In Death's Shadow

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

We'd had a wet spring in Annapolis and the mosquitoes were plump and vicious. When I stepped onto the patio early Thursday morning, they swarmed around me with tiny buzzing cries of "fresh meat!"

I plunked down the coffee cup and telephone book I was carrying on the patio table and returned to the utility room, where I kept an emergency bottle of Skin-So-Soft bath oil slash mosquito repellent. I slathered it on, paying particular attention to my ears. Then I went back out to the patio to enjoy the sunshine and try to ignore the humming.

Molly the cat was lying on my picnic table in a patch of sun. She didn't seem to mind that I smelled like I'd swum through a perfume spill the size of the Exxon Valdez. I stroked her fur and she stretched leisurely, turning slowly to expose her belly for additional scratching. She purred like a motorboat. "Little slut," I purred back.

Daddy's news at dinner had been surprising, and not at all what I’d expected. Daddy and Neelie had become an item. She'd been a widow for six years, he a widower for four. So, when he joined me for dinner the previous evening, I was certain he'd bring news of an engagement. But no.

After a full career in the Navy followed by a decade of work for the aerospace industry, Daddy was being lured out of retirement. A contractor doing work for the Naval Air Warfare Center at Wallops Island on Virginia's Eastern Shore wanted to tap Daddy's considerable expertise and plug him in as project manager on a contract at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility-one of the oldest launch sites in the world. Daddy was considering the offer seriously. But it would mean a move to southern Virginia, he said, or Maryland's Eastern Shore, to a town like Snow Hill or Athol.

I'd nearly choked on my steak. I'd sat, stone-faced, chewing without tasting. "When they ask if you like living in Athol," I'd muttered at last, "the only legitimate response is 'Yeth.'"

Daddy had three weeks to make up his mind, so that gave me plenty of time to stew about it. I'd lost my mother, and even though Snow Hill, Maryland, was a beautiful colonial village only two and a half hours drive from Annapolis, I felt like I'd be losing my father, too. Of what importance was an insurance scam when you were about to become an orphan?

On the other hand, fretting about Jablonsky would be a distraction. Money had gone into furnishing his office, that was for sure, and considering the newness of the building, the rent had to be high, in spite of the neighborhood.

I wondered where the guy lived.

I eased Molly's tail off the cover of the phone book and turned to the J's. Gilbert and Irene Jablonsky shared an address on Cherry Tree Cove, a street that I recognized as being in Fishing Creek Farm, an upscale Annapolis waterfront community where the homes cost more than the gross national product of some third-world countries. Must be nice. I was more convinced than ever that Jablonsky had to be supporting his expensive office and residence habits by defrauding insurance companies.

Didn't Maryland have some sort of state insurance commission I could report him to? I made a note to check the Internet about that.

Should I contact the insurance companies I knew about for sure and warn them about Jablonsky? If he'd been operating his scam long enough to afford a home in Fishing Creek Farm, I reasoned, a lot of bogus policies must have passed through his hands.

I turned to the Insurance section in the yellow pages and learned that Victory Mutual had an office on Riva Road, not far from the mall in nearby Parole. Sun Securities seemed to be handled by an independent insurance agent with an office in Bowie, Maryland, but there was no listing for New Century. The company must be out of state. I'd have to look it up on the Internet, too.

I sat back and thought about Jablonsky for a long time, while idly stroking Molly's fur.

Supposing I did contact Victory Mutual, Sun Securities, and New Century? Exactly what was I going to tell them? Let's assume I had completed that insurance application, checking no when it asked me about the cancer. Supposing further that Jablonsky had sent it in. Even if the insurance company had wised up and called him on it, Jablonsky could always feign shock and surprise, throw up his hands and say, "How was I to know? It was that wretched Ives woman who falsified the application, not me!"

A beautiful scam, especially if you're a crook.

I sighed, closed my eyes and turned my face toward the sun, hoping for inspiration. I was still sitting there five minutes later, either courting melanoma or enriching myself with vitamin D, depending upon your point of view, when a fat, green garbage bag sailed over the fence, landing with a rustle and a splat in my garden, flattening a bed of impatiens that had never harmed a living soul.

