Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 10 (15 page)

Even with a good detail map I blundered a few times.
It was a quarter past three, fifteen minutes after Isaiah Sommers’s shift
ended, before I jolted into the yard of the Docherty Engineering Works. A
roughly graveled area, it was as scarred by heavy trucks as the surrounding
streets. A fourteen-wheeler was snorting at a loading dock when I got out of
the Mustang.

It was my lucky afternoon—it looked as though the
seven-to-three shift was just leaving the shop. I leaned against my car,
watching men straggle through a side door. Isaiah Sommers appeared about
halfway through the exodus. He was talking to a couple of other men, laughing
in an easy way that took me by surprise: when I’d met him he’d been hunched and
surly. I waited until he’d clapped his coworkers on the shoulder and gone on to
his own truck before straightening up to follow him.

“Mr. Sommers?”

The smile vanished, leaving his face in the guarded
lines I’d seen the other night. “Oh. It’s you. What do you want?”

I pulled the broadsheet from my purse and handed it to
him. “I see the steps you took on your own led you straight to Alderman Durham.
There are a few factual errors, but it’s having quite a galvanizing effect on
the city: you should be pleased.”

He read the sheet with the same slow concentration
he’d given my contract. “Well?”

“You know as well as I that I wasn’t present at your
uncle’s funeral. Did you tell Mr. Durham that I was?”

“Maybe he put the two pieces of the story together
wrong, but, yes, I did talk to him. Told him about you accusing my aunt.” He
stuck his jaw out pugnaciously.

“I’m not here to play he-said, she-said with you but
to find out why you went out of your way to pillory me in this public way,
instead of trying to work things out in private.”

“My aunt—she doesn’t have money or connections or a
way to get even when someone like you comes along to accuse her unjustly.”

Several men passed us, looking us over curiously. One
of them called a greeting to Sommers. He flipped up a palm, but kept his angry
gaze on me.

“Your aunt feels bereft. She needs someone to blame,
so she’s blaming me. Almost ten years ago, someone using your aunt’s name
cashed a check for the policy, with a death certificate claiming your uncle was
dead to back up the claim. Either your aunt did it, or someone else. But her
name was on the check. I had to ask her. You’ve fired me, so I won’t be asking
any more questions, but don’t you wonder how it got there?”

“The company did it. The company did it and hired you
to frame me, like it says here.” He pointed at the broadsheet, but his voice
lacked conviction.

“It’s a possibility,” I conceded. “It’s a possibility
the company did it. We’ll never know, of course.”

“Why not?”

I smiled. “I have no reason to look into it. You could
hire someone else to do so, but it would cost you a fortune. Of course it’s
much easier to toss accusations around than it is to look for facts. It’s the
American way these days, isn’t it: find a scapegoat instead of a fact.”

His face was bunched in confusion. I took the
broadsheet from him and turned back to my car. The phone, which I’d left
attached to the charger, was ringing—Mary Louise, with Amy Blount’s details. I
scribbled them down and started the car.

“Wait,” Isaiah Sommers yelled.

He shook off someone who’d stopped to talk to him and
ran over to my car. I put it in park and looked up at him, my brows raised, my
expression bland.

He fumbled for words, then blurted out, “What do you
think?”

“About—”

“You said it’s a possibility that the company cashed
in the policy. Is that what you think?”

I turned off the engine. “To be honest, no. I won’t
say it’s impossible: I uncovered claims fraud at that company once before, but
it was under a different management team, which had to resign when the news got
out. The thing is, it would mean collusion between someone in the company and
the agent, since the agency deposited the check, but the claims manager made no
demur about bringing the file up where I could see it.” It’s true Rossy had put
me through a song and dance to keep me from examining the complete file—but
Edelweiss had only been involved with Ajax for four months, so I didn’t see how
he could possibly be part of an Ajax life-insurance fraud.

