Un-Connected

by Noah Rea

  “His name is Franz Andorfer. He is in room 212 and he is expecting you. I will walk you down there.” She paused for a second and then asked. “Would you like something to drink?”

  Deb said no but I asked for water. Margaret waved to an orderly who came over and she told him to bring both of us some water.

  When we walked into Franz’s room he was awake and sitting up in bed. The TV was on but turned down low and he wasn’t really watching it.

  “Franz this is Sam and Deb. They are going to try to help you with your home.” Margaret said with her hand on his arm.

  I pulled back a chair for Deb and we sat down. We were lower than him and I thought that might be a good thing since he might feel less threatened.

  “Franz we don’t know if we can do anything but we want to try so we need a lot of information and then we will go see what we can find out. We want to help you so we are on your side. We want to help you get whatever it is you want, Okay.”

  “I want to go home. I didn’t want to come here but they put me to sleep and I woke up here.”

  “I understand. Do you remember the address of your house?”

  “Yes, I lived there for almost twenty years. It is 624 W. McLellan Blvd, Phoenix, AZ 85013.”

  “Okay, we will go see your house and see if it is locked up. Do you have a key?”

  “No, I don’t have anything. I don’t have my wallet or driver’s license or anything. They took it all away from me. At first I was scared and then I was angry but they kept me knocked out most of the time. I asked the nurses for help and they didn’t help me. I couldn’t do anything.”

  “Okay, Franz we will try to get your stuff back for you if we can. You have been here for about three months so we don’t know what has happened during that time but we will go and find out. We will come back and tell you what we need to do to help you, Okay?”

  We gave him a sheet of paper with our names and phone numbers on it. We told him to call us anytime he wanted to.

  “We are working for you and we won’t charge you anything. We are just here to help.”

  “Okay,” He said and he seemed to settle down a little.

  We told him goodbye and went looking for Margaret.

  “How old is Franz?”

  “He was born in 1930 in Germany. His dad was forced into the German Army and was killed in France. His mother was sent to a concentration camp and he was forced into Hitler’s youth program of some kind. He was really too young but I guess that didn’t matter.”

  “Here is what we have for an address. Do you have any way of checking in his records to be sure this is the right address?”

  “No, Dr. Robinson was thorough in some ways but giving us information was not one of them.”

  “Okay, we will see what we can do.”

  “Yes, please we can’t keep him here much longer. We should have put him out last week. I’m about to get myself in trouble.” Margaret said.

  Deb and I went to a restaurant with wifi and started searching property tax records and deed records. We found out Franz had owned the house at that address but it had sold about two weeks ago for $100,000. The tax assessors said the house was worth about $250,000.

  “Wow, someone dumped that property,” Deb said. “Looks like a quick sale to me!” She said with emphasis.

  “Yep, it sure does. It isn’t going to be easy telling Franz. Maybe we should call Jim and ask him if there is some way we can get his house back. I’m sure he didn’t sign over power of attorney or go to a closing or sign any sales papers.”

  “No, he couldn’t have the way they had him doped up. Besides we know they were falsifying paper work all over the place so this wouldn’t have been that hard.”

  I called Jim and told him what we found. I asked if there was anything he could do or anyone could do to help him.

  “No, we don’t get into that. It breaks your heart but usually some kind of local charity will step in and give him a place to live. That isn’t what we do.”

  “I know but I wanted to see if you knew of anyone here. Thank you.” I said and hung up.”

  “Jim was nice but that isn’t what he does and he was busy.” I told Deb. “What do you think about calling Margaret and telling her what we found? She surely knows some place he can go.”

  “Yes that is probably the next step. Why don’t we go see the house? If no one is in it then maybe we could get a prosecutor to get involved and get his house back.”

  “Okay, let’s go. I will make some calls while you drive.”

  I dialed 911 and told them it was not an emergency and they transferred me to a desk sergeant. I told him what had happened and asked where we would start to try to get Franz some legal help. He gave me the names of two different lawyers that did some pro bono work and said they might be able to do something. I asked him if the police could do anything. He said not unless someone breaks the law. We have to have some evidence of that before we can do anything.

  The first lawyer I called was Anne Sanders. I told her about Franz’s house and asked what could be done. She took down the address and said she would see if she could get some closing documents and see if we could prove Franz didn’t sign them. Then we might get some money out of the buyer’s title insurance but that would be about all we had a chance to do. It would be a slim chance she said but it was probably all we had.

  When we got to the house there was a lady in the front yard with two kids playing close to her. So there was a family living there. Deb got out and went to talking to the lady. She was working in a front flowerbed.

  “Hi, how are you today?” Deb said before she got too close.

  The lady straightened up and just looked at her. Then she shook her head

  “I not speak englis.” She said.

  “Su Casa?” Deb said.

  “Si”. She answered.

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “No entiendo.” She said.

  Deb just looked at her obviously frustrated.

  “No savvy.” The lady said.

