No Accident (7 page)

So Jorge Ramirez and Beto Capablanca had worked together at Liberty Industries. Alex didn’t know exactly what scam Jorge Ramirez had been trying to pull, but he was certain that Jorge and Beto had not learned any lessons in prison. With Jorge dead, Alex wanted to speak to Beto, but Alex remembered that Beto was hard to find when he didn’t want to be found. Alex also knew that Chip Odom, his boss, wouldn’t be eager to devote resources to track Beto down solely on the basis of Alex’s hunch.

Alex decided there was an easier way. He needed to speak with the auto insurer for Liberty Industries. If Alex could convince them that the gardening truck really caused the accident, or that Jorge Ramirez somehow caused it with a scam gone awry, they would have the right financial motivation to gather evidence to prove it. And if they did, Chip Odom would agree to a deeper investigation, and odds were that Rampart Insurance would avoid liability for the accident and Roberta Cummings would get a well needed financial benefit out of it.

Alex called his company’s own claims department. Curiously, Liberty’s insurer had not yet contacted Rampart about being reimbursed for the destruction of Liberty’s van in the crash. Rampart’s claims department didn’t even know yet who Liberty’s insurer was. When would they know, Alex asked. Hard to say, they said.

Hard to wait
, Alex thought. He wouldn’t wait. He would call Liberty Industries and bluff them into telling him the name of their auto insurer. The call where Alex bluffed Liberty’s H.R. department had gone fine, so why not try the same thing with a different department? He didn’t know the name of the insurer, so he figured he would just say he was calling from “the insurance company.” For the bluff to work, he needed to call someone who wouldn’t ask too many questions, so he called Liberty and asked for the accounts receivable department, hoping to reach a gullible, low-level bookkeeper.

The receptionist connected Alex to a woman with a hard-to-place foreign accent. She spoke loudly, but it didn’t make her accent any clearer.

“Hi,” Alex said. “I’m calling from the insurance company to confirm the status of the insurance payment for the accident on December 23rd. You remember, the big one?”

“Oh, I remember. Everybody remember
s. You want to talk to the finance department?”

No, Alex didn’t. Finance types were more inquisitive than accounting clerks, but he had no choice.

“Yes. And tell them I’m from the insurance company.”

Alex held his breath as he waited on hold. What was the worst that could happen if his ruse was discovered? Just that the person on the other end of the phone would note Alex’s phone number and track the call back to Rampart. Then Alex would be fired and very quickly go bankrupt. Which was distinctly worse than Alex’s current trajectory of slowly going bankrupt. Alex was wishing that he’d thought this plan through a little better when a male voice greeted him on the other end of the line.

“Finance. Daugherty.”

“Yes, I’m calling about the December 23rd accident?”

“You with Peninsula Life?”

Alex paused. That wasn’t a name he was expecting. Peninsula was a life insurer, not an automobile
insurer. Finally, he said, “Uh . . . that’s right.”

“You work with Susan, uh, Susan what’s-her-name?”

“Yes I do, and she asked me to apologize for the delay in getting back to you.” Alex apologized for the delay in order to ingratiate himself with this guy Daugherty. Alex figured he was taking only a small risk—even if Daugherty had spoken with Susan ten minutes ago, any delay was too long in the client’s eyes.

“Yeah, fine,” Daugherty said. “So I hope you’re calling to tell me we’re all set for payment.”

Alex paused, then said, “I wish I were.” He gritted his teeth. There was no telling where the conversation would go next.

“Not what I wanted to hear
—what did you say your name was?”

“Um, Alex.”

“No offense, Alex, but let’s get Susan on the line.”

“Actually, she’s in a meeting right now, and
—”

“Oh, the hell she is. Look, Alex, I just want to know when you folks are going to pay us. Susan said you were all set with
the paperwork, and now you call . . .”

So the paperwork was done. That gave Alex an idea.

“Well, we
were
done with the paperwork, Mr. Daugherty.”