“The agent is a more likely candidate. Although none
of the other policies Hoffman sold at your uncle’s workplace was fraudulently
cashed, the check was paid through Midway. It’s also possible your uncle did
it, for reasons you might never know or you might find very painful to know. Or
some other family member. And before you blow your stack and get on to Bull
Durham from the nearest phone, I don’t seriously think it was your aunt, not
after talking to her. But your family or the agency would be the two places I
would look. If I was looking.”

He slammed the roof of my car in frustration. He was
strong enough that the car bounced slightly.

“Look here, Ms. Warashki. I don’t know who to believe,
or who to listen to. My wife—she thought I should go talk to Alderman Durham.
Camilla Rawlings, the lady who gave me your name to begin with, she already
chewed me out for firing you: she thinks I should make my peace with you. But
what can I believe? Mr. Durham, he said he had proof the insurance company
profited from slavery, and this is one more cover-up, and no offense, but you
being white, how can you understand?”

I got out of the car so he wouldn’t have to bend over
and I wouldn’t get a crick in my neck looking up. “Mr. Sommers, I can’t ever,
completely, but I do try to listen empathically—and impartially—to whatever I
hear. The situation with your aunt, I realize it’s complicated by America’s
history. If I want to ask her how her name got to be on that check, then you
and your wife and your aunt see me as a white woman, someone in league with the
company to defraud you. But if I start screaming in chorus with you—company
cover-up! fraud!—when I have no facts, then I’m useless as a detective. My only
lodestar is sticking to the truth—as far as I can know it. It’s a costly
decision—I lose clients like you, I lost a wonderful man in Camilla’s brother.
I’m not always right, but I have to stick to the truth or be buffeted like a
leaf by every wind that blows.”

It took me a long time to get over my breakup with
Conrad Rawlings. I love Morrell, he’s a great guy—but Conrad and I were attuned
in a way that you only find once in a very blue moon.

Sommers’s face contorted with strain. “Would you
consider going back to work for me?”

“I’d consider it. I’d be a little wary, though.”

He nodded in a kind of rueful understanding, then
blurted out, “I’m sorry about Durham getting the facts mixed up. I do have
cousins, one anyway, that could have gone and done it. But you see, it’s
painful, too painful, to expose my family like that. And if it was my cousin
Colby, then, hell, I’ll never see the money again. I’d be out the price of the
funeral and the price of your fee, besides making my family ashamed in public.”

“It’s a serious problem. I can’t advise you on it.”

He shut his eyes tightly for a moment. “Is there—do
you still owe me any more time from my five hundred dollars?”

He’d had an hour and a half coming to him before Mary
Louise checked with the men at South Branch Scrap Metal. Any more work would be
with the meter running again.

“About an hour,” I said gruffly, cursing myself.

“Could you—is there anything you could find out about
the agent in just an hour?”

“You going to call Mr. Durham and tell him he made a
mistake? I have a press interview scheduled at six-thirty; I don’t want to
mention your name if I’m working for you.”

He took a breath. “I’ll call him. If you’ll ask a few
questions of the insurance agency.”

Secret Agent

F
amily
spokesman Andy Birnbaum, great-grandson of the patriarch who parlayed a
scrap-metal pushcart into one of America’s great fortunes, said the family is
bewildered by Durham’s accusations. The Birnbaum Foundation has supported
inner-city education, arts, and economic development for four decades. Birnbaum
added that relations of the African-American community with both the Birnbaum
Corporation and its foundation have been mutually supportive, and he is sure
that if Alderman Durham sits down to talk, the alderman will realize there has
been a misunderstanding.”

I got that sound bite on the radio as I was riding
back into the city. The inbound traffic was heavy but moving fast, so I didn’t
pay close attention until my own name jumped out at me.

“Investigator V I Warshawski said in a written
statement that Durham’s accusations that she had interrupted Aaron Sommers’s
funeral with demands for money are a complete fabrication. Joseph Posner, who
is lobbying hard for Illinois to pass the Holocaust Asset Recovery Act, said
that Durham’s charges against Ajax were a red herring to keep the legislature
from considering the act. He said Durham’s anti-Semitic comments were a
disgrace to the memory of the dead, but that as the Sabbath started in a few
hours he would not violate its peace by appearing in public to confront the
alderman.”

