Custody of the State (42 page)

“Like a snake slithering out of the house. He gets in his Porsche and zooms off.”

“Is that the last you saw of him?”

“That is the last time we talked.”

There was a long pause. Then Mary Sue spoke again.

“Where does this leave us?”

“I have a feeling that if we checked the Unemployment Department records in the Atlanta district, we would get the identity of a woman fired by Jason Purdy—terminated shortly before she called me and gave me that ambiguous tip. It's all falling into place.”

“Will, do you have any idea how I struggled with telling you this?”

“I think so,” Will said. Then he added, “Honestly, I'm having a problem figuring it out.”

“I tell you, then my husband finds out. He never trusts me again. And you can't use Jason to prove any of this to help my case—because he would lie on the stand without blinking. He would deny it.”

“That last bit I can certainly agree with.”

“And after all of that—what would I be gaining?” Mary Sue said, pleading in her voice.

“I'm your attorney, not your marriage counselor,” Will said. “But I'm going to give you some advice. You need to tell your husband all of this. No matter what happens. It also sounds like Jason may have committed sexual assault—”

“Will, come on. Do you really think that a simple farm wife like me, accused of child abuse, could make a charge like that stick against Jason Bell Purdy?”

“There is nothing simple about you,” Will replied. “You love your husband. You are deeply devoted to your son. You've tried to follow God's leading on this. And you've been facing a horrendous injustice almost entirely on your own. My hat's off to you. But you do need to do something else.”

“Why do I think I know what you're going to say?”

“You need to come home.”

“Joshua is already there.”

“In Delphi?”

“At the hospital. We had him airlifted. Joe's mom is staying with him.”

“But he needs his mother.”

Mary Sue started weeping. Then she said, “I know.”

“Where are you now?” Will asked.

“Still on the road. Do me a favor and just win that case for me tomorrow. I need my family.”

The static on the telephone line was getting worse. Now the rain was coming down hard over the lake, in sheets.

Will quickly reviewed with Mary Sue the remaining witnesses for the county, who were scheduled for the next day: Bob Smiley, the insurance agent—Dr. Parker, the pathologist—and Dorothy Atkinson, Mary Sue's nursing supervisor.

As he wrapped up the conversation, a final thought popped up.

“Did you remember any words—anything that Henry Pencup said?”

Mary Sue thought for a few seconds. “There was only gibberish. He was in tremendous pain.”

“What kind of gibberish?”

“Actually, there were two kind-of-nonsensical things he kept saying to me. What were they?”

Mary Sue took a minute or two. Will watched the upper reaches of the sky flash with lightning, deep within the storm clouds.

“I think it was…‘insecure'…and the other one—let's see—it was ‘unsign.'”

“You're sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

Will thought for a minute. He wanted to get clarification. Something more—anything. But the telephone line crackled, and then it went dead.

As the thunder rolled and rumbled, Will went to the window. He could smell the water in the air, and the pines, as he listened to the shimmering waves of rain falling on the surface of the lake.

Insecure
.

Unsign.

Will repeated those words over and over. There was a message inside those cryptic references made by a dying bank president. A message perhaps as clear as the confession he had made to Father Godfrey.

It was late when Will stumbled his way into bed, exhausted. He had not had a chance to call Fiona. And he still was trying to figure out Jason Bell Purdy's enigmatic involvement in Mary's Sue's case. He knew that Purdy wanted to destroy her credibility—at all costs. But why? There were no connections between Henry Pencup—or his bank—and the Eden Lake Resort. So, why Purdy's obsession with Pencup?

One thing he did know. Unless he performed a legal vivisection on each of the county's witnesses the following day, his client might never enjoy the security of her family again.

58

B
OB
S
MILEY WAS NOT SMILING
. His face had the look of a turkey before Thanksgiving. He fidgeted in the stand, stretching his neck out and tugging at his tie.

“Now you were telling us,” Harry Putnam said, “about the insurance policy. Mary Sue asked for it to be written up.”

“Yes.”

“And you wrote it for $100,000?”

“I sure did. Did it myself. Submitted it to the life insurance company per Mary Sue's request.”

“And the policy was issued?”

“I'm not sure. I think that the full premium wasn't paid—so it may have been cancelled, ultimately.”

“But as of the date that Joshua was sick, and they took him to the Delphi hospital and took blood from him—you'll recall that we established that date?”

“Yes.”

“About that same time is when Mary Sue made the insurance application for $100,000 on the life of Joshua—listing herself and her husband as sole beneficiaries in the event of Joshua's death?”

“I think you've got that right. Correct.”

“Did your insurance company have concerns about that?”

“Well, that particular company wasn't doing physical exams for children's life-insurance policies. We just asked the parents to check a list of boxes about a whole long list of disabilities, and whether they knew the child to have any—you know—cancer, AIDS, things like that.”

“As you mentioned, was the insurance policy cancelled—you think—for nonpayment of premiums?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Well, after Mary Sue left the area and Joe was arrested, the remaining portion of the premium was not paid. So it got cancelled.”

