White Collar Girl (9 page)

•   •   •

T
he next morning, armed with a list of names and addresses, I went one by one to the officers' homes and rang their doorbells and spoke to anyone who would talk to me. And by me, I mean Jordan Walsh. I was coming face-to-face with police officers who were used to doing the interrogating, and posing as a secretary from an insurance company wasn't going to cut it. Neither was the truth. Or at least not the whole truth. It was something I'd have to play with, and it made me nervous as hell.

When I arrived at Officer Pratt's home in Rogers Park, I found him lying on the ground in his driveway, his legs sticking out from under the body of his Buick. His wife stood on the front porch, calling to him. “Will? Willie, someone's here for you.”

Officer Will Pratt scooted out from under his car on a creeper. I introduced myself while he stood up and pulled a rag from his back pocket, wiping motor oil from his fingers.

“So what does a woman from the
Tribune
want with me?”

“Well, first off, I'm a reporter,” I said. “And I'm doing a piece on police officers injured in the line of duty. I understand you were injured while on the job.”

“Yeah, so . . .” He looked back at his wife, who was now standing on the bottom porch step.

“So I understand you're one of Dr. Zucker's patients?”

“What the hell's this all about?”

His reaction was too strong. My question had put him on the defensive. I drew a deep breath and wiped my sweating palms down the front of my skirt. “We're looking into some recent claims you filed.”

“And why would you be doing that?” He took a step forward, and it took all my will not to back up.

“I think you know.” I held his gaze with everything I had.

“What the . . . ?” He squinted and gave me a look like he was drilling down through my skin.

“And I know Dr. Zucker didn't treat you for a ruptured disc.” For all I knew his claims were legit, but I was putting on my best poker face. “Would you care to make a comment?”

“About what?”

I could hear the irritation in his voice and hoped he couldn't hear the fear in mine when I said, “We're talking insurance fraud. This isn't the first time Dr. Zucker's been accused of falsifying medical records. I'm giving you a chance to explain your role in all this. A chance to say you had nothing to do with it.”

I expected him to explode, but instead he scratched his head and lowered his voice. “Look, I just saw Dr. Zucker the one time. That was it.”

My pulse quickened. I couldn't believe it; he was softening. “So why did you see him if it wasn't for the ruptured disc?”

“They told me to go see him, so I did. It was just a routine checkup. I was flat broke at the time, and they said they'd give me twenty-five bucks for my troubles.”

“Who's they?” I reached inside my bag for my pad and pencil. “Do you mind if I take down a few notes?”

He looked back at his wife, standing on the edge of the lawn. “I—I really—I can't talk about this.” He stuffed the rag back in his pocket. “I don't want to say nothing more without my lawyer here.”

I was still firing off questions as he lay back down on the creeper and disappeared beneath his Buick.

I stood in the driveway writing everything down:
Someone paid him twenty-five dollars to see Zucker.
Mentioned his lawyer.
I called to Officer Pratt again, but he refused to come back out from under his car and finish our conversation.

Next I tracked down Officer Nelson. It was his day off, and his wife said I'd find him over at the school playground, shooting baskets with his son. Shooting baskets when my notes said that he had ruptured his fifth lower lumbar and was in acute chronic pain.

I found another officer right where his precinct said he'd be, in uniform, directing traffic at Lake and LaSalle. According to Ahern's records, this officer was listed with a broken jaw after being pistol whipped. When the light turned red, I rushed up and introduced myself. The records said Zucker had wired the officer's jaw shut just three weeks before, but there was no evidence of that now. He went on conducting traffic the whole time we spoke. If he was listening to anything I said, he didn't indicate it.

“I see your jaw has healed rather quickly.”

“My jaw?” He stopped with his hand gestures and looked at me. “What are you talking about?”

“You were treated by Dr. Zucker for a broken jaw. You had it wired shut.”

“Lady, I don't know what you're talking about.” He blew his whistle and resumed his work. “I've never broken my jaw, and I've never heard of Dr. Zucker.”

I was stunned. My feet were glued to the pavement as cars whirled past me. It wasn't until someone laid on their horn that I made it back to the safety of the sidewalk. I was light-headed; my whole body was swaying along with the buildings.
Everything was moving. Nothing felt solid just then. No doubt about it, a pattern was taking shape.

