The Victims Game
Part Seventeen - the Answers
By Scott J. Welles
scottjwelles@yahoo.com

DISCLAIMERS:  Hi. We've got some legal stuff to wade through before we can jump into things. Mostly the usual prerequisite jazz: ER and all related characters are the property of Warner Bros., ConstantC Productions, and Amblin Entertainment Television, a bunch of really swell, understanding guys who won't sue me if I mention that the aforementioned characters and institutions are being used without their permission, but only for entertainment purposes, and that no form of profit is being made on this work. For the benefit of the content-conscious amongst you, I'll assure you that there's nothing here that you couldn't see on the show, anyway. Except maybe some language, I'm not sure yet. Depends what kind of day I'm having as I write. Beyond that, I make no promises about what's in store. Could be silly, could be scary, could be sexy, could be sad. I'm not telling. Come on, live dangerously...

My conversation with Walter Montgomery was even longer and wordier than "My Dinner With Andre," and certainly wouldn't have garnered the same kind of critical acclaim. I'll spare you the whole transcript because it took a while to get through it all, what with my questions, his evasions, more of my questions, his double-talk, more of my questions, his backpedaling, and the occasional interjection or aside from Maggie Doyle. Montgomery, once his lawyer's poise was broken, turned out to be a really whiny, spineless guy.

A few salient points, however...

Walter Montgomery had worked for the Carter Foundation for seven years. First, as a junior partner in a legal firm they employed for business contracts, and later on his own, as their primary legal counsel. His service had brought him a substantial income, and a large degree of prestige.

However, human nature being what it is, Montgomery's successes just ended up fueling his weaknesses. Gambling, for example - he wasn't very good at it, it seemed. Substantial losses over sporting events, exacerbated by semiannual trips to Las Vegas or Atlantic City or Monte Carlo, had kept the man in a state of perpetual debt. Often to the kind of people who are less-than-forgiving about such things.

Millicent Carter was aware of his situation, or at least she had been at one time, because she had advanced him some funds with which to square his debts. And he did. But they didn't stay that way.

So he began embezzling from the Carter Family. Not great amounts, certainly nothing they'd miss, he figured. And since he was in a position to influence the family's financial management, he was able to ensure that things stayed out of Millicent's notice.

"How'd you manage that?" I asked him.

It seemed that Montgomery wasn't the only one in and around the family with personal vices. He'd cajoled various other people into covering for him (more likely blackmailed them, I figured), by either feeding their needs, or exploiting them. Mrs. Carter's grandson, for example, and his heroin addiction-

Montgomery was interrupted as Maggie Doyle seized him by the shirtfront and nearly jerked him out of his chair. "You're a lying maggot!" she yelled at him, "I know Carter, I work with him! He doesn't do that shit, and he wouldn't stand for being used by anyone like you!"

No, it wasn't John Carter, he explained, once I pried Doyle off him and got them both calmed down, it was another grandson, his cousin, Chase Carter, who had a large degree of responsibility for the family business at the time. The name sparked something in a faint memory, but I couldn't pinpoint it...

Montgomery had made certain Chase was supplied with the drugs, in exchange for looking the other way here, fudging the figures there, and generally making it easier for Montgomery to skim a little. Not much, he always hastened to add, just enough to keep himself out of trouble.

For both men, and a few others Montgomery handled in similar fashion, it became a sort of self-perpetuating imprisonment. Addiction, guilt, and need feeding each other, drawing them both in deeper. If you got away with it once, the temptation to get away with it again increased, but so did the remorse. Having done it, and done it more, just made it more and more difficult to admit to your own wrongdoing, and the fear of revelation increased as the vestigial desire to confess diminished. At least that's how he described it.

After Chase got clean, apparently with some help from his cousin John, Montgomery knew that he was in danger of being exposed, and he leaned heavily on Chase, subtly undermining his resolve, and even driving him back to the drugs. An overdose soon followed -

"Oh, God, yeah, I remember that," Doyle put in, "I heard Carter and Anna had to revive him, and it didn't go well. Anna Del Amico," she added, for my benefit, "She doesn't work here anymore."

I said, "Do you think Chase would confirm any of what he's said?"

She said, "You can try talking to him, but I doubt he'll talk back much."

Oh. "Dead?"

"No, but pretty much incapacitated. I don't know exactly how he's doing, but..."

I looked at Walter Montgomery and stifled the urge to beat his face into the back of his skull. "So how did Joan come into this?" I asked him, instead.

With Chase Carter no longer running things, Millicent Carter had taken a more direct role in the business, and it was becoming more and more difficult for Montgomery to skulk around on her. His debts were compounding, and it seemed inevitable that he would be caught before long.

Then Joan came to him. He didn't know who she was, or where she came from, or how she learned about his situation. He'd never heard her call herself anything other than "Joan," excepting of course the time she impersonated Mrs. Carter in front of me. Joan suggested to Walter that they could further both their agendas and solve all their problems at once, if he cooperated with him on a project she had devised.

