In Death's Shadow (12 page)

The color was slightly off and the photos were grainy; they'd obviously been printed out on Mrs. Bromley's home computer. Although taken from a distance, they showed a lanky, broad-shouldered man wearing khaki pants and a dark green polo shirt, exactly what one might expect on a lawn care professional. In the first picture, the gardener was bent over, one foot on a shovel, frozen forever in the act of pushing the shovel into the ground. A ball cap obscured his face. In the second picture, the man had turned sideways but the photo was too fuzzy to make any sort of positive identification. He could have been any white male of that general height and build—Paul, or my father, even.

"Looks like a gardener to me, Mrs. B."

"But what if he
isn't
just a gardener? Residents have died at Ginger Cove recently, many more than one might expect. We were talking about it at dinner the other day."

"It could be a coincidence," I said without much conviction.

"Coincidence my foot! Clark sold his life insurance policy to Jablonsky. Tim Burns told me he was going to do the same. I know
I
sold the wretched man my policy." Her eyes flashed. The Mrs. Bromley I knew and loved was back. "What if," she murmured, so softly I had to strain to hear her over the hoots of Birthday Boy and Co. still celebrating at the next table. "What if Jablonsky is hurrying things along a bit?"

I tapped one of the photos. "This is
not
a picture of Gilbert Jablonsky."

"One of his henchmen, then."

Mrs. Bromley had an excellent point. What did Valerie Stone, Clark Gammel, and Tim Burns have in common? They'd viaticated their life insurance policies through Gilbert Jablonsky, that's what. And now all three were dead. No wonder Mrs. Bromley was freaked. If her suspicions were correct, she could be next on the list.

I began thinking out loud. "I wonder if there's a way to find out how many residents of Ginger Cove—besides you, Clark, and Tim—have viaticated their policies through MBFSG?" And then I remembered something. "That party you told me about, where Jablonsky came and talked to you? Do you remember who attended?"

She shook her head. "I've already thought of that. It was an open house, so people were coming and going the whole evening, picking up brochures, filling out forms to request more information. Like that. If they actually
sold
their policies, it would have been when Jablonsky contacted them later, one-on-one." She paused to sip at her wine. "Like he did me."

"I'll figure out something," I said, although other than breaking into Jablonsky's office after hours and rummaging through his files, I didn't have a clue how I might go about it.

"Perhaps this will help." Mrs. Bromley hauled another piece of paper out of her purse and laid it on top of the photographs. It was a handwritten list of ten names, headed by Clark Gammel and Tim Bums. "These are the folks at Ginger Cove who have died during the past year," she told me. "See if you can find out how many of these people are Jablonsky's customers."

She reached out and squeezed my arm. "I'm frightened, Hannah. I honestly think that gardener is stalking me."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

First thing the following morning, I telephoned
Jablonsky's office.

"Mutually Beneficial Financial Services Group, Gail Parrish speaking, how may I direct your call?"

"Congratulations!" I said. "That was flawless."

Gail giggled into her end of the phone. "Who is this?"

"This is Hannah Ives. Remember me? I was there last week."

"Oh, hi, Hannah. Sure, I remember. Gil thought you might be calling back."

I'll bet, I thought.
Cheeky S.O.B
.

What I said was: "Well, I don't know why he'd be expecting me to call back because I've been going so wishy-washy on him. If it were just up to me, you know, I'd sign up in a second, but my husband is dead set against it. Gil said I wouldn't exactly have to tell him. But Paul and me? Our marriage has always been based on trust and I don't feel comfortable hiding stuff from him. You know what I mean?"

"Uh-huh."

"But here's the thing," I dithered on. "I've been talking to my dad about this viatical opportunity and I think he might be interested. Mom's been gone for a couple of years and Dad's been paying premiums on this policy he really doesn't need anymore.

"As it stands now, of course, I'll get something when he dies, but I don't want to be
selfish
. You know? He's eighty-seven," I told her, adding a couple of decades to my father's actual age. "He could go somewhere! Take a cruise!" I paused to take a breath. "Would Mr. Jablonsky be interested, do you think?"

"Gil would be interested if your
parakeet
wanted to sell its life insurance policy," Gail deadpanned.

