attorney and then a candidate for a federal judgeship, he and Sherry and I were often a social foursome, dining together, or going to some show to which Billy inevitably obtained tickets.
I waved him off his apology for using a reference to wheelchairs and its possible personal connection to Sherry. Her leg fracture and subsequent infection and amputation had occurred while she was officially off-duty. But the fact is that you are always a cop, 24/7. When confronted by a crime, which in our case had been a robbery and abduction leading to multiple shooting deaths in the Glades, she was covered by her sheriff’s office insurance. She was taken care of, with her medical bills paid in full by the job. But I had stayed with her, in her Fort Lauderdale house, working, I thought, on the mental rehab I thought she needed.
“Not a problem, Billy. She’s actually getting used to it,” I said. “You know Sherry, nothing keeps her down.”
“B-Bullshit, Max.”
You would have to know how infrequently Billy’s language goes to the street to realize how strong the statement was. I stared into his face, feeling something rise up into my throat that I have rarely tasted in Billy’s presence.
“Sh-She will never g-get used to it, Max. She will adjust. She will f-fight. But you n-never get used to such things.”
I cut my eyes away from his, looked out over the lakefront, higher over the barrel tiled roofs of Palm Beach, and even higher to the horizon where the sky touched the ocean.
“OK. When do I meet this whistle-blower?” I asked, and drained the rest of my beer.
– 4 -
At 12:25 P.M., I was sitting in the parking lot of the West Boca Medical Complex waiting for Luz Carmen. Billy had given me the address and the whistle-blower’s name. He’d actually made the appointment before I’d arrived at his penthouse, knowing I would accept the assignment, and knowing I would be available for the rest of the day. Within a year of our meeting, I had become Billy’s full-time investigator. He had given up going into the streets a long time ago, admitting without chagrin that after what he’d witnessed in his childhood, he would never get his hands dirty again. On the quite literally grimy other hand, I could not stay out of the alleys and shadows and points of danger I’d learned to operate in. Billy and I developed a team, one that often worked well.
I parked two rows back from the entrance to the building, a spread-out affair that looked like they’d borrowed the site plan of the Pentagon but only needed one story. In this part of South Florida-the western cities and suburbs far inland from the ocean-there was no concern for the amount of cheap land developers used. Drain the Everglades by lowering the water table with gouged-out lakes or by dredging funneling canals to the ocean, and then fill and build. It had been going on for a century. Pave paradise, put up a parking lot; apologies to Joni Mitchell.
At 12:30 P.M. exactly, I got a call on my cell. The readout displayed the number Billy had given me.
“Max Freeman,” I answered.
“Yes, this is Luz Carmen, may I help you?”
“Uh, you called me, Ms. Carmen.”
“Yes, that’s possible, sir,” said a moderately young woman’s voice on the other end of the conversation, if you wanted to call it that. “Yes, sir, I am on my way this very moment, sir.”
“Uh, OK, Ms. Carmen, I’m out in the parking lot in a royal blue Ford F-150 pickup truck, two rows back from the sidewalk in the middle,” I said, getting the picture. It always makes me shake my head when people hear the title private investigator and instantly act like they’re in a Jason Bourne spy movie.
Less than two minutes later, I watched a woman whose age matched the telephone voice step outside, sweep the area as if she were worried about being followed, and then make a beeline to my truck.
She was short and slim, maybe five feet two and a hundred pounds. She had long black hair that was either so fine or so meticulously brushed, that even the mild breeze swept it off her shoulders and ruffled it as she approached. She was in heels, skirt just above the knees, and was wearing a white lab coat, like a nurse or doctor.
I started to get out of the truck to greet her when she pierced the windshield with an admonishing look and raised a hand, palm side out. The gesture said: Stay put, please!
Great, I thought-real deep undercover shit, covert ops and everything. I sat still nevertheless while she walked straight to the passenger door, opened it, and climbed in.
“Hi, Ms. Carmen, I assume,” I said, giving her my best welcoming and open smile. “I’m Max Freeman, Billy’s associate.”
“Please drive, Mr. Freeman,” she said, staring forward without looking at my face. “We cannot talk here.”
Ooooo, secret agent shit. They could be listening in with long-distance audio surveillance equipment. Maybe I ought to get out the special cone of silence. But I said nothing, started the truck, and headed out of the lot. I waited until we were on Glades Road before I asked “Where to, Ms. Carmen?”
“There is a park, Mr. Freeman, up here on the right. We can turn in there and talk where it is safe.”
I glanced over at her, already knowing she’d be staring out front, her face stoic and focused. But her fingers were also entwined as they clutched her handbag, her thumb rubbing one knuckle as if there were an itch there that could not be satisfied. She was good at hiding her anxiety, but no one is immune. I decided not to scare her more than she already was and simply followed her directions, letting her feel some control over the situation.
Finally, she directed me into a city park, where I followed a winding ribbon of asphalt to a picnic site. We got out and walked to a wooden table positioned under a huge banyan tree some thirty yards out from the parking area. At mid-afternoon on a fall day with school in session and the workaday tribes at their daily grind, the park was abandoned. Ms. Carmen, I assumed from the lack of a wedding ring, seemed to deem it safe enough and sat on one side of the table as I took the other, looking across, face-to-face, as if we were having some sort of business meeting-which we were, in a way.
“I trust, Mr. Freeman, that Mr. Manchester has filled you in on my situation?” Her language was clean and clipped, the pronunciation of the r a touch harder than an Anglo would use. Her English was school-perfect, but it was secondary to her.
“He gave me a very broad outline, Ms. Carmen,” I said, copying her tight demeanor. “But I would like to hear it again, in your own words.”
Her eyes were dark brown, so dark, in fact, that it was difficult to see the difference between the black pupil and the iris. She stared for an extra second at my face.
“Mr. Manchester says I can trust you.”
It was a statement, not a question, so I felt no reason to answer.
She took a deep breath and began.
“I have been working for Mediwheels and Prosthetics for eighteen months, Mr. Freeman. It is the third business I have been with since I obtained my associate nursing degree from Miami Dade Community College,” she said, keeping a strict, educated cant to her voice, but not for long.
“I know I need to get my RN degree before I can really work in a hospital, which is what I really want to do. And I know I could just work in one of the nursing homes, which I tried at first. But I really had a hard time with the elderly people and got way too emotional about the problems they were having. I do not like to see their suffering all the time, and…”
She caught herself. Recognizing the rambling and the increasingly high pitch of her voice, she stopped, gathered herself, and began again.
“So I took a position with the equipment suppliers instead,” she said. “The money is better. You don’t see very many patients. It’s mostly paperwork. I can save enough to get back into school.”
She stopped and looked over at me: I was at a loss.
“That’s admirable, Ms. Carmen. You’re what, twenty-two? Three?” I said, guessing low, because women like that.
“And you’re working toward a better education. That’s always a good thing. But please, go on. My understanding is that you’ve discovered something untoward in the accounting for this business?”
