by J W Becton
That was a long list, and we hadn’t yet pursued the automotive aspects of the case.
In addition, we still didn’t know how all these people—from such varied walks of life—had become connected. What was their link? Who was in charge?
Whoever led this bizarre group had to be smart and organized, someone who knew a lot about insurance practices, medicine, and the law.
Jesus, I thought. The leader could be any one of our suspects or none of them.
“Ted will be so pleased to hear that we’re looking at a seriously widespread fraud here,” Vincent said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms.
“Yeah,” I said, “but I’m not sure we have Dr. Keller’s full cooperation. Seems like he’s withholding something, and I don’t like wandering around undercover without having all the facts.”
“Agreed,” Vincent said. “Let’s have a word with the good doctor. See what he’s not telling us.”
Seventeen
Unlike Clayton Slidell, Dr. Keller was easy to find. Using Ted’s name as entry, we arranged to meet the doc at his home in North Mercer the following day, and now Vincent and I were in his GMC truck, buzzing across town to the morning appointment.
“Nice neighborhood,” Vincent said as we passed a public park, the swings full of bundled-up children trying to burn off energy.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Doesn’t seem like crime would happen here, does it?”
He grunted. “You never know what’s below the surface, festering.”
“Don’t I know it?” I said softly, thinking of my own family. I’d grown up in one of the poshest neighborhoods in the area—well, not quite as posh as this one—gone to the best schools, and still evil had touched us. And even in the midst of our suffering, my family had tried to put on a good face, act as if nothing were wrong. For the neighbors.
How sad was that?
Frankly, my mom was still managing the facade pretty well.
“This is the type of place,” Vincent continued as if reading my mind, “where people try to hide what they really are, behave as if they’re old Southern royalty when they’re actually just like everybody else: full of flaws and problems. I’d rather bust a hardened criminal junkie than ferret out the psychos in this neighborhood. At least I’d know what to expect with the junkie. Here, you never know.”
I glanced up and down the street, trying to see what Vincent saw: lurking psychopaths dressed in linen dresses and seersucker suits.
He had a point. Here it was all about outward appearances and not becoming gossip fodder for your neighbors.
I looked over at Vincent, trying to imagine him put on the trappings of a stereotypical Southern gentleman.
I almost snickered at the image of his “hold fast” tattoo encased in puckered, striped cotton. I had nothing against seersucker if it had to be worn, but not on Vincent. He looked right in his dark jeans, sport coat, and white dress shirt. Or barefoot in old jeans and a t-shirt.
Or maybe less.
He caught my eye, and I tried not to blush at my thoughts.
“You find out anything more about Justin?” I asked, deliberately changing the subject.
“Yeah, he’s staying with some friends off campus. Drove by, saw his car, couldn’t bring myself to knock on the door. I still don’t know what to say to him.”
He paused a moment and then changed the subject again.
“You hear anything about Slidell?”
“Yeah, I told Tripp we located him. Orr County PD may have served the warrant by now. I haven’t heard.” I scanned the mailbox numbers looking for Keller’s address and added, “I told my father, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to tell Tricia and Mom yet. You know how they are.”
I thought about how we were both in denial—Vincent avoiding his son and me avoiding my mother and sister—even though each of us had good reasons to be concerned about them.
“Here we are,” Vincent announced just as I mentally matched the house number to the address we had. We stopped in the driveway of a large, Southern-style home with columns running along the front facade. And like most columns in this architectural style, they were purely decorative, supporting nothing. Serving no practical purpose but to present an image.
Always images.
I left the truck, avoided the plastic toys scattered on the sidewalk, and led the way to the stoop, only to see the glass storm door open before I made it to the bell.
“Hello,” a little blond girl whispered, looking up at Vincent and me with the shy curiosity of a young child. “I’m Sasha.”
I smiled at the preschooler, looking behind her to see if an adult would appear. I saw only more toys sprinkled in her wake.