  Deb looked at me.

  “I don’t know much more Spanish than you do so we are out of luck.” I said. “What she just answered you is that she doesn’t understand.”

  Deb sighed and shook her head okay.

  “Gracious.” Deb said to the lady and we left.

  “Okay, we know the house sold. We know someone has moved in. So it is unlikely Franz will get his house back. He said he had a driver’s license. I can’t imagine he would drive much but he probably had a car. So Franz fits the profile. He was someone un-connected with some equity in house and probably a car. He also probably had money in the bank or stock or something that could be cash. And they cleaned him out. If we hadn’t come along they would have taken more time and gotten more for the house. That definitely was a hurry up job. We probably saved his life.”

  “If we hadn’t shown up he probably would have lived about another three months while they took more time to get a better sales price. Then they would have ended his time.” Deb said.

  Deb called Margaret again and told her what we found. She was quiet for a second and then said.

  “I was afraid of that. We are going to have to get him out of here. None of the charities can take him today. I called a few who will try to make room in the next few days but they said it might take them two weeks. He can’t stay here two weeks.”

  Deb held the phone to her chest and looked at me like what can we do?

  “Ask her what it would cost for him to stay there for two weeks without nurse care.”

  Deb asked her and they talked about a few things.

  “Okay, I got it. We will see if we can do something.” Deb said. She hung up and turned to me.

  “Margaret said they can’t just leave him alone because they are liable for his well being. He owes $2800 dollars right now and she is supposed to collect that before she lets him stay longer. She said she could cheat a little if we could come up with $2000 and try to k
eep him for about ten days and then see how things look then.”

  “He isn’t our responsibility but I think we should help him. What do you think?” I said.

  “I agree. At least for now. I’m concerned he will need help for a long time so I’m not sure what we are getting ourselves into but for now I agree that we should do something.”

  “If we take him somewhere that is less expensive then we will have to get meals for him and check on him every day. I would like to save money by taking him somewhere else but that is risky.”

  “I agree.”

  We didn’t say anything for awhile not knowing what to do.

  Jim called later and said things had been moving slowly on the case before but not so any longer. Jim had interviewed two banks and had one more to go. The banks had little paperwork for the withdrawals they’d allowed. Jim would not be digging into the legality of that, but it looked like trouble for the banks. The information they had would be turned over to the FDIC and the OCC. They in turn would not be happy with the employee that let it happen. It looked serious. Especially since there were hundreds of thousands of dollars involved.

  But Jim called his supervisor. He told him what had happened and suggested that the FBI put out a warning to all banks reminding them of the law and their relationship with the IRS. It was tough for a bank to walk that fine line. Many people felt like the banks act as an extension of the IRS. They collect information about income, cash withdrawals, and money transfers, for example, and turn all that over to the IRS. They are intimidated by the IRS with good reason and dread their audits.

  Anyway, Jim’s supervisor called back in a surprisingly short time and told him they agreed with his assessment, and the legal department was preparing the announcement now. They expected it to be wired to each bank that day with a hard copy to follow in the mail.

  Jim had also gotten time to see the autopsy of the patient they had taken in who had died prematurely. He had air injected into his veins. I asked how that could do anything. He said it was called air embolism, and it was a bubble of air getting to the heart. Then the heart got vapor lock and couldn’t pump. They had found a very small puncture wound in his neck, which had not bled. So he was murdered.

  Jim said they had a big picture now, but there were still a lot of details missing, especially who was behind it all. Then Jim gave me an attaboy. Because I had refused to die or give up, I had probably opened the crack that Rebecca had started and exposed the whole thing. Whoever was behind this was certain if they had gotten me, they could have gone right on.

  Their program was to take un-connected people who had enough equity of some kind to be worth stealing and take all their stuff. It apparently worked well as long as the person was truly un-connected. But when they missed picking up on a connection, which they did with Rebecca and Leon, they had to “clean up. That is probably what the black SUVs were mainly for.”

  “They didn’t know Rebecca hadn’t told you anything. They were concerned about you talking. He reminded us of the guy in the wheelchair who had been run off the road and killed. That was certainly clean up. When I evaded them with Deb’s help and refused to die at Otis’s truck stop, then their plan began to unravel. They began to be exposed. Also because I was so resilient, it was evident to them that I knew about Rebecca and Leon. They didn’t know all it meant was that I was hardheaded and stubborn.” He said chuckling.

  Jim said they were probably angrier with me now than they were before, but now they were undoubtedly very busy eliminating situations or people that could expose them. “They had to be running really scared. The second visit to the truck stop was not to recover anything, it was pure revenge. So since they had shown they tended to be vengeful that was a bad warning for me.”

  “This was a large, developed scheme apparently nationwide with a number of people involved. There were numerous black SUVs with several men in each one of them. Then they had doctors, lawyers, and IRS agents doing their bidding. With that many people involved, there were a lot of people who could talk. They must be really busy making sure no one does talk.”

