All we can do now is wait for the records.

If they confirm Nate’s theory, then we’ll arrest a bunch of people, Cassel and Philly DeSimone at the top of the list. Many of the arrests won’t stick, but we’ll at least be able to keep them in jail tomorrow. And for what it’s worth, tomorrow is the sixteenth.

We’ve sent a couple of officers over to the hospital to make sure proper attention is being paid to the collection of the records, and they confirm that it is. The age of some of them, and the sheer volume of hospital records in general, makes it a difficult and time-consuming task, even though they’re electronic.

The subpoena provided for a 6:00 P.M. deadline, and the word comes in that they’ll be able to meet it. Bradley orders a bunch of officers to stay around to help Jessie, Nate, and me go through it. He’s pulling out all the stops, not all of them conventional. For example, he has a brother-in-law who’s a doctor, and he brings him in as well, to help with the technical stuff.

They beat the six o’clock deadline by fifteen minutes, and it takes another half hour to print out copies for those of us who don’t want to view them on the computer. Then we all dive into it, and about ninety minutes later we have the answer.

We were wrong.

There is absolutely no evidence that the victim’s names were in any way used to serve as recipients for drugs that were never dispensed. On the contrary; they received very few.

There is a palpable feeling of depression in the room; we had high hopes for this one, and they were completely unjustified. It’s possible that all the records were faked to conceal a fraud, at some point in the past, but I don’t think any of us really believe it. In any event, we couldn’t come close to proving it even if it were true.

Nate’s response sums it up best. “Shit,” he says.

The group breaks up and Jessie and I head to her house. I’m driving, but I have to admit that I’m pretty much lost in thought, and not paying the attention that I should be.

The flashing red lights on the car behind us make me somewhat more attentive. I pull over so that the cop can come and tell me exactly what it is I did wrong. Just what I’m in the mood for now.

The local cop comes up to the window and says, “Do you realize you went through a stop sign a couple of blocks back?”

“No, officer, I didn’t see it,” I say.

He looks carefully at me, trying to make out my face in the dim light. Finally, he says, “You’re Doug Brock.”

I nod. “I’m aware of that.”

“I really admire what you did,” he says, and I don’t think he’s talking about my missing the stop sign. “My name is Ted Rizzo.”

“Nice to meet you, Ted. This is Jessie Allen.”

Jessie and Ted exchange hellos. This is going on a bit longer than I am in the mood for.

Ted smiles. “I guess I’ll let you off with a warning. Try and see the stop signs next time.”

“Thanks, Ted, I will. Have a good night.”

I wake up at three o’clock in the morning and can’t seem to get back to sleep. Instead I play the entire day over again in my mind, including the fiasco with the hospital records, right up to my getting stopped for not seeing the stop sign.

And then I sit up in bed and yell, out loud even though Jessie is sleeping, “Holy shit!”