Molly started, leaped from the table, trampolined off my lap and streaked away under a bush.

Hoo-boy! Old Mrs. Perry was at it again. Second time that week.

I sighed, gathered up the bag and, leaving the phone book pages to turn themselves quietly in the morning breeze, dragged it next door and onto the Perry porch, cans rattling.

I rang the bell.

To my surprise, it wasn't Mrs. Perry's caregiver who answered the door but Bradford himself, his tie dangling loose from his collar and a portable phone clamped to his ear.

I raised the garbage bag.

Brad rolled his eyes. "Shit!" With his free hand, he motioned me inside the entrance hall. "I'm on hold," he said.

"It's okay," I said, "really," referring to the garbage bag. "I could have just thrown it away, but you said you wanted to know."

He raised a finger. "Yes, Linda," he said into the telephone. "This is Brad Perry. Judy Warren called in sick today, so I'll need you to send someone else to look after Mother."

While he talked, I held onto the green plastic bag, admiring Brad's impeccably decorated living room, full of exquisite rugs and fine, Asian antiques that had once furnished his parent's gracious home outside of Nashville, Tennessee.

"Noon?" He frowned. "Well, if that's the best you can do, then." He punched the off button and motioned for me to follow him.

Once we reached the kitchen, he relieved me of the bag, opened the back door and tossed it unceremoniously onto the concrete landing. "I keep thinking if I tell Mother often enough that we're in Annapolis, not Thomasboro, it'll eventually sink in.

"Maybe it was a mistake bringing her furniture here," he continued, pulling the door shut behind him. "I thought it would make her feel at home, but the problem is, now she thinks she is home. That she's still in Thomasboro. I can point out the Naval Academy chapel dome and she'll agree, yes, that chapel dome is in Annapolis, and then she wonders how I did it."

"Did what?"

"Move Thomasboro all the way from Tennessee to Annapolis, Maryland."

"My, you are a clever boy!"

Brad grinned. "So Mother tells me."

I had a brainstorm. "Brad, I don't have anything in particular on my agenda this morning. I'll be happy to sit with your mother until the nurse gets here."

"Thanks, Hannah, but I've already told the office that I'll be late. It's an excuse, really. There's this extracurricular project I've got going."

"I don't mind, really. I'd like to help."

"It's no problem. Mom's had breakfast. I've just got her settled up in her bedroom. She's watching Parenthood for the umpteenth time." He grinned. "Love that movie!"

"You sure?"

He nodded. "If you really want to help me with something, though-” He gestured toward the swinging door that I knew led into the dining room. "In some insane moment, I agreed to help with my high school reunion next month." He spread his arms wide. "You're looking at the yearbook committee."

"Lucky you!"

I followed Brad into the dining room, where piles of photocopies that were soon to become "The Tiger Rag" were neatly arranged on the long, highly polished mahogany table. "There's a pile for every page," he said. "Thank goodness there were only forty in my graduating class at Thomasboro High."

I made a circuit of the table, stopping for no particular reason at the M's. From the page on top of the pile, a high school yearbook photo of Anna Sally Miller smiled back at me. Anna Sally had been a perky, blond, ponytailed cheerleader, sang in the Glee Club, belonged to the Future Homemakers of America, and, if the "Look at Me Today" picture was any indication, had packed on 150 pounds since graduation.

Brad stared at Anna Sally over my shoulder. "Sad, isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know," I said, picking up the page and closely examining Anna Sally's recent photo. She was dressed for tennis and cradled a racquet in the crook of one elbow. "She looks happy, at least. There's a lot to be said for happy."

I smiled over my shoulder at Brad. "So, where are you, Mr. Bradford Perry, Esquire?"

I moseyed around the table until I came to the P's. In 1973, Brad had floppy hair and wore aviator glasses with photo gray lenses: in the flash from the photographer's camera they had instantly darkened. Young Brad as a blind man.

