The Milk Wagon Page 13

  Charlotte would not extend that bastard the same courtesy.

  * * *

  She was surprised when Ford called her out of the blue. He was in an absolute panic and told her it was best she didn’t know the details, then asked if she could meet at their old rendezvous point within the hour. The only thing he told her is that things were about to get hot again and he needed her to help him with something.

  She had a glimmer of hope that his call meant the fire between them could be rekindled, and when he referenced Paul B. Johnson State Park, it further escalated her expectations. Paul B. was where the two used to go for some discreet after-hours action, and she convinced herself he did not indiscriminately choose that spot. When Charlotte, fresh as a spring morning, drove down the snaky roads through the pines to their favorite campsite, however, she found his wife, of all people, waiting for her. Ford was nowhere to be seen.

  Vicky got out of the car and dropped two packages through the driver’s side window of Charlotte’s car. One was a bound stack of bills totaling twenty thousand dollars. The other was a locked briefcase.

  “The money is yours. The bag is Ford’s. Keep it locked and in a safe place until he calls on you again.” Vicky leaned her head, roots showing and all, into the window and added one additional instruction. “And stay away from my husband.”

  Charlotte was stunned. Not only did Ford betray her by not showing, but he sent Vicky in his place. Who did he think he was – and did he really think through whether Charlotte would even consider taking instructions from Vicky? If he did, he was wrong. Dead wrong. The first thing Charlotte did when she got back was jimmy the lock open.

  Initially, Charlotte didn’t know what she was looking at, but as she read the names of the financial institutions on the documents, it all came back to her. Inside were ledgers containing records, deposit slips, and contact numbers linked to banks that Charlotte used to call on – and if the current balances were anywhere close to what they used to be, they held millions. She looked in the mirror and gave it some thought. Had Ford personally come out there and asked her to hide it until he could stick his head up again, Charlotte might have obliged. She had done many favors for him over the years, both personal and professional, and she had been more than willing to do his bidding.

  But not this time.

  One thing she learned from Birdy’s ordeal – once the Feds had you in their grasp, they did not let up until they put you under the jail, and now that she had the ledgers, she hoped to expedite the process for dear old Ford. The smurf, on the other hand, might not be so easy, primarily because Kathryn had never met him, not even in passing, and she had no idea who he was. She hoped if she selectively dropped some facts to this FBI agent, though, there would be enough breadcrumbs for the feds to lock him up, too. She smiled. If both Ford and Fast Eddie were off the street, it would be smooth sailing ahead.

  It was time to set the table. She put her most serious face back on, fixed her hair, and for good measure, adjusted her boobs so they rode a little higher. You never know, she thought as she opened the door to the hallway.

  You just never know.

  Chapter 33

  “Fast Eddie, huh?” Kathryn asked. “His smurf?”

  “Yep.”

  Something wasn’t ringing right with the story, and before the break – for the first time that day – Kathryn got the impression Charlotte had veered into fictional territory. “So, you’re telling me you were not the one running money for Dr. Mayes? I thought we were being honest, Charlotte. You seem to know a lot more about this operation than one would expect from a mere sideline observer.”

  “The reason I know a lot about ‘this operation’ is due in part to the fact that he told me. Remember, I was sleeping with him, and despite his usual discretion with matters associated with business, he engaged in a lot of pillow talk.”

  “So, let’s talk about this ‘Fast Eddie’ fellow. Who is he? Do you know his last name?”

  “No idea. I don’t know if Eddie is even his real name. Probably not. Ford liked to put as many layers between him and his enterprise as possible, which is why I never laid eyes on him. That’s how Ford referred to him, though.”

  “Did he work just in Hattiesburg?”

  “No. All over the state, but mostly Jackson south.”

  “What makes you think he would be the one to do Dr. Mayes’s dirty work?”

  Charlotte sucked the air through her teeth and looked at Kathryn. This would be a good story to tell.

  “I know because one night at a hotel, Ford took a call at about three a.m. He thought I was asleep, but I heard everything, although I could only pick up bits and pieces coming through the receiver.”

  “And?”

  “He referred to the guy on the other line as ‘Eddie.’”

  “Okay.”

  “This Eddie fellow told Ford he was with the doctor who shorted him.”

  “Doctor who shorted him? Who? What does that mean?”

  “Don’t know either. Ford was very upset.” That was partially true. Charlotte never found out who the doctor was, but she knew exactly what was going on. The primary way Tom Chrestman grew his scam was to bring in more doctors to feed him with fraudulent prescriptions. Ford was his main point of contact for growing the pipeline, and the Doc expected a healthy cut from the revenue each doctor brought in – and he turned vicious if it was not delivered. The night she heard him on the phone, one of the doctors from a group out of Meridian had been holding out, and whenever Ford got the call, Fast Eddie already had this doctor in his car bound and gagged.

  “Really? What did Dr. Mayes say?”

  “He told him to take care of his hands.”

  “What?”

  “He said to make sure his operating days were over.”

