P Is for Peril

  At lunchtime, I sat at my desk and ate the peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwich I'd brought from home. At twelve-thirty, I left the building and started walking around the block, hoping I'd remember where I parked my car. I found the VW, unmolested, at the corner of Capillo and Olivio, much closer than I'd thought and in the opposite direction. For the fifth day straight, the sky was overcast, a brooding gray, roiling at the edges where a thick mass of clouds threatened rain.

  Santa Teresa is constrained on the north by the mountains and on the south by the Pacific Ocean, limiting geographic growth. The westernmost neighborhoods feather out as far as Colgate; the easternmost sweeping into Montebello where the prices jump. Horton Ravine, where I was headed, is a moneyed enclave, carved out by land grant and deed, whereby successive California governors rewarded military leaders for killing people really, really well. The resulting three thousand plus acres were passed from rich man to richer, until the last in line, a sheep rancher named Tobias Horton, had the good sense to subdivide the land into saleable lots, thus making a killing of another kind.

  I took the 101 as far as the La Cuesta off-ramp, turned left, and followed the road around to the right, heading for the main entrance, which consisted of two massive stone pillars with HORTON RAVINE spelled out in curlicue wrought iron arching between them. The Ravine was lush, the trunks of sycamores and live oaks stained dark from the recent rains. Most of the roads are called "Via something"; via being the Spanish word for "way" or "road." I drove past the Horton Ravine Riding Club, continued a mile, and finally took a right turn and went up a hill.

  The Glazers lived on Via Bueno ("Road Good"... if I remember rightly from my brief matriculation in night-school Spanish). The house was 1960s modern, a dazzling white cluster of abstract forms superimposed on one another in what amounted to an architectural pig pile. Three soaring stories were variously angled and cantilevered with a steeply pitched tower driving straight up out of the center of the mass. There were wide decks on all sides and large expanses of glass, into which birds probably regularly propelled themselves and died. When I'd first met Dana Jaffe, she was living in a small housing tract in the town of Perdido, thirty miles to the south. I wondered if she was as conscious as I of how far she'd come.

  I parked in a circular motor court and crossed to the low sweeping stairs that led up to the front door. A few minutes passed and then she answered the bell. I could have sworn she was wearing the same outfit I'd seen her in the first time we'd met – tight, faded jeans and a plain white T-shirt. Her hair was still the color of honey, with silver, as fine as silk threads, now appearing in the mix. She'd had it cut and layered, every strand falling into place as she moved her head. Her eyes were khaki or hazel, sometimes reflecting green, sometimes brown under softly feathered brows. Her most arresting feature was her mouth. Her teeth were slightly occluded and the overbite made her lips appear plump and pouty.

  She said, "Hello, Kinsey. Joel said you'd be stopping by. Please come in. Let me take that."

  "This is beautiful," I said as I stepped inside, slipping off my slicker, which I handed to her. While she hung it in the closet, I had time to gape. The interior was cathedral-like, a vast space crowned by a vaulted ceiling thirty feet above. Bridges and catwalks connected the irregular levels of the house and shafts of sunlight formed geometric patterns on the smooth stone floor.

  Dana joined me, saying, "Fiona probably told you we're redoing the place."

  "She mentioned that," I said. "She also said you suggested me for this job, which I appreciate."

  "You're entirely welcome. I confess I didn't like you back then, but you did seem honest and persistent, a regular little terrier when it came to finding Wendell. Your friend, Mac Voorhies, at California Fidelity, gives you the credit for the fact I got to keep the money."

  "I've wondered about that. Last I heard they were still debating the issue. I'm glad it worked out. How well did you know Dow?"

  "I ran into him occasionally because of Joel, but we weren't friends. I met Fiona after they divorced, so I tend to side with her. I'm polite when I run into him, but that's about it. Joel's on the phone at the moment, but I'll take you up to the office as soon as he's done. Would you like a look around?"

  "That'd be great."

  "We're doing this piecemeal. Not my preference. Fiona and I wanted to do it all at once... a full installation, which is so much more dramatic and lots more fun, but Joel put his foot down, so we're doing the job in stages. This is the living room, obviously..."