“Were? What kind of run-around is this? You tell Susan that
—”

“Have you ever dealt with OSHA, Mr. Daugherty?”

“The workplace safety agency? Sure, but what has that got to do—”

“Well, we’re dealing with them right now on our end. Seems some government bean counter spotted rat feces in our document warehouse and got all excited about it, and they’ve decided that now is a great time to close off the entire warehouse and test it for the hanta virus.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“I wish I were. Anyway, unfortunately the paperwork for your case, along with a thousand others, is quarantined for the rest of the week.”

“So you’re not paying us till next week? All five policies? Ah, crap. We’ve already booked the proceeds to revenue. My CFO is
not
going to be happy about this, Alex.”

“Well, hold on, I was calling with a solution. If you could just fax the paperwork again, we can pay you on the basis of a fax signature. I know it’s an imposition, but
—”

Daugherty sighed. “What’s the number?”

Alex gave Daugherty Rampart’s fax number and told him to make out the cover sheet to Alex F.

“You tell Susan she owes me lunch,” Daugherty said.

After hanging up, Alex paced the halls. His heart was pounding and he felt as if he had been surfing among sharks. He couldn’t believe his luck.

The Cummings case had just gone from intriguing to disturbing. Daugherty only mentioned policies from Peninsula, which wrote life insurance, not auto insurance. It looked like Liberty didn’t have insurance for its van at all. Daugherty also talked about five policies
—Alex guessed that meant one policy for each of the dead employees in the van. He raced to the fax room. He couldn’t wait to find out if his guess was right.

*
* *

The faxes from Daugherty confirmed Alex’s suspicion: Liberty had taken out insurance policies on the lives of the five employees who died in the van. As a result of their deaths, Liberty was entitled to two million dollars in insurance proceeds from Peninsula Life.

Now that he knew that Jorge and Beto worked at Liberty together and that Liberty had insured the lives of its dead employees, Alex thought he had enough information to convince Chip Odom that the case deserved Alex’s full attention. Chip had a mercurial temper, just like his father, who happened to be the founder and president of Rampart Insurance. People in the office said Chip was in a disagreeable mood today. Alex resolved to speak with Chip tomorrow.

The next morning, when Alex got to his cubicle, he found that all his files had been removed. When he turned to go find out where they were, he ran right into Chip Odom, who wore a malevolent grin.

“Alex Fogarty,” Chip said loudly, in a needlessly musical tone. He took a slow look at Alex’s loose interpretation of business casual wear, and said, “Looks like you left your tuxedo at the cleaners.”

Chip’s distinctive cackle followed, a high-pitched staccato alarm that let everyone nearby know he had made a joke. Laughing at his own bad jokes was Chip’s prerogative as the founder’s son. Chip always wore a suit but, within that constraint, still found ways to surprise. Today he paired a blue pinstripe suit with a light orange shirt and a paisley necktie of the same shade. Add to that his curly hair, and he looked like a well-tailored clown.

“Good morning, Chip. I’ve actually been meaning to speak with you.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Um, do you know where my files are?”

“They’re in my office now.” Chip grabbed Alex by the arm. “Walk with me,” Chip said, and they walked.

Chip was chubby and had the droopy features of an aging babyface. Some of the more irreverent secretaries would tell stories of Chip as a mama’s boy on his childhood visits to the office—expansive and demanding when accompanying his mother, sullen and withdrawn with his father.

“Where are we going?” Alex said. Chip didn’t answer.

They marched around the perimeter of the floor like Chip was trying to catch up to someone. As Chip walked, his loose curls bounced over his ears and forehead. A warren of cubicles lay on one side of the hall and an outer ring of private offices and conference rooms on the other. Chip pulled Alex into one of the conference rooms, where someone from H.R. sat waiting. She was a dour older woman in a dark suit who didn’t rise when they entered. Chip sat. Alex looked at them both. “What the hell’s going on?” he said.

