“Not yet.”
Kleinman obviously wasn’t willing to share any information. And the way he was staring at me made me think that every word out of my mouth had the potential of getting me into more trouble. I decided not to press my luck. I’d just have to wait and see if Venus came up with anything helpful.
“Well,” I said, “nice seeing you again. Have a good one.”
Were bad clichés a sign of guilt? They must have been, because his eyes followed my every step as I cut a zigzag path through the gravestones on the way back to my car.
I wondered where Milton Polk’s spirit was right now. Hovering over his new home, watching? I wanted to shout, “If you’re out there and you can hear me, Milty, show me a sign.” But I didn’t, because that was a little too Pookie for me.
Besides, I didn’t have time to wait for a big ba-dum-bum from the Great Beyond, because the minutes were dripping away. If I didn’t find some way to prove my innocence before Monday, any semblance of my life as I’d known it would be gone forever.
Francine must know that I was on to her. So what would she do next? My guess was that she’d destroy any evidence of her guilt, if she hadn’t done so already. I had to get to the Westside and search NeuroMed before Francine got there first. I jogged the rest of the way to the car, hoping that I wasn’t too late.
19
the halls of Bayview Medical Center were unusually quiet and empty when I arrived, except for a stone-faced man carrying a cloyingly sweet-smelling flower arrangement wrapped in a plastic cone. A sullen little boy scuffed along behind him, marring the shiny tiled floors with black shoe marks.
I lingered in the lobby and used my cell phone to call home for messages. There was one from Eric. Shelly Greenblatt wanted to hear my pitch before deciding whether to take the case, but he was booked solid until after his golf game on Sunday. The Whitener deadline was Monday. Sunday was cutting it close, but I didn’t have much choice. I needed a lawyer. Eric instructed me to meet Greenblatt at the Riviera Country Club at noon. And for me, a special deal: $550 an hour. Once again, Eric had come through for me. What a guy. He closed with “Tucker, I tried to reach you at the office. They told me you didn’t work there anymore. What’s happening? Get in touch, okay? I’m worried.” Eric, worried? That felt good.
There was another message from Gordon Aames. It went something like this: “Hey, Tucker, Covington just called me. I hear you’re off his A-list. He’s using your appearance at his house as an excuse to yank my chain over the damn contract bid again.”
Gordon’s tone was more controlled than I’d expected. He didn’t mention the Teresa García file, so Covington either hadn’t noticed it was missing or hadn’t yet connected its disappearance to me. There was a long pause in the message. I almost disconnected when I heard his voice again. “Tucker, for God’s sake, what are you up to? I have to know. Call me.”
He sounded desperate. He must be frantic to hear if I’d unearthed the NeuroMed documents. I’d already dialed Gordon’s number when I decided against calling him. Better to search NeuroMed first. Hopefully, I’d find, if not the documents, then some other evidence that would get Whitener off our backs. I’d call Gordon when I had some good news for a change.
An EEG machine was parked in front of NeuroMed’s door. Inside, the lobby was empty and quiet. Even the fish looked lethargic. Dolores Rodriguez stood in the reception area, flipping through a stack of papers with squiggly lines. She glanced up, but when she saw it was only me, she lost interest and returned to her work. I checked around for the Center’s secretary, but her desk appeared to be deserted.
“Where’s Janet?” I asked.
“She’s off because of the funeral.”
“Really? I didn’t see her there.”
Dolores shrugged. “That’s her business.”
She marked the EEG readout with a date and number in big swipes with her Magic Marker. Then she stacked it on a floor-to-ceiling shelf full of the same.
In my limited contact with Dolores, she’d always come across as someone who had to work but hated her job. Maybe she just hated everything. She walked to the sink in the storage room and tipped a hinged dispenser. The pungent smell of the greenish industrial soap made my nose twitch. She pulled down two brown paper towels that looked like sandpaper, and scrubbed at some black ink on her fingers.
“Did you need something?” she said. “Because everybody’s out but me, and I have to leave in a few minutes.”