"You are a hoot!" I screamed.

"Don't quote me," Gail said.

 
“Trust me, I won't. Parakeets!" I giggled. "Well, anyway," I forged on, like a telemarketer on commission. "My dad lives out at Ginger Cove, that retirement community off Riva Road? So, I was wondering. Are there any Ginger Cove residents Dad can talk to for references?"

Apparently Gail had never heard of HIPAA because she agreed to help me right away. "They're not organized like that in our database," she told me. "I'll have to check the contact files in Gil's office. It'll take a few minutes. Can I call you back?"

"Sure," I said, and gave her my number.

When I hung up, I felt guilty. Gail was a nice young woman. I hated lying to her. When all this was over, maybe I would be able to do something for her. Take her out for lunch or something. Try to explain.

The next thirty minutes crawled by. I loaded the dishwasher, watered my houseplants, and watched ten minutes of the
Today
show.

The phone sat silent.

I paced for a while, then went off in search of my knitting bag, which contained a partially completed cable-knit sweater I'd been working on since the last Winter Olympics. I plopped down on the living room sofa next to the portable phone and lengthened the back of the sweater by two rows—knit, purl, cheaper than Prozac, purl, knit—and was working in a cable when the phone finally rang. I could tell by the Caller ID it was Gail.

"Hey hey!" I said.

"Hi, it's me. Gail. As if you didn't know," she said.

"I just
love
Caller ID."

"I got some references for your dad," Gail said. "Got a pencil?"

"Shoot."

As Gail read, I jotted down the names. Gammel and Burns were no surprise, nor was Nadine Smith Gray, the name Mrs. Bromley's mother gave her at birth. By the time Gail was done, though, I was hardly breathing. Of the nine potential references Gail read out to me, six would never be referring anybody to anything ever again. They were numbers one, two, four, six, seven, and nine on Mrs. Bromley's obituary list.

I'd gone pretty far, but the adrenaline was pounding in my ears, and I decided, perhaps recklessly, to push it. "Gee, thanks, Gail," I gushed, "That'll help me a lot." Then added, hoping that it might sound like an afterthought, "Say, Mr. Jablonsky was telling me about the zillions of companies he was dealing with and how some were better than others. Can you tell me what companies bought these policies?"

"I'm not supposed to," Gail whispered, "but Gil almost always goes with ViatiPro, especially for the seniors."

I heard the clack of her computer keys. "Let's see now. Wyetha Hodge. That's ViatiPro.
Clack-clack
. Timothy Burns. ViatiPro.
Clackety-clack
. Parker, ditto . . ."

I was beginning to wonder if Gilbert Jablonsky ever did business with any companies other than ViatiPro.

Gail paused. I could hear her breathing. "Gammel, ViatiPro." Her keys clacked a few more times, then she muttered, "Say, this is odd. Let me call you back."

The telephone went dead in my ear.

I sat there on my sofa, staring at the receiver, feeling cheated. "Gail, come back!" I wailed. Nothing.

I cradled the receiver, stuffed my knitting back into the bag and set it aside.

Valerie's policy had been sold to ViatiPro. Now I knew for sure that Clark Gammel had sold his policy to ViatiPro, too. As had the late Mr. Timothy Burns.

Barbara Parker, number three on Mrs. Bromley's list, hadn't croaked—yet—but James McGowan had, and he was lucky policy holder number six.

Maybe Gilbert Jablonsky wasn't the common denominator at all, I thought. Maybe it was the folks at ViatiPro who were, in Mrs. Bromley's words, helping things along.

There's a clock mounted on the ceiling as you head down to our basement. Nobody knows why. It was there when we moved in ten years ago, and as far as I knew, nobody'd ever changed the battery, yet it continued to run, regular as, well, clockwork. As I headed down to my office to check out ViatiPro on the Internet, the clock glared at me accusingly: 8:45. I'd promised Donna I'd be in by nine. I was a professional. If I didn't hurry it up, I'd be late for work.

By taking the back roads—through West Annapolis, out Ridgely to Bestgate—I made it to Victory Mutual and was sitting in Mindy's cubicle, typing away, only seconds before Donna passed by on her way to the coffee urn.

She waved.

I waved back.

