Absolute Liability

by Jennifer Becton

  “I don’t think you do.”

  There was a pause, and he heard road noise in the background. Then the voice came through the speaker again. “I’ve got that investigator and all her evidence on us.”

  He snorted his disbelief. “Are you certain you’ve got the investigator?”

  “Yeah, I’m certain. She’s tied up in the back.”

  “Jesus, don’t tell me any details. I don’t want to know. I had nothing to do with this.”

  “The hell you didn’t.” The voice had turned cold. “You’re in this just as deep as me.”

  “This kidnapping—or whatever the hell it is you’re up to—is your doing, not mine.”

  “Yeah, I’m saving both our asses. We couldn’t survive her investigation. I would have lost everything. You would have lost everything.”

  He glanced around to make sure no one could hear him. When he was sure he was alone, he said, “No, what you’ve done is screw us both.”

  “You don’t think I can handle this?”

  “I know you can’t handle it,” he said on a sharp exhale. “You’ve got the wrong woman.”

  “Shit,” the voice said. “Shit, shit.”

  And then the line went dead.

  “My laptop and work bag are missing,” I said to Starnes, who had set himself up in the doorway and not budged during my search of the office. “I can’t be sure about the Southeastern paperwork until the crime scene guys go through this mess. All my case information was stacked on the corner of my desk. I asked Amber to scan the older papers so I could have digital copies of everything.”

  He glanced around and nodded. “Can you tell if anything else has been taken? Anything from the drawer there?”

  I gave him a wry look. “Are you kidding me? I have no idea what was in that drawer.”

  “Could be something was taken from it.”

  “I suppose, but I doubt it. Looks more like he used those files to hide what he did take.”

  “Tell me there are copies of those files.” He pointed to the place where the files had been on my desk.

  I shot him another wry look. “Of course. The originals are still on file with the company; I only had copies. The newer documents are stored digitally as PDFs, but some of this stuff goes back a long way. The original policy was too old to be digital, which was why I asked Amber to scan it in the first place.”

  “Maybe she hadn’t finished the job yet,” Starnes said. “Let’s go check her cube.”

  I led the way to Amber’s cubicle, but her worktop was almost bare. I stared at her lonely cell phone, the sole object of hers on the desk, and regret pummeled my heart. This little girl, whose biggest problem until today had been cutting out caffeine, was now suffering in my place. Shaking my head, I said, “They’re not here. Maybe she already finished scanning the documents and sent me the PDFs.”

  I went to the adjacent cube and checked my email. There was nothing from Amber. “Nothing here either. I’m starting to think she was in my office to pick up the work, not drop it off.”

  “What was so important in those files?”

  “They pertained to a liability claim for the wastewater treatment plant in Mercer. I’m investigating allegations that the policy was written despite the fact that the facility didn’t meet all safety regs as stated by the insurer.” Starnes stared at me blankly. I couldn’t blame him; insurance was another world. “That basically means that if there were an accident—and there was—and the victim sued—and she did—the facility would file a liability claim with Southeastern. They did. Then the company sent out an inspector, who found that the accident was caused by unsafe structures that were not up to code, and so they denied the claim. The wastewater treatment facility protested, saying they’d never been made aware that they needed to make such changes.”

  “So what does that mean? In simple language, please.” He looked at his watch and grunted. “It’s already been a long day.”

  “It means that either the safety regulations were overlooked by accident or someone knew about the noncompliance but found a way to profit from writing the policy anyway.”

  Starnes made a growling noise. “How is any of that even possible? And why?”

  “Well, the wastewater treatment policy was a major one. We’re talking millions in liability coverage. It would mean a big commission yearly for the agent who closed the deal.”

  “Who closed the deal?”

  “A local independent agent who sells insurance for Southeastern: Gerwalt Insurance Agency.”

  “Sounds like we need to go and have a talk with this Gerwalt.”

  “Yes, Gerry Gerwalt and her son James, who co-own the agency, definitely warrant your time, but they are not the only potential suspects in this fraud.”

  “Yeah,” Starnes said, nodding. “Wouldn’t the wastewater treatment facility have to be involved? Wouldn’t they know they were out of compliance with the regs?” He was definitely starting to catch on to the fraud mindset.

  “They could certainly have a part in this. They could have bribed the agent, the inspector, or both to get the policy without having to lay out hundreds of thousands in facility upgrades. On the other hand…,” I began with a glance at Starnes, who scowled at me. He seemed to want a tidy case, but in the fraud world, things often turned out a bit twisty. “The facility itself wouldn’t have known about the regulations unless the agent or inspector told them.”

  “So we may be dealing with a dirty agent, a dirty inspector, or a dirty city employee. Maybe all three.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, which one is it?”

  “That’s what I was sent here to find out.”

  “We need copies of those documents,” he said, making a note.

  “Yes, but we’re not even certain they were taken yet.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Starnes said. “But still, do you have any idea why someone might take them, if they were taken? Did you see anything that might incriminate anyone?”

  I thought back over my initial reading of the documents. “Nothing jumped out at me. I don’t see why anyone would bother stealing them anyway. They were only copies. The originals are still here.”

  “Maybe he didn’t know they were copies,” he said. “I’ll have the crime scene guys look out for them. Anything else on that laptop or in your bag?”

  “I had the case file and some preliminary notes from a suspected arson that landed on my agenda today. Also, there was a camera with pictures from the fire scene that I took on my visit there this afternoon.” Then something dawned on me. “My planner was in there too. It had details of all my contacts and schedule.”

