At Risk (10 page)

The mournful hoot of an owl carried clearly
in the still air. After a moment, the call was returned by its
mate, or an enemy. I didn't know which. I walked down to the
barns.

No trailer was parked where it shouldn't have
been. No one was lurking in the dark with a mask over his face. I
was being childish. It wouldn't happen again. They wouldn't be
back.

I slipped through the space between the
partially-opened barn doors and turned on the lights. Some of the
horses were lying down. Others were standing, dozing. They all
squinted at the light. I strolled down the aisles. Soon the barns
would be noisy with the activity that went along with caring for
two-hundred-plus horses--raised voices, the bass throb of a radio,
the clatter of horseshoes on asphalt. But for now, the barns were
quiet, the air filled with pungent odors of sawdust, hay, and
horse. My favorite time of day.

I stopped in front of stall 36. An elegant
gray mare pricked her ears and watched me with wide-spaced,
blue-brown eyes. She was a replacement for one of the stolen
horses, and she'd settled quickly into the farm's routine. I cut
through the wash rack, headed back to the lounge, and got the
coffee machine going.

By mid-morning, after the horses had been
grained and hayed and the first batch was unenthusiastically
plodding across pastures thick with frost, I took the rest of the
day off. Mrs. Hill didn't question it, and I didn't offer an
explanation. But the previous evening, with Mr. Sander's insurance
windfall in mind, I'd given Nick a call. He'd conferred with his
sister, and thanks in part to Nick's guarantee that I could be
trusted to keep what I learned to myself, she'd agreed to meet with
me.

Traffic was light on I-95, and I made it
downtown with an hour to spare. I drove past Camden Yards, where
I'd watched my share of Orioles games, and found a parking space a
block from the Inner Harbor. I strolled down the wide cobblestone
steps to the water's edge. Exhaust fumes mingled with an underlying
odor of stagnant water, while above my head, seagulls swooped and
cried, ever watchful for a handout. I squinted at a distant
sailboat as it skimmed silently over water that sparkled under the
winter sun and thought how appearances could be deceiving. Up
close, where the waves lapped against the bulkhead, the greasy
white body of a fish floated between rotting pieces of lumber and
the plastic rings from a six-pack. The water was coated with an
oily film, and I wondered how anything could live down there.

I walked past one of the pavilions that had
been boarded up for the season. Tacked alongside the entrance, its
faded corners curling back onto itself, was a poster announcing a
performance by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. The event itself
had long since come and gone, and if my sister hadn't up and moved
to California, her attendance would have been a sure bet. I had
spent countless hours listening to her music filter through the
bedroom wall as she worked her way through a piece, her brow
furrowed with concentration, the smooth wood of the violin tucked
under her chin.

I sat on a park bench facing the water and
stretched my legs. A man and little boy were at the far end of one
of the piers. The kid squatted on his haunches and inspected
something at his feet.

Sherri and I had been close, growing up in a
family that discouraged closeness. Mother and Father had provided
nannies, expensive toys, and precious little personal attention.
I'd often wondered why they'd bothered having children at all,
unless it made them look good.

The little boy stood and stepped closer to
the edge, so he could look into the murky water. His father grabbed
his hand, and the kid squealed as he leaned out across the water,
windmilling his free arm as if he were falling.

Unlike Sherri, Bobby, my older brother by
eight years, had thought of me as a nuisance. He had repeatedly
referred to me as an accident, and I couldn't now remember how old
I'd been when I figured out what he meant. But I would never forget
the hurt. Bobby was a carbon copy of the old man in looks and
aspirations. The last I'd heard, he was a financial adviser for
some blue-chip company. He'd divorced his first wife, a smart move
by all accounts, considering she was higher up the soci-eco food
chain and possessed the arrogance that went with it. Together
they'd produced two snot-nosed little brats who I imagined would
grow up to be just like him.

I hadn't seen Sherri since the wedding, and I
wondered when I ever would. I closed my eyes and felt the chill in
the air and the warmth of the sun on my skin. Behind me, a bus
accelerated through the intersection, and a grate rattled under the
heavy wheels of a truck. As far as I was concerned, the harbor and
Foxdale could have been on different planets.