I darted to the pay phone on the corner. My heartbeat pounded inside my ears as I pushed a nickel through the coin slot and dialed Ahern's number. While I was waiting for the switchboard operator to connect the call, I pulled out my notes, trying to make sense of my hurried handwriting. The claims were as recent as three weeks ago, and some of the officers said they hadn't seen Dr. Zucker in more than a year. Others, like the man I'd just spoken to, claimed they had never heard of Dr. Zucker. Still there was the officer who'd been treated for a dislocated shoulder and another for a double hernia that both sounded legit. Honestly, I didn't know who was lying and who wasn't. But despite that, I found at least ten officers with ruptured discs or back injuries, and yet when I went to see them, I discovered they were out golfing or playing basketball or lying on a creeper.

Ahern came on the line.

“I need to meet with you,” I said.

Thirty minutes later we were at a hot-dog stand outside of Grant Park. “A lot of these guys aren't injured,” I said to Ahern, declining his offer for a hot dog. “Some of them claim they never saw Zucker, or saw him once for something besides what's on this list. Do you think MacAleese is working with O'Connor? Do you think McCarty and MacAleese are in cahoots together?”

He took a bite of his dog. “All I can tell you,” he said with his mouth full, “is that someone's getting rich here—and it's not those police officers. They may have thrown a couple of them a few bucks to get them into Zucker's office, but that's pocket change.”

“I don't know where else to turn. I got nothing from MacAleese or McCarty. O'Connor wasn't much—”

“Zucker,” he said.

“I tried to talk to Zucker. I've already been to his office. I can't get past his receptionist.”

“Try again.” He dabbed a bit of mustard off his mouth. “Go back. Check again, Walsh. Dig a little deeper this time.”

After meeting with Ahern, I stayed and roamed through Grant Park to clear my head and think of how I was going to get this story. A cluster of pigeons on the pathway burst into a flurry of flapping wings and took flight as I approached Buckingham Fountain. I knew there was something wrong going on, and now I was going to have to do something wrong myself in order to prove it.

•   •   •

B
y the next morning I had a plan. It had come to me sometime after midnight, and even though I thought it was a viable idea, it didn't sit well with me in the darkness and felt no less uncomfortable in the light of day. In fact, the whole idea made my stomach ache. But it was the only way I could get this story.

I was so preoccupied that morning I was already zipping my skirt before I realized my sweater was inside out. By the time I made it to the kitchen, I was clammy and out of sorts. I made a pot of coffee, grateful that no one else was up yet. I'd never done anything this gutsy before, but I'd weighed the consequences and the risks and determined that it was worth it to get the scoop. I reminded myself that Marty Sinclair would have done anything to get a story. What I was planning to do was probably nothing compared to the lengths he'd gone to. I told myself that if it was okay with Marty, then it would be okay with me.

Marty Sinclair . . .
I wondered how he was doing. I'd heard that his lawyer had challenged the subpoena. And because Big Tony had recently been arrested on another murder charge, it appeared that the state's attorney no longer needed Marty's testimony. They had Big Tony and that was all they cared about. I
was thinking all this when my mother came into the kitchen and startled me.

“Oh, I'm sorry, love. I didn't mean to scare you.”

I reached for a towel and dabbed up the coffee I'd just spilled.

“Did you eat breakfast already?” she asked.

I shook my head. My stomach was too jumbled and I couldn't have forced anything down. My mother was chatty that morning. I nodded, I spoke, I may have even asked her a question or two, but later that day I couldn't recall a single thing we talked about. I only remembered leaving my coffee untouched and going straight to the city room, acting as if it were business as usual.

I checked the assignment book, said hello to the slot man and Higgs, the rewrite man coming off the night shift. I spent the morning working on a few celebrity sightings for the They Were There column and a piece on “Boardroom Etiquette” for White Collar Girl. I'd also begun doing some work for the fashion department along with society news and was finishing up a piece on “The Smart Way to Wear a Pencil Skirt and a Peplum Top.”

M and Gabby invited me to lunch, but I begged off and instead went to Norm's Diner around the corner by myself. The thought of food was still unappealing, and I couldn't be in their company. I needed time alone to brace myself.

I took my seat at the counter and ordered a cup of coffee. The stools were set close together and the woman next to me accidentally elbowed me as she removed her cat-eye glasses, setting them on the counter while she read the menu. She smiled, apologized and placed her order. I went back to thinking about my plan, thinking that it wasn't too late to back out. And if I did, then what? The fraud would continue and I would be stuck writing about skirts and sweaters, celebrities and secretaries.

The woman next to me accidentally elbowed me again as she reached in her purse and put on her sunglasses. It wasn't until she
was done paying the cashier that I noticed she'd left her other pair of glasses on the counter. I picked them up, about to call out to her just as she pushed through the front door. I realized then that I was holding more than her glasses in my hand. I was holding my disguise. After a quick glance around the diner, I slipped them into my handbag.

