The Buck Stops Here (24 page)

“Yes.”

“Good. Whatcha got?”

I chose to sit on the bench, my back to the tree. I didn’t like doing business this way, but until I knew what substance the inhaler contained, I didn’t see that I had much choice.

“Just to reiterate,” I said softly, “this will be done quickly and anonymously, is that correct?”

“Absolutely. I won’t tell anybody if you won’t.”

The kid seemed so young, with purple streaks in his hair and a tiny gold loop in his eyebrow. I thought he looked more like a skater boy than a chemist, but I held my tongue and reached into the FedEx envelope to pull out the inhaler.

“That’s albuterol,” he said smartly. “My roommate uses one of those.”

“I have reason to believe the chemical inside has been altered in some way,” I said. “I’d like to know how.”

I handed him the inhaler, and he turned it around in his hand.

“It could even be lethal,” I added, “so be careful.”

He let a low whistle.

“Lethal, huh? Like pure nicotine or something? Cool. There’s a clever way to off somebody.”

“It could also be something a little more benign, but not legal.”

“Like crack cocaine?”

“Who knows? I just want it analyzed as quickly as possible. Of course, there’s always a chance that it’s just an asthma inhaler, but I doubt it.”

“I’ll need a deposit,” he said, handing the inhaler to me. I slid it back into the envelope, which already contained the money.

“There’s two hundred and fifty dollars cash in there,” I said. “You’ll get the rest when the job is done.”

I handed the whole package to him, and he took it gingerly.

“Well, nice doing business with ya,” he said, standing. “I’ll be in touch.”

He reached under the bench and pulled out a skateboard, carried it to the sidewalk, stepped on, and took off. I sat there for a bit longer, trying to enjoy the view of the gorgeous tree. Finally, I returned to my car feeling dirty, somehow, as if I needed to find a place to wash my hands.

Twenty-Seven

The drive back to New Orleans took about an hour, and I went a different way, this time on a long, elevated road that carried me over the Louisiana swamps and provided an incredible glimpse of swamp life below.

There were modest houses in and among the muck and mire of the swamp, some of them built on stilts and some planted directly on tiny pieces of solid land. In front of almost every house there floated a boat or two, and a few homes actually had a little piece of yard, in which I could see a clothesline or a tiny garden. I didn’t know if these were year-round homes or simply fishing camps. Either way, they offered one of the most exotic views I had witnessed in a long time. I was tempted to get off of the elevated road and find some way to paddle a canoe through these “neighborhoods.” But then I thought of the alligators that might also be there, and I decided against it.

Once I was back in the city, I set about tracking the origin of the FedEx envelope that had been sent from New Orleans to Albany, Georgia. I had torn off the label before giving the package to “Hydro,” and I held it in my hand now as I drove toward the address. It had been sent from a place called “Fat City Parcel Service,” which seemed like a strange name until I looked online and realized that the section of town where it was located was called Fat City. I found the place easily enough, but it was closed. Leaving the small strip mall, I drove on toward the French Quarter, determined to come back the next day as soon as I could slip away from my charity investigation.

Back at the hotel, I knew it was time to do a little digging online about Family HEARTS. Just because my focus was rather fragmented was no excuse for giving the investigation short shrift. First, I changed into comfortable clothes and grabbed a bottle of water and a banana, and then I spread out at the large table in my suite, settling into this phase of my program investigation.

Before I started, though, I wanted to see what kind of info I could find online. After numerous Google searches, my best luck came from a local news station that had uploaded many of its old reports from the past ten years. I ended up finding seven different videos related to the Cipher Five and watching them one after the other.

The first video showed James Sparks being taken away by the FBI in handcuffs. According to the report, he had been charged with selling a computer encryption program to a terrorist group known as al-Sharif.

“What remains to be determined,” the reporter said into the camera, “is whether Sparks acted alone or if other employees who worked on the encryption program were also involved in the sale.”

Each subsequent video featured a report tracking the highlights of the investigation. In the end, the other members of the Cipher Five were exonerated and Sparks alone was found guilty. In the final clip, Sparks was sentenced to five years in prison, which he would serve out at Keeplerville Federal Prison in Keeplerville, Georgia.

Watching the news footage gave me nothing I hadn’t already learned elsewhere. Still, seeing the filmed reports helped me to put it all into chronological perspective. Photos of the six members of the terrorist group that had bought the program from Sparks were also repeatedly shown, and at one point I clicked on pause just to get a good look at them. According to the report, all were still at large, and two of them were on the FBI’s most wanted list. I stared into their dark, empty eyes, wondering what damage they had wrought using that encryption program since. No wonder Tom’s guilt wrapped around him like a vise.

My plan was to conduct a normal charity investigation of Family HEARTS—and thereby gain access to people who might be able to give me answers and insight about the Cipher Five, James Sparks, and the secrets of Tom’s past. I knew that if I was persistent I would work some questions into what seemed like innocuous conversations. On a piece of paper, I scribbled down the kinds of questions I would try to ask all of them:

What was your function with the Cipher Five?

Were you surprised by what James Sparks did?

Do you still have contact with Sparks?

How did the FBI investigation impact your life?

With their answers, I would listen to see if there were any discrepancies, observe their reactions about James Sparks, and search for specifics that might lead me down the path to the real truth about the past.

