by Wally Duff
“That’s a lot of donations from happy patients. Fertig seems to be a world-class fund raiser.”
“He most certainly is. Do you know much about charitable foundations?”
“No, because I never did a story about them.”
This was something else I had to research before I went to bed.
“By law, the funds donated to the foundation have to be managed and invested by an accredited firm,” he said. “Brittany discovered this is done by Bear Investments.”
“Who owns Bear Investments?”
“She doesn’t know, at least not yet.”
“Who hired that company?”
“The board of directors of the foundation.”
“And they are?”
“Diane Warren and Dr. Fertig.”
That’s cozy.
“All Brittany knows for certain is that the Warren Law Firm is the in-house counsel for the MidAmerica Hospital,” he continued.
“Sounds like this is extremely lucrative for their law firm.”
“It is. Brittany discovered their billings are in excess of fifteen million dollars a year.”
“Who are their other clients? Maybe that would account for that much income.”
“I suggested that, but it’s confidential information, and at this point, she has no way to access those records.”
I made a notation on my pad. Linda could hack into those records and Brittany couldn’t.
114
“There is another problem,” Carter said. “Diane Warren learned Brittany is doing this research on Fertig, and Mrs. Warren and her lawyers promptly contacted the publisher of the Tribune.”
Uh-oh!
“Are you in trouble?” I asked.
“No, because I followed the publisher’s orders.”
“Which were?”
“After a contentious meeting, they convinced him that after Brittany met with Fertig, the only viable story would be about his amazing surgical results and his international humanitarian medical trips, not about other innuendoes and rumors concerning his surgical results from jealous fellow physicians.”
“But…”
Carter held up his hand. “The boss ordered me to assign Brittany to meet with Fertig before she goes any further.”
“Why do it now when we have so many unanswered questions?”
“I had no choice. I told Brittany to go ahead and interview Fertig.”
“Diane Warren sure knows how to work the system to her advantage.”
“She does, but as it turned out, Brittany’s interview with the doctor sent her in a new direction.”
I held my pen over the yellow pad.
“Fertig bragged to her about surgical expertise and his medical missions to small African nations and South America. She was not impressed.”
“Uh? I would think she would be.”
“To put it in her words, he ‘creeped me out.’ She didn’t believe any surgeon could be that good and began asking questions of his former fellow surgery residents.”
“A great approach.”
“It was. She was stunned to learn they said he had ‘bad hands’.”
“If that’s true, how could he supposedly invent a surgical procedure that is so difficult to do no other surgeons can master it?”
“Good question. And during his training the surgery nurses called him ‘heparin hands’.”
“Isn’t heparin a blood thinner?”
“It is. She said the nurses complained that his cases took forever to finish, and then the patients had to be brought back to the OR for the complications of bleeding.”
I put down my pad. “When we first started on this story, Linda researched Fertig and found out he never took the surgery boards. Eddie told me that if he didn’t pass his, it would be almost impossible to get on a hospital staff.”
“But Fertig is obviously on one here in Chicago as MidAmerica’s first, and only, chief of surgery.”
“Sounds like he has a Rabbi looking out for him,” I said.
“He does, but we haven’t discovered who he, or she, is,” he said.
“Mrs. Warren might be at the top of the list.”
115
“All this talk is making me hungry,” I said. “I think fudge would go well with this merlot.”
“I could not agree more,” Carter said.
Grabbing up my notes, I moved to the kitchen. He followed with his laptop.
“What about these humanitarian medical trips?” I said, as I got out the sugar, salt, unsweetened chocolate bars, vanilla, and Karo syrup.
He opened the refrigerator and took out milk and butter. “Fertig’s medical missionary trips attracted the attention of the newly opened MidAmerica Hospital."
“Walnuts?” I asked.
“Absolutely.”
He spread walnuts on the cutting board. I took out a large saucepan.
“The owners and PR department of the hospital thought these trips would be a treasure trove of favorable publicity in the highly competitive market here in Chicago,” he said.
I began to melt the chocolate bars and slowly added the milk and sugar. He chopped the walnuts.
“And they hired him,” I said.
“They did, which was fortuitous because his private practice was on the verge of bankruptcy.”
