Petty Crimes & Head Cases

by Lola Beatlebrox

  “I’ve heard so much about you, Tracy,” Harriet Carpenter said, as she sank down on my sofa next to my bowl of fake fruit from Bali.

  When people sit there they cannot see the innards of my salon—not the hair washing sinks, nor the haircutting chairs, nor the small refrigerator where I keep the juices and the ice for their drinks. The front area of my salon looks like a well-appointed living room where I get to know a new client.

  “Amazing we’ve never met before,” I said, taking in Harriet Carpenter’s manicured hands, her coifed and frosted hair, and her well-tailored business suit.

  “We came to town five years ago but I only just moved near Penny Beale. I’m renting a condo in her complex.”

  “Would you like a cup of tea, some ice water or a probiotic drink?”

  “The drink, please.”

  “Kale lemon or turmeric ginger?”

  “Goodness.” She hesitated. “The ginger.”

  When I gave her a glass, she touched it to her lips. “Delicious,” she said, then parked it on a coaster on the coffee table.

  “What brought you to our town?” I asked.

  “I manage Whiteside Chiropractic.”

  No wonder she convinced Mrs. Beale to visit the clinic.

  “I’ve known Dr. Whiteside for years. We started out in Scottsdale where we ran a very successful practice.”

  “Why did the doctor move here?”

  “Weather—too much heat in Arizona—and he loves skiing.”

  “Everyone loves skiing around here,” I said, which was a little white lie. The cowboys I know don’t ski. The housewives I know don’t ski. The tradesmen I know don’t ski. Few of the policemen ski. Only the newcomers in our gated communities ski. It has become a rich man’s sport.

  We began to talk about her hair. Harriet Carpenter wanted to keep her frosted look and have me follow the lines of the cut already in place. She wanted her eyebrows waxed and the hair plucked out of the mole on her chin. We did all that and the entire visit took an hour and a half.

  The whole time, she told me nothing about herself. She was one of the most closed persons I had ever met. From her coifed and hair-sprayed style to her starched blouse and dress-for-success suit, she gave off an untouchable aura.

  When she proffered her credit card at my salon desk, she said, “I do hope you’ll consider the offer that Annabelle gave you yesterday.”

  “Annabelle?”

  “We think the world of Annabelle. Such a presence. Such composure. She makes our clients feel better just being with her.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I do think businesses can prosper by referring clients to each other.” She smiled at me but not with her eyes. “You’re in a position to know about the health and well-being of so many people, as are we. Their total happiness is of utmost importance to us. Their health and their appearance. We can refer to you and you can refer to us. Isn’t that a natural thing to do?”

  Her voice was almost mesmerizing. I felt as if I were listening to a recording prepared to soothe and persuade me, and even put me to sleep. I said yes without thinking. The most natural thing in the world.

  Then I woke up. “But I’m afraid I can’t make referrals for something I’ve never experienced.”

  “Of course. Come by for an evaluation at a deep discount.” She handed me a coupon. “I know Dr. Whiteside would love to meet you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Goodbye.” She moved toward the door. I leaned back in my desk chair, a little stunned. The probiotic drink sat on the coffee table. Full. I wondered if she actually tasted it at all.

  Margaret Pyle burst in my front door carrying a red leather briefcase. This particular briefcase retailed for three hundred dollars—I knew because I was with her when she bought it at the Leather Emporium.

  “I’ve come to my senses,” she said, sweeping everything off the coffee table and shoveling file folders out of the briefcase.

  Margaret’s bouffant hairdo was back, loftier than ever.

  “Why the hair teasing?” I asked, sitting down next to her.

  “I’m about to show you why.” The acid in her voice could have disinfected all the combs in my salon. “I organized Shelley’s bills by date of service. Then I matched the Explanation of Benefits from the insurance companies with the medical providers’ statements. Here’s what I found.”

