be publicly slandered in this manner.” Thibodeaux glanced toward the television cameras behind the dais. “These proceedings should not be televised.”
As if jolting awake, the president cleared his throat.
But before he could say anything, the mouselike councilman spoke.
“We approved the press credentials and television permits. I don’t believe we can revoke them.” He looked toward the deputy city attorney and raised his eyebrows.
“That is correct,” said Deputy City Attorney Jackson, “you cannot revoke them.”
He glanced toward Caroline and gave a ghost of a wink.
Exhaling, Caroline prepared for the end of her presentation. Its success would depend on Federica. She only hoped the skittish caregiver would rally the courage to play her part.
Caroline welcomed Federica to the podium with a hand on her shoulder then stepped back to give the ex-caregiver room to grip the podium like a life raft. It was a technique Caroline had employed to great effect in the past, and she’d counseled Federica to try it, since it was better than passing out from nerves.
In a quavering voice, Federica described her time on the street. Her optimism about Oasis. Her hope that the special CNA program would give her a way to make a better life.
She explained the affidavit-withdrawal scheme and her part in it. She described her disappointment and, ultimately, her horror at what Vizzi asked her to do to ensure that nursing home residents could not change their estate plans once they’d made new wills favoring Oasis.
Though Federica’s voice was small, it carried all around the council chamber.
When she stopped, there was no sound. The audience sat shell-shocked.
“Simon Reed has harvested millions by preying on the most vulnerable people in our community,” Caroline said, capping Federica’s tale with the unavoidable conclusion. “The elderly. The homeless. When the bottom fell out of the market, Simon couldn’t flip his completed projects. He couldn’t cover his next commitments. Or Oasis’s commitments. The whole house of cards was threatening to collapse. The affidavit-withdrawal scheme helped fill some of the shortfall, but even if little old ladies who loved Duncan Reed and fell in love with Oasis wrote the fake charity into their wills, people are living longer these days. It could have been years before Simon saw any of those bequests.”
Now Caroline held Simon’s eyes.
“So he accelerated things. He used the same ghost identities that he’d used to generate the money for his projects to create cover for a group of special, handpicked caregivers that he and Vizzi induced to do the unthinkable. People who are desperate and powerless can be induced to do craven things. And that’s what happened here.”
As her damning words reverberated around the chamber, Caroline relaxed slightly. At least the stories from the key witnesses now existed somewhere other than in Federica’s mind and Caroline’s memory. The television cameras had documented the tales, providing longevity to their damning words and, hopefully, safety to the speakers.
The only motion in the courtroom came at the long table where Simon sat. Vizzi had stopped typing on his computer and was huddled with Thibodeaux and Simon.
Thibodeaux nodded to Vizzi, then stood up.
“These are lies,” said Thibodeaux. “These are nothing but paranoid imaginings. Concerned Citizen Number Three has a troubled history. As Mr. Vizzi can attest, this woman was a heroin addict who lived on the streets. She is of dubious credibility to say the least.”
Next to Caroline, Federica looked down at her hand and fluttered her eyelids nervously.
“No, this woman was used and abused by Mr. Vizzi, Mr. Reed, and the rest of the con men that make up Oasis,” Caroline shot back, leaning into the podium’s microphone. “She is another victim of their crimes.”
Instead of refuting Caroline’s assertions, Thibodeaux smiled a mirthless grin. His dark eyes filled with a cold strain of cruelty.
“As I understand it,” he began, “Concerned Citizen Number One has had some troubles, as well. While in high school, she was the subject of an investigation for hacking. Although no charges were brought against her, I believe her father spent some time under the auspices of the government, shall we say. These stories of malfeasance by my client and his business associates are nothing but that—stories.”
Caroline’s heart squeezed up into her throat. Those records were sealed. That she’d been investigated, that her father had cut a deal to avoid prison—neither piece of information should have been available to anyone.
She wished she could push back against the allegation of fanciful storytelling by putting on the Spreadsheet of Death and the BanCorp data showing the frequency of the affidavit-withdrawal transactions, and the proximity in time between nursing home residents’ wills and their deaths. But she couldn’t. Not without exposing her father to losing his job, at best, and his freedom, at worst.
