Reed Ferguson Mystery Box Set 5

by Renee Pawlish

  “Hello,” he said in a pleasant tone. He squinted into the sun as he studied me. “Let me guess, you’re Philip Marlowe. Denise told me you’d be coming to see me.”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  His lips twitched into a wry smile. “Uh-huh.”

  I felt my cheeks burning.

  He sat back on his haunches and brushed dirt off the shovel. “Denise may not know detective fiction, but I do.”

  “Let’s say my real name doesn’t matter,” I said.

  He pondered that. “If that’s the way you want it,” he nodded. “Let’s go inside.”

  He stood up and brushed off his khaki shorts, then strode purposefully around to the front porch. He kicked off worn sneakers by the door, dropped his hat, gloves and the shovel next to them, then opened the door and went inside.

  I followed him into a small living room with hardwood floors and a big front window that let the sun stream in. Even though the house was a 30s bungalow, the room was decorated with a modern touch, with an expensive-looking white couch, loveseat, and metal coffee table.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” he asked.

  I shook my head and he gestured toward the loveseat. “Please, sit down.”

  As I did, I took a better look at him. He was taller than I was and probably pushing sixty, but he was thin and appeared fit, with muscles stretching his white Oxford shirt. Not the description of the stout figure that Hinton had seen outside his kitchen window. LeBlanc smoothed his neatly trimmed salt and pepper hair with a manicured hand, then surveyed me with eyes that missed nothing.

  “I understand you’re questioning where Denise and I were on Sunday night,” he began.

  “That’s right,” I said as I shifted uncomfortably in the chair. Modern was not my style. “She indicated that she was with you.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “But you could be lying for her.”

  He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, carefully wiped sweat from his square face and then said, “It’s nice right now, but I wonder if it’s going to rain later.” I didn’t say anything to that. “While it is true that I love Denise,” he continued, “and I would do almost anything for her, I wouldn’t lie for her. And I have no reason to. She told you where we were.”

  “You went to a movie and then stopped at The Corner Bar for a drink.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Have you checked with the bartender? His name is Phil. He would remember me because I’m in there fairly often for a drink or two. It’s not a fancy place, just a nice neighborhood bar, and he should be there for lunch today.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “You could get him to lie for you.”

  He gave me a barely perceptible nod. “Anything’s possible, but I didn’t do that. I have no reason to.”

  “But Denise might, if she’s trying to kill her ex.”

  “I understand you have a job to do, but you’re not close to the truth on this. Denise wouldn’t do anything to Pete because he pays her maintenance each month. Why would she jeopardize that?”

  “She admitted that there’s a sizeable life insurance policy on Pete,” I said. “What if she wants that money now, in one big chunk, instead of getting smaller payments each month from him?”

  “I suppose you could see it that way, but that’s not what’s going on. Denise wouldn’t resort to murder in order to get her hands on the life insurance money.”

  “If she took the money from the life insurance now, she could invest it and be much better off down the road. It’s kind of like the advice you get about winning the lottery. You should take the lump sum because you end up with more in the long run.”

  “Denise wouldn’t do that,” he said firmly. Then he jerked a thumb at his chest. “And even if she needed money, I would take care of her.”

  I nodded. “Maybe so, but Denise was very clear that she wanted her ex-husband to get everything that was coming to him. That could include getting a life insurance payout from him.”

  “She wants him to get everything coming to him.” He repeated my words quietly. That was the first thing that seemed to throw him. “I’m sure she would say that,” he finally said. “She did not have a good marriage with Pete, but that doesn’t mean she would want to kill him.”

  “Maybe she’s fed up enough that she just wants him dead.”

  “I doubt that.”

  He seemed believable, but too many things about this case weren’t adding up, and I wasn’t going to dismiss Denise just yet.

  “How long have you been with Denise?” I asked.

  “Two years now. We met at a benefit at the Denver Country Club.”

  That matched what Denise had said.

  His eyes softened. “Denise may sound harsh when she’s talking about her ex, but she is an incredibly nice, kind person.”

  I guess I’d missed the nice, kind part. “You’re divorced?”

  “Widowed. She died of cancer a number of years ago.”

  “You’re very forthright.”

  “I have nothing to hide.”

  “You were a doctor?”

  “Until a year ago when I retired.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “I miss some of my patients.” A faint smile crossed his face. “But I’d much rather be golfing and working around the house.”

  “Did you ever take Medicare patients?”

  “For a time, but it just wasn’t that cost-effective, so I quit taking any new patients.”

  “Let me go off on a tangent,” I said. “How would you know if a doctor was scamming Medicare?”

  “That’s a good question. So much slips through the cracks, I’m afraid.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Not enough people to check the claims, and unless the fraud is on a huge scale, there might not be enough to alert the government of a potential issue, although I hear that they’re now analyzing claims data more, looking for patterns and trends that don’t look right, instead of going claim by claim like they used to. From what I’ve read, though, it’s been too easy to be able to enroll as a Medicare provider, and there’s not enough monitoring of payments, either.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “If there’s a silver lining, it’s that some of this is changing, but the government needs to act more swiftly than it has in the past.” He frowned. “But you get a doctor who isn’t that ethical, or who sees how easy it is to make a quick buck, and he or she just might resort to fraud.” He put his hands on his knees and leaned forward. “If you’re investigating me for doing that, you’re wasting your time.”

