Darwin's Blade

7 “G is for Whiz”

Three hours and eighty files later, Lawrence sat back in his chair and said, “I give up. What the hell are we looking for?”

“Fraudulent claims,” said Syd, gesturing toward the stack of files they had separated under just that heading.

“That’s sixty-some percent of what we deal with,” said Trudy. “None of these in which Dar did the accident reconstruction seem important enough to warrant killing him.”

The chief investigator nodded. Her eyes looked tired. Dar noticed that she wore rimless glasses when she read.

“Well,” said Dar, “you can’t say it’s dull reading.”

Syd nodded. “These accident victim reports are masterpieces, all right. Listen to this one—‘The telephone pole was approaching fast. I was attempting to swerve out of its way when it struck my front end.’”

Trudy opened a file. “Here’s one of my favorites—‘I had been driving my car for forty years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had an accident.’”

Dar pulled an old file out. “This fellow’s never heard of the Fifth Amendment—‘The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve several times before I hit him.’”

Lawrence grunted and flipped through the file he had been skimming. “My claimant’s been watching too many X-Files episodes—‘An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my vehicle, and vanished.’”

“I had an X-File one,” said Syd, flipping through the thick blue folders. “Here—‘The accident happened when the right front door of a car came around the corner without giving any signal.’

“I hate it when that happens,” said Dar.

“Notice how accident victims love passive voice in their depositions?” said Trudy. “Here’s a typical one—‘A pedestrian I did not see hit me, then went sliding under my car.’”

“But they’re honest, in a stupid way,” said Lawrence. “I remember taking this bozo’s statement—‘Coming home, I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don’t have.’”

Trudy was giggling as she read. “‘I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law in the other seat and headed over the embankment.’”

“I understand that one well enough,” rumbled Lawrence.

Trudy quit giggling and gave him a look.

Syd suddenly laughed aloud. “Here’s a possible case of overkill,” she said, flipping to a statement transcript. “‘In an attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole.’”

“We’re getting silly, people,” said Dar, glancing at his watch.

“We started silly,” said Trudy. She looked at the stack of fraudulent claims. “Do we have anything that looks at all likely?”

“Two, I think,” said Dar, pulling dossiers from the teetering pile. “Remember the rebar case on the I-5 in May?”

“What’s that?” said Syd.

“Rebar is steel rods used to reinforce concrete,” intoned Lawrence.

“I know what rebar is,” said the investigator. “What’s the case?”

“May twenty-third,” said Dar, skimming through the file. “I-5 twenty-nine miles north of San Diego.”

“Oh, God,” said Lawrence. “You did the reconstruction video graphics for that, but I was one of the first on the scene. Jesus.”

Syd waited.

“Asian guy, Vietnamese, just arrived in the States with his family—eight kids—three months earlier, working as a delivery driver for a florist, has one of those cab-forward Isuzu delivery vans with the engine under the seat, nothing in front of him except Plexiglas and a thin sheet of tin,” said Lawrence, grimacing as he remembered. “He was tailgating an open truck owned by a little construction firm out of La Jolla—Burnette Construction, strictly a family business—Bill Burnette, the owner, driving a load of rebar.”

“Sticking out behind the trailer bed?” asked Syd.

“By eight feet,” said Lawrence. “It was red-flagged, but…” The insurance investigator took a breath. “The poor Vietnamese guy was tailgating, doing about fifty-five, when someone swerved in front of Burnette’s truck and Burnette hit the brakes…hard.”

“And the Vietnamese guy didn’t,” said Syd.

Dar shook his head. “No, he did, but the brakes didn’t work. No fluid.”

Syd exchanged glances with the others; this type of accident was rare.

“Bound bundles of rebar came through the windshield and front of the van and speared the delivery guy in four or five places,” said Lawrence. “Dragged him right out through the shattered windshield. Burnette’s truck hadn’t stopped—was still doing thirty or so when the collision happened—and he told me he could see this poor son of a bitch hanging back there from the rebar…impaled in the face, throat, chest, left arm…”

“But still alive,” said Dar.

Lawrence nodded. “For the time being. Burnette didn’t know what to do, but he had the presence of mind not to hit the brakes again. That would have impaled the poor guy, Mr. Phong, even worse. So he pulled to the side of the road and gently slowed down with this poor devil dangling back there.”

“That couldn’t possibly be a swoop-and-squat,” said Syd. “Not with the squatter behind the rebar truck. Plus there’s no place for the squatter to squat and hide…”

“That’s what we thought,” said Trudy. “But when Dar did the reconstruction, it sure looked like a deliberate swoop. Very light traffic. A white pickup crossed two lanes, swooped in front of the Burnette vehicle, slammed on his brakes, and then accelerated away down an off ramp.”

“Was he trying to get to the off ramp?” said Syd.

