A Discount for Death pc-11

by Steven F Havill

  Schroeder’s eyebrows shot up again as if he were genuinely surprised at the answer. The jury certainly was, since eight heads swiveled to face Estelle.

  “It was paid?” Schroeder asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “By the insurance company’s home office?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Who made the payment?”

  “Mr. Enriquez made the payment with a personal check.”

  “So the deputy made a damage claim, and the agent paid the claim out of his own pocket.” Schroeder eyed the jury, his eyebrows arched quizzically. He held out his hand and bent one index finger down with the other. “One of the sheriff’s deputies thought that he had a policy…and didn’t. He made a claim, and it was quickly paid, no questions asked, by the agent’s own personal check.”

  He turned to Estelle. “Did the deputy make a copy of that personal check for his records, Undersheriff Guzman?”

  “No, sir.”

  “But the bank has records, as we’ll see in a bit,” Schroeder said. He turned to face the jury again. “Eleanor Pope thought she had insurance, and made monthly payments. She would have been able to make a hefty insurance claim, had she survived the night.” He paused. “Now, sadly enough, it’s only her estate that has a claim.” He took a deep breath. “Any questions for the undersheriff at this point?”

  A hand drifted up in the back row. Dr. Silvia Todd didn’t look husky enough to be a chiropractor. Estelle hadn’t seen her use the notepad provided by the court, but she had listened attentively. She shifted in her chair, leaning forward. “Are you saying that what’s his name…Denton Pope? Is that the son?”

  Schroeder nodded. “Eleanor Pope’s son, yes.”

  “Are you saying that Denton Pope planned to murder his mother and burn down the family home so that he could claim the insurance?”

  The district attorney gently pushed his podium microphone a fraction of an inch further way. “That’s a good question, but actually, that’s not the task facing this particular grand jury,” he said. “Obviously, had Denton Pope not been killed in the explosion, it would be a different story.”

  “But I mean, that’s what he did?” Dr. Todd pursued.

  “It appears so, yes.”

  “So let me get this straight,” Dr. Todd said, with the same sort of eager enthusiasm she might show while regarding a crooked spine. “Denton Pope thought that he had home-owner’s insurance…or he thought that his mother did.”

  “That’s correct. That’s what we think,” Schroeder said.

  “But he…they…didn’t.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Oh.” Silvia Todd settled back in the padded swivel chair, shaking her head. “I don’t suppose we can indict somebody on the other side of the grave, huh.”

  Schroeder laughed gently, resting his hand over the microphone. “Any other questions right now for Undersheriff Guzman?”

  Various heads shook in the jury, and Schroeder nodded at Estelle. “Undersheriff, how long did you investigate the insurance dealings of George Enriquez?”

  “Over the course of approximately four months, sir.”

  “And during that investigation, did you discover that other people had been writing checks or giving cash to Mr. Enriquez, thinking that they were making insurance premium payments?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In some of those cases, is it true that no insurance policy had actually been issued?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In how many instances?”

  “We have established thirty-seven separate cases so far where premiums were allegedly paid but no policy was issued.”

  The courtroom fell silent as Schroeder gave the jury time to digest the number, and then he said, “Thirty-seven people were paying George Enriquez for insurance policies that did not exist. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The district attorney rested both elbows on the podium, his hands clasped together under his chin. “Did any one of these thirty-seven people ever file a complaint that they had been denied payment of an insurance claim by Mr. Enriquez or his agency?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Not one?”

  “No, sir. Not one of the thirty-seven people that we interviewed.”

  “Were any claims actually settled or paid out during that period to any of those thirty-seven people?” He waved a hand in dismissal. “Other than the one to the sheriff’s deputy that you’ve already mentioned.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What claims were paid?”

  “We found a total of nineteen claims that were paid by personal checks written by Mr. Enriquez.”

  “Over how long a period?”

  “Approximately four years.”

  “Did you compute an average amount for the claims?”