Once I was finished, I forced myself to change mental gears and get ready to focus on Family HEARTS. Whenever I investigated a charity, I always used a ten-point list that I had devised in my time on the job. I pulled up that list now and loaded its different elements into a database. In my opinion, I knew that a good nonprofit should meet the following criteria: It should serve a worthwhile cause; adequately fulfill its mission statement, showing fruits for its labors; plan and spend wisely; pay salaries and benefits on a par with nonprofit industry standards; follow standards of responsible and ethical fundraising; have an independent board that accepts responsibility for activities; be well rated by outside reporting sources; have a good reputation among its peers; believe in full financial disclosure; and have its books audited annually by an independent auditor and receive a clean audit opinion.

I hadn’t been given a lot of literature about the place, but I would work with what I had. I read the brochure, which outlined the functions that Family HEARTS performed. And though I scribbled a few notes in the margins—questions I would ask tomorrow—I felt fairly confident that this group did, indeed, serve a worthwhile cause. According to the brochure, they had provided some form of service to nearly 18,000 families last year alone.

Apparently, families of children with rare diseases were referred to this group by hospitals, doctors, internet searches, and other organizations. Analyzing the ways in which they then fulfilled their mission statement was easy, since it was broken down along the lines of the HEARTS acronym.

They offered
Help
in a lot of different ways, but primarily by coordinating online or in-person support groups for the families. They also helped to match the disorder with the appropriate medical organization. For example, according to the literature, a child with JDMS—which I remembered was Maddie’s disorder—would be connected to the Myositis Foundation, who could then offer more specific information and support.

They provided
Encouragement
in very personal ways: sending notes, making calls, and offering a weekly prayer time. Interestingly, they also offered a “free internet weeding” service, and I made a note to ask about that.

They served as
Advocates
, lobbying to make public places more accessible to the handicapped and interpreting the rights of the disabled. They would also intervene on a more personal level, working to settle confusions or misunderstandings between patients and their doctors or insurance companies.

They provided a number of
Resources
, connecting those who had needs with those who could fulfill those needs. For example, the brochure said, they could locate special care equipment stores, search for state funds for particular disorders, recommend respite care groups, track down organizations like Visiting Nurses or the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and even find local volunteers who would be willing to help out the families with such things as rides or meals. They had an extensive website as well, which included disability-friendly vacation spots and listings for the top physicians in the country for particular disorders.

They could help with
Treatments
by pointing patients toward the correct doctors, receiving and distributing information about new treatments and drug trials, advising about activities that may or may not be appropriate for the patient in question, and keeping a keen eye turned toward fraud in the field of drug development, drug testing, and medical care.

They offered two different
Services
that, to me, seemed invaluable: A daily hotline for families to call for instant emotional support and prayer, and a weekly “Ask the Doctor” segment on their website, where questions of general interest about the different disorders were posted, along with the corresponding answers, collected by Family HEARTS from different experts in the field.

If all of this were true, I realized, this really was an amazing group. And what an unusual niche to have found, the families of children with rare disorders.

Tomorrow, I would see how all of these claims actually translated into action. I didn’t have enough financial information just now to draw any conclusions about their spending, salaries, fundraising, or auditing activities. Still, I could eliminate two of my criteria simply by going online and seeing if they were well rated by outside reporting sources and if they had a good reputation among their peers.

I worked online for several hours, starting with different charity-ranking sources, such as Guidestar and the Better Business Bureau, and then moving along into peer review sites and the nonprofit watchdog site Charity Watch. Everything looked good, and in the end I dashed off a few e-mail inquiries to some contacts of mine, asking for confidential comments about the effectiveness and reputation of Family HEARTS.

By the time I was finished, it was nearly 9:00
P.M.
How the day had flown by! I was feeling hungry, and though I was tempted to order room service, I also wanted to get a breath of fresh air. I changed into jeans and a light sweater and then strolled past the quiet pool and Jacuzzi, the flowing fountains and discreet lights, and into the elegant lobby. I asked a man at the front desk if there might be anything open at this hour where I could get a bite to eat, and he just laughed.

“This is N’awlins,
cher
,” he said in a strange accent. “De party’s just gettin’ started!”

He described several places within walking distance, insisting that I would be safe alone on the streets at this hour as long as I didn’t deviate from the main areas. He gave me the names of the streets to use as my boundaries.

“If ain’t nobody on it, don’tchou go down it neither,” he said. “If dey people dere, you okay.”

I took him at his word, surprised to realize when I stepped outside that there was noise and commotion in every direction. Nothing specific seemed to be going on, just the sights and sounds of a busy night in a tourist-heavy area. I strolled a few blocks to my right, passing restaurants with lines out the door, the delicious aromas emanating from inside simply indescribable. The crowd began to seem a little louder, a little drunker, the farther I went, so I turned around and headed in the other direction, past my hotel and into the area known as Jackson Square.

Jackson Square was some sort of small park, flanked on three sides by beautiful old historical buildings, including a magnificent church called the St. Louis Cathedral. The paved areas between the buildings and the park were for pedestrians only, and there were little clusters of artists sprinkled all along the walkway, most of them painting portraits for sitting tourists. A lone saxophone player had set up near the church, and as he played a soulful blues tune, passersby dropped coins in his open saxophone case.