Un-Connected

by Noah Rea

  Jim then asked how much time he had to assist, and Marty believed he would be full time if Jim needed him for at least the next few days. Jim was glad to hear that and said that he needed to find out as much as possible about Dr. Robinson and especially the death certificates he had signed in the last year.

  Marty said he was on it and got Jim’s phone number saying he would call as soon as he had anything significant.

  We took Jim to a couple of nursing and assisted-living homes. Jim and Deb went in and asked the questions I asked at one place while Jim and I went in to the other together. We got some good information at both places. One did not know of Dr. Robinson and one did. Jim asked the one that knew the doctor if they were recommending patients to him. Their answer was emphatic. “That would not happen.” He was not on their approved list. Jim asked for a copy of their approved list, but they weren’t allowed to give it out.

  We were building a case, and it wasn’t looking pretty. I asked Jim how he was sure this doctor was linked to what was going on in Fairfax. He said the results were nearly exactly the same. The methods varied a little depending on the doctors and the state laws where the incidents happened.

  Just after Jim walked out of the second home, he got a call from Marty. Dr. Robinson had signed the death certificates of over 195 patients in the last twelve months that he had found so far. He still had searches running, but he had started to analyze the certificates. A number of them had been in stable condition with little wrong with them except age. They had suddenly turned for the worse and passed away. In addition, with few exceptions they had no next of kin. Several of them had told the nurses they weren’t supposed to be there, and they wanted to go home. That part wasn’t so uncommon.

  What was odd was most of the patients of other doctors would have a few weeks of declining health with one significant health issue that killed them. Dr. Robinson’s didn’t. His were reported more or less stable, and then they died unexpectedly. Also he found out that the average stay between check-in and death was about six months.

  Jim told us that their national stats showed on average a person will get sick and die in about thirty days from the illness that kills them. For some it’s longer and some shorter, but the average is just about thirty days.

  Jim gave Marty a verbal attaboy, saying good job.

  “OK, we have elderly people without relatives dying.” Jim went on. “Their estates are being raided, so the proceeds don’t go to the charity or wherever else they selected. Instead, the IRS or someone working for them or impersonating them is taking the money. There’s a lot we don’t know. Are the patients dying prematurely? Are they being killed? Is this primarily fraud or is murder involved? Based on what happened in Fairfax and a few other places, my guess is that murder is frequently involved.”

  “It appears that the most common scenario was to get the person out of their home for about six months. Confiscate all their stuff and sell their house. Once there is no more money to be had, then the patient unexpectedly dies.” I said.

  “It sounds right to me.” Jim agreed. “Or they just disappear. In some cases they are in their house one day and the next day they are gone. No one sees them leave. Then movers take their stuff and then their houses sell. Once all that was done the person has a certificate of death made out and recorded at the county courthouse. In a few cases no one had seen them in almost a year so they were probably dead about the time they disappeared. But either way their estates are raided and nothing is left.”

  We had had a long day and especially Jim. He was ready for a bed. We took him back to the airport to pick up his rental car. He was going straight to the motel and get a quick bite there. He said tomorrow night he would take us out for a good meal.

  Deb and I were glad to help. I was especially glad after so long to see things clearing up to the point we could tell what was going on.

  When we got home, I told Deb I was emotionally drained and was going to bed. I didn’t like being so tired. And I didn’t like going to bed without Deb, but tonight had to be an exception. She patted me on the bottom and told me she was glad to get rid of me for a couple of hours. As I anticipated, I went out like a light and slept about ten straight hours.

  Deb woke me in the morning with a kiss and a command.

  “Get up, sleepy head.”

  She was sure bossy for being the smallest. She asked if I was sick or just tired. I told her I was excited about finding out things, but it was also draining. I didn’t think I was sick.

  We met Jim at his hotel, and he brought us up to date on what he and Marty had discovered. Someone was showing an IRS badge around. They were pulling in lots of money, which was going into IRS accounts, it seemed. They appeared to be the real thing. Jim and Marty began to see if any of the people who died had autopsies.

  Very few did and most of those were because someone was suspicious and raised a stink. Often the cause of death was near natural but maybe a little odd. In a few cases, the patients were taking medications that were appropriate but would be necessary for the person to live. It was as if they just quit taking their medication.

  Jim wanted us to get someone inside a nursing home to help us gather information. We all talked about the nursing-home person we felt would be best. They would need to be a cool head who could act as if nothing was going on when they had conversations with the doctor. Then they’d need extra inspections of things like the meds that were given to the patients. They wanted to see if they could put a medical student with the doctor when he made his rounds. They wanted to do anything they could to determine what was going on.

  After discussing the pros and cons of the person we wanted, we settled on Margaret as our first choice. I called her and said we would like to have another talk with her face to face. I told her I had my wife with me and wanted to know if we could buy her lunch. She had forty-five minutes, so it would have to be somewhat close to the nursing home. We asked her to pick the place, and she chose a pizza buffet. Deb and I met her there, and after visiting a few minutes, I told her I wanted her to meet one other person. I waved Jim in and told her who he was while he was entering. We didn’t want to swamp her or be overbearing, and I told her so, but we badly needed her help. Jim introduced himself, and Margaret was impressed with my rendition of his resume.

