“Hanlon residence,” Kate answered.
“Hi, this is Bill Shakey at the Tennessee Citizens Privacy Association. You can count on me tomorrow for the blood drive. What time should I be there?”
“Terrific!” Kate rose from her work stool and walked around the room, shaking the stiffness out of her legs. “The drive starts at nine. Whenever you can make it around then would be fine. I’m sure the organizers will be excited about you coming. I’ll get a table in the works for you right away.”
“Thanks. I look forward to explaining to people the benefits and risks of the electronic medical record.”
Kate leaned a hip against her project table. “I’m so caught up in these distressing situations with my friends and my husband that I keep losing sight of those benefits you mentioned.”
“I can understand that.” Bill chuckled. “Even though medical-record theft is a growing concern, percentage-wise it’s only a tiny part of the EMR picture. Where records are handled responsibly by honest people—which is most places, thank goodness—the ability to instantly transmit patient data anywhere in the country has the potential to save countless lives. And accessible electronic data will save patients and facilities time and money in the long run.”
They ended the call, and Kate tapped in Renee’s number. The woman’s answering machine picked up after a few rings. Kate left a message about Bill Shakey’s willingness to be present at the blood drive. Then she called Joe, but his phone rang without answer. Brow puckered, she went back to work. Were they both truly not home, or were they angry about Paul’s letter in the newspaper and not answering their phones?
Paul came home for lunch, and they enjoyed sandwiches together. She told him her good news about the representative from the privacy group and her lack of news from any of the doctors. Paul said he’d had six more calls that morning about his letter to the editor, and Millie was being extra nice to him, though she hadn’t mentioned the letter.
The doorbell rang as they were putting the lunch dishes away. Kate wiped her hands on a towel while she followed her husband to the vestibule. He pulled the door open, and there stood Renee and Joe, side by side, their faces sober as a day in court.
Renee’s gaze met Kate’s, then dropped, while the elderly gentleman lifted his chin.
“We’ve come to own up.” Joe double-thumped the tip of his walking stick against the doorstep. “We each got a pep talk on the phone from Peggy Brower on teamwork a couple days ago. Then your letter came out in the paper, and we’ve been hearin’ things from townsfolk that have opened our eyes.” The oldster stopped and cleared his throat. “Never let it be said that Joe Tucker can’t admit when he’s wrong.”
Renee’s color heightened, and she raised her head. “Me too.” The words came out thin, as if she’d strained them through a needle’s eye. But she added a tentative smile beneath a wary gaze.
“We’re glad you both came over,” Kate said.
“Get on in here, you two.” Paul waved them across the threshold.
Tension eased from Renee’s cheeks, and the edges of her lips tipped upward. Joe grinned wide as the sky, and soon they were all seated in the living room.
“I tried to call you both this morning,” Kate said. “I have a worthy addition to the perks we can offer people at the blood drive.”
“Perks?” Renee pulled a face as though she’d tasted something sour. “I’m not sure I want to hear that word again for a while.”
Joe made a harrumph with a frown.
“You’ll love this one, I think,” Kate said.
Next to her on the sofa, Paul wrapped his warm hand around hers. “Perks aren’t a problem if they’re offered in the right spirit.”
“And I believe that’s the case now.” Kate smiled from one guest to the other. “Everything you’ve arranged for the donors of Copper Mill will be appreciated.”
“Why, of course, they will.” Renee’s lashes fluttered like a preening diva.
“What’s this new idea?” Joe furrowed wispy, white eyebrows together.
Kate glanced up at Paul, who flickered a smile, and then she returned her attention to the blood-drive organizers. “There’s a consultant from the Tennessee Citizens Privacy Association who would be happy to bring literature to the drive and answer questions about a new mandate that’s coming down the road. It’s called the electronic medical record. There are a lot of pros and cons to the EMR, and people should be informed.”
Blank faces stared back at her.
