CHAPTER SEVEN

 

 

Fairmont Regional Medical Center had a slick-looking website. No doubt it had been designed by a well-coiffed chap (or chapette) who sat in the dark and sipped lattes while writing the code. It wasn't built on WordPress or Wix or any other do-it-yourself platform. Whoever designed it made a professional, functional, and mostly clean website. They even required secure connections over the web.

None of this stopped me from hitting it with a scanner. Services run on ports, many of which are assigned specific numbers, and the scanning program tells me which ones are running. It didn't take long to find the weak link. An older service, File Transfer Protocol, was still used for exactly what its name suggests. The problem: it was designed in the infancy of the Internet. No one thought about security then. Thus, FTP had no security built into it. Everything it transmitted, including login credentials and the contents of files, got sent over the wire in the clear. Unencrypted.

Because FTP is an older protocol, the versions of it installed on web servers are frequently outdated. In other cases, the service will accept default login credentials because whoever configured the server never bothered to remove them. The FTP version was current, so I looked up this particular implementation's default credentials. I tried them.

They worked.

Sometimes, it really is that easy. While I like to think I'm good at the advanced hacking stuff, there are occasions that the simple tactics are the home run hitters. The login I used had full access to the file system. FTP uses simple commands to list directories and upload and download files. I spent a few minutes nosing around and seeing what directories could house juicy information. My searching turned up a scad of interesting documents, including a listing of privileged accounts. I downloaded them all to my laptop and disconnected all my sessions.

Combing through the files was not exciting. I contemplated walking outside and watching some grass grow for a change of pace. I had some time to kill while Rich went to Jim's funeral. When he mentioned it, I didn't offer to go. He wouldn't want me there. Rich needed his space in a time like this; I understood and respected it. Besides, it gave me the chance to conduct a riveting review of hospital files.

About ninety minutes later, I finished reading all the pilfered files. Nothing jumped out at me as irregular. I even logged back in with an admin account I found on the list, downloaded some more documents, and read those. The hospital maintained impeccable logs of all drugs that came in and went out, and they had all their I's dotted and T's crossed in triplicate when it came to controlled substances. Boxes of Vicodin weren't getting up and walking out the door.

How else could George bring drugs in? I looked for shipments of opioids that got delivered to the wrong locations, stolen from another facility, or hijacked in transit. The number of results probably shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. A package arriving at the wrong destination could happen. There is no malice in human error. The others, though, involved both malice and muscle. I thought of the four goons who darkened our doorsteps. Give them ski masks and guns, and they could probably abscond with a bunch of stolen drugs.

A box of fentanyl going missing from LA didn't mean much, however. I narrowed my focus. If George Rodgers had people stealing drugs, those thefts had to happen within driving distance of his hospital. You couldn't sneak a bunch of controlled medication on a commercial flight, and using a chartered plane would add both expense and another person who could talk. No, George's crew had to stay fairly local. Being a professional detective, I employed the advanced sleuthing tactic of making up a number, setting a search radius of two hundred fifty miles.

Sure enough, I found some. A report of an irregular delivery to Fairmont Regional. A delivery of opioids knocked over outside Pittsburgh three years ago. Another near Charleston, West Virginia six months after. Yet another near Winchester, Virginia five months later. I expanded the search radius and found them going back a couple more years, always every five to six months, never more than three in a calendar year. Local cops and the feds were investigating, of course. I read up on the robberies. Different vehicles used every time. Never the same physical descriptions of the crew. Different clothes, masks, and guns each time. No one had been killed, though a few guards had taken beatings here and there.

While I read over everything, Rich returned from the funeral. I heard the rumble of the Camaro's V8 in the parking lot, like the low growl of a wild animal. A minute later, he knocked on the door. "It's Rich." I knew already, both from the Camaro and his knock. Rich, despite being a little shorter than me, has larger hands, and the way he bangs on a door is distinct. Kind of like clubbing a tree with a hammer.