The man and boy headed toward Rash Field, and
after a while, it was time for me to go. I left the harbor behind
and headed north on Calvert Street.

Five blocks later, I stopped in front of the
wide plate-glass windows of a jeweler's store and glanced at the
sign above the door. Geoff and Teal Jewelers. Behind me, a horn
blared, followed by the high-pitched squeal of poorly-adjusted
brakes. The sound bounced and ricocheted off high walls of concrete
and glass. I looked at my watch and saw I was ten minutes
early.

"Steve?"

I turned around.

She held out her hand. "Marilyn," she said.
"Nick's sister." She kept her blond hair short, and a pair of large
wire-rimmed glasses couldn't hide a dusting of freckles scattered
across the bridge of her nose. Based on Nick's comments, I assumed
she was in her early forties, but the animation in her eyes made
her appear younger.

"Thanks for taking the time to meet me," I
said.

"No problem. Let's go inside." Marilyn turned
without waiting for a response and strode briskly down the
sidewalk.

She was wearing a navy blazer with gold
piping and a skirt that reached her knees. The cut looked
expensive, but the length accentuated her thinness. She looked prim
and professional, the opposite of Nick in every respect. And she
was my height. Taller than her brother.

At the corner, she pulled open the door to a
dingy-looking cafe and chose a table at the far end of the room.
Only then did the logistics of our meeting become clear. I sat
across from her, realizing she was taking a chance talking to me
and didn't want anyone to overhear our conversation. If she was
nervous, though, she didn't show it.

She shifted in her seat, crossed her legs,
and opened her menu. "How do you like working on a horse farm?"

"I like it." I thought about how frustrated I
would have been if I'd gone through two or even six more years of
college only to find that I hated the actual job. "It suits
me."

She nodded. "Nicky, too. Now, me." She
crinkled her nose. "By the time I was eighteen, I'd trudged through
enough mud and muck to last me a lifetime." She saw the blank look
on my face and said, "Dad used to train timber horses and
steeplechasers. He even trained a Maryland Hunt Cup winner."

"I didn't realize."

"Nicky loved it, of course. Anyway," she
said, "what do you want to know about insurance fraud?"

"Well, uh, for a start, how would Mr. Sanders
profit--"

She raised her hand. "Hold on a sec. It would
be unethical for me to talk specifically about one of our clients,
but there's nothing wrong with discussing insurance in general, is
there?"

I grinned. "I suppose not."

A waitress came over and took our drink
order--iced tea for Marilyn and a Coke for me--and before she could
leave, Marilyn ordered a chicken salad sandwich on wheat. I asked
if they could do a BLT. They could. She scribbled down our order,
then tucked her pencil behind her ear and the pad under the ties of
her apron.

"Okay," I said when our waitress was out of
hearing range. "If I had a horse I wanted to . . ."

"Defraud an insurance company with?"

"You said it."

She grinned. "Of course, like everything
else, there's more than one way to skin a cat, or should I say,
lead a horse to water?"

"Ugh."

The wrinkles that radiated from the corners
of her eyes when she smiled disappeared as her gaze swept the room.
Except for an elderly man in a booth by the front window, we were
alone.

"One of the most common frauds in equine
mortality insurance starts out innocently enough," She said. "You
buy a horse with no thought of defrauding anyone, then the horse's
performance, for whatever reason, starts to slide. The horse
suffers an injury of some sort, or develops a subtle lameness, or
some condition becomes evident that you know won't respond to
treatment. The horse is no longer doing his job, and you know
you'll never sell him for what you dished out. Instead of taking it
in the teeth, you eliminate him before the problem becomes too
obvious and collect on the insurance. As far as everyone's
concerned, you're just another poor slob with bad luck. A
victim."

"And if the original owner knowingly passed
on a horse with a problem," I said, "that's exactly what I would
have been . . . in the beginning, anyway."

"Yep. So you have the horse killed or, more
likely, kill it yourself. Pretending it was stolen involves more
risk."