“Who paid for his trips to Africa?”
“Initially it was a small religious foundation, but after he was hired by the hospital, the board paid for it. This allowed him to continue to travel to Africa and perform surgery to practice his skills without the risk of malpractice suits, making it a perfect situation for him.”
I blended in the Karo syrup and salt. I would add the butter and vanilla after I took the candy off the stove.
“Why is this important to the story?” I asked, as I began rummaging around in the drawers looking for the candy thermometer.
“Fertig made regular trips to Africa and then began going to the rain forests of Brazil. It was sometime after these latter trips that his surgery skills supposedly improved to the level where he became famous as the doctor who invented a surgical procedure which could cure each case of breast cancer.”
“I guess practice makes perfect.”
“And makes money. The MidAmerica Hospital Foundation was formed, and money began pouring in from his grateful patients.”
I looked in another drawer. “Honey, do you know where the candy thermometer is?”
“Since your mother rearranged the kitchen again when she was here last, I would guess that it is located where she has hers in Omaha.”
Sure enough, I found it next to the flashlight in the junk drawer, where she has always kept hers.
“I say again, ‘good for Fertig,’ but is this front-page news?”
Carter swirled the wine in his glass. I stirred the fudge one more time and put in the candy thermometer.
“At that same time, he began selling supplements out of his office. This money goes into his own corporation.”
“He’s a businessman, too, so what?”
“Those sales are all in cash. No checks and no credit cards accepted.”
116
I didn’t tell Carter I knew all this, but I hadn’t considered the cash basis for the supplements.
“Must be a lot of Ben Franklin’s floating around in his office,” I said. “It would be easy to hide some of them without the IRS catching them.”
“Now you see why this is so interesting.”
“How about his tax forms for all the years in question?”
I took the fudge off the stovetop and put in the butter and vanilla.
“Brittany is working on this, but even with them, how can we be certain they are accurate, especially in light of one other thing she discovered?”
“Which is?”
He finished his wine and pulled out the sheet pan for the fudge. “Two years ago, Fertig made occasional flights to Switzerland. Now he is going once a month.”
I added the walnut
s and began whipping the fudge. The aroma made my mouth water.
“Commercial flights?” I asked.
“No. When he began flying there, the hospital’s foundation purchased a large private jet for him to use any time he wants. He also learned to pilot the plane.”
Interesting.
“He could carry a lot of cash on his own plane without too much scrutiny since he doesn’t have to go through customs like common folks.”
I poured the fudge into the sheet pan and got out another spoon for Carter. We began taking turns scooping the fudge remnants out of the saucepan.
“Brittany found out customs officials come on board his plane when he lands in Zurich and check out what he has on board.”
“Carter, please.” I licked my spoon and pointed it at him. “He could be carrying duffle bags of cash on board, and unless the customs officials had reason to suspect a famous doctor of something illegal, they wouldn’t look all that hard.”
“Especially since he treats several of the wives of the highest-ranking officials in Switzerland.”
“A Swiss bank would be a great location to hide unreported income,” I said.
“It would, wouldn’t it?” he said.
117
Saturday morning, Molly, Linda, and I stretched after Cas’s spinning class at XSport Fitness. Cas walked around the room wiping down the bikes and then joined us.
I told them about my conversation with Carter last night.
“He never mentioned the murders?” Linda asked.
I took a drink from my water bottle. “He didn’t, and I kept my mouth shut, because Brittany seems to be missing the part of the story about Peter’s committee because she’s following the money trail.”
“Don’t we still need to know what Peter was trying to tell us?” Molly asked.
“I agree,” Cas said. “It seems we’ve lost sight of the basic issue. What did Peter know, and what secret might any remaining committee members eventually discover that is causing Fertig to do this?”
“If Fertig is doing this,” Linda said. “I must remind you that we don’t have any tangible evidence connecting him to any of these deaths.”
“Isn’t there a copy of Peter’s notes somewhere?” Molly asked.
“We know someone took his computer, which probably had all of his research,” Cas said. “Why don’t we look for that?”
“Would the in-house lawyers for the hospital have done something like that?” I asked.
