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  Trudy raised her hand and started talking at the same time, “We can do a search for the Medicare provider number assigned to this Ballows. Problem is there are so many centers that do the billing, we’ll have to run them all. They process a million billings a day, so it will be a week, maybe more, and I’ll go to all the different agencies that bill today. I’d mentioned this before, but there are a few other tricks we have. One is to go to the Drug Enforcement Agency and see if he has a number issued there that identifies him. That number will be important because it has his practice locations listed with it. I can access their data today. Finally we have one other stone to turn. That one is the American College of Surgeons; they may maintain data on him. One question I have is why Manitoba? Why did he go to the trouble to get a Canadian license when he had figured out how to swindle the licensure system in America?”

  Another agent suggested, “That might have been a false start. My bet is he went to Canada, then figured out the switch for reciprocity and abandoned another plan. I would put dollars to doughnuts, too, that there’s more to this story in the licensing end of things. Somehow our mark got very knowledgeable of the process of licensing and was able to submit his own paperwork in a timely manner, and falsified sufficiently to get his licenses. Geech, you did the spreadsheet. Can we get a copy of those data? I will venture to say there’s a pattern to the way he’s been getting his licenses, and if we look state to state we’ll learn even more.”

  “Good ideas, Glenn. Well, Trudy, we need the Medicare PIN, and the DEA number. Where are the rest of you in your work? Can we tap some search time from you?”

  Several hands went up.

  “OK, I’ll let you know if we need it. Michelle, you need to go to Missouri and Indiana to get real comfortable with those portions of the case. I want FBI analysis of pictures, and I’d like to get the pictures from those other states that have not been so quick to work with you. Michelle, I’ll have agents in those states drop into the Medical Board offices. One flash of their badges would work in all but Idaho. Idaho will take some talent, but we’ll get there. Michelle, if you could plan to visit the local board for Missouri, and plan a visit to Indiana soon. Trudy, give me your best shot at the present venue of our man, and we’ll get Geech there for some snooping. Finally, we’ll need a pattern of work and billing to get a scale on this thing. I’m pretty sure we are well into the grand theft category, that’s what is so fun about chasing doctors. They get into enough trouble quickly that we can justify the expense of going for them. Are there any other suggestions or questions?” Tony asked.

  “What about London training? We need to research that gig?” someone asked.

  “No such luck, Fred. We’ll just have Scotland Yard run a check on them. Anything else? OK, we’ll meet with Trudy, Glenn, Michelle, and Geech tomorrow morning, and have travel cut you a ticket and expenses to Indiana, for their board, Michelle, leaving tomorrow.”

  Michelle nodded, then asked, “Where is travel?”

  “Just stop in at my desk,” Trudy said. “I’m travel, as Tony is so fond of calling me.”

  Michelle and Geech followed the group out. Tony caught up with them and said, “You’ll find Trudy’s the one that keeps the rest of us gathered in a general herd. Michelle, you can start working the license bureaus on the phone, line up your visit tomorrow, and plan to be back here in three days. Your tour with us is open-ended now, this case tripped some wire in the higher headquarters. They read our daily briefs, and darned if there’s not a yellow star on this case now. A yellow star means there’s national recognition and interest. I’ve only worked a few yellow star cases in all my years. Geech, need you to start packing, as soon as we’re onto something, we can get you rolling.”

  “I’m ready, Boss,” Geech answered.

  “I figured you were. OK, see you tomorrow.”

  Michelle found her desk and started a phone list of calls to the different agencies for licensure. The local board said she could drop in any time, and she looked for Trudy.

  “Trudy, need a car. Got one?” Michelle asked.

  “Yeah, here’s the list. Pick one for the day. By the way, DEA number is issued to that name, but the addresses did not match anything in your files. Did get a social security number that was for a middle-aged guy in Michigan that works as a home inspector, so that’s a dead lead, too. Still waiting for the chance to call the Medicare folks. If the Medicare number is bogus, they will know right away, and they do not let those numbers sit without looking into the problem, so my bet is we’ll get some progress there. Billing for the states we’re interested in seems to be in Fargo, of all places, and I’ve got a number to call.”

