by Ronnie Allen
“I have my own safe house. I’ll go there if Sam comes with me.”
“Absolutely not, and I’m not going to even ask you where or what it is. You’ll stay here, then. We have a couple of cots set up. Why don’t you get some sleep.”
“Not me. Too hyper to sleep. My mind is on a spinning wheel.”
The lieutenant was more than serious as he addressed Frank. “You need to calm her down. Just don’t pump her full of pharmaceuticals. Okay, Detective, go to your files.”
“Can I go to my desk?”
“No. Nowhere that open. You’ll stay in here.”
“Lieutenant, I feel like a third grader who was sent to the principal’s office to do her work.”
“So were you?”
“More than I cared to admit, yes.”
“Then you should be used to it.”
Nick broke into the nonsensical conversation as he sat down at the conference table. “Come on, Sam, show us what you think.”
Frank and Sam followed.
The lieutenant joined them. “I want to hear what you have to say, as well.”
Sam opened the file and turned to the transfer of evidence page first. “Hold on. The phone was never in the possession of anyone in Jen’s investigation. It was like a phantom that no one could locate. Or was it? But the report says, the phone was still active. Guess they paid for the month. They tracked it to a convicted felon in prison. Was he interviewed?”
Frank recapped. “Yes. Denied knowing about it. Said the cops took his phone when he was arrested. Didn’t know what happened after that. We went through this, already.”
“Hold on, I accessed that guy’s file. Wilbur Hemming, right?”
The lieutenant stared at her, wide-eyed.
“I take initiative, Lieutenant. I had to go back in time. Where is the transfer from his possession to the police? They have to mark it. Who arrested him?” She turned some pages. “Here it is. Mark Collins out of Manhattan North. Two years, and almost two month ago. Where is he now?”
“Who?”
“Collins.”
“Collins retired to Florida.”
“Where is Hemming?”
The lieutenant shrugged. “I guess, somewhere upstate. The Department of Prisons has his file now. Where are you going with this, Sam?”
She looked farther down the form. “Okay Let’s start at the beginning. When he was arrested, all of his belongings were given to the property clerk at the 053 in the Bronx. A wallet, a watch marked y/m, and a necklace marked y/m. A phone. But a couple hours later, at the shift change when the paperwork was caught up, no phone.”
Frank nodded. “When we interviewed him, he didn’t give a damn about the phone. He was screaming about his Rolex and nineteen gram 14K gold necklace. That’s some yellow metal.”
“Ooh. I would have liked to see that.”
“He couldn’t get it back. They would only give it to him, personally, and he was locked up.”
“Okay. So it says here, after ninety days, they auctioned off his watch and gold chain.” She scanned the next page. “Hold on. His wife did come to get his belongings when he was arrested. They absolutely would not give them to her. That’s right, Frank. No one had seen her, but they think she might have snatched the phone off a table. Am I reading this right? How come no one saw her? And she snatched the phone, not the expensive stuff? This doesn’t make any sense. Let me look back. What was this creep arrested for?” She flipped to the first page. “Ooh. Murder. Three ladies of the night. So our bum here, was a pimp. No wonder they thought his wife had taken it. To keep his contacts out of our hands. But wait.” She glanced up at Frank. “Then he would have cared about the phone.” She opened another file. “Now in Jen’s file, it says, the feds still investigated that phone. His wife and father moved to North Carolina as soon as he was indicted. By the time the agents caught up with them, they were both deceased, two weeks apart, a few months after moving there. That’s weird. The reports said overdose and it wasn’t suspicious.” Sam sat back, frustrated. “How can that be?”
“Why don’t you two go get some rest.” Loo said.
“Okay, Loo, I’m wiped,” Frank said, equally as frustrated as Sam.
***
The lieutenant brought in breakfast for Sam and Frank. Platters of scrambled eggs, sausage, fresh fruit, but no bread or potatoes. Guess Loo knew Frank’s culinary preferences. Nick joined them as they were finishing. He held the door open for Tom, who was behind him with files up to his forehead.