  Margaret extracted an Excel spreadsheet from a stiff-backed folder. “Before he went on Medicare, Jack’s father had a herniated disk. The hospital charged $56,000, the anesthesiologist $4,300 and the orthopedist $133,000. All that was covered by the insurance company, except a $117,000 fee for an out-of-network assistant surgeon. The hospital is still trying to collect that fee.”

  The amounts were staggering—more than $400,000 for one operation, and the hospital was trying to dun Shelley and her family for more than twenty-five percent of the bill.

  “But that doesn’t explain why the teasing is back,” I said, just to be clear.

  “There’s more,” said Margaret.

  I listened up.

  “The orthopedist referred Jack’s father to a chiropractor here in town. Over the course of two years, lots of X-rays were billed. I asked Shelley about the exorbitant number and she said Jack’s father hated X-rays—he was very leery of radiation—and would never have agreed to them.”

  “Fraud?” I asked.

  “Yes. “ Margaret gave me a listen to this look. “Jack’s mother is still going to the same chiropractor. I compared the dates of service with Shelley’s calendar. There are lots of cross outs and dates where appointments were re-scheduled, but the chiropractic office billed for them all.”

  I understood why Margaret was looking at me like a prosecuting attorney. “Greedy little office,” I said.

  “And here’s the difficult part. They’re billing for massages that Shelley’s mother doesn’t get—she says she has ‘energy work’ done, whatever that is.”

  A deathly feeling came over me. “Margaret, what’s the name of this chiropractor?”

  “Whiteside.”

  I gulped.

  “Barry Whiteside,” Margaret said, emphasizing the first name as if she were saying ‘Toad.’”

  I gazed at her with sudden comprehension. “That wouldn’t be the Barry you’ve been speaking Italian with? The one who doesn’t like teasing?”

  “It would.”

  “I guess Venice is out then?”

  “Arrivederci.”

  My eyes swiveled up to Margaret’s bouffant hairdo. “I always said that hairstyle becomes you.”

  “You’re damned right.” She patted her hair. “So what are we going to do about Shelley?”

  “Well, the first thing is, we need to get Annabelle out of there.”

  “Annabelle?”

  I proceeded to tell her about our friend’s gainful employment in the energy field. “She shouldn’t go anywhere near that place.”

  Margaret eyed me with a crafty gleam. “But she could be a plant!”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. “She’s too sweet to be a spy. This is a job for professionals.”

  “I’m sure you have someone in mind.”

  “Carl works with an agent from the local FBI field office. Would you talk to her?”

  “You betcha.”

  I looked down at the pile of insurance statements and spreadsheets. Who would believe they told more tales than the story of a family burdened with end-of-life cares? Then I remembered Harriet Carpenter. Now there was an untold story.

  “Margaret, someone else may be involved in all this.”

  “Who?”

  “Barry has a business manager. Have you met her?”

  “No. Barry and I meet in bars.”

  I suspected that was not the only place. “Her name is Harriet Carpenter,” I said. “She came in the other day and suggested we do some reciprocal marketing.”

  “You mean, I scratch your butt if you scratch mine?”

&nb
sp; “Exactly.”

  “Did you take her up on it?”

  “I said I couldn’t recommend something I’d never tried and she offered me twenty percent off my first consultation.”

  There was dead silence as Margaret rose from the sofa to her full six-foot height and squinted down at me.

  “No!” I said.

  “It won’t hurt,” she said.

  “Yes, it will,” I said.

  “You owe it to Shelley.”

  “But—“

  “He’s milking and bilking our friend!”

  I was feeling as hog-tied as a heifer at a livestock auction. “All right. I’ll go,” I said. “But I don’t know what good it would do. I doubt I could tell anything from just meeting the guy. The FBI’s got to put someone inside who can really snoop.”

  “So what are we going to do about that?”

  “And what are we going to do about Annabelle?”Margaret gathered up her files and dropped them into her three-hundred dollar red leather briefcase.

  “How about if I invite Annabelle over to our house next week?” I said. “You can bring your briefcase.”

  “Will Carl be there?”

  “I’ll make sure he is.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” she said.

  “But keep quiet about my snooping at the chiropractor’s office.”