“Hi there, Sasha,” I said, dropping to a knee in front of her. “I’m Julia. Is your mommy or daddy home?”
“Mommy’s at work,” she said, one hand over her lips. “Daddy’s in the bathroom.”
Behind me, I heard Vincent stifle a chuckle.
“Well, could you tell him that we’re here to see him?” I asked and then added, “When he’s finished in the bathroom, I mean.”
“Okay,” Sasha said brightly and then she promptly turned and ran deeper into the house, leaving the storm door to slam in her wake.
About ten seconds later, we heard, “Daddy! Julia’s here.”
We heard a muffled man’s voice saying something that sounded like, “Wait for Daddy to open the door.”
Obviously, her father’s instructions were too late. Within a few minutes, Dr. Keller arrived at the door. Tall, lanky, and younger than I expected, he glanced at us with a decidedly unwelcoming look on his face.
“Dr. Keller?” I asked.
He nodded, looking quickly between Vincent and me as if he’d forgotten our appointment to speak with him.
“I’m Special Agent Julia Jackson and this is Special Agent Mark Vincent. We’re with the Georgia Department of Insurance. We work with Ted Insley.”
“We had an appointment,” Vincent reminded him as we produced our badges. Dr. Keller took a cursory look at them before turning to his daughter.
“Go watch TV, sweetie.”
He turned his back on his daughter and looked at us, crossing his arms and shifting his weight to his right leg so that he leaned away.
“What can I do for you?”
A movement behind him caught my attention, and I peeked around Dr. Keller to see Sasha still observing us.
“Can we speak privately?” I asked, nodding at his daughter. “Outside?”
He spun around and squatted to Sasha’s level.
“Listen to Daddy. Go watch TV.”
He gave her a gentle nudge into the house, stepped outside, and shut the heavy wood door.
“Child-proof doorknob,” he said as the glass storm door slammed behind him. “She’ll be fine as long as you keep this short.”
“Too cold for a long conversation anyway,” I said, leading him and Vincent down the steps and to the sidewalk, well out of earshot of his daughter, whom I could still see peeking through a front window. I didn’t want Sasha, young as she was, to overhear us accusing her father of fraud, even if he was sort of working for the good guys.
“We apologize for any inconvenience,” Vincent added as we walked, “but our investigation has brought up some questions that we think you may have answers to.”
Our footsteps clicked on the cement sidewalk, and we finally stopped when we faced the driveway.
“Nice car,” I said, pointing to the Navigator.
“Thanks,” Dr. Keller said, beaming. “It’s new. The moment I saw it in the showroom, I had to have it. It’s got more bells and whistles than I know what to do with.”
“It is an impressive machine. V-6, right?” Vincent asked.
“Yeah, I think so. It’s a powerful one,” Dr. Keller confirmed.
Now, I’m not a car expert, but I know an SUV that big was likely to have a V-8, not a six cylinder. I looked quickly from Vincent to the vehicle, wonder
ing if he were testing Dr. Keller.
“But I doubt you’re here to ask about my SUV,” Dr. Keller said, interrupting my contemplation.
“We just have a few questions, but we think this can be cleared up quickly,” I assured him. Getting to the heart of the matter, I added, “Ted said that you came forward of your own volition to inform us of the fraud ring and its activities through your clinic. Is that correct?”
“It is,” Dr. Keller said, puffing slightly with pride.
“What led you to that decision?” Vincent asked.
“Oh, well, I suppose I just realized it was the right thing to do,” he said, his eyes darting between us.
“You chose to come to the DOI shortly after becoming involved in an organized group of insurance fraudsters, but our investigation indicates that you were already committing fraud on a smaller scale. Is that true?” I asked.
Dr. Keller seemed a bit taken aback at the extent of our knowledge, but he recovered quickly.
“Well, yes,” he admitted, “but Ted offered me immunity—full immunity for all my frauds—in exchange for my information. And before I got involved in the ring, I was just padding the bills at the end, and only occasionally. It’s nothing that other doctors don’t do.