  “Yes, sir. The average for the nineteen claims was two hundred twelve dollars and nineteen cents.”

  Schroeder once more looked up at the ceiling, as if the figures were on the acoustical tile rather than in bold red ink in his notes. “Nineteen claims averaging a little over two hundred dollars. Some more, some less. Added together, Mr. Enriquez paid out a total of about four thousand dollars in claims. Is that correct?”

  “Four thousand thirty-one dollars and sixty-one cents.”

  Schroeder pursed his lips. “So four thousand bucks over four years. Out of his own pocket.” He shrugged. “Acting as his own small insurance pool, so to speak. Do you happen to know the average payment made by those thirty-seven customers to Mr. Enriquez?”

  Estelle glanced down at her small notebook. “The average monthly payment was seventy-two dollars and thirteen cents.”

  “Math isn’t my strong suit, but let’s see if we can make this simple. You’ve got an average payment of seventy-two bucks a month. So that’s something like eight hundred a year.”

  “Eight hundred and sixty-five dollars and fifty-six cents,” Estelle said.

  “Per person.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So thirty-seven times that eight hundred dollars.”

  “Yes, sir. Thirty-two thousand twenty-five dollars and seventy-two cents.”

  Schroeder turned in wonder to the jury. “Thirty-two grand a year, for four years.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He glanced at his notes. “My math tells me that’s a hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Four thousand out, a hundred and twenty-eight thousand in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  For a long moment, Schroeder stood quietly, gazing at his notes. “Undersheriff, during your investigations of these activities, did you come to believe that there was any certain type of person that Mr. George Enriquez favored with his insurance ‘deals’?”

  “A certain type of person, sir?”

  A flash of impatience shot across the district attorney’s face. “Did any of the thirty-seven people share common characteristics…or to put it another way, was there anything about their circumstances that they had in common?”

  “It appeared in each instance that the person either had difficulty obtaining insurance through normal channels or had an insurance history such that their rates would be higher than they were able to afford,” Estelle said.

  “So each one was a tough case. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In Mrs. Pope’s case, why would home-owner’s insurance through normal channels have been difficult…or expensive?”

  “They were heating with a defective, out-of-date wall unit as well as a wood stove elsewhere in the trailer that had not been installed according to code. They had also run a number of extension cords out to livestock pens in lieu of appropriate wiring. The mobile home itself was an older model that had been extensively altered by the home owners over the years.”

  “You understood this after conversations with fire department investigators?”

  “Yes, sir.”
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  “Had you been an insurance agent visiting the Popes’ property, would you have issued a policy based on what you saw?”

  “I’m not an insurance agent, sir. I couldn’t say.”

  “But George Enriquez issued the policy, didn’t he?”

  “As far as we can tell, there was no policy issued, sir.”

  “I stand corrected.” Schroeder grinned at the jury. “Mrs. Pope thought that she had an insurance policy and was no doubt grateful to Mr. Enriquez for providing some form of protection against loss. It appears that she was making monthly payments on that fictitious policy. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He was about to say something else when the door beside the vacant judge’s bench opened. Howard Bell, the court bailiff, stepped into the courtroom, closing the door behind him with exaggerated care. “Excuse me a minute,” the district attorney said to the jury, and walked across the courtroom toward Bell. The two men conferred briefly, and then Schroeder nodded and strode back toward the witness stand.

  As he bent close, he pushed the microphone boom far to one side. “You’ve got a phone call that you need to take, Undersheriff Guzman,” he said. “Use the phone in the judge’s chambers.” He turned to the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to take a short break. Please remain in the courtroom. If it’s going to be more than five or ten minutes, I’ll let you know.”

  Estelle’s pulse kicked as she hurried out of the courtroom, glancing at the wall clock as she passed the door to the court clerk’s office. She’d been in court for less than thirty minutes-a little more than an hour since she had left Perry Kenderman with instructions to go home and behave himself.