  I shook my head, but thought, Isn’t that what a guilty person would say?

  He sat back. “Is there anything else you want to ask? I assure you, I have nothing to hide,” he repeated.

  “Not right now.” I stood up. “I appreciate your time.”

  He got up as well and escorted me to the door. “I don’t know what this is all about, but I hope my conversation has helped you.”

  “Thank you.”

  I sauntered back to the 4-Runner, and when I left, LeBlanc had put his hat and gloves on, and he was heading back to his flower bed.

  I was listening to The Smiths, my favorite band, and thinking about LeBlanc as I drove to The Corner Bar. LeBlanc certainly didn’t seem to have been hedging with any of his answers. And he seemed to believe in Denise’s innocence. But that didn’t make it so.

  A few minutes later, I arrived at The Corner Bar. It was busy with the lunch crowd. Phil, the bartender, was there, but he barely looked at me when I asked about LeBlanc and Denise being there on Sunday night.

  “Yeah, they had a drink here and visited for a while,” he said.

  “You’re sure it was that night?”

  “Uh-huh,” he said as he kept making drinks.

  I decided to be direct. “You’re not just saying that to help them out?”

  He stopped and stared at me. “You mean lie for him?”

  I nodded.<
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  “What is this?” he said, his nostrils flaring. “I don’t know what you’re looking for, but the doc’s a great guy.” He pointed at the door. “Beat it.”

  So much for the blunt approach.

  Before he could bounce me out, I started for the door.

  Okay, I thought. The bartender hadn’t been too pleased with my question. And like LeBlanc, he had seemed genuine, in a brusque way.

  Even with all this footwork, there was still another possibility. Denise could’ve hired someone to go after Hinton. If so, might there be a big withdrawal from her bank, or some other indication that she’d paid someone to go after her ex?

  I still didn’t have a lot of answers, but my stomach was growling, so I decided to go home. I’d get something to eat and then maybe I’d be able to think more clearly.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When I got home, I fixed a turkey sandwich for lunch, ate while I watched TV, and then went into my office and called Cal.

  “What’s up?” When he didn’t add “O Great Detective,” that meant he was busy.

  “Do you have time for a quick favor?”

  “Sure. Oh, and I did a little poking around with Vanderkamp.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s billing a lot for Medicare.”

  “What’s a lot?”

  “From what I can tell, he’s seeing about 50 or 60 patients a day, sometimes more.”

  I whistled.

  “But whether he’s actually seeing the patients or not, I can’t verify. And I can’t find where Vanderkamp was reported for fraud, but I may have missed something.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “What’s your other favor?”

  “Can you do a search on Denise Hinton? Does she have a record? What’s her financial status, and has she made any unusually large payments?”

  “That last one is an unusual thing to check for.”

  I told him about my conversation with Denise and her boyfriend, Glenn LeBlanc. “Ah, how did she pay the hit man?”

  “If she did,” I said.

  He laughed and then I waited as he typed away. “I hate to tell you this, but I don’t see much. I did find the life insurance policy that her ex has on himself, and it’s a cool million.”

  I whistled again.

  “But I don’t see anything unusual with her banking, and she doesn’t have a record or any signs of trouble in her background.”

  “Okay, thanks. But she does have a million-dollar motive to kill him.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How’s your work going?” I asked.

  “This one’s very interesting,” he said, and launched into an explanation of firewalls and other technical things that went over my head.

  I smiled at how enthused he was, and when he finished, I thanked him again, and then looked at my watch. One o’clock. I thought for a second, then googled ‘Karen Abram.’ I found a number of results, and spent a few minutes clicking on links until I found a hit on LinkedIn, showing a Karen Abram who worked at Lakewood Medical Clinic. It listed her city as Green Mountain, Colorado. That was on the west side of the Denver metro area.

  “Gotcha,” I said out loud.

  I then checked the White Pages for her address. I had to click on a few of the listings before I found one for a Karen Abram who lived near West Jewell and South Union Boulevard. That wasn’t too far from Lakewood Medical Clinic. Willie had mentioned that many billing people worked from home. If Abram did, and I could catch her at home, I could question her before I headed to the clinic to watch for Vanderkamp.

  But what to say to her? I mulled over Willie’s suggestion about posing as an investigator. It could work. If Karen was involved in Medicare fraud, I might scare her enough that she’d tell me something. Of course, she could lie, but that’s why I wanted to talk to her in person, where her behavior might give her away. And if she didn’t know anything, she might point me in the right direction. Like so much detective work, it was a fishing expedition, but I might reel in something.

  “And if this is all a wild goose chase, then I’ll look silly,” I said to Bogie as I glanced up to the posters on the wall. How come he never looked foolish even when he didn’t know anything?

