Blind-sided

by Monette Michaels

  Jeanette threw off the dark lethargy threatening to smother her.

  “But his death leaves me in a bind,” she said. “I can’t prove what he said.”

  “How so? A dozen others heard Stu bragging about the sales to the Epi Study, so he definitely said it.”

  “But I need to get the sales invoices or shipping records to prove it.” Jeanette leaned forward. “If I don’t have those — and I haven’t found anything like them yet — then it will be hard to prove that the tissue actually came from SRP.”

  “The amount of tissue used will prove your theory. The Eye Bank could never have supplied the Epi Study with all that tissue. To assert that it did would be fallacious. Our records would back you up. So, ipso facto, we didn’t supply it. Someone else had to. Besides, you told me earlier about the SRP labels on Dr. Rutherford’s bottles.”

  “Yes, but they’re gone now.”

  “Gone?”

  “I had them locked in my office. I checked this morning, and they’re gone. And now the bottles are coming with just refraction data on them.”

  “Jeanette.” Beaton grabbed her hand and squeezed gently. “Be careful.”

  ———

  “So you believe me now.” Maggie Payton smiled a superior sort of smile. “Poor little Jeanette. Her idol has feet of clay.”

  “Yes.” What else could she say? Dr. Payton was right. Dr. Byron Rutherford wasn’t what he seemed to be. “But I’m not the only one he’s fooled.”

  “No, you’re right.” Maggie laughed. “How can I help you?”

  “You mentioned seeing some failed grafts in your clinic.”

  Maggie nodded.

  “I need to compare the names to the billing statements.”

  “Why?” Maggie was blunt as always.

  “If the failed grafts are ours, then Dr. Rutherford probably billed them for the surgery ancillary costs.” It was one of the things that was one hundred percent documented. The Epi Study had full and comprehensive billing records; they were just coded in a way to mislead the patient and the IRB about the origination of the costs.

  Maggie laughed. She laughed so hard that she started to gag. Tears streaming down her face, she excused herself and walked to a small refrigerator in her office. Pulling out a can of soda, she said, “Want one?”

  “Yes. Thank you.” Jeanette hadn’t eaten her lunch. The sugar might help the spots floating through her field of vision.

  Maggie handed her a cola, then resumed her seat behind the desk. Taking a few sips, she eyed Jeanette through slitted eyes, like a cat trying to figure out what the prey actually was and whether it was worth moving to catch it.

  “So,” Maggie said, “Byron is bilking his patients?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Jeanette, sweetie. Let old Dr. Maggie tell you something.” She set her can down on the desk and leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner. “Byron Rutherford may look like a civilized and highly educated man, but underneath all that sophistication and good grooming lies the heart and soul of a con man — and maybe even worse. I used to date dear old Byron. I know the man better than he knows himself. That’s why he stays away from me. He knows I’m not fooled by his bullshit.”

  “So, you’ll help me?”

  The satisfied smile on Maggie’s face fled. “Sorry, no can do. I’d love to help you nail the bastard’s ass to the wall, just to prove I’ve been right all these years, but my patients have a right to their privacy. I can’t break the rules without their consents.”

  “Would you… could you ask the ones with the failed grafts if they would mind coming forward?”

  Maggie’s eyebrow lifted. “Yes, I could do that.” She slammed her hand on the desk, causing the can to jump. “Yes, hell yes. I will. Even if only one or two of them agree, it would open the door for the IRB to investigate. When do you need the info?”

  “As soon as you can get it.” Jeanette sighed. “I don’t think I can keep this quiet too much longer. My secretary and I have been collecting and organizing data, and people in the office are starting to talk. I took a Board member of the Eye Bank into my confidence and he is also helping.”

  “Who at the Eye Bank?”

  “Dr. Beaton.”

  “Good man. He’s got almost as much political juice in this city as Byron. No love lost there. What’s he gonna do?”

  “He’s going to leak to the press that the Eye Bank stopped supplying tissue to the Epi Study months ago.”

