Bada-BOOM!

by Wally Duff

  “Tough day?” I asked. “You look like a man who could use a drink.”

  “How about a glass of our single malt scotch?”

  “Was it that bad?”

  “I discovered Brittany is trying to cut you out of your story.”

  I poured a glass of scotch for him. He waved off any ice and drank it down.

  “This morning she asked for a couple of days off, and I gave them to her,” he said. “But I didn’t know what her travel plans were.”

  “Where is she going?”

  “Zurich. She left a couple of hours ago.”

  “Huh?”

  “Exactly. I accessed her computer notes from her Tribune laptop. She has discovered information that she thinks will break this story wide open.”

  “Do you know specifically what she found to make her want to go to Zurich?”

  “That information is encrypted in a separate file, and I can’t access it. All you can do is speed up your investigation, because at this point, she seems to be way ahead of you.”

  Carter went into the family room to edit stories from his other reporters. I went down to the computer room and called Janet. Her phone went to voice mail. I called Tony.

  “Remember Brittany Simon?” I asked.

  “How could I forget her?” Tony asked. He is consistent.

  “She’s flying to Zurich as we speak.”

  The line was silent.

  “Switzerland,” I said.

  “Where they make the army knives?”

  “Yep, and they have banks there where doctors can stash money without the IRS finding out about it.”

  “Think Fertig is doing that?”

  “It’s a good bet.”

  “Brittany going to get proof of this?”

  “I’m afraid she is.”

  “Feds will get our collar, and we’ll be left holding our dicks in our hands.”

  It was hard to picture that happening to Janet, but I could see Tony’s point.

  “You need to bust Fertig, and the sooner the better,” I said.

  “Don’t have any evidence.”

  “Then I’ll have to find it.”

  “Any way you can, sweets. Any way you can.”

  131

  Wednesday morning, it was another cloudy day. Rick and David called for a meeting at my house. The Irregulars, minus Linda, who was still angry at me, were present. Alexis took time off of work to join us. Our kids were across the street with Alicia.

  We wore casual clothes. In contrast, Alexis was dressed for work wearing a black suit, white blouse, and five-inch black pumps. Tony and Janet worked other cases, and I said I would call them later.

  “How do you do this?” David asked.

  “Do what?” I asked.

  “Do you have a cute little gavel to call the meeting to order?”

  “No. Usually I yell at them to shut up,” I said.

  “Works for me, but it is a trifle tacky,” he said. “Rick and I completed our assignment on the Bear Corporation and Bear Investments.”

  “Through a series of six shell corporations, each registered offshore and each owning the preceding one, one person owns everything,” Rick said.

  “And you know her,” David said.

  I looked at them. “Not Diane Warren.”

  “The very same,” Rick said.

  “How did you find this out?” Cas asked.

  “We have sources at The Factory, a salon Mrs. Warren frequents,” David said.

  “And let me tell you, they say she is a complete and total bitch with everyone,” Rick said.

  “The Queen Bitch of the world,” David said. “They say she’s never on time.”

  “She shows up without an appointment and expects them to drop everything and do her awful hair,” Rick said.

  “Except for her Tibetan Mastiff, she is rude to everyone,” David said. “His name is Bear, and she fawns over him incessantly.”

  “Even brings the monster to the salon,” Rick said. “Can you imagine?”

  “I asked Leslie Van Horn, who is her stylist — if you can call what he does to her hair styled — about all this bear business. I mean to tell you, Diane might be a bitch, but she tells Leslie positively everything.”

  “Everything,” Rick confirmed.

  “And all you do, too, right?” David asked.

  Kerry keeps me busy, and I haven’t had time to go to a hair stylist. But when I did, my stylist and I were the closest of friends. Or I thought we were. I told her all of my secrets without a consideration that she would relay the information to her other clients and pals.”

  “Dear Diane is the sole owner of the Bear Corporation and is the majority owner of Bear Investments,” David said.

  “The other owners of Bear Investments are Mr. Warren and his son, but they only own a tiny share,” Rick said. “In addition, the young Mr. Warren is paid a large fee for buying and selling the investments.”

  David looked at Rick again and raised his eyebrows. Rick nodded and smiled.

  “Okay, you two,” I said. “You’ve got something else.”

  “We do, and it’s positively huge,” David said.

  “The pièce de résistance,” Rick said.

  “The crème de la crème,” David said.