  “OK, I guess I’m not surprised all these are dead leads. Bishell’s a smart crook. I’m going to the license bureau. What do I do with the car if I’m late?”

  “Oh keep it until tomorrow. I’ll call you if we find anything,” Trudy said. “Get going. We’ll have your tickets ready when you come in tomorrow. Tony wanted you out the day after tomorrow, I think, so plan on it. See you.”

  Michelle found the license bureau for Missouri. The suite was on the first floor of an old business building just off the main business district. The sign was small enough to be difficult to see from the street. She went in and asked for Bertle Johanson.

  Bertle was a small lady, well dressed and with dark lipstick and eye shadow. Her features seemed sharpened by her makeup and made her age difficult to determine. Her smile beguiled any thoughts of just another bureaucrat. Her office seemed created out of the space between six or seven large filing cabinets.

  “Yeah, you called a couple months ago. Bless me, now you’re here. What can I do for you?” Bertle asked.

  Michelle had to smile when she started talking to Bertle, “Well, I told some folks about the case we talked about, Bertle. Then word got around, and before I knew it, I’m assigned to an office and told to figure out how all this happened. Now I’m located here in St. Louis, and the first place they send me is to review your records and to try and make connections with Indiana and their license process. You see, Bertle, the physician that you licensed on his Indiana license was licensed there in Indiana a year after his Missouri license. So somehow he got fake documents out to Indiana after he worked you, and I need to figure out how that happened,” Michelle said as she stood in the door.

  “Lands, that’s sneaky. How can he do that? We talk all the time, Becky West and me. I know her records and her system. Those documents must have been from Illinois. Whatever,” Bertle said as she turned her computer up. “I have a file that covers those old charts, and I know they were normal.”

  “Bertle, I am sure you are correct, but we’ve got to look at the process. How do you get your mail here? Do you get it from a distribution system? Who delivers it?” Michelle asked.

  “You’re looking at the delivery system. I go to the post office every day, and I pass the mail out here. I pull out my stuff, and then put it up in those boxes over there. I take the mail back in. We get some mail delivered, but that’s not too much stuff. Was a time we had the post office box mail delivered, too, but that didn’t last too long.”

  Michelle opened her document pouch and pulled a picture out of Dr. Bishell, as she asked, “Do you carry your outgoing mail out, or do you give it to the local delivery postman?”

  “He takes it from that box over there. Everything going out is put in there.”

  “Do you recognize this picture?” Michelle asked.

  “He was one of the postmen that came here. Nice fellow, a veteran he said. Was in one of the wars or something. Sonny we called him.”

  “Bertle, this is the last known picture we have of the doctor we’re following.”

  “Oh no, he was the postman here. He was the one that said he could deliver the post office box, too. That was nice, I have to admit.”

  “Bertle, this has been some years ago. If he was the postman, he could have intercepted your mail and placed his false statements and r
eports into your incoming mail. Do you recall if his reports came from the post office box, or were they delivered directly here?”

  “Oh, lordy, I can’t begin to guess. I don’t keep the envelopes here, and I don’t know what my husband does with the ones that I take to him.”

  “Bertle, why do you take the used envelopes to your husband?” Michelle asked curiously.

  Bertle looked at her hands and said, “I take the interesting stamps to my husband, he keeps stamps. I usually take the envelopes from other countries and he keeps the stamps. I probably took the envelope home to Willard if they were from overseas. Some of the letters for Dr. Ballows came from London, maybe they are at home.”

  “Bertle, can you call your husband and see? They would possibly have some information if we can match the envelope, if he saved them. Does he take the stamp off the envelope?” Michelle asked.

  Bertle looked relieved she was not in trouble for taking stamps home, and said, “Lordy, I don’t know. Let me call. Let’s see, I need his chart, I’ll be right back.”

