Doctor Dealer (53 page)

Once he started diving, Larry had again established a separate life away from home, a life that satisfied his pleasure in taking risks and for being in the company of men. He frequently left early in the morning and came home late at night. His promise to spend just one hour each day after dinner with his son was forgotten just as swiftly as so many other promises before it had been.

During the first months of 1985 there were few reasons for Larry and Marcia to fear detection. Larry had even made a few calls home from pay phones, to Ken Weidler and to his brother Rusty. Through them he got word back to his family and to Marcia’s mother that they were settled and doing well. Larry wanted news about the drug case, but the group that had been indicted with him had not yet gone to trial. He learned that his wild old friend and former runner, Glen Fuller, had at last been sentenced to four years in prison by a New Jersey judge for his 1980 arrest driving cocaine north on the turnpike. But Glen had been released immediately, pending the outcome of his appeal, and was living in Aspen. Larry had to laugh about that. He learned that he and Mark Stewart had been sued, along with officials
of Bank Leumi Le-Israel, for conspiring to loot WMOT-TEC Records of two million dollars, and then in January, his old mentor Mark Stewart’s problems worsened further when he was indicted on seventy-four counts of filing phony tax statements for clients of his tax shelter schemes, and indicted separately for laundering a half-million dollars of Larry’s drug money through his various enterprises. Larry wished the courts luck in getting to the bottom of that mess—he considered a half million a generous understatement. Frannie Burns had helped the FBI nail Diego Arbelaez, his Colombian supplier, with 170 pounds of uncut cocaine in his Hollywood, Florida, garage. Larry’s other friends and former associates had all retained lawyers and were waiting in fear for the other shoe to drop. His former cocaine-dealing partner David Ackerman had kicked his cocaine habit and gone back to dental school.

Whenever Larry hung up the phone and walked back to his car under sunny Virginia skies, braced with the musky smell of salt air, it was like returning through some warp in time and space. What was happening in Philadelphia was like some fast-receding nightmare. Larry was grateful to have escaped it all, and proud of himself for having had the presence of mind and cunning to give himself a second chance. Often he would resolve not to call again for a few years, just to play it perfectly safe. Marcia thought he was crazy to make these occasional calls. But then, a few weeks or a month later, as the appointed time for his next prearranged call approached, he would find himself pulling into a shopping center lot and hunting up a phone as if drawn by some force out of his control. Some part of Larry missed being at the center of the storm.

He had still not gotten driver’s licenses for Brian and Susan O’Neil. Larry was afraid to have his picture taken by the Virginia State Police. What if they checked photos against a list of fugitives?

So he put it off and put it off until one morning, pulling out of Middle Plantation on his way over to the dive center, his Maxima was flagged down by the local police. Larry was in a cold sweat. He had been going 35 MPH in a 25-MPH zone. As he handed over his Richard Timmerman Massachusetts license, the one that listed him as thirty-nine years old and twenty pounds heavier than he was, Larry could see all his carefully laid plans wash away in a moment. Even if the cop didn’t question the license, wouldn’t the ticket go on the record of Richard Timmerman in Massachusetts?

The cop didn’t notice anything unusual about the license. He gave Larry a speeding ticket and drove off. That afternoon, Larry called the sheriff’s office and explained that a friend of his from out of state had been driving his car on a visit, and had gotten a speeding ticket. If the ticket was promptly paid, would it still go into the
computer and go on his record in Massachusetts? The clerk at the sheriff’s office said yes, the ticket would go into the Virginia computer, but that no, it wouldn’t show up on his friend’s record in Massachusetts automatically. The information could be accessed in Massachusetts, but they would have to inquire about it first.

Larry was relieved, but the incident prompted him to see about getting new driver’s licenses for himself and Marcia. Posing as novelist Robert Ludlum, Larry called the state police and explained that he was looking for some general information as background research for his next book. The state police spokesman was eager to oblige.

“I’m a big fan of yours,” he said.

Larry asked if it was common practice to search through driver’s license photos for fugitives. The spokesman said no, it would just take too many man-hours for too few results, and it would be too difficult to do. It just wasn’t practical.