I’d had enough of her snotty bullshit. “Obviously, Francine didn’t tell you, but I’m working for Mrs. Polk now. I’m trying to help her decide if she should sell the Center.” What I didn’t tell her was that if Mona decided not to sell, I’d suggest that she fine-tune Dolores’s attitude as her first order of business.
Dolores frowned as she tossed the used towels inside a can marked NON HAZARDOUS WASTE and said, “I hope you’re not asking my opinion, because I don’t want to put any notes in the suggestion box, if you know what I mean.”
I had a suggestion for her, but I didn’t want to get into it at the moment, so I bit my tongue and waited until the sound of the cart’s wheels faded as Dolores rolled it around the corner and disappeared. The desk in Francine’s office could have had a sign posted that read, Moved, no forwarding address. I pulled out the desk tray where the employee list had been taped. It was gone.
If Francine’s desk drawers and file cabinets had once contained evidence of criminal activity, they were now stripped clean, along with any checkbooks, bank statements, or other clues to the whereabouts of NeuroMed’s funds or Mo Whitener’s eleven million dollars. In the storage room there was an empty gap in one row of files. Unless dust bunnies tell lies, whatever was there had been recently moved. I was too late.
Even though I didn’t expect that Francine had left anything that would implicate her in either fraud, I had to be sure. It was a long, tedious, and frustrating search, but I looked through every file, every drawer, under every trashcan, and even gave the fish tank a critical eye. I found nothing.
I sat in Francine’s chair with my feet resting on an open drawer, feeling very discouraged. The maroon envelope with the NeuroMed documents could be anywhere from a locker at the bus station to floating in the Pacific Ocean. I had to face the fact that they were probably gone forever, which left me with only one way to clear my name: identify Polk’s accomplice, the person who helped him alter my business plan. I just didn’t know where to look next.
It was hard to think with Mo Whitener threatening to turn me in to the FBI. I could see the whole scenario unfolding now. The investigation would turn up the insurance scam, too, and I’d be faced with a double whammy. I could almost imagine the opening arguments in my trial. Some politically ambitious assistant U.S. attorney would show the Tucker medical file and claim that insurance billing fraud wasn’t producing enough money for my lavish lifestyle. In order to maintain the minimum balance in my numbered Swiss account, I’d created a fairy tale about NeuroMed.com and its profit potential so that Polk could bilk investors. For my creativity, I got a percentage of the money he collected. Maybe he would even suggest that a percentage wasn’t good enough, so I’d killed Polk to get it all.
I was giving myself heart palpitations, so I decided to give up stream-of-consciousness thinking—and maybe any kind of thinking—just as Dolores walked through the door.
“Are you still here?” Her tone was pleasant in a cagey kind of way.
“Yeah, but not for long.”
She watched as I gathered my things to leave, but before I walked out the door, she said, “If Mrs. Polk sells the Center, will the new owners keep us on?”
“I don’t know,” I said cautiously. “I would if it was me; that’s all I can tell you.”
She frowned in thought. “So if they did keep us on, they wouldn’t lower my salary, would they?”
“I doubt they’d do that.”
She hesitated. “So maybe you could talk to Mrs. Polk about my raise. Dr. Pol
k promised, but he didn’t tell Francine it was supposed to be for this paycheck.”
At least that explained her sudden attempt at gracious chitchat.
“I’ll mention it to her,” I said. “I’m sure she’ll honor his promise if she can. When did you talk to him?”
Her facial muscles relaxed. “Saturday.”
I felt my pulse throb in my throat. “Last Saturday?” I said slowly. “When?”
She paused when she heard the urgency in my voice, as if she was worried that the wrong response might jeopardize my promise to help her. “Just before midnight. I was on call. There was an emergency. When I got here, it looked like he’d been tearing up the place.”
“Tearing up . . . ?”
“Yeah. Looking for something, I think.”
“And you took that moment to ask him for a raise?” I said skeptically.
She shrugged. “You ask him when you catch him. He was supposed to give me my review on Friday, but he left early.”
