Swan Dive - Jeremiah Healy (11 page)

"Hanna gets the house?"

"Like I said. Everything."

I thought about somebody putting Marsh through the
window and shooting Teri Angel. Then I thought about Hanna’s broad,
sturdy body and her determination about the family hearth in
Swampscott.

I looked up at Chris, but he was already standing and
shrugging into a sports coat that hung very lopsided on him, as if
there was a great weight in his pocket. '

"John, I’m sorry, but I really got to get on
the road here."

"What’s in the coat?"

"Huh?"

"The pocket."

"Oh." He reached in, then withdrew his hand
again. "I got a permit to keep one in the house a long time ago,
back when Eleni first . . . got sick and couldn’t move around so
good. For burglars, you know? Now this thing’s got Eleni so scared,
with drugs and all being involved, that I just carry it around the
place, make her feel better."

I tried to catch Chris’s eyes. I’d have bet money
he would scare before she would. But all he said as he brushed past
me was "Hanna gets everything and I lose a ten-thousand-dollar
fee. Jeez, if I went into the hat business, kids’d be born without
heads, you know?"

When we walked back into the reception area, Fotis
was standing, the paper folded and stuck in one of his jacket
pockets. Something else weighed down the other pocket. The partisans’
mountain stronghold. Fotis said, "Eleni want to see you."

Chris stopped. "Hey, Fotis, I gotta get going
here."

Fotis said, "Not you.
Him."

* * *

Eleni and a not-quite-twin of Fotis were watching a
game show on a nine-inch black-and-white in the kitchen. As I drew
near, Eleni said, “Nikkie," and the twin reluctantly stood up,
clicked off the set, and walked out of the room.

"Sit."

I rested my butt on a stool across from her. She
said, "I told you that Marsh, he was a bad man."

"Eleni, somebody made it look like I killed
him."

"Why somebody do that?"

"I don’t know."

She let a wise smile crease the side of her face that
didn’t twitch. "I think different."

"What do you mean?"

"A bad man, that one. You saw what he done. His
own child, a poor little animal. He deserve to die."

"And the girl?"

"A whore."

"They were still people."

Eleni’s chin jutted forward defiantly. "A
whore is a whore, and that man, he got what God would do."

"What do you mean?"

"I understand you, John. I know you. If you kill
him, I understand."

"Eleni, I didn’t."

She called out "Nikkie,"
then a few Greek words. She looked up to me with the smile again. "He
got what God would do. Nobody should blame you."

* * *

I drove to Swampscott and spotted the STANSFIELD
INSURANCE AGENCY sign centered over the doorway of a large white
house on the main drag. I parked on the road and admired the
condition of the exterior, down to the green shutters and brass
hardware. It looked as if fanatic maintenance had prevented the need
for extensive restoration.

Just inside the door was a waiting area covered with
an intricate Oriental rug and proud captain’s chairs, polished and
positioned stiffly. It took a minute to register that the setting
looked like one of those rooms in a museum that the public can view
only through a sashed-off doorway, "A Typical Sitting Room of
the Late Nineteenth Centu1y."

"Can I, uh, help you?"

I turned around and saw a rangy, fortyish man in a
button-down oxford shirt, wool Rooster tie, and twill slacks. He
looked harried, with one of those long, almost horsey faces that you
see in some of the North Shore towns, too many generations of
inbreeding around the polo iields. He did exude a sort of rawboned
physical strength, the kind that would never look good but never go
to fat, either.

"I’m sorry," I said. “I didn’t see
any receptionist, so I came on in."

"I’m afraid the agency is, uh, rather closed
for the day. We’ve had a, uh, death in the firm."

"I know." There was a kid in my third-grade
class who stammered. I extended a hand to try to help him feel at
ease. "My name’s John Cuddy."

We shook, his eyes blinking absently. "Cuddy,
Cuddy? I’m sorry, but you’re not, uh, one of our insureds, are
you?"

"No, I’m not, Mr .... "

“
Oh, sorry about that. Stansfield, uh, Bryce
Stansfield’s the name."

"I wonder if I could talk with you, Mr.
Stansfield."

"I’m afraid—"

"It’s about Roy."

"About Roy?"

"Yes. I’m a detective from Boston, and I’m
looking into his murder."

"Uh, well, then." I expected him to ask for
some identification. Instead he said, "Come in."

I followed him into a low-ceilinged office with a bay
window looking onto the street from behind discreetly filtering
curtains. His desk was covered with an avalanche of paperwork. I
recognized some application forms moshed in with slim binders and
bulkier policies. A word-processing station with a high-backed
leather swivel chair dominated a wall where an executive credenza
might otherwise rest. Stansfield swung the chair around to its
designed position behind his desk and flipped a switch on the
station, causing the monitor screen to sigh and implode the
chartreuse-on-black lettering like the dying of a soul.

"Sorry for the clutter."

"Secretary on vacation?"

"No, actually I initiate most of the paperwork,
and, uh, the absence of staff substantially improves the
confidentiality of our work."

I shoveled my way past that and said, "I’d
like to know if Marsh had any enemies you’re aware of?"

"Enemies?"

"Yes."

He rubbed his chin with a bony index finger and
thumb. "Well, no. No enemies."

"I’m told he made a lot of money through the
agency here. That can sometimes lead to bad feel1ngs."

"Roy’s family situation had, uh, deteriorated
rather badly recently. But he was an excellent insurance salesman. I
don’t believe I, uh, ever had a complaint about him."

"What, about the other salesmen in the agency?"

"Others? There aren’t any others."

"Just you and Marsh?"

