Chapter 30

"This is all after just a couple of days of work." Harry told them. "Nowhere near a deep dive. I'll let Mary Ann give you her take, and then tell you what's up on my end."

Mary Ann opened a folder and took out two pages, handed them to Jessica. Jessica looked at them, handed one to Alex.

Clonazepam, olanzapine, seroquel, quetiapine fumarate, haloperidol lactate, quetiapine fumarate, seroquel, fentanyl... is everything a 'quil' or an 'ate'? Or 'ine'? There's a couple dozen of whatever they are.

"I could ask if you're serious." Jessica said. "But I saw enough. What were they using fentanyl for? An anesthetic would be the only possible use, or serious pain. That stuff's dangerous."

"No kidding." Mary Jane said. "I don't know if I've found all the dates and dosages. In fact the amounts usually aren't there at all. And the logs are all handwritten. Badly."

"I noticed that."

"And I haven't even started to get a coherent timeline. How much of what and when and how often. But from the looks of it, Alex had a dozen or more drugs in him at any time. And the psychopharmaceuticals are only part of it. Aside from the effect they have on the brain, these other drugs, antifungal, antinausea, can interact in unpredictable ways. And the fact that Alex was apparently not diagnosed, at least by a competent doctor, as being psychotic, bipolar, schizhophrenic... this doctor had to be nuts, forgive my inelegant language."

"Where does that leave us?"

"Let's hear from Harry," Mary Ann said, "and they you may have a better idea."

Harry handed them each a small sheaf of papers in a transparent report cover. Alex looked at his.

Arkansas Continued Care Hospital. That's where I was, didn't know. Or care.

"This may prove to be a tough nut to crack." Harry said. "First off, ACCH is a non-profit. Non-profits are damned hard to get the goods on. And most of them have plenty of goods to be gotten. Which is why so many hospitals have gone nonprofit in recent years."

"I'm guessing," Alex said, "that nonprofit is a technical term. More like a redirection of profit, to the individuals involved. No taxes, more for them if they can hide it."

"Exactly." Harry said. "You hear about the big ones, former presidents, even people who wanted to be president but didn't make it, they start nonprofits. Food and medicine and stuff for poor people in third world countries. Huge donations from people wanting to use their connections. Hundreds of millions, billions even. And very little ever gets used to help the unfortunates. It buys Gulfstream jets at fifty million a copy, mansions all over the world, and the nonprofiteers live a life like legitimately rich people. Hobnobbing with showbiz people and billionaires. And of course a a lot gets siphoned off to family and friends."

"So the little players do the same." Alex said. "Just on a smaller scale."

"Sure, but it's plenty big to them. From where most of them started. Guy working in a small-town bank or insurance company, whatever, wants more. What he sees on TV. Unless your parents are billionaires, only way you're gonna do it is climb the ladder as far as you can as fast as you can. Someone gets in your way, push the off. Make deals where you can."

"As bad as that? Maybe I don't want my memory back."

"Some might agree with you." Harry said. "Me being one. But we play the hand we're dealt. And so here we are.

"In any case, here's the picture we have so far. I wish I'd taken this dive earlier, but it was only after I saw your case I knew something was bad wrong.

"Flip over to page, seven I believe. Yeah."

Map of the country. Whole country, Alaska and Hawaii. The Virgin Islands?

"Community Hospital Corporation." Harry said. "Plano Texas. You can see the concentration in the south, southeast, but they're all over. Some of the hospitals they own, others they have management contracts with. Others are consulting business. Maximizing revenue turns up a lot. Supplies purchasing. All the ways the money flows."

"Laundering?"

"Pretty much. But all nominally legal. And hard to prove, if anyone bothers to investigate. And the IRS is about the only one that can. I suppose the Justice Department could get in on it, maybe for Medicare fraud or something similar. And they generally only go after for-profits for that."

"So they go nonprofit."

"Something I read once," Harry said, "guy talking about sharks. He said in a feeding frenzy, sharks completely lose control of what little mind they have. Sensory overload. They'll eat anything that comes within range, including other sharks. Even parts of their own body that was ripped off by another shark."

"Sharks don't have much of a mind, do they?" Alex said. "What excuse to people have?"

"In my experience," Harry said, "most people like that don't have enough of a conscience to think they need an excuse. I'm talking about the main operators. At the CEO level anyway, and the investors. The lower ones, when they know they're doing something wrong, rationalize. People, leaving aside the derelicts and parasites, fear losing their livelihood more than almost anything. And they will lose it if they buck the system. James, the doctors and nurses he works with, did the right thing, knowing what they would lose. Others go along, usually hoping it won't get worse. It always does."

James?

"Dr. McFarland." Jessica said in response to Alex's questioning look.

Oh. Guess they're friends.

"Right." Harry said. "James and I go way back, we grew up together. At Cherry Valley. He went into medicine, I became a cop. I guess we're both wondering about now, if we made the right choice."

"Think you'll find the answer?" Alex asked.

"Probably not in this lifetime. Both of us thought we would be helping our fellow man. Me protecting him, and James healing him. But we were kids then. Those ideas don't survive our maturing as people. Good or bad, I can't say. Some of both I guess."

"Where does that leave us?" Jessica asked.