Tom grinned. “Good morning, Detectives, Doctor Khaos. Sam, you’re either going to love me or hate me.” He put the folders on the conference table and then handed Sam forms to sign that she had received the documentation.
“The phone text is a match from the one two years ago. I’m working on getting a ping signal. Your interviews and what you requested yielded a lot. I haven’t read it all. Jennifer kept accurate records. You’ll know the relevance. The cover sheets are self-explanatory. Call me if you need anything.”
“Thank you so much, Tom,” Sam said as she handed him the signed papers.
Tom nodded, did a quick military turn, and left the room.
She looked at the amount of documentation and gulped. Acid regurgitated in her throat. She must have been a hell of a lot more nervous and overwhelmed than she’d admitted to herself. She stared at them, scanned the cover sheets, and picked up the folder about Alicia Freed, the nursing administrator before Penelope Casting.
“Frank, did you know her, Alicia?”
“Briefly. We met at the holiday parties. In all the years Jen worked at the hospital, I was only able to get to two. Definitely not the past three years. Jen and my work schedules conflicted. If Doctor Freed walked in here now, I probably wouldn’t recognize her. Except for the fact she was matronly looking.”
“Okay, let’s focus on why Doctor Freed suddenly left.” Sam exhaled deeply. “This will take a long time to go through. I definitely can’t assess this all at first glance.”
“Let’s divide this up. Give me Doctor Freed. Not having a relationship with her, I could be objective.” Frank slipped the folder in front of him. “You take the files that Jen created.”
“Fair enough.” Nick pulled a few folders in front of him. “Okay, here’s her quarterly evaluation reports. I think we should focus on the negative ones and Jen’s comments as well as her follow up conferences with them.”
“Okay, good.” She placed two other files in front of her. “These are orders she placed, the invoices from the vendors, and the products she received. Did she write the checks herself?”
Frank smiled. “No, Sam. There’s a checks and balances system. The checks are written to the vendors through the accounting department. I believe there has to be two signatures on the checks. I know that’s true for pharmaceuticals, at least. Sam, do you think you could sit still and remain quiet for an hour so we could get at preliminary read?”
“What do you think I am, twelve?”
“Closer to eight.”
“Frank, just read.”
Nick laughed.
For the next hour and a half their noses were buried in the files. They took notes on yellow legal pads, not being able to write on the documents themselves.
Loo opened the door and stood there, looking grim.
“What’s up Loo?” Nick must have read his expression as did Sam.
“Dingo called. The cancer did return. In her stomach, stage three. He’s taking a week off so the family can discuss treatment options with Melinda’s oncologist.”
Sam put her pen down and sat with the same grim expression. “Oh, no. So sorry.”
“Send some of those positive things you do, Detective. Melinda’s going to need it.”
“I will, Lieutenant. I will.”
Loo quietly closed the door behind him.
The trio sat solemnly for a few minutes. Sam broke the silence. “Anyone have anything to discuss? I may have.”
Frank started.
“Okay, let’s start talking these things through. Alicia Freed. She’s an MD and was in this position for twenty-five years, so she had to know her stuff and be cognizant of what was going on. Every meeting she had with personnel is documented with the date and time and a summary. She met with Jen, which was not unusual, at least once a month for the eight years Jen was employed there. Okay, so far, so good. For the last month, Jen met with her twice. The second meeting was September thirtieth. Three days before Jen was killed. The cover sheet lists that meeting with Jen, but, there’s absolutely no documentation as to what that second meeting was about. Nothing. I looked through the entire file, thought the pages weren’t in order. So, with my shrink hat on, I assume that Jen saw things occurring that she needed addressed, but this good doctor felt it should be swept under the rug.”
Sam nodded. “Excellent find. Let’s call in Doctor Freed.”
Nick put a halt to her enthusiasm. “Not yet. Go through the rest of this. Let’s find out why Jen went to her. Then we can be specific. So when we ask her questions, we’ll already know the answers, and any lying will be obvious. There’s nothing that would raise a red flag in these nurses’ evals. Jen seemed to defuse any anger. No one ever threatened her. At least, Jen didn’t document that anyone had.”
