fifty

Frank lugged an old desktop computer into Harbor House and placed it on the kitchen table. He attached the power cord and then left to retrieve three more computers from his car. By the time he was done, our kitchen looked like a New Delhi call center.

“Does anyone realize I planned on giving birth in this room,” Katrina yelled, “today?”

“If Charlie is as fast as I think he is, we’ll be done pretty soon,” Frank said.

Katrina keeled over and screeched, “Great mother of God, this freaking hurts!” For the first time ever, I watched as fear enveloped Frank’s face. This was a man I’d seen shot at, attacked, and jumped by a garbage thief, yet never once had I seen him flinch.

“It hurts that much?” Frank asked. He took a step back from Katrina as if her baby might burst forth Alien-style.

Katrina straightened up and in a light voice said, “Kidding, but you’ve only got about seven minutes before a real contraction blows through this kitchen.”

Frank walked over to the computers and pressed the power buttons. A low hum followed by a crunching churn indicated the computers were almost ready for Frank’s challenge.

“So what am I doing?” Charlie said in a ready-stance, hands on his hips.

“These computers were in the evidence room at the station, but the cases are long closed, and no one bothered to pick them up. I’m going to give you an hour to figure out as much as you can about the owner of each computer.”

“Nice,” Charlie said. He pretended to roll up his shirtsleeves, despite wearing his trademark t-shirt. “What am I looking for?”

“I don’t want to lead you. Let’s see what we get first,” Frank said, and then he pulled me aside as Charlie sat down. “Corey thinks she may have spotted your father driving by her house. I’ve got two patrol cars in the neighborhood. Corey’s husband took the kids to their grandmother’s, and I’m leaving Lamendola at Corey’s house in case Gayle or your father makes an appearance. Corey is on her way over here.”

I sighed, “We can’t do this to Katrina. She needs peace and quiet.”

“I thought about that,” Frank said, “and then I realized Corey knows how to deliver a baby.”

“Good point,” I conceded, wondering why in the hell Vicky the midwife hadn’t arrived. I guessed that’s what you got for paying a professional with homemade jelly. I looked over at Charlie, who was engrossed in four screens at once. Katrina could give birth on the floor and Charlie would never notice. “What about Kelly?”

“Gayle texted him about an hour ago. She insisted she’s fine and said she’ll be home soon.”

“Can’t you trace her cell phone?”

“She keeps turning her phone off.” Frank smiled. “She’s good.”

“I’m glad,” I said, taking credit for anything Gayle did despite having no influence on her formative years. “So what now?”

“We’re waiting on Charlie,” Frank said, and then turned to our resident hacker. “How goes it?”

“So far, I’ve got one user with a foot fetish.”

“I remember hearing about that guy,” Frank said. “He broke into homes and stole women’s shoes.”

Charlie lowered his head and went back to work while Frank hovered over him.

Katrina was puttering around the library when Corey walked in. “Hey, I let myself in,” she said, and then looked at Katrina. “Oh boy, you’re in labor.”

“I know. My midwife was supposed to be here an hour ago.”

“Let me wash my hands, and we’ll see how far along you are,” Corey said, moving to the kitchen.

I tailed behind and said, “Can we talk about Gayle?”

Corey soaped up to her elbows and rinsed with extraordinary care. “If your father lays a finger on Gayle,” she said as a spray of bubbles from her jittery hands sprinkled the backsplash, “I’ll kill him.”

“Get in line,” I said, handing her a fresh towel, but she shook her head.

“It’s safer to air dry.” We walked back to the library, Corey’s hands upright.

“Where could Gayle possibly be hiding?” I said, trailing behind her. “Are you sure you and Kelly contacted all her friends?”

“With the zest of an obsessive boyfriend,” she replied.

I paused, “Does Gayle have a boyfriend?”

“Not that we know of,” Corey said, and then she nodded for Katrina to lie down on the library couch.

I stepped back politely until I was even with Katrina’s shoulders. Despite our close friendship, a full Monty reveal seemed unnecessary.

“Where does she go when she wants to be alone?”

“After Mike died, she spent a lot of time in her room on her computer,” Corey said, peering between Katrina’s legs. “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”

“We wanted it to be a surprise.” Katrina beamed. “Life moves so quickly now, there are few real surprises left to be had.”

“Have you met my family?” I said, squeezing her hand. “We’re like a Henry Ford assembly line of surprises.”

Katrina laughed as Corey gently lowered her knees. Corey glanced at a clock on the wall and said, “It’s almost noon. I’ll bet this baby is born before happy hour. Try to rest.”

