[Lady Justice 15] - Lady Justice and the Vet Page 3

  What Bill had said hit home. In my five years on the force, I had been shot at, kidnapped, thrown off a moving train, nearly blown to bits and most recently, had leaped off a building. Miraculously, I had survived all of these brushes with death. Jerry the joker, one of the tenants in my apartment building, once remarked that if I was a cat with nine lives, I would have been dead long ago. I think subconsciously I was worried that I had used up my allotted ‘get out of death free’ cards. Bill was right --- the moment of my demise was completely out of my control. I could hide away and try to avoid danger, then walk out on the street and get hit by a car. At that moment, I decided that it wasn’t my job to worry about it anymore. I’d just leave it to The Man that was running things.

  For the rest of the hour, I listened to the men share the horrors that they had experienced, and in that sharing try to exorcise the demons that continued to haunt them.

  After the session was over, I was approached by a fellow about my age.

  “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

  I remembered from the session that his name was Mike and that he had witnessed the horrible My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1968.

  “Uhhh, no. I guess I don’t.”

  “I’m one of your tenants at the Three Trails.”

  I felt like an idiot.

  The Three Trails Hotel that I still own is honestly just a flophouse. It has twenty sleeping rooms that share four hall bathrooms. I would have dumped it years ago, but I couldn’t find anyone interested. The tenants are mostly old guys on Social Security and younger fellows without regular jobs who work out of the labor pool. They pay forty bucks a week for a room with a bed and a dresser.

  The place is managed by my dear old friend, Mary Murphy. Even though she’s in her late seventies, she rules the place with an iron hand.

  I go there when I have to, but try to stay away as much as I can. Frankly, the place is pretty depressing. I know a few of the tenants like Old Man Feeney who is notorious for stopping up the plumbing, but for the most part, the tenants are just bodies that pay rent.

  I was embarrassed that a veteran who had proudly served his country could find nothing better than the Three Trails to call home.

  “Mike --- I’m sorry. I should have known. What in the world are you doing there?”

  “It’s all I can afford --- and it’s my fault. I got hooked on drugs in Vietnam. Thought they would ease the pain of the war. When I got home, I was all strung out and did some stupid stuff. Spent a few months in prison. I got myself cleaned up, but nobody wants to hire an ex-junkie with a prison record, so I’ve just been bouncing around from job to job ever since --- anything I can pick up. Some weeks I barely make the forty bucks to keep a roof over my head.”

  I felt like I had been punched in the stomach.

  Suddenly, a total stranger that lived under my roof had become a real person that I could no longer ignore.

  CHAPTER 5

  “That’s more like the ‘old’ you,” Ox said as we met in the precinct parking lot. “Better night?”

  “No nightmares,” I replied. “I think that hearing how another guy handled his demons really helped. I want to take you and Judy out to dinner as a ‘thank you’ for getting me into the group.”

  “No thanks necessary, partner. What Judy does at the hospital is her way of giving back for the help she received.”

  “Help she received?” I asked, confused. “What help?”

  I could see that Ox had second thoughts about what he had said.

  “It’s not really something that she likes to dwell on. Everyone sees her as a tough cookie with a thick skin, but she had a few rough patches in the army. It’s not easy for a woman in the military. It’s still pretty much a ‘good old boys’ club. Some of the women are subjected to harassment and often the commanding officers look the other way.

  “As you know, Judy isn’t one to back down from a fight. It got pretty ugly for a while, but when it was over her squad leader was reprimanded. She found a group of women that had been through the same ordeal and they helped her get past it and on with her career.”

  Ox’s story brought back memories of the ‘Tailhook scandal’ in 1991. It was unfortunate that the ‘boys will be boys’ attitude was still alive and well.

  “Look,” Ox said apologetically, “I probably shouldn’t have said anything. It’s really Judy’s story to share.”

  “I won’t say a word. But honestly, I appreciate you sharing it with me. It really helps knowing someone close to me has gotten past some rough spots. Speaking of that, I felt like a real jerk last night.”

  “How so?”

  “One of the men in the group, Mike, actually lives at the Three Trails. Before last night, he was just another anonymous body who put forty bucks a week into the pay slot, but now I can’t stop thinking about him. He’s a Vietnam Vet that’s had a pretty rough time --- can’t find a decent paying job because he got hooked on drugs in the service and spent some time in jail.”

  “Wow!” Ox said. “I always thought most of your tenants were just lazy creeps. Who knew?”

  “That’s just it,” I replied. “Who does know? How many guys who served their country like Mike are out there struggling to survive? I talked to John Watson, the shrink that led the group. He told me the unemployment rate for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan is almost 11% --- way above the national average. It gave me an idea.”

  “Care to share?”

  “Earl Lassiter and Morty Friedman. Those two old codgers just won 240 million in the lottery and are wondering what to do with all that money. I’ll bet that it wouldn’t take much convincing to get them to invest in an employment program for veterans. Besides, they owe me. It was because of them I had to launch myself off the top of that building. In fact, I distinctly remember Earl’s words when I traded places with him and his girlfriend when they had been kidnapped and held for ransom. ‘I can’t thank you enough for what you are doing.’ Well, now he can!”

