“Hey, Melanie, hope you're having a good morning,” I said as cheerfully as possible
while walking through my practice's main door.
Melanie put down a stack of papers. “Hello, Nick. It's a full house today,” she warned.
“Folks are not happy we're closing a little early - Oh! I forgot! Greg Smith spent the night in the
ER and they think it's the gallbladder.”
I started walking down the hallway. “Alright, have Julie call Radiology and set up an
ultrasound this morning.”
If Melanie noticed the duffel bag I was carrying she didn't say anything. It was a little
trickier sneaking it out of the house 15 minutes ago because Susan was walking around the first
floor talking on her cell phone. That meant sneaking it downstairs when she was in the kitchen
and out into the garage when she was in the living room. I went back into the house and waited
for Susan to end the call; it sounded like lunch plans with one of Susan's girlfriends.
Tom was in the kitchen hovered over a bowl of Cheerios. I grabbed Susan's hands, led
her over to Tom, hugged the two of them and told them I loved them. That was the best I could
do. I tried not to think during that moment that this was the last time I was going to see them for
two years – I might have melted down right there in the kitchen – so I made it quick. I thought
about doing our „Go Johnson' jig, but Tom would have revolted, having barely talked to us all
week. He did ask me a Biology question last evening, as he had done throughout this year, and I
took the opportunity to say that his mother and I would love him no matter what. Teenagers have
a hard time believing that at times and this was no exception for Tom. He basically shut down
after listening to my Biology answer. Still, I thought he had a quiz today.
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Damage Control
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Susan and I had been walking inside the Morris County Mall the past few nights. She was
going to take that consulting deal with Hallmark for a host of reasons, but Susan brought up one
that I hadn't considered: Joan was driving Susan crazy and she felt like she needed something
else to keep her focus. That made sense.
Two years was a long time and I kept wondering if maybe a shorter timeframe made
more sense. A dream haunted me a few weeks back where I returned to Skyline Drive after two
years only to find Susan re-married. I let that thought rattle around in my head for a day or two
before I concluded that this was pretty unlikely. I couldn't see her doing that until Tom was
settled in college and he would still be in high school in two years.
There was the chance that the health of my mother or Joan deteriorated over the next two
years, yet they appeared to be reasonably healthy today. This whole plan of mine could be a
house of cards, built on incorrect assumptions of the risks, but Oleg had a way of forcing the
issue.
I didn't see Oleg all weekend – I could count on one hand the number of times he had
been visible on Skyline Drive - and I was starting to worry that I hadn't sold the idea of a
competitor to Oleg as well as previously thought. On Monday morning, however, there he and his
Czech friend were, just up the street and ready to follow me to work. Maybe they didn't think that
this new guy would bother me at home. Except I had already told Oleg that some strange guy had
talked with Susan at our front door, so that kind of thinking didn't add up.
The Czechs had visibly followed me to work all week, in the same front row spot closest
to the parking ramp. I made sure to locate them in the lot as I walked through the garage each
morning. On Thursday, they were right on schedule.
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Each day this week, Oleg and his partner left the parking lot to go somewhere at 11:50am
and returned at 12:25pm. I presumed this was their lunch break. Whatever the reason, they were
consistently gone during this time and Thursday was no different.
This was great to see. There were two inches of snow on the ground. William warned me
about snow tracks because he told me that one set of tracks in the snow, coming out of the staff
entrance and heading to the office complex on Marsh Street, would look suspicious. Especially
given the crime scene that I was looking to create.
But how was I going to create two or more tracks in the snow with Oleg watching the
building? If I left through the staff door in broad daylight, there was a decent chance of him
spotting me and ruining everything. The lunch schedule for the Czechs was great news, indeed.
The weather forecast called for a high of low 20s and dry all week, meaning the snow on
the ground was six days old by Thursday. Mary and Melanie always went out to lunch on
Thursdays and Fridays, usually out of the office from 12-1pm.
At 12pm Thursday, I hurried into a snow suit and boots three sizes too big, figuring I had
twenty five minutes to run to the office complex on Marsh Street and get back to the office. I
wanted to simulate somebody 15 pounds heavier, so I put a bowling ball in a back pack. All
morning, I had stayed focused enough to talk with Greg Smith, for whom we were able to
schedule surgery. Now, it was go time.
The snow was crunchy and challenging to run through. I planned on falling to the ground
to the side of my tracks, to simulate a body being carried and dropped. With the back pack held
against my stomach, I did a roll in the snow for a few seconds. For a brief moment, I was a
carefree kid again. I got back up, put the back pack back on and continued running, realizing at
that moment that I was not in as great shape as previously thought.
Timothy Gilbert
Damage Control
310
The return trip to my building was via a side street, so no snow tracks to be concerned
with. I decided to use the back pedestrian entrance to the garage and walk through the garage to
get inside my building. No sign of the Czechs from the garage at 12:22pm but they were back in
their spot by the time I had changed at 12:30.
I didn't want any tough cases that afternoon, correctly predicting that my focus would be
having a horrible time. By 3pm, I was operating on autopilot. My last two appointments were
annual physicals of two patients in their late 30s. My day was over by 4:25pm.
A goodbye needed to be said to the girls. Melanie was cleaning up her work station.
“Hey, good job today!” I patted Melanie on the back. She gave me a funny look as if I
never told her that, which was so not true. Mary was upfront at the patient check in counter - if I
told her good job and patted her on the back, she would certainly know something was up. I
walked up to Mary's work area.
“Got evening plans?” I smiled forcibly.
“Oh, nothing special…it's pasta night at our house,” Mary said. “You got plans?”