I opened the door and let him in. We chatted about the funeral for a minute before getting down to new business. I told him what I'd discovered about George Rodgers, his hospital, and the pattern of stolen opioids. "Fuck," Rich said. I found this an adequate summary. "What do you think they're doing with the drugs?"

"Selling them," I said. "My guess is George's random deposits equate to his share of the proceeds."

"Of course they're selling them. But what's the method? How do you move a pile of stolen pills?"

"And not just move them, but do it regularly. They restock a couple times a year."

Rich shook his head. He tried to run a hand through his hair, but his crew cut made the gesture look ridiculous. "I know the manufacturers have tons of pills," he said. "It's a shame . . . they probably didn't even notice the missing stock."

I was about to point out our focus needed to be on distribution when Rich's phone buzzed. He looked it at, frowned, then put it away. "Connie just texted," he said. "Land of the Brave is picking up Jim's last batch of honey tomorrow morning."

Neither of us said anything for a minute. Then the light bulb went on for me. It must have gone on for Rich, too, because his eyes went wide and his mouth fell open. "The pickups," I said. "They pick up whatever legit products the veterans have, add their drugs, and distribute them through middle men."

Rich's mouth clicked shut. He nodded. "Makes sense. You said the robbery crews seemed to change a lot?"

"Yes."

"I wonder if some of the people giving product to the pickup guy were giving more than honey and vegetables."

I thought about that for a moment. "Rich," I said, "you know what this could mean."

"No," he said. "Jim wouldn't take part in something like this."

"I don't think we can be sure of—"

"I can be sure of it!"

We wouldn't get anywhere this way. Rich would get pissed and tell me to call an Uber again. I had no proof, anyway, so I dropped it. For now. "Fine. But I think you know what we need to do next."

"I do."

"How are your following skills?"

"Good enough to make up for having a big blue Camaro," said Rich.

 

***

Early the next morning, Rich and I sat in his car. He parked three houses up from the Sheltons'. We each had the largest coffee Sheetz sold, which was twenty-four ounces. I could have used half again as many. I ate a turkey sausage breakfast burrito of above-average flavor. Rich scarfed down a couple donuts and a bearclaw pastry that looked to be the size of an actual bear's claw. I couldn't believe he still ate such garbage. Rich is about six and a half years older than me, making him thirty-six. I, not yet twenty-nine, still had the metabolism to shrug off a morning of ingesting sugary rubbish. Rich was at an age where he could pay for things like that. Of course, he had been six feet tall and two hundred pounds for so long, I wondered if he skipped birth and came into the world fully formed.

"How do you think this all went down?" he said after chomping a chunk of the pastry.

I considered making a crack about Rich's breakfast but refrained. Doing pastry puns before eight is not in my wheelhouse. "I think George found out where shipments were going," I said. "He could have access to the information. Then he would tell Pete, who would rustle up a crew."

"I hate this case," Rich said. "Jim Shelton dies, and a bunch of other veterans were probably used as robbers."

"Maybe they got paid in drugs," I said. "Some of them already could have had issues."

"It's possible." Rich's nostrils flared. His knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel. If we got to arrest Pete and George, they would need some of their own pilfered painkillers after Rich finished with them.

"We'll get them," I said.

"I know. And I want to make sure we do it as right as possible."

We differed on that. If I found a corner to cut, I would do it. Technology was a wonderful thing. Rich, by contrast, would quote chapter and verse from the law and the police manual. Our styles didn't mesh. Despite this, we ended up working together in some capacity on most of my cases. I was still surprised Rich wanted me to come with him out here. He had enough friends on the force to invite someone with a similar level of love for the rulebooks.