"The clinic rip-off?" I said.

Yes, Joan had planned the job, only requiring him to funnel the Carter Foundation's funds through one of its charity causes, in this case Carol Hathaway's clinic at County General. How she had set this up, he didn't know, but he was prepared to go along for half the profits, less expenses. He just did what he told her, whether he understood it or not. Mostly not.

"Sounds like you were awfully trusting of someone you barely knew," I said. "Didn't it occur to you to ask some questions, maybe learn what kind of person you were allying yourself with? Particularly with this kind of risk?"

"I didn't have any choice," he admitted, "Joan had the means to destroy me."

"She knew about you and Chase?"

"No, but she...she had...some pictures..."

"Of...?" I prompted.

He hesitated, as if exhuming issues that were supposed to stay buried forever. "One night in Atlantic City, after I lost particularly big, I...I picked up a girl..."

"A working girl?"

He nodded.

"Embarrassing," I said, "but nothing that would ruin you forever, I'd think..."

"She was fourteen years old." You could barely hear him.

Oh, jeez. "Yeah, well, that would do it," I said.

Doyle swore under her breath and drummed her fingers on the butt of her gun. Her mouth twisted like she'd tasted something particularly vile.

"I don't know where the pictures came from," Montgomery went on, "I had some trouble with the police at the time, over the girl. She was picked up for prostitution, and she tried to get out of it by claiming I'd solicited her."

"So you were looking at statutory rape charges, since she was underage..."

"Yes, but then Joan came forward and said I was with her that night..."

"She gave you an alibi?"

A nod. "That's when I first met her."

"And right away she had a hold on you for it."

Another nod.

You hear a lot of really sordid stories in a job like mine. It makes you wonder how much of human history and human society is occupied with this kind of relentless self-degradation.

Anyway, Joan had set things up on the hospital's end of things, using Millicent Carter's existing business relationship with Carol Hathaway, so all Montgomery had to do was to tweak the figures a little - okay, a lot - so that the regular deposits to the clinic's account were increasingly large. When the amount hit twenty-five million, after the tax breaks, they planned to disappear with the whole kit and kaboodle. Why twenty-five million? Seemed like a nice, round number, I guess.

"Anyway, that was the original plan," Montgomery said, seeming exhausted. Confession is good for the soul, but it's draining as hell.

"It might actually have worked," I said, "except that then things started going wrong, didn't they?"

He nodded again, head down.

"There was some kind of scandal with a kid named Ricky Abbott, and the clinic was shut down."

Nodded again.

"The money was automatically going to be refunded before you had a chance to get it, and the Carter family couldn't miss seeing a refund that size, and they'd get suspicious, and you'd be hung out to dry."

Nod. "We had no way of knowing the clinic would be closed..."

I noticed Doyle laughing quietly again, and asked her what was so funny. "Sorry," she said, "I was just imagining how the Board would react if they knew Ross' screw-up with the Abbott kid nearly thwarted these guys' plan, and he never knew it."

Doug Ross again. This guy must really have been something.

"That's when you and Joan had to start improvising," I said, "You cooked up this whole deal involving me and the patient signatures to get back into the County computer system, is that right?"

It was. Montgomery didn't know who Louis Cavanaugh or Nathaniel Rollins were until the night of the party at the Carter mansion. Joan brought them in. He suspected that they had been working for her prior to that night, but that was outside his knowledge.

This explained a lot. The whole impersonation had been done slickly, but there were surely more reliable ways to pull off the scheme. The fact that it had been put together as a spur-of-the-moment deal explained the risk, and also spoke highly of Joan's skills at deception. The likelihood that she and Amanda Lee were the same person was increased.

It would also explain my kidnapping, and Kerry Weaver's, if they were improvising. Keeping one step ahead of us, but only just barely. No wonder we were able to escape, if they were making it up as they went along.

"What about Steve Wasserstein's murder?" I asked Montgomery.

He claimed he knew nothing about that. I leaned harder on him, assuming he was lying, but all I got out of him were whimpering protests of innocence in that regard. Maybe he'd been left out of the loop on that aspect of things. Well, you can't have everything, I supposed.

"All right," I said, "so where's the money now? The clinic funds? I assume you and Joan transferred them to some account you'd set up?"

He nodded. "We did it from right here," he said, waving at a laptop computer set up on a nearby table, "right after Cavanaugh and Rollins got into the County computer system and authorized it."

"Just like Joan instructed them, huh?" I looked at the laptop again. "Show me."

I steered Montgomery over to the laptop, watching as he opened it and powered it up. As he worked, I noticed a floppy disk on the table, labeled 'CARTER' in red magic marker. I glanced at it, and then pocketed it on general principle.

When Montgomery had pulled up the file list, he pointed to a screen icon simply marked 'Joan'. "That's the account," he said, "we were supposed to divide it when all our other arrangements had been made, but I haven't heard from Joan for a couple of days. I was waiting for her to show up..."

I had a feeling about that. "Pull it up. Let's see it."

