Prime Time (15 page)
I
When I reach his room, Franklin’s sitting up in bed, propped up by pillows. His room is filled with beribboned vases of fragrant lavender and white flowers. And at least his IV thing is out. But I can’t see his face because he’s—reading the newspaper.
“Can you believe it?” I wail, throwing myself into the bedside chair. I yank off my coat and unwind my long plaid muffler. “How, how, how did this happen? How did the paper get this story?”
“Yeah, this is not the best outcome,” Franklin admits. “I really hoped we’d break the whistle-blower story for sweeps, but while you’ve been moping and worrying, I’ve been—”
“Hoped? We’d break the—?” Then something in Franklin’s face stops me. “Franklin Brooks Parrish,” I say slowly. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“Quite often, as a matter of fact,” Franklin retorts. “And if you’d stop planning your professional demise and start listening to me, you might want to hear about it.”
“Spill it,” I demand. “Save my life.”
“All right, quickly.” Franklin ticks off the points on his fingers. “First, everything in the paper is from the lawsuit’s court file. And second, since the story’s written by the
Herald’s
courthouse reporter, I figure she came across it on her routine daily check of new cases.”
“Right,” I acquiesce. “We knew the case was in the court clerk’s office, but sealed. So the
Herald
reporter must have been able to open it. But how…”
“Easy,” Franklin says. “They unseal the files when the feds decide to get involved. Since I was laid up here in Ben Caseyland, and you were sneaking into funerals, neither of us was at the courthouse when the case file was opened. The
Herald
was.”
“Yeah, and they got the story,” I whine.
“True,” Franklin agrees. “And that’s indeed the bad news. The good news is that clearly there’s something more going on. The
Herald
has the story about the whistle-blower suit, but you didn’t hear about any newspaper reporters getting beaten up, did you? We must be on to something bigger.”
It’s my turn to smile, shaking my head in admiration. “Franklin, you’re truly the only person on the planet who could turn assault and battery into a positive experience.”
“What’s more,” Franklin continues, holding up the paper, “there’s nothing in here about Brad, or Mack Briggs or any of the
Miranda
owners. Or about any refinancing spam. That means there’s another story—not pharmaceutical price fixing—that pulls all those things together.”
“So…” I say. I’m exhausted and I wish my brain was working better.
“And what’s more—” Franklin pauses, dramatically taking a sip from the bendable straw in his water cup, and then carefully replacing the cup on his nightstand “—our database search.”
“Oh yeah,” I say, leaning forward in my chair. “Is it—?”
“It’s finished. And it’s huge,” Franklin says, looking more animated than I’ve seen him in a while. “Those executives own tons of stuff together. Boats, property, racehorses, office buildings, apartments, shopping malls. Seems like they’re on a big-time international shopping spree. There’s big bucks out there, coming from somewhere.”
I’m skeptical. “How about from their salaries? Plus, wouldn’t it be simple for the feds or the tax people to find? Track down if they’re scamming somehow?”
Franklin waves a hand to accept the possibility. “Maybe. But the co-ownership’s not instantly obvious. You’d have to specifically look for it. And on the other hand, maybe the feds do know, who’s to say. We can’t find out how much these guys are reporting on their taxes.”
He smoothes down his blankets. “But here’s the key question. All that money? I checked their pay info in the annual reports, and I don’t see how they could possibly afford all this stuff.”
I look behind me to make sure no one is coming, then scoot my chair closer to his bedside. “Listen, Franklin,” I begin earnestly, “this is all about the spam. I’m sure of it. I was thinking—”
“Can you tell me later?” Franklin interrupts. He looks at the plastic clock next to his bed. “We’ve got to hurry or you’re going to be late.”
“Late for what?” I ask.
Franklin smiles. “I’d be patting myself on the back if my arm didn’t hurt so much. Charlotte, my girl, put your coat and that extravagant scarf right back on. Got a notebook and a pen? You’re going on an interview.”
I run my finger down the list of apartment residents to find the buzzer marked Crofts. I’ve got to give Franklin credit. Tracking down whistle-blower Caroline Crofts to the new Ritz condos on Avery Street, and even more, convincing her to talk to me, was nice work from a hospital bed. I push the button for P32.