“I’ll call Jonathan and see if he’s stuck in traffic,” I said to Katrina before turning to Corey. “If she’s hiding from my father, I’m assuming she’s not stupid enough to hide in her own home, or yours for that matter.”

“That’s why we can’t find her,” Corey barked, and I could see frustration in her furrowed brow. “Where would you hide if you didn’t want your father to find you?”

Hmm, I thought. That was a very good question. Of course, I never had to hide from my father because during the time we had shared a roof, he became a master at avoiding me. Any attention the esteemed Dr. William Prentice had to offer was directed solely toward my brother, Teddy. I took a good look at Corey. Her lids were heavy, and her curly hair refused to be tamed. This woman was in no mood to deliver a baby, and if I had to guess, she was also pretty sick of my family. Maybe I should remind her that her involvement in the Prentice saga had been all her doing. If she had left my egg alone, we wouldn’t be here. I excused myself and walked back to the kitchen. “Find anything?”

“Lots of stuff,” Frank said.

“But did you find what you were looking for?” I asked.

“He’s not looking for anything in particular,” Charlie said, lifting his head for the first time in an hour. “Am I right?”

“Correct,” Frank replied. “I’m trying to understand what you can find out about a person if you could get access to their hard drive.”

“Okay,” I said, spreading my arms. “Tell me who we have.”

Charlie pointed at the first computer, a Dell laptop covered in stickers of dinosaurs and soccer balls. “I already know this person has kids by looking at the exterior of the computer, but even if the computer were clean, the Documents file is filled with information about his family.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Camp forms, school forms, extracurricular activities forms, school-trip permission forms, lunch forms.” Charlie took a breath and laughed. “We should tell Katrina and Jonathan to avoid a hyphenated last name, because she’s going to be retyping it until her fingers are raw.”

“I hate hyphenated names. So pretentious,” I said. “What else?”

“Vacation itineraries with flight information seem pretty common to save,” Frank said, staring over Charlie’s shoulder, “and anything that will be updated the next year, like tax information.” Frank took a seat as Charlie scrolled down the Documents file. “It’s just so easy to hit Save that no one bothers to clean stuff out until the computer crashes, and by then it’s too late.”

Charlie clacked away at the key board and said with genuine glee, “Hello, data. Here is the mother lode of information.”

“What’s that?” Frank asked, placing his finger on the Save As box.

“It’s the Temp file. Every time you open an attachment from your email, it goes to the Temp file, and the user then has the option to save the attachment. However, if you don’t save the attachment, your Temp file saves it for you. Mr. Foot Fetish’s Temp file is packed with ads and coupons for women’s shoe sales.”

We stared at the screens, a meaningless glowing wall of indecipherable file names.

“How about this?” Charlie said, moving quickly from computer to computer. “I’m going to sort the Temp files by date.” As quickly as the computers refreshed, a sense of order took over the screens.

“Wow,” Frank said. “You can see the tax-related files falling in March and April.”

“And the school forms,” I said. “Here in September and then more activity in the spring, probably before camp starts.”

“Something is going on at the end of the calendar year,” Charlie noted as he pointed to early November, where each computer held a noticeably larger document. He opened up the files on each of the computers. “Ah, these are Flexible Spending forms. I guess you need to be a full-time employee to receive this. Not my bag.”

“I’ve never seen one of those forms either,” I added. “Lots of pages to fill in.”

“Actually,” Frank said, “your insurance company gives you the specific form to claim reimbursement for health or childcare expenses. All of these people, including our shoe fanatic, must be employed and have insurance.” Frank smiled. “Even the criminals in Cold Spring Harbor are upscale.”

I turned to Charlie. “We should get insurance. I’ve been bumming free services off Dr. Grovit and the labs for far too long.”

“Too bad we can’t find a way to Freeganize medical services. Imagine if you could buy a packet of discounted doctor visits, and then pass the vouchers to friends if you didn’t need them.”

“Love it,” I said.

Frank ignored our bantering and picked at the bandage on his head. He was about to address us, when instead, he called out for Corey, who was coaching Katrina through a mighty contraction.

“You have news?” she asked, jogging into the kitchen.

“No, but I have some questions,” Frank said. “Your practice doesn’t take insurance?”

Corey’s face registered disappointment, but she answered politely as she once again cleaned her hands at the sink. “We don’t, but a patient can submit independently to their insurance company after they have paid us in full.”

“And patients pay up front?”

“Assuming we see the patient through to delivery, we have a three-month payment schedule.”

“How much?” Frank asked.

