Death of a Cure Page 5

  “What do you know?” I asked, still being the nice guy that I know myself to be.

  “It should be obvious to any doctor that the blunt force trauma from a fall like that would have killed your brother instantly. The impact to his head was fatal and the immediate cause of death. The blood loss from the compound fractures and internal damage would have killed him quickly even without the head injury. There was nothing for the E.M.T.s to do if the reason that you are here is that you are considering a legal action against the city. We did the full line of blood work and found no trace of drugs or alcohol,” he added with finality at the end in a way to imply that our meeting was over. I thought briefly about causing him to experience firsthand the effects of blunt trauma or maybe a compound fracture — possibly a femur?

  “I want to see the report,” I managed while controlling my voice and looking at the file folder under his arm.

  “It will be released later. Releasing it to you now would violate our protocol. As it is, this is most unusual. We never speak to family members. We only share our findings with police department officials and members of the D.A.’s office. We made a significant exception for you.” His tone had further degraded as he was making it clear that he did not like those who violated protocol — significantly or otherwise. He was getting close to having his protocol shoved up his ass. He just didn’t know it yet.

  “Dr. Michaelson, I’ve traveled a long way to be here. I’m sure that I am not up on your procedures and will apologize for any inconvenience that my visit has caused.”

  I moved closer to Michaelson, step by step, and spoke quietly to him in a calm monotone. I caused my face to harden and continued to lean closer to him. He began to back up, matching my movement. The first looks of alarm were registering on his face.

  Speaking as I continued to move toward him, he was becoming increasingly aware of my violation of his personal space, and that was becoming a problem for him, a major problem, especially for a New Yorker. “But, let me help you understand what I am not going to do. I am not going to call my friend at the 17th, I am not going to call the mayor’s office, I’m not going to call a press conference, and I’m not going to call for Divine intervention. What I am going to do is call on your sense of humanity to help out a fellow physician and the brother of a fine man recently deceased. I plan to help you give me the report that I have politely asked for. I should mention that my plans are always successful.”

  The entire time I kept closing in on this worm, I stared at him with unblinking eyes that were fixed on his. I leaned over from the waist staring him down, getting closer and closer. He seemed to shrink two jacket sizes.

  He quickly offered the file to me. I noticed that it was now a little sweat-stained. Imagine that.

  “Here, take this!” he stammered and tried to back further into the corner. It was amazing how helpful he had become. I was regretting all the terrible things that I had been thinking about civil servants. I took the file and smiled at him.

  “Thanks. Do you want me to come back?”

  He shook his head vigorously.

  “Then I think we should keep this little meeting just between us.”

  I could tell he agreed whole-heartedly by the energetic way that he was nodding his head. I left the building.

  I still did not know exactly what to think about Ron’s death. My gut was screaming at me that he did not take his own life. At the same time, I wondered if I was too close. Could I possibly be objective?

  As much as it was great to have a battle-hardened, precinct commander on my side, I wondered if he could be objective either. He had become Ron’s friend, and even though he was obviously tough and experienced, Ron could have been fooling all of us while living with something terrible. He was perfectly capable of keeping something very bad to himself and not burdening others. He was perfectly capable of thinking of himself as not needing the help of others. Arrogance — it was a family trait.

  I needed help. As I exited the building and stood on the street corner, I decided that it was time for one of the Briggs brothers to avoid the arrogance trap. I needed someone who had investigative skills, who was experienced in police work, and who didn’t know Ron. I needed someone that I knew well enough to know exactly what his words meant, not what he might mean, right when they were spoken. I needed someone I could trust. Someone I could trust about police investigation procedures. The problem was that I couldn’t trust her about us — me either for that matter. It was only due to Ron’s death that I was back from my temporary assignment in Asia designed to put some space between us — my design, not hers.

  I knew exactly who that person was and was certain I could enlist the support I needed. It was, however, a call that I did not want to make. After hesitating for a minute and gathering my thoughts, I pulled the number out of my brain without having to search for it in my cell phone and dialed the Hoover Building in D.C. Tapping in the extension when the robotic voice directed me to do so correctly routed my call.

  “Special Agent Rigatti,” she said. Her voice was her ‘official FBI’ voice but with an interesting European accent.

  Here we go. “Marilena? It’s Tom.”

  “Thomas, where are you?” she asked softly. “Are you back in the country?” She didn’t sound angry or even cool to my call. She had every right to be.

  “I just got to New York late last night.”

  “It was in the Post. Tell me what you know?” She did not offer the same automatic apology that everyone leads with when you have a loss. In her mind, Ron was gone. She was concerned about the present and me. Being sorry about an event that happened almost a week ago didn’t help. It was her way.

  “I met with the police earlier this morning and just came out of the crime lab. I need to go to the funeral parlor to make arrangements.” Talking about my recent activities let me dodge the emotional question, at least for now. She would not be derailed for long.

  “What have you learned?” she inquired.