I frowned. "Why?"

"The police aren't going to do anything about
a dead horse, unless it's obviously the result of a malicious act.
And with horses, the two most common methods, electrocution and
suffocation, aren't that easy to spot. But with theft, you're
likely to become a suspect."

"Yeah, but if I board my horse in a public
stable and take a bunch of other horses with it--"

"You'd be less of a suspect," she agreed.
"Any reason you think a certain someone's guilty of anything
underhanded, I'd like to hear about it."

I shook my head. "No reason. I'm just
fishing."

Marilyn relaxed into her chair. "Though it
doesn't happen as often, thank God, some people purchase a horse
with the deliberate intention of defrauding an insurance company.
If you're cautious and not too greedy, you buy an inexpensive horse
and inflate the purchase price on the bill of sale. Not much, but
enough to make it worth your while. If the horse is doing okay at
the shows, his inflated price won't be questioned. Putting a value
on an animal is fairly subjective at the best of times, and you've
got your fake bill of sale to back you up. So when you dispose of
the animal, you collect on the policy, less any deductible. It's a
nice little fraud that's hard to prove unless you've made some
glaring mistakes. Clear?"

"As glass."

Marilyn rolled her eyes.

"But it doesn't seem like you'd make all that
much," I said. Not when you consider the actual purchase price, the
insurance premium, plus the usual board and upkeep of the
horse."

"And don't forget the vet exam the policy
requires," she said.

"So, where's the profit?"

"There's not much. But if you insure your
horse with more than one company . . ."

"Oh, wow."

"There's more risk, but the profit's
considerably higher." Marilyn shook her head as if she couldn't
believe she was telling me this. "Let's say you and a couple of
your buddies have this horse that can do the jumper circuit. He's
nothing great, but he makes do. You take turns 'buying' him,
insuring him, then stealing him. Between each 'theft,' you take him
home for a while, then send him to another stable where he does a
little showing to substantiate that he is in fact a jumper. Then he
gets stolen again. Each time, the owner's name is different, the
stable where he's boarded is different, and of course, he gets a
new name at each barn."

"But doesn't the insurance company review the
horse's show record when they determine its value?" I said. "And
what about the registration papers?"

"Sure. You send the company paperwork on
someone else's horse that's doing well in competition."

"But--"

She raised her hand. "Let's say you have a
chestnut Hanoverian gelding that you're competing in open jumper
classes--there are hundreds of them on the show circuit. He's doing
okay, enough to play the part, but in the grand scheme of things,
he's a pretty mediocre animal. But you know of a more successful
Hanoverian the same sex and color, similar markings, and chances
are, he's not insured with the company you're dealing with. So when
you apply for insurance for your horse, you write away for the show
record--"

The waitress plunked down our drinks and
sandwiches and laid the check face down on the checkered
tablecloth. "Anything else?" she asked as if she didn't expect to
be bothered.

Marilyn shook her head, and the waitress
returned to the kitchen's swinging doors, where she'd been chatting
with someone just out of our line of sight. Marilyn leaned forward
and said, "Where was I?"

"You write away for the show record . .
."

"Oh, yeah." She bit into her sandwich. "You
get the show record of a successful Hanoverian, put his name on all
your paperwork, do a little creative forgery on a copy of your
horse's registration papers, and viola, you now have one expensive
animal, at least on paper. But not so expensive that he's going to
raise a flag. When you get rid of him, no one's the wiser."

"But wouldn't someone figure it out?"

"It's a riskier fraud, I'll admit, but if
it's uncovered, it more than likely won't be the insurance company
that catches on." She sipped her iced tea. "Most agents wouldn't
know a Hanoverian from a Clydesdale. Consider the thousands of
horses competing today, and the hundreds of insurance companies
that provide equine mortality insurance, and it's pretty easy to
see you'd go unnoticed, unless you did something stupid, like
pretend you owned a world-class horse like Charisma. The real
threat comes from someone on the show circuit noticing that the
horse you're masquerading as Rocket isn't Rocket at all, because
Rocket's down at ol' Charlie's place in South Carolina right about
now."