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“The hospice.”
* * *
Sally Palmer was still in her office. She explained that with the disappearance of Alvin Jenkins, she was having to work longer hours until he could be replaced.
“I can’t imagine why he ran off like that. And the police won’t tell me anything,” she said crossly as she sat across from them in her office. “I suppose you can’t either,” she added.
“You would suppose right,” said Decker. “Alvin Jenkins, when did he start working here?”
“Alvin, um, only about two months ago.”
“And when did Anne Berkshire start volunteering here?”
Palmer thought about this. “Around the same time, actually.”
“And when did Joey Scott come here as a patient?”
For this Palmer had to consult her computer. “That’s funny.”
“What?” asked Decker sharply.
“Well, Joey came here nine weeks ago. That means all three of them around the same time. What a coincidence.”
“I don’t think it was a coincidence,” said Decker.
Palmer looked at him strangely, but Decker ignored this and plunged on. “When we first met, you said that Joey was going to be adopted but the couple pulled out when he got sick.”
“That’s right. Disgusting.”
“How did you come by that information?”
“Come by it?”
“Who told you?”
“Oh. It was the caseworker that came with Joey when he was admitted here. She told me. She was as upset by it as I was.”
“So the story is that Joey was going to be adopted but then the adoptive parents found out he was terminal and decided against adopting him.”
“That’s right.”
“Do you have Joey’s medical file?”
“Yes.”
“I know you can’t share the details with us, per se. But can you tell us when he was diagnosed with leukemia?”
Palmer looked uncomfortable with this, but consulted her computer. Once more her face displayed amazement. “I don’t understand. This doesn’t make any sense. I’m surprised I didn’t put two and two together before.”
“About what?” said Jamison.
Decker answered, “Anyone with cancer is going to go through treatment, especially a child who could conceivably have his whole life ahead of him. With Joey’s form of leukemia he probably had been diagnosed years ago, had the whole spectrum of treatments until it was determined that nothing else could be done. Then he came here. So the couple that wanted to ‘adopt’ Joey would have known all of this long ago. They would have had no reason to ‘unadopt’ him.”
Palmer said emphatically, “That’s right. That’s exactly right.”
Decker looked around. “This is a nice hospice. A private hospice. How can an orphan like Joey afford this place?”
“Oh, well, the couple I was talking about, they had some goodness in them. They’ve been paying the bills here for Joey.”
“So they’re paying the hospice bills of a kid they ‘unadopted’ and never come to visit,” said Jamison. “How does that make sense?”
Decker said, “It doesn’t at one level. But it does at another. How did Joey end up coming to this place?” he asked Palmer.
“It was the couple. They paid the bills and so they got to pick the place.”
“So Berkshire and Jenkins both started coming here after Joey was here.”
“Yes, that’s right. Shortly thereafter, but Joey was here first.”
“And Berkshire asked to read to Joey?”
“Yes.”
“How did she know he was even here?”
This puzzled Palmer. “I’m not sure. I do remember her coming in and asking if we had any children. She said she wanted to bolster their spirits.”
“I’m sure. And the only young child you had at the time was Joey?”
“Why, yes. It’s unusual for a little boy or girl to be in a hospice. But it does happen, unfortunately.”
“Right,” said Decker.
“As I said, I thought their paying his bills made up a little for them abandoning Joey.”
“Yeah, well, you can stop thinking that.”
“What?” said a startled Palmer.
“Do you have their name and address?’
“That’s confidential.”
“And I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist.”
“Why?”
“Because they’ve been using your hospice to pass stolen classified information to enemies of this country. If that doesn’t work for you, we can always get a warrant and surround this place with a SWAT team. Your call.”
CHAPTER
63
UPPER MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE on the way to Maryland. It was the land of foreign embassies and enormous and vintage private residences. Old money and new dollars uneasily commingled here. Unless one had a net worth in excess of nine figures, one did not get to live in this area.
And it was a neighborhood unaccustomed to having a police presence unless it involved a visiting foreign dignitary and a motorcade with flags on the fenders.
“Okay, Decker, I hope to hell you’re right about this,” said Bogart nervously.
He, Milligan, and Jamison were seated in a parked car across the street from a 1930s Tudor-style mansion fronted by iron gates and a high stone wall.
Decker said, “I hope I am too.”
“Let’s do this.”
They got out and approached the house. Bogart spoke into a walkie-talkie. “Everybody in place. All points covered?”
The response came and he nodded.
“Okay,” he said.
They reached the gates and Bogart punched the button on the call box. There was a screechy sound but no voice came on. He hit it again, with the same result.
“FBI, please open the gates.”
Again there was no response.
“This is the FBI. Please open the gates or we will be forced to open them by force.”
Nothing.
“Nobody home?” wondered Bogart. He looked around and pulled out the walkie-talkie again. “Breacher up.”
A minute later a truck roared up and two men in SWAT gear climbed out. They unloaded a hydraulic-powered ram set up on a wheeled platform.
“Hit it,” said Bogart.
They powered up the ram, set it against the gate, locked the wheels down, and one of the men hit a button on a remote he held. The piston-powered punch shot forward and smacked the gates squarely in the middle. They broke open.
“Hit it,” said Bogart into his walkie-talkie.
A SWAT team poured out of the truck and dashed up the long drive. On the other sides of the property other FBI agents scaled the wall and charged toward the mansion.
Bogart, Milligan, Decker, and Jamison followed closely behind the SWAT team. They reached the front doors, where the lead agent pounded on the wood and announced the FBI’s presence. There was no answer.
