Paxton, page 8
“That sounds like you’re saying we’re a good match.”
“Are you thinking we aren’t?” he asked curiously. “I thought we were getting along great.” She harrumphed at that, and he burst out laughing, making her smile. “I just don’t think you’re quite ready to admit it, is all,” he teased, with a bright smile.
“No, and we did meet under very strange circumstances.”
At that, he shook his head. “No way. Absolutely no way am I letting you get away with that one,” he argued. “We met a long time ago, and we’ve been dealing with paperwork for a while now. I knew who you were before I ever walked in that door,” he stated. “I’d thought about asking you out before. However, it just never seemed to work. When I was coming in, I was dealing with issues that needed resolving. Plus there was always a line.” She stared at him, open-mouthed. He shrugged. “What? I’m not supposed to say things like that?”
“Well, I guess there’s no reason not to,” she replied cautiously, “and thanks for the honesty. I’m just a little surprised, I guess.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied. “I always try to be honest, by the way.”
“And apparently it works for you too,” she noted, with a laugh. Just then the coffee arrived. She picked up the mug and held it with her hands wrapped around it, enjoying the warmth from the cup.
“Cold?” he asked in a low tone.
She smiled. “Just a little disturbed about this whole mess.”
He nodded. “But like I said, today’s a new day.”
She laughed. “Absolutely, yet it doesn’t necessarily feel like it’s a good day though.”
“I hear you there,” he stated, “but, as soon as we’re done here, we’ll go do the search, and then, if we see that nothing’s wrong, I’ll put this behind me.”
Throughout breakfast and on their way to her office, she wondered about that, not at all sure that his version of putting something behind him was the same version as she would think it would be. She suspected it would take a lot for Paxton to put this to rest. They walked into her office almost an hour later; thankfully the two of them were alone in the building.
“You won’t get in trouble for bringing me in with you, will you?” Paxton asked Cherise.
She shook her head. “No, not at all. You won’t have access to anything, and you’ll sit in the waiting area, while I work.”
“I’m fine with that.” He pulled out his cell phone and sat down at the chair she had pointed to, while she walked over to her desk and logged in. Logging in was no problem, and, with the offices closed, the service was at a higher bandwidth, so processing information was faster.
She quickly ran through a few searches, brought up a list of names, cross-checked them first against a list of doctors, then against the psychiatrists, and finally the physical therapists they used on staff. By the time she was done, she had four names that ticked all the boxes. She looked at Paxton in surprise, not even sure what she was looking at.
“What is it you’re looking at?” he asked.
She looked over the list again and frowned. “I’m not really sure, but I have four names.”
“Patients?”
She nodded. “Yes, all four saw the same three people, same psychiatrist, same doctor, same physical therapist, all four had complaints that they weren’t getting processed and that people were deliberately keeping them out of work.”
“Any of that justified?” he asked.
“How do I know?” she asked, with a shrug. “It’s hard for me to see all the medical notes here. And, of course, it’s not the full file. It’s only what’s been listed.”
“Right. Is my name one of those?”
She raised her eyebrows in surprise and then shook her head. “No, you didn’t come up. Maybe you saw another treating doctor and psychiatrist?” But when he offered up those names without a fuss, it matched the providers for this list of four as well. “Well then, I don’t know how many others might have gotten missed too,” she noted, as she stared at her computer.
“Or maybe it’s a time frame thing,” he suggested.
“I don’t know, but these four names are all that I have.”
He nodded. “Maybe you could let me have those names, and I’ll contact them.”
“Why would I do that?” she asked, with a wry look. “This is more or less in case the military contacts me about it.”
“Sure, but I need to confirm the doctor, the psychiatrist, and those four names, assuming they all were seeing Wesley.” Something inflexible was in his tone of voice.
She glared at him. “There are such things as privacy laws. Ever heard of HIPAA? I don’t want to get in trouble for handing this over.”
“Then talk to Mason,” he offered immediately.
She frowned and then nodded. “That’s not a bad idea.” She quickly phoned Mason, putting him on Speaker, and, when he answered, she explained what she’d pulled.
“Excellent,” he said. “More so, yes, it is okay to hand off that information to Paxton. I was thinking about it this morning, wondering what rank we can pull to see if there is any justification for this.”
“So, you think this is worth investigating too?” she asked in surprise.
“I hate to see it being dismissed, when a man lost his life and killed somebody else because of it,” Mason replied quietly.
“Any luck with civilian law enforcement?”
“Outside of an agreement to keep an open mind, not a whole lot,” he confirmed.
And there was that same note of humor that she’d come to associate with Mason. “Right,” Cherise agreed, “so is this something that we should hand over to the MPs and to the local civilian cops?”
“Not yet,” Mason replied. “Let Paxton take a look at it first, and we’ll see if anything pops up.”
She looked over at Paxton, still with Mason on the line.
Paxton nodded and said cheerfully, “I guess I know what that look means.” Paxton smiled broadly.
“Fine,” she told Mason. “I’ll hand it over, but if I get in trouble …”
“You’ll tell them that I said it was okay,” Mason declared.
She breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thanks for saying that. I feel like an ass, but—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Mason replied. “It’s all good.” And, with that, she handed over the list to Paxton. He immediately took a look at it, his eyebrows popping up. “Hey, Mason, I know two of these guys—Rick and Mitch.”
“Good, let’s start there.”
“Yeah, will do.” Paxton leaned over Cherise, while she was logging off, and gave her a big smacking kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you later, darlin’.” And, with that, he was gone.
She glared at the door and then, into the phone, she snapped, “He is really quite impossible. You do know that, right?”
At that, she heard Mason chuckling. “Yeah, he sure is, but he’s got a good heart and sound instincts. I definitely want him on my team. I just need somebody to clear him.”
She heard the frustration in Mason’s voice too.
“Paxton’s name didn’t come up in this search,” she noted quietly, and Mason got it immediately.
“So, then the question is, if his name didn’t come up, why not, and how many others didn’t come up either?”
“Exactly,” she replied.
Mason thought about it a moment. “Can you run a few more names for us and see if you get a second doctor?”
“What do you mean?”
“Paxton had a second doctor on his team. Dr. Comline.”
“Ah, maybe that’s why because there was a second one involved.” She quickly brought her computer back up again and opened up multiple windows, cross-checking with the name that Mason had given her. “So that’s … Okay, here we go. I’ve got four more names here, and this time it includes Paxton. He saw the same doctor, but he also had another one who handled his case.”
“So, whatever game these three providers were playing, they probably could not play with Paxton because his second doctor wouldn’t work with them or didn’t know about the bribing?”
“Right. That’s interesting,” she noted. “Why did Paxton end up with a second doctor?”
“For one thing, I told him to request a second opinion.”
She stared at the phone. “Did you think something was wrong?”
“Not necessarily,” he explained, “but, when it comes to medicals, I always like a second opinion. And, in this case, it was proven out because, according to Paxton, that second-opinion doctor didn’t see any reason for Paxton to not be back to work.”
“Oh, now that’s interesting too,” she murmured.
“Yeah, and it’s also fascinating because that doctor was recently involved in a car accident.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was killed in a hit-and-run two days ago,” Mason shared, his voice grim. “I haven’t even told Paxton that yet.”
She gasped. “Oh my, so now there’s absolutely nobody to sign off on his file.”
“No. Though I don’t think that part was necessarily deliberate. I think it’s just that Paxton’s been caught up in the system right now. We’ll get him out, but it’ll take a little bit of time. However, first we have to solve this.”
“Well, hell,” she replied. “Do you want me to send these names to him?”
Mason thought about it a bit and agreed. “Yes, but don’t give too much of an explanation. I’ll call him myself about Comline.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’m heading home to try and get some of this off my mind and to finish cleaning up the mess in my apartment.”
“Was there much damage under the mess?” he asked.
“No, it was mostly just a mess,” she confirmed. “The damage was more to my sense of security.”
“Of course,” Mason agreed. “I’m sorry you got caught up in this.”
“Me too.” She got up and walked to the window to stare at the world outside. “Anyway, thanks for the help. I feel better knowing you’re on board. I’m heading home now.”
And, with that, she ended the call, locked up her office, and then headed outside, looking forward to a nice walk home.
*
Paxton headed toward his buddy’s house. He hadn’t met him there before, but he knew where he lived because they’d talked about the apartment building at the gym one time. As he rang the buzzer and waited for a response, Mason called him. “Hey. What’s up, Mason?” When he heard the news, he swore. “Oh, damn. He was killed in a hit-and-run, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, I didn’t know if you’d heard about that.”
“I just heard it on the news this morning, but I hadn’t made the connection.”
“I think that’s why these other four names, yours included, didn’t come up in the original list.”
“Right, because they wouldn’t have met the parameters of the searches because this other doctor would have come up. But now that Dr. Comline is gone, either these three remaining providers—minus Wesley now—could potentially be approached by whoever is doing whatever they’re doing.”
“Right,” Mason said. “I’m already working on Wesley’s history. And now we’ll need to do full investigations into the two doctors. The psychiatrist as well, I guess.”
“That’ll be fun,” Paxton quipped. “That won’t be all that easy and will probably flag all kinds of alerts.”
“I might have to bring Tesla into that,” Mason noted quietly.
“What about Cherise?” he asked.
“She’s on her way home. She mentioned she still had some clean-up to do.”
“Right. I can’t believe some asshole went in and did that to her place,” Paxton said. “I tried to get her to let me stay there last night, but she kept insisting that she wasn’t in any danger.”
“It was definitely a warning, and she’s already crossed the line, so I would be concerned, but I’m not sure that it’s anything to panic about.”
“Yet we already know that there’s been one retaliation,” Paxton noted.
“Exactly, and it would be much nicer if we knew that she was safe around the clock, but she’s also pretty stubborn.”
“She is at that,” Paxton agreed, with a laugh.
“Hey, it sounds like you two are getting along well.”
“We are,” he noted, smiling, “but she’s very resistant to the whole idea of some cover-up.”