Thibodeaux was right: she was stuck relying on anecdotal evidence by two people of dubious credibility to prove her case.
“I would ask the council to disregard Mr. Thibodeaux’s attempt to undermine my credibility and the credibility of a caregiver who was trained in the Oasis system and worked for Oasis for years,” Caroline said, keeping her voice even. When no one interrupted her, she took a breath. It was time to make the council see the beast that she finally saw in its entirety.
“This scam exists. You’ve seen the proof of it. Simon Reed has tried to make his crimes invisible. But you can see it all, can’t you? Duncan Reed created Oasis to serve the needy, but Simon has used it to serve himself. He’s done so at the expense not only of the city, but at the expense of the lives of our most vulnerable citizens.”
“But Oasis is Duncan Reed,” the president protested. This time, his voice held distress instead of annoyance.
“No,” Caroline said. “Oasis is Simon Reed. Simon has preyed on his father’s reputation just as he’s preyed on the elderly and destitute. Duncan Reed earned his reputation for humility and generosity. Simon has sullied that reputation with greed. Ever since Duncan Reed’s stroke, Simon has been running Oasis. He’s hidden behind a veneer of goodness. But everything that Simon has done has been designed to obscure what’s really going on: fraud, theft, and murder.”
Caroline scanned the faces in front of her.
The council members looked at one another in open disregard of the rules of decorum. Some leaned toward one another, quite obviously talking about what to do.
Simon scowled at the mutiny taking place before him.
He looked toward Thibodeaux with a pleading expression.
But Thibodeaux stayed mute.
Almost imperceptibly at first, Simon began to pack up his things. Cell phone and wallet both left the long wooden table, slipping unobtrusively into his pocket.
“Everyone has assumed that Simon Reed must be a good guy because his father is a good guy. But Simon has bilked the government. He’s bilked the elderly. He’s treated our most vulnerable citizens as expendable resources. He’s has been a cancer in this city.” Caroline paused and lowered her voice. “No more. This ends right now.”
Simon rose from his seat and began moving around the table, aiming for the closest exit.
Caroline’s heart leaped to full throttle. If he escaped, he’d run. He had the resources to disappear. That some of his money was offshore seemed inevitable.
But then, Simon stopped.
The color drained from his face.
Albert stood in the doorway with three US marshals.
Catching Caroline’s eyes, Albert gave a satisfied nod.
Caroline rel
eased a long breath and nodded back.
TWO MONTHS LATER
Caroline sat on the steps of the courthouse. The heat wave had broken a week ago. Instead of the winds whipping the heat up to a fever pitch, a cool marine layer sat within the great bowl of Los Angeles like a soothing balm.
In her hands, Caroline held her phone. The security officer had returned the newly purchased device to her after she’d finished testifying and left the courtroom. She’d already picked up the message from her mother, congratulating her on the news that had traveled as far as Portland. The paletería owner had recovered. The police had offered an apology to Caroline for the damage to her reputation. And now she’d been a star witness in a prosecution to bring down a massive criminal enterprise.
The question remained, however, what to do with the e-mail from her father.
Dust has settled, yes? Give a call when you can.
Caroline knew what her dad wanted: a chance at reconciliation. Not between him and her, but between Lily and her. The staunchly stubborn part of Caroline refused to budge. Lily had denied her help when she’d been underground, quite literally. Lily had treated her like a criminal, leaving her to scrape and fight for her survival.
But the more charitable part of Caroline understood.
She’d given Lily and her father so little information. She hadn’t told them why she’d left her job at Hale Stern. She hadn’t told them about the devastating betrayals that had decimated her plans to enter the legal profession at the highest level. Nor had she told them the reasons why her departure from that firm was not a failure.
Maybe it was time to begin to trust them with her stories.
Dust has settled. Will call you and Lily tonight.
She hit “Send” and then pocketed the phone before she could change her mind.
Her hand brushed the worry beads she’d carried with her since the feds had grabbed clothes for her from her apartment. She didn’t need the beads right now. If anything, she felt relaxed. Far more so than she’d been in the last year, in fact.
Footsteps on the stairs caused Caroline to turn.
Proof (Caroline Auden Book 2) Page 31