I somehow doubted that was the extent of Keller’s fraud, but for now I would let it slide.
“That still doesn’t explain why you came to the DOI in the first place,” Vincent said.
“Or why you elected to throw in with the fraud ring when you apparently had too much of a conscience to do more than just tack a few extra charges onto patient bills.”
A muscle in Dr. Keller’s jaw jumped.
“So you do not deny that you were already charging for therapies that are never being performed, for supplies that are never being used?” I asked. “What about performing unnecessary procedures?”
Dr. Keller flushed, and when he spoke again, his voice was fear masked in anger. “I won’t stand here in my own front yard and—”
“And describe a fraud you’ve already admitted to committing?” Vincent asked coolly. “One that you cannot be punished for committing as per your arrangement with our boss?”
“Fine,” Dr. Keller said. “What do you want to know?”
“What made you come to Ted?” I asked. “Because the sudden attack of conscience just doesn’t track.”
“Okay, okay,” Keller said, his volume lowering with each word. “I may not have told Ted everything I’ve done in the past, but it was nothing compared to what the ring wanted me to do. The scams just got too big, started involving too many people on my staff: nurses, office assistants, you name it. The fraud was getting too obvious, and it wasn’t going to be long before someone—some insurance company—caught on and reported us.”
Vincent and I stared at him. There was more. There had to be. People don’t just give up that kind of money because they’re suddenly afraid of the consequences of getting caught.
“Okay, okay,” he said again. “Remember that day I called you, Special Agent Jackson? I told you someone was watching, and I also told you I hadn’t been threatened. Well, I lied.”
Vincent’s head snapped up, and mine wasn’t far behind.
“Threats? Someone made specific threats against you?” my partner asked.
“No, no,” Keller said, stepping back from Vincent, looking worried now. “It was nothing specific.”
I moved forward, trying to be gentle.
“Tell us what happened.”
“I realized I totally lost control of my own clinic,” he said, now sounding angry. “I told Eddie I wanted out, and he said no one got out.”
“So that’s when you decided to fess up,” Vincent said.
“Well, yeah. Wouldn’t you?” he said, his voice returning to high-pitched uncertainty.
Vincent didn’t respond.
“I called Ted, asked for immunity in return for information, and then pretended that I had fallen into line. That I was still part of the ring. Everything was fine until last week when someone saw me leave with those papers. That’s when Eddie threatened me. Said he would make sure my reputation as a physician was ruined. My practice would never recover from that,” he said, his voice was now fully panicky. “I couldn’t let him ruin my entire career. And if my wife found out, it would mean the end of our marriage. And that’s not even taking into account the debts I would still owe. My life would be ruined.”
“Eddie threatened to ruin your reputation,” I repeated, finally understanding Dr. Keller better.
Ted’s offer of immunity might protect the doctor from going to prison, but it would never stop the spread of gossip. He could lose his clinic, his marriage, and maybe even custody of his daughter if the truth went public.
“Listen, Dr. Keller,” Vincent said, apparently trying for a soothing tone that he was never quite able to pull off. “We understand your concern, and we are doing everything we can to wrap up this case as efficiently as possible.”
“But the more information you withhold from us, the more difficult the investigation becomes,” I interjected. “We need to know exactly what we’re dealing with in order to finish this quickly and arrest the guilty parties before they can carry out their threat.”
“Have you told us everything?” Vincent asked bluntly.
“Yes,” Dr. Keller said as he ran a shaking hand through his hair, mussing it slightly. “I mean, I told you about Eddie and how someone’s watching me at the clinic. I told you about the boss.”
“Do you know anything more about the boss? A name?”
“No, I’ve never met the boss—not in person—always intermediaries. But I think it’s a woman. Eddie always calls her ‘she.’”
Well, that was new. We were looking for a woman.
“Can you think of anything, any offhand remark, that might help us identify her?”