  Chapter Eleven

  Estelle settled the telephone receiver back in its cradle. Another button flashed on the phone console, a message just as quickly routed somewhere else in the county building as business carried on as usual. She pushed the chair back in and skirted around Judge Lester Hobart’s tidy walnut desk.

  Back in the courtroom, most of the jurors lounged in and around the jury box. One walked the perimeter of the room, swinging her arms to encourage a return of blood to her extremities. The jurors looked toward Estelle with interest as she reentered. Dan Schroeder leaned on the broad table used by the prosecution during regular trials, his hands planted among a sea of papers. He glanced up as Estelle approached. She leaned over the table, her back to the jurors.

  “Sir, we have a problem,” Estelle whispered.

  Schroeder straightened up.

  “George Enriquez’s secretary found his body a few minutes ago.”

  The district attorney looked hard at Estelle, the hand holding the papers sagging back toward the table. He drew a slow, deep breath. “Where?”

  “In his office, sir.”

  Schroeder slumped against the table and dropped the papers. “Christ,” he muttered. “Natural causes?”

  “No, sir. The sheriff asked that I break loose here, if that’s possible.”

  “Of course it’s possible.” He shook his head in frustration. “Keep me in the loop, all right?”

  Estelle nodded.

  “I’ll get these folks out of here in the next few minutes.” He flashed a humorless grin and rapped on the table with his knuckle. “I guess we’ll find out what the grand juror’s oath of secrecy is really worth.”

  As Estelle turned away, he stepped around the table and touched her elbow, whispering directly into her right ear. “And we need to talk about Officer Kenderman, too. Today sometime, if you can fit it in. I’ll be in Posadas at least until tomorrow morning, so…” He released her elbow. The jurors, sensing that something important had happened, had taken their seats, including the power-walking woman. Estelle nodded at them and left the court.

  The sheriff’s office was no more than a hundred steps away, across the small enclosed courtyard. Gayle Torrez, the sheriff’s wife, administrative assistant, and head dispatcher, glanced up as Estelle hurried in.

  She made a face of frustration and opened the glass door to the dispatch room. “Bobby just took off,” Gayle said. “Dennis took the first call. Howard’s over there, too.”

  “Right at the insurance office?” Estelle asked.

  Gayle nodded. “And I called Linda. She’s on her way.”

  “Good.”

  As soon as Estelle pulled her unmarked car out of the county parking lot, she looked down East Bustos toward the oval sign that announced GEORGE ENRIQUEZ, AGENT-CLU, HOME, AUTO, LIFE INSURANCE. The long, low stucco building was tucked in the lot immediately adjacent to Chavez Chevrolet-Olds, the two businesses separated by a low chain-link fence.

  A county patrol unit was parked straddling the street’s center line, facing westbound and nose to nose with one of the village cars. Nate Olguin, a part-time officer with the village, touched his cap when he recognized Estelle, and waved her through. The sheriff’s battered pickup was parked along the curb at the west end of the auto dealer’s lot. The ambulance hadn’t arrived, but Dr. Alan Perrone had, his dark green BMW so close to Deputy Collins’ Expedition that their bumpers appeared to be touching.

  As Estelle drove past and prepared to swing a U-turn, she saw two other vehicles in the lot beyond Torrez’s truck. Several people were standing in the parking lot of the car dealership, leaning against the new cars and waiting to see something interesting. As she pulled the car to a halt, Estelle heard the distant wail of a siren from the direction of the hospital.

  A yellow crime-scene ribbon stretched from the corner of the car dealer’s fence across the sidewalk to a street sign, then across the westbound lane to Collins’ unit, finally angling back across the street to the corner of a small abandoned building west of the insurance agency that at one time had been a hairdresser’s salon. Deputy Dennis Collins was standing at the front door of the agency, head swiveling this way and that as he watched street and sidewalk. As Estelle ducked under the ribbon and approached, he stepped away from the building.

  “They’re all inside,” he said.