Brad tapped his temple with a forefinger, as if reading my mind. "Contacts," he said. "Never would have gotten a date without them."

Brad showed me how he was arranging the pages into notebooks, and I began circumnavigating the table behind him, picking up pages and putting them in order. All work should be so mindless. "Brad?" I asked on my second time around. "You're an attorney. What do you know about viatical settlements?"

"A minefield," he said. "Why do you ask?"

I shrugged and placed a copy of Sandy Starbuck's page on top of Charlene Wang's. "Just wondering." Oliver Smoot went on top of Carmen Stansbury. "I have this friend-" I began.

Brad paused and laughed out loud. "My gawd, that's an old one!"

I stopped collating and looked at him. "No, seriously! I'd never even heard of viaticals until this friend of mine sold her life insurance policy to a broker. Frankly," I told him, "the whole idea gives me the heebie-jeebies."

"You and me both," he said. "The insurance companies I represent have been trying to get a law passed in Maryland for several years, but they always run out of time."

"Figures," I grumped. The Maryland legislature meets for only ninety days between January and April. It's a wonder they got anything done.

"The bill died in the House," Brad complained. "In spite of all the bad publicity following a major bust for fraud up in Baltimore. You'd think the Answer Care case would have been a wake-up call. Investors lost more than two million dollars in that fiasco."

"I've heard of that case," I said, "but I didn't make the connection until now."

I started around the table again, placing Jack Popham on top of Oliver Smoot. "But here's something I don't understand, Brad. What's to keep me from buying life insurance policies on everyone on Prince George Street?"

Brad glanced up at me sideways. "Well, even assuming you could afford to pay the premiums on all those policies, the life insurance companies have thought of that. A key insurance principle is insurable interest. What that means is the person buying the insurance has to have a vested interested in the insured person's well-being."

"Like a husband."

"Exactly. The beneficiary has to be a husband or wife or, nowadays, a domestic partner. Someone with a close relationship to the insured. Business relationships count, too, but not your second cousin twice removed.

"But," he continued, "you generally don't need an insurable interest to buy an existing life insurance policy. The policy is considered personal property and can be sold pretty much at will."

"If that's the case, why can't they regulate the resale of life insurance policies like they do securities? People are investing in them, aren't they? You'd think the Securities and Exchange Commission would have something to say about it." I shivered, and began working my way around the table again. Chip Pickett on top of Jack Popham, and Ann Ogden on top of Chip. "Death futures," I muttered. "Shouldn't be different than any other kind of futures, from the SEC's point of view."

"You know the sad part?" Brad said, moving around the table two piles ahead of me. "Most policyholders aren't aware that there are better ways to get money out of their insurance policies."

"Like?" A copy of Stuart Lollis's page slipped from my fingers. I bent down to retrieve it from under the table.

"You can borrow money on the cash value of your policy," Brad was saying when I surfaced. "You can use the policy as collateral. Or take advantage of accelerated death benefits, 'ADBs' for short. There are provisions for ADBs already written into most life insurance policies."

"Most people don't read their policies very well, I guess."

"You got it."

I laid an introduction and a title page on top of Pat Berry's beaming face, then evened up the yearbook I had just completed by tapping its edges against the table. I set it crosswise on top of a pile of others. "I need your advice, Brad."

Brad clipped a photo name tag to the front of the yearbook he'd been working on, laid it down on the sideboard behind him and gave me his full attention. "Shoot."

"I was curious about viaticals, so I visited this guy my friend recommended up in Glen Burnie." I told Brad about my visit to MBFSG, Jablonsky's offer to buy my life insurance policy for $150,000, and about the other policies he wanted me to apply for. "I'm not going to do it, of course, but I figure if he's tried it out on me, he must have done it successfully with others."

A furrow deepened between Brad's eyebrows. He grunted.

"When your mom tossed the garbage over the fence," I continued, "I was sitting in the backyard, worrying about it. Wondering who I should report it to. Jablonsky had a whole bunch of forms, but the ones I remember were Victory Mutual, Sun Securities, and New Century."