“No, not really,” Dr. Keller said as he shifted his weight. “Like I said, Eddie always conveys her messages. Somehow she knew about my little back-end frauds, about the massage therapy stuff. I always thought the boss might have been a former patient who actually looked at her bill or maybe one of my employees. Or maybe she doesn’t even exist and Eddie uses her as a facade. I don’t know!”
“What about Eddie?” I prompted, even though we were pretty convinced it was Eddie Wohl, one of the runners. “We’ll need a description of him.”
“Sure, sure,” he said, “Tall, skinny. Often wears a mechanic’s shirt. You know, with the patch and his name embroidered on it. Dirty blond hair. That helpful?”
I nodded. It sounded a lot like Wohl.
“Thanks for your cooperation, Dr. Keller,” I said. “If you think of anything else pertinent to the case, please contact us or Ted. You have our numbers.”
“We believe we have a good idea about who’s watching you from inside the clinic,” Vincent said, “but we’ll need a few days to prepare the arrest warrants. It would be best if you stuck to the plan to lay low.”
“Thank you,” he said, still red-faced and breathing in nervous gulps, as he walked us toward Vincent’s GMC, probably just to ensure that we got in and went away so he could have a mini panic attack.
Dr. Keller stopped at the end of the walkway and gave us a little parting wave as I rounded the truck and got inside.
Vincent started the engine and reversed out of the driveway, while I turned on the heater.
“He’s awfully jumpy,” I said. “I think he really wants out, and I feel safe speculating that he’s not the mastermind of the operation.”
“I agree. He’s been working the medical fraud,” Vincent said, “but I don’t think he’s got the knowledge to coordinate the whole ring. He seems to know next to nothing about cars.”
“His Navigator’s not a V-6,” I said.
“Nope,” Vincent affirmed. “In fact, there’s no such thing as a V-6 Navigator.”
“A car guy would know that,” I said. “He would know how to stage accidents, and he’d have a
n auto body shop worker on staff.”
“But Dr. Keller doesn’t even know what motor is in his own vehicle. I’d be willing to bet he’d pay five hundred bucks for a new battery.”
I laughed.
“You mean batteries aren’t that expensive?” I asked, batting my eyelashes brainlessly.
“Well now, of course, they are, Little Missy,” he mocked.
I rolled my eyes at him.
“Sadly,” he said, sobering, “you should get used to being talked down to because tomorrow we visit body shops.”
We lapsed into silence as Vincent headed south on I-75, passing the rows of shops that lined the interstate at lightning speed.
“How seriously should we take the threats Eddie made against Dr. Keller?” I asked.
“Threats should always be taken seriously,” he said, his voice firm now. “But so far, the ring has shown no inclinations to violence, and they threatened his reputation and business, not to harm him. I think our best bet for protecting him, if indeed he requires it, will be to identify the leader as quickly as possible and shut down the ring for good.”
Eighteen
Once again I was reminded why people hated insurance companies. In order to give the investigation our due diligence, Vincent and I spent the remainder of the day checking with each provider on our insurance companies’ preferred lists, hoping to unearth more duplicitous auto shops before we had to forgo our covers in order to question Eddie Wohl and Mary Fallsworthy, our two main suspects so far.
When we started hauling people in for questioning, we’d lose all pretense of anonymity.
So Vincent and I went our separate ways, and each of us drove to five different garages to get repair estimates.
We hoped this process would give us a range of prices so that any outliers—either too expensive or too cheap—might signal a potential fraud participant.
It also served as practice for my Southern belle routine, during which I tossed my hair and listened to copious amounts of bullshit from mechanics, whom I suspected were jacking their prices based on my gender alone.
With as much patience as I could muster, I endured being called “honey,” “sweet thing,” and “sugar,” the latter being the most popular, while various mechanics talked down to me about the virtues of Bondo and a buffer as the be-all and end-all of auto-body repair. Just slap some putty on it and sand it flat.
