"The Truth Will Out"
A Francie LeVillard Mystery

[On the advice of counsel, you are advised that the
people and events depicted in this story aren't real.]

Episode I

Welcome to a new story from the amazing library of Francie LeVillard Mysteries. Entitled "The Truth Will Out," the story features the world's finest consulting detective tapping into her prior reportorial roots, and digging an innocent victim out of dirty coverage. So dig your teeth into Episode I as the scene is set.

* * * * *

The Monterey Peninsula, which encompasses Monterey, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Pacific Grove, and Pebble Beach, is a small community of fewer than 60,000 residents, and they break down into various groups of their own. There are a lot of Italians in Monterey, for example, many in the fishing and restaurant businesses. Pacific Grove seems something of a haven for hippies, former and current. Carmel originally attracted artists but its beauty has drawn many people with the money to retire or have a second home there. And Pebble Beach, one of the world’s ultimate gated communities, is expensive and lovely, especially if you don’t mind the fog.

While there is moderate cross-pollination, it’s also true that there is an insularity in these circles. As one would imagine, people within these communities have more connections with others in their circle, and as happens with such affiliations, secrets are an important part of the patter, and more easily shared than kept.

These various cultures provided a wealth of information for the world’s greatest consulting detective. From her arrival a decade earlier, Francie LeVillard had understood the importance of tapping into the different circles, to develop contacts and to build trust. She also knew that in order to get information she needed, she had to give information. But she was acutely aware of what pieces she delivered and to whom. She considered whom her information might reach and how – as in the game "gossip" – they might be mis-transmitted, deliberately or not. It was a skill that she had honed with considerable success during her years as a journalist in Our Nation’s Capital, an arena where leaks were the mother’s milk of politics and media, and now in her current work.

Her appearance and demeanor also helped facilitate the information flow. Francie describes herself thus: "I look like I'm pushing forty if you look around my eyes. What I've seen has left its mark. Otherwise, I'm a very healthy looking specimen, five-seven and 135 pounds, with a lot of it muscle because I train in aikido three times a week, and I eat healthily. I have a figure that men appreciate but the fact that I don't flaunt it helps with other women. Mine is a slightly oval face with a light tan and my straight dark hair is cut on the short side." That works in almost every community.

* * * * *

"Francie, I need your help." The phone connection wasn’t great – it was usually scratchy from this caller on the other side of the coastal ridge – but she immediately recognized the voice of an old friend. She had met Lynn Waller many years earlier when he was arbitrating a case for a client. A former Supreme Court justice from Massachusetts, Waller had conducted the hearing with patience and clarity. He had deftly maneuvered the parties to come to a settlement that was swift and just.

In her earlier life as a broadcast journalist, Francie LeVillard had reported on a fair number of court cases, from the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., to the superior court in San Francisco. Lynn Waller impressed her in a way that few other judges or attorneys had. Not long after her client’s arbitration, she invited him to lunch. He accepted, and a friendship had developed.

They didn’t see each other often, maybe every six months, and then it was usually at his country club, where they would talk for a couple hours about the state of the nation. Neither had a good feeling about where the country was nor where it was headed, but both knew how it could be turned around. Lynn would, with a smile, urge Francie to run for Congress, and her typical response was a smile back, and a comment to the effect that she could never give up her lunches with him or her walks by the Pacific. Though she never told him, she was particularly proud during their lunches that he would ask her opinions on legal issues.

"Are you all right?" she responded, keeping her voice even. She knew that he, personally, was okay, and she knew that he was calling her in a professional capacity. It was the first time.

"It’s not about me, Francie. It’s my friend, Wally Myers. He’s a first-rate surgeon. And someone is trying to ruin his reputation."

In a fraction of a second, a passel of thoughts flew through her mind, among them that it would be a different sort of case for her, one that would require her to understand a new field about which she knew very little, and that her answer was...

"Of course I’ll help you, Lynn," she said. "Do you want to brief me or should I go directly to him?"

"Francie, you’re great. I knew you would. I’ll have him call you, if that’s all right."

"Fine, Lynn, I’ll wait to hear from him."

Francie cradled the telephone and typed the doctor’s name into the search engine. There was a list of a dozen stories on the first page of offerings, but it was the most recent, one only three days old, that caught her attention. It was an Atlanta Courier article whose headline read, "California Doctor Getting Rich with High-Tech." She clicked on the link and read the article.

If anyone had been watching her, they would have seen her eyes narrow and a frown furrow her brow. When she had finished, she dragged the link for the story to an open space on her desktop. She looked out past her computer through the window and across the gorse to the edge of the cliff that dropped twenty-five feet to the Pacific Ocean. Or rather, where the edge of the cliff would have been visible seventy-five feet away if it hadn’t been for the thick fog that curtained off the horizon.