The door’s locking mechanism softly clicks me in, and I enter the lobby, floor-to-ceiling art deco. Enormously high mahogany walls, embossed copper tiles glowing in the soft lighting. Elegant black-and-white scroll-worked elevator doors open into a mirror-paneled compartment and glide me upstairs.
I look around, impressed, wondering who could afford a place like this. And when the elevator stops, I see
P
means
penthouse.
Huge windows, glistening in the morning sun, surround the landing and offer maybe the most glorious view of the Public Garden and Boston Common I’ve ever seen. I hear the door of number 32 opening, so I put on my best reporter face and turn to meet Caroline Crofts.
But it’s not Caroline at the door. I’d pictured a nerdy accountant stereotype, overpermed hair, frumpy glasses. One of those skirts with an elastic waistband and scuffed, flat-soled Mary Janes. Pencil on a cord around her neck.
“Miss McNally?” Not-Caroline says. “I’m Caro Crofts,” she adds with a smile. “Come on in.”
I can’t take my eyes off her. She’s twenty-five or so, with choppy fuchsia hair, about a thousand earrings and essentially black lipstick. She’s wearing ultrapetite ripped jeans and a minuscule T-shirt that says Boys are Stupid. Throw Rocks at Them. I did get the glasses right—but hers are black with cat’s-eye corners, and they’re dotted with rhinestones.
“Thanks,” I answer, following her into the apartment. “You spoke to my colleague Franklin Parrish on the phone—”
“Sure, gotcha, have a seat.” Caroline gestures toward a gorgeous wing chair, which I recognize has the signature Napoleon bees of Scalamandré silk. I’m almost even afraid to sit down on it, until I see Caroline curl up on my chair’s twin, tucking her clunky Steve Maddens under her.
“Uh, thanks.” This isn’t computing. Maybe she doesn’t live here. Maybe it’s her lawyer’s apartment, and he’s loaned it to her for the interview. Good theory, except her name was on the buzzer.
“Beautiful place,” I begin. “Incredible.”
“Yup.” She waves a hand, taking in the entire room. “It sure is the real thing. That chair, and this one,” she continues, pointing to mine and hers, “were in the Orsay Museum, until Dads fell in love with them. All this stuff, antique furniture, clocks, art—all stuff Dads and Mom collected. The wallpaper is from the eighteenth century. They say.”
“And now your parents are—?” I pause, wondering.
“Three months in Kenya. So I told them I’d house-sit. Nice, huh? I miss my little place in the South End, but I guess I can handle it.”
“Ah,” I say. This is finally making some sense. “So anyway, Ms. Crofts, we read about you in the paper, of
course. And as I’m sure my producer, Franklin, explained, we wondered—”
“I’ll tell you all about it, short version,” Caroline says, “and you can call me Caro.”
I nod, and gesture for her to go on.
“Dads made all of us kids get jobs, every summer. Didn’t matter what we did, we just had to work. Value of a dollar and all. So a couple of summers, I worked at Aztratech. Making copies, stamping papers, folding and stuffing envelopes. And I loved it.”
She stops and smiles. “I guess you’re thinking—she doesn’t look like the secretary type. Yeah, well, I guess not. But no one out there seemed to care how I looked, as long as I got my stuff done. And I did.”
“Anyway, I kept working there summers, and after I got my degree in computer technology, it made sense I’d go back there for a real job. So I set up Web sites and e-mail, as well as the billing systems. I had total access to the computers. And everything was fine. Until…”
Caro pauses, looking up at the ceiling. I look up, too, and notice it’s completely painted with clouds and cherubs, and edged with rococo gilt carvings. Just like home.
“Until,” Caro continues, “I began to notice some of the paperwork, bills and invoices just didn’t reconcile. It was clear Aztratech was sending bogus invoices to a number of pharmacies, and those fake bills showed charges of far more than what the drugs really cost. Then, I found there were two sets of books. One that had the real price of the medicines—that was kept in a separate computer, hidden in another part of the office. After I finally accessed the secret system, I began to realize the charges entered in the main computer were for much more. And I know
those prices were what the pharmacies were billing the government.”
I think I get this. I’m in deep, deep mourning for our story. I hate the newspaper. “So you discovered the pharmacies were getting reimbursed by Medicare…” I begin.