  “Care to share?” I asked.

  “It’s all about dear Dr. Fertig,” Rick said.

  “And his hair and wigs,” David said.

  “But first, the rumor,” Rick said.

  “A colossal rumor,” David said.

  “The people at the Factory think Diane Warren and the good doctor had something going before she named him her chief of surgery for MidAmerica Hospital,” Rick said.

  “I thought she hired him because the hospital wanted the positive publicity about his humanitarian medical trips,” Cas said.

  “That’s what the world was told, but it was a lie,” Rick said.

  “Are you saying that Diane Warren and Fertig had an affair?”

  “We are, but it only lasted until she found out she wasn’t the only filly in his stable, if you catch my drift,” David said.

  “She, of course, was furious, but by then he was bringing in such enormous sums of money, she couldn’t fire him and risk losing all of that revenue,” Rick said.

  “What about Peter?” Cas asked. “Did he know about Diane’s affair with Fertig?”

  “Honey, from what we hear, she stopped doing it with Peter years ago, lucky fellow,” David said.

  “A lovely man,” Rick said. “He did surgery on my eyes. Too bad he was straight. What a waste.”

  “Let’s return to the wigs,” I said.

  “Oh, poo, you’re no fun, but if you insist,” David said. “Fertig lost all of his hair, poor thing.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s on chemotherapy,” Rick said.

  “He has cancer?”

  “He could only wish,” David said. “He has an incurable form of AIDS.”

  132

  “You mean Warren had AIDS,” I said, attempting to clarify.

  “No, we mean Fertig,” David answered.

  “He lost his hair from that awful treatment they give him in Switzerland,” Rick said.

  My stomach turned a somersault. “Did you say Switzerland?”

  “There’s a highly specialized private AIDS clinic there,” Rick responded. “World famous.”

  “I would rather die than endure what he’s going through, but apparently Diane didn’t know about any of this until this morning,” David said. “She told Leslie all of this during her appointment.”

  “And he told us,” Rick said.

  “Is that why Fertig’s eyebrows look strange?” Alexis asked.

  “According to Leslie, Fertig doesn’t have any body hair or eyebrows,” Rick said. “If he didn’t use fake human hair and an eyebrow pencil, there wouldn’t be anything over his eyes but skin.”

  “How do you think he got AIDS?” Cas asked.

  “Don’t look at us, swe
etie,” David said. “He didn’t swing our way.”

  “He wasn’t gay?” I said.

  “My goodness, no,” Rick said. “He, as they say, gave at the office, which in his case was during his frequent trips to Africa.”

  “He lost his hair and bought a wig to cover it up?” I asked.

  “Fourteen, “David said. “He rotates them so they won’t be stinky-stinky and people won’t find out.”

  “But the best part…” Rick said.

  “This is the topper,” David said. “Pardon the pun.”

  “Diane mentioned to Leslie that Fertig told her he did not want anyone to find out about his illness, because he was afraid he would lose his medical license for keeping it secret from his patients,” Rick said.

  “How did Diane find out?” I asked.

  “She told Leslie that a reporter from the Chicago Tribune is in Switzerland doing a story on the doctor,” David said.

  Brittany.

  “The reporter called Fertig early this morning to request an interview for tomorrow when she returns to the U.S.,” Rick said.

  “Diane learned about the call and confronted Fertig,” David said. “She wanted to know what this was all about. He admitted to her that he has AIDS.”

  “And that’s when she found out, not before,” Cas said.

  “It is,” Rick said.

  “Leslie thinks Diane wants Fertig gone, and the sooner the better,” David said.

  “Bad publicity for her hospital,” Rick said.

  “But what about the mountains of cash he brings in to the hospital?” Cas asked.

  “Diane is disdainful of his surgical skills and is certain she can easily find a replacement to perform his operation,” Rick said.

  “It’s hard to believe that Fertig will leave without a fight,” I said.

  “Diane told Leslie that won’t be a problem,” David said.

  “She thinks Fertig’s ego will solve everything for her,” Rick said. “His concern about losing his medical license isn’t the real issue.”

  “She is positive he will leave forever to keep anyone from finding out about him having AIDS,” David said.

  “Peter had AIDS when he died,” Cas said. “Maybe that was his message to me — to us — that Fertig has AIDS.”

  “And maybe Fertig did kill Warren,” I suggested.

  “Too bad we can’t prove it,” Cas said.