  She rattled off the rooms as I followed along behind. "Sun room, den, formal dining room. The kitchen's in there. Joel's office is in what we call the 'crow's nest' upstairs."

  The rooms were clearly in transition. The floors were covered with palace-sized Oriental carpets, probably quite old to judge by the softness of the colors and intricate designs. The furniture, which I assumed was chosen by the deceased Mrs. Glazer, appeared to be almost entirely antique, with massive armoires and occasional pieces in polished mahogany. The few upholstered pieces were done in white linen, the lines clean and clear. A variety of fabric swatches had been draped across the chairs and two-inch samples of paint colors had been taped in various places on the wall. Some of the upholstery fabrics I hadn't seen since my youth, when my aunt Gin would take me to visit her friends. Jungle prints, fakey-looking leopard skin, banana palms, bamboo, zigzags, and chevrons in shades of orange and yellow. The wall paint under consideration was that noxious shade of green that marked most 1930s bathrooms when they hadn't been done in an oh-so-modern mix of pink and black.

  "She's found us a sharkskin-top Ruhlmann desk for this wall, with an Andre Groult mirror. We're thrilled about that."

  "I can imagine," I murmured. I could see where Fiona's art deco taste wouldn't be completely out of place, but I couldn't for the life of me picture these cool, elegant rooms redone in black lacquer, plastic, leather, enamel, curly maple, and chrome.

  Dana was saying, "Joel was widowed four years ago. He lived here with his wife for the past twenty-two years. The truth is, I'd love to level it, but he can't see the point."

  Good for him, I thought. "How's Michael?" I was afraid to ask about her younger son, Brian, because the last time I'd seen him he was on his way back to jail.

  "He and Brendon are fine. Juliet left. I guess she got tired of marriage and motherhood."

  "Too bad."

  "Well," she said, briskly, "let me check and see if Joel's off the phone."

  I realized she was just as eager as I to avoid talk of Brian. She moved to an intercom in the dining room, pressing a button that apparently rang through to Joel's office. "Sweetie, are you free?" I heard his muffled reply.

  She turned with a smile. "He says to come right on up. I'll walk you to the elevator. Maybe we can chat when you've finished your talk with him."

  "I'd like that."

  Chapter 9

  * * *

  Joel Glazer's office was located on the third floor, a spacious, airy tower room with windows on all four sides. There were no curtains or drapes, but I could see narrow blinds pulled up to the tops of the panes to permit maximum light. His views were spectacular: the ocean, the coastline, the mountains, and the western edges of Horton Ravine. The thickened cloud cover spread gloom across the landscape, at the same time making the deep blue of the mountains and the dark green of the vegetation seem more intense.

  In place of a desk, he used a heavy refectory table. All the other pieces of furniture were antiques, except for the seven-foot sofa, done in a tailored rust-colored velvet with white piping along the seams. As in the rooms below, the area rug was an oversized Oriental carpet, probably seventeen feet by twenty-three. Because of the extended use of windows, there was no artwork to speak of. Bookcases and file drawers were built along the walls from the windowsills down. The office was not only immaculate but orderly – everything arranged just so. The edges of the papers and documents on his desk were squared, pencils and pens lined up parallel to t
he blotter.

  Joel Glazer rose to greet me and the two of us shook hands. His looks surprised me. I was so enamored of Dana Jaffe's beauty that I'd imagined a mate for her equally good-looking. My reaction to Joel was much like mine when I first saw the photographs of Jackie Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis – the princess and the frog. Joel was in his sixties, with a high, balding forehead, his once fair hair turning a tawny shade of gray along his temples. Behind frameless glasses, his eyes were brown, with heavy creases near the outer corners. His mouth was bracketed with deep lines. When he stood up to greet me, I realized he was shorter than I, probably only five feet four. He was portly and his shoulders were hunched in a way that made me want to monitor my calcium intake. His smile revealed a gap between his two front teeth, which were discolored and slightly askew. He wore a fresh white dress shirt, with a pair of flashy cuff links, his suit jacket arranged neatly over the back of his chair. I picked up the faint citrus of his aftershave. "Nice to meet you, Miss Millhone. Have a seat. I understand you and my wife have a prior acquaintance."