“They would need the information from Peter’s computer to assess any possible liability to the hospital if Fertig is committing an illegal act,” Linda said. “And once they found out what this damning information was, they would bury it forever.”
“You think they’re the ones who stole his computer?” I asked.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” she replied.
“Then I know where the report is, and Linda, you’re going to help me find it,” I said.
118
“I feel ridiculous,” Linda said.
“You look ridiculous,” I said. “But if you want to do this, suck it up.”
Sunday morning, we were dressed as members of the janitorial company which services MidAmerica Hospital, the doctor’s office building, and high-rise office building where the Warrens have their law firm.
Their law office is located on the other side of the building where Fertig has his office, making it a short walk to both the hospital and the doctor’s building for the two lawyers. The building also shares a common underground garage with both the hospital and the doctor’s building.
We stood in front of the service elevators wearing the same outfit I’d seen on the security video of the cleaning lady who walked in and out of the OR before Dr. Gary’s murder.
“I don’t look good in forest green,” she said. “The pants and sleeves are too long.” She held up her ID badge. “And I hate this picture.”
“Are you done complaining?” I asked.
“Bitching is a major part of my DNA.”
Frankie had come through again. One of his friends owns the janitorial company that cleans the building. It only took two phone calls, and we were the newest employees in the company, complete with ID’s, uniforms, and keys to all the offices.
I pushed the elevator button to go up.
“Did you research the Warren Law Firm?” I asked.
I didn’t tell her that Carter had already given me the background that Brittany had uncovered. It didn’t hurt to have a second evaluation, and since Linda was a lawyer, she might find information Brittany had missed.
“The firm has over fifteen million dollars in billings,” she said, as the elevator doors slid open. We got on.
“Which floor?” Linda asked.
The doors swooshed shut.
“Sixteen.”
The elevator slowly ascended.
“Is that a lot for billings?” I asked.
“It is incomprehensible, given that there are only two lawyers in the firm. I asked Howard about it, and he was stunned. He thought they only did wills and trusts.”
“Maybe in addition to discovering who, if anyone, is still alive on Peter’s committee, we need to find out who their clients are.”
“Exactly what Howard said.”
“What? Why?”
“To see if his firm can steal them away with the promise of lower billable hourly rates.”
“Is that ethical?”
“Tina, they’re lawyers. Ethics have nothing to do with good business. If I can find information to help Howard grab a few of their clients, he’ll be thrilled. That’s why I agreed to do this.”
The elevator doors opened on the sixteenth floor. We followed the instructions Frankie had given me and found the closet with the cleaning equipment. Linda pulled out a vacuum cleaner. I grabbed the cleaning cart and stashed my backpack in it. The security cameras were of no concern, because as employees of the cleaning company we belonged there.
Linda stopped. “I can’t do this.”
“You can’t do what?”
“This. Breaking into this office. It’s against the law.”
“Hacking is too.”
She remained silent.
“And we are not breaking in.” I held up the keys. “We have these. We’re here to work.”
“Allegedly work. We’re here to do research for your story.”
“And find out why doctors are dying.”
I didn’t add “to steal clients for your husband’s law firm.”
“Okay, got it. Open the damn door.”
119
Unlocking the door with keys instead of using my lock pick gun was a new experience for me. My heart rate didn’t accelerate even a couple of beats more a minute.
This is almost boring.
We pushed our equipment in and stopped.
“Oh,” Linda said.
“My,” I said.
Spartan was the description that came to mind. There was a lime green shag carpet on the floor. The walls were painted off-white. There were no pictures or paintings. Two generic brown wood chairs were grouped around a cheap coffee table. There weren’t any magazines.
The secretary’s gray metal desk was placed against the opposite wall. On it sat a phone and a computer. The secretary’s chair was covered with fake black leather. The wastebasket was dark green and looked like the one my grade school teacher had next to her desk.
The room smelled musty.
“Fifteen million a year in billings?” I asked.
“They obviously didn’t spend any of it on an interior decorator,” Linda said. “Maybe the offices are nicer.”
“I’ll check this desk. You see if you can access the computer.”
The drawers had the usual pens and paper a secretary would need but nothing else.
“How about the computer?” I asked.
“It’s password protected, and I don’t have my equipment to hack into it.”