While she didn’t know the facts of the Myers situation, she did know Lynn Waller. If he vouched for someone, that was good enough for her. Plus there was an odor to the news story. Not only was it based on unnamed sources, but there was some gratuitous pulling of heartstrings. One of the reasons she had left the television news biz – despite her deep affinity for the Fourth Estate – was because all too often they would run stories dripping with pathos to get ratings when the story itself really had no news value.

What probably irked Francie the most about the story on her screen was that most people reading it wouldn’t be likely to separate the journalistic wheat, of which there was very little, from the chaff which made up the bulk of report, as was typical these days. Most readers would believe that Wally Myers had performed unnecessary surgery on his patients to increase his income. According to the article, an unnamed doctor claimed that Myers had been pulling down a half-million dollars a year in padded fees for most of the past decade. To back up the allegation, at least that was the implication, the reporter noted that in a divorce filing in the Monterey courts a year earlier, Myers’ now-ex-wife listed his assets which included a plane, a Cirrus SR22 which costs around $300,000, a Lamborghini Aventador which was even pricier, and a seven-figure art collection.

The high-tech part of the story was a linear accelerator which delivered radiation with virtually the same accuracy as a laser to kill cancerous tumors. Myers had bought and installed the device in Salinas, the middle of medical nowhere, although the story wasn’t written that way. Nor did the reporter mention that this state-of-the-art device had otherwise only been available in such top-tier facilities as the Mayo Clinic, a few MD Anderson cancer centers, and some of the major university teaching hospitals like UCLA and Stanford.

The way the story was written, the obvious inference was that Myers had gotten the machine to boost his revenues from Central Coast patients who otherwise would have to travel hundreds of miles for their treatment, or settle for older machines and more primitive techniques.

To juice up the story, the reporter tapped into the broad but shallow pool of common stories about how the government was investigating widespread fraud in the medical industry, especially when it came to doctors performing unnecessary procedures and then billing Medicare. There was no direct statement that Myers was being investigated. In fact, it did say that he hadn’t been charged with anything. For the reader that suggested that he hadn’t been caught doing anything illegal, or at least not yet.

"Innuendo media," Francie called it. She had coined the term while teaching a class at the Monterey Institute of International Studies called "Modern Media and Ethics." Or lack thereof, as the students learned was the case during the semester. Certainly there were good news operations and good journalists, but they were few and far between. Most of the media was of the "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality. They were going for a readership and ratings, leaving journalistic principle in the dust. The result was a dangerously ill- and mis-informed public.

Francie sighed as she looked out the window again. Her eyes noticed that the fog was dissipating in the late morning sun. Her mind was remembering the Thomas Jefferson quote that she had told her class the first day, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." In a nation that paid attention to Donald Trump and watched Honey Boo Boo, the future was clearly threatened.

When a normally-respected national paper like the Atlanta Courier printed an ostensible news story about a Monterey physician, it would be accepted as accurate. To challenge such a story in such a paper would require some serious arguments. If anyone other than Lynn Waller had asked her to take on such a task, Francie’s inclination would have been to say no. But Judge Waller knew people; he knew Myers to be a good man. And with the Courier article having some holes in it, Francie sensed that this could be a winnable fight.

However, there was nothing she could do until she met with Wally Myers. She needed to confirm her presumptions about the man, and to get his full side of the story. She also had to earn his trust. The recommendation by Lynn Waller was important, but he would have to learn for himself that he could have faith in her. It was essential because she was going to need to know him deeply to successfully make his rebuttal case, both with the paper, and in the public eye.

* * * * *

Be sure to catch Episode II when Francie meets the victim of this scurrilous attack. Dr. Walter Myers was not whom she expected. The latest from MontereyMystery.com right here on March 1st.

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"The Truth Will Out"
A Francie LeVillard Mystery

[On the advice of counsel, you are advised that the
people and events depicted in this story aren't real.]

Episode II     

Francie LeVillard meets with Dr. Walter Myers and learns the truth about the man, and the story about him. In minutes she knows whether she should take his case, and try to clear him of the accusations against him. Here now is Episode II of  "The Truth Will Out" on MontereyMystery.

* * * * *

If she had expectations for what Wally Myers looked like, they could only have been painted by the characteristics for the newspaper story. He would have been tall, strong, confident and slick, so it was somewhat ironic that when she spied him entering Tarpy’s from thirty feet away she knew him instantly, though he was small in stature and looked like he had just failed a stress test. His wore a shirt and tie but no coat and seemed to be in a hurry. His eyes scanned the area and almost immediately made contact with Francie’s. He moved quickly to join her at a table by the bar, and began talking before he had taken his seat.