I went back to the city room, my stomach gurgling from too much coffee and nerves. I watched the clock, time moving in slow motion through the day until finally I was ready to leave.

I went on foot and made it to the Pittsfield Building at a quarter past four. People filtered through the lobby, filing out of the elevators, rushing to catch trains and hail taxicabs. The cleaning crew was out in full force. Blue uniforms were everywhere, emptying wastebaskets and ashtrays, polishing the banisters on the stairwell. I needed the place to thin out, so I went to the newsstand and bought a package of Juicy Fruit to pass the time inconspicuously. My hands were shaking as I placed a dime on the counter. I wiped the sweat from my palms down the front of my skirt and tried to steady my breathing.

When I was ready I rode up to the seventeenth floor and waited until I saw one of the cleaning women heading down the hallway. Surprisingly I calmed down. It was showtime. It was as if a switch had kicked on inside me, and I moved into action, knowing exactly what I had to do.

I followed the cleaning woman and in the midst of her sweeping, she stopped, startled. “Can I help you?”

I approached with my heart in my mouth, but said as evenly as I could, “How would you like to make five bucks?”

Her eyes hardened, and after what felt like an eternity, she said, “What would I have to do?”

I began to breathe again. I knew I had her. “I need to borrow your uniform. And your office keys.”

Five minutes later I was dressed in a blue smock, carrying a bucket, a mop and some cleaning supplies. I pinned up my hair and put on my pilfered glasses. The woman they belonged to must have been blind as a bat because I felt like I'd just entered the fun house at Riverview Park. The walls and ceiling were distorted, moving with each step I took. Because I couldn't see straight, I was walking like a drunk and heard the water sloshing about inside my bucket. I hoped I wasn't leaving a trail behind me.

I worried the ring of keys in the pocket of my uniform as I approached Dr. Zucker's office. I saw a figure moving about behind the frosted-glass window. The door was still unlocked, and my hands were clammy again as I turned the knob, my breathing shallow. I could only hope I didn't look as guilty as I felt.

Mrs. Carson looked up from the receptionist's desk. “You're new.”

“Yes, ma'am,” I mumbled, busying myself with the mop and bucket to avoid making eye contact. Despite the pinned-up hair and glasses, I was worried that she might recognize me from my previous visit. I kept my head turned away, but in my peripheral vision I saw her pull her handbag from beneath her desk and then lock the file cabinet behind her before dropping the key into the top drawer.

“Make sure you remember to water the plants,” she said, snapping off her desk lamp.

As soon as she was gone, I checked the examination room and made sure no one else was there, including Dr. Zucker. I went back out front and locked the door and listened to the building breathing and creaking, the water running through the pipes from the lavatories. Everything else was quiet.

I opened Mrs. Carson's desk and retrieved the tiny key for the file cabinet. I couldn't see a thing with the glasses on and flung them off, giving my eyes a moment to readjust. The first drawer was
marked
1954–
T
O
D
ATE
. I found the patient files, all neatly alphabetized. It was so easy, almost too easy. I had a handful of folders out when I heard the
ding
of the elevator car. I froze. My heart hammered.
Footsteps.
There were footsteps coming closer, growing louder, louder, louder . . . and then soft, softer, softer as they moved past Dr. Zucker's doorway and down the marble hallway.

I calmed myself as I quickly went through the first stack of folders. Everything appeared in order: claims, diagnoses, billing. There was nothing new in there. Next I searched for folders of the officers who had told me they'd never heard of Dr. Zucker, or else hadn't been to see him in more than a year. I couldn't find them. I pulled open the second drawer and found nothing, and nothing in the third drawer either. I was beginning to think I'd taken this risk for nothing.

In a last-ditch effort, I opened the bottom file drawer, expecting more of the same, when several familiar names leaped out at me: O'Connor, Graves, McCarty, MacAleese, Messner, Nelson . . . A jolt rushed through my body, making even my scalp prickle. My fingers trembled as I sifted through the first folder. Contact information.
Date of birth: 11.28.1918. Home address: 678 Franklin Ave. Chicago, IL 60610. Wife's name: Trudy.
Dammit. Nothing out of the ordinary. There was a tattered red ledger in the way back of the drawer listing the insurance payments along with canceled checks, tucked into a side pocket, made payable to O'Connor, Graves, McCarty and MacAleese. None of this looked good for Dr. Zucker and the others, but it didn't necessarily
prove
fraud, either. Still it was all I had, so I went to the Photostat machine, flipped the on switch, and while it warmed up, I dug around some more and found a series of notes in another file. Cryptic messages, like
Xbudi zpvs tufq. Uif Gjobodf Dpnnjuuff jt btljoh rvftujpot . . .
I realized it was some sort of cipher and there was a little square of paper clipped to the top page that said
Use this
and was underscored
three times. I studied the pages for a moment, knowing I'd never have time to decipher them. The Photostat machine was ready. I held my breath and broke out into a full-on sweat while making copies of everything I'd found.

