The Grilling Season Page 16

  She gestured imperiously. “It’s always personal for somebody, Goldy.”

  “Don’t give me that low-brow journalistic jive. Please. If you want me to stay here and visit, promise not to print anything about my son.”

  She kept on scribbling, pursed her lips, and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “Okay, I won’t if you’ll let me run some stuff by you. Besides, I’m sure you’ll want to hear all I’ve learned about this Craig business. Chris here”—she flapped a casual hand in his direction—“is an insider. There’s all kinds of scuttlebutt. You know this town. Once something happens, it’s like a …” She closed her eyes and sought the perfect simile. “Like a … volcanic energy erupts around the desire to know what’s going on.”

  Chris took a deep breath and shifted his weight uncomfortably. Tina sipped some water. Marla, of course, was all ears. But Mount Saint Frances calmly lit a cigarette. My attempt to ask Frances a few delicate questions was going awry pretty quickly.

  “Run some stuff by me?” I echoed. “Such as?”

  “Okay, this is top secret. If somebody comes up to the table here and wants to know what we’re talking about, we say I’m interviewing Tina for the doll show.”

  “So what are you running by me?”

  “ACHMO is planning a raid,” she informed me blithely, her tone a shade lower. “On John Richard Korman’s office. Tomorrow morning.”

  Marla shrieked with glee. I said, “A raid? Frances, what on earth are you talking about?”

  Our food arrived and I was thankful for the momentary distraction. A raid? What were they looking for? And why would ACHMO raid anyone’s office? This could not be true. I assumed an expression of polite interest and, because the waitress hovered over us, attempted to change the subject.

  “How’s your ankle coming along?” I asked Chris. “I should have asked after church.”

  He smiled shyly. “I’ll be kicking field goals in no time.”

  Frances took three bites of her sandwich, pushed it away, and relit the half-finished cigarette she had carefully squashed out when the food arrived. “So. You want to hear about the raid or not?”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” urged Marla, eyes sparkling.

  “Why don’t you just tell the police about it?” I asked. The Linzertorte was delicious, a crunchy crust covered with jewel-colored raspberry jam. “A raid by the HMO has got to be illegal, Frances.”

  “But it isn’t.” Chris’s surprisingly powerful baritone commanded attention. “We do it all the time. Usually we call first, which is what we’ll do tomorrow. We come in to check information in the files.”

  “What?” Marla exclaimed. “What about patient confidentiality?”

  Chris readjusted his ankle and went on. “Marla. Goldy. May I call you by your first names?” Frances nodded, I noticed, before we had the chance. “It’s in our contract,” he continued. “We can visit any practice we own. A nurse, a doctor, someone with medical training who’s working for the HMO, comes in. It’s not really a raid.” He grinned indulgently at Frances, who was lighting her second cigarette. “We just want to check how certain procedures get billed, and we do it by going through individual files. The provider’s office has to let us have what we want.”

  Well, my curiosity was piqued, no question. John Richard in jail and ACHMO was going to crash into his office to go through his files. Small wonder that Frances was interested, too.

  “What are you going to be looking for tomorrow morning? Something related to Suz Craig?” I asked mildly.

  “And may I come?” demanded Marla.

  Chris’s reply was matter-of-fact. “No, oh, no. And actually, Suz is—was—the one who ordered this visit. It’s been planned for a while, but we were waiting until Korman was called out on a delivery. Now we’ve got a perfect opportunity to go in. And it’s not what the Medical Management person will say she wants that matters. Or what I say, as head of Provider Relations. Since she’s a nurse and I’m a doctor, that’s how ACHMO gets around the patient confidentiality issue. But in this case what we say we want and what we’ll actually be after are two entirely different things.”

  “What is it you’ll actually be after?” I inquired innocently. “And why are you telling us this?”

  Chris tugged on his beard. “What we’ll be looking for are personal notes from Korman about the McCrackens’ suit. At least, that’s what Suz, and now the chief honchos at ACHMO, want us to be looking for. And those would be illegal for ACHMO to lift. The corporation is trying to cover itself, and it’s taking the opportunity of Korman being out of the way to be thorough. Frances will tell you about it. She’s going to write an article exposing the whole thing.”

