A Dose of Murder (26 page)

I went to the computer Trudy worked on and pressed a key. The screen popped on with today's appointments listed. I really had no idea what I'd find on the computer since I had no idea what to look for. I didn't want to mess up any of Trudy's files or have her find out that someone had tampered with them, so I decided to stick to investigating only hard copy. Files. Like Linda's. And Donnie's. Trudy obviously only worked on the computer.

I got up and walked down the hall headed for the area where I knew most of the active files would be found.

Linda was a neat freak, I decided. Although she looked to me like all she did was move files all day, her desk was immaculate, and not locked. I looked over the files in the
IN
basket. All were patients I'd seen today.

Nothing seemed odd.

So, I took the stack from the
OUT
tray. Half were from yesterday's patients. The bottom half from the morning, the top from the afternoon.

Bingo.

The YMCA basketball boys.

All six charts were held together with a rubber band. I opened Emanuel Louis's. Soft-tissue injury to the left leg while playing basketball. The next one was a broken wrist on Nicky Scarlucci, who I guessed was the white boy. I shut my eyes to remember if I'd seen a cast on his arm.

For several seconds I kept my eyes closed until I could picture him. Shorter than Emanuel and the others, Nicky had dark brown curly hair. He'd had on a black bubble-type jacket that teens wore nowadays and jeans, ten sizes too big, that dragged along the floor. But no cast. “Uh-huh.” Nope. In my mind's eye there was no cast on Nicky. I took one last mental look before opening my eyes.

A hand grabbed my shoulder.

Someone grabbed my shoulder! My eyes flew open. In a split second I swung around, my hand in a tight fist—which landed smack-dab in Jagger's left eye.

“Jesus Christ!” His hands flew up to his face. “What the fuck? Why are you always attacking me? You trying to blind me or something?”

“You scared the shit out of me! Why do you insist on scaring me?” I jumped up and ran to the fridge and got out a handful of ice, which I shoved into a paper towel. “Stick this on.”

“I called your name when I came in.”

“You did not.”

“Did too.” He held the paper towel of ice to his eye. “Christ.”

“I said I'm sorry, and you didn't call my name.”

“Maybe you were too engrossed in the files, but I swear I did and you mumbled something that sounded like ‘Uh-huh.'”

“Ack. I did.” I looked at his eye. A huge red mark circled the deep brown color, and I knew that within hours he'd have a whopper of a shiner.

I wondered if he'd admit that he'd gotten it from a girl.

“Okay. I'm sorry, but you have to stop sneaking up on me. Now, what the hell are you doing here—in that?”

For the first time I took a good look at him. And Mrs. Bakersfield thought Vance looked good in white. The lab coat Jagger wore made his olive complexion a bit darker—swarthier. His hair was combed a different way so it didn't touch the nape of his neck. I wondered if he'd cut it, but thought no. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and had a gold tiny loop earring in his left ear. These disguises were too much. If I saw him in the hallway, I wouldn't have recognized him.

Yet, I would have drooled.

He ignored my question about his lab coat and asked, “What'd you find in the files that you were so preoccupied with?”

“Oh. You are going to be so proud of me.” My face heated to the boiling point. Why did I say such a stupid thing?

“I'm listening.”

I told him about the files in Donnie's office and my theory about Tina.

He ran a hand through his hair and nodded.

From Jagger that compliment was like getting a gold star on your kindergarten drawing.

“More than likely they misclassified their employees' injuries to make bogus Workers' Comp claims,” I said.

“I guessed that.”

My chest puffed out like a prize-wining turkey's. “More good news. I found the files on the YMCA boys. They have injuries listed that I didn't see any evidence of. Even if I didn't notice their injuries though, they weren't here but a few minutes, so I know they weren't seen by the doctors.”

“Who handed them the bags with the shoes in them?” He leaned over my shoulder.

I inhaled “scent of man.”

“Sherlock? Earth to Sherlock?” He lifted the top file I'd been looking at.

“Hmm?”

“Okay. I believe you that you don't use, but have you ever had your attention span checked out? It's shorter than a toothpick.”