"Oh, man!" Brad fell back against the chair rail that divided the white-painted wainscoting from the blue and white striped wallpaper of his dining room. "You're not going to believe this, but Victory Mutual is one of my clients!" He swiped his fingers through his hair. “Tell you what. As soon as the nurse gets here, let me take you to meet Harrison Garvin. He's CEO of Victory Mutual. I think he'll be very interested in what you have to say."

After I okayed his plan, Brad seemed to lose all interest in putting together yearbooks. "I'm putting a kettle on for tea," he announced.

I gave the pile with a photo of Jan Falls doing cartwheels a friendly pat. Who am I to argue with a lawyer? "I second the motion," I said.

Just five hours later, at three in the afternoon, Brad Perry and I were ushered into Harrison Garvin's corner office on the top floor of the Garrett Building adjoining the nearly derelict Parole Plaza. Garvin's office afforded him a panoramic view of Annapolis Mall's vast, meandering architecture, as well as a bird's-eye view of the restaurant park on Jennifer Road, which had its advantages, I suppose, if one didn't feel like waiting in line at Red Lobster.

With a first name like Harrison, I expected Garvin to be tall and movie-idol handsome, but the man who rose to greet us was short-no more than five-foot-six or -seven-and stocky. His hazel eyes were enormous behind thick-lensed tortoiseshell glasses.

I told my story for the second time that morning, interrupted occasionally by Brad, who made an important point or two, while Garvin listened silently, his arms folded across his chest. "So," I said, winding it up, "I asked Brad what to do, and he brought me to you."

"I have half a mind," Garvin said, "to send you back to MBFSG, have you sign up for the policy and see where it goes once it reaches us. Those other two companies you mentioned." He flapped a hand. "Big red flag. Sun is incorporated in both Texas and Arizona where the laws on viaticals are very lax."

Brad was nodding in agreement.

"When Victory Mutual was young and aggressive," Garvin continued, "we might have been willing to overlook such details as physical exams, especially for the smaller policies, but not anymore. We've recently taken steps to minimize our risk-requiring blood and urine tests, for example-but it's not foolproof. Nothing ever is."

Garvin turned to Brad. "I wonder how these policies are getting in under the radar? I'd hate to think one of our underwriters was in on this scam."

Brad shrugged.

Garvin picked up his telephone and pushed a button. "Lisa, will you track down Donna Hudgins and ask her to come up here, please? Thanks." Garvin turned to me. "Donna's our head of Policyholder Services," he explained.

I was certain Donna Hudgins would be less than pleased at being tracked down and summoned to the principal's office, and I was right. When she arrived a few minutes later, Donna turned out to be an attractive woman in her late fifties or early sixties with short, stylishly cut gray hair. She wore a navy blue pants suit-any larger than a size two and I'd eat the brass barometer sitting on Garvin's credenza-rimless eyeglasses, and a prize-winning scowl.

Donna Hudgins managed to dredge up a smile from somewhere for Harrison Garvin, then turned her cool, ice blue gaze first on me, and then on Brad. I'd seen that look before. Someone's complained to the boss about some stupid-ass thing, and now, boy-oh-boy, the shit is going to hit the fan.

"Sit down, Donna," Garvin said.

Donna sat.

Garvin summarized for Donna what I'd just told him about Jablonsky. I was grateful. In the course of the day, I'd gone from wondering whether I should even mention Gilbert Jablonsky to thinking I should do my vocal cords a favor and tape record my story.

"Do we have a large number of policies that have changed hands recently?" Garvin wondered.

Donna, I noticed, had visibly relaxed. At least she'd stopped wringing her hands. "What with the reorganization and everything, I'm afraid I've been way too busy to notice."

Garvin frowned. "Donna, you are not the problem here, I assure you. I'm looking to you for a solution."

"I'm sure we can massage the software to get at that information eventually, but my God, Harrison, I simply don't have the time if we're going to meet our July first deadline! I'm swamped as it is."