Trudy shook her head. “Ramp was on the right. The accident happened in the far left lane of five lanes. And the traffic was so light that there seemed to be no reason for the victim, Mr. Phong, to be tailgating the way he was. Several lanes were open. It looks like a swoop-and-squat set-up…”

“But the idea isn’t to kill or permanently maim the ‘victim’ in a swoop-and-squat,” Syd said. “They’re supposed to be rear-ended in some sort of reinforced car and then claim whiplash or something, not be impaled from the front by rebar. Did Mr. Phong die?”

“Yeah,” said Lawrence. “Three days later, without regaining consciousness.”

“What was the settlement?” asked the chief investigator.

“Two point six million,” said Trudy.

Lawrence sighed. “Burnette was running his construction company on a shoestring and took the lightest coverage he could afford. The settlement drove him into bankruptcy.”

Syd looked at the other file.

“This is also one of your red pins,” said Dar. “The one on the I-5 that I mentioned. This is definitely a swoop-and-squat—the rear-car driver, Mr. Hernandez, had three disability and eight personal injury claims pending.”

“But also a fatality,” said Syd.

“Yeah,” said Dar. “Everything went according to script up to the impact. Again, a pickup swooped in front of the squat car—a big old Buick—and hit its brakes. The target car, a new Cadillac, slammed into the rear of Hernandez’s Buick just as planned. But then Hernandez’s Buick exploded…”

“I thought that only happened in the movies,” said Syd.

“Just about,” said Dar. “But my investigation found remnants of a crude battery-driven spark igniter in the gas tank of Mr. Hernandez’s Buick. It was rigged to ignite after any sharp contact with the rear bumper.”

“Murder,” said Syd.

Dar nodded. “But in each case, the lawyer—who was the same lawyer, by the way—had lawsuits against both the other driver and the car maker, so the evidence of brake tampering and sabotage of the Hernandez car was dismissed in exchange for dropping the lawsuits against the manufacturers.”

“I’ve been curious,” said Syd, “about how they pick the target vehicle for these swoop-and-squats.”

Trudy spoke. “Several factors. Expensive car, of course…”

“Especially one with a State Farm or other big insurance sticker on the bumper,” said Lawrence.

“Usually older drivers,” said Trudy. “Someone who doesn’t react too quickly and will brake when they shouldn’t.”

“They don’t want to hurt the people in the target vehicle, of course,” said Dar. “The idea is for the accomplice in the squat vehicle to claim the disability—usually invisible injuries such as whiplash or lower back, although insurance companies are getting tougher about that.”

“But the classic swoop-and-squat here—Hernandez—ended in the death of the driver,” said Syd. “And the Phong accident doesn’t fit the swoop-and-squat profile…”

“It’s true,” said Dar, shaking his head. “It seems inconceivable that he would volunteer to collide with a load of overhanging rebar.”

“Unless it was his first time,” said Syd. “Unless he was set up. And Mr. Hernandez…”

“Found in the typical squat position,” said Trudy. “Hunkered down under the wheel. The trunk of the old Buick was filled with sandbags and tires, typical reinforcement for a squat car to buffer the impact. But it all burned—including Mr. Hernandez—when the gas tank exploded.”

“Settlement?”

“Six hundred thousand,” said Lawrence.

“So now we come to the lawyer for both cases, Mr. Jorgé Murphy Esposito,” said Syd. “We’ve known for a long time that he’s a pure ambulance chaser…”

Trudy laughed. “Esposito could dispatch ambulances,” she said. “He knows where the accidents are going to happen before they happen.”

Syd nodded. “Dar, do you think Esposito’s the one siccing the Russians on you?”

Dar sighed. “My gut instinct says no. Esposito’s small time. He works with the usual underclass of fraud claimants. I just don’t see him branching out and playing the game on the level high enough to justify using Russian mafia hitmen.”

“But this is a lead,” said Sydney. “Who are the other lawyers and doctors high on your list?”

“Our fraudulent-claims list?” asked Trudy.

“Yeah.”

“Besides Esposito, there’s Roget Velliers, Bobby James Tucker, Nicholas van Dervan, Abraham Willis—” began Trudy.

“Uh-uh,” interrupted Lawrence. “Willis is dead.”

Dar raised an eyebrow. “Since when? I testified in a case against his plaintiff just a month ago.”

“Since last Thursday,” said Lawrence. “The good counselor died in a single-car wreck up near Carmel.”

“Well, live by the sword…” said Syd.

“Esposito’s handling the family’s lawsuit,” said Lawrence.

Trudy grunted softly. “Professional courtesy.”

Syd got up from the table and stretched. “Well, we’ll cross-check Dar’s files with these and try to see which of these ambulance chasers is most involved.”

Trudy looked at the two of them. “Are you headed back to San Diego?”

Dar only shook his head.