  Estelle nodded and refrained from smiling at the young deputy’s earnest statement of the obvious. She stepped to the edge of the sidewalk. “Whose vehicles are those?”

  Collins turned to glance at the parking lot. “The Subaru belongs to Kiki Tafoya…she’s one of the office staff. And she’s the one who reported finding the body.”

  “The SUV is George’s?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I believe so.”

  Estelle walked the few steps to the corner of the building. The rest of the parking lot was empty. A second yellow ribbon stretched across the alley, looped around a scrubby saltbush, and then disappeared behind the building. “Is someone at the back door?”

  “Sergeant Bishop was back there, ma’am. He was kinda scouting the alley.”

  “Any signs of forced entry?”

  “No, ma’am.” Collins looked puzzled. “He shot himself. That’s what they were saying.”

  “Ah.” Estelle nodded, feeling a twinge of genuine sadness. Despite his penchant for fictitious insurance policies, George Enriquez had been a likable fellow-part of his secret as a successful salesman. Estelle realized that the looming threat of a grand jury investigation, with its promise that someone’s life was going to be forever changed, could be cause enough for depression, especially when, in George’s view, he’d done nothing to harm anyone.

  The undersheriff snapped on a pair of rubber surgical gloves and then paused with her finger hovering near the door handle. A computer-printed sign was taped to the inside of the window: OUR OFFICES WILL BE CLOSED THIS WEEK DUE TO FAMILY ILLNESS. Two emergency numbers were listed, and Estelle recognized Enriquez’s home number as well as National Mutual’s toll-free number.

  “Family illness,” she said aloud.

  “Well, in a way,” Collins said cheerfully.

  Estelle pulled the outer door open, keeping a single finger on the underside of the latch. The vestibule was no more than six feet square, just enough buffer to keep
the sand from blowing into the office when customers opened the door to the street. The ornately carved inner door rested ajar, a rubber stop placed between it and the jamb. A plastic bag enclosed the brass door lever. Estelle nudged the door open with her elbow.

  Kiki Tafoya sat in the swivel chair behind her desk, doubled over with her elbows on her knees and her face buried in her hands. Posadas Police Chief Eddie Mitchell knelt beside her, balanced on one knee so that his face was close to the girl’s, one large arm resting on the corner of her desk for balance. He glanced up as Estelle entered. Kiki nodded at something the chief said, and he patted her shoulder as he pushed himself to his feet.

  “Not pretty in there,” he murmured to Estelle as he stepped close. Estelle’s eyes roamed the small office. Enriquez had three employees, the other two working in cubicles whose boundaries were marked by six-foot partitions covered in soft yellow fabric. Behind Kiki Tafoya’s desk, the solid wall of wood paneling angled off to meet a section of tinted glass above three-foot paneled wainscoting. A heavy glass door marked George Enriquez’s private domain.

  She saw Sheriff Robert Torrez back partially out of the office doorway, his hands in his back pockets. He shook his head at something someone in the office said, then turned and saw Estelle. He nodded toward the interior of the office.

  Estelle stepped around Kiki’s desk. The girl didn’t look up, and Estelle could see her slender shoulders shaking. Kneeling down as the chief had done, she slid her arm across Kiki’s shoulders. The girl was strung as tight as a guy wire, her entire body quivering in shock.

  “Try to breathe slowly,” Estelle whispered. The girl uttered a little ummm of distress, refusing to lift her face from her hands.

  “Perrone gave her a sedative,” Mitchell said. “Her husband is coming down to pick her up in a few minutes.” Even as he said that, the ambulance arrived outside, its siren dying in a truncated yowl.

  “Okay.” She looked up at Mitchell, questioning.

  The chief shook his head. “She told Collins that she came in to the office this morning to pick up a jacket that she’d left here yesterday morning. When she was here for a few minutes, catching up on some paperwork, she said that she noticed that the light was on in the boss’ office this morning, and she looked in and saw him.” He shrugged. “That’s what we’ve got so far, anyway.”