  “Frances is going to write an exposé?” I said, wide-eyed.

  “Imagine that,” commented Marla. “And will this exposé help or hurt the no-good doctor in jail for murder?”

  Frances scowled as she crushed out her cigarette and lit another. She muttered, “The timing could be a little better. The angle I’m going to be looking for is: Did Korman have a clue that Suz Craig had this raid on his records planned?”

  “What do you get out of this, Chris?” I asked. “Don’t you still work for ACHMO? Won’t this article get you into trouble with them?”

  “I want people to know what the HMO is up to,” he answered darkly. “You shouldn’t be able to just go through people’s files whenever you want. And Frances is going to keep my identity a secret. I can’t afford to lose my job.”

  “But ACHMO wouldn’t have killed one of their own, would they?”

  A pained expression wrinkled the heavy folds of his face at my question. “I don’t think so. Neither does anyone I’ve talked to. You can imagine, Goldy, all of our phones have been ringing off their hooks ever since the captain down at the Furman County Sheriff’s Department called ACHMO’s chief honcho in Minneapolis yesterday. One of my higher-ups at corporate called and said now was the time to go through Korman’s records, the way Suz planned. So that’s why they’re sending me in tomorrow—to find any personal notes Korman might have left in his office.” He paused and blinked at me. His eyelashes were so pale, they were invisible. “Everyone at ACHMO is convinced your husband beat Suz to death.”

  “He’s my ex-husband,” I said quietly. Why did no one seem to remember this?

  “My ex-husband, too,” said Marla defiantly. “So get your facts straight before you go off insulting us.”

  Frances leaned affectionately toward Chris and whispered something in his ear. Tina fluffed the lace on her Icelandic Babsie blouse. And I sat back and thought that now I had one more thing for the sheriff’s department to ask John Richard: Know anything about Suz’s dirty little scheme to betray you?

  “Look, Goldy,” Frances said, “there are two things we want to talk to you about. First of all, Patricia McCracken. Seen her lately?”

  “As a matter of fact, I catered a party for her last night.”

  “Is that where you got banged up?”

  I nodded and pretended not to notice the way the two Coreys stared at my face. I concentrated instead on the sky, where layers of pink cloud were again gathering in the west.

  Frances persisted. “Now we all know Patricia got dumped by a doctor, then married a dentist. She doesn’t have the kind of money she used to, since there are at least fifty dentists in Aspen Meadow. Back in the old days she had a way of displaying the three things she bought with her divorce-from-the-doc settlement: a too-large diamond ring, a sapphire bracelet removed and perpetually left behind in exercise class, and an always-filthy white Triumph whose leather seats her son, Tyler, had smeared with fingerpaints when he was a toddler.”

  “She just sold the Triumph to pay her lawyer’s retainer,” Marla interjected. “Everybody in town knows that.”

  “Have you met Tyler?” Frances asked, un-fazed. “He’s a five-year-old monster.”

  “I know him,” Marla said. “He’s a brat.”

  “Oh, no,” said Tina. They were her first wor
ds in a while. “He’s extremely creative. He used to help me with the hamsters. He just has a lot of energy, that’s all.”

  Frances raised an eyebrow at me.

  “Yes, I’ve met Tyler,” I replied. “Arch baby-sat him a couple of times when Tyler was younger. But the kid was so hyper that Arch said he’d never go again, no matter how broke he was. Last night the McCrackens took Tyler over to a friend’s house rather than risk him wrecking their party, which got wrecked anyway,” I muttered, thinking of the hockey free-for-all and my aching bones.

