Chapter 16 #2
“Perkins and Ervin say it was complications with the surgery, however, the nurses we interviewed said that those two doctors ignored the patients’ drug allergies, and administered it anyway.
Before we knew what was going on, several of the nurses went to the family members to have them demand an autopsy of their loved ones.
Toxicology reports show the medication they were allergic to in their systems several times above the dose they wrote in the charts. ”
“Damn. Some of those files show the same thing. It seems to be his pattern.”
“Have you contacted any of the members of the patients’ families from the files you have?”
“Not in an official capacity. If there were any burning questions I would reach out to ask, but I never said I was investigating their deaths. I posed as another concerned family member wondering if they had anything good to say about Perkins.”
“Okay, nothing illegal about that.”
“Oh, and I don’t know if Perkins and Ervin are still doing it, but I’m going after them for defamation of character against Amelia.” He saw their expressions, and he nodded. “Trust me, you’ll understand when I show you everything I have.”
“Where is Dr. Amelia Johnson now?” Willis asked.
“She opened her own practice about twenty minutes away from here.”
“I’d like to talk with her, but I want to see what evidence you have first,” Willis said.
Raymond looked around and when Jason nodded, he looked back at them.
“Follow me.” He turned on his heel, and everyone followed him out of the building, to their own vehicles, and Raymond drove slowly to his cabin.
Once inside, he had Willis follow him, and he pointed to the boxes stacked in the corner of the room.
“Those are the physical copies, but like I said earlier, I have flash drives, and it’s all backed up on the cloud. ”
“I don’t want to touch those,” Willis said as he pointed to the boxes, “But can you tell me what they are?”
“Copies of what Amelia sent me on her last day of her employment at the clinic.” Raymond grabbed his laptop, and went out to the kitchen where the others were. Someone was making a pot of coffee, and he laid the computer down. He fired it up, and accessed something from the cloud.
“Gentlemen, this is what started the entire investigation into what I am doing. I knew that I couldn’t go to the police, because my information was obtained illegally. I was just waiting for something to happen before I came forward.”
“And if you would have come to us before anything else happened, we would have told you to come back to us when you had something solid,” Willis said. They all leaned in and watched the video where Ervin threatened Betty, and then hit her.
“Shit,” the administrator said.
“Yeah, we probably could have come to you with that assault charge, but it would have been a slap on the wrist, we wanted more,” Jason said, then looked directly at Willis and the lawyers. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, I’m Jason Black.”
“Okay, you said that,” Tallman said.
“Federal Prosecutor,” Jason said, and pulled out his own badge, because he had one.
“Damn.”
“Yeah, I’ve been advising Raymond on what he should and shouldn’t do. As he mentioned earlier, we were waiting for something to happen. Nurse Betty Laurel said she would stay there to get anything she could on them, but we haven’t heard anything.”
“How many flash drives of this information do you have?”
“Six.”
“May we have copies?”
“Yes, Willis, do you want one?”
“Yes, then we’ll get out of your hair.”
“Not until you talk to Shay Hall, you’ll understand when you talk to him,” Raymond pulled his phone and made the call.
Fifteen minutes later, Shay Hall walked in carrying several items. Introductions were made, and Raymond let Shay explain what had happened to him with his initial injury up to his meeting with Perkins.
“Wait!” Tallman had them stop the video and he turned incredulous eyes toward Shay.
“Did Perkins issue x-rays before your exam?”
“No. These are labeled. This is less than three hours after my injury, this is the next day, these are six weeks later, and these are the ones two days after my meeting with Perkins.”
“What are these ones?” Tallman asked as he pointed to the last set of x-rays.
“The x-rays he walked in the room with and informed me that I needed surgery. However, there’s one major thing wrong with this.”
“What’s that?”
“My injury was on my right leg, Perkins comes in and says it’s my left leg.” He replayed the video and they all looked pissed.
“Oh,” Raymond said, and snapped his fingers and he left the area and came back with the white pharmacy bag. “These are the pills Perkins prescribed to Shay.”
The administrator took it, opened the bag, and pulled out the bottle.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” He demanded of no one in particular, then showed it to one of the other lawyers.
“You don’t prescribe something this strong in this dosage.
Not unless you’re getting ready to leave this world and want to go peacefully in your sleep.
This drug has been known to be used on assisted suicides in some instances. ”
“That’s what Amelia said. Not the suicide part, but everything else.”
“Oh,” Shay snapped his fingers and pulled an envelope out of his back pocket.
“Did you see on the video where he told me that if I don’t show up for the surgery he’s going to bill me?
Well, here’s the bill. I ignored it.” He handed the envelope over and Tallman grabbed it, opened it and shook his head.
“Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars? No fucking way.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Be careful,” Willis said, then explained about the goons going after the other people not paying their own bills within thirty days as demanded.
“We have a good security system here,” Shay said.
“With one phone call, I can have almost thirty former military personnel here. Some in forty-five minutes, some in twenty. I too am former military, and I always carry.” He padded the gun on his hip.
“Oh,” he grinned. “The information I gave on the form at the office is bogus. Wrong address, and wrong phone number. I told them that I had changed if from when I saw Doc Johnson to when I saw Perkins.”
“Ah, so they can’t come after you.”
“Correct. I don’t know how they got my address for the bill, but they shouldn’t be able to find me to use their muscle.”
Willis turned to Raymond. “Will you be available if we have any questions about the information on these drives?”
“Yes, and if you go to court, I want to be there. I also want a defamation of character case brought against them.”
“Wait!” Jason said as he snapped his fingers, then slapped his hand on his forehead. “There’s more.”