The next day, Larry and Marcia took driving tests, and within weeks they were both carrying new Virginia driver’s licenses under their new names and address. It was a big breakthrough. Larry felt the last hurdle had been cleared.

But then there was the baby. Larry was worried because he knew Chuck Reed had a good idea of when the baby was due. He knew the new obstetrician/gynecologist would want Marcia’s history, and the hospital would want forms filled out, addresses, phone numbers, immediate family, etc. Larry did not want the doctor or hospital to even know their address or phone number.

But the preliminaries went smoothly. They found a doctor who did not ask too many questions. On the hospital forms they left many questions unanswered. Larry found that since he was willing to pay for services in advance, very few questions were asked.

He and Marcia attended birthing classes together, and on April 5, as they finished eating dinner at Pizza Hut, Marcia said, “I think we had better go straight to the hospital from here.” Larry dropped Chris off at the Millers’ and drove to the emergency room.

Less than an hour later she gave birth to a dark-haired baby girl. Larry was amazed. For Christopher, Marcia’s labor had gone on for more than ten hours, and in the end the doctor used forceps to help with the delivery. This birth was over so quickly there had hardly been time to generate the kind of excitement of the first. Larry drove home to pick up Chris, and tied pink balloons to one of the trees in the front yard. Marcia and Larry named their daughter Tara Erin O’Neil.

Larry didn’t care that much, but Marcia wanted the baby baptized. She had enrolled in the local Catholic church, and within weeks
of bringing baby Tara home, Marcia and Larry were attending group discussions with other new parents preliminary to having their babies baptized.

But baptism presented another problem. They had no friends as close as Jess and Babette Miller, their next-door neighbors, so they were the obvious choice for Tara’s godparents. But wouldn’t they think it was odd to be asked to play such an important role after having known Brian and Marcia O’Neil for only several months?

Larry invited the Millers over. He told them that he and Marcia wanted them to be Tara’s godparents, “but I think I owe you an explanation,” he said. “You may have noticed that we are never visited by our families, or by old friends. There’s a reason for that.”

Larry swore the Millers to secrecy. Then he told Jess and Babette that he and Marcia were really not Brian and Susan O’Neil.

No. Those were false identities. Jess and Babette were spellbound. There had always been something vaguely mysterious about their young, moneyed neighbors.

“Marcia and I are living in the federal Witness Protection Program,” said Larry.

He explained that he had turned state’s evidence to convict some of his partners in the computer company in Philadelphia, so, for his own and his family’s protection, the government had given them new identities.

The Millers promised to keep their secret, and gladly agreed to stand as godparents for Tara. Marcia felt deep chagrin. It was the most calculated lie she had ever been party to in her life, and it made her skin crawl to see how easily it had come to Larry. He was delighted when the evening was through. They had pulled it off! Marcia felt sick to her stomach.

With all the confusion and household disruption of bringing home the new baby, Larry and Marcia wanted a special treat for Christopher on his third birthday. They invited the Millers’ little boy and threw a birthday party for Chris at Showbiz Pizza Place, a fun kiddie restaurant with a giant mechanized puppet show and lots of games and rides. They all sang when the Shobiz mascot, Billy-Bob the Bear, a cuddly costumed bear with oversized orange-and-yellow striped overalls, waddled out carrying a cake with white icing and three candles on top.

Marcia had been better than Larry about calling or writing home. She had written two letters to her mother, which were sent through the mail drop to the address of one of her mother’s friends. Larry had scanned the letters carefully to make sure they contained no clue to their whereabouts. After Tara was born, which occasioned the second letter, he had insisted they dress her in blue for the picture and tell
Agnes that their new child was a boy. In that letter, Marcia had strongly urged her mother to keep silent about anything having to do with her or Larry. Marcia knew that the FBI was putting pressure on, and she knew her mother resented their leaving and wanted them back. She worried that, even though Agnes did not know where they were, she might cooperate with the FBI in trying to find them. So she wrote fervently to her mother, trying to emphasize the importance of her silence and patience.