"I recognized you from your photograph in the Carmel Pine Cone from a couple of years ago," he explained as he sat down, took a breath, and relaxed himself before her. Then with a quick movement, he reached his hand across to Francie. "Hi, I’m Wally."

"How do you do?" Francie replied slowly, with an even smile.

"I’m so grateful that you are going to help me," he said. "I really didn’t know what to do. But Judge Waller saw the article – I saw it online and sent him a link – and called me right away and said you would know how to fix this because you used to be a reporter and now you’re a detective."

"I was a journalist and am now a consulting detective," Francie clarified, "And I don’t know what I can do yet. A fix may not be possible. It may be that letting the story pass with time would be the best solution."

Myers’ face showed surprise and pain. He opened his mouth to speak, but Francie held up a hand to stop him. "Please, let me continue. You wouldn’t guarantee the results of a surgery, especially before you had examined a patient." She let that hang in the air. It didn’t take but a few seconds for his features to relax and then to form a smile.

"Of course," he said and sighed. "My mind has been on overload since I heard about the story, and then when I read it, oh my goodness, it was like my whole life was under attack. I’ve never had anything like this happen before. It...it was outrageous."

"I understand, and let me assure you that if Judge Waller wants the matter to be straightened out, that’s enough for me."

"Oh, good, yes."

"So what I need first of all is to get to know you. Who you are, how you think, what is your personality and character. Plus, of course, I need to go over the details of the Courier story with you line by line. I have to thoroughly understand what they said and what they were interpreting."

"Yes, yes, right."

Francie sat looking across the table at him for a long moment. "And as important, I need for you to know me, know me enough to trust me."

Myers looked back at Francie. This was new ground for him; the assault by the newspaper, needing a detective – consulting detective – and this interesting woman sitting across from him who could get him back on his life’s track again. He had a realization and he spoke of it. "I think I do trust you already, or at least enough so that I know that I will."

"Good. I had a sense you were honest the moment I saw you in the doorway." She nodded across the room. "It wouldn’t work out otherwise."

He cocked his head as he took in her words. "Where do we start?"

"I need to know who you are and how you tick. Tell me about yourself."

At that moment the waitress arrived at their table. "Hey, guys, what can I get you?"

Myers looked at Francie. "I’ll have some decaf, please, Monica," she told the waitress, her eyes shifting up from her name tag to her face. "Black." Then both women looked over at Myers.

He paused for only a moment and then told the waitress, "The Caraccioli Chardonnay." When the waitress left with their order, he said softly, "Doesn’t it bug you when they say ‘guys’ and you’re so obviously not?" Then he hastily added, "I’m not coming onto you or anything, it just has always seemed dumb to me. When I used to be married, or just out with someone, a woman, and they would say ‘guys.’"

Francie smiled and nodded her head. "It’s like people say howyadoin’ and it’s never a question. Or ‘no problem’ instead of ‘glad to’ or ‘certainly’ as though you haven’t put them out too much."

Myers laughed. "I supposed in your line of work – or when you were a journalist, at least – language was especially important to you."

"It still is. So many of the troubles in life today are based on poor communications. If we were more careful of our language, and had better vocabularies, we would be a more peaceful world."

Myers raised his eyebrows. "I hadn’t thought of it in such lofty terms, but I suppose you’re right."

"So tell me then, who you are."

And so Dr. Walter "Wally" Myers launched into his life’s history. He was born and raised in Westport, Long Island. His father was an eighth grade science professor. His mother was an interior designer. An only child, he didn’t have a lot of friends, but that was by choice. He enjoyed reading and would come home from the library with a half-dozen books in his bicycle baskets every week. He wasn’t athletic, though he liked to go for walks in the woods, almost regardless of the weather. He noticed girls, but they didn’t seem to notice him. He stopped growing when he was thirteen so he let his naturally-curly red hair grow to make him seem taller. He was five-seven and 150 pounds which were the same measurements he had now at age 56. "Plenty of hair still, but it’s greyer."

The waitress returned with the wine and the coffee. He took a good sip; she found hers too hot.

"I was valedictorian of my high school and college but no one knew me from Adam. Everyone was more interested in the jocks. The nerds were basically invisible. Which was fine with me. I wasn’t interested in being noticed. I studied all the time. I always knew I wanted to be a brain surgeon, maybe from the time I first knew what one was from watching doctors on television. I also wanted to be the best one ever, at least as good as Ben Casey." He paused then added, "I even bought a Ben Casey doctor’s shirt, much to my parents’ dismay." He chuckled at the recollection. It was a good, honest laugh.

