“We need to talk about Joe Amos,” Marino says.
“A disappointment,” he says, his normally pleasant expression fading. “Truth is, I’m sorry I recommended him for your fine institution. I’m especially sorry because Kay deserves a heck of a lot better than the likes of that arrogant little bastard.”
“That’s what I’m getting at. Based on what? You recommended him because of what?”
“His impressive education and references. He has quite a pedigree.”
“Where’s his file? You still have it? The original?”
“I sure do. I kept the original. A copy went to Kay.”
“When you went over this fancy education and references, did you check them out to make sure they were authentic?” Marino hates to ask him. “People can fake a lot of things these days. Especially because of computer graphics, the Internet, you name it. That’s one reason identity theft’s becoming such a problem.”
Dr. Bronson rolls his chair to a filing cabinet and opens a drawer. He walks his fingers through neatly labeled files and pulls out one with Joe Amos’s name on it. He hands it to Marino.
“Help yourself,” he says.
“Mind if I sit here for a minute?”
“I don’t know what’s taking Polly so long,” Dr. Bronson says, rolling his chair back to the microscope. “You take all the time you want, Pete. I’ll just get back to my slides. A sad one. Poor woman found in the swimming pool.” He adjusts the focus, his head bent over the eyepiece. “Her ten-year-old little girl found her. Question’s whether she drowned or had some other fatal event like a myocardial infarct. She was bulimic.”
Marino looks through letters that medical-school department heads and other pathologists wrote on Joe Amos’s behalf. He skims through a resume that is five pages long.
“Dr. Bronson? Did you ever call any of these people?” Marino asks.
“About what.” He doesn’t look up. “No old scarring of her heart. Course, if she had an infarct and survived for hours, I’m not going to see anything. I asked if she might have purged earlier. That can really muck up your electrolytes.”
“About Joe,” Marino says. “To make sure these big-shot doctors really know him.”
“Of course they know him. They wrote me all those letters.”
Marino holds a letter up to the light. He notices a watermark that looks like a crown with a sword through it. He holds up each of the other letters. They all have the same watermark. The letterheads are convincing, but since they aren’t engraved or embossed, they could have been scanned or reproduced with some sort of graphic software package. He picks a letter supposedly generated by the chief of pathology at Johns Hopkins and tries the number. A receptionist answers.
“He’s out of town,” she tells him.
“I’m calling about Dr. Joe Amos,” Marino says.
“Who?”
He explains. He asks her if she could check her files.
“He wrote a letter on Joe Amos’s behalf a little over a year ago, on December seventh,” Marino tells her. “Says here on the bottom of the letter the person who typed it has the initial LFC.”
“There’s nobody here with those initials. And I would have been the one who typed anything like that, and those certainly aren’t my initials. What is this about?”
“Just a simple case of fraud,” Marino says.
56
Lucy rides one of her souped-up V-Rods north on A1A, hitting every red light on her way to Fred Quincy’s house.
He runs his Web design business out of hisHollywoodhome. He isn’t expecting her, but she knows he’s in, or at least he was when she called half an hour ago to sell him a subscription toThe Miami Herald. He was polite, far more polite than Lucy would be if some solicitor dared to get her on the phone. His address is two blocks west of the beach, and he must have money. His home is two stories of pale-green stucco and black wrought iron, and the driveway is gated. Lucy stops her bike at an intercom and presses the button.
“May I help you?” a male voice answers.
“Police,” Lucy says.
“I didn’t call the police.”
“I’m here to talk to you about your mother and sister.”
“What police department?” the voice sounds suspicious.
“Broward sheriff’s.”
She slips out her wallet and holds up her bogus credentials, holds the wallet and its badge in front of the closed-circuit video camera. A tone sounds, and the wrought-iron gate begins to slide open. She kicks her bike in gear and bumps over granite pavers, parking in front of a big black door that opens the instant she turns off the engine.
“That’s quite a bike,” the man she assumes is Fred says.
He is of average height with narrow shoulders and a slender build. His hair is dark blond, his eyes bluish-gray. He is quite handsome in a delicate sort of way.
“Don’t think I’ve ever seen a Harley quite like this,” he says, walking around her bike.
“You ride?” she asks.
“Nope. I leave the dangerous stuff to other people.”
“You must be Fred.” Lucy shakes his hand. “Mind if I come in?”
She follows him across the marble tile foyer into a living room that overlooks a narrow, murky canal.
“What about my mother and Helen? Have you found out something?”
He says it as if he means it the way he should. He isn’t just curious or paranoid. Pain fills his eyes, and there is an eagerness, a faint ring of hope.
“Fred,” she says. “I’m not with the Broward County Sheriff’s Department. I have private investigators and laboratories and we’ve been asked to help.”
“So you misrepresented yourself at my gate,” he says, his eyes turning unfriendly. “That wasn’t a very nice thing to do. Bet you’re the one who called, too, saying you’re theHerald. To see if I was home.”
“Right on both counts.”
“And I’m supposed to talk to you?”
“I’m sorry,” Lucy says. “It was a lot to explain over an intercom.”
“What’s happened to make this of interest again? Why now?”
“I’m afraid I need to be the one asking the questions,” she says.
Uncle Samis pointing his finger at YOU and saying I WANT YOUR CITRUS.”
Dr. Self pauses dramatically. She looks comfortable and confident in a leather chair on the set ofTalk It Out. In this segment she has no guests. She doesn’t need them. She has a telephone centered on the table next to her chair, and cameras catch her from different angles as she punches buttons and says, “This is Dr. Self. You’re on the air.”
“So how about that?” she goes on. “Is the USDA stomping on our Fourth Amendment rights?”
It is an easy set-up, and she can’t wait to jump right down the throat of the fool who just called in. She glances at the monitor, satisfied the lighting and angles are catching her favorably.
“They sure are,” the fool says over speakerphone.
“What’s your name again?Sandy?”
“Yeah, I…”
“Stop before you chop,Sandy?”
“Ah, what…?”
“Uncle Sam with an ax? Isn’t that the image the public has?”
“We’re being screwed. It’s a conspiracy.”
“So that’s how you think of it? Good Old Uncle Sam cutting down all your trees. Chop, chop.”
She catches the cameramen, her producer smiling.
“The bastards came into my yard without permission, and next thing I know, all my trees are going to be cut down…”
“And you live where,Sandy?”
“CooperCity. I don’t blame people for wanting to shoot them or siccing their dogs on…”
“Here’s the thing about it,Sandy.” She leans into the point she’s about to make, the cameras zooming in. “You people don’t pay attention to the facts. Have you attended meetings? Have you written your legislators? Have you bothered to ask questions point-blank and consider that maybe, just maybe, the explanations offered by the Department of Agriculture might make sense?”