  “Uh-huh,” replied Frances, bored. She fished in her purse again, pulled out a can of Jolt cola, and popped the top. She was never without several cans, and given its triple-caffeine hit, I doubted she ever slept at all. Now she took a long swig, then dragged on the cig. I wondered if her doing an article on HMOs would have any influence on her unhealthful habits. Somehow, I doubted it. The cigarette dangled from her mouth as she handed Chris the Jolt and pawed again through her purse for another notebook. She retrieved it, flipped a few torn and curled pages, and announced: “Okay, here it is. Our Patricia begged Dr. John Richard Korman to stick her in the hospital when the placenta previa was causing problems in the pregnancy. But ACHMO wouldn’t cover it. ACHMO said Patricia should rest right in her own snug little bed until she was ready to deliver. With all of the McCrackens’ money tied up in their heavily mortgaged house and Clark’s mostly off-again dentistry practice, the prospect of an open-ended hospital stay was enough to conjure up bankruptcy. So Patricia peddled her jewelry,” Frances added with relish. “The diamond ring and sapphire bracelet paid for a one-month hospital stay that ACHMO wouldn’t spring for plus babysitting for Tyler. She couldn’t sell the Triumph because she would have had to buy a new car when she had the baby, and the Triumph had depreciated too much even to give her a down payment. And little Tyler’s fingerpainting on the white seats didn’t exactly add to its value.”

  Frances looked at me as if expecting praise. I looked back at her in silence. Marla rolled her eyes.

  Frances sighed. “So she sold the jewelry and stayed in the hospital until she ran out of money. Then she checked into a low-cost suite near the hospital, you know about those? She put that on her credit card.” Frances raised her eyebrows, pressed her lips into a grim line, and flipped another page of her notes. “But it wasn’t enough. She lost the baby at seven months. Talk about bitter—that woman’s saliva could pickle a turkey.”

  “Frances,” I chided. “You don’t have children. You can’t imagine the loss—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Patricia McCracken went nova. She sued Korman. She sued ACHMO. Her lawyers accepted the cases on contingency. Patricia took out a second mortgage on their Keystone condo and sold the Triumph after all, to pay the other legal fees. She didn’t care what she spent, as long as she brought John Richard Korman and ACHMO to their knees. You can’t sue an HMO for malpractice. So she’s trying to sock them with negligence, for even having Korman as a provider. What Patricia didn’t tell me, but I was able to find out from another source, is that our very same Mrs. P. McCracken was arrested last week for smashing flagstones in Suz Craig’s driveway.”

  I sat up straight. “What?”

  Marla murmured, “For heaven’s sake, Goldy, what good is it to have you married to a cop if he doesn’t even keep us supplied with news of local crimes?”

  “Ah,” said Frances. “Marla and Goldy are finally interested. You know how angry that woman was? I’ll tell you. She was screaming about how if she couldn’t have her baby, ‘some conniving coldhearted childless bitch’”—she glanced at her notes, “and I quote, ‘isn’t going to entertain with a big patio paid for with blood. With BLOOD!’ ”

  “But Patricia McCracken was in Keystone last week,” I pointed out.

  “Not the whole week she wasn’t. Anyway, after the arrest, Suz Craig didn’t press charges. But Ms. Craig did get a restraining order against Patricia, who agreed to undergo psychological evaluation. She also agreed to enter grief therapy for people who’ve lost their babies before delivery, as soon as she returned from a planned trip to Keystone.” Frances slapped her notebook shut with a triumphant thwack.

  “Except for the flagstone story, did you get all this from Patricia?” I asked.

  “Of course I did,” Frances responded hotly. “What the hell kind of reporter do you think I am? And I had to give Tyler all the candy corn I usually keep in my purse to keep him from crawling all over me.”

  Marla said, “Candy corn? Is that the best you could do?”

  Tina Corey tsked.

  To Tina’s brother I said, “How come ACHMO doesn’t recommend hospitalization for placenta previa?”

  “I don’t make the rules, Goldy. Some MBA does. What ACHMO did wasn’t illegal, unfortunately.”

  I turned back to Frances. “But if Patricia is suing, isn’t there some kind of gag order on her talking to you?”

  “Gag order? Are you kidding?” Frances pulled out another cigarette and lit it with the end of the one she was finishing. “That woman is dying to have her story published in the most incendiary manner possible. The only reason she talked to me was that the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News weren’t interested. And coupled with what I know about ACHMO swooping into the Jerk’s office to search for notes on the case … well.” She inhaled in a satisfied manner. “ACHMO is going down.” She smirked at me.

  I had the sudden feeling I needed to get home and check that Arch had survived his jail visit. “Well, we’ll see. Marla, are you ready?” Without waiting for a reply I said, “We need to fly, Frances.”