“Nope – I got some things to take care of here, but I should be able to get out of here by
5:45.” Slapping the counter, I walked back down the hallway, thinking there was everything
needed for tonight in my office: two vials of my blood, anesthetic, hand-wipes for my hands and
the stitching tray. The two vials of my blood would need to be carried out with me. I leaned out
the office door and told Mary to leave when Melanie did.
Who would find the crime scene first? Susan would probably call the police after a few
hours of frantically trying to reach me, yet I didn't know what the police would say. She could
also call Mary and they could come down here to the office. Or Susan could just go to bed only to
wake up in a panic tomorrow morning. If the police or one of the girls found the crime scene that
was fine, anybody but Susan.
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Damage Control
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Sitting in my cloth desk chair, I gazed out the window, amazed for a second just how
clear the sky was. The girls met up at Mary's area. They started laughing, followed by the noise
of the front door opening and closing. They were gone. I pulled out the anesthetic kit from a clear
plastic bag that I had brought, took my slacks off and injected the anesthetic into my upper left
thigh. It took about three minutes to kick in. It was 4:57pm. I had practiced with the hand wipes
and they did an okay job of getting the blood off my hands. Still, one could still see the stain if
they looked closely, but I didn't expect to be holding out my right palm any time soon.
I brought the blood vials over to my desk, sprang up to the exam table, and got the knife
ready. I held my left leg out to start digging in the knife. Two tiny flesh pieces meant for
forensics to catch were pulled out; they stayed on the knife which was now lying on the stitching
tray. I stitched in three stitches just to be sure. In two hours, the soreness would be incredible, but I planned to be on the bus by then. I gave the wound a few minutes to settle down. Still, it was not a really deep wound, so the blood was manageable. I checked the white paper that I had been
sitting on, and there was no sign of blood; it got tossed anyway. One vial of the blood should
have been enough for the job. The clock read 5:17pm - it would be pretty dark outside in another
twenty minutes.
I needed to make sure no blood was spilled on the carpet while putting the blood on my
right hand, because a huge blood spot would look suspicious, according to William. An eye
dropper worked great to spread out the blood smoothly on my hand. And I only needed to refresh
my right hand with blood once.
The cell phone that Susan knew of was on my desk. I dialed the numbers 9 and 1, then
dropped the phone on the floor with its face wide open, using the heel of my shoe to smash the
phone. The thinking here was that I attempted to dial 9-1-1 while being attacked, but couldn't
execute the task.
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Damage Control
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I moved over the desk chair with my left hand and squeezed the eye dropper to place the
blood on my right hand. This hand grabbed the top of the desk chair, tipping it over onto the
floor. I took the knife off the stitching tray and placed the flesh pieces on the top of the desk chair in the finger part of the handprint.
The first blood vial was a little under half filled. After scooching on my butt over to the
door and refilling my right hand with the blood, I left a handprint on the carpet in my office, on
the office door frame and on one of the hallway walls out by the staff door. I then stood up,
without my right hand touching anything else, and walked back into my office. I pulled out a few
hand-wipes from the pack that was going into the clear plastic bag along with the knife, blood
vials, and eye dropper. My right hand was wiped and the stitching tray was placed back inside the
medical cabinet. Nothing else was visible, yet I took a few moments anyway to scan the office.
The clock read 5:31pm. I continued wiping my right hand.
My travel outfit was lying on my desk, so I grabbed it, moved into the hallway and
changed clothes. My wallet was sitting inside my work coat pocket with $57 in cash plus all
credit cards inside. I pulled the bus ticket from the duffel bag and put it in the front pocket of my jeans. $500 was the figure settled on for travel emergency cash, with most of this ending up being
tucked inside my right foot tube sock. It felt strange but safe down there. The clock: 5:40pm.
The nice thing about a prepaid cell phone was the cash payment option, requiring no ID
which was hugely important for my next move. I pulled this prepaid phone from my front pocket
and dialed 9-1-1, getting my best lady voice ready.
“9-1-1 what's the emergency?” the operator asked.
“I'm hearing gun shots from the parking lot of Colonial Medical Center,” I yelled into the
phone. “Please hurry!”
“There are six officers at that location right now, maam,” the operator said coolly.
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Damage Control
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I ran to the lobby window to look outside. Three police cars had surrounded Oleg's car
and I could see Oleg's partner being led away in handcuffs. No sign of Oleg, though.
Instead of trying to put on my really poor lady voice one last time, I simply hung up the
phone and kept staring outside. Who had called the police because the last time I checked, it
wasn't a crime to sit in a parked car? No one had any proof against the crimes Oleg and his gang
committed but me, and I thought it to be rather fitting that I was sitting in the complete darkness
of my lobby. As I wondered if I should go talk with one of the police officers, a sharp rap on the
lobby door scared the crap out of me. It was one of the officers.
“Hello, officer,” I said after opening the lobby door. “What's going on outside?”
The officer took a step inside the lobby. “Are you Nick Johnson?”
“Yes, how do you know my name?”
“I have been instructed to inform you that Peter Hansen and his family were placed in the
Federal Witness Protection program this afternoon,” the officer announced. “Three hours ago,
Julio Viola was arrested along with several members of his organization, and this is the last
roundup.”
My head was spinning madly as I tried to soak all of this in. I was just a little cog in this
vast criminal network, so little that it took the Feds several hours after Julio's arrest to deal with my small problem, namely Oleg and his partner. I didn't know what Peter had on the cartel, but it
had to be good, damn good.
“So you arrested the two guys in the parking lot?” I asked.
The officer shot me a puzzled look. “No, just the one that was in the car.”
Timothy Gilbert
Damage Control
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Thursday, January 16th
8:00 p.m.