  I settled into a brown leather wing chair that blended perfectly with the cream, beige, rust, and brown of the carpeting. "Seems like a long time ago," I said. I wasn't sure how much Dana'd told him about her prior life and most of that story seemed too complicated to summarize in conversation.

  He settled back in his chair, his right hand resting on the desk in front of him. He had a signet ring on the middle finger that glinted in the light. "No matter. You're actually here with regard to Dow. Fiona tells us she's hired you to track him down. I'll tell you what I can, but I'm not sure that's going to be much help."

  "I understand," I said. "Could we start with Pacific Meadows? I gather there's been a problem with the Medicare billing."

  "My fault entirely. I blame myself for that. I should have kept an unofficial eye on the day-to-day operations. Harvey Broadus and I – don't know if you've met him – my partner..."

  I shook my head in the negative, allowing him to continue.

  "We've had a host of projects in the works this past six months. We've been partners for years. My background's business and finance where his is real estate and construction – a match made in heaven. We met on the golf course fifteen years ago and decided to go into partnership building retirement communities, nursing homes, and board-and-care facilities. Both of us had parents who were deceased by then, but the need for attractive housing and skilled nursing care for the elderly was something we'd both struggled to find and not always with success. Anyway, long story short, we've now put together an impressive chain of residential health care and intermediate-care facilities. Pacific Meadows, we acquired in 1980. At the time, it was shabby and poorly run. We could see the potential, but the place was losing money hand over fist. We poured close to a million dollars into the renovation and improvements, which included the new annex. Soon after that, we made the lease arrangement with Genesis Financial Management Services. Somebody – I forget now who – suggested Dow's name to Genesis as a possible administrator. I'd known him socially and could certainly vouch for his reputation in the medical community. He'd just retired from private practice and was looking for a way to occupy his time. Seemed like a worthwhile arrangement for all the parties concerned."

  "What happened?"

  "I wish I knew. Harvey and I are often out of town, crisscrossing the state. We've probably taken on more than we should, but Harvey's like me – the two of us thrive on pressure." The phone on his desk began to ring. He glanced at it briefly.

  "You need to get that?"

  "Dana will pick up. I should go back and fill you in, at least superficially, on how this business works. What you have essentially are three separate entities. Harvey and I own the property through Century Comprehensive, which is a company we formed back in 1971. By property, I'm talking now about the land and the building occupied by Pacific Meadows. The nursing home is actually operated by Genesis, as I've mentioned before. They lease the physical plant from us. They also handle all the billing: accounts payable and receivable, Medicare and Medicaid billing, DME purchases – that's durable medical equipment, in case you're wondering. Genesis falls under the larger umbrella of a company called Millennium Health Care. Millennium is publicly held, and as such, they're required by law to submit financial information to Social Security, and by that, I mean lists of assets, liabilities, and the return on equity capital. A certified public accountant has to verify those figures. Ten, fifteen years ago, an owner and operator were often one in the same, but times have changed. By law, those functions now have to be separate and distinct. It's like a system of checks and balances, keeps everybody on the up and up."

  "Where did Dr. Purcell fit in?"

  "I'm just getting to him. Under the management company, you have Dow, or his equivalent. He's the medical administrator of the facility, responsible for the day-in, day-out nuts-and-bolts decisions, which is where he may have gotten into trouble."

  "The three of you are partners?"