Silence ruled the day for the next few minutes. I finished my breakfast burrito, and Rich washed down the last of his pastry with a big swig of coffee. We watched the Shelton house. Nothing. The clock ticked eight. The pickup driver was now officially late. None of the other houses showed any activity. It was a sleepy Saturday morning for everyone except us. I watched some leaves shake free of trees in the wind and spiral to the ground. The last of my coffee went down my throat. It was good. I wished they sold a bigger cup.

At about ten after, a cargo van pulled up in front of the Shelton's house. It was white, with no windows after the passenger compartment, and no lettering on the side. Perfectly nondescript. Even if someone saw this van involved in something illicit, there were hundreds of vehicles like it on the roads at any given time. I wondered if it was stolen. I figured the plates were, or a set would be if the driver or his boss sniffed anything suspicious. A man got out and walked toward the house. He had his back to us, but he looked short and dumpy. If someone stole merchandise from him, he wasn't catching the thief on foot.

The driver knocked on the door. From my angle, I couldn't see anything happening inside the house. He left the porch a minute later and walked around to the back of the house. I saw Connie Shelton in the backyard. She directed him to the shed, which she unlocked. The driver picked up three boxes. Each was about the size of those paper ream boxes from office supply stores. Connie locked the shed, and the driver carried his haul to the van. Rich and I both slumped down in our seats. He went to the back of the vehicle, and a moment later, climbed back in behind the wheel. We stayed low while he turned around and drove back down the street.

Rich fired up the Camaro, and it roared to life like a lion who had been denied his breakfast. He eased it onto the roads. We kept the van in our sights. It had no rear windows, either; the driver had to use his exterior mirrors to see anything behind him. I figured this would help us follow him, but Rich was the expert here. We got onto Route 219 and took it out of the city, onto Route 39. It wound around a lot and became Route 7 after we crossed the West Virginia border. Other twisty-turny roads followed, and I stopped keeping track of the numbers. The Camaro hugged the curves, allowing Rich to keep a reasonable distance behind the van. An old pickup truck got between us at some point.

We soon got onto I-79. Ten miles later, we were back on the West Virginia county roads. I expected to hear someone whistle Dixie every time we drove past a farmhouse. Eventually, we left Route 19 for Village Way. A large brick building loomed ahead. It had to be our destination. The van turned into the delivery entrance. Rich pulled the Camaro into a parking lot on the other side of the street, affording us a good view of all the comings and goings. We waited.

Outside Fairmont Regional Medical Center.

 

***

"What do you think he's doing in there?" I said.

"Probably picking up drugs," said Rich.

"Pretty brazen to distribute them right from the hospital."

"It's also pretty brazen to rob opioid shipments."

This was certainly true. The whole operation was bold. I hated referring to it this way because it sounded like a compliment, and I didn't want to offer praise to the kind of assholes who got people hooked on drugs and murdered veterans. "So if he's adding drugs to those boxes," I said, "we should see where he takes them."

"I plan to," Rich said.

"And then what?"

"We lean on somebody."

"Who?" I said.

"Depends," he said. "Maybe the driver, if he seems like he'll knuckle under. Or maybe whoever he drops the drugs off to."

"He could be making more than one stop."

Rich nodded. "True. This network could be bigger than we thought."

It must have been. I thought the problem lay in Oakland at first. It had all the signs. But cities across the border in West Virginia were in similar straits. The jobs that dried up affected people in both states. Vicodin, Oxycodone, and similar pills filled some gaps for people who had holes in the center of them. Eventually, the drugs ruled their lives. Sometimes, they ended their lives. Mostly, they just ruined them. This was a nationwide problem. We were seeing it in two communities. We could shut Land of the Brave down, but doing so wouldn't get rid of everyone's pills or addictions. Other suppliers would fill the vacuum. I didn't know how to stop the problem here, and I didn't envy anyone who tried to reverse it on a larger scale.

A few minutes later, we saw the van emerge from the delivery entrance. Rich left the parking lot and pulled out behind him. As we drove, I felt the weight of the .45 holstered at my left side. The chase was on again. I wondered where it would take us.