“Far more than they actually paid for the stuff,” Caro finishes. “And that’s illegal. That’s orchestrated, deliberate fraud. And so—” she looks up at me “—I told.”
It took Caro almost an hour to finish her story: how her father helped her contact a lawyer, how the lawyer had explained the whistle-blower laws, how Caro would have to testify for the government against her employer. She told me how they’d waited for the U.S. Attorney’s office to look over the files she’d downloaded, the hours of financial questions and explanations that finally led to the federal “false claims” case against Aztratech.
“So, let me ask you,” I finally say slowly. “Who was behind all this, do you know? Whose idea?”
Caro laughs bitterly. “Who’s behind it at Aztratech? That Bible-spouting weasel of a Wes Rasmussen, no doubt in my mind.”
I tuck that away for later, but there’s another question I have to ask.
“Do you know a Brad Foreman?”
“Yeah, I know—knew—Brad,” she says quietly. “Why do you ask?”
“I promise I’ll tell you everything,” I say, leaning toward her. “But just tell me first, what do you know about him?”
Caro uncurls her legs. “When I first had an idea that the—evildoers—” she smiles briefly “—were at work, I had to do some financial digging. I had to get a look at the
budget records. That was Brad’s department. And I thought I’d have to sneak, you know, somehow.”
“Yes, so…”
“So,” Caro continues, “when I got to his office, and kinda casually asked about record keeping, I could tell he was curious. I remember he closed the door, and asked me some pretty specific questions. Like he knew.”
“Interesting,” I say. “And so—”
“But here’s the thing,” she goes on. “Brad was actually working to unravel something else. Not false pricing. I tried to get him to tell me what it was, but he wouldn’t.”
“Any idea what it might have been?”
“Nope.” She shakes her head. “And now, he’s dead.”
In the silence, something pops into my mind. “Did he ever talk to you about refinancing his house?”
Caro runs a hand through her spiky hair and looks at me warily. “How would you know that?” she asks.
Do I tell her? I quickly try to size her up. Caro has got to be one of the good guys, right? She’s sacrificed her job to rat out her employers, after all.
“Okay,” I say, hoping I won’t regret it. “Let me fill you in.” And then I open my purse, pull out a stack of papers and give one sheet to Caro. “What does this look like to you?”
She looks at the paper, and back at me. “Um, Bible verse, I guess,” she says, shrugging. “Is there more than that?”
I hand her a second page. “How about this?”
She takes a quick glance. “Bible verse again,” she says. “Some cyber-Sunday-school assignment?”
“Here’s what I think,” I answer slowly. “I think these are not really spams. I think they’re instructions. Instructions disguised as Bible verses. Instructions disguised as spam. In
structions that would easily pass for spam, and would be deleted, unless you knew exactly what you were looking for.”
“You mean—sent out like spam, so the sender could be pretty anonymous, but actually targeted to those in the know,” Caro says, nodding. “Maybe those who know to look for the misspellings.” She considers for a moment. “Computerwise, that’s definitely doable. But—instructions about what?”
“Yeah, that was a hard one.” I sigh. “But then I started thinking about all the companies in the files. Brad seemed to be really hot on them, sent them to me and to Mack Briggs, who, remember, was a former SEC chairman. So I wondered, what about some stock thing?”
Caro’s interested. “Like?”
“Like insider-trading instructions.” There, I’ve said it. “Look at these,” I say, spreading a few e-mails on the floor between us. “See how some say ‘a good time to buy,’ and some say ‘a good time to sell’?”
“Yow.” Caro looks at the papers and then back at me. “I see what you mean. ‘A good time to sell’ could mean…” She shrugs. “A good time to sell the stock.”
“That’s what I figured, too,” I agree. “And what if the chapters refer to companies somehow, like a code, and the verses are the stock prices? Like, here, ‘Numbers Chapter One’ means company number one, on some list or something, and then the verses indicate the stock prices. When the ‘number one’ stock hits that price, that’s when you’re supposed to buy or sell.”
“So on this one, it says, ‘a good time to buy.’” Caro’s sitting on the floor now, examining the papers. “And Numbers 1, Verse 56 to 57, means buy company number one, if the price is fifty-six or fifty-seven dollars.”