  After squad meeting, I was anxious to get out on the street and give Earl Lassiter a call, but the captain had a different idea.

  “Walt, Ox! In my office!”

  When we entered, two men rose from their chairs.

  “I think the two of you know Special Agent Blackburn of the FBI,” the captain said. “The other gentleman is Phil Hodges from the Office of Inspector General for the US Department of Health and Human Services.”

  I had worked with Agent Blackburn on several occasions, the most notable being a sting operation in which we uncovered collusion between the FDA, Putnam Pharmaceuticals and several corrupt politicians.

  Both men extended their hands and after the appropriate greetings, Blackburn came directly to the point.

  “The FBI and the OIG are responsible for protecting the integrity of Department of Health and Human Services programs which include Medicare and Medicaid programs, as well as the health and welfare of the beneficiaries of those programs. Unfortunately, the system is rampant with fraud which wastes the tax payer’s dollars. I’ll let Phil give you some of the gory details.”

  Hodges opened a notebook. “The US government spends over 500 billion dollars a year on Medicare and Medicaid and 50 billion of that is fraudulent payments made to people taking advantage of the system. The fraud is widespread --- doctors, hospitals, nursing homes and even the patients themselves are finding creative ways to cheat the government.”

  “Such as?” Ox asked.

  Hodges glanced at his notebook again. “Phantom Billing is a biggie. The medical provider bills Medicare for unnecessary or never performed procedures and tests or for equipment that is either not needed or came used but is being billed as new. A patient who is in on the scam provides his or her Medicare number in exchange for kickbacks. The provider bills Medicare and the patient is told to admit that he or she indeed received the medical treatment.

  “The government has dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars to federal law enforcement agencies to com
bat the fraud, but unfortunately, unless someone comes forward to report the abuse, it’s very difficult to detect.”

  I was starting to get an uneasy feeling. “This is all very interesting and also very sad, but what does it have to do with us?”

  Hodges, Blackburn and the captain exchanged glances.

  “We have to stop the hemorrhaging,” Hodges replied, “and we can’t just rely on whistleblowers. The cheats have recruited people within the system to defraud the government and now it’s our turn to fight back --- with our own people in the system --- planted there to expose the fraud. Our agency has developed software that analyzes the claims of all of the institutions receiving Medicare or Medicaid funds. If we detect a pattern that could be fraud, our plan is to place one of our operatives in the institution. We are launching a pilot program using senior citizens and frankly, with your stellar undercover record, we’d like you to be the first to test our model.”

  It was all starting to sink in. They needed another crash test dummy --- me! I had been ‘volunteered’ as a john in a prostitution sting because I looked ‘needy,’ a transvestite because I was small in stature and my legs are hairless, and a man dying of a dread disease because I was the closest thing they had to a cadaver --- and now they wanted me because I’m certainly the only officer on the force already on Medicare.

  The room was deathly quiet as everyone awaited my response.

  Finally, Ox could stand it no longer. He had tried his best to hide it, but the snicker finally won.

  “Something funny, Officer Wilson?” Hodges asked with annoyance.

  “Sorry,” Ox said, trying to regain his composure. “I just had a mental picture of Walt in an old folk’s home.”

  “You’re not too far off,” Blackburn replied.

  I noticed that he was also having some difficulty keeping a straight face.

  “We’ve targeted a residential care facility called Still Meadows. Our new software has them at the top of our suspect list. We need someone in there to sniff things out and we believe that Walt is our man.”

  I still hadn’t uttered a word.

  “Walt,” Hodges asked, “what do you think?”

  Instead of telling him what I really thought, I grudgingly muttered, “What, exactly, would I have to do?”

  Hodges face broke into a smile. He figured that he had me hooked. “That’s the spirit, old boy! It’s really quite simple. We’ll get you a small apartment in the residential care wing of the facility. You’ll be under their doctor’s care and we’ll simply monitor what they’re charging Medicare for your treatment and compare it to what you are actually getting.”

  I was confused. “Treatment? What treatment? There’s nothing wrong with me!”

  “Exactly!” Hodges replied. “According to your last department physical, you’re healthy as an old horse, so if charges start appearing for the treatment of phantom health problems, we’ll have them!”

  Then I thought about Maggie. She was beginning to grow weary of all the time I was spending away from home on undercover gigs. Just a year ago, I was gone for three months with the Secret Service following a candidate along the campaign trail.

  “How long would I have to be there?”

  “Ten days --- two weeks, tops.”

  “Would I be allowed conjugal visits?”

  Hodges thought for a moment. “Certainly not there, but if you get too randy we might be able to sneak you out on a day pass.”

  “Swell!”

  Ox snickered again, drawing Hodge’s attention.

  “As for you, Officer Wilson, we’ve procured an extra-large orderly’s uniform I believe will fit your portly frame and I believe they already have mops at Still Meadows that will fit right in your beefy hands.”

  Ox’s jaw dropped open.

  Now it was my turn to snicker.