  “Competent people have shared facts with me. In my pocket is a list of people who may have been nearby when Ron went through the window — either of his own free will or not. I have some second hand, rudimentary forensic information. I have a major internal struggle going on about whether or not Ron could have killed himself. I am not having any internal struggle with what I will do to the person who killed him if I discover that he was murdered.”

  My last two sentences were indicative of my relationship with Marilena. There were very few people that I would speak to this way about what I was feeling. She was on a very short list, a list recently reduced in number.

  “Knowing you, Thomas, I imagine that you will be very direct in your investigation. Even more so than usual given the anger that I am hearing.”

  “Yeah. Direct.” I smiled as I thought about Michaelson.

  “If your brother was killed, you might back his killer into a corner,” she warned.

  I wasn’t sure why this would be a problem. “Works for me. I’ll join him there. Briefly.”

  “You are already making mistakes. You don’t even know if you have an adversary, and already you are underestimating him. Successful police investigation is based on probing and follow-up. This is not a military action. Blunt force will not work — at least not at this stage. The time might come later for confrontation to elicit a response. I hate to disappoint you, but that probably won’t be necessary. You need to be the benevolent doctor and brother. You are only here to pay your final respects and deal with his affairs. Don’t let people see you as a threat. Get them to talk to you. If Ron had a killer, make him comfortable with the knowledge you have accepted his death as a suicide. Let any overconfidence be his, not yours.”

  She was right, of course. That was why I had called her. I knew she would be right. She would say what I needed to hear. She would tell me what I needed to do.

  “I’m not good at subtle,” I said.

  She laughed and punctuated each word, “Now there is an
understatement!” After a moment and back on an even keel she said, “You will have to adapt. When do you go to his office?”

  “Tomorrow morning. I don’t have an appointment. I’m going to drop in unannounced.”

  “Call someone and let them know you are coming. Let them be prepared. Don’t push. Not yet. Please.”

  I was quiet for almost sixty seconds. She did not interrupt my thoughts and let me take the next step.

  “I need help.”

  She replied without hesitation, “I will be there tomorrow.”

  VOLUNTARY HEALTHCARE

  ADVOCACY

  Michaelson had not called the cops. I had been standing in front of the crime lab building in plain view for over twenty minutes while talking on my cell phone. So far, the local law had not arrived and arrested me. If he was going to make an official complaint about me, I wanted to get it over with and not wonder whether or not there would be a later interaction with New York’s finest when I returned to the condo.

  I walked a few blocks to a place I know at 19th and Park that serves a great steak. It was time for lunch, and I had worked up an appetite. Intimidating civil servants will make you hungry. This wasn’t my first time. Others have told me that I lack respect for my fellow professionals. Well, sometimes, maybe.

  The restaurant was a typical New York, high-end steak house. In spite of the brilliant white linen tablecloths, well-trained serving staff, and quality beef, it was a noisy and raucous environment. The kind of place where you could sit a table in the center of the maelstrom and be alone with your thoughts. It must be the combination of noise and high ceilings because if you had a companion, you could have a reasonable conversation that would not be overheard at the next table. My kind of place. There was a lot to see going on around me. I was invisible to all but the waitress.

  After lunch, I set a fast pace and hoofed it sixty or so blocks back to the condo in Central Park West. A fast walk helps me think. It also helped settle the protein infusion that my gastrointestinal tract was trying to accommodate. I had been correct in telling Marilena that I had some facts, but they had not even begun to answer my basic question — could Ron have taken his own life? What else had I accomplished today? I had a new friend in a command position at the police department. I had a new enemy at the coroner’s office. A balanced day. I might need O’Dale to bail me out if Michaelson grew a backbone. A low probability concern.

  Arriving back at Ron’s — I still thought of it as his place although title would pass to me soon enough, I started up his desktop computer in the den. My plan was to use the rest of the day to do a little research before going to his office tomorrow. Not knowing much about VHAs, the type of organization that he worked for, was something that needed rectifying. I knew even less about the CID Society in particular. A definite hole in the intel.

  I checked my email knowing that Marilena would be sending me flight info. I had to log into my email provider’s website and use the browser to check my mail as I had not installed my personal email account info on Ron’s computer. She was arriving tomorrow afternoon on a shuttle from Reagan to LaGuardia. I noted the airline, flight number, and arrival times before responding to her that I would meet her in baggage claim. We had each other’s cell numbers for real time coordination.

  At first read, her email was innocuous enough. However, a more careful review was a little troublesome. After citing her flight info, she added a short paragraph.

  “I’m glad that you called me, and I would have been very unhappy if you had asked someone else for help. We will resolve this together.

  Always, M”

  Marilena was the bureau’s liaison to our group. We had worked several operations together; me in the field and for the most part, she had remained in the command center. She had surprised me because unlike her predecessor, she had actually come to our base of operations and twice participated in the field. The guy before her was a voice on the phone constantly demanding an update. She was highly competent and the first Fed that we didn’t want to shoot. It did not take her long to earn everyone’s respect.