  “Did he do it?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but Ford got a call about fifteen minutes later that put him in a good mood.” She left it at that. In fact, he did much more than break that surgeon’s hands – he cut off two fingers and shattered his dominant wrist. There were more stories, but it was neither the time nor the place to share them.

  “So you do know more than you told me at first. I really don’t want to play the ‘gotcha” game – as you describe it, but I really need you, right now, to come clean,” Kathryn said. “It’s time.”

  “Sure, but I think you’re going to be disappointed. I realize now that the son of a bitch had been setting me up all along. I was recruiting doctors all right, but apparently not for the reasons I had been told.”

  Charlotte had rehearsed this bit before and was prepared. She knew she would have to tell enough to make her story credible, but if she danced the dance just right, she wouldn’t have to spill all the beans. She told Agent Cooper that when she was first hired by Joe Birdsall, her job was just as she described it – to market compounding services to new physicians to try to get them to send legitimate prescriptions Birdy’s way so he could grow his business. She was then told to look specifically for doctors whose practices were faltering.

  “Why those particular doctors?” Kat asked.

  “According to Birdy – that’s what we called Joe – these doctors were more willing to try out compounding than traditional doctors. So I followed his orders.” Truth was, when Birdy realized he could make exponentially more money running a scam on the government, her role expanded – and doctors who weren’t making enough money to cover payroll, student loans, fund their entitled wives, and pay their exorbitant mortgages were more than willing to jump into the mire. The more doctors she enrolled, the more Birdy paid her.

  She explained she never dealt directly with any of the payments to the doctors – with one exception. Dr. Mayes mandated a personal cash delivery at his house – pursuant to specific directions. As she understood it, at the beginning, Tom Chrestman drove to Hattiesburg and delivered it to Fast E
ddie directly, but Dr. Mayes became paranoid, so he added Charlotte for another layer of separation, with the understanding was that she would never interact with Eddie personally. She then told Agent Cooper the cash was placed in a locked drop box built into the fence just inside Dr. Mayes’s personal property – accessible on the inside only by a key. Charlotte was generally the one who dropped it off. When she did, she would call or page a number to let Ford know it was delivered. What she didn’t tell Agent Cooper was that her call would actually signal the smurf to pick up the drop for deposit. In most cases.

  “Then,” Charlotte said, “it ended as quick as it started. Ford broke it off with me; he broke it off with Tom, and told us both to never contact him again. Just like that.”

  “How much money did you drop off for him?” Kathryn asked.

  “I never really counted it, and it varied every day, depending on how much Tom got in. I would guess a light day would be five thousand; a regular would be ten to fifteen thousand. Sometimes more.”

  “Didn’t you think that was a lot?”

  “Wasn’t my job to think.”

  “What about banks? Did you make any of those deposits?”

  “No.” A lie. She had personally made deposits at two banks – maybe three – when Fast Eddie wasn’t available.

  “How many drop-offs a week?”

  “Again, it depends,” Charlotte said. “Sometimes only one. Sometimes three or four.”

  Kathryn did the math and shook her head. “When did it stop?”

  “About the time word got around that federal agents were interviewing doctors.” That wasn’t the entire truth, either. She actually made a few drops for him later – in Gulfport, while they were finishing up the renovations on the house he bought. He had a similar drop installed in the fence on his new property for that exact purpose.

  “So after all you have done,” Charlotte asked, “all of your investigating and interviewing, and even after the raid last weekend, you have no evidence to charge him?”

  “Not enough to keep him in jail, no.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Charlotte said, “Ford was meticulous with his books. What about bank records? Deposit slips, ledgers, anything?” Of course Charlotte knew where the bank records were – safe and secure, thank you – but she still wanted to know what information the FBI had regarding any of those bank accounts, even if she was being a little sloppy by asking.

  Agent Cooper’s next move surprised her.

  Kathryn pulled out a copy paper box and set it on the desk. “These are some things I found that I thought may be worth a second look.”

  “Where’d you get this stuff?” Charlotte again kept a poker face, but she pulled her hands off the table. Her palms had started to sweat, and she didn’t want to leave a mark.

  “Some of it at the clinic, some of it at the house. Again, I haven’t had time to dig in too deep.”

  Charlotte pulled out a few files bound by a large rubber band and opened one up. “Why these?”

  “I don’t know. They were the only medical records at his house, so I figured we could look to see if he wrote any prescriptions for those patients and try to match them up.”

  Charlotte thumbed through them and set them aside. Nothing there; even if they were cross-referenced with transaction records, there would be no prescriptions documented. She found a Franklin day planner, but it had only a few entries, none of them suspicious. There were half a dozen VHS tapes and what appeared to be a stack of unpaid bills. All in all, she didn’t see much that sparked her interest, and she breathed a bit. She picked up a plastic box holding several bottles of prescription medications, and she glanced at the labels. No controlled substances; some stomach drugs – mainly proton pump inhibitors – and prescription ibuprofen. When she sat it back in the big box, she noticed an eelskin checkbook cover in the corner and held it up.

  “Oh, yeah,” Kathryn said, “I forgot about that. The one and only rogue bank record. Got that out of his desk at his home. I think it’s from a bank in Hattiesburg.”