Marcia wrote her mother for a third time in early June. She had snapshots of the baby to send. So with her rounded feminine script on stationery decorated in the upper left-hand corner with a rose, she composed a brief note to her mother.

Dear Mom,

Hi! I finally got my pictures back. Isn’t the baby
cute?
He’s doing OK now but at 2 wks he had a cold, then got a virus that lasted over a week. I had him in for all sorts of tests & then they finally decided it was a virus. The poor baby screamed for a week—everything’s fine now. Chris had a great birthday. We took him & his best friend to one of those pizza places like I used to go to at home with video games & rides & the bear brought out his birthday cake & sang him a song—he was thrilled! He loves this little boy from across the street who’s 4-and-a-half. They have so much fun together. They are out in the sandbox right now. I enrolled Chris in a nursery school for 2 mornings a wk starting in September. The place is so neat with lots of toys, puzzles, playdough, jungle gyms—I want to go too! . . . I am well. I still have 10 pounds to lose—but it’s coming off slowly & I’m still nursing the baby. Larry is doing great. We are very happy. We went to a barbeque at the neighbors on Memorial Day. They have four kids and the people next door came with their 3—so we all had fun. Chris is so happy here & he’s talking up a storm. . . . I’ll send you more pictures when I can. I hope you are happy & are taking care of yourself—we love you & are always thinking of you.

She signed off, “Love, Marcia.”

But before sending the letter, she and Larry learned more about what was happening back in Philadelphia.

At first, Ken Weidler was the only person besides Rusty Lavin whom Larry had trusted enough to telephone regularly since running away. But in spring Larry began to grow a little more bold. He placed a collect call to the New Jersey workplace of Marcia’s brother, Richard, who told Larry that Agnes and Ken Weidler seemed to be getting the most pressure from the FBI. Both were bitter about their predicament: Larry and Marcia hadn’t trusted them enough to confide where they were going, and the FBI refused to believe they didn’t know. Chuck
Reed had been stopping by Agnes’s townhouse once or twice a week. He had gotten her to open up Larry’s house in Timber Lane so they could go through it without a search warrant. Marcia, who also spoke with her brother on the phone, was angry when she heard what her mother had done. She passed some harsh words to her mother through Richard, urging him to tell her how important it was to give the FBI no help at all.

In another call, this one to an old colleague at the Penn Dental School, Larry learned that his old partner had been in the school library checking over “demographics,” statistical studies indicating where there was a surplus or shortage of dentists. If Ken was looking at the charts, it most likely meant he was thinking about opening a new practice. Larry had left him with a thriving one, so why would he be shopping around?

After hearing what had been said about her mother, Marcia added a postscript as long as the original note. Her tone had shifted from the happy daughter reflecting on all’s well to a stern, urgent voice filled with the fear Larry’s occasional calls let into their idyllic family life:

Hi, again. Larry just spoke to our friend & I’m glad I didn’t mail this letter. I’m so sorry if I made you feel as though I didn’t trust you. The only information I get about you is secondhand & the way it sounded was the FBI was really pushing you & that you were having a hard time dealing with it. So I felt I must keep saying to be careful what you say to the jerks & with what you have (letters, pictures) since you think they broke in once. I may have made my point too often & too strongly in my letters to you but please remember that our lives & the happiness of our kids is at stake & I cannot take chances. So please overlook any harsh words I may have used. Larry also felt that we can finally say that we have a daughter—I’m glad for you to know the truth so I can send you pictures of her as a girl—as usual, if you are ever asked the sex
refuse to answer!
I’m also sorry that Ken and Barb were offended by Larry not trusting Ken—again I wish everyone would realize that we have to protect ourselves first & worry about others’ feelings last. Our lawyer told us not to contact him so we didn’t. I’m glad you’re seeing them. I think of them often & hope that everything works out for them. Well, I hope I made you feel a little better—please still be careful. I know Ken was able to get a phone # to us so Larry could call him—please try to do the same through the same channel. I would really love to talk to you—it has been so long. Larry should call our friend two weeks from the last time—so see what you can do. Chris wants me to write a note to you—’Dear Grammy Mommy, Me got robots, toys, new house, me love you.’