  “OK,” she said. “What do you guys want?”

  Jim told her the FBI was suspicious that a Dr. Robinson was not practicing with full integrity, and they needed her help to verify one way or the other if he was.

  “So you want to know if he’s killing people.”

  Deb kicked me under the table and showed a suppressed smile. We chuckled a little at Margaret’s candor and insight.

  Jim smiled. “You’re a very perceptive person, and we need your skill.”

  She agreed to help us. Margaret said she could look him right in the eye and smile and be her normal sweet self. But she said she could pretty much tell me if it isn’t murder, it’s something close, maybe neglect. Jim asked her how a doctor could make things happen the way she had seen them happen.

  She said substituting placebos for essential medications would do it sometimes. For heart patients that were taking nitro, just a little extra in the pill cup would do it. The pharmacist would dispense medication in small paper cups that were thrown away. If someone added a few extra, the nurse that carried the medication to the patient would not likely notice.

  We asked if it was possible one of the pharmacists was doing something like that. Margaret said one of them for sure wouldn’t. She said she grieves over every one who dies, and she double-checks herself or has someone else double-check her almost every time.

  The other pharmacists get aggravated by her doing that sometimes, but she had double-checked theirs before and found mistakes, so they owed her. She said there was one that might do it for some extra cash. She used to always complain about needing a raise or overtime. She hadn’t heard much from her about that in a while. We got that pharmacist’s
name and told Margaret we’d be in touch.

  Marty found out Dr. Robinson and the pharmacist were both getting additional deposits to their bank accounts on a regular basis. Especially the doctor. Someone really appreciated whatever he was doing. So we were pretty sure we were on the right track and getting more insight all the time.

  Marty called back a few minutes later saying there was something really interesting that just got connected. He said a person on our suspicious-death list had a friend that got really upset when he died. He caused a big stink and told the police that something was wrong. He insisted and got an autopsy on his friend.

  The nurses where he stayed didn’t know he had a friend because no one came to see him. What they didn’t know is this friend was in a wheelchair, and though he drove, it was really hard for him to get out. Their patient and this guy must have talked on the phone about every other day. Well, the police connected part of the dots by saying the guy in the wheel chair was driving one day and drove off a bridge. The crash killed him. Finally, a witness came forward and said they saw a black SUV run him off the road. The FBI was sending a crime team over to see the van and see if the police missed anything.

  Jim asked Marty to contact the local paper and ask them to notify the FBI daily of obituary announcements they received. Then Jim told Marty he was headed to the courthouse to find out how death certificates are handled and to find out how fast we could get notification.

  Jim told us it would be a boring job and probably take the rest of the day to ferret out what he needed, so he suggested we go on home. We agreed and dropped him at his car.

  Before he got out, he said he had forgotten to tell me, but my fingerprints were in the FBI database as belonging to Sam Adams, so I should be really safe now. Benjamin Raines had disappeared, and the FBI had given up on finding him.

  Deb told me on the way home she was afraid someone would tip off the doctor, and he would disappear. I agreed, but we didn’t call Jim. I was still drained and wanted a break.

  “I would like to take a pretty girl to a movie!”

  “You have to take me instead.” She said.

  After the movie we called Otis to see how they were doing. We gave him a short version of all that was happening. He was glad to hear about it.

  It sure was good to be home. This place with Deb in it was an oasis in a crazy world.

  We didn’t hear anything from Jim early the next morning and we had a leisurely time at home. We had music on, and Deb and I were reading. We would stop every little bit and bring up something we had forgotten to tell the other or something we read and wanted to share. We might discuss it or say the other one was wrong and sometimes laughed at that. One of the discount department stores had a sale on something Deb said we could use. I said I would pay for it if she drove. She said sure, even though being married and pooling our money meant we were paying for it, not just me. It was one pile of money. Large or small, it was ours.

  We walked around hand in hand like we didn’t have a care in the world. What a difference from a few months ago. They had an oil change special on, and I told Deb I thought I would run out and see if the Jeep needed an oil change. It did so we hung out there a little longer than we had anticipated, but it was fun and relaxing.

  We were on our way home when Jim called. He had a lot of news. The FBI crime scene guys had found black paint on the van of the wheelchair guy who went off the bridge.

  He’d been pushed off.

  Also there was a brand new death certificate in Phoenix, and the body wasn’t cold yet. Jim had managed to get it to autopsy, and we might find out what caused the person’s death. He was also getting the medical history, so the autopsy results with the history might tell us how it happened. He had put a rush on both and hoped to have answers by late this afternoon.

  Jim had also talked to Tex and Seth. They were comparing notes. Jim had been behind them in figuring out what was going on with this file up until Deb and I started digging, and Jim had come to Phoenix. Now Jim was ahead of them with details.