  In one of our recent undercover operations, Ox was the designated pooper scooper at the Kennel Club Dog Show while I got to hob-knob with the judges.

  If this latest gig meant that he was on bed pan duty, he would soon qualify for his Feces Merit Badge.

  Now it was his turn to say, “Swell!”

  “How about it?” Hodges asked with anticipation. “Are you in? Your country needs you!”

  I always hate it when they play the ‘your country needs you’ card. Makes it awfully hard to say ‘no.’

  “I’ll have to talk to Maggie,” I replied grudgingly. “If she’s okay with it --- well --- I guess we’ll give it a go.”

  “Fantastic!” Hodges exclaimed, grabbing our hands. “We’re ready to go when you are.”

  That evening at supper, Maggie could sense something was amiss.

  “Okay Dick Tracy. Something is going on at work and you’re trying to figure out how to break the news. Let me help you out --- just spill it!”

  I’m sure it’s a good thing when spouses are so in tune with one another, but on some occasions it totally throws off one’s timing. I had been plotting all afternoon how I was going to approach Maggie, but her direct assault took me by surprise.

  “I --- uhhh --- well --- a funny thing happened in the captain’s office this morning.”

  She rolled her eyes, rested her chin in her hand, smiled and said, “Oh goody! A funny story! I’m all ears.”

  In the next fifteen minutes, I shared our meeting with Blackburn and Hodges.

  She had maintained a straight face throughout my dissertation, but when I finished, like Ox, she couldn’t hold back the snicker.

  “So you’re going undercover in a nursing home? Really?”

  I nodded and the snicker became a giggle. “Guess you won’t need a do-over for this gig. You’re already in character.”

  This certainly wasn’t the response that I had expected. “So --- you’re okay with this?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be? Remember when we got the invitation to tour the Rock Creek Manor Care Center and you insisted that we go because we got a free meal?”

  I nodded.

  “I almost wanted to stay myself. Meals prepared for you, bingo every afternoon, wine and cheese parties. Sounds like the most dangerous thing you’ll face is being run over by an old lady texting in her wheelchair. Compared to most of the assignments you get, this one seems pretty cushy.”

  “Won’t you miss me?”

  “Actually, there’s a realtor’s convention coming up in Las Vegas. Julie was looking for a roommate. I turned her down because I didn’t want to leave you after your ordeal on the roof, but now that you’re going to be living the good life at Still Meadows, I just might take her up on it.”

  Wonderful! While my sweetie is doing Viva Las Vegas, I’ll be doing On Golden Pond!

  Once I arrived at Still Meadows, I was pleasantly surprised by my accommodations. I was given my own little one-room apartment complete with private bath, TV and a small fridge.

  The facility was divided into two wings. The residential wing felt almost like an apartment complex while the acute care wing had all the trappings of a hospital. Separating the two were the dining room, game room, library, beauty shop and an assortment of other facilities designed to make one’s final days on earth as pleasant as possible.

  I had learned from Hodges that the going rate for my room, board and medical care was four grand a month and I wondered how someone could afford it. Maggie and I had a savings account, but what we had wouldn’t even keep us there for a year. Then I thought about the old guys like Mike, living at the Three Trails in a dingy room sharing a bath with twenty other guys for forty bucks a week. There is indeed a wide gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots.’

  By the time I had been through the in-take procedure and settled in my room, it was time for lunch.

  I found a seat in a corner by myself.

  Being the new guy on the block, I got a lot of inquisitive stares.

  As I surveyed the residents, I saw right away that I was among the youngest. Most seemed to be in their late seventies to late eighties. One of the cri
teria for being on the residential side was the ability to take care of yourself. Once that was gone, you were transferred to the acute care wing.

  I also noticed that there were more women than men, reinforcing the notion that old guys wear out faster than old gals or that women drive their men to an early grave, depending on who’s telling the story.

  After my lunch, which consisted of a bowl of tomato soup, a hard roll and a cup of coffee, I wandered around the common area, trying to get the lay of the land.

  In the game room, one of the staff was getting afternoon bingo going. I found a seat away from the action and was about to read a three month old copy of Field and Stream when I was approached by a fellow who looked just a few years older than me.

  “Murray Schwartz,” he said, extending his hand. “Just move in?”

  “Walt Williams,” I replied, nodding and shaking his hand. “I’m in room 118.”

  “Well, welcome, neighbor. I’m in 121.”

  Murray didn’t beat around the bush. “You’re a young buck compared to most of the guys in here and you look pretty healthy. How’d you wind up in Still Meadows?”

  Blackburn and Hodges had prepped me for this interrogation that they knew would be coming.

  “Baggage! All of a sudden I’m excess baggage. I’ve been living with my daughter and her husband, but all of a sudden Brian decides that I’m cramping their style. He’s a big shot lawyer and has money out the wazoo. He said he’d foot the bill if I would move out so I said, ‘what the hell,’ I don’t want to live where I’m not wanted, so here I am.”

  “I hear you,” Murray said nodding his head. “Lifestyles of the rich and famous. Can’t have an old dog underfoot.”