Syd said, “We’re hiding out from the press up at Dar’s cabin for the weekend.”

Lawrence did not exactly waggle his eyebrows, but the look he gave Dar might as well have been a leer and a wink. “Been a long time since you had anyone up there, isn’t it, Darwin? Besides us, I mean.”

“I’ve never had anyone up there besides you,” said Dar, with a warning look. “It seems that I’m in protective custody.”

There was a silence. Then Trudy said brightly, “Oh…before you go…Investigator Olson…”

“Syd,” said Syd.

“Syd,” continued Trudy. “Could you give us your professional opinion on a piece of surveillance tape?”

“Sure,” said Syd.

“Aww, Trudy, no,” said Lawrence. His face reddened behind his mustache. “Jeez…”

“We need an opinion,” said Trudy.

“Aww, no,” said Lawrence. He took his glasses off and wiped them with a handkerchief while his face grew redder and redder.

“It’s just over an hour of tape,” Trudy said to Syd, “but we’ll fast-forward it. Dar, you’ve testified in a lot of these cases. I’d like your opinion as well.”

Dar and Syd followed Trudy into the real living room where the 60-inch TV and the reclining La-z-Boys were.

The half-inch VHS tape opened with a steady shot of a woman, early middle age, dressed in Lycra tights, gym shorts, and tennis shoes, walking out of a middle-class tract home and getting into a battered old Honda Accord. The camera zoomed in on the subject’s face, but the woman was wearing dark glasses and a scarf over her hair, so it was difficult to get a clear image of her. The video was in color with a digital readout in the lower right corner of the screen giving the date, hour, minutes, and seconds.

“Shot from your surveillance van?” Syd asked Lawrence.

“Mmm,” said Lawrence, who had not joined the group on the La-z-Boy couch but was standing back toward the dining room, as if ready to flee.

Trudy cleared her throat. “The woman’s name is Pamela Dibbs. She has three lawsuits pending—two of them relating to clients of ours, Jack-in-the-Box and WonderMart.”

“Disability claims?” said Syd.

“Yes,” said Trudy as the video showed the Accord driving away. There was a jump cut to the same Accord pulling into a parking space outside a large building. Lawrence had obviously known her destination and beaten her there in his Astrovan surveillance vehicle. The camera zoomed as Ms. Pamela Dibbs walked hurriedly toward the building.

“Three slip-and-falls,” said Trudy. “She’s claiming massive lower-back trauma that has left her housebound…essentially an invalid. She has affidavits from two doctors supporting this…Both the doctors work with Lawyer Esposito.”

Syd nodded.

Suddenly the camera view shifted: no longer color, the rough black-and-white image wobbled as someone carried the camera down a corridor. The picture was relatively clear, but distorted—as if shot through an anamorphic lens.

The camera view panned right and all at once there was a reflection in a wall of mirrors: Lawrence—all 250 pounds of him—in a ragged sweatshirt, gym shorts, bare legs, knobby knees, and tattered sneakers. He was wearing a fanny pack, had a kerchief tied around his brow Rambo-style, and was sporting a pair of oversized, heavy-framed sunglasses. The reflection seemed startled and then Lawrence looked himself up and down in the mirror for a long moment before moving into the main exercise room.

“Shit,” said Lawrence softly from behind the couch.

“Where’s the camera?” asked Syd. “In the glasses?”

“Part of the glasses’ frame,” said Trudy. “Tiny little lens, hardly bigger than a rhinestone. The fiber-optic cable runs down to the recorder in his fanny pack.”

“Where’s the wire…” Syd began, and then said, “Oh.” Lawrence’s reflection was turning away from gazing at himself and now she could see the “sunglass cords” which hung down behind Lawrence’s neck, disappearing under the collar of the sweatshirt.

They watched in real time as Lawrence joined the exercise group, standing one mat directly behind Ms. Dibbs. There was no sound, but one could imagine the music blaring its beat as the group began its warm-up exercises. Ms. Dibbs squatted, thrust, kicked, did jumping jacks, and ran in place quite nicely for a totally disabled person. She had taken her own sunglasses and scarf off and her face was quite clear in the mirror that faced the exercise group. The group leader was a woman in spandex tights, and the thong running between the muscled hills of her buttocks was also very visible in the mirror. Also visible—amidst all the women in black Lycra—was Lawrence hopping, squatting, huffing, and swinging his arms, always a beat or two behind Ms. Dibbs and the rest of the squadron. He was still wearing his sunglasses, of course.

“Are you asking my advice on this for legal reasons?” said Syd.

“Yes,” said Trudy, holding the VCR remote in her right hand as if ready to pull it away if Lawrence lunged for it.

“Well, you’ve obviously got the goods on her,” said Syd, “but you can’t use it if this is a private recreation facility. It would be as illegal as videotaping her on a trampoline in her own backyard.”