After she turned the corner, I clicked out of the Victory Mutual database and logged onto the Internet.

ViatiPro's website was slick and professional, last updated, I noticed, only the day before. Headquartered in Greenbelt, Maryland, they had offices in Frederick, Salisbury, and St. Mary's City, geographically situated to serve the entire state of Maryland, "Proudly," I noted, "since 1994."

In additional to viatical settlements, ViatiPro offered investment opportunities that included the usual stocks, bonds, mutual funds, REITs, and limited partnerships (whatever the hell they were!), as well as opportunities to invest in a proposed resort out western Maryland way at Deep Creek Lake and in an upscale restaurant in Rockville, just outside of Washington, D.C.

Investment advisers were available to talk with me from
10:00 a.m
. to
7:00 p.m
. daily, or I could fill out the blanks in their handy online form, click Send, and information would soon be winging my way. No cost, no obligation.

For sure.

I clicked around some more and located a picture of C. Alexander Steele, founder and CEO of ViatiPro. Steele smiled out from the screen with the teeth, hairdo, and guileless blue eyes of a television evangelist. He wore a blue suit, white shirt, and red tie, and looked so patriotic, I felt like saluting.

With my mouse, I circled my pointer around the CEO's face. "C. Alexander Steele," I said to his computerized image. "Look out, because I've got your number."

I picked up my cell phone and dialed.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"Hannah, you are out of your ever-loving mind!"

By that remark, I guessed my husband wasn't exactly giving a stamp of approval to my plan.

"She's your daughter, George. Can't you talk some sense into her?"

We were sitting in my father's spacious kitchen around a table strewn with the remains of an excellent five-course Chinese carry-out dinner.

Daddy polished off a dumpling. "I don't know, Paul. It sounds like fun."

"Fun?" Paul jabbed his chopsticks into a container of mushi pork, where they stood up straight and quivered. "It's plain crazy."

Daddy grinned. "I agree with Hannah. I think we need to see what this guy Steele's game is."

Paul's face wore that troubled expression where his eyebrows nearly met. "You really think he's snuffing people for the insurance money?"

"I think
somebody
is," I said. "Besides," I added. "It's too late. I've already called for an appointment. I'm on at ViatiPro for three-thirty tomorrow afternoon, so if you won't play along . . ." I pointed to Paul. ". . . then eenie-meenie-miney-moe, I choose you!" My finger stopped, pointing to my father.

Daddy rotated his shoulders and stretched his neck, preening like a peacock. "Who shall I be, then? A Texas oilman? A wealthy industrialist? The owner of a small, but successful, chain of jewelry stores?" His eyes sparkled. Daddy was just getting warmed up.

"Just come as you are," I suggested with a smile.

"Under what name?"

"Lord, give me strength!" Paul lifted his eyes heavenward. "They're using aliases, now!"

"I always fancied being a Herbert," Daddy mused. "Or a Jerome."

"Cool your jets, Daddy. They have databases these days. They can look you up and know everything about you by close of business today, including your shoe size and brand of deodorant. Sorry, you're just plain old Captain George D. Alexander, U.S. Navy, Retired."

"Cuthbert?" Daddy raised an eyebrow hopefully.

"Behave yourself!" I picked a stray curried rice noodle off his shirt. "If you want to be creative—" I paused to think. "You know that string tie you brought home from Arizona?"

"The one with the silver dollar?"

Paul's eyes widened. "There's more than one?"

I ignored him. "That's the one. Wear that."

Daddy pinched my cheek. "Sho nuff, sweet thang.

I hardly recognized the dashing elder statesman who came to pick me up on Wednesday afternoon. Since retirement, Daddy had taken to favoring chinos and loose pullover sweaters. If he wore shoes at all, they'd be Docksiders or sandals.

This time, though, he'd spent some time cultivating his look. My "date" wore black leather, panel toe low-rise boots, and a light blue shirt with his dark gray, Sunday-go-to-meeting suit. The string tie had been an inspiration, adding a certain
je ne sais quoi
to his ensemble. His curly gray hair was freshly washed, and with the help, I suspect, of a little gel, combed straight back. If Neelie Gibbs could see Daddy now, she'd forget all that nonsense about separate hotel rooms and jump his bones for sure.