  We had become good friends and enjoyed each other’s company. The problem was that we had started to become a little too attracted to one another. I put a stop to our extra-curricular involvement after it had progressed to dinner and dancing. Work relationships are off the table for me. I am by no means a saint when it comes to the boy-girl thing, but I was never going to screw up my job with an in-house relationship. Explaining this to Marilena was awkward, and when the after-work contact abruptly ended three months ago, she became a little frosty. We never really moved beyond her irritation and my fear. The best we had been able to do was to strictly limit our interaction to work. Skipping town by volunteering for the western Pacific rotation hadn’t helped.

  My call for help with a personal issue had changed the rules of engagement. With our recent history in mind, her final paragraph was disconcerting. Or, maybe I was just reading too much into her words. She did not know how hard it had been for me to pull away from her, and even worse, to do something that would make her mad at me. It had been close — scary close. This Marine was going to have to be on full alert to keep this professional. She had me outclassed, outnumbered and outgunned. If I weren’t careful, Marilena would alter my life in a big way. A life that I am extremely happy with, thank you very much.

  Putting Marilena’s image aside — not an easy thing to do — I started my investigation into VHAs. A VHA is a Voluntary Healthcare Advocacy organization. It is organized for tax purposes as a “not-for-profit” with a specific focus on something to do with healthcare, usually a chronic disease. The VHA is the advocate of those who suffer from the disease. It provides community, develops resource to fight and hopefully cure the disease while providing comfort and assistance to those who are afflicted. Some examples are the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. They raise money employing many methods from high-end, society-style philanthropy to organizing street-level events like sponsored bike rides and walks. The latter method was the most effective, yet the high-society approach got the press. Some of the money raised would be used for research to find a cure, some would be used for programs helping constituents, and some would be used to run the business.

  And, it was a business. I knew that Ron’s shop, the CID Society, raised millions of dollars a year. What I didn’t know was the exact amount or how it was spent. This was where I got started, this was all I knew about VHAs, and it was a little embarrassing. You’d think that as a doctor, I would have been well versed in healthcare advocacy. Or, at least, a little less ignorant about the topic. In some ways, I’m just not a great doc. I tried to feel better about this. If you ever find yourself hanging in your parachute harness under a jungle canopy while bleeding out from a gunshot wound, I’m the best doc you will ever meet. Yeah, this happens to everyone sooner or later. No sale — even to myself. I’m pretty sure that I’ll never be a servant of the greater good helping out the masses.

  I’m just OK at traveling the information super highway even though my job has made me become somewhat Internet savvy. I made a few unintentional exits and wrong turns. Using a search engine requires some intuition that you only get with experience, although some people seem to have the gift from day one. A couple of my prior experiences were memorable, disturbingly memorable. Once, I had to find a repair shop for a small inflatable boat. Never use the word “inflatable” in a Google search. Ever.

  The first thing I discovered was that the not-for-profit business is very big business. The phrase “not-for-profit” had always made me itch, definitely a genetic inheritance from my father who was the ultimate capitalist and proud of it. However, after looking at a few of these multi-million and even some multi-billion dollar charities, I might have to rethink my assessment. It seemed that generating a lot of revenue while not officially showing any profit (but still keeping a lot of the money around for later use) w
as the name of the game. The not-for-profit name was definitely a misnomer.

  The not-for-profit world seems to be divided into two camps. The first is the healthcare-related one whose morally lofty goal is the defeat of some terrible disease. The second is the “anything but healthcare-related.” These groups are not so pious. In fact, they come right out and argue without apology for some parochial cause, be it gun rights, looking out for retirees, defending an indefensible industry, religious conviction or political action. In both arenas, healthcare or not, the stream of cash from the legions of believers is incredibly impressive.

  The not-for-profit business segment has gotten so large that it has become an industry in itself. I even found multiple sites that rated charities, allowing donors some understanding about where their money was going. A line of business was based solely on the fact that there were not-for-profits in existence. They were collectively referred to in the pages I was reading as the “Watchdogs.” The largest and most followed Watchdog had a rating system. Out of curiosity, I checked and saw that Ron’s VHA was awarded three out of four stars. I wondered how important that was and what it meant to the CID Society?

  I looked more closely at this site to see how they determined the number of stars to award a particular not-for-profit organization. It seemed that the mechanism was objective and that was good, but it relied on only one source of information. That was bad even to a non-financial type like myself. The sole source was the yearly tax return filed by the not-for-profit — the Form 990. Although I don’t know anything about charitable organization tax compliance, it seemed odd that they looked only at a tax return. There was no examination of the management team, the efficacy of the sponsored research, the constituent programs or the functional areas. Growing up in my dad’s house and hearing the annual shouting matches in the evening as he argued about the annual report on the phone was the basis for my concern. He would browbeat the accountants until the financial data were categorized to his liking. I wasn’t so naive to believe that in this high-dollar world of the not-for-profit that the same accounting voodoo wasn’t rampant. Money is the source of all political power and how you report it is what keeps the palace walls in place.