Suddenly I visualized him playing with that dumb toothpick in his mouth. Between his full lips. Touching. Tapping. Tasting. Oh . . . my . . . God.

I felt my chin being lifted and found myself looking directly into his eyes. And this was supposed to help me concentrate? His finger on my chin? Puleez. How could I, with fire burning my skin?

Professional
, I screamed inside my head.
You are a professional, Pauline Sokol!
“What did you ask me?”

“Forget the attention-span thing. We only have thirty minutes left. The shoes?” He removed his finger.

Yikes.

I couldn't believe that we'd wasted so much time—or that my thoughts had strayed to his finger. “Oh, yeah. The shoes. I never saw who gave them to the boys. The first time I noticed the bags was when the boys walked out, and they opened them in the lobby while waiting for the elevator.”

He paused a minute. Maybe he had figured out something important about the case.

He looked at me and said, “Let me get this straight. Did you get on an elevator with six giants and one short Polack, when you won't ride in an elevator with me anymore?”

Shoot. I didn't want him to know that I hadn't, so I gave him a dose of his own medicine and ignored his question. “Don't mess up the files. Linda is very anal.”

He ignored me and looked through each chart.

“What I don't understand is, how do they get money out of the insurance companies?”

He kept flipping through papers as he said, “The shoes are used to get the kids to give them their insurance card info—and to keep their mouths shut. The office bills the insurance company for visits, X-rays, casts. You name it.”

“Nicky's chart said that he had a broken bone, but when you snuck up on me I was trying to picture a cast on his arm, and I couldn't.”

“I'll forget the sneaking-up part. Which, in fact, I didn't do. As far as the no-cast part, the fake break.”

“Excuse me?”

“A con artist will take advantage of an old break, an existing injury to make a claim. I'll bet Nicky had a break not long ago.”

“And they used his old X-rays.”

Jagger smiled. Nice. “Atta girl, Sherlock.”

“I'm learning from the best.” Now I was psyched for the rest of the day.

Jagger held open the files on each kid and stared at them a few seconds, adjusting his glasses each time.

“Something wrong with your glasses?”

He stopped and looked at me. “No, Sherlock.”

“Oh, it's just that you keep adjusting—” He leaned closer to one of the files whose writing was a bit smudged. “Camera!” I shouted.

“Keep it down!”

“Oh, sorry. Right,” I whispered.

Damn. I hadn't taken pictures of the files in Donnie's office. I wasn't about to share that with Jagger. I'd let him assume I had and sneak back in there later.

He finally set the files back exactly in place. And here I'd warned him not to mess things up. Duh. The guy was a professional, and I'm guessing never left a trace of himself anywhere.

He was like a current of air.

First he's not here. Then he's here—without any fanfare.

And usually scaring the bejeevers out of me.

For a second I thought his disguising himself could be construed as comical, but now, looking at “Doctor” Jagger, I knew he'd found a way to get himself into places I never would be able to go. He was a master at his job.

And anything but comical.

He looked at the clock on Linda's desk. “We need to get out of here.”

“Yeah. I am a bit hungry. Good thing I've got a few minutes to run to the cafeteria.” I blew out a breath and went to the employee exit. “Damn, stuck again. We can't get out.”

Jagger merely looked at me.

The last I saw of Jagger was him getting on the elevator and starting to tell me he was going to see Lieutenant Shatley, and that I should go back and take pictures of Donnie's files. Damn him. Then the door shut and I hurried up the stairs. Sure, he'd more than likely bring up that I was chicken to ride with him, which was 99.9 percent true, but I also had to hurry to get lunch and think about how the heck he got us out of the stuck office.

I remembered going into the waiting room where the employee door was and then Jagger opening it—from the other side! Somehow he'd gotten out of the office and let me out. I shook my head as I grabbed a ham and cheese on a croissant. Forget the calories in the buttery roll. I needed something after my brush with fear caused by Jagger.

I looked at the dessert section. Nothing interesting. I asked the woman behind the counter, “Do you have anything in chocolate?”