“She may not be resisting the idea as much as this whole mess is throwing her off balance. But who could blame her for that?”
“Nobody,” Paxton replied agreeably. When he hung up from Mason, he immediately buzzed his buddy’s apartment again. When no answer came, he checked the front doors, noting that another tenant was coming out. He waited and, as soon as it unclicked for her, Paxton pulled the door open for her and then slipped inside. Walking up to the second floor, he knocked on his buddy’s door.
It was quite possible he was out of town or visiting a girlfriend overnight. Paxton tried calling again, but still got no answer. Frowning, he wrote a quick note and stuffed it under the doorway, plus sent him a text, saying he was looking for him. Then he turned and headed back down the hallway. As he got close to the stairs, a door opened, and another young man walked out. Paxton stopped, then smiled and said, “Hey, don’t I know you?”
“I don’t know. You don’t live here though, do you?”
“No,” Paxton replied. “I was looking for Rick.” He motioned down the hallway at his buddy’s door. “I finally slid a note under his door, after I wasn’t able to get a hold of him.”
“I saw him last night,” the neighbor said.
“Really?” Paxton frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, we were at a party together,” the neighbor added. “I know he went in there. He’s probably just sleeping it off.” And, at that, he headed down the stairs, calling back, “See you later, man.”
On that note, and feeling like he should honor the disquiet Paxton felt inside, he walked back to his buddy’s apartment door and, pulling out his lock pick, quickly unlocked the door and stepped inside.
The blood smell hit him almost immediately. He swore as he carefully made his way to the bedroom, and there was his buddy, lying on the bed face up. He quickly pulled his phone from his pocket and called Mason. “Rick’s dead,” Paxton said starkly. “I don’t know if it’s connected, but a neighbor just told me that he and Rick were at a party last night. Now Rick’s lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling.”
“Crap,” Mason swore softly. “I’m calling the MPs. You stay there.”
“Yeah, I will.” He wished he had gloves, but instead he pulled out napkins from his latest meal and quickly rummaged around Rick’s bedroom, looking for anything suspicious. Paxton found nothing in the bedroom, including no drugs. Out in the kitchen, he located a file that looked to be Rick’s medical data.
He quickly flipped through it, seeing various documents similar to what he would expect. But on the top of one doc was a note—Six more months.
Swearing down at the pile of papers, Paxton whispered, “What the fuck?” On the next page, another note was affixed. Several dollar signs written at the top. Underneath was another underlined note—How long?
He quickly took a picture of both notes and sent them to Mason, then flipped through the file, taking photos of other handwritten notes, then sent those with a text message to Mason. Do you think they were paying to get their files cleared?
With that sent off, hearing noises outside, Paxton quickly walked over to the door and opened it to see a team of MPs. He let everybody in and motioned toward the bedroom. “He’s in there.”
The MPs looked at him and frowned. “I know. I didn’t touch anything. If you don’t know me, I’m Paxton Fuller. Mason contacted you guys, right?”
“Yes. You were connected to that shooting yesterday, weren’t you?”
He nodded slowly and explained how he’d come to be there. “Before he shot himself, the gunman told me there was a problem.” Then he went on to explain it to them.
“Right, we have a file open on that.” The lead MP looked at him and added, “We’ll need your statement.”
Paxton nodded. “No problem. I’ll give it to you, but you may want to call Mason first. He’ll probably be calling you anyway.”
At that, the MP glared at him. “So you’ll play it like that?”
Paxton nodded. “Look. I get it,” he told the lead MP, “but this guy Rick and I were friends, and we were also in rehab together, while we’ve been on disability. So I wanted to ask him if he’d had any kind of argument with his physical therapist about going back to work.”
“Did he answer you? Did he say anything?”
“No, I couldn’t get him on the phone or by text this morning, so I came here and found him dead. I was talking to his neighbor down at the end of the hallway, who told me how they’d both been at a party last night and how he was sure Rick was inside, probably sleeping it off.”
“So did he just leave his door unlocked?”
“Hey, it’s not unheard of, especially after a night of partying,” Paxton replied. “You know that.”
At that, the MP nodded. “Unfortunately it happens way too often,” he agreed. “I’m surprised we don’t lose more this way.”
“Well, it might have been from the party last night,” Paxton guessed, “but I don’t think he was on drugs.”
“If he was in physical therapy and recovering from injuries, he’s probably still on NSAIDS.”
“Maybe, but you’d have to check to see if he had any active prescriptions.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll do our job.”
Paxton winced at that and added, “Make sure you call the Coronado police too.” At that, the MP just gave him a flat stare. “Right,” Paxton noted, with half a smile. “You know how to do your job.”
“Exactly.” And, with that, the head MP motioned Paxton to the door and said, “Don’t leave town, but feel free to leave here.”
Taking that as a hint, Paxton left, headed down to his car, and, when he got inside, called Mason. “I don’t think they’ll be terribly cooperative.”
Mason laughed. “Well, you’ve given them a lot more work over the last couple days. Don’t worry. I’ll contact them.”
