Lee looked around and saw no one in the area. He lifted the garage door, and an alarm sounded. It was a repetitious beep that was not very loud. He walked into the unit and found that there were two large, four-drawer file cabinets. He grinned widely and began with the top drawer of the cabinet on the left. He found a series of tools suitable to the trade. Printing and engraving equipment, files containing exemplars of driver's licenses by state, and various credit cards. Impressive. In the second drawer was more of the same. In the third, he found what he was looking for. There was a file that contained names; none of them said Jerry Anders, and none of them contained any familiar name. He began to think that he had hit a dead end, but a sudden thought gave him hope. Maybe the names he saw on the file tabs were the new names, the newly minted names, rather than the real names of the people who came to him. He began to look through each file. About twenty files in, he found what he was looking for. There was a reference to Jerry Anders in the file. On the tab, the file said Frank Adams, Boise, Idaho. “I got you, you son of a bitch. Here I come, Anders,” Lee said aloud. He looked through the remainder of the drawers and saw that Snider had maintained very nice records of about two hundred different set-ups, dating back almost five years. The final drawer was shallow, and he quickly recognized that it had a false bottom. He pulled the tool he needed from his car and pried the false bottom upward until it gave. There he saw several tall stacks of hundreds. He picked them up and examined them. There was about $12,000. He nodded to himself and then said, “Nice of you to handle the costs of the investigation and some of Joey Winslow's medical expenses, Mr. Snider.”
The alarm had stopped, and no one had shown up at the unit. He kept the Frank Adams file, and grabbed about ten others, randomly selected. He affixed the two new padlocks and drove away. He had to wait for someone else to open the gate so that he could exit behind them without being noticed. While he waited, he looked through the file and saw several credit card copies, a copy of Frank's driver's license with a picture of one Jerry Anders on it. After about twenty minutes, he was able to follow another storage customer through the gate without attracting attention. He checked the tracking device readout and saw that Snider's Corvette was at home.
Lee stopped at his office for long enough to make a copy of the Anders file. He left the copy of the Anders file and the originals of all the other files at his office and then drove back to Burt Snider's house with the original Anders file. He was looking forward to this meeting, and he knew it would go better than the last.
Chapter 34
As the day changed color, with blue skies covered by pre-storm clouds, Lee parked a full block from the Snider house. He walked down the sidewalk until he saw that the Corvette was, as the tracking device had told him, parked safely in the driveway. He looked toward the house and saw that no one was looking back at him, either at the front door or at any of the draped windows.
Lee walked next to the car, pulled a cordless nail gun from his jacket pocket and fired two nails into the left front tire of the Corvette, just in case Snider decided a quick getaway was in order. He watched with satisfaction as the tire deflated, and then moved up the driveway to the front porch.
When Lee reached the front door, he knocked and yelled, “UPS delivery.”
The front door opened, and the obese man stepped back in surprise.
“May I come in?” Lee asked. Snider said nothing. Lee opened the door and said, “Thanks,” as he walked in.
“What the fuck do you want?” Snider said. “Get out of my house.”
“Okay, but you'll want to talk to me first.”
“I don't want to talk to you, you son of a bitch. Get out.”
Lee raised his palms and said, “I'm trying to be nice here. I have information that you will want to know.” Snider seethed silently, while Lee continued. “I told you before that I was only after Anders, at least at first. You remember that?” Silence. “You made a bad decision, so I thought I should give you a little more information. So here we are.”
“Get the fuck out of my house.”
“Mr. Snider, you're not listening well. Now, I need you to tell me where Mr. Anders is living.”
“I am not telling you shit.”
Lee smiled and pulled the file from inside his jacket. “Recognize this?”
In an instant, the man turned red and then white. Lee thought he would pass out. “Where did you get that?”
“I see that the file is familiar to you.” Snider grabbed at the file, and Lee jerked it away. “Now that is just rude,” he said. “I'll leave now if you would like.”
“What do you want?” Snider asked in a low voice, as if it was hard to push the words out.
“I am willing to sell you this file.”
“How much?”
“No money. All I need for it is the name of the city where Jerry Anders, or should I say Frank Adams, relocated. You give me that, I give you the file, and I walk out of here. You'll have to agree that it's a pretty good deal really. But,” Lee added dramatically, “if the file isn't that important to you, I understand, and I will be on my way.”
“I don't know where he went, man.”
“Bullshit.”
“I have no idea.”
“I'm disappointed, Mr. Snider. We were making such great strides, too.”
Snider sat down on the couch and put both hands over his mouth thoughtfully. He stole a glance at the cushion beside him. Lee raced toward him as he pulled a gun from underneath the adjacent cushion. Lee hit Snider in the face, and the crack was audible. Blood poured from the bridge of his nose, and he grabbed the wound with both hands, allowing Lee to pick up the gun. Snider was moving back and forth and groaning audibly as he held his nose.
“You're going to need something to clean this up right away or the blood will stain your furniture,” Lee said. “I don't care what they say on infomercials, it's difficult to get blood out of fabric.” He shook his head. “See you, Mr. Snider. You can't say I didn't give you a chance to come out of this okay.” Lee walked toward the door carrying the gun in one hand and the file in the other.