  Michelle waited as Bertle searched for Dr. Ballows’s chart. When she returned, she expertly thumbed through the chart and found the verification letters she needed. “These came in a bunch of years ago, Michelle. I don’t know what to say. Let me call.”

  “Willard, what do you do with the envelopes I bring home? I got this girl from somewhere important, and she is trying to find out how someone mailed his stuff to us, through the post office box or through our delivery address, and I think I brought these back to you. Yeah, they would be from England. The date is about three years ago. OK, I’ll hold.” Bertle covered the microphone and turned to Michelle, “He said if it was a stamp he already had, he would have put it into a box under ‘England,’ and then he’d post it on a swap board. He’s not sure what he did with it, and he’s looking now.”

  Michelle pictured Dr. Bishell getting a job with the post office for the simple reason he could provide the false documents.

  “OK, honey. OK, you got some of them from England at that time. Hold on a minute,” Bertle said as she dug through her file again. “The address would be 15 Soffet Place, Liverpool, for one, and Goldbrine Street, for another. You have them. OK, hold on.”

  Bertle looked at Michelle, “You want the envelopes?”

  Michelle nodded, “Yes, may I please?”

  “Sure, honey,” Bertle said. “Willard, you come in here with them pronto, this gal’s got things to do. OK, honey, yeah, we can eat in town tonight. See you.”

  “What he’s got will be here in an hour. What else you need from us?”

  “I would like to review his record, if I can see it?” Michelle said.

  “I need to clear that with my boss. Michelle, do you have one of those little purses that has all those badges in it and stuff?” Bertle asked with a smile.

  Michelle had to smile, too, and said, “Yes, here. You go show this to your boss,” as she handed her badge to Bertle. “Only problem is where that badge goes, so do I.”

  “Well come on, then. We’ll both go to the old coot.”

  The record did not reveal much. Several letters of reference were new to Michelle, and she was allowed to copy them. This gave her another way to compare the records. Willard showed up and had three envelopes. He and Bertle were eager to show them to Michelle.

  “Willard, thank you so much for bringing these to me. I hope you and Bertle go to a good place to eat. May I have these envelopes, Willard?” she asked as she looked at all three.

  “You surely may. Common stamp, no demand for it. Franked in someplace that doesn’t read well, so no real value. I do have to tell you, though, that the cancellation stamp is unreadable, and that makes the envelope worthless,” Willard said as he pointed out the flaws in the stamp.

  “I am no expert in stamps and mail fraud, but the bureau is, and I’ll get this done by the best. Thanks again. Bertle, if you talk to Becky West, tell here I’m coming the day after tomorrow. I hope I have as much luck there. Thanks again,” Michelle said as she stood.

  “Do you mean the Federal Bureau of Investigation?” Willard asked.

  “Yes, I work for them now. Thanks again,” Michelle said as she walked away.

  “Bye, now,” Bertle said. “Let me know if you catch him.”

  Michelle was too late to get the car back. She found Trudy the next morning and asked what she should do next.

  “I can take that stuff, and we’ll have to send it into central. That means weeks, and you may be long gone, honey. We’ll take pictures of it. The copier we use here can get photo quality, and then we’ll send them off. I’ll show it to Tony. You ought to bring this up to the group at the staff meeting,” Trudy said as she took the envelopes. She turned and said over her shoulder, “I’ll have the copies for you in thirty minutes, and we’ll be in the meeting room then and pass them around. Your tickets are on the table. Per diem and reservations are made.”

  Michelle saw Geech, “Hey, Geech, what are you up to?”

  “Hey, girl. I’m spinning my wheels. Been going through some files and doing some searches. This place has a computer system that is fifteen years behind LAPD, and is worthless. I can’t even get cross talk to look at other sites. It sucks, and I can’t believe you can get anything done with it,” Geech said in a conspiratorial tone over his shoulder.