Trudy nodded. “It’s a city exercise facility. Public property.”

“And you cleared it with the manager there?”

“Yep.”

“And the class is open to anyone in the community?”

Trudy looked up at the video where Ms. Dibbs and the entire group of buffed-up young women had dropped into a quick squat, arms straight ahead of them. In the mirror, Lawrence tried to follow suit, almost lost his balance, pinwheeled his arms, and gained the squat just as the rest of the group hopped up and began more leg kicks. The video was in black and white, but Lawrence’s face in the mirror was darkening, sweat stains beginning to appear through the thick sweatshirt cotton.

“I don’t see any problem then,” said Syd. “You can show this to the court and jury as long as it isn’t edited.”

“That’s the problem,” Trudy said, and began fast-forwarding through the tape.

Lawrence made a growling noise behind them.

After the set of exercises was over, Lawrence’s point-of-view camera slogged slowly into the mirror-lined hallway and swooped down on a drinking fountain. The camera picked up his reflection as he wiped his mouth, removed the glasses for a second, showing his feet, and then set the camera lens back in place as he mopped his cheeks and forehead with the kerchief. He was pouring sweat.

“He should have left then,” said Trudy in a monotone.

Lawrence growled, “It wouldn’t have been polite. And I paid for the entire session. And I wanted to show Ms. Dibbs working out for the full hour.”

“Well,” said Trudy, “you did.” She increased the fast-forward to high speed. The workout became a frenzied thrashing of Lycra-clad arms and legs, buttocks thrusting, thighs rippling—and several beats behind all this near-erotic sweaty female motion, the reflected image of the overweight, mustached man in sunglasses earnestly trying to keep up, breathing through his mouth now, his face so dark that the camera was showing the constant reddening without the benefit of color. Still in fast motion—three more breaks, three more trips to the drinking fountain. Then the fourth and final break before the end of the tape. The digital readout showed that the class had been exercising for forty-eight minutes.

The women broke ranks. Some ran in place during the break. Some chatted in groups. Ms. Dibbs was one of the runners. Lawrence, in subjective-camera, trudged out to the hallway again, there was a flash of reflection of him at the water fountain, sweatshirt now living up to its name, totally soaked through, face so dark that it looked like he was going to bust a blood vessel, and then the camera turned away from the drinking fountain and the exercise room, down the mirrored corridor, through a door marked MEN…

Syd started laughing.

“OK,” yelled Lawrence from the dining room. “You can turn it off, Trude. They get the idea.”

Trudy put it into fast-forward again. The camera seemed to rush at one of the urinals, looked down while gym shorts were tugged out of the way, then the view shifted to the tiles above the urinal, then down, then up again, then down, the final flips and tucking away, over to the sink, Lawrence’s reflection in the mirror, still wearing the Jack Nicholson shades, the time-readout still flicking away in ghostly digital numbers, then back to the exercise room for the last few minutes of exercise. He followed Ms. Dibbs out to the parking lot. The claimant seemed invigorated by the workout and almost skipped to her Honda. The camera seemed to be lurching dangerously, once pausing by a fencepost where Lawrence’s hand came into view, hanging on for support.

Syd was still laughing. “Nothing…nothing personal,” she managed to say, raising her voice so Lawrence could hear in the kitchen, where he had retreated beyond the dining room.

“You see the problem,” said Trudy.

Syd was rubbing her cheeks. “You can’t edit video shown in a courtroom,” she said, her voice shaking in its attempt to stay steady. “It’s all or nothing.”

“I goddamn forgot,” yelled Lawrence from the kitchen.

“You can do it over,” said Dar.

“We think Ms. Dibbs has made Larry,” said Trudy.

“Lawrence,” came the voice from the kitchen. “And you can damn well do it over, Trudy.”

Trudy shook her head. “I was the one who took Ms. Dibbs’s statements. It looks like this is it.”

“Well…” began Syd.

“I’d use it,” said Dar. “Counting the van surveillance tape, it’s almost an hour before we get to the…X-rated part. I don’t think the jury or the claimant’s attorneys will let you show that much. They’ll want to shut it off as soon as possible.”

“Yeah,” agreed Syd. “Just put it in the record that there’s another forty minutes of tape or whatever. I think you’re safe.”

“Easy for you guys to say,” came Lawrence’s voice from the kitchen.

Syd caught Dar’s eye. “If we’re going to get all the way up to Julian and your cabin by nightfall, we should get going.”

Dar nodded. On his way out, passing through the kitchen, he patted Lawrence on the back. “Nothing to be ashamed of, amigo.”

“What do you mean?” growled the big man.

“You washed your hands after,” said Dar. “Just like our mommas taught us. The jury will be proud of you.”

Lawrence said nothing but was staring daggers at Trudy now.

Dar and Syd climbed into the Land Cruiser and headed for the hills.