Ortiz stood near the window, reading messages on her phone.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
Finally I said, "Tell me."
Kincaid rubbed one hand across his face.
"You called the right number."
"That's obvious."
"No, Hank. I mean exactly the right number."
I waited.
He looked older suddenly.
Not seventy-nine.
Older than that.
Burdened.
"For the past nine months, I've been serving as an outside adviser to a veteran-access review board."
I raised an eyebrow.
"You hate boards."
"I do."
"You once said committees were where decisions went to die."
"I was younger."
"You said it three years ago."
Ortiz smiled faintly.
Kincaid ignored her.
"We started reviewing complaints involving disabled veterans being denied access, cited, detained, or towed at federal medical facilities."
I looked toward the door.
"And Phoenix?"
"Phoenix kept appearing."
"Because of Mercer?"
"We didn't know at first."
Ortiz joined us.
"Complaints were scattered. Different dates. Different officers. Different explanations. On paper, nothing looked connected."
"Until?"
"Until we looked at the tow records."
I thought of Earl.
"Desert Valley."
She nodded.
"Seventy-three percent of disputed accessibility tows at this facility over the last two years went to the same company."
"That's not illegal."
"No."
"But?"
"The company charges unusually high storage, mobility-equipment access, and after-hours release fees."
My stomach tightened.
"Mobility-equipment access?"
"If a wheelchair, walker, oxygen tank, or other medical equipment is inside an impounded vehicle, the owner can be charged for supervised access."
I stared at her.
"They charge disabled people to retrieve the equipment they need because their vehicle was taken?"
"In some cases."
Kincaid's jaw tightened.
"People paid because they were scared."
Ortiz continued.
"Some never challenged the tow. Some didn't know how. Some had cognitive impairments. Some were too sick."
"And Mercer?"
"His name appears repeatedly in internal reviews."
"Griggs?"
She paused.
"His too."
I leaned back.
"So today wasn't unusual."
"No."
I thought about his smile.
His certainty.
Photoshop exists.
People like you abuse the system.
"How many?"
"That's what we're trying to determine."
Kincaid stared at the table.
I watched him.
"You knew the name."
He didn't look up.
"What?"
"When I called."
Silence.
"I said Tyler Griggs and you changed."
"Hank—"
"Don't."
He looked at me.
"We've known each other fifty-six years. Don't start lying now."
Ortiz's eyes moved between us.
Kincaid sighed.
"I wasn't sure."
"Sure of what?"
He removed his glasses and folded them carefully.
His hands were trembling.
Robert Kincaid's hands had never trembled in my memory.
Not under fire.
Not when he had held a field dressing against my chest while shells landed around us.
Not when he had told three terrified nineteen-year-olds they were going home after an operation that nearly killed us all.
But they trembled now.
"Tyler James Griggs," he said.
The name meant nothing.
Then he added two words.
"Daniel's son."
The room disappeared.
I heard the fluorescent hum.
The air-conditioning vent.
A cart squeaking somewhere in the hallway.
But they all seemed impossibly far away.
"What?"
Kincaid looked at me.
"Daniel Griggs."
I shook my head.
"No."
"Hank."
"No."
"He had a son late in life."
"No."
"He remarried in 1988."
I pushed myself upright.
The chair scraped the floor.
"Daniel died in 2009."
"I know."
"He never told me he had another son."
"You two weren't speaking much by then."
That hurt because it was true.
Daniel and I had once been closer than brothers.
Then life happened.
Distance.
Jobs.
Children.
Funerals.
Pride.
We never fought.
Somehow that was worse.
We simply stopped calling.
I remembered a photograph.
Three young Marines sitting on ammunition crates.
Me.
Robert Kincaid.
Daniel Griggs.
Daniel with his ridiculous grin.
Daniel with the radio handset hanging from one shoulder.
Daniel shouting my name through smoke.
Daniel dragging me backward while blood soaked through my uniform.
I sat down.
"My God."
Kincaid nodded.
"Tyler is Daniel's youngest son."
I looked toward the closed door.
The officer outside it might as well have become another person.
"Does he know who I am?"
"No."
"Did Daniel ever tell him?"
"I don't know."
I laughed once.
It sounded broken.
"His father saved my life."
Ortiz remained silent.
Kincaid said, "Yes."
I looked at him.
"You knew from the moment I called."
"I suspected."
"And that's why you came."
"No."
His answer was immediate.
"I came because you said you needed help."
Something closed in my throat.
Kincaid leaned forward.
"His name is why I brought Ortiz."
"Why?"
He looked at her.
Ortiz nodded.
Kincaid opened a slim folder he'd carried into the room.
Inside was an old photocopy.
Yellowed at the edges.
He slid it across the table.
At the top were the words:
PATIENT ACCESS COMPLAINT.
Date: April 17, 2008.
Complainant:
Daniel J. Griggs.
My hands went cold.
I read.
Daniel had been sixty.
Parkinson's had already damaged his balance.
He used a walker.
He had parked in an accessible space during a neurology appointment.
A police supervisor challenged his permit.
Accused him of using someone else's placard.
Refused to verify his paperwork.
Had his vehicle towed.
Daniel spent nearly six hours inside the facility trying to arrange transportation home.
His medication was in the car.
So was his walker.
At the bottom of the complaint was the supervisor's name.
Paul Mercer.
I stopped breathing.
"No."
Kincaid's eyes were wet.
"It was buried."
I looked up.
"Daniel filed this?"
"Twice."
"And nothing happened?"
"Internal review found the officer acted within discretion."
I read the page again.