"I got tired of the cold winters and the hot humid summers, even though it wasn’t so bad where I lived. I got into UCLA med on a scholarship, did my residency back at Mt. Sinai in New York, got tired of the weather again, and moved to San Francisco. And then eighteen years ago, I moved down here. I started at Oulong but found it a little too profit-oriented, so I moved over to Natividad. Then about 15 years ago I set up a private practice, keeping my privileges at the three local hospitals."

He took another long sip of the Chardonnay. He pointed at the glass. "This is really good stuff. Their Pinot Noir is also excellent."

Francie nodded.

Myers went on. "About five years ago, I attended a conference at the Mayo Clinic and saw this fantastic new linear accelerator they had just installed. It was the RapidArc by Varian, and it delivered radiation with pinpoint accuracy; within a millimeter. And it radiates at all different angles to it really nail the tumor." He looked at Francie to make sure she was tracking him. She nodded.

"Anyway, I wanted that machine like a kid wants a bike. Except that it cost about four mil to install, at least the way I wanted it, with a CT scan built in."

Francie might have whistled at the price tag but she didn’t.

"I had money of my own. My parents had died and I had inherited some. Plus I made a lot as a doctor and didn’t spend much. I figured that if I mortgaged my house to the hilt – I’ve never borrowed money before – I’d have about three of the four. I decided that I could get some other doctors I knew to go in on this, especially a group of urologists because the machine was especially good for treating prostate cancer cases. No burning, no incontinence, no impotence. Amazing.

"I got an attorney who specialized in setting up medical corporations to write up the agreement. It ran over thirty pages and cost a bundle, but it was air tight. It was what all other medical groups were using to be within the rules of the Stark Act." He looked at her; Francie shook her head.

"Pete Stark, the former Congressman, wrote a law that prevented doctors from referring patients to themselves for profit."

Francie nodded.

"So the document was done and I had four guys I’d already sold on the idea. They each came in with 250 K and the deal was done. We were up and running in March of ‘08." He smiled triumphantly. "It was really great. We could do things here that they couldn’t do anywhere else between LA and SF. Not then. Now they’ve got a couple more installed, but nothing like it on the Central Coast, and we’re going great guns. We’re managing a full schedule of patients, and giving them better treatment than they could have ever gotten at the other hospitals, or anywhere else for a hundred miles. Well, maybe 75. They have something comparable in San Jose as of last year."

His enthusiasm was mixed with pride. It warranted another sip of the Chardonnay. "We’ve treated over 500 patients. We’ve saved dozens of lives, literally. Our patients have been able to resume their lives the way they used to be in most cases."

"Sounds like you’ve done well, Doctor Myers."

Myers looked surprised, then he grinned at her. "If you want me to trust you, I think you better call me Wally."

Francie laughed. "Sure."

"And you’re Consulting Detective LeVillard?"

"Yes, but you should use Francie."

"Great. What else do you want to know, Francie?"

* * * * *

Was Francie being led astray? Where did the paper get its figures? Dr. Myers lays out his case before the world's finest consulting detective in Episode III of "The Truth Will Out," right here at MontereyMystery.com on March 15th.

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"The Truth Will Out"
A Francie LeVillard Mystery

[On the advice of counsel, you are advised that the
people and events depicted in this story aren't real.]

Episode III     

Here in Episode III "The Truth Will Out," Francie LeVillard separates the facts from the fiction and discovers just what it is she's up against.

* * * * *

Francie took a breath. "The numbers. The article said that you’d pulled in an extra $500,000 a year doing unnecessary surgeries for the past decade. That predates the new machine. How much have you made a year since ‘02 and how did that change since you got the new equipment?"

Myers looked down at the table and shook his head. "That’s a lot of...bunk. I’ve averaged maybe one-point-two since then. That may seem like a lot, but my net was more like $350,000. I’ve had huge overhead expenses, especially with the new installation. It took a year just to build a structure for the Varian. It required 34 pylons 36 inches in diameter put down 40 feet deep. Plus 500 yards of concrete for the foundation. The walls are six feet thick of cement including 18 inches of solid lead. So is the ceiling."

Francie whistled this time. Myers nodded, and kept going. "There were some extra bells and whistles that cost another $500,000 and that money came out of my pocket, mostly through short-term bank loans against my projected income. You compare what I’ve made to what the brain doctors at Oulong and other hospitals get, and I’m almost eligible for food stamps."

"So where did they come up with this figure, do you think?"

He looked quizzical. "It’s got to be based on Medicare reimbursements. They pay about $40,000 for the course of prostate cancer treatments, and we’ve done a couple hundred of those. But that’s not money that goes into my pocket. Oh maybe a little, a thousand or twelve-hundred. Most of it goes to the technicians, our radiation oncologist who actually treats the patients, the physicist who supervises the technical side of the operation, plus the general overhead."