Sam held up a file. “Okay, I think I found something but I’m not sure how to interpret it and it could correspond with what Frank has. Which one of you guys is a mathematical genius?”
Frank pulled Sam’s folder in between them. “Show me.”
“Yes, of course you are. The one hundred percent test taker,” Sam snipped. “Okay, Tom went back for three years, since Jen took over the supervising nurse position.”
“No, Sam, Jen was the supervising nurse eight years.”
“Oops. Then Tom only gave us the last three. That should be enough.” Sam made two stacks. “This stack is the product list Jen ordered. This stack is the merchandise Jen received. She sent orders once a month. So three years, thirty-six sets of orders. I can do some math. I went through them, starting from three years ago to present. In the first thirty, Jen had checked off each product and cost and signed the bottom of each form. All is good. Everything matches. Then the last six months, things got weird.”
Frank raised a hand. “Hold on. Jen put the orders through but she didn’t do all this checks and balancing of the order sheets. She received and checked off the inventory. Why would she be looking at all this? Would take away too much time from her patients.”
“I don’t know, but these next six months are all mixed up. Here’s Jens’ orders, same form. Here’s the invoices sent to the vendors, quantity more, cost more but the same item and item code. This form was not included with any order earlier than these six months. Then the receipts which Jen got, which matched her originals.”
“If Jen found something wrong, she’d never wait six months. Wait a second.” Frank pulled some of the sheets out of the folder. “There’s a date on top when the files were accessed. Here it is. September thirtieth.” He slumped down in the seat.
“Crap,” Sam muttered.
“And the first undocumented meeting with Doctor Freed. We’re onto something. Let me look at the numbers.” Frank pulled his smartphone out of his pocket and tapped the calculator app. “Remember, this is only for the ER. There are an innumerable amounts of departments that all send their invoices to accounting. At my hospitals, there are a few people cleared to write checks.”
“Do it,” Sam said.
Frank looked at the invoices. “These numbers are huge. April tenth. The invoice sent to the vendors totaled five hundred thousand but Jen’s order was for three hundred fifty thousand. That matched the product she received. Hundred fifty thousand dollar difference.” He pulled the vendor’s invoice closer. “Hold on, this isn’t an official form. Look. The font on the form isn’t an exact match to the hospital stationery. The hospital uses Times Roman. This is Arial. A forgery. Apparently the person who collated these, didn’t write the check. Probably a clerk, who didn’t eyeball them. Maybe these forms weren’t supposed to be included. Who knows?” He checked the rest of the invoices. Same thing. “Okay, May tenth. Seventy-five thousand. June tenth, fifty thousand. July tenth, fifty-three thousand. August tenth, twenty-seven thousand. September tenth, back up to sixty-two thousand. The grand total is...drum roll, please...four hundred, seventeen thousand dollars over the actual cost of supplies. Embezzlement. Jen was killed because she uncovered embezzlement. Someone must have tipped her off and she requested the files. But that doesn’t matter. Who wrote the checks?”
Nick pulled over the employment files.
Sam took a deep breath. “I only asked Tom to print out the employees, along with their history, who left right after Jen’s murder.” Saying the last two words gave her shivers.
Nick opened the three-inch-thick file. The listings were alphabetical by department. He ran his index finger over each department title.
Frank pursed his lips. “Check accounting first.”
Nick found the listing and stopped dead. His face whitened.
“Nick, you okay? What it is?” Frank sounded alarmed.
Nick slumped back in his chair and swallowed. He covered his mouth with the fingers of his right hand and grabbed onto his stomach with his left hand, as if he was going to vomit.
Sam’s cell rang. “Wright.”
“Got the location of the text.”
“Where, Tom?”
“At the foundation of the Verrazano Bridge. Then the ping disappeared. Phone probably tossed into the water.”
“Okay, thanks, Tom.” She disconnected and stared at Nick.
Frank grabbed his shoulder. “Nick, what’s going on? Now, pal.”