  Jim finished by thanking me for staying alive and breaking this case open. I told him I had just done it for the greater good. I said my own personal well-being was never the most important issue.

  We all laughed.

  “Later,” Jim said and was gone.

  Chapter 16

  Doing the Paper Work

  Deb and I went to walk the land. We parked on the knoll that would probably be the home site. We walked to each corner from there and then walked the perimeter. We were tired of walking, but we were so excited. This was our land. We had a place where we could stand or sing or shout or whatever and no one could tell us to move on. We had a place on God’s green earth, and only God could take it away. Or more likely, He could take us away from it. We took pictures of different features like a very interesting rock outcropping.

  A place where the soil was damp indicated there might be an underground spring. A little patch of short scrubby trees or large bushes of some kind were so thick we could hardly force our way into it. But once inside, it was like a canopy overhead with support posts spread around randomly. Leaves thinly coated the floor under the canopy. It was quiet and shady and it afforded privacy from the outside world. I told Deb I could kiss her in here and she could scream and no one would come to rescue her from my lips. But she didn’t run or scream.

  We liked our new property but had not gotten anywhere with picking house plans. I told Deb we could buy a travel trailer, drill a well, put in a septic tank, and live there until inspiration came to us. She said that would be OK if we couldn’t do better.

  We called Margaret and gave her one of our debit card numbers. We told her to take $2000 and make it last as long as she could. We told her we would try to see Franz every other day.

  “How do you think we should break the news to him that he won’t be getting his house back?” Deb asked Margaret.

  She was quiet for a few seconds.

  “I don’t know but that is the next big nut isn’t it? I have been so busy trying to run this place and balance the books so I don’t get fired. I didn’t even take the time to see things from Franz’s point of view. Thank you for helping me with this. I needed your perspective. You are right that is the next big hurdle. Give me some time to think about it. Maybe by the time you come to see him next, one of us will have an idea.”

  Then I got a call from Rebecca’s parents. Rebecca’s car had been put in a body shop to get repaired, and the repairman had found a folder hidden in a side panel of the trunk. He didn’t think much of it but had given it to the niece. She gave it to them, and they were trying to figure out what it was.

  It was clearly Rebecca’s handwriting. But it was sometimes coded and didn’t make sense with so many words missing. She had replaced words with numbers and figures and occasionally Greek or Asian characters. I told them that the guy that gave them the special new phone would undoubtedly be in contact with them, and he would almost certainly want the folder. I said bye and hurried off the phone to call Jim. We headed home.

  He answered on the second ring, which usually meant he was in the office. When I told him what had been found in Rebecca’s car, he got as excited as I did. We didn’t know what it was, but it clearly had been hidden by Rebecca and would likely be important. He was on his way.

  He called them en route and was there in about forty-five minutes. He told them they had done the right thing to protect it and call about it on the secure phone because they expected it to be fairly important. He rushed back to the office and tried to get someone in encryption to help him with it. He was told that he was the last “rush” of several, and that they would make it a priority, but it would be a few days before they could get on it.

  Jim faxed copies to me and asked me to work on it and see what I could come up with while he tried himself as well as trying to find someone in another office who could help. He had sent a copy to Marty i
n the Phoenix office. I made an extra copy for Deb, and we got into it. Most of the words were there and legible, but the significant ones were coded, so it was impossible to tell what was being said.

  After a while I decided to work on the Greek characters. It looked like the theta was used for “the,” “that,” and “they.” I asked Deb if it looked right to her. She thought it was but said it would be hard to tell without more words. There was a symbol or word that looked like Dau, which Deb said she thought was Vietnamese for “crazy” or “pain.” The first character was capitalized. The numbers one and two were common as well, and we weren’t sure whether or not they were used as one or two or if they were code symbols. They were used so often, we felt they surely must be symbols for something else. I checked other Vietnamese words. Several others looked similar to Giet with the first letter capitalized in the middle of the sentence. It could be Vietnamese for “kill.”

  Little by little, we began to figure out some of the code, but it was slow going. Finally, I asked Deb if she wanted to go for a walk to clear our heads. She said yes with enthusiasm, and off we went. We hadn’t gone far when we got a call from Jim. Marty had found an encryption guy in Phoenix that we could work with for one day. We needed to call him immediately and work out schedules and get as much mileage out of him as we could. We agreed, and then I asked Jim if he had been in Viet Nam. He said he had, and he believed some of the words were Vietnamese as did we.

  We called Sal the encryption guy in the Phoenix FBI office. He said he’d come out toward our house, and we said we would meet about halfway. He would be bringing a copy of his own.

  The next morning we were up early and at the meeting location early. We were both well armed in case something went wrong. Sal was a shorter, heavier FBI agent than most and not as serious. We sat with our backs to the wall nonetheless and were quiet whenever anyone walked close by. It didn’t happen often, so we didn’t feel compromised.