"Forty thousand per patient?"

"Yes. Medicare starts with a reasonable reimbursement rate because they know the cost of setting up a new machine. New technology, high start-up costs. Then as more machines come on line, and more doctors are treating more patients with them, they lower the reimbursement. We started at around $45,000 and this year it’s down to $32,000. Something like that. With my own patients, all that comes in that’s my share from the use of the Varian, goes to paying off the debt. I think it’s maybe fifty thousand a year."

Francie stroked her chin with her fingers as her mind reached out for answers. Myers let her think. He glanced at his watch and downed the rest of his wine. She looked up. "You have a little more time for me now or should we schedule another meeting?"

"I’m good. I have to go back to my Monterey office, I’m off Garden Road, but I don’t have any more surgeries this afternoon."

"Another glass of wine?"

He smiled broadly. "Good idea." He raised a hand to attract the waitress. "Are you okay or would you like something else?"

The waitress came over to their table. "Another of the Chard," he said.

"I’ll try their Pinot, please," Francie told her.

"Coming right up," she said and walked away.

"Wally, tell me about your wife and the divorce."

"Okay, but let me tell you first about what the article said about how wealthy I am. First of all, yes, I don’t own a plane. I’m part-owner of a used plane. Three guys in the Navy Flying Club and I decided to go in on a pre-owned – that’s what they called it instead of used – Cirrus. That was a $60,000 investment. As far as the sports car, I drive a 2005 Prius. The Lambo belongs to my nephew. He’s a Marine colonel stationed at CentCom in Florida. He doesn’t want his car there because it would be too ostentatious. Plus the humidity by the Gulf is corrosive. My place is very dry."

"That seems a far cry from what the Courier story was implying."

"Yes," said Myers nodding his head. "Worse than a far cry. I’m not rich, Francie. Money never meant that much to me. Except for the art."

The waitress brought over the two glasses of wine and set them on the table. He resumed his explanation when she left.

"There are fourteen pieces, three Impressionists, four Lichtensteins, two Gantners, two Picassos, and three Modigliani’s. I started collecting when I was nine, if you can believe it. I bought what I liked, then traded up for what I loved. I probably spent a total of $200,000 on everything, and yes, today, they’re worth a lot more. But I would never sell them."

"And they were all purchased before you got the Varian?"

"Before I moved to Monterey, Francie," Myers averred. "Unequivocally. Fully receipted."

"Good." She sipped the wine. "This is, too."

"The Caracciolis know what they’re doing. Monterey grown. Up in the Santa Lucia mountains, if I read the bottle correctly."

"Wally, tell me about the marriage."

The doctor rolled his eyes. "With all due humility, as good a doctor as I am, I’m not good with other people. Except my patients. And I’m especially not good with women. I never was. I think they’re pretty. Some of them. You’re pretty," he said, blushing. "But I never thought of myself as a ladies’ man. Then Paige came along, and swept me off my feet. She’s a gorgeous gal, and so no one understood what she saw in me. Well, except that I had money. But she hit me at a vulnerable time. Vulnerable as in I was ready to delude myself. That I was a catch. I had done well in San Francisco and when I moved down here, I was feeling good about myself. Which I guess made me like some kind of low-hanging fruit.

"Anyway Paige, Paige Hempstead, ran into me at a couple of fundraising-type events and gave me the impression that I was the man she’d been looking for all her life. Maybe I was, you know, if she thought she was looking for a meal ticket or retirement. So one thing led to another and she was really nice to me, in ways that I had never known before. I agreed to marry her." He shrugged his shoulders in a way that said he’d berated himself enough about this grievous error.

"At least I had the sense not to get taken to the cleaners. The house I had bought before we met. Fully paid for – that’s the way I did things – before I met her. We had a pre-nup that made her the beneficiary of a $500,000 life policy, and "transitional payments" as my attorney called them, of $2500/month for two years for every year we were together; not married but together. Too bad for her that she couldn’t stick it out for more than nine months. I cancelled the insurance policy the afternoon she left. She thought if she dragged out the divorce it would increase the amount of money she would get but it didn’t. She wound up with less than $25,000." He thought a moment and then ruefully admitted that, "I’d bought her a car and some nice clothes. And a couple of bracelets. What a waste. But I let her have those, too. I mean, what was I going to do with that. I could have sold the car, but I guess I thought she wouldn’t think so badly of me if I threw that in. I was dumb. She didn’t think any better of me. Didn’t even say thank you."

"How long ago was this?"

"Six and a half-years-ago."

