Robin and Rilla jumped when Colby smacked his hand on his desk. He looked up and grinned at their annoyed frowns, holding his thumb up. "Paydirt," he said with glee. "Got a clear visual of the guy threatening Hague." He turned back to watching the video.
Rilla could have strangled him. She couldn't believe that he was going to leave them dangling with that teaser. She looked at Robin in frustration. Robin only laughed. Rilla signed theatrically and went back to what she was doing.
Several hours later, Colby leaned back in his chair with satisfaction, stretching his muscles out like a mountain lion. Rilla enjoyed the view from where she was. She caught Robin laughing at her frank appreciation. Rilla shrugged and said, sotto voce, "I'm old and married, I'm not dead." Which broke Robin up even more.
"I have video clips showing this man threatening Hague. I have video clips of this same man discussing details of the scheme with Hague. I have video clips of this same man detailing plans to sell packages to other physicians on how to set up this scheme for themselves." Satisfaction was dripping palpably off Colby.
"And who is this man?" Robin inquired, raising her eyebrows.
Colby sighed, "That's the small flaw. I haven't a clue. No names were used in the making of these videos." He parodied with a deadpan expression.
Rilla laughed. He really was very funny with his snark and sarcasm. "Well, you should probably try facial recognition against the American Medical Association database. I think they have photographs of their members."
"That's the next step," Colby agreed. "Maybe we'll get lucky."
-----
Late the next day, Charlie rushed into the command center, breathless and excited. Rilla looked at him in some amusement.
"Look at these! Look at these!" He said breathlessly. "80 percent of the payments in each of these categories go to 20 percent of the unique physician pairings."
"Pairings?" Rilla looked surprised. "What do you mean by pairings?"
Charlie looked a little frustrated by the question, "It's what you asked me to include. Patients who get services from one physician and supplies from another company. You asked for the unique pairings."
"Okay, okay. I just didn't realize that's what you were calling them," Rilla soothed him. She frowned, "We should get some of the investigators to find out if these 'pairings' are owned by the same company. It only an issue of they're owned by the same people. We'll also have to investigate if these services were actually rendered. Just like we're doing for Gimbel and Brentwood."
Robin nodded, taking the printout from Charlie.
"What else do you have, Charlie?" Rilla asked, with curiosity. "You look like you're about to burst!"
Charlie smiled at her, pleased that she'd noticed. He'd often felt dismissed, as some oddity, even while his expertise was being sought. "Well, I called in some favors and got access to the American Medical Association and the registry of healthcare supplies and durable medical equipment companies." He paused for effect.
"Now, Charlie, you're not too old to spank," Rilla warned him.
Colby, who was listening to the exchange, laughed uproariously.
"Neither are you!" Rilla threatened, smiling.
"Promises, promises!" Colby smirked.
Robin rolled her eyes at Rilla, sighing, "Rilla, please, be serious."
"Yeah, please," Charlie huffed in exasperation, forging on when Rilla grinned unrepentently. "Each of the pairings that I gave you are owned by the same people."
There was stunned silence for a moment.
Rilla threw her arms around Charlie and hugged him, "Charlie, you're a genius!"
Charlie grinned, "I know."
Rilla eyed him warningly, but continued, "Good! So the investigators can get started on checking if the services were rendered. Are these pairings across the spectrum of the list of services I gave you? These aren't just chronic dialysis?"
"They're across the spectrum. It actually looks like the Gimbel and Brentwood pairing have the corner on the chronic dialysis market.
Charlie had saved them weeks of work. Even with the data accessible to them in the data warehouse, looking for correlations and finding information that would help them with the investigation would still have taken them weeks. Robin was very pleased with how things were turning out.
-----
Don was proud of how his brother had been helping them out. He'd been leery of bringing Charlie in the first time, a little over a year ago. And there'd been times when he'd felt he was doing the wrong thing, especially when Charlie's life had been in danger. And when their father could have been in danger. But, all in all, it had turned out to be a win-win situation for both of them.
"Thinking about how helpful Charlie has been?" Megan smiled.
Don acknowledged her with a nod, "Yes. I have to admit, though. If you'd asked me, while we were in high school together, if I would be working with my brother like this, you'd have a broken nose."
Megan laughed, "Charlie's a good man."
Don nodded, smiling at that. He did love his brother. Now he was finding that he also liked him.
"How are we coming with the money trail?" Don asked Colby and David, who had just walked in.
"Some good news," David said. "We may not have found it if we hadn't been looking at all of the offshore accounts."
"Yeah," Colby chimed in. "A large number of the offshore accounts receive money from the US, ostensibly for goods purchased. I'm guessing the large number keeps the taxable amounts low and under the IRS radar. The money from these accounts are used to buy and sell more goods offshore, thereby transferring the money from account to account legitimately. Shell corporations are being used in that buying and selling, so it wouldn't surprise me if nothing is actually being purchased or sold. Because the shell corporations were offshore, we had difficulty obtaining account information from the banks. But we wore them down, and found out that large amounts of money were being transferred from those shell corporations to a numbered Swiss account. The Swiss bank finally provided the name of the account holder. It's one Ronald Gimbel."
"Gimbel?" Megan exclaimed.
"Gimbel," David said, "Of Gimbel Healthcare. We finally dug up a picture of this Ronald Gimbel, and he matches the guy in the video who was threatening Hague."
"Well, I hate to rain on anyone's parade. We have Gimbel tied to the fraud and to money laundering. But, that still doesn't give us much on Hague's murder. Threats are just threats," Don was still worried.
Colby nodded, "We have a lead though. Forensics finally found a match for the bullets that killed Hague. We're trying to trace the gun now."
"You've been busy!" Don finally smiled.
David grinned, "He's just trying to clear the case so he can take some time off. Take Hannah away for the weekend."
Colby looked at him in surprise, "How'd you even know that?"
"I'm an FBI agent, man! I can read minds!" David cracked.
They all laughed at that.
"Speaking of weekends," Megan said softly, "I can't be on call over the weekend in a couple of weeks."
Don nodded in assent, but looked at her, hoping for more detail. She ignored their looks of interest. Then Colby laughed, suddenly making the connection.
Megan said, "Say anything and I'll kick your ass."
Colby held up his hands, grinning, "I wouldn't dream of messing with anyone who teaches Krav Maga on the weekends."
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