In nasal tones that sounded like he had suddenly acquired a bad cold, Snider said, “Okay, okay. I'll tell you, but you can't say where you got it, man. That has to be part of the deal, or I never get another case.”
“A case? Is that what you call making counterfeit docs for assholes like this? I'll be darned.” He watched Snider, who was still holding his nose with both hands as he looked at Lee expectantly. “Yeah, that is part of the deal. I won't say where I learned his whereabouts.”
“He went to Vegas. I can't guarantee he stayed there, but that was where he was going.”
Lee nodded and then threw the file down on the coffee table. “All yours,” he said, smiling. “See how easy that was?” His expression grew stern as he looked at Snider. “Two more things you should know. If you lied to me, or if you attempt to contact this asshole in any way—phone, fax, e-mail, carrier pigeon, semaphore, or a guy who gave you both great blow jobs in the joint—any contact at all, I will be back here to bust up the rest of your face and take your ass to the cops. You got that, Mr. Snider.” Snider nodded but said nothing. Lee walked out and down the driveway. He looked at the Corvette and yelled back toward the house, “Looks like you have a flat tire.”
* * *
“Frank Adams is a pretty common name,” the voice on the phone offered.
Lee responded as he drove. “I know Frank Adams is a common name, but, wait, there's more. I also have a fake Social Security number—probably used to be real but belongs to a dead guy, and a fake Idaho driver license. If the guy is using any of these numbers, we find him, right?”
“It's gonna take some time. We have to dig through the big employers, casinos, apartment owners, and the like. You got anything else?”
“Well, the guy used to be a degenerate gambler, and he had twenty grand when he disappeared. He's also likely to work in a low-profile job when the money is gone,
and as far as I know, he doesn't have any specific industry training. My guess is that he would look for something in construction, maintenance, gardening, or repair. Some gig that doesn't have too many people looking at his face because it has been on TV across the country.”
“Well, I guess that helps.”
“You guess? Come on, there has to be some work left for you guys to do.”
“All right, give me forty-eight hours.”
“I need it sooner. Get it done in twenty-four, and I'll pay double.” Lee smiled, feeling generous with Burt Snider's money.
“Okay, we're on it.”
* * *
It was the first time we walked up the stairs together. Lisa held my hand as we sat in the nautical living room and waited. Within two minutes, Pat enters from his door and holds out a hand to Lisa. He smiles and says, “Lisa, I can truthfully say that I have heard a lot about you, and all of it is good.”
“Thanks,” Lisa says, and shakes Pat's hand. “I'm here because Scott says that you have been helpful to him.”
“Thanks for squeezing us in this afternoon, Pat,” I offer.
Pat says, “I'm glad you came.” He reflects and then says, “Lisa, I understand that you have seen my colleague, Alexandra Sawyer.”
“Yes, a couple of times.”
“Was that helpful?” he asks.
“I think it was. She is a very compassionate woman.”
He smiles. “I think so, too. And Scott tells me that you have close friends that provide support as well?”
“I have a great support group. I have three friends who are very close to me. Two that I've been close to since college and one since junior high. They have been there when I needed to talk.” She looks over at me. “And Scott has helped me too. We've been holding each other up through all this.”
“That's good. That's what really counts.” He stops and takes in the distressed expressions we aren't hiding. “So something is happening right now we should discuss. Please, tell me.”
I draw a breath and then say, “The doctors are telling us that it is time to take Joey off the life support system. That he is not going to improve and that we need to let him go.” I am tearing up even before I finish this sentence. Lisa squeezes my hand with one of hers and pushes her own tears away with the other.
“I am so sorry,” Pat says. “That is awful. What did you tell the doctors?”
“We said no,” Lisa says. “We told him that we can't let them pull our baby off the machines that are keeping him alive.”
“And you've been talking about it and thinking about it since then,” Pat says, not as a question but as a statement of fact.
“Yes,” Lisa offers. “We have discussed almost nothing else.”
“Of course,” Pat says and waits for her to continue.
“We are fighting this so hard,” she says. “Fighting and praying and talking and crying.”
“And you still don't know what you should do.” Another statement.
“Yes. We are feeling trapped in an impossible situation.”
“Do you believe that it would be best for Joey if you let him go?” Pat asks softly.
The room goes quiet. Lisa and I look at each other and then I say, “Yes, that is part of what we believe. That maybe we are doing something wrong keeping him here if there is no hope. That maybe we need to let him move on.”
“Lisa, how about you?”
Lisa nods and then starts crying hard. She sobs hard until she can hardly get a breath. I take her in my arms and hold her. After a time, she manages to say, “I should never outlive my baby.”
“You are right, of course,” Pat replies. “No parent should have to outlive their child. It is the worst kind of situation.”
Lisa nods through tears and whispers, “We just don't know what to do. Can you help us?”