Thank heavens we were at least spared Joseph Posner
joining the fray just now. I couldn’t absorb any more news; I turned to music.
One of the classical stations was soothing the commuter’s savage breast with
something very modern and spiky. The other was running a high-voltage ad for
Internet access. I turned off the radio altogether and followed the lake south,
back to Hyde Park.

Given Howard Fepple’s lackadaisical attitude toward
his business, there was only an outside chance that I’d find him still in his
office at four-thirty on Friday. Still, when you’re a pinball, you bounce off
all the levers in the hopes of landing in the money. And this time I had a bit
of luck—or whatever you’d call the chance to talk to Fepple again. He was not
only in but he’d installed fresh lightbulbs, so that the torn linoleum, the
grime, and his eager expression when I opened the door all showed up clearly.

“Mr. Fepple,” I said heartily. “Glad to see you
haven’t given up on the business yet.”

He turned away from me, his eager look replaced by a
scowl. It obviously wasn’t the hope of seeing me that had led him to put on a
suit and tie.

“You know, an amazing thought occurred to me when I
was driving back from seeing Isaiah Sommers this afternoon. Bull Durham knew
about me. He knew about the Birnbaums. He knew about Ajax. But even though he
went on for days about the injustice to the Sommers family, he didn’t seem to
know about you.”

“You don’t have an appointment,” he muttered, still
not looking at me. “You can leave now.”

“Walk-in business,” I chirped brightly. “You need to
cultivate it. So let’s talk about that policy you sold Aaron Sommers.”

“I told you, it wasn’t me, it was Rick Hoffman.”

“Same difference. Your agency. Your legal liability
for any wrongdoing. My client isn’t interested in dragging this out in court
for years, although he could sue you for a bundle under ERISA—you had a
fiduciary responsibility to his uncle, which you violated. He’d be happy if
you’d cut him a check for the ten thousand that the policy was worth.”

“He’s not your—” he blurted, then stopped.

“My, my, Howard. Who has been talking to you? Was it
Mr. Sommers himself? No, that can’t be right, or you’d know he’d brought me back
in to finish the investigation. So it must have been Alderman Durham. If that’s
the case, you are going to have so much publicity you’ll be turning business
away. I have an interview with Channel Thirteen in a little bit, and they will
be salivating when they hear that your agency has been tipping off Bull Durham
about your own customers’ affairs.”

“You’re all wet,” he said, curling his lip. “I
couldn’t talk to Durham—he’s made it clear he doesn’t have any use for whites.”

“Now I’m really curious.” I settled myself in the
rickety chair in front of his desk. “I’m dying to see who you’re all dolled up
for.”

“I have a date. I do have a social life that has
nothing to do with insurance. I want you to leave so I can close up my office.”

“In a little bit. As soon as you answer some
questions. I want to see the file on Aaron Sommers.”

His carpet of freckles turned a deeper orange. “You
have a helluva nerve. Those are private papers, none of your damned business.”

“They are my client’s business. One way or another,
either by you cooperating now or by my getting a court order, you’re going to
show me the file. So let’s do it now.”

“Go get your court order if you can. My father trusted
me with his business; I am not going to let him down.”

It was a strange and rather sad attempt at bravado.
“Okay. I’ll get a court order. One other thing. Rick Hoffman’s notebook. That
little black book he carried around with him, ticking off his clients’
payments. I want to see it.”

“Join the crowd,” he snapped. “Everyone in Chicago wants
to see his notebook, but I don’t have it. He took it home with him every night
like it was the secret of the atom bomb. And when he died it was at his home.
If I knew where his son was, maybe I’d know where the damned notebook was. But
that creep is probably in an insane asylum someplace. He’s not in Chicago, at
any rate.”