“Like what? Cake? Cookie?”

“Anything. Anything chocolate.” When she went into the back and came out with a brownie, I wanted to leap over the counter and hug the darling. Instead, I thanked her profusely, despite her look of confusion, and hurried to pay. I didn't have time to sit and eat, so I stuck the brownie in my pocket—thank goodness it had plastic wrap on it—opened the sandwich and ate as I walked down the stairs. Then I opened the chocolate brownie and salivated.

When I hurried across the waiting room, already full of patients, Trudy looked up from her desk. “What's the matter, Pauline?”

“Watter?” I said with a mouthful of brownie.

“Matter,” she clarified.

I swallowed and walked behind the desk. “I'm fine. Nothing the matter. No problems for me.” Yikes. The nervous rambling was back.

The phone rang, thank goodness, and Trudy turned to answer it. I took the opportunity to get the heck out of Dodge and away from her interrogating. Okay, to be fair to Trudy, she was only asking out of concern and it was weird that I'd been eating my lunch on the run.

I rushed into the lounge to rinse out my mouth before I smiled at a patient only to discover I had a black brownie-covered tooth. When I bent over the sink, I felt someone come up from behind. I wiped my mouth with a paper towel and thought I'd kill Jagger if it was him again.

I turned around and jumped. “Oh!”

Linda stood inches away.

Oh no! Did she discover her charts had been tampered with? “Hey, how's it going?”

“It's going fine with me, Pauline, but I'm wondering about you.”

“Me? I'm . . . peachy.”

“Then why aren't you out there working? You're the only nurse here today. Remember? The patients aren't going to show themselves into the examining rooms.”

Damn. “I know. It's just . . . sorry.”

Her look, one that reminded me of my mother hollering at us kids, softened. “No. I'm the one who is sorry. I'll bet you're just flustered over Eddy.”

I almost said why would I be, but quickly realized what she meant and decided to use it to my benefit. “Eddy. Poor Eddy. We went to school together. I can't get him out of my mind.”

She touched my arm. I noticed a beautiful ruby ring on her finger. The doctors must pay her pretty well, I thought, since she was a single parent and sole supporter of her family. Then again, I wasn't being fair. Maybe she had a boyfriend and he'd given it to her.

Or Linda did more than just move files around.

One thing I noticed since becoming a medical-insurance-fraud investigator was that my imagination had taken on a life of its own. Problem was, I had a hard time deciding what was fact and what was my mind going out of whack.

I threw my paper towel toward the trash. It hit the floor. I bent, then looked at her. “Always bend those knees.”

She glared at me.

“Bad knees are a bummer. Ever have trouble with yours?” The file in Donnie's desk was for a knee injury on Linda.

“My knees are fine.”

“Have they always been?”

“Yes, Pauline. Why the sudden interest in my knees?”

“I . . . er . . . I thought Eddy had said you were out on Workers' Comp with a knee injury.”
Forgive me, Eddy, but I had to use you since you are no longer around to corroborate my lies
.

She shook her head. “Must have been someone else he was talking about.”

That meant Donnie and Tina filed claims on Linda—without her knowledge. I whispered, “Yes!”

“You're acting odd, Pauline.”

Oops. No comeback for that, so I said, “Good. Good knees. Good for you. Always bend. Helps the back too. Excuse me, Linda.”

She moved aside as if she couldn't wait until I left. As well she should with my behavior, so I bustled off to the waiting room. I peeked over my shoulder to see her standing there, arms folded over her chest—watching.

Again, reminded me of Mom.

The rest of the afternoon was a blur. Being by myself I had to concentrate on nursing and not really do a darn thing about fraud investigating. Toward the end of the day a guy came limping in dressed in a black suit, sporting a long beard and dark glasses. He had a Seeing Eye dog with him.

I stared at him for a few seconds, then mentally slapped myself upside the head.

Jagger!

I held his chart, which said Mr. Mario Pinellas, (yeah, right) in my hand and leaned over. “Gotcha this time, Jagger.”

The dog growled.

The man leaned his head toward my voice and said, “
Excusa
?”