  “Holy shit! That’ll open a can of worms. The IRB will want to know where the tissue came from, then they’ll audit your records.”

  Jeanette nodded. “I hope so. The records were in a mess, but I’ve got them in fairly good shape now. At least enough to show that something isn’t right.”

  “You mean it will show that Byron has operated on more patients than he is reporting statistics on. Yes!” Maggie pumped her arm in the air. “Serves the bastard right. I knew his stats were too good to be true. I know some private docs who are seeing some failed graft patients. I’ll put the word out on the sly that we need those patients to come forward.”

  Jeanette nodded her thanks. There had to be quite a few out there, and she had no clue about how to find them all. Maggie was saving her a lot of legwork.

  “Jeanette.”

  The urgency in Maggie’s voice sent a chill through her body.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Be careful.” Maggie’s voice was low, her face serious. “Byron is a demon when someone crosses him. Maybe you’d better call in sick after that article comes out in the newspaper.”

  Jeanette laughed nervously. “You aren’t serious, are you?”

  “Very. Make sure your evidence is away from the clinic. You got a boyfriend?” At Jeanette’s nod, Maggie said, “Maybe you should move in with him for awhile, if you aren’t already living together.”

  “What could Dr. Rutherford do? This is civil fraud. At the worst, they’ll shut down the program and slap his hand.”

  Maggie pulled her collar away from her neck. Jeanette gasped. The pale white skin near Maggie’s collar bone was marred by an ugly scar.

  “See this?” Maggie asked. “This is what I got when I told Byron I was leaving him. I know him, Jeanette. You be careful, ya hear me?”

  Staring at the horrible evidence of Rutherford’s anger, recalling Stu Thomas’s coincidental death, Jeanette nodded and whispered through icy lips, “I hear you.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Friday night.

  Locking the door to her office, Jeanette took one last glance around. The clinic seemed to be empty. The cleaning crew had been and gone. No one should be here on a Friday night, but she was going to make sure anyway. Walking from room-to-room, she turned on lights, checked offices, then closed doors after she assured herself the rooms were empty.

  She was acting paranoid. For the last few days, she’d jumped at every little noise and movement, certain that someone was watching her. Nerves, just nerves. Funny how skittish they made a person.

  No one was in the clinic. Feeling for the key Sally had slipped her at lunch, Jeanette moved to Dr. Rutherford’s private office. Inserting the key, she opened the door, closed it, then relocked it.

  Later, after dinner, when she came back to go through the doctor’s private files, hopefully, Charles would be with her. She patted the briefcase with the statements of Dr. Beaton and his colleagues, the affidavits from Maggie Payton’s patients with failed grafts, and the printouts she’d made from patient files, including the billing data. If all this didn’t raise questions in Charles’s mind, then nothing would. She’d done all she could; now, she needed legal advice and Charles was the only person she could trust other than Scott. A surgery resident wouldn’t be much help; a lawyer with connections would. Charles had to listen to her this time. He had to.

  ———

  “Okay, Jean, uh, sorry, Jeanette.”

  Charles blushed with embarrassment; he still had trouble rememberin
g to use her full name. Their relationship since the blow-up had been tentative on both their parts: Charles afraid to set her off once more and she afraid that he would set her off.

  Smiling, she said, “That’s okay. I appreciate you trying. Go on, what were you going to say?”

  “Well, you seemed so secretive on the phone. Why did you want to meet near the Medical Center on a Friday night? We were supposed to take Brigitte to a pizza place and then to the mall or something. What’s going on? Are you still worrying about that problem with Dr. Randolph and Dr. Rutherford?”

  Jeanette leaned closer to Charles in the leather banquette. “I’ve got some papers I want you to read, then we’ll talk. Okay?”

  Charles looked puzzled, but nodded. “Okay, hand them over.” He held out his hand. Jeanette pulled the files from her briefcase, then shoved them across. Charles whistled. “This may take awhile.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll order dessert and coffee for us while you read.” Jeanette signaled the waiter lurking in the shadow of a large Ficus tree.