  "Not really. That's how Dow refers to us, but it's not technically true. For the layperson, it's the easiest explanation of our relationship. We couldn't be in partnership with Dow or the management company that runs the business. Believe me, the government gets very testy about any agreement that isn't the result of an arm's-length negotiation: in other words, two unrelated parties not in collusion with one another. Dow could hardly make unbiased decisions about billing practices if he stood to profit. What you're probably referring to is the fact he bought stock in Millennium Health Care, which is a chain we also own stock in. I guess that makes us partners of a sort. We're all in the same business, which is service to the elderly in our community. Of course we had no real say in the matter, but Harvey and I both thought Pacific Meadows would be the perfect venue for a man with Dow's experience and reputation. I see now he may not have had quite the head for business I'd been led to believe. The first we heard about this Medicare business was last May. I thought then, and I'm still convinced, any discrepancies would turn out to be simple clerical mistakes, a compilation of coding errors as opposed to actual inflation of the figures with any intent to defraud. Dow Purcell is just too fine a man to stoop to cheating in that way. My guess is, he either didn't have a thorough understanding of how Medicare works or he got impatient with all the nit-picking nonsense the bureaucrats put you through. I can't fault him for that. As a physician, his first thought is always going to be for the well-being of the patient. He might have bridled at seeing all the ridiculous amounts of paperwork get in the way of first-class care, or worse still, he may have felt the government had no right to dictate to him."

  "So you think he might have bent the rules a bit?"

  "I prefer that explanation to the one the fraud control investigator seems to be taking. A better guess is he was careless, penciling approval on charges he should have examined more closely. The notion of Dowan actively debunking the government is incomprehensible."

  "Suppose he did, though. I don't understand how he benefits. If Medicare or Medicaid is overbilled, aren't those monies paid to the operating company? Seems like it's really their responsibility, isn't it?"

  "Absolutely. But outside providers, such as ambulance companies and medical supply businesses, can collect thousands of dollars for services never rendered, or goods not delivered, or goods billed out at inflated prices. If someone in Dow's position were in league with them, the contracts could mean thousands of dollars to the companies involved. For this, he'd receive remuneration – a kickback – perhaps under the heading of a professional discount or a referral fee. Now that HCFA – excuse all these acronyms, that's the Health Care Financing Administration, which regulates Medicare and Medicaid programs –"

  "Gets complicated," I remarked.

  "Very. At any rate, now that HCFA has stepped in, they're insisting on documentation for every such transaction, including the lease agreement, which is where we come in."

  "But you don't think he's really gui
lty."

  "I don't. At the same time, it isn't looking good for him."

  "You think he left to avoid disgrace?"

  "Possibly," he said. "If he felt unable or unwilling to face the charges. I'm not sure how he'll deal with the humiliation if they decide to prosecute. I'm not sure how any of us would deal with that. He's a man in big trouble. I don't like to think of him as a coward as well."

  "When did you see him last? Do you remember the occasion?"

  "Of course. September 12, the day he disappeared. I took him out to lunch."

  "I didn't realize that. Was this at his request or yours?"

  "His. He called and asked to see me. Of course, I said yes. By then, I knew about his difficulties. I had some other business in that part of town so we met at a little place in walking distance of Pacific Meadows. Just a hole in the wall called Dickens, a mock English pub. It's quiet and affords a measure of privacy, which I knew he'd appreciate."

  "Did he talk about the problems with Medicare?"

  "Not directly. He did ramble on a bit about the ongoing investigation. He was clearly upset. He seemed to want reassurances that Harvey and I would come to his defense. I did what I could to put his mind at rest, but I told him I couldn't condone anything underhanded. I don't mean to sound pompous, but in truth, if the charges turn out to be provable, then Dow's actions are not just unethical, they're illegal. As much as I like and admire the man, there's no way I'd be willing to cover for him, even if I could."

  "But why would he risk it? Especially at his age and station in life. He couldn't need the money."

  "I'm not so sure about that. Dow always did well for himself financially, but Crystal is high maintenance. She costs him a bundle. He has two houses to maintain – you know he bought Crystal that beach house at her insistence. Nothing would do, but she had to have that place. Plus he has Fiona's alimony, which is burdensome to say the least. Crystal likes to travel and she does it in style, including first-class airfare and accommodations for Griffith's nanny along with everyone else. She's the kind of gal who insists on being gifted – birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Valentine's Day – she expects to receive jewelry and nothing cheap. She makes sure of that. Dana's theory is she's busy accruing personal assets in case the bottom drops out."