  “Why?”

  “Sometimes Carl sees me as helpful and sometimes he sees me as meddling.”

  “How are you meddling?” asked Margaret. “You’re just going to the chiropractor.”

  I marveled that Margaret didn’t get this. Men’s egos are easily disturbed. What would be seen as help from a perfect stranger would be seen as Interference from a well-meaning wife. Carl had laughed at my ideas about the Spiderman robbery and scoffed at my theories about the train wreck. He’s reminded me often about how wrong I was about our esteemed city councilor, Martha Farquhar.

  “I’m learning to go more slowly,” I said. “It’s Carl’s business, not mine.”

  “Tracy,” said Margaret, “I’m surprised at you. Where’s the spirited girl I knew in high school who sashayed in from Colorado and stole the heart of the school’s Most Valuable Player? He worships the ground you walk on.”

  “I know, and I want to keep it that way.”

  Jamie pushed cauliflower around his plate as if he could hide the fact that the florets were still there after fifteen minutes of shuffleboard. I’m not the kind of cook who boils cauliflower until it’s mushy and tasteless; maybe that was the problem.

  “Jamie,” I said, “if you push your cauliflower around anymore they will have run the Indianapolis 500.”

  “I hate cauliflower.”

  “They’re delicious.”

  “No, they’re not!”

  “Jamie,” Carl said quietly. “Speak to your mother with respect.”

  “I don’t care for cauliflower,” Jamie said. “May I please be excused?”

  “Not until you eat three bites,” I said.

  “Is there any more steak?” Carl asked.

  I got up to slice more ribeye. When I returned, the florets were gone.

  “Good job,” I said to Jamie, eyeing my husband. I suspected he scooped the florets off Jamie’s plate and washed them down with beer, but I let this be their little secret.

  “When are Margaret and Annabelle coming?” Carl asked.

  The doorbell rang.

  “Right now.”

  Jamie took his plate to the sink. I answered the door. Carl stood up when my friends entered. We chatted about the usual and then Margaret plunked her red brief case on the coffee table while Annabelle folded herself into a deep armchair.

  “Tracy thinks you should know what I’ve found, Carl,” Margaret said, removing her files from their handsome red leather environs. “And you too, Annabelle.” She walked them through the Whiteside insurance fraud. Carl leaned over the paperwork and questioned her in detail. She provided clear answers.

  When Carl was finished, Annabelle spoke. “So Barry Whiteside is billing $140 for my energy work?” Her voice was so soft we could hardly hear her.

  “That’s right,” said Margaret.

  Annabelle sat up from the depths of the armchair like a crane unfolding her wings. Her face beamed with a beatific light, as if she were channeling from another world. “I feel a shift in the Universe,” she said. “A planetary declension is dragging an energy force through a primal divide.”

  Carl stirred. Margaret looked dazed. I hung onto every word.

  “We are hurtling into a state of fear, greed, and deception,” Annabelle continued, “in which I can no longer perform my energy work at Whiteside Chiropractic.”

  Carl reached out and patted Annabelle’s shoulder. “That’s the right thing to do.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “You weren’t to know.”

  I was proud of my man—a compassionate cop who knew how to make citizens feel calm in the face of calamity.

  “And to think I gave him a good discount.” Annabelle sounded less other-worldly.

  Margaret’s eyes de-glazed. “How much?” she asked in decibels far louder than Annabelle’s.

  “He pays me seven dollars a patient.”

  Margaret snorted. “A 2,000 percent markup to $140 dollars! That’s a tidy little profit.”

  I marveled that Margaret could calculate percentages within seconds but that’s why I’m a hairdresser and she’s an accountant.

  “In exchange for such a deep discount over my normal $15 dollars an hour,” Annabelle said, “he was going to take me on an all-expenses-paid trip to Venice.”

  The room turned 2,000 percent hotter than it was a moment before. I could see steam coming out of Margaret’s ears. Before she had a chance to say something dumb I stood up. “Would anyone like a cold drink?”