  “Hold on, you haven’t told me anything yet about Suz’s murder. I don’t want to talk to you just about Patricia McCracken.” Frances began to rummage in her purse again while Marla popped a last bite of pie in her mouth. “Look, I’ve got a few things to show you.”

  “Frances, I can’t tell you anything. You must be able to understand that—”

  Her nicotine-stained fingers held out three newspaper clippings. Reluctantly, I took them. Marla peered over my shoulder. Frances swiped the hair out of her left eye and demanded curtly, “Tell me if either of you know either of these guys in the first one.”

  Two smiling men held up glasses of wine to the camera. MERITMED HMO CELEBRATES NEBRASKA SUCCESS. Well, bully for them, and I hoped they were quaffing an Omaha vintage. But there was no doubt that I knew one of the two men. In fact, I had seen him yesterday, up close and personal. The caption read: “Ralph Shelton, M.D., and Mark McCreary, Chief Executive Officer, MeritMed, observed the company’s success in the Corn-husker State.” I checked the date: May 14.

  I tapped the blurry images. “Ralph Shelton used to work for ACHMO, now he works for MeritMed. So what?”

  Frances blew smoke in a steady stream off the patio. “MeritMed has an office in Denver.” She squinted at me; I shook my head. “In March Ralph Shelton was fired from AstuteCare by Suz Craig.”

  I looked at Chris. “You want to tell us a little more about those problems with firings?”

  He shrugged. Marla demanded, “Do either of you know why Ralph was fired?”

  Chris shook his head. “Not yet.”

  While Marla read the first article, I perused the second piece. It was much shorter, with no accompanying photograph. It was an announcement from a paper in Vail.

  Dr. John R. Korman will address the Colorado Association of Obstetricians tonight at 8 P.M. on “Postpartum Use of Antibiotics.” Summit Stag Hotel, across from Vail Valley Medical Center.

  The article was older than the first, dated in early January.

  “Frances,” I asked, perplexed, “why are you showing us this? I don’t know John Richard’s schedule. He goes to these conventions if it means he can ski and whoop it up. The only times I know what he’s up to is when we have to change our visitation arrangements with Arch.”

  Airily, Frances waved this off. “Do you know your ex-husband’s relationship with a drug company named Bailey Products?”<
br />
  “Yes,” interjected Marla, her voice sour. “John Richard travels around, or he used to travel around, touting their product. Something called Biocess. How do you know about it?” When Frances glanced at Chris, Marla pressed, “Do you know what happened to the Biocess endorsement money?”

  Frances nodded. “Yeah, I found out from Ralph Shelton, who also used the stuff in his practice. Ralph’s old buddy John Richard Korman pushed Biocess from Portland, Oregon, to Portland, Maine. At least until recently. Check this out.”

  I took the article Frances now proffered, and again Marla read over my shoulder. This was from a newspaper in Omaha, and like the first clipping, was also dated May 14. The headline ran: MEDICAL CONFERENCE ATTENDEES WARNED OF ANTIBIOTIC’S POSSIBLY LETHAL SIDE EFFECTS. I skimmed this one, too, which basically said that an HMO executive was warning his colleagues in other HMOs that in the course of their standard audits, his organization had found that Biocess had been linked to one death from liver failure, and several cases of negative side effects, plus higher costs postpartum. I skipped to the end of the article, where a Bailey Products spokesperson said that an Adverse Event Form had been filed with the FDA and that Bailey had put the use of Biocess on hold until they could do more studies of the antibiotic.

  “Hmm,” I said noncommittally, and handed the article back to Frances.

  She took it and said, “So Biocess, Korman’s much-loved designer antibiotic, was discovered to cause liver damage. And the cornucopia of goodies from Bailey Products available to John Richard Korman was suddenly empty.”

  “There’s your answer to what caused that blip in income,” I told Marla.

  Frances went on. “Now you two, of all people, should know Korman’s financial situation had become really, really bad. In fact, everything was about to come crashing down on his head. And think how much worse it would become if Suz Craig denied him a big fat bonus. Which she did.”

  I said to Chris, “Why did Suz deny the bonus? Why would she?”