"Might she be behind this newspaper attack? Was she the vengeful type?"

It was clear from Myers’ expression that the thought never crossed his mind. "I don’t think so. I wasn’t mean to her. Everything was above board. She had no reason to think she could get more out of me. She didn’t even deserve what she got. The car and the jewelry."

Francie didn’t say anything. She just watched his wheels turning. Then a light went on for him.

"You mean, health hath no fury...?"

"Perhaps," Francie acknowledged. "Something to check out."

"Do you know if she’s with anyone?"

He shook his head. "Haven’t a clue."

"Who else is there who might not like you?"

"Not like me?" He seemed surprised at the question. He winced. "I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t like me. I mean, not that everyone would like me, but I don’t know why anyone would bother to not like me. If you know what I mean. I don’t socialize much."

Francie nodded. "What about professional people? Is anyone jealous of your success? Have you hurt anyone financially?"

It was in that moment that Francie was suddenly sure of Wally Myers’ integrity. He had never considered that his work would cause someone a problem. That there could possibly be a doctor who would resent his work – even see him as a competitor – and want to do him harm. In that moment, he lost his naiveté. "You mean," he said slowly, "that someone, another doctor, would try to ruin my reputation to make more money?" It sounded like a question but in fact it was a realization. A cold wake-up welcome to the real world.

* * * * *

Francie runs into a favorite attorney friend who fills her in on the dirty deeds -- and comeuppance -- of a would-be media mogul. That's coming up in Episode IV of "The Truth Will Out," right here at MontereyMystery.com on April 1st.

 

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"The Truth Will Out"
A Francie LeVillard Mystery

[On the advice of counsel, you are advised that the
people and events depicted in this story aren't real.]

Episode IV     

Here in Episode IV "The Truth Will Out," a dear friend joins Francie at lunch and fills her in on another media scandal of sorts. His story is both gratifying and encouraging.

* * * * *

"Sweet Francie," said Hugo Gerstl as he approached the booth where she sat alone, at the Full Moon restaurant in Monterey, enjoying the finest potstickers in the region.

"Hello, Hugo," she said with a true smile. "How’s my favorite bulldog attorney?"

He barked at her and then asked, "May I join you?"

"Certainly, my friend, please," she said and gestured to the empty banquette across the table.

He slid his compact frame onto the bench with grace. "And how is my favorite consulting detective?"

She shot him a wry smile, "I wish the law could help, but apparently it can’t."

Concern flooded his face, "Tell me about it, Francie. There are always solutions.

"Sometimes I wish we could just take people out back and larn ‘em a lesson, if you get my drift."

He nodded ruefully. "It’s a form of justice I would have loved to practice on numerous occasions."

At that moment, Kwan appeared, greeting Hugo as a familiar face and asking him if he needed to see a menu.

"Thank you no, my China doll. Just a large bowl of the hot-and-sour, and I’ll take some home to Lorraine...if I can resist finishing it all myself."

She laughed and departed.

"Okay, Francie, you go first."

"First?"

"Yes, tell me about who needs to get a lesson learned."

"You go first, Hugo. I think I’m on top of my situation, at least this time. We can have a philosophical conversation about it later."

"Very well, my dear, I’ll go first, and thank you." He leaned forward. "You know who Zev Tuhkiz is."

Francie grimaced her confirmation.

"Yes, exactly. And that’s the polite reaction his name gets."

"Doesn’t he carry that odd briefcase?"

Hugo chuckled. "Yes, on the shoulder strap with the metal filament so it can’t be cut."

"And, just between you and me and the proverbial lamp post, I think it only opens with his thumb prints on a plate by the hasps."

Hugo knew that Francie had good sources. He nodded and added, "Yes, very strange."

"What’s he got in his briefcase that’s so important?"

"I don’t know but once in court his phone was ringing inside and he had a helluva time opening the briefcase. The judge was glaring at him. It was a riot."

"And from what I’ve heard about what he prints in that rag he has the audacity to call a newspaper, he’s not a big fan of yours. Not that anyone reads the paper. Dead fish would crawl out of."

Hugo chuckled, "One of my favorite victories. Did I ever tell you the story behind his animosity?"

Francie shook her head.

"I’ll give you the long version so they can make my soup. It was about eighteen months ago. Tuhkiz moved to the area with his wife and two nasty little children who will probably wind up in prison. Shana had the money. I think it was from a trust left by her father who was a notorious financier who died in prison for running a Ponzi scheme. Before they caught him, he had squirreled away money for his wife and daughter.