  133

  “Guys, that reporter is Brittany Simon,” I said. “She’s in Switzerland right now, and she’ll figure this AIDS issue out, but I don’t think that’s the story she’s after.”

  “What do you think it is?” Molly asked.

  “I think Fertig is hiding cash from the IRS in secret accounts in Switzerland,” I said. “If Brittany can prove his income tax evasion before he flees from the United States, he’ll get a chance to practice medicine in prison until he dies of his AIDS.”

  “He won’t go to jail for murder?” Alexis asked.

  “Not unless we can find evidence to prove he’s a killer,” I said.

  “Then you better hurry,” David said.

  “That’s why we called this meeting,” Rick added.

  “Do you guys think Fertig is going to leave the country?” I asked.

  “We do,” David said. “Today.”

  “With Diane’s foot squarely planted in the middle of his back,” Rick said.

  Ah, man!

  “I’m confused,” Alexis said. “You said Diane told her hair stylist, Leslie, about Fertig having AIDS.”

  “Honey, you girls tell it all while you’re having your hair done,” Rick said. “It happens to us every day.”

  “Then it’s all out in the open about Fertig having AIDS,” she said.

  “But it will take a while for that to surface, giving him oodles of time to fly away,” Rick said.

  “And Diane doesn’t care,” David said. “All she wants is to have the good doctor disappear forever.”

  “I have to call Janet and Tony,” I said.

  “And I need to call Michelle,” Alexis said.

  We looked at her.

  “She’s the surgery nurse who gave me the names on the committee. Before I came here, she left a message for me to call her, but I haven’t had time.”

  “Make time,” I said.

  Alexis went into the kitchen. We heard her talking on her phone.

  When she came back, her brow was furrowed. “There’s one more committee member we didn’t know about. It’s Dr. Nancy Wickham.”

  “The general surgeon?” Cas asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ve called on her for the past three years. Her office is in the same building that Fertig’s is.”

  “You better find out where she is, and tell her to stay there and not go anywhere with Fertig,” David said.

  “Or it will become messy,” Rick said.

  “Messy?” I asked.

  “Fertig might want to make one more stop before he leaves,” David said. “This Wickham person is a loose end. She might know something that he wants to cover up.”

  “Like all these murders,” I said.

  Part 6

  134

  An hour later, I sat in the passenger seat of Janet’s Porsche 911 4S. She picked me up after I called and told her about Dr. Wickham.

  “You think Fertig’s gonna run?” she asked.

  “He has AIDS, and he wants to leave before the news gets out,” I said.

  “Fertig has AIDS too? Man, I didn’t see that one coming. This case gets weirder and weirder. Where’s Alexis?”

  “She knows Dr. Wickham. She drove to the doctor’s building while I was waiting for you to pick me up.”

  “Call her and find out what the hell is going on.”

  “I’m sure she would call if she knew anything.”

  “You’re sure. I’m not. I do not want to lose another doctor.”

  My cell phone rang. It was Alexis.

  “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!” she yelled. “Wickham isn’t in her office!”

  “Hold on,” I said.

  I put her on speaker.

  “Any ideas about where she might go?” Janet asked.

  “The on-call rooms are reported to be Fertig’s favored spot for his female conquests. He has one that only he has access to. He might take her down there.”

  “Call security and tell them to get down there right now,” Janet said.

  “I don’t think security will do that,” she said.

  “Why not?” Janet asked.

  “It’s Dr. Fertig. He’s God around here. There isn’t a security person in this hospital who will take him on.”

  “Is he God to you?” Janet asked.

  “No way.”

  “Get down to the on-call room. If you even think you hear anything that suggests Fertig is trying to kill Wickham, run to the first security camera and begin screaming your lungs out.”

  Janet hit her flashing lights. “We’ll be there in five minutes tops.”

  135

  “Goddamnit, Tony!” Janet yelled into her cell phone. “Where are you? It’s going down at the hospital, and I need you!”

  She jammed her phone into her suit coat pocket. “He’s probably stopped somewhere for a quickie.”

  “Why don’t you call for backup?” I asked, as we roared onto Lake Shore Drive.

  “I have a problem with that.”

  She downshifted and slid the Porsche through a corner and then upshifted and hit the accelerator. My head snapped back into the espresso-colored natural leather seat.

  “We have no real evidence,” she continued.

  “I realize that, but you can’t let him kill Wickham.”