  After ordering, Jeanette avoided watching Charles read by studying the room and the Friday night crowd. The restaurant was a neighborhood favorite with hospital personnel. Many of the patrons were on-call staff meeting spouses and significant others for a leisurely dinner before going back on duty. Several of the people knew her and nodded.

  Charles hummed and murmured in the background, but she refused to watch him. She couldn’t bear to see the expressions cross his face as he read. Would he be shocked? Puzzled? Condescending? Mostly, she was afraid he would belittle her concerns. No matter what he said, she would check out Dr. Rutherford’s files. She hoped to find the SRP invoices which would prove the Study bought their tissue from a commercial company and marked up the prices under the cover of Eye Bank processing charges. She hoped Charles would go with her. He might notice things in Dr. Rutherford’s files that she would overlook.

  “Jeanette. I want to apologize.”

  Shocked at his words, she turned toward him. The look on his face was one of concern — a look she didn’t see too often. Damn. She’d convinced him.

  “It looks like you’re correct about Dr. Rutherford.” Charles removed his reading glasses.

  Taking a sip of the coffee she’d ordered, she imagined him marshaling his next words, just as he would do in a court room someday for the jury.

  “At the very least, he’s committing a civil fraud by misrepresenting the source and price of the corneas used. You say the medical protocol for the project states that only donor tissue should be used and these documents indicate he is using tissue from somewhere else, allegedly this Silver River. Could you find any invoices for those sales?”

  “No. That’s what I want to do tonight. Search Dr. Rutherford’s private files.”

  “Jean! That’s breaking and entering. That’s illegal.”

  “I have a key, given to me by his secretary, and I need the files for my records. How can that be breaking and entering? I have a right to monitor the program’s billings and receipts.”

  “Okay, semantics aside. Let’s say you have the right to get into the doctor’s files. Why are you doing it at night on a Friday? That smacks of paranoia.”

  “I am paranoid. Everybody I’ve spoken with while gathering the information you just read told me to be careful. Dr. Byron Rutherford is not what he seems, which is why I want you to go with me. Maybe you’ll see something in his files that will show what he really is up to.”

  “What do you mean ‘Really is up to?’”

  “You say he’s committing civil fraud.” Jeanette moved closer until she was speaking into Charles’s ear. Anyone watching them would think she was whispering sweet nothings and kissing his ear. “I say he’s making lots of money illegally, committing medical malpractice on a large scale, and might, just might, mind you, be responsible for the death of a sales representative named Stu Thomas from Silver River, who was talking too much about his company’s sales to the Epi Study.”

  Charles lowered his voice to match hers. “Are you saying he killed somebody? Over this? Why? This is white collar stuff.”

  “That’s my point. If — and I’m stressing the if — he ordered Stu Thomas killed, then what is really going on? There has to be more.”

  Charles muttered. Jeanette thought she heard the words: RICO, kickbacks, criminal fraud. Then, he swore vilely.

  “What’s RICO?” she hissed in his ear.

  “A criminal conspiracy to commit crimes, normally called racketeering. The Feds use it to pull in everyone involved in large scale criminal operations, usually mob- or gang-related activities in smuggling, money laundering, selling drugs and the like. But they can use it for almost any kind of crime, including fraud and official misconduct, if there is enough money involved and the collateral damages are widespread. The states have similar laws.”

  “Could Dr. Rutherford be charged with something like that?”

  “If you’re right and this is just the tip of the iceberg, maybe.”

  “Are you gonna help me look?” Jeanette held her breath. She’d do it alone if she had to, but having Charles there, having Charles apply his legal brain to the problem would be such a relief. She didn’t think she could handle this alone any longer.

  “Yes.” The smile he gave her was grim, giving her a peek at the stuff in him which had attracted her many months ago. “Let’s finish up here and get going. The sooner we do it, the sooner we’ll know if you’re correct or sniffing at the wrong hydrant.”