  Margaret followed me into the kitchen. “That S.O.B.—is he boinking Annabelle too?”

  “I doubt it. Annabelle is dating that bass player in the Grateful Dead tribute band.”

  “Then what’s he offering her a trip to Venice for?”

  “Probably just a perk—something to dupe poor Annabelle into giving him a discount.”

  “Two thousand percent.” Margaret balled up her fists. “I’ll give him 2,000 percent!”

  “Calm down. They’ll hear you.”

  “I don’t care if they do.”

  “Drink this and listen to me.” I poured several fingers of bourbon onto a sugar cube and added a splash of water. “I know what to do on my chiro visit now.”

  She took a sip of bourbon, then shot the rest.

  “If he offered you a trip to Venice and he offered Annabelle a trip to Venice, who else has been offered a trip?” I slid my eyes at her sideways. “Think carefully now; this isn’t a trick question.”

  A gleam appeared under my forensic accountant’s mascaraed lashes. “His office manager.”

  “I’ll bet Harriet Carpenter is studying Italian at this very moment.” I poured two glasses of white wine and a mug of beer. “All I have to do is mention your trip and let jealousy rear its ugly little head. She’ll turn state’s evidence and presto. Mr. Travel Agent loses his passport.”

  When the day of my discounted appointment arrived, I put a “Back at 2:30” sign on my salon door and drove to Whiteside Chiropractic.

  The waiting room was furnished in blues, tans and browns—tasteful colors but perfectly boring. The receptionist had a China doll face—blond hair, blue eyes, and perfect little white teeth. I bet she was studying Italian too.

  After filling out a sheet on a clipboard, (Did I have insurance? Did I have secondary insurance? Did I have supplemental benefits? Did I have chiropractic benefits?) I was ushered into the nether regions of the practice where the walls were adorned with pictures of spiny skeletons that made my bones hurt just looking at them.

  I sat on an exam table and glanced around the room—cool and medical, just like every clinic. Why was the temperature always so cold?
Why was the hum of the HVAC system always so loud? Why did a room like this always feel so lonely?

  I slipped off the exam table and heated my hands with hot water at the sink. Then I browsed the rack of magazines: Health, Parents, and National Geographic Traveler. I riffled through National Geographic Traveler and stopped at a story called Made in Italy. There was Venice, complete with pictures of gondoliers and St. Mark’s Plaza.

  The door opened behind me and I whirled around, but not before he caught a glimpse of the four-color, two-page spread. “You’ve been to Italy?” Whiteside asked.

  “Never,” I said, stepping away from him.

  He was dark haired with even features and a virility I could feel. He smiled at me. “It’s the most romantic city in the world. Are you married?” His eyes twinkled as if he’d made a joke.

  “Yes,” I said, a bit too quickly.

  “Make sure you take your husband to Venice sometime. Guaranteed to put the zing back in any relationship. Now what’s going on with you?” He guided me through a practiced set of questions. “Any pain here? Here? You’re standing a little awkwardly. Are you on your feet much in your job? Yes? What do you do?”

  “I’m a hairdresser.”

  “That explains it,” he said, probing lumbar vertebra L7. “Hairdressers have the worst spines in the world. Occupational hazard. Without proper alignment, you can’t function at your peak.”

  My teeth clenched as his hands drifted from L7 closer to my derriere.

  “I’m going to recommend a full set of X-rays so we know what we’re dealing with.” He faced me. “And a full body massage. The masseuse will find all those tight spots—you have them, don’t you?” His white teeth glimmered. “And then a small adjustment based on what I see in the X-rays. How does that sound?”

  He didn’t wait for my answer but opened the door and took me down the hall to his radiologist. I got the works—front, side, and rear. Then I was taken to a dim room smelling of patchouli where a bearded masseuse poked and pummeled with a running commentary about knots and toxins.

  Back in the exam room, Barry Whiteside asked me to lie down. I climbed up on the cold, draped table, steeling my nerves for the inevitable. He rounded the corner by my neck, took hold of my head and wrenched it to the right.