She quickly explained the gist of the EMR, with its implications for speedy exchange of lifesaving information and its risks that private information could fall into the wrong hands. She deliberately omitted outright mention of medical-record identity theft. That information, and the fact that area people were affected, should be revealed through the proper channels as the official investigation progressed, not as potential gossip fodder.
“This Bill Shakey,” she concluded, “can explain the whole thing much better than I can.”
Renee and Joe exchanged glances.
“I like it,” the older gentleman said.
Renee bobbed a nod. “I suppose it would be all right to offer medical-related information at a blood drive.”
“Could you arrange a table for him and his literature?” Kate asked.
“We can do better than that.” Joe nodded. “We can offer you the opportunity to set his booth up any way you like.”
Renee unfolded her crossed legs and beamed. “We figured you’d want to join us this evening at the elementary-school gymnasium to help set up for the event. That’s the other reason we stopped by in person today.”
“Other than apologizing for being pigheaded,” Joe added.
“Pigheaded?” Renee’s face pruned. “I assume you speak for yourself, Mr. Tucker. My desire was always to benefit this community. Perhaps I went about it in a slightly misguided fashion, but—”
“Misguided!” The older man’s complexion darkened. “Is that what you call—”
“We’d be happy to help such a cooperative effort,” Paul interrupted. “What time should we be there?”
The blood-drive coordinators offered sheepish grins.
“How does six thirty sound?” Joe said.
“We’ll be there.”
“Count on us.”
Kate and Paul spoke in unison. Then everyone laughed. Renee rose daintily, as did Joe with a little effort and the help of his cane, and they headed toward the door, wearing smiles. Kate followed with Paul in her wake. Out in the balmy sunshine, she breathed in the scent of freshly blooming dogwood from the hillside behind the house. Renee minced her way toward her pink Oldsmobile in the driveway, and Joe clumped off in the direction of his battered pickup at the curb.
Paul bent and favored Kate with a kiss on the cheek. “I’m heading back to the office now. Guess we’ll need an early supper so we can work it off at the gym.” He winked.
“The gym? You make it sound like they’re going to have you doing reps with the weights.” Kate backhanded his arm, and he walked off laughing.
Kate went back inside and put her stained-glass material and tools away. A taste of the fresh air had her garden singing a sweet siren song to her. She spent a couple of hours thinking and praying while she tended her flower beds with the cordless handset near at hand. No call came in from Carla or any of the doctors she’d tried to contact.
Late in the day, Kate put her gardening implements away, then remembered to go out to the box and get the mail. Strolling back into the house, she sorted through the short stack. Would there be another bill for Paul from Regions Hospital?
There were a couple of regular bills and some junk mail. A funny postcard from Rebecca in New York brought a smile to her face. On the bottom of the stack was a plain white envelope with no return address. The postmark was from Chattanooga the previous day, and it was directed to her in plain block letters.
Arriving in the kitchen, she plopped the rest of the mail onto the
dining table and opened the odd envelope. It contained a single white sheet of paper with a few words typed in bold text:
Looking under rocks can be a dangerous occupation.
After all, curiosity killed the cat.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Our office takes things like this quite seriously, Mrs. Hanlon.” Deputy Skip Spencer held up the threatening note between thumb and forefinger as she, Paul, and the deputy stood in the parsonage living room. “I’m going to take this along to Sheriff Roberts right away.”
“Will you fingerprint it?” Paul asked. He had insisted upon calling the authorities as soon as Kate showed him the letter, and now he kept the weight of his arm around her shoulders.
Skip puckered his lips. “I expect we’ll take care of our forensic due diligence. The envelope will probably be pretty worthless. Lots of people would have handled that, but we’ll see if this guy got careless with the notepaper.” He slipped the letter into an evidence baggy.
“I don’t hold out a lot of hope for that.” Kate gripped her husband’s hand on her shoulder. “Whoever sent this went to a lot of trouble to make it anonymous.”