"Anyway, Tuhkiz and his wife moved here to get away from her mother in Wilmette. I don’t know what he was planning to do, except live off his wife’s trust, but it happened that the owner of Cypress Coast This Week died at the age of 91, and his heirs, who lived in Walnut Creek, I think, wanted nothing to do with the newspaper industry, so they put it on the market. Tuhkiz suddenly decided that he should be the publisher, and he persuaded Shana to part with the money to buy it. Only a few hundred thousand, but only worth it if it turned its readership numbers from slipping to climbing and got some new advertisers.

"Right off the bat he screwed up. He told the staff that they would have to take a 30% pay cut and when they refused, he canned them." Hugo laughed. "Annie Marie Propper, who was the bookkeeper had told Tuhkiz that The Old Man had valued his staff and made provisions for them, but he told her he didn’t care. He was the new owner. She shrugged at him said, "I tried," then packed up her personal belongings and left.

"When Tuhkiz looked at the books, he saw that there was over $1,650,000 in one of the accounts, which kind of surprised him, considering that he had paid less than a fifth that amount to buy the paper. But he got his real surprise when he tried to move that money to a new account under his control. He went to the bank where the old accounts were held, only to discover that the manager, who had overseen the establishment of the account some thirty years earlier, was recovering from a by-pass operation and wouldn’t be back for two weeks.

Hugo chuckled again. "Give me a dollar, Francie," he directed.

She hesitated only a moment, then pulled a dollar out of her bag and handed it to him.

"Good," he said, slipping it into his pocket. "Now you’re my client and we have attorney-client privilege."

Francie laughed. "I thought that only worked the other way, that anything I told you you couldn’t repeat."

"Pish-tosh, it doesn’t matter anyway."

"And you keep the dollar?"

They both laughed.

"The fact is that the bank manager, my good friend – and client – Barney Oldfire, was quite recovered thank you, but was stalling the inevitable meeting with Tuhkiz. Why? you ask."

"Why?" Francie cooperated.

"Because, and this is what Annie was going to tell Tuhkiz, The Old Man had set up the account to make sure that his employees would be taken care of if anything happened to him. He had no faith in his children. He was sure they would loot the funds if they could get their hands on them after his demise, so he locked up enough to pay each of the employees two weeks’ severance for every year they had worked for him. Some of them had been with the paper for two decades for more, which is why there was so much in the account."

Kwan arrived with the soup. Hugo rubbed his hands together with delight. "Marvelous, my dear Kwan, thank you. And my regards to the kitchen." She left and he leaned his head over the bowl and took a long deep breath through his nose. "Ahhh," he observed, "This is why I remain healthy. But I must let it cool for a few moments and I have time to finish my story.

"Okay, so here’s the kicker. The Old Man put a restriction on the account with all the money in it that it couldn’t be touched until 30 days after the transfer of ownership. Only Annie knew why, and Tuhkiz wouldn’t listen to her. There was a golden parachute for the staff, which worked like this. If payrolls weren’t issued on the normal schedule, that is on the first and fifteenth of the month, the severance money would be paid out of the account.

"Oh, how nice," Francie commented. "Very well done. And Oldfire knew about this?"

"He says he didn’t but he and The Old Man played golf every Friday until the last, so I imagine he did."

"So how did Tuhkiz find out?"

Hugo smiled. "Barney was back at the bank about three days after the second payroll had been missed. Tuhkiz showed up. He hadn’t checked the balance in the last week. So he sits down at Barney’s desk and says he wants to transfer the million-six to his own account in another bank. Barney coughs, brings up the account on his computer screen and tells him, that there is no such amount in the account. Tuhkiz, from what I heard, let out a scream that drew the attention of everyone in the back. He turned the monitor around, and saw that the balance was something like thirteen cents, and yelled that he had been robbed.

"Barney is from the old school and doesn’t like people using such terminology in his bank. He’s older, but he’s in great shape. He gave Tuhkiz a shove that sent him back into his seat. ‘You say that again, here or anywhere else,’ Barney told the little schmuck, ‘and I’ll sue you for seven figures.’" Hugo beamed.

Francie beamed. "I like it when the white hats win. What happened next?"

"Tuhkiz stayed in the chair, in shock. Then he asked what had happened to his money. Barney looked at the screen, clicked a couple of keys, and announced that severance checks had been issued to the entire staff. Tuhkiz started getting angry again, declaring that he hadn’t authorized any severance payments. Barney says he then got a look in his eyes, stood up, glared at him, and said viciously that he’d be back, and walked out."

"What a great story, Hugo!" Francie enthused. "You should write a novel."

Hugo was tasting his soup. "I may indeed." He tasted some more and then continued the story. "To shorten this delicious story for the sake of posterity..."

"And so you can eat your soup." Francie noted.

"And so I can eat my soup," he agreed. "Tuhkiz wound up filing a suit against poor Annie Propper."