"Yes. Well, uh, actually just Roy. He was sort
of the outside, customer relations man. He was marvelous at that sort
of thing. A lot like my, uh, uncle." Stansfield swung the chair
and plucked an old photo in a stand-up frame from a table behind the
desk. It showed a man in his fifties, with Stansfield’s features
but somehow stauncher, sharper. "My uncle Mark, Dad’s oldest
brother. Dad, uh, died in Korea, and Uncle Mark took me in. Raised
me, especially after Mother passed on." The frame wavered in
Stansfield’s hand. "Uncle Mark, uh, built this agency from
nothing in the forties. Of course"—Stansfield waved his free
hand around as he replaced the frame on the table—"the family
already had this, uh, house. The Stansfields were an old whaling
family, and this was the mansion of Captain Josiah Stansfield who—"

"I wonder if we could get back to Roy Marsh?"

"Uh, yes. Sorry. When my uncle died, I . . .
well, I was going through a, uh, divorce, and the agency was in need
of a good outside chap, to meet the customers, renew old contacts,
that sort of thing. Roy came along, and I was quite, uh, impressed
with his enthusiasm?

"He got along well with your customers?"

"Yes. Well, uh, not all of them, of course. But
that was hardly Roy’s fault. Many of our customers had come to rely
heavily on Uncle Mark and just couldn’t, uh, imagine dealing with a
newcomer. But Roy quickly made up for that, and more."

“
How?"

"By establishing new business. You could hardly,
uh, believe how successful he was in attracting clients. I could
hardly believe it, and I’d already been in the business for
umpty-ump years. And once he’d brought new clients into the fold,
they were always, uh,
increasing their
coverage and adding riders." He moved his hand over the muddle
on his desk. “Trust me, this is just the tip of the, uh, iceberg."

"So Marsh would beat the bushes and bring in the
business, and then you’d execute the paperwork?"

"Well, uh, basically, yes. Our relationship is,
uh, sorry, was amazingly symbiotic. You see, Roy didn’t care that
much for the technical side of the insurance game. Matching the
right, uh, rider for the right peril and so on. That’s my forte."

Most of which is done by the insuring company,
anyway.

"I understand that Marsh maintained a pretty
substantial life policy on himself."

"Uh, you do?"

I felt a little muscle in my stomach go "ping."
"He represented during the divorce negotiations that he had a
two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar face-amount policy in favor of his
wife and daughter."

Stansfield looked uncomfortable. "Is the wife a,
uh, suspect in his . . . death?"

"Mr. Stansfield, is there a policy or not'?"

"Well, yes. And no."

"Maybe you’d better explain."

He looked around his desk for help, but didn’t act
as if he saw any. "Roy did have a policy on his life. Uh, in
fact, two policies. One was what we call ‘key man’ insurance. Are
you familiar with it?"

"Where a partnership or corporation takes out a
policy on an important employee?"

"Correct."

"And there was such a policy on Marsh here?"

"Right. For, uh, two hundred fifty thousand."

"Payable . . ."

“
Oh, to me. I mean, uh, the agency, technically,
but Roy and I were so, uh, indispensable to each other, it’s
practically the same thing."

"And the other policy?"

"That’s the problem, I’m afraid. You see,
Roy is, uh, was such an impulsive fellow."

"Impulsive how?"

"Well, it was some months ago, I assume when
things, uh, began to go sour at home, he came in one morning and told
me to cancel the policy on him for, uh, his wife and child."

Great. "And?"

"And I tried to talk him out of it, of course.
I, uh, told him I thought it irresponsible and that he certainly
should sleep on it."

"What did he say?"

"He told me to go . . . uh, he told me it was
none of my concern, and that the policy had best be canceled by that
day, with a, uh, return to him of any unexpended premium, or else."

"Or else what?"

Stansfield made a noise that actually sounded like
"ahem."

"Mr. Stansfield, or else what‘?"

"Roy didn’t, uh, elaborate. He didn’t have
to. He could be quite . . . uh, imposing at times. Of course, I’m
certain he wouldn’t have . .

"Swung on you?"

Stansfield just slanted his head.

I said, "Any chance that the insurance could
still be in effect?"

“
For the beneficiaries to, uh, collect, you mean?"

"Yes."

"No. No, I’m afraid that is, uh, out of the
question. I could give you the technical reasons if you need them for
your, uh, report, but any grace period would have expired some time
ago."

“
Did you ever let Hanna know about the
cancellation?"

"Hanna, his wife?"

"Right."

"No, I’m . . . uh, I didn’t really know her
that well, you see. We weren’t, that is, Roy’s and mine was
really only a, uh, business relationship. We really didn’t see each
other socially."

No doubt. Unfortunately, though, that meant Hanna
would have had no reason to believe that Roy’s death wouldn’t
leave her and Vickie with $250,000.

"Let’s get back to Roy’s customers if we
can."

"Certainly."

"Was there ever anything out of line about his
claims ratios?"

"Uh, no, not at all. In fact, Roy’s clients
had very low claims rates."

"Any exceptions?"

"Exceptions?"

“
Yes, any type of policy—casualty, theft,
whatever—that seemed to have more than its share of losses?"

"Well, uh, certainly not that I noticed."

“
How about any individual insureds?"

"No, not really. In fact, I often had so few
calls that . . . uh, well, off the record?"

“
Sure."

"Well, Roy chose his, uh, customers so carefully
that some months, we had almost no claims to speak of I mean, you’d,
uh, almost have to wonder why a lot of these people were even buying
insurance in the first place."

I thought I could guess.
 

ELEVEN
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