Corey tilted her eyes to the floor, and I could see she wasn’t keen to reveal her practice’s fees. “Three payments of thirty-five thousand each. Payments are collected at the beginning of each trimester.”

“What if a patient comes to you in the last trimester?” I couldn’t help my Freeganism. I had been conditioned to search for money-saving angles regardless of the service offered.

“Then they don’t have a fertility problem,” Corey answered, as if I had asked the stupidest question in the world.

Charlie whistled. “That’s some serious cash.”

“For wealthy couples with fertility issues, money is no object.”

“What about poor people with fertility issues?” I asked.

Corey shrugged. “Either they never conceive, or they miscarry due to inadequate prenatal testing.”

“Have you ever been scammed,” Frank asked, trying to find the right words, “financially?”

Corey crossed her arms over her chest and searched her memory. “Once a patient filled out all the paperwork using her sister’s name. Apparently, her sympathetic sister had insurance, and the pair were submitting our bills through the sister’s insurance company. We got paid up front, but it turns out the insurance company got screwed.”

A thought popped into my head. “Is it possible Bob tried to recycle insurance coverage?”

“That occurred to me,” Frank said. “But if you receive medical services under someone else’s name, the policyholder will get notification from their insurance company and realize a mistake occurred. The poser would be caught immediately because the policyholder would know whether or not they had received services. Imagine if the bill for my head dressing,” he said, touching his head, “was sent to someone else. That person would know they hadn’t been jumped in Chinatown.” Frank stood up and started to walk around the kitchen table while Corey, Charlie, and I made space for him. He weaved his way through the computer wires and then stepped over Katrina’s vacuum. As he paced, he ground his teeth and rubbed his bandage until he finally came to a halt.

“Unless,” he said, “the person who received the bill is already dead.”

“Why does a dead person need insurance?” I asked.

“They don’t,” Frank said, now excited. “But someone else might, and until the deceased’s insurance company has been alerted of their passing, I’m going to bet their insurance is still active.”

“Wouldn’t a family member call the insurance company to let them know grandpa has kicked it?” Charlie asked.

“Not immediately,” Corey spoke up. “It’s not like insurance companies give rebates. Plus, medical bills will keep coming for months after a death, especially for a death related to a long-term illness. From what I’ve seen, the family wouldn’t want to terminate a plan that has been paid through to a future end date. Even if that date is in the near future.” Corey turned to Frank. “When Michael was sick, at the end, his insurance company attempted to limit his visits since the treatment was no longer as effective. We fought it. But”—she paused and sat down—“not everyone has a medically trained advocate for a sister.” Corey’s voice thickened and despite her years of medical training, it took everything she had to maintain her professional composure. “Dialysis is literally a life-or-death treatment. If you need it, you must receive it regularly and on a regimented schedule. There’s no room for an insurance snafu or a missing piece of paperwork. I had to fight for every treatment at the end.”

“What happens to dialysis patients whose insurance is dropped?” I swallowed hard. “Or patients who don’t have insurance?”

“They die. Quickly,” Corey said. “For years, dialysis centers took patients for free, no questions asked. Then it was revealed that many of the patients were illegal immigrants unable to receive proper treatment in their home countries. The centers were going broke treating the uninsured and had to turn patients away. It’s still happening, and in my brother’s case, the insurance company tried to discourage final-stage treatment.” Corey started to tear up and then reiterated Kelly’s sentiments. “Kelly and I were foolish to allow Gayle to attend Michael’s treatments. She must have witnessed heart-wrenching scenes.”

“As did Bob,” I said sadly, “and he was one of the lucky ones. He had insurance and unlike many patients, his kidneys recovered. It probably tore him apart to see people turned away.”

Frank retrieved the photo of Bob’s Last Supper diorama and held it up for everyone to view. “These people at the table,” Frank said, “they must be fellow dialysis patients. I wonder if Bob and Gayle helped secure insurance for them by recycling the gap that occurs when a person dies but their insurance is still active.”

“The ultimate artistic portrayal of hope,” I said, staring at the diorama and the joyously exaggerated faces. Finally, the common denominator had been uncovered. The diverse group in Bob’s diorama, ranging in age from eight to eighty, may have been connected medically. “By identifying people who had died and locating their personal information on their hard drives,” I said. “Bob might have been able to help people who still had a chance at life.”

“It’s genius,” Charlie said. “Bob used the recycling center e-waste as his source of hard drives.”

“But what did Gayle provide?” I asked and then turned to Corey. “Could she hack a computer?”

“Total geek in that department,” Corey answered as she wiped her nose. “Now that I think of it, she was the only girl in the technology club at school.”