  “That’s pretty widely known, they have blown some pretty good hard cash, and I guess they are the laughing stock of all the agencies. I read somewhere that their internal fax system is so insecure, it can only work within an intranet, inside one building, and cannot and never has worked outside one level of hub distribution. One guy said if they need something sent to the local police, it has to be hard copy courier, or it gets ethered up and lost. Now you know first hand,” Michelle laughed.

  “How about you?” Geech asked.

  “I’ll fill you in at the staff meeting here in a few minutes. Have you had any assignment yet? I was out all afternoon. Seems like the plan was to get information on where Clinker is practicing and send you out.”

  “So far no information from Medicare. Trudy said she expects something today. I think Tony is looking at the expense, and he may just dispatch some local agent wherever we’re suspecting he is at and not send me. I might as well go back to LA.”

  “Don’t worry, Geech. We’re only two days into this end of things. Looks like the meeting is kicking off. We’ll learn more soon.”

  The group meeting began with general information and updates of ongoing programs. The meeting seemed to go much faster, and Michelle was invited to discuss her news. Copies of the envelopes were available, and her speculation of false documents introduced by Dr. Bishell posing as a postman was taken with interest, as it would allow the introduction of substantial charges.

  “Michelle, you’re flying out to Indiana tomorrow. Geech, can you go to the post office administrative office? We need to look at this ‘Sonny’ and get more information. We’ll meet tomorrow for a situational update for this case only. Will that be too soon?” Tony asked as he looked at Geech and Michelle.

  “Can we make it in the afternoon on the day after tomorrow?” Trudy asked. “I’ve got Michelle coming back from Indiana late tomorrow.”

  “Got it, 1500 Thursday. Geech, post office will be tough. They follow the books when it comes to outsiders. You may even need some horsepower with them, and I can send a suit over with you,” Tony said as he gathered up his notes.

  Geech looked imploringly at Michelle and turned to Tony. “I’ve got a suit, if that’s what you mean.”

  Several agents chuckled as Tony smiled and said, “Geech, when we send a suit it means we send more agents is all, and it seems that will make some offices more intimidated, not that we’re in the intimidation business, it just gets more information flowing. That works most places and might at the post office. Why don’t you give it a shot solo, and if you get stonewalled, call Trudy, and we’ll send some local boys.”

  “Works for
me,” Geech said as he stood.

  Tony turned to another agent and said, “Mark, can you get these letters to Washington with a cover letter? Trudy, I need you to put some pressure on Medicare billing for his PIN. Geech, what we would really like is his application and performance records. OK, we’re on the road. This is the most interesting case we’ve had here for years. Beats the hell out of catching podiatrists billing for taking the same toes off ten times. OK, 1500 Thursday, and we’ll have a storyboard set up.”

  Amidst groans from the other agents, Trudy leaned over to Michelle and Geech and said in a stage whisper, “Tony loves storyboards.”

  Chapter 33

  Clinker’s Trick

  The post office administrative office was another granite building with little windows. Inside Geech found a casual-appearing staff that was surprisingly friendly.

  “Hello, I am here to see James Birch, please,” Geech said as he approached the receptionist. Geech decided not to go as a suit, and was dressed in his usual upper casual attire.

  “He’s back there," the receptionist said. "May I get some identification?”

  “Sure, here,” Geech said as he flapped his badge to the peering eyes of the receptionist. Geech was slightly embarrassed when the young lady seemed to become reserved; coolness seemed to run through her. This never seemed to happen with his old Los Angeles Police identification. Geech was escorted to Mr. Birch.

  Mr. Birch seemed a weathered employee. He stood and offered his hand, “Mr. Geech, nice to meet you, what can I do for you?”

  “James, I have a person that we suspect was working for the post office here in St. Louis that we’re trying to gather more information on. He worked here a number of years ago, and I’d like to get a look at his file. All I have is a picture and a first name. He was evidently a letter carrier, but may have had access to the post office boxes. This seems a bit irregular to me, but I need anything you have,” Geech said as he handed Mr. Birch the information.