  Seth said the crime lab called. They’d dropped something on the Fairfax case. They blamed it on some interoffice something, but bottom line Rebecca had skin under a couple of fingernails. The samples had gotten separated from the rest of her file, but they had DNA on it now. They hadn’t been able to match it yet but had just started. But it didn’t match Ben’s DNA so he was cleared though still a person of interest. Jim suggested they “leak” that info and see if it caused anything to happen. They all agreed that it was a good strategy, so Seth made one carefully chosen phone call on his personal cell phone that was a standard unsecured phone.

  Then Jim stopped and said he was checking his notes and guessed that was about it. He asked if we were still being careful. We assured him we were but not running scared half to death as we had been. We had a security system at the house, and we were staying together and taking other precautions. He said he wanted us to. The FBI was not looking for us, but he was sure the black SUV killers still wanted to talk to me.

  After we hung up, we both agreed we were finding out a lot about this case but still did not have nearly enough information to see who was behind it. We got home and had a pleasant and relaxing time at home.

  A couple of days passed with little excitement, and Deb and I were glad for that. Deb drove Barbara and me to the site we liked and we walk around on it for a bit. Barbara liked it and said she would talk to Will and Otis and get back to us. Deb and I were getting excited about building our first house together. We started driving around looking at houses from the street and talking about what we liked and didn’t, and I took notes while she drove.

  We liked the idea of a courtyard that was enclosed. A Spanish Style house worked well with that, but we weren’t sure it was our favorite style.

  Deb and I couldn’t be happier, but it seemed we couldn’t get very far away from somber reality. But we had some great times. We had made one of the bedrooms into our office. It was a truck dispatching, bookkeeping, and house planning office. We had bookcases and a small file cabinet. The main desk faced the window with the chair back to the door.

  I remembered I’d been in there working one day when Deb came in. She announced she just bought some new sweat socks she was trying on.

  “You need to look at my new sweat socks.”

  “Just a second while I write down this number.” I said and then I turned around to see Deb in sweat socks. Just sweat socks.

  She pointed to her wiggling toes. “See my new socks.”

  I chuckled and then lunged for her.

  She screamed and ran as fast as she could go, laughing loudly.

  I was gaining on her when she ran through the master bedroom door and spun to shut the door in my face, but I caught it with my forearm and pushed it back. I caught her in the next four or five steps and picked her up, holding her with one arm under her legs.

  We were laughing so hard we were about to cry. A tear trickled out of her eyes. I lay her on the bed. We must have laughed for a couple of minutes. Then I told her she was interrupting my work, and then we’d begun to discuss her new very important sweat socks.

  After my break and a short nap we decided to go out and look at a house I found online. It wasn’t far away. It was half timbered two story with an enclosed courtyard. It looked a little medieval or European or something but we liked it. The paint was not a color we would choose so it was a little hard to get into at first but with the right colors we didn’t think it would look dirty or dark.

  We had gotten tired of looking at houses so we only wanted to see that one and were headed home when Jim called. He said we would never guess what happened and went right on telling us.

  “Early this morning the Manassas Police Department got a call about a black SUV that had been parked in an unusual place since yesterday. When the police got there, it was like the ones you’d seen with very dark windows. The doors were unlocked, and there was a dead man inside dressed in black Spec Ops c
lothing. We don’t have the official cause of death, but he had one bullet hole in the back of his head.”

  “The SUV was definitely a special ops van. It was armored and had a lot of stuff stripped out of it. For example a gun rack had been bolted down just behind the front seats. There were other signs of stuff being mounted to the dash or a console being removed which would have had a lot of electronics gear.”

  “The van didn’t have a license plate but they assumed it would be similar to the one Deb had photographed earlier with her phone. So the guy had been killed and then probably they striped the van. Or maybe they striped it and then had him drive it out to where they killed him. Either way it was the van used at the Fairfax house and it was the guy that struggled with and killed Rebecca.”

  “They pulled information off the van to help identify other vans. They had three small antennas on the top of the van just about a foot in front of the back doors. There was about a foot and a half distance between them with the middle one centered on the roof. There had been a roof air conditioner and a generator. There had been a black GPS pot in the center left to right and front to back. Everything there was black and what had been removed from the outside must have been black.”

  “The FBI decided to put out an alert to a very few states to be on the lookout for more black vans. They didn’t want it to be a general alert for several reasons. The occupants would be very dangerous to whoever stopped them. They would have to be approached with enormous caution. It was certain they would have fully automatic rifles. The SUVs would be armored.”

  “Texas State Police normally carried fully automatic M16s so they were one of the states the FBI contacted. They wanted a slow roll out also to keep from alerting whoever was in command of the black SUVs. They contacted the Ohio State Police and the Virginia State Police.”

  “They were asked to quietly be on the lookout for very dark SUVs that fit the description of the one found in Virginia. They were to try to get them pulled over in an unpopulated area. They were to call swat and all the backup they could get and everyone was to stay back at least half a mile at all times. The FBI was to be alerted as soon as possible. The stops were to be undertaken with extreme caution.”