Nick closed his eyes, put his lips together. “You have to take it easy, Frank.”
“Just say it.”
“The employee who wrote the checks was the one who left, the day after the murder. No explanation. Just didn’t show up for work.”
Sam’s eyes darted back and forth between Frank and Nick. This didn’t bode well.
“Who, for crying out loud?” Frank bellowed.
Nick swelled his cheeks and blew out a breath. “Mallory McDonald.”
Frank reddened, slamming his fist on the desk. “That’s Dingo Withers’s wife.”
CHAPTER 37
Later that day, Doctor Alicia Freed sat paralyzed with fear in the conference room. The woman’s gray and white streaked hair, parted down the middle, curled under her chin. Her complexion, riddled with deep crevices, paled, with just a small dot of blush on the apples of her cheeks. Her eyes looked vacant with her lids collapsing close together, her short eyelashes making them to appear slit-like. At sixty-five, she had weathered many personal traumas that further investigation had revealed, and that Frank intended to grill her on. Sam didn’t know about this yet, but he had his own sources in the court system. This was not the first time she had sat in an interrogation room. She wrung her wrinkled hands together on her lap, as they lay on her long, checkered, denim skirt.
The police unit who had brought her in had found her in the midst of packing. She told them she had planned a trip to visit her daughter overseas.
Frank leaned with his back against the wall, his knee bent, with the sole of his right sneaker scuffing it. When her attorney, Maximilian Dempsey, entered with Nick and Sam, Frank sent Dempsey looks that could propel him to hell. Frank’s fists clenched and he banged the wall with his hands behind him in a rhythmic pound.
Dempsey shifted in his chair at the intruding thuds and smirked. “Who’s he?”
The usually compassionate shrink had flown off the galaxy into Netherland, as Frank walked around the table to face them. “I’m Doctor Frank Khaos. Your client, Doctor Freed, worked with my late wife, Jennifer Khaos, at the hospital. And my late wife went to your client to complain about discrepancies she noticed from the accounting department. Obviously my late wife was ignored. And your client mysteriously retired the day
after my pregnant wife--was--murdered,” he growled, pounding his fists on the desk.
Frank’s phrasing jolted Dempsey who swiped some stray gray hairs off his forehead and unbuttoned his jacket. A missing button on his shirt revealed a spread midsection. “There was no documentation as to that. I read the file.”
Sam clasped her hands on the desk. “What was missing tells us a lot. Other meetings were documented in full. Where were you traveling to, Doctor Freed?” she asked, her tone deliberately curt.
“Switzerland.”
“How nice. Why did you only get a one way ticket?” Sam already knew.
Shaking, she cleared her throat, her eyes scanning the room. “My daughter--wanted me--to stay a long time,” she stammered. So I didn’t--know when I’d return.”
“Doctor Freed, we need permission to access to your bank accounts,” Sam said with a flat tone.
The petrified woman stared back and forth between her attorney, Nick, Sam, and Frank, then focused on Sam to answer. “W--why?”
“You’re behavior is showing us it’s warranted. You seem so nervous. Why is that?” Sam planned to make her nervous until she collapsed.
Frank nodded. He knew how Sam operated by now. For sure, she was his ally.
Doctor Freed grabbed her attorney’s arm and shuddered. “Max.”
Nick pulled his smartphone from his pocket. “We can get a warrant for it within an hour. I’ve become attached at the hip with Judge Martinson.”
“If my client cooperates and answers your questions, what will she get?”
“Participating in embezzlement is a felony. Concealing that you know about embezzlement and, as a hospital administrator, not reporting it and making a police report is also a felony, but knowing about a murder that is about to be committed is considered conspiracy to commit murder, and that’s a very long prison sentence. And given Doctor Freed’s age, adding them up would mean the rest of her life behind bars without chance of parole,” Nick retorted matter-of-factly.
“Murder? Oh my God, I knew nothing about murder. I didn’t know they were going to murder anyone. I swear to you. On my grandchildren’s lives, I swear to you!”