“Dolores, except for the killer, you may have been the last person to see him alive. Did you tell this to the police?”
“Sure,” she said.
Another part of Milton Polk’s last day had just clinked into place. Francine was right—the lab hadn’t been broken into. Polk must have come here after the Project Rescue dinner, looking for something. But what? It didn’t make sense for him to trash his own office. If he was hiding something at the Center, wouldn’t he remember where?
“How did he seem?” I asked, excited now. “Did he say anything at all? Mention if he was meeting someone?”
“No. He was stressed, just like he always was,” she said. “I didn’t think anything about it. I asked him for a raise, and he said okay. Anyway, if I can get the money before Mrs. Polk sells, it’s locked in, and I won’t have to wait till my next review.”
I felt as if I were looking at one of those graphic designs, the ones with a hidden picture that comes into focus if you squint just right. But even though I scrunched my eyes tight, the complete why of Milton Polk’s death was still a blurred mass of lines and squiggles. Everything I’d learned suggested he’d been under intense pressure that weekend. Upset, maybe even desperate. He might have agreed to Dolores’s raise to get her off his back, or maybe his final act was one of kindness. Regardless of his intentions, he’d run out of time. Sometime shortly after he’d spoken to her, Milton Polk had been murdered.
Dolores was busy putting away her machine when I thought to ask if Polk had taken anything with him when he left the Center. She seemed bored by the question.
“I didn’t notice. Is it important?”
Important? I thought. No, not important. Crucial, vital, critical, life-or-death. She didn’t react to the disappointment that must have registered on my face, so I thanked her and started toward the door.
“Wait,” she added grudgingly. “You know, I think he did have a bunch of papers with him.”
I stopped and turned slowly toward her. “What kind of papers?”
“How should I know that?” She responded as if my question showed a lack of gratitude. “All I know is, when he was done looking at the stuff, he put it inside a big red envelope.”
20
after Dolores left, I tried to think of where Polk might have taken the NeuroMed file after he left the Center that night. I doubted that he’d gone home. At least, the documents hadn’t been found at his house. If I could only find out where he had been, I might still be able to find the maroon envelope before Whitener’s deadline on Monday.
Polk had left the Center just before midnight. Driven—where? Then I thought, duh. Driven. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? The NeuroMed report must have been with Polk in the car. Maybe it was still in the car. Kleinman would know if it had been found. I doubted that he’d tell me, but he might tell Mona. The police would have to release Polk’s property sooner or later. Maybe we could convince them to make it sooner.
I checked my watch: three o’clock. I wondered how long funeral luncheons lasted. I’d never been to one before, but how much time could it take for a guest to wolf down a few finger sandwiches and blot out every memory of dissing Polk while he was alive. I used the Center’s phone to call Mona Polk. A machine picked up. Guess there was more blotting going on than I figured. I left a message, asking if the police had returned Polk’s Mercedes.
I had to get home, because Muldoon was locked inside the house with nothing but a few newspapers on the bathroom floor. On the way there, I stopped to buy dog food and treats from Aunt Patty’s Pets in Brentwood, the store at the top of Pookie’s preferred list. I also swung by Amberg’s office, to pick up the boxes belonging to Milton Polk, and then headed for Casa de Sinclair.
When I got home, the air was thick with humidity, as it frequently is at the beach. It was the one thing I didn’t like about living on the ocean, because it made my bedding and the clothes in my closet damp and mildewed. Today the mist had created a beauty all its own, draping the cliffs above Pacific Coast Highway in gradient layers of gray. Silhouetted through the haze was a lone palm tree, like an exotic bird suspended in space.
Muldoon didn’t give a rip about palm trees or humidity. He was just happy to be off on his beach expedition once again. When he came back inside, I carefully closed and locked the French doors. I changed out of my funeral outfit and into chinos and my favorite fisherman’s sweater before unloading the boxes from my car and stacking them on the living room floor. I wanted to make sure that I looked through everything before delivering them to Mona. Then I collapsed on the couch for a rest. Muldoon jumped up and put his front paws on my leg, holding a stuffed bear in his mouth. The look was eager, almost pleading.