  “Yep.” Charlotte opened up the register.

  “Not much there to put Dr. Mayes away on, is it? If memory serves me, there is twenty thousand dollars in that account. While I’ve never had anything close to that – ever – some would say it’s small change for a doctor with a thriving medical practice, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Charlotte felt relief come over her body and relaxed in her chair. “You are right. Some would say that – if this account was for Nathaniel Bradford Mayes, M.D.”

  “It is.”

  “No, Agent Cooper, it is not.” Charlotte slid the checkbook over to Kathryn.

  She studied one of the checks. “But the name says-”

  “The name says ‘Nate Mayes.’ This isn’t Ford’s account.”

  “Is his name not ‘Nate Mayes.’?”

  “I guess it could be if you shortened it, but it’s not. Ford has never, to my knowledge, gone by the name ‘Nate.’”

  “Well, whose is it, then?”

  “Nate,” Charlotte said, leaning back and crossing her arms, “is his son.”

  Chapter 34

  Fast Eddie parked on a cross street about ten houses down from Charlotte’s; far enough away that he wouldn’t be seen, but close enough to maintain a visual. He had ridden through the neighborhood twice, timing his intervals about fifteen minutes apart to see if he noticed any activity that could interfere with his plans. He didn’t expect her to be there, but he couldn’t take any chances, and he thought it best to do some additional surveillance before he made his move.

  He had watched the raid unfold on a local TV news station like everyone. It was he, of course, who had called Dr. Mayes at home that Friday night with the heads-up, and when a reporter leaked that the feds came up empty-handed, he knew the Doc had actually taken his advice and gotten rid of the evidence. He also knew that the Doc’s love for money would prompt him to secure the football – the briefcase containing the secret bank records – in good hands until he could access it again. It took Rachel informing him that a female had set up the wire transfer before he finally put the pieces together.

  He squeezed the lump of cash folded in his front pocket. If he played his cards right and used a modicum of self-control, he could stretch $5,000 out over a month, if not longer, but it was getting more and more difficult to keep his hands off the merchandise. One gram of Peruvian Flake cost him $100 – more if he wanted it on the weekend – but it was so worth it. It was unadulterated, pure, and took him to places no other blow ever did or ever could. No way he could go back to the cheap stuff he passed on to Rachel – cut with baking soda, laxatives and who knows what else. If he lost his smurfing money altogether, he may have to go bottom shelf or even worse, crack, which had only recently made it to the Mississippi streets. Or he could just stop. His employer had announced earlier in the year that they would soon be implementing a random drug testing policy for its employees. He didn’t know when or if his name would come up in that lottery, but if he did, his career was a goner, which meant he had to have a fall back. He hoped Charlotte would be sympathetic to his situation. If not, their first meeting would most certainly be her last.

  She lived in a new subdivision consisting mainly of young professionals. Most of them would have long been out of the house and at work by the time he made his move. Sure, there might be a few yuppie stay-at-home housewives, but he was willing to bet none of them would be active neighborhood watchers, unless they were powerwalking, and even then, they wouldn’t be paying much attention to anything but their pace, their distance and how their legs looked.

  He picked up a Sun Herald at the gas station on the way up to see what the newshounds were saying about the weekend’s activities. He saw they had finally moved away from sensationalism and were now delving into backgrounds. The reporter did a good job profiling Doc Mayes, and Fast Eddie w
ondered who he used as a source. There were pictures of the Doc as a kid, pictures from high school wearing a letterman’s jacket, and a more recent headshot from when the Doc served on the hospital board up at Forrest General. The story detailed how a young child from Brookhaven, Mississippi – the son of an alcoholic mother and a deadbeat dad – worked himself out of a life of squalor to graduating first in his class at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

  He did the crossword, the Jumble, the word find and looked to see what new movies had come out. Nothing he wanted to see. At five after eleven, he stepped out and started to stretch. He was wearing the newest jogging clothes and would have fit in just right with the rest of the exercise freaks who seemed to be taking over the city’s streets and sidewalks – assuming those overachievers had a pair of gloves and a gun strapped under their shirt. He made three passes around her block to try to get a feel for the best way to make his approach. Fortunately, her house backed into an undeveloped wooded area that bordered a new road on the other side where they were expanding the neighborhood to add another row of look alikes. At the end of his third loop, he took a detour down the construction road and cut through the woods. Five minutes later he was inside.

  It wasn’t his first time breaking and entering, and he went about his task methodically, like he had been trained. It was a Kwikset, basic and off the rack, and it took less than a minute to pick. Gloves on, no prints, nothing left behind. It was a fairly simple tract house layout. Front door opened into a den/seating area that connected to a kitchen in the back that overlooked a porch and the woods he just traipsed through. A hall that ran to the right of the kitchen led to what appeared to be four rooms and a storage closet – a converted office/bedroom, a bathroom, a guest bedroom and the master with its own small bath.

  He started with the den and went through every nook, every drawer, every possible cubby or shelf where she could have placed, stored, or tried to hide the football. If he could get the ledgers from Charlotte’s house, he could be gone and have his pockets full before she even realized he had trespassed.