"How do I look?" he asked me.

"I'm speechless."

"Is that good or bad?"

I kissed his cheek. "It's good. Very good."

Daddy spread his arms wide. "I thought I'd hint at old Texas money gone East." He winked. "That's why I left the Stetson at home."

"Thank goodness for small favors."

"Wanna know something, sweetheart?" He grinned. "I haven't had so much fun since I played Bunthorne in high school."

I stopped to think. "Bunthorne?"

"You remember. The effete poet in Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta
Patience
."

"Oh, right! The Oscar Wilde character." I had to chuckle, picturing my father wearing a velvet smock and a floppy beret and carrying, as Bunthorne did, a limp lily. I hoped this role wouldn't prove more demanding; at least he wouldn't be required to sing.

"So." Daddy took me by the shoulders and held me at arm's length. "What are you supposed to be?"

“Trophy wife," I said.

Indeed, I looked like I'd walked straight out of Talbot's red door, in a beige linen suit with matching hose and high-heeled sandals I'd recently bought for a wedding. I'd accessorized with a Hermes scarf and a bit of gold jewelry, but the piece de resistance was the ring, a two carat cubic zirconium Paul'd once given me as a joke. I'd dug the CZ out of my jewelry box and slipped it on my right hand, hoping Steele wouldn't get close enough to notice that my diamond had come from JC Penney rather than Bailey, Banks and Biddle.

"I like your hair," Daddy said.

"Thanks." My bangs had grown too long, so I'd tamed them by sweeping them to one side and clipping them in place with a rhinestone-encrusted gold butterfly.

Daddy licked an index finger and pressed it into my shoulder. "Ssssssst," he teased. "Hot stuff."

I slapped his hand. "Save it for your other girlfriends," I teased.

As we sped down Route 50 toward the Washington beltway, I switched the car radio off and filled my father in. "I'm not exactly sure what we're looking for," I said, "but I've been sticking my nose into this business long enough that I think I'll know it when I see it.

"At first, I thought Jablonsky was the lowest common denominator," I continued. "But now I think he only serves as a middleman. He simply arranges the sale of the policies—presumably to the highest bidder—and takes a percentage of the sale up front."

Daddy eased his Chrysler out into the fast lane to pass a slow-moving truck. "Was it Deep Throat who advised Woodward—or was it Bernstein?—to 'Follow the money?’”

"Well, exactly," I agreed. "Jablonsky's already been paid, so I can't figure out what he'd have to gain by bumping anybody off."

"What's Steele's role, then? He's next in the food chain, right?"

"Yes, and that's where it gets a little murky. In a basic scenario, Steele—or rather, ViatiPro—would buy a policy at a percentage of its face value, hold on to it until the person died, at which point the insurance company would pay Steele, as beneficiary, the full face value of the policy. If the person dies quickly enough, Steele stands to make a handsome profit."

"And, as you say, have a fine motive for murder if the person doesn't oblige by dying on schedule."

"But that's just it," I complained. "Steele doesn't take any chances. He turns right around and sells the policies he's just bought to investors." I poked my father in the arm with my finger. "I.e., you."

"So the only person with a motive for hastening the death of the—what's the word?—viator, would be the person whose name appears as the beneficiary on the policy."

"Yes."

"And that would be ViatiPro or a ViatiPro investor."

"Right."

"But you'd have to know who the viator was before you could help him pack his bags for a one-way trip to heaven on the gospel train."

"Uh-huh."

Daddy steered the Chrysler onto the exit ramp and eased into the heavy traffic moving west on I-495. "ViatiPro would have the names of the viators on file, of course, but how would I, as an investor, get this kind of personal information? Surely the viators are assured of privacy?"

"One would assume so."

"So, again, if you're not considerate enough to die and make me richer, how do I find out who you are and make it so?"

"That's what I hope we're about to find out."

I'd been spending a lot of time in offices lately, but Steele's was the handsomest of the lot, occupying a suite on the top floor of a glass and steel building overlooking Route 450 and the Washington beltway.

When the elevator doors slid open and deposited us into the lobby at the stroke of three-thirty, we could see, even through the double glass doors to our right, that Steele and his staff went about their business with the hum of commerce tastefully absorbed by plush plum carpeting, dark wood paneling, and handsome, custom-upholstered overstuffed furniture.