“So Mary Sue fails to pay the premium after she knows the police are looking for her and the gig is up, right?”

Will could have jumped all over that one—but he deliberately let it go.

“It sure looks that way,” Smiley confirmed.

“Is $100,000 an unusually high life-insurance policy to have on a young child?”

“I don't sell many that high on children—that's right.”

Putnam rested. Harriet Bender waived any questions and then glared at Will.

Will began his cross-examination by asking permission to approach the witness. Once it was granted, he strode up to a position directly in front of the insurance agent. Then Will held out his hand, palm up.

Smiley gave him a strange look.

Will kept his hand outstretched.

“Did you bring it, Mr. Smiley?”

“What?”

“The very thing we demanded in the subpoena we served on you,” Will answered.

“Oh, that?”

“Yes, Mr. Smiley. Your file on policy number 000258HGB, on the life of Joshua Fellows in the name of Joseph and Mary Sue Fellows.

“Not here I don't have it,” Smiley replied.

“Where is it?” Will asked.

“It's on the bench there where I was sitting.”

“Then please fetch it, Mr. Smiley. By all means.”

The agent scurried down, grabbed the thin green folder, and returned, clutching it in his hand firmly.

“May I see it, please?” Will asked as courteously as he could.

Smiley handed it over, throwing Will the kind of look one would expect from a schoolboy whose secret note to his girlfriend had just been intercepted by the teacher.

Will paged quickly through the file.

“Mr. Smiley, you took the information from Mary Sue, wrote up the application, and then submitted it to the insurance company?”

“That's exactly the way we do it.”

“These application forms are standard?”

“Yep. Standard forms. I always use the same ones from that company. I am an independent insurance broker—so I can offer a range of different insurance products through different companies, depending on the individualized needs of the insured.”

“The insured—that would be Mary Sue?”

“Technically—in the insurance industry—Joshua would be considered the insured. Mary Sue is one of the owners of the policy.”

“What insurance needs did Joshua have, then?”

“Oh, that would be hard to say.”

“What insurance needs did Mary Sue have?”

“That also is hard to say at this point—I can't recall.”

“Those standard forms. Is it important to fill them out properly?”

“You bet it is. Otherwise the company sends the application right back.”

“And with your experience, I'll bet you know exactly how to fill out those application forms?”

“Sure do.”

“Dot all the I's and cross all the T's?”

“I think I do a pretty good job at it.”

“Anything missing from this application form?” Will asked, handing the green file back to Bob Smiley.

The agent glanced at it.

“No, I think this is just about right. Uh-huh. Yep. This one's up to snuff.”

“Sure?”

“Yes. It's all filled out correctly. Yep.”

“What's at the bottom?”

“What do you mean?”

“There,” Will said, pointing to the bottom of the application form.

“That,” Smiley said, “appears to be a line.”

“A blank line?”

“Yep.”

“A line for Mary Sue Fellows' signature?”

“Yes sir, it does appear that way.”

“Does her signature appear on that line?”

“Well…not on this one.”

“What do you mean—
this
one?”

“This is not the original. The original is sent to the insurance company.”

“But this is a carbonless copy, right?”

“Yes.”

“The signature—if it was ever signed, which I think it was not—the signature would go through to the copy marked ‘Agent's Copy.' Is that correct?”

“Ah…well, now—you have a point there.”

“And the form says in bold letters, ‘TO THE AGENT—MAKE SURE SIGNATURE GOES THROUGH ALL COPIES.'”

“Yes. It sure does.”

“Mary Sue never signed this application form, did she?”

“Hard to tell. Very hard to tell.”

“By the way, Mr. Smiley—did you win the sales contest this year for your company?”

“Not this year, I'm afraid. I came in runner-up.”

“What was first prize?”

“An all-expense trip to Hawaii,” and with that Smiley gave a faded smile.

“How do they tally the total volume of life insurance sales for that contest? By the amount applied for—or the amount actually issued out in the final policy after the premium is paid?”

Smiley paused and bounced his head a bit from side to side.

“Amount applied for.”

“So if you send in an application for a $100,000 insurance policy for Mary Sue Fellows, the company gives you credit for that in the sales contest?”

“Yeah, that's right.”

“Even if the client would later come back and say, ‘Hey—I really only wanted $10,000—reduce the policy.' By then, you would have already been credited for the $100,000 you submitted. Right?”

More head-bouncing by Smiley.

“I guess so…I suppose so.”

“Didn't you approach Mary Sue to sell her some insurance?”

“I may have actually made the originating call.”

“And you told her that the cost of covering the funeral of a child would be about $10,000—so why didn't she think about taking out a policy in that amount?”

“Possibly. I can't recall everything…”

“And you said, ‘It's the cheapest policy in the world—literally just a few dollars—and we'll bill you, no need to pay now—and by the way, I'm trying to win an insurance sales contest and I sure would appreciate your getting a policy.' That's about how it happened, correct?”

“Um…it may not have been in that order, exactly.”