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Kim continued with more and more facts and examples. Everyone listened in rapt silence, occasionally shaking their head or murmuring sounds of disbelief.
She finally finished by saying, “The reason Nathan agreed that I should tell you all of this is that Cami said you discovered this Shady character was under surveillance. Well, it wasn’t only the cops who were surveilling him. The DEA had men on him, too. You see, he was not only suspected of being a “Doctor Feelgood,” but the head of a whole ring of doctors in the Los Angeles area doing the same thing. It has run into multi-millions and doesn’t stop with writing prescriptions. I don’t have the time to go into everything now, but if you want to resume tomorrow night, I’ll be able to tell you just how expansive this Feelgood operation was and still is. DEA is working in tandem with the local police and were just waiting to have enough to arrest Shady and his cohorts, so please don’t mess with their drug investigation.”
That shocking bit of information registered, resulting in complete silence. But what Kim said next had even more impact. “You see, their scheme was so organized and spread out, it began cutting into the drug trade of the Rojas Cartel in a big way.”
Cami and Kate both let out gasps. Kate said in a shaky voice, “Rojas?” She continued, “Listen everyone, Kim and Cami and I, the original FraudBusters, if you will, could have lost our lives to the Rojas Cartel a while back. It’s an experience I hoped I’d never have to revisit. They are very dangerous. Maybe, we should back out of this while we still can. We don’t want any of those gangsters coming after us.”
“That’s my point,” Kim said. “If you continue, it could not only compromise everything that has been uncovered already in this investigation, but you could find yourselves in extreme danger. Let the police and the DEA do their job.”
Matt seemed indignant. “Okay, so the drug dealing is one thing that bastard was involved in, but what about Barbara and our missing HOA money—are we supposed to just forget about that?” “Easy for you to say maybe we should back out while we can, Kate because it doesn’t affect you directly. But for us, it’s millions of dollars of our money. Besides, I still think she had something to do with Shady’s death. Unless those Rojas characters are holding her, why else would she have disappeared? Maybe she knew what was in the wind, and she just skipped out before it hit the fan. What if we don’t dig into anything that has to do with that bastard doctor and drugs, but try to find out what happened to his crooked wife and our money?”
Kim’s voice came over the phone’s speaker. “Listen, you guys. It’s late here and I have an early day tomorrow. This whole drug and cartel thing aside, you have to figure out among yourselves what you want to do about the wife and your money. Do you want me to fill you in on the rest about this ring of doctors tomorrow night, or wait until the bust is made and read about it in the LA Times? I promise you, it is going to be huge. I think you in particular, Danny, will be intrigued by all the avenues these doctors have set up. What do you say?”
It didn’t take much discussion. The promise of inside information was too much to resist. They agreed that Kim would call at six o’clock their time the following evening. She said, “I might even ask Nathan to be on the speaker so I don’t reveal anything I shouldn’t.”
After the call ended, Matt let everyone know how impressed he was that they might be speaking with the Attorney General. Cameron waved him away. “Go ahead and be impressed, Matt. Nathan was my best friend when we were teens. Our mothers hoped we would marry each other.”
“No way. You were his girlfriend? I can’t believe you let that one go,” Margaret said.
“Well, what our mothers didn’t understand is that we were always just friends. They kept trying to turn it into a romance, but he had a crush on another girl, and I had my eye on a fellow a year ahead of me. What our Moms thought was a romance was only both of us trying to help each other in the unrequited love department. I got friendly with the girl and tried to steer her to Nate, and he did the same for me with that football hero who didn’t give me a second glance. We lost touch after we went to different colleges, but I contacted him years later to ask for help when we uncovered that prison embezzlement scheme. One look at my friend Kim, and he was hooked. So was she and she snagged the most eligible bachelor in the United States.”
“Did either of you succeed with your teenage matchmaker efforts?”
“Sadly, no, but it strengthened our friendship. Our mothers are still best friends. Now, you said you and Danny had information. Time to spill it.”
Margaret turned her attention to Garrett who was busy scratching behind Clarence’s ears. The big dog had ambled over to him during the phone conversation with Kim and nudged him until Garrett got the message that Clarence wanted attention.
“Danny, I think you can fill everyone in about what we discovered better than I can. How about it?”
“Fine. I don’t know about the rest of you, but as good as those snacks were, I’m really hungry now. Let’s take a few minutes and order some takeout, and then you’d better be prepared to be wowed. Margaret’s contacts really came through.”
Cameron suggested ordering some Bahn Mi sandwiches from The Whaler on Washington and some of their great Key Lime Pie to finish things off.
“Since I’m the outsider here, what the heck is a Bahn Mi sandwich? You know I watch what I eat.” Kate waited for the answer.
“You’ll like it. It’s slow-cooked beef, pineapple, sriracha aioli, pickled carrots, Fresno chili, cilantro, cucumber and mint on a French baguette.”
“Sounds interesting. Fine with me.”
After the order was placed, Garrett cleared his throat and said, “We may not have been familiar with Shady’s shenanigans, but it turned out he’s well known in select circles. Leave it to Maggie to find out more. Your friend Kim is absolutely right. Shady was not only an old retired doctor writing prescriptions or selling pills to friends and acquaintances. He was the organizer and head of a multimillion-dollar ring of retired doctors and certain pharmacists who were willing to look the other way with suspicious prescriptions as long as they got a cut. They operated on so many levels and I guess they thought they were under the radar. Matt, I wouldn’t doubt at all that the friends you mentioned, the ones who said they knew him. might have also bought Oxy from him.”
“So you didn’t find out much more than what Kim just told us, is that right?”
“Nope. Far from it. Maggie is best friends with a neighbor who was a close friend of Barbara’s before they sold the Beverly Hills house. She knew Al Shady before he married Barbara, and said he had been a well-known, successful orthopedist who was ready to retire. Also, that before Barbara he wasn’t the sour old man we knew. She suspects that launching the whole illegal prescription and pill business was Barbara’s idea and he got drunk on the power. In her opinion she thought Barbara was exceptionally clever and was the architect of the business plan, if you want to call it that.”
She paused for a few minutes to let that sink in, then continued. “Once she came to that conclusion, she wanted nothing to do with Barbara and created as much distance as possible. I’m not part of the local gossip chain, but apparently that knowledge spread rapidly in our community. Eventually none of the women wanted to associate with Barbara unless they wanted drugs. Soon after that, the Shadys put their house up for sale.”
Comments around the room ranged from “I’ll be damned,” to “Never trusted that bitch.” They continued to toss around ideas and more speculation until the food came, then concentrated on devouring the sandwiches and pie, anxious to share Maggie’s discovery with Kim the following evening.
Possibly Barbara was not only a murderer and embezzler, but potentially far more.