  With that pleasant thought, I dressed in dark slacks, a white shirt, and dress shoes. Then I retrieved my seldom-used briefcase from the closet, dug out some file folders and filled them with paper, and stuffed them and a notepad in the case. Finally, I grabbed my keys and dashed out the door. I made great time to Karen’s house and parked in front of her modest, brick ranch house twenty minutes later. I took the briefcase, walked up the driveway to a small front porch, and rang the bell. A few birds were chirping in an old maple tree while I waited. Then the door opened and a thirty-ish woman in gray Capri pants and a short-sleeved, flowered blouse looked up at me. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, with blond hair in a pixie cut and thick glasses. Behind her stood a black-and-white Great Dane. The dog was as tall as his owner, and he bared his teeth and growled at me.

  Hmm. This could be a challenge to get in the house, I thought.

  “Yes?” Her voice was low, and it didn’t seem to fit her petite form.

  “Are you Karen Abram?” I asked.

  “Yes?” she repeated, a little hesitantly.

  “I’m with Spade and Archer,” I said, using the investigative firm name from The Maltese Falcon. I quickly flashed her my private investigator license, not giving her enough time to tell what it actually was. But it worked. Her eyes grew wide.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “You do the billing for Lakewood Medical Clinic?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions about your billing process.”

  “Of course.” If I’d made her nervous, she wasn’t showing it. “Come in.”

  She opened the door wider. I eyed the dog as I stepped into a living room that was decorated with a yellow couch that sat against a wall and faced a big bay window, two yellow easy chairs with crisp lines, and maple end tables with stainless steel legs. The walls were bare except for a poster of New York City above the couch. The dog growled.

  “Thor, kitchen,” she said and the dog turned and lumbered out of the room.

  Thank goodness.

  “Can I get you anything to drink?” she asked.

  “Yes, a glass of water,” I said. Anything to keep it loose and casual.

  She disappeared through an archway into a kitchen. I heard a cupboard door open and close, then water running. A moment later, she returned with two glasses. She handed one to me, and pointed to one of the chairs. “Have a seat.”

  She sat on the couch and was such a tiny figure on the big piece of furniture, she almost seemed to disappear. She rested her glass in her lap, but didn’t drink any of it. Soft music drifted in from another room, something melodic without lyrics.

  I took a sip of water, then set it on a coaster. It was an odd Christmas-y looking thing with green, red and white stripes on it. Why do people leave their Christmas stuff out in May? I thought. It didn’t fit the yellow theme of the furniture. I perched on the edge of one of the easy chairs and set the briefcase next to me. While she waited, I took a folder from my briefcase, opened it, and pretended to study the papers. Then I took out the notepad and a pen, and looked up at her.

  “Is there a problem?” she asked.

  “No, nothing like that,” I said. “This is just routine.” I had no idea if that was true, but until she stopped me, I would keep going.

  “Of course,” she said.

  “What are the clinic’s provider and DEA numbers?”

  She rattled those off and waited.

  I wrote them down. “And how long have you worked at Lakewood Medical Clinic?”

  “Six years now.”

  “Have you had any issues with any of the doctors or their billing process?”

  “No, none at all. They’re better to work for than some doctors,
not as good as others.”

  “Why is that?”

  She shrugged. “Some doctors are nicer than others, that’s all I meant.”

  “And you bill approximately how many clients a day?”

  She thought for a moment. “Oh, somewhere around twenty-five to thirty patients, depending on if it’s a return visit or a new patient.”

  That didn’t match what Cal had told me. “Right.” I jotted that down. “Has there been any deviation in this at your clinic?”

  She stared at me. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Has that number of patients fluctuated at all in the last few years?”

  “I haven’t paid a lot of attention, but no, I don’t think so.” She puckered her lips.

  “Are you ever in the office?”

  “I have to go in for weekly staff meetings on Mondays, and sometimes to get paperwork, but most of the time it’s all done electronically, so I work from home.”

  “In other words, you don’t know how many patients are actually being seen, or if they’re receiving the care they’re being billed for?”

  It was a blunt approach, and I watched her carefully. She didn’t seem flustered by the comment.

  “Have there been some billing issues?” she asked. “Because I’m very meticulous in what I do, and I’ve never been investigated before.”

  I looked up at her sympathetically, then took a sip of my water. “I can’t reveal that, but I certainly appreciate your cooperation.”

  “Of course. I have nothing to hide.”

  There was just the slightest indignation in her tone. She was protesting, but not too much.

  “Is there anyone else who helps with the billing, or do you do all of it?” I asked.

  “It’s just me, but…” She paused.

  “Yes?” I eyed her carefully.

  “I think Doctor Vanderkamp might be doing some of his own billing.”

  “Really? Isn’t that unusual?”

  “It is.”

  “What makes you think he’s doing the billing for his own patients?”

  She finally gulped some water, then looked out the window and sighed heavily. “I don’t know if it’s anything or not, but he’s been asking a lot of questions about billing procedures and codes, more detailed information than he’d need if he was just seeing a patient. I’m not sure why he’d want to know any of that, unless he was trying to fill out forms. I mean, I guess he could be curious, but most doctors don’t care about the billing side, as long as they’re paid.” She looked me straight in the eye. “Is that what you’re getting at? Did we somehow bill the same patients twice?”