Skip cocked a brow at her. “You must’ve asked the wrong person some questions.”
“I gathered that much.” Kate released a quavery laugh.
Skip pulled a miniature notebook from his shirt pocket. “Care to list who you’ve talked to about medical-record identity theft?”
“Specifically about theft? I’ve only mentioned it to fellow victims. I hardly think Loretta or Lucy Mae are sending me hate mail.”
“Or me.” Paul lifted his free hand.
Kate caught her breath. “Well, there is one other person who knows we’re pursuing action on medical-record fraud.” She looked up into her husband’s puzzled face. “Bill Shakey.”
Paul broke in. “The guy from the Tennessee Citizens Privacy Association?”
She looked from one man to the other. “He’s an advocate to help people recover from all types of identity theft, but I suppose that might put him in a position to be in on it himself. I don’t necessarily think that he is.” She shook her head. “I liked him, and he seemed sincere, but the envelope is postmarked yesterday, and that’s when we went to see him.”
Skip nodded. “Well, that’s a lead anyway.” He scribbled in his book. “Anyone else?”
“You might want to check into an aide at Orchard Hill who is a suspected drug user and was recently fired....Well, actually he fired himself before they could do it. Another aide, Rita, was a witness to his quitting” She shared her observations and encounters with Stephen Hancock. “But he’s not the only one acting funny around there.”
She then explained to Skip about the odd behavior she’d witnessed from Margo Meyers and Nurse Pritchard at Orchard Hill during the crisis with Lucy Mae’s mother. “Even though I saw them working with a chart, it wasn’t fair to draw conclusions from any of my observations, which is why I didn’t mention these people when I came in to see you with Loretta the other day.”
Skip eyed her. “But you’ve been asking these folks a few questions?”
“One or two.” Kate shrugged. “Well, not Stephen. He’s the only one I didn’t see handling a chart. With the other two, it’s mostly just been chatting, but no mention of anything criminal.”
“Well, chances are one or more of them is a criminal,” Paul said. “And crooks get nervous easily. It would be best to let law enforcement handle any investigating from here on out.”
“I totally agree.” Kate’s words were heartfelt.
“Tell you what.” Skip tucked his notebook away. “I’ve got this new gadget I’ve been itching to try out. Let me get it from my car.” He half sprinted out the door.
Paul drew Kate over to the sofa, and they both sank down. His worried gaze found hers. “That Mr. Shakey is coming to the blood drive.”
“And I invited him. It seemed like a great idea at the time.”
Her husband squeezed her hand. “Maybe it still is.”
The deputy bounded back inside. “Here ya go, Mrs. Hanlon.” He held out a black, rectangular box a little smaller than her palm and not much thicker than his notebook.
“What is this?” Kate accepted the object from him. “It looks like a pager.”
“Sort of, but it’s more like a locator.” Skip grinned down at them and stuck his thumbs in his belt. “If you feel the least bit threatened, all you have to do is push the red button. It’s set to page my cell phone, and it’s got this little GPS chip in there that will tell me right where you are without you having to say a thing. How’s that for cool?”
“Very cool,” Paul affirmed with an answering grin.
Kate smiled. It was very nice to feel protected. Much better than the chill that sank its fangs into her the moment she read that note.
KATE AND PAUL were just getting ready to go out the door to help set up for the blood drive when the phone rang.
“I’ll get it.” Kate trotted to the phone and grinned when she saw the caller ID. “It’s not the doctor from Nome, Alaska,” she called to her husband. “But it’s the one from Northwest Hospital in Seattle, Washington.” She picked up the phone and answered.
“This is Dr. Nolan Bushnale,” a bass voice said. “Are you the party who wanted to speak to the surgeon who did Mrs. Kraemer’s surgery?”
Kate’s pulse sped up. Finally she might get somewhere. “That would be me. This is Kate Hanlon calling from Copper Mill, Tennessee. We’re a little town about an hour north of Chattanooga.”