“What should I do next, little guy?”
He shook the bear to make it clear he thought it was a stupid question. Muldoon was obviously not into the teamwork concept when it came to decision making, so I had to answer it myself. Make a list, of course. That always gave me time to think.
I found a blank sheet of paper and marked PRIORITIES in large letters at the top. Then, I wrote, Number One: follow up with Bernard Cole. Then I scratched it out. Cole hadn’t responded to the message I’d left for him at Sunland and probably wouldn’t, even if he’d gotten my note, which I doubted. Irene Borodin would have seen to that.
I moved on to Number Two: Complete assessment of NeuroMed Diagnostic Center and Polk’s private neurology practice for possible sale. Then I scratched that out as well. Turning my NeuroMed research into a sales tool for a practice broker wasn’t going to be difficult. Besides, who was I trying to kid? My number one priority was to find something—anything—that would lead me to the person who set me up. I eased Muldoon off my lap and joined him on the floor.
I sorted through all the boxes once more, careful to separate anything that might be backup for Mona’s accountant, including the coffee receipt I’d found. Three-fifty wasn’t much, but Polk had wanted it as a write-off, and every penny counted. Occasionally, Muldoon broke the tedium by mowing through my paper mounds, still trying to interest me in a game of tug.
Somewhere inside an envelope, inside another envelope, I found an insurance policy that I’d missed on my first search. Mona was listed as the beneficiary. The amount: two million dollars. Well, that was a tidy sum. I wondered if Mona knew about the insurance money. Maybe she was playing dumb, waiting for me to find the policy so she could act surprised, touched, and grateful. And what if my suspicions were correct and her relationship with Armando had moved beyond platonic? This windfall would go a long way toward keeping a boy-toy interested.
Then I thought of the Whitener group’s missing eleven million dollars and where that might be. Eleven million. Now, that was some kind of incentive. The question was, how far would she go—they go—to get their hands on all that cash? Murder? In my mind, the money established a clear motive for both of them.
I forced aside my suspicions for the moment and continued sorting through the boxes. I didn’t find anyth
ing more about Polk’s activities that Saturday, but a picture was emerging of his neurology practice. It was probably worth something, and if the fraud charges could be resolved, so was NeuroMed, especially when buyers saw how easily the Center could turn a profit with pared-down services and beefed-up marketing. Of course, all that information had been in my business plan—the real one, that is. Polk should have listened. He’d wanted too much too soon, and thought he could lie and cheat to get it. It had been only a matter of time before it all came crashing down on his head. It should have felt better to be right.
I returned all the files to the boxes and stacked them near the back door. Too bad it wasn’t as easy to file away the questions I had about Milton Polk’s death. I tried to shake off the image of the morgue photo. That gouge in Polk’s forehead looked as if it had been made with a great deal of force. Armando was a powerfully built young man. He could easily have overpowered Polk, killed him, and thrown him off a pier somewhere, with or without Mona’s help. I shuddered. It gave me a bad case of the creeps, knowing I was working for her.
21
i’d just finished stacking Polk’s file boxes by the door when Venus called. She wanted to see me, so by seven p.m., I was pulling into the parking lot of the Dueling Burritos, a cop hangout in Mar Vista, a neighborhood squeezed between Culver City to the south and Santa Monica to the north.
A woman dressed like Don Diego’s mother greeted me at the door with embarrassing familiarity. I guess she thought the friendly reception and the buck-fifty margaritas were good enough reasons to ignore the odors of stale cigarette smoke and spilled beer.
The restaurant was separated by a half wall crowned with amber crinkled plastic. To the right was a bar that consisted of ten stools and an impressive collection of tequila bottles. On the left were four rows of booths reserved for diners. The whole enchilada, so to speak, was overseen by the restaurant’s logo painted on the back wall: two anemic mustachioed tubes that looked more like bratwurst cruising for trouble.
False Profits Page 18