"That bastard," Francie cried.

Hugo held up his hand. "Not to worry. Annie hadn’t set up the account or the severance plan. It had been all handled by The Old Man years before she got there. Tuhkiz must have gone through everything at the office and maybe he hid the original papers or destroyed them, but he told the judge when we went to trial last year that there were no such papers. He didn’t know that Annie had copies of all the paperwork, with The Old Man’s signatures all over everything, and so when the time came, we gave them to the judge.

"It was Dan North, the judge. I don’t think you knew him." Francie shook her head. "Great guy, very respected. After our case he and his wife moved to Palm Springs to be closer to their grandchildren. Anyway, he’d had a good whiff of Tuhkiz from the pre-trail conference, so when he saw the papers, all neat and correct, he declared that he couldn’t imagine that such important documents – the originals – had disappeared. He ruled against Tuhkiz, with prejudice, and awarded Annie $32,000 in attorney’s fees and other expenses."

"Wow, Tuhkiz must have been upset with that."

"He was. He said that figure was ridiculous, and he was impolite in the way he expressed himself to Judge North. So the judge said, ‘You’re right,’ and awarded $42,000 instead."

Bravo!" said Francie.

"Then he just cocked his head. It was something he was known for. It told those who knew him that the story was over, unless they wanted it to hurt more. Tuhkiz didn’t know this but his attorney did and when his client opened his mouth to protest again, his attorney punched him in the arm, hard enough to get his attention."

"I love that story, Hugo. But that doesn’t explain why Tuhkiz is so irate at you that he takes shots at you on his editorial page at least once a month."

"Oh, yes, well there’s that." He ate some more of his soup before he explained, and before he said, "Boy, that’s good. If I didn’t love Lorraine so much, I’d eat it all right now." He pushed the bowl away and raised his hand to get Kwan’s attention. "Delicious, my dear lady. My compliments to your husband." To Francie, he said, "He’s the chef, you know?" Francie nodded. Back to Kwan, "Please put this in a container for me for Lorraine?" She took the dishes away.

Hugo sighed, "What upset the so appropriately-named Tuhkiz was that after the hearing, he threatened to appeal the judge’s order. I knew that could take some time, and I knew that Annie had some pressing medical bills, so I agreed to the lower figure the judge had first set if Tuhkiz paid right away. He agreed, and Annie got her money."

"Did you get paid, Hugo?"

He waved away the question. "Anyway, once the check cleared, I made it a point to talk personally with his biggest local advertisers at the paper. I told them what had happened, and stressed how important it was that our community stand up for the values that we all hold dear. I didn’t tell them what I thought they should do. I merely wondered aloud to them if they would lose any significant business if they didn’t advertise in Cypress Coast This Week for a few issues, or six months."

"Brilliant, Hugo."

He smiled beatifically. "You know, Francie, it takes time to set roots in this area, but when you have, it means you’ve gained a certain level of respect. It is a true sense of community."

Francie nodded. "Yes, it’s true. It took me about five years."

"Exactly, and now you’ve been here ten, and you are fully accepted."

She smiled appreciatively at him. "Thank you," she said quietly.

"It means a lot, I know that, and it is why when I talked with these people whom I had known for years – some had been clients, some had been on the other side of a case, but they all knew me – then they pulled their advertising. All five. Two of them went back after six months but the other three didn’t."

"Oh, Hugo, that’s marvelous. Well done," Francie praised him.

Hugo shrugged. "Shana keeps writing the checks, so from that standpoint it doesn’t matter, but it will always be a thorn for Zev. In another place, another time, he would have been shunned. He is a lousy Jew and a disgrace of a man."

Hugo got up from the bench as Kwan came back with the container of the remaining soup. He handed her a twenty dollar bill and said, "That’s for Francie’s potstickers, too."

"Hugo, you’re going?"

Hugo chuckled. "I guess that philosophical discussion will have to wait for another time. You said it was probably resolved anyway. And I thought you’d like the Tuhkiz story." He leaned over and kissed her on the top of her head. "That’s the way we do things, Francie. We get together, we talk, no agenda, it’s great. But I do want to hear about your situation. I imagine it’s about Wally Myers."

Francie’s jaw dropped.

"I’m glad you’re taking care of him. He’s a fine man. I know he couldn’t be in better hands. And you’re right, it’s something the law should be able to take care of but can’t. Or doesn’t." He gave her another smile. "Ta, ta, my dear." Then he turned and walked away.

* * * * *

Just wait for the fireworks about the hospital and some of the other behind-the-scenes players "The Truth Will Out" when Episode V is posted, right here at MontereyMystery.com on April 15th.