“What can I do for you, Kate Hanlon from Copper Mill?”
“We have something of a situation going on in our area,” she told Dr. Bushnale. “A woman is gravely ill in the hospital due to a medication error that resulted from someone else’s medical record being mixed in with hers.”
“I would say that’s a serious problem.” The doctor’s tone deepened. “How did the records become conjoined, and why would that lead to me?”
“We’re not sure how someone else’s information got into the woman’s file, but we do know that the other individual had gall-bladder surgery and was likely using our Mrs. Kraemer’s medical identity.”
Silence deafened from the other end of the connection. Then came a deep huff. “What is your connection to this matter? Are you the ill woman’s relative or power of attorney or some sort of investigative official?”
“Believe me, I’m quite unofficial.” Kate leaned her back against the kitchen counter and glanced at Paul, who was hovering in the doorway. “However, the sheriff’s department here in Harrington County is starting to look into more than one case of suspected medical-records identity theft.”
“That’s a criminal matter.”
“A very upsetting one.” She sent her worried-looking husband a half smile. He didn’t smile back. “I was looking into a few things on behalf of the affected parties before any of us suspected criminal activity. Finding the Dr. Bushnale who did the gall-bladder surgery was a loose end, so I’m here on the phone with you now to see if I can tie it up and hand it over to the proper authorities.”
“You’re saying that I will likely be contacted by law enforcement from your area?”
The doctor didn’t sound too thrilled by the idea, and she didn’t blame him. These medical-records thieves were stealing his valuable time, along with causing other devastation by their actions. Of course, on the off chance that this man was in on the theft ring, he’d have reason to be nervous about the law. But she didn’t detect fear in his voice, just disgust and resignation.
“I’m afraid I must share your contact information with our sheriff’s office as soon as possible.”
“I guess that’s what a responsible person would have to do.” The man sighed. “Let me give you my cell-phone number. That way they can find me even away from the office.”
Kate took down the number. “Thank you so much, Dr. Bushnale.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You’ve be
en more than cooperative, Doctor. I’ll be sure to tell the sheriff that as well.”
They ended the call. Then Kate called the sheriff’s office and left a message on Sheriff Roberts’ voice mail with Dr. Bushnale’s contact information.
“We’re getting somewhere now.” She hooked her arm through Paul’s. “Time to go to the gym for our workout.” She laughed, but her husband didn’t.
“Do you have your emergency pager?” he asked.
She felt her pants pocket and found the lump. “Right here.” She scrunched up her nose. “It seems a little extreme to carry this thing when I’m going to be surrounded by friends from Copper Mill.”
Paul tapped the tip of her nose. “From now until the thieves are caught, Katie girl, you and the box go everywhere together.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The cavernous gymnasium echoed with busyness and laughter when Kate and Paul stepped inside onto the synthetic maple floorboards. Familiar figures like Floyd Jenkins, owner of Jenkins Nursery, and Bobby Evans, pastor of the Baptist church, carried and set up tables. Other townspeople bustled around helping American Red Cross staff tote equipment in from the van outside.
“Hey, you two,” Abby Pippins called as she swept past with a pair of padded stack chairs. “Jump in with both feet.”
Paul laughed. “This is for sure a whole town event...and starting to look fancy too.” He swept his arm around the space that was rapidly filling with furniture, equipment, and fixtures. The bleachers had been telescoped against the walls to make room for the event.
Colorful floor mats marked the spots where each table was to go. Large potted plants and small potted trees waited along the bleachers for placement around the blood-draw area.
Kate sniffed the air. “Floral freshener. Not a hint of sweaty gym socks.”
“Give Sam a hand with the blood-draw beds.” Joe Tucker clumped up to Paul, flanked by Sam Gorman. “We need to get those set up midfloor first. Then we can put together the privacy booths for donor screenin’.”
Off the Record Page 18
