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"Gil says four seventy five is good," Laura said. "I'd say so too," Alex said. "That was easy enough." "OK, I'll get it started. What's the payment arrangement?" "If you can recommend a bank, we've got an easy deal for them." Jessica said. "We've got enough cash in the bank to easily cover it, and other property worth as much, already paid for. But we'd prefer not to advertise our resources, so a fairly conventional mortgage would be better for appearances. We can put as much down as they need to be comfortable." "OK, I'll get things going. The survey and title work will take a few days, but it should go pretty quick. First Commercial Bank is a good one, I can connect you with someone there and you can see if it looks good. Want me to set up a meeting?" "Yeah, that'd be good." replied Jessica. "OK, I'll let you know when papers need signing and funds transfers are needed. I'll let Gil know."
"Let's take these cards to Harry," Jessica said, "and get some lunch if you're ready." "Sounds good to me." "Here you go," Jessica said, handing the box of business cards to Harry. "Thanks. I'll give these to everybody I see. Should get you some exposure." "Anything new? I know it's only been a couple of days." "I put out some more feelers after our meeting. This thing seems to have done a lot of damage, there should be some signs of it out there. Finding them is the trick. "Each victim of something like this, a lot of times is isolated. No one except their family and friends know about it. Little groups, the ones in one don't know about the others, people going through the same thing. We need to connect them. I believe this website will help. How's it going so far?" "Nothing much," Alex replied, "but it takes a while. Something like this, a small number of victims, it could be quite a while." "A lot of the victims aren't local, that's another problem." Harry said. "Look at this." He handed them a paper. Alex and Jessica scanned it. "Quite a few from Missouri, couple from Tennessee. Mississippi. "That's an incomplete list I'm sure." Harry said. "From obituaries, I should have an official list soon. And you got them like Karen's brother, he was dying when they discharged him, he died at NEA. We'll have to run those down." "Four years, over a hundred deaths," said Jessica. "And the median age is... it looks on the low side." "Sixty-eight." replied Harry. "Way low. But there was the Covid thing. Everything could be blamed on that, and was. And anyway, people in hospitals are sick. Or supposed to be. People just take the doctors' word for it. "Probably the only thing we can do with it is use it in a case that's already strong. Every bit of information that gets made public, in a Jonesboro courtroom with the news media there - for whatever that's worth - the more damage we can do. "And we want to shut them down, that's the primary objective. Are we together on that?" I'm good with it. Like to see somebody in prison, but stop'em from killing. "We're good," Jessica said. "I'm sure the others are as well." "They're not paying me," Harry said, "so I'm not asking. But I imagine they are. Whether anyone gets paid, guess it depends on who's left to pay. Insurance company probably." "What do we need, bottom line," Alex asked, "to break them?" "I'm still trying to construct a strategy," Harry replied. "The way I'm thinking - and this is going to take some doing - is get some kind of official interest. Federal, most likely. Medicare fraud being the key. I still have some pretty good contacts in the CID, they have connections to the feds. If we can get a Medicare fraud investigation going before the first lawsuit hits the courts, there's bound to be some disturbance in their operation. I'm going to work on that. Meanwhile we've got to keep accumulating evidence. It's mostly a matter of time and money. "The money part's pretty trivial, by the way. Certainly to you. The biggest mistake they made may be messing with someone with the resources to see it get done. I expect you're pretty well fixed, from what I've seen. I'm not doing too bad myself. We'll get this done." "Have you talked to Jennifer lately?" asked Jessica. "No, not since our meeting." "Someone should be keeping in touch," Jessica said. "She seems to be pretty much alone. What do you think about getting together regularly, maybe with her and Elizabeth. I don't want her to get discouraged, this might take a while." "I'll be meeting with Elizabeth, at least once a week." Harry said. "I'll see about making her a regular part of those meetings. If possible with you as well, it would help." "That would be good," said Jessica. "Should we be meeting in public though?" "No. Future meetings will be at my office, or another place that's safe. The 501 is a good place for making first contact, with new people, but we need to be keeping critical things under wraps." "We'll be closing on the place Alex is buying, the next few weeks. Other than that we're available pretty much any time." "What are you buying?" "Place on 141, north of town." Alex replied. "Friend of mine has a place there." "Good place if you want some privacy." Harry said. "Buddy of mine has a place out there. Quite a few preppers, pretty good community." "Seems to be quite a few of those," said Alex. "Quite a few," Harry said. "Millions. Things are getting bad. I have a feeling that before long, problems like this may seem trivial. Society is so rotten... some days you hope for the big one, whatever it is, just to have some kind of change. Whatever's next, can't be worse." Seems that way. Waking up in a world like this. Of course I could have stayed asleep like they wanted. And they could go on killin' people. "Do you have anything new on the people behind the hospital?" Jessica asked. "I'm working on the official side and the shady side. Official stuff's hard to get without some kind of legal action. But I've got friends in low places, and there's a lot of useful information. Alcohol has a way of making it come out. And of course there's always electronic surveillance. I've got a few ears in some choice places. Lot of work sifting through it, but things do turn up. "As for the Carlisle connection, nothing firm yet. But plenty of other stuff." "Not of interest to us?" asked Alex. "Not directly, but some of the pieces might come in handy at some point. I do know he's into the drug trade. I figure he's been in that for a long time. It's mostly run by a handful or prominent people here, rich like him but they stay out of politics - aside from buying politicians - and anything that gets a lot of attention. Brewster's a bagman, along with his regular duties. Runs payoffs here and there, him in that wheelchair, doesn't set off alarms much with law enforcement. And they're careful, modifications to the vehicles to make cash or contraband hard to find, unless you know it's there and go looking for it. He has a couple of different fellows travel with him, they're clean as in not having a record or any warrants, just another old man. Some of these operators go back forty years or more. Him being one of them." "Is the drug business more profitable than hospitals?" Jessica asked. "Probably pretty close," Harry replied, "considering how much there is in the medical business. The difference is the money's cleaner, technically. It's a plausible explanation for him being rich." "I would wonder why he'd bother with drugs," Alex said, "but I guess I know." "Good old greed. These aren't normal people. They look normal and know how to act so you think they're just regular people. But they aren't." |
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