Charlie stood up to stretch. “Gayle probably also suggested Other Life as a safe way to communicate with needy patients.”

“I wouldn’t describe a dialysis patient as needy,” Corey corrected Charlie. “Desperate is more like it. A few weeks may be too long of a window for a dialysis patient.”

And there it was. The two-week time frame mentioned on the social site. “I can’t believe it,” I said. “These people must have been notifying Bob each time the policy he had given them ran out. With each message, he’d have a two week heads up to find the patient a new policy.”

“But to find a new policy, he had to find a dead person,” Charlie said.

“I can’t imagine the pressure,” I added. “I’m wondering if the recycling center wasn’t producing enough e-waste and that’s why the warehouse interested him.” I thought about Bob, chuckling with me over the Dawn doll head I had used to bargain for a car. How could it be that at the same time he had helped me find a car, this cheerful man had literally secured a lifeline for a terminally ill patient? I turned to Charlie, “If you hadn’t been with Frank at Bob’s house, we would have never stumbled onto the Other Life site.”

Charlie shook his head. “I’m amazed that Bob and Gayle figured out where to hide without detection. That’s no small feat for a man his size.”

“I don’t think Bob had a choice but to hide in a world where his size could be altered,” Frank added. Charlie and Frank’s words stuck with me. Gayle, it appeared, seemed to be an expert at hiding. She’d hidden her friendship with Bob, her parents were unaware of her extracurricular activities, she’d devised a new hair-do, and she’d done a darn good job of burying her communications in the depths of an online fantasy world. If only I could figure out where she had chosen to hide from my father.

Frank moved rapidly around the room. He had picked so furiously at his head wrap that tiny pieces of gauze followed him like a trail of bread crumbs. “We’re missing something,” he said. “We haven’t figured out the doughy man’s motivation for killing Bob.”

“Maybe he was on to Bob,” I said.

“But we think he was represented at the table, and if we believe all the figures had something in common, then the doughy man had to be a dialysis patient too,” Frank reasoned. He stopped pacing. His face lit up, and I knew he was peeling back the layers almost as quickly as he dismantled his bandage. “The ID tag,” he said as he reached for his iPad and scrolled through his notes. “One of the local companies that uses employee ID tags is a satellite office for an insurance company.”

“Do you know the company?” Corey asked.

“Sure, it’s called Health Associates,” Frank said. “The local office is small, but it’s a national provider. HA covers the police department and municipal workers and that would include recycling center employees.”

Corey frowned, and her Irish freckles disappeared into the wrinkles around her eyes. “My niece is smart and from what I’m hearing, Bob is no slouch in the brains department. But from my experience, the insurance business is incredibly complicated. I think we’re giving these two too much credit.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Gayle and Bob must have had someone on the inside to help them, and I’m wondering if it might be this doughy man you’re referring to.”

Frank nodded. “Someone who worked at an insurance company while receiving dialysis,” Frank said. “But maybe, as the stress to find more unused policies mounted, the doughy man wanted out.” He picked up his ringing phone and listened intently. “We’ve got trouble,” he relayed. “A security guard at the labs thinks he saw your father on the campus.”

“We have to stop him,” I said, and then I shared the conversation I’d had with Dr. Grovit earlier in the morning. “My father has lost it. He thinks he still works at the labs.”

“The labs are the last place I’d expect your father to show his face,” Corey said.

“No kidding,” I said and then added, “but my father isn’t working with a full deck. If it were any of us, we wouldn’t consider returning to the scene of our professional disgrace.” And just like that, it came to me. “Frank, I think Gayle is hiding at the labs.” Frank stared at me as if my father’s mental deterioration were contagious. “Don’t you see?” I stammered. “If Gayle did her research, and I’m sure she did, then she discovered the irreparable damage my father had done to his career. Like Carolyn said, the labs are the last place anyone would expect to see my father. If I wanted to hide from him, that’s where I’d be.”

The room fell silent, broken by a blood-curdling scream. Katrina was about to deliver.

As Frank worked out a plan, Vicky waltzed in the front door as if there were still nine months to go on this ticking time bomb of a baby. Instead of a warm welcome, she was hurried aside as Frank flew out the front door.

“I’ll call Cheski and have him meet you at Health Associates,” he yelled back to me. “And bring your sketch of the doughy man. By the time you get there, I’ll have found a contact for you.”

I grabbed my keys and headed for the Gremlin. Corey was right behind me.

“You’re not staying with Katrina?” I asked Corey.

“The midwife is here. If Gayle is at the labs, then that’s where I’ll be. I’m going to stop and pick up Kelly first,” she said as she headed for her car.