"Allow me to make a suggestion." Brad rose from his chair and stood with his thigh touching Garvin's desk. "Hannah, here, isn't just my neighbor. She was, until quite recently, records manager at Whitworth and Sullivan."

Garvin's eyes darted from Brad's face to mine. "I've heard of them, of course."

"There's not much Hannah doesn't know about databases," Brad continued.

I felt my face grow hot. "My skills may be a tad out of date."

Garvin laughed out loud. "Not with the software we've been using! Do you know SQL?"

It all came back to me in a blinding flash. The long hours I'd spent writing SELECT column_name FROM table_name WHERE column_name BETWEEN value1 AND value2 ORDER BY … "Oh, yes," I assured him. "Quite well."

Garvin twiddled a pen between his middle and index finger while he considered me silently. "So, Hannah, would you have the time to help us out?"

"Oh, I'm sure Hannah is far too busy-" Donna Hudgins began, before Garvin cut her off with a flip of the retractor end of his pen.

"How long do you think it will take?" he inquired.

Donna shrugged. "I'm just guessing, of course, because I don't know what we'll find when we actually get into the database, but-" She squinted thoughtfully at the ceiling. "Three to four days."

Garvin grunted. "Sounds reasonable." He turned to me again. "How about it, Hannah? Do you have any time to devote to this?"

I nodded, already mentally rearranging my schedule for the next week. I'd start looking like a sheepdog, but I'd call Karen James and reschedule my haircut. The farmers' market could wait. I needed to pick up the dry cleaning and return books to the library, but nothing more urgent than that. "No problem," I said.

Garvin slapped his desk. "Okay, then. Donna, have somebody clear out a cubicle, give Hannah a computer and the information she needs to get going." He turned to look at me. "You'll be identifying viaticated policies, singling them out for a closer look."

Donna gulped. "What about HIPAA?"

Garvin turned his owl-like eyes on me. "Donna means the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA. By law, our records have to be kept confidential."

Brad raised a finger, but Garvin, it seemed, had anticipated him. “Take Hannah down to Personnel," he instructed. “Tell them to sign her up as a consultant through our contract with PeoplePlus. That should take care of it."

"Now?" asked Donna.

"Absolutely. Now."

"How much do you charge?" Garvin asked suddenly, taking me completely off guard.

I named a ridiculous sum, nearly twice what my hourly rate had been at Whitworth and Sullivan.

Garvin didn't even flinch. "Fine."

"And I can set my own hours?" I inquired.

"Absolutely. We'll give you a security pass so you can get in and out of the building. Just let Donna know, more or less, when she can expect to see you."

Donna's gaze was icy. “I’d appreciate that."

Garvin flipped a couple of pages forward on his desk calendar. “Today's Thursday." He glanced up from the calendar to me. "Can you start on Monday?"

I nodded.

"Good." He leaned back in his chair, fingers tented at chin level. "You'll write a report, of course."

"Of course."

"Then we'll talk."

I nodded.

"Good!" His smile broadened. "Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Brad."

Brad touched his forehead in mock salute. "I knew you'd want to know."

Garvin shook head slowly from side to side. "You get up in the morning. You think you know what you're going to be doing. Damn!"

Donna Hudgins stood, adjusting the cuffs of her jacket. "Will that be all, Harrison?"

It was. In less than thirty seconds we'd said our thank-yous and good-byes. In the hallway outside Garvin's office, Brad shook my hand and asked me to keep him in the loop.

A few minutes later I was trailing off to Personnel with Donna. Even from behind, I could tell her jaw was clenched. It would take a miracle for me to get on the good side of Victory Mutual's head of Policyholder Services.

When we stepped off the elevator on three, she spun around to face me. "You know I'm only doing this because Garvin ordered me to."

I grinned toothily. "I suppose this means we won't be sharing fashion tips over turkey roll-up sandwiches any time soon?"

As I turned and pushed my way through the door marked HUMAN RESOURCES, I thought I caught her smiling, too.