Obediently, he opened the financial file, and then his eyes nearly bugged out. The balance in the account read $0.00. Zero. Zilch. Zipola.

"Looks like you've been suckered, Walter," I commented.

His mouth flapped, comically, producing no sound. When he found his voice, he squeaked, "This can't be right! The money's gone!"

"There's no such thing as honor among thieves, dimwit," I told him. "She probably pocketed it all as soon as she didn't need you any more."

"But...the money's been transferred out of this account, just within the last few hours-"

"And into her secret one that she never told you about. I got that."

"Nononoyoudon'tunderstand," he broke in, running it all together, "it's been sent back! All of it, straight back to County General's accounts!"

"WHAT...?!" I leaned over Montgomery's shoulder, as if staring at the screen closer would explain things. I looked at the figures, and at the transfer statement he was pointing at. It didn't make things any clearer. Damn, every time I started to get a handle on things, the world threw me a curve ball. Don't you hate when that happens?

I started to look at Maggie Doyle, but she was already on the phone. I listened, impatiently, to her half of a conversation, and when she hung up, she confirmed that County had, in fact, suddenly discovered the money had been returned. Go figure.

The three of us looked at each other, kind of at a loss for what to do now.

Finally, I said, "All right, Walter, here's what's going to happen. Do you have a word processor on that thing?"

"Yes, of course."

"Okay. You're going to type up a statement, describing everything you've just told us. Your involvement with Joan, your part in her scheme, your influence on the Carter finances, your role in Chase's addiction, and everything up to the point we came in. You're going to print out two or three copies, and you're going to sign and date each page by hand. Maggie and I are also going to sign them, as witnesses, and then we're going to take them to County and see what we can see."

He was already shaking his hand before I was halfway through. "That will never be legally binding, as it's obtained under duress..."

"I don't care. Print it." He was right, but as Mark Greene had pointed out to me, the Board of Directors didn't require the same kind of proof that a court would. If I could put together a strong case that Carol Hathaway wasn't responsible for the money disappearing, maybe they'd reconsider. The fact that the money was back might help.

Walter Montgomery was still shaking his head, more steadily. "I won't print anything, Fox," he insisted. "You can't make me implicate myself."

I looked down at him in his chair. He had found some inner resolve, and it showed in his eyes and his voice.

Uh-huh. Okay, time to get serious.

I leaned over Montgomery, putting my face very close to his, and gave him the David Caruso look. In a voice near a whisper, I said, "I want you to take a moment and think about all the bad karma you've accumulated in your life, Walter. I want you to consider all the wrongs you've done, including the ones I'm betting you haven't told me about. I want you to imagine all that coming back at you at once. How much of it do you think you can answer for?"

His resolve began to crack.

I put a hand on his shoulder, leaning a little more heavily, and said, "You can print the statement like I've said, and trust that my lack of proper legal procedure will allow you to slither out of it later. Or else Maggie's going to step outside and keep watch, while you and I see how much of your misbegotten life I can bring back to haunt you." I let my thumb dig into a nerve.

He caved. He printed. He signed and dated. All the while, I could feel Maggie Doyle's eyes on me.

I've never threatened anyone physically like that before, and I didn't like the way it made me feel. Petty and mean and cruel. I can only be glad Montgomery backed down, because I really don't know what I would have done if he hadn't.

We took the copies of Montgomery's statement, and we all got into Doyle's BMW. We didn't talk on the drive back towards County.

As we neared the hospital, I asked Doyle to pull over and let me out. I told her she should probably talk to Mark and Romano and whomever without me. Things might go a little more smoothly that way. I told her that if they wanted to talk to me, I'd be at my hotel. I told her I'd walk back from here.

She nodded, without a word, and we parted company.

I walked back to my hotel, and I shivered and shook most of the way, but it wasn't from the cold.

By any reasonable standards, I had accomplished as much of my goal as I could expect to. I had found a means to refute the accusations against Hathaway, and maybe take the blame off of Weaver in the process. I had caught the bad guy. Or one of them, anyway. The wimpy one, true...

But I didn't feel triumphant. I didn't feel like the job was done. There were still too many questions. Too many loose ends. Too many mysteries. Where was Carol Hathaway? Where was Millicent Carter? Where was Joan? Where was Mary Stuart Masterson when I needed her, and why hasn't she done any movies lately? The answers, my friend, are blowin' in the wind, and some days the wind really just blows.

I entered the hotel that Walter Montgomery had checked me into. I reflected that I was racking up quite a bill for the place, considering I didn't know if I was even going to make a profit on this case. Joan had assured me that his check would be good, but I wasn't about to take anything she said at face value anymore.

Some days, you really just want a bolt from the blue to come along and solve all your problems in one swell foop. But the world is largely foopless.

I flopped down on the bed, so of course that was when the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Why in the name of God's Holy Trousers don't you ever return your bloody telephone messages, you great pillock? Have I taught you nothing?"

I had to grin. Richard Wintergreen not only loves me like the son he never had, he treats me like one, too.

Foop.