It occurs to me that Pat seldom shows his own emotion, but now he wears an expression that is part pain and part concern. He is quiet a moment and then says, “I cannot tell you what to do about this, but I can tell you a couple of things that may help. First of all, Joey loves you. He loves you now and forever and that will never be taken away from you.” He pauses and let's that settle as we both battle tears. “The other thing you need to know is that none of this is your fault. You didn't do this. A deranged guy did this to all of you.” He takes a breath and adds, “Parents often blame themselves for what others do to their children. They believe it was part of their job to prevent anything bad. Truth is we're just not that powerful. The world has bad things in it that are well beyond our control.” We listen intently as he adds, “The point of all this is that you have to forgive yourself for any fault you assign yourselves. You don't deserve to be blamed, and often people know that on an intellectual level, but emotionally they haven't reached that conclusion. So forgive yourself for fault you ascribe to yourselves. Forgive yourselves and love each other, Joey, and Katy. Whatever you decide to do, Joey will be with you forever.”
I say, “We told the doctors that we couldn't authorize taking him off life support. Ever since, we have been consumed by that decision.” I draw a deep breath, looking for words that get caught in my throat. And then I try again. “That decision isn't feeling right to us, and it is haunting us.”
“Lisa?” Pat asks. “Do you feel the same?”
She nods. “It doesn't feel like we're protecting our son anymore. It feels like we may be doing something bad for him because we can't stand to lose him.”
“It sounds like you may have found the right answer,” he says. “And you are thinking the right way—about what is best for your son. I know we all want to hold our family members as long as we can, and sometimes because we are unable to let go, we can hold on too long. I think your heart tells you what is right. As long as you remember that you are making the best decision you can based upon the best medical information available. You are doing what you feel is right for your son. Never let go of that.”
There are a few moments of silence while we digest this, and then Lisa says, “When they first put Joey into the coma, I had no doubt that he would be back within days or a couple of weeks. As the weeks went by, I held tight to that belief. Then it was months, and now it is longer than any medically induced coma the doctors had ever known to be successful. But it is only in the last few days that I have allowed myself to even contemplate the decision we are now asked to make. I've always known this was possible intellectually, but emotionally I just refused to believe it. Now we face a Sophie's choice of the worst kind, and it seems like there is no good decision. We are trying to avoid doing something that makes things worse now that we know that nothing can make things better.”
“You are great parents,” Pat said. “Joey is a lucky boy.”
In that nautical living room, we hold hands and say a prayer for Joey. Then we thank Pat for listening and helping us. When we walk from that room, we have decided to follow the advice of the doctors and let our son go. Our hearts hurt, and the world feels merciless, but we know what we must do.
* * *
Lee went to his office and spent a few hours on other assignments needing his attention. Late in the afternoon, he went home to pack a bag and pick up the files he got from Snider's self-storage garage. After he had assembled what he needed, he dialed the phone.
“Yes, Mr. Henry, what now?”
“Now we meet at the same coffee shop. This time you guys are buying, and I want a large coffee. How about two hours from now?”
“You have something good?” agent Sandoval asked.
“I think you'll like it, yeah.”
“Can you give me anything more?”
“All in good time. Although I understand your elevated anticipation levels. Tom Petty tells me that the waiting is the hardest part.”
“I'm glad you amuse yourself, Mr. Henry.”
“See you soon,” Lee said and hung up.
Chapter 35
August 31, 2016
We make an appointment
to see Dr. Mitchell and drive to the hospital. As soon as we arrive, we are escorted into his office and directed to his two visitor chairs. Five minutes later he appears at the door in his trademark blue operating gear, peeling the blue hat from his head.
He walks in extending a hand and says, “So sorry for the delay.” He walks around his desk to his chair and sits; then he waits for one of us to speak.
“We are going to follow your advice, Dr. Mitchell,” I say in a pained voice.
He looks at Lisa, and she nods. “I know how hard this is,” he replies. “I am so sorry it couldn't have been different.”
We nod but do not find any other words.
“Do you want to spend some time with him?”
We both nod. “I need a medical team assembled, so unless you tell me so, I will schedule the team for 7:00 p.m., about four hours from now, unless you tell me that does not work for you.”
We look at each other, and Lisa says, “Yes, okay.”
“We want to stay with him tonight, until the time comes,” I add.
“Of course,” Dr. Mitchell says. “That is just fine.”
We walk to Joey's room for what we now know will be our last visit. My heart is beating rapidly, and I am sure that my pulse and BP are off the charts. We hold hands and walk into the room, looking at the feeding tubes and breathing equipment swarming around our baby. It somehow looks different. The machines and equipment appear more massive, intrusive, and inhuman. I know that Joey would not want to live like this forever, even if that was possible. I walk over and take his hand. I kiss him on the forehead and tell him how much I love him, how proud I am to be his dad, and how he will be with me always. I talk to him about the times we spent together, the funny comments, the hikes, the ballgames, and the fun we had every day. I tell him how much I respect the way he cares about family and his friends. I tell him that I learned so much from him and that he helped make me a better person. I tell him that he did a great job on this earth bringing love and compassion to us and to everyone he knew. I tell him that I will miss him endlessly, and I will never forget him. Then I lean against the wall and cry while Lisa has her final visit with our brave boy.
[2017] The Whistleblower Onslaught Page 32