My hands were still shaking even as I returned the folders and locked up the file cabinet. I set the key back inside Mrs. Carson's desk drawer, and as I reached for the cat-eye glasses, I noticed a scrap of paper on the floor.
Use this
. It must have fallen out of the folder while I was making the copies. I was getting antsy, wanting to get out of there before I got caught, so rather than unlock the cabinet, I slipped the note into my pocket. Before turning out the lights and locking the door I did remember to water the plants.

•   •   •

O
n my way home I approached Norm's Diner and contemplated going inside and slipping the cat-eye glasses back onto the counter. I truly did want to get them back to the woman who'd left them behind, but I was reluctant. Perhaps I was overthinking the situation, but I
had
committed a crime—breaking and entering, or maybe it was criminal trespassing. I didn't know what I'd done exactly, but I knew I'd crossed a line. It was probably far-fetched, but what if someone had seen me take those glasses at the diner earlier? What if someone in the Pittsfield Building had seen me wearing them when I was up on the seventeenth floor?

I passed by Norm's Diner and looked in through the picture window. The lights were out, the chairs flipped upside down, perched on the tabletops. I was grateful that they were closed and that the dilemma of returning the glasses had been taken out of my control for the night. I told myself that I'd tried, and had no choice but to console myself with that for the moment.

I went home, changed from my work clothes into a sweater
and a pair of ratty old pedal pushers. I sat at the kitchen table with all my photocopies spread out before me. I was reading over everything and picking at some leftover meat loaf when my father came out of his office.

“How's the writing going?” I asked, watching him reach inside the refrigerator for a handful of ice, dropping it cube by cube into his empty glass. “You making good progress on your novel?”

He curled down his lower lip and raised his shoulders. “Who knows?”

“Well, I'm sure it's brilliant. I can't wait to read it.”

“Your mother still up?” he asked.

“She's in the living room. Reading
The Deer Park
.”

“
Auch
, Mailer.” He shook his head, uncapped the bottle of whiskey on the counter and poured himself another drink.

“You're not going to believe what I'm working on right now. It's a big piece on insurance fraud,” I said, pushing my plate aside. My desire to reel him in overrode the concerns about my investigative methods. “And I think it goes all the way to City Hall.”

“Insurance fraud, huh? That's good. Good.” He nodded and looked toward the hallway. “Tell your mother not to stay up too late, will you?”

I was going to tell him more about the fraud, but he turned and said, “Mailer, Christ . . .” Then he went back into his office and closed the door. I stayed at the table, trying to make sense of the material I'd photocopied. I couldn't look at the ledger numbers anymore. The columns were blurring together, and even though what I found was suspicious, it wasn't enough. I glanced at the note that had fallen on the floor in Zucker's office. I smoothed my fingers over the handwritten letters:
Use this
. I could tell it had been torn from a pad of paper, because some of the gummy adhesive was still stuck to the top. I didn't even know who'd written it or whose notepad it had come from. All
I could make out were impressions on the paper, left behind from whatever had been written on the previous page.

I looked again at the ciphered messages. I'd never be able to crack this code. My God, there were cryptologists who did this for a living. To me it was just a jumble of letters, so I set it aside and got up to fix myself a cup of coffee. It was getting late, and I needed something to keep me awake.

While the percolator gurgled and burped, I thought about the little note that had been attached to the ciphered pages. For some reason I was reminded of a game Eliot and I used to play called Secret Message. We would take a pad of paper and write each other a note and then tear off the top page and throw it away. The other person would take a pencil and run it over the indents on the paper and try to make out the words.

Make out the words. Make out the words!

I raced over to the table and grabbed a pencil and gently ran it back and forth over the indents on the page until stroke by stroke, letter by letter and word by word the previous message revealed itself:
Alphabet shift one.

That didn't make any sense either. It could have meant anything. Could have been meant for something totally unrelated. I gave up, left everything on the table and decided to go upstairs and get ready for bed. I was brushing my teeth with the words
alphabet shift one
repeating over and over again with each stroke. Up, down, up, down,
alphabet shift one, alphabet shift one, alphabet shift
—
wait a minute. I spit out a mouthful of toothpaste and raced back downstairs.