“I assume you’ve seen
this
,” Chip said. He picked up a folded newspaper and tossed it onto the table so that it faced Alex.

It was the Metro section of that morning’s
Chronicle
. One of the lead articles was entitled “Maverick Investigator Bucks Trend Toward Compromise,” by none other than Alex’s old acquaintance Zeke Andrews.

“No, I hadn’t seen this,” Alex said. He picked it up. Starting with the headline, it didn’t look good.

“It’s . . . engendered some discussions around here,” Chip said. “There are some real gems in here—let’s see,” he said, and he picked up another copy. “‘Fogarty opines that tranquility rather than curiosity is what succeeds in the new corporate environment.’ Oh, and, ‘Fogarty admits that it is often cheaper for an insurance company to settle a fraudulent claim than to litigate and prove that it is unjustified.’ Why don’t you just write the crooks an instruction manual, huh?”

Alex vaguely remembered saying something like that, but how could Zeke put that stuff in the paper? And why did Zeke let Alex get blindsided by the story? Alex grew hot with anger at the betrayal.

The H.R. woman spoke for the first time. “The article also contains a troubling account of an accident that you and the reporter were involved in, where you assaulted one of the accident victims and then fled the scene.”

“Shit, Chip,” Alex said. “I didn’t assault anyone. I didn’t
flee
from anything.”

Chip didn’t answer. He was reading the article again. “Oh, and here’s the worst one.” Chip poked a finger into the flimsy newsprint. ‘“A lot of these insurance scammers are undocumented,’ says Fogarty. ‘The ringleaders like them because they work cheap and won’t go to the police.’”

“But it’s true,” Alex said.

“Jesus
 . . .” Chip sighed.

Alex looked at them both. The H.R. woman was looking at her hands, which lay folded on the table in front of her. “Will you excuse us for a minute?” Alex said to her. She looked at Chip. Chip nodded, and she left.

“You can’t fire me, Chip. I’m your best investigator. Zeke twisted my words around so he could write what he wanted to write.”

Chip studied Alex’s face, looking for a tell. Finally he shrugged. “You’re probably right, Alex, but it’s too late for that.”

“Chip, I’m begging you. Besides, you need me. Remember the Cummings case? Well, the police report doesn’t make sense. There are discrepancies that favor us, and you’ll never guess who one of the victims is. Remember Jorge Ramirez?”

“Mmm, no.”

“Remember his skinny little buddy Rigoberto Capablanca?”

Chip chuckled. “I’ll never forget that guy.”

“Well, Capablanca also works at Liberty Industries, and Liberty took out life insurance on the employees who died. There’s something funny here, I just know it.”

Chip raised his palm to end the discussion. “Alex, stop. The Cummings case has been closed.”

“Closed? Since when?”

“Since my dad read this story,” Chip said, gesturing toward the newspaper. “The story says the dead Cummings guy had been kicked out by his wife. Dad read that and insisted we check the address of record in the policy. Turns out Howard Cummings didn’t update his address when he added on insurance for the sports car, and the big guy demanded we deny coverage for false representation.”

“That’s bullshit! It’s a harmless mistake. He left a wife and son, y’know.”

“Look, Dad gets angry and he lashes out. The dead Mr. Cummings was an easy target for him.”

Alex remembered how bereft Roberta Cummings looked when Alex visited her. “And the person it hurts is
Mrs.
Cummings. You know that, right?”

“I’m not saying it’s fair, Alex.”

React without thinking—classic Rampart Insurance
, Alex thought. “Mrs. Cummings was an easy target for your father, and I was an easy target for you,” he said.

“No, Alex. Firing you was Dad’s choice, too.”

“You’re a big boy, now, Chip. Quit hiding behind Daddy’s skirt.”

Chip frowned. “All right, Alex, I tried to make this easy for you, but you asked for it. You want to know why you were never going to succeed here?”

“I’m not getting paid to listen to you anymore. Goodbye.” Alex turned to leave.