  ———

  “Jesus H. Christ.” Charles dropped the file he’d been reading on the desk, then ran his hands over his thick blonde hair, causing it to stand straight up. He stopped the nervous motions, then turned toward Jeanette. “I think you may be right about this being more than violating some medical protocol and civil fraud. There’s millions and millions of dollars here.” He waved a hand at the discarded folder.

  “Millions? Where?” Jeanette looked up from the files she skimmed.

  “In Rutherford’s bank accounts. Several of them to be exact, one in the Cayman Islands, one in Luxembourg, and one in Switzerland. Thirty million dollars, give or take a few hundred thousand.”

  “But how could that be? There isn’t enough money going through the project to account for that kind of money.” Jeanette had a sick feeling in her stomach. What had they found? Stu Thomas’s death looked more like the murder her gut kept insisting it was and less like the coincidence her brain wanted it to be.

  “I can’t tell who transferred the money into his account because the names are coded. But the amounts are large enough that the Federal government would want to know about it. Hell, anything over $10,000 sets off all sorts of Treasury alerts. The Feds might be able to get the identification of the source of the money. Maybe he’s running drugs. Laundering money. Or something like that.”

  “Do we have enough to go to the Federal government with this?”

  “Maybe. I want to check a few more things first before we take them anything.” Charles started copying down information from the documents in front of him. “I have an idea that Silver River Pharmaceuticals and Dr. Rutherford have a closer relationship than buyer and seller.”

  “Why would you think that?” Jeanette crinkled her forehead, then rubbed the lines away. Her head pounded. She couldn’t think.

  Charles put the folders back where he found them. “Because there is a lot of correspondence in some of the files that are in the nature of updates about the company. Why would Dr. Rutherford need that information as a mere purchaser of goods? At the very least, he owns stock in the company, or he’s getting kickbacks. At the most, he owns the company which is a violation of federal law itself.”

  “Yes, that’s right. A physician can’t own a controlling interest in a supplier of medical goods or devices. We learned that in one of my classes. That could get the project stopped. He could lose his license.” Jeanette followed Charles who stood up to leave. “He would lose
everything, his profession, his standing in the community…”

  “And all that lovely ill-gotten lucre sitting in those accounts.” Charles held the door for Jeanette to pass through, then turned out the light. “Yeah, that’s enough to kill for.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Following Monday, New Orleans Medical center, 7:00 a.m..

  Sally entered the dimly lit clinic. It was seven o’clock, too early for the clinic staff. Locking the outer door behind her, she used the security lights to find her way to Jeanette’s office.

  Letting herself in with the master key, she moved swiftly to her boss’s desk and laid the envelope addressed to Jeanette on top of the desk pad. She didn’t imagine her resignation would surprise her boss. After all, she’d said several times that she couldn’t handle the pressure — or the fear — any longer.

  Her first mission accomplished, she turned and left Jeanette’s office, then relocked it. Only a few more minutes and she would be safe — free of the job, the clinic and the danger she knew lurked in her future, if she didn’t vanish.

  A loud noise startled her into freezing by the reception desk. Forcing her accelerated breathing to a slower, less noisy rhythm, she listened. Nothing. There was nothing but the rattling sound of the fan on the air conditioning unit kicking on. Giggling nervously, she shook her head.

  Just a few more minutes, she reminded herself. All she had to do was clean out her desk, then she could leave.

  As she inserted the key into the lock of her shared office, the stealthy approach of footsteps alerted her that she really wasn’t alone. Swinging around, she stifled an instinctive shriek just in time.

  Dr. Randolph stood there, radiating evil. He muscled her into the closed door, caging her with his arms.

  “A little early, aren’t you, Sally, my love?” He smiled grimly, as he used his lower body in a grotesque parody of the sex act to thrust her more tightly against the door. Lifting a hand, he stroked the right side of her face from chin to ear with his finger. “You haven’t been returning my calls, sweetheart.”