The receptionist, a clean-cut young man who looked like be should be selling Bibles door-to-door, buzzed us in. "Mr. Steele's expecting you," be said. "Please have a seat."

I settled comfortably into a leather wingback chair that would have looked quite at home in a men's club. If I worked there, I thought, I'd spend half my time curled up in the furniture, fast asleep.

Daddy picked up a copy of
Field & Stream
and began leafing through it. I grabbed a
National Geographic
with a dinosaur on the cover and began reading about islands in the South Pacific.

On the wall behind the receptionist's head the big hand of a bronze Art Deco clock clicked slowly from VI to VII. I coughed.

The receptionist looked up.

I pointed to the clock.

He made a Y with his thumb and little finger and tapped his ear: Steele was on the telephone.

I went back to drooling over pictures of Pacific atolls.

The big hand had clicked onto the IX when the elevator doors slid open and a stocky, balding man erupted from them. When the receptionist buzzed him in, the guy—a symphony in brown with tie ends flapping—straight-armed his way through the glass doors. He brushed past without even looking our way, and loomed over the reception desk like a malevolent mushroom.

"He in?'

"He's on the phone, sir."

"I gotta see him, Matt. Now."

"If you'll just wait a minute, sir." The receptionist picked up the phone and was punching buttons as if his life depended on it. Maybe it did.

"Can't wait" The guy turned and chugged down the hall.

The receptionist leaped up with the telephone still pressed to his ear, his left hand raised as if hailing a cab. "You can't . . . Please! Wait!"

I peeked around the wing of my armchair in time to see the guy's brown coattails disappear around a corner.

The receptionist sat down with a resigned and audible thud that sent his chair, which must have been on wheels, rolling backward into the wall. "Shit."

"Who was that?" I asked.

He looked up, startled. "Oh, sorry about that. I shouldn't swear in front of the clients."

"That's all right," I said. "It's a technical term. I use it every day."

The young man grinned, relief flooding his face.

"So," I asked again, "who was that impatient son of a gun?"

"Nick Pottorff," he replied. "One of the investors."

My father cleared his throat importantly. "Excuse me, but we're investors, too," he complained.

"I'm sorry, sir, but—" He extended his hands, palms out, and shrugged.

I laid a hand on my father's arm. "That's okay, sweetheart. Pottorff's an impatient jerk. It's not the young man's fault."

I beamed at the receptionist. "Your name is Matt?"

"Matthew," he replied.

"Well, Matthew, my husband has a theory about brown-suited men."

Daddy raised an eyebrow as if trying to remember what, if anything, he had ever said to me about brown-suited men.

“Tell him, sweetheart," I prompted. “Tell him your theory about brown-suited men."

"Brown suit," Daddy said, sounding puzzled.

I nodded.

"Brown socks."

"Uh-huh."

“Tacky tie."

I shook my head to disagree. "Cheap. The Three Stooges on a tie is tacky. Or Christmas elves. Brown and orange triangles are just plain cheap."

"Cheap tie, then," Daddy amended.

"Right."

"And therefore . . ." Daddy scanned my face, desperate for help.

"Untrustworthy!" I concluded.

Matthew laughed out loud. "You're right," he said. "Pottorff's a royal pain in the ass. If I didn't need this job—" His voice trailed off. "I'm in school. University of Maryland," he explained. He raised a chemistry textbook from where he'd had it concealed under the counter. "Working here usually gives me plenty of time to study."

Daddy had returned his attention to
Field & Stream
, no doubt thinking I'd lost my mind with the brown-suited man bit. It was a little dopey, I admit. Just my feeble attempt to lighten the situation for a clearly embarrassed Matt.

"I'd like to go back to school," I embroidered dreamily. "Maybe to study fashion design."

Daddy looked up from the magazine and rolled his eyes. "The wife," he said carelessly, "is an expert on fashion. She has charge accounts at Saks, Neiman Marcus . . . "

I made a fist and punched him, hard, on the arm. "Stop it, George!"

". . . Nordstrom, Lord and Taylor." Daddy might have continued the litany of department stores forever, had the telephone not rung.