  By taking that bag, the abductor had basically gained an all-access pass to my life.

  A potentially violent criminal had my address, my family’s addresses, and details about my schedule. I gripped the edge of the desk in front of me until my knuckles turned into little white spheres against my skin.

  Because of me, Amber Willis had been abducted.

  Because of me, my family was in danger.

  I was in danger.

  I couldn’t say anything for a long moment as I struggled to gather myself.

  Starnes just stood there, looking around the configuration of cubicles in the large room as if he wished he could disappear into one of them.

  “Maybe we should have another look in there.” He nodded toward the office. “You might see something helpful.”

  As if I hadn’t already been helpful.

  My phone chirped just as I was about to tell Starnes there wasn’t much I could do until the crime scene guys finished their work. I looked at the caller ID. It was my sister Tricia.

  Crap.

  My supposed abduction had been all over the news, and, being mostly unemployed, Tricia watched a lot of daytime TV. She was not the most stable person in the world to begin with, but she would absolutely freak over this.

  I held my finger up to Starnes to let him know I needed a minute. Peeling off
my latex gloves, I stepped past him out of the cubicle and into the hall. Of course, with the uniformed officers going back and forth, it was no more private there, but it would have to do.

  “Hey Tricia,” I said, affecting the cheery, carefree voice I always used when I thought she might be on the edge. It was sad that I actually had a voice reserved for this situation. And I used it a lot.

  “Oh my God! Are you okay?”

  I had selected the correct tone of voice. Tricia sounded about as I had expected, panicked and self-medicated. “I’m fine.”

  Her voice dropped to a warbly whisper. “Are you tied up in the trunk of a car? Or locked in a room with no windows? Oh my God. I’ll call the police.” A pause. “But I hate cops. I’ll call the FBI.” Another pause. “What should I do?”

  I found myself holding my hand up to try to get a word in edgewise. Of course, she couldn’t see me. I felt stupid and looked around to see if anyone noticed.

  “Tricia. I’m okay. I wasn’t kidnapped.”

  “But they said on TV…. Wait. Are you being held at gunpoint and forced to lie? I’ve seen that before.”

  I didn’t give her time to try to remember which TV shows used that plotline. “It was all a mistake. It wasn’t me who was taken.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I laughed a little. “Yes, I’m sure.”

  I heard the ice knocking around in her plastic cup of Lord Calvert whiskey. “You’re sure you’re sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure I’m sure.”

  “Right.” She drew out the word so it sounded vaguely disbelieving. I heard more ice in the background.

  “They’ll announce it on TV.” Tripp had probably already notified the information officer, and I knew word would soon be out.

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  This seemed to relax her—that or the Lord Calvert—and her voice returned to a more normal, drunken tone. “I guess I’ll turn the sound up then.”

  “Yeah, and tell Mom I’m fine and that I’ll be over on Sunday just like usual.”

  We said goodbye and I hung up, feeling fairly confident that my sister would remember to tell my mother I was okay. Or, barring that, I hoped Mom would see the correction on TV.

  I glanced around. No one was paying me a bit of mind. I needed a moment to regroup, so I leaned against the wall and let out the sigh I’d been repressing. It felt good, like a pressure-release valve.

  I loved my sister. She had gone through more in her nearly thirty-five years than most people did in a lifetime. And it showed. In high school, she was a cheerleader with beautiful sunny blond hair and a disposition to match. Now she drank from the moment her feet hit her trailer floor until she got back into her bed at night and her disposition was, well, partly cloudy.

  And there was nothing I could do to help her. Not really. I knew that, but Tricia was still a driving force in my life. She was the reason I’d become a cop.

  Tricia was raped when she was seventeen years old. She had driven me home from a football game and was on her way out again, heading to a party, when she got a flat tire on her Z28. She was gamely trying to change her own tire—a chore for which she was woefully unprepared—without getting her cheerleading uniform streaked with grease and road grit. The driver of a Honda Civic pulled over, ostensibly to render aid. He changed her tire, and then he demanded payment by promptly dragging her into the woods and raping her.

  Fortunately, she blocked out—or was knocked out for—most of what happened next. When she regained consciousness, her attacker was long gone, and she was left with bruises and contusions. Her vision was blurry, but she got into the car and managed to drive home.

  The moment she walked through that door, our whole family imploded.

  Long story short: our parents blamed each other and ended up in divorce court. My father moved out, and my mother mentally checked out. Tricia found alcohol, and I tried to fix it all.

  Tricia’s rape set the course of my life. After high school, I majored in criminal justice and joined the force.

  Never mind that my natural temperament is not really suited for law enforcement work.

  To be honest, I don’t know what my temperament is suited for, and that’s a pathetic thing for a thirty-two-year-old woman to say. But I never got a chance to figure it out for myself. Maybe, if things had been different, I would have become a cheerleader like my sister, an artist, a musician, a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker. I don’t know. I never had the chance to decide.

  But still, I kept going, taking every step I could think of in order to catch Tricia’s assailant. Step one, step two, step three. Check, check, check. The problem was that I never quite made it to the last step: I never found my sister’s rapist. And my investigation had hit a major slowdown now that I was working for the DOI.

  That thought reminded me that I needed to call Ted, the senior field agent at our office. Obviously, he had not heard the alert on the radio or he’d already be here.

  He picked up on the third ring, and I explained everything that had happened in a condensed format.

  Ted liked things neat and tidy.

  When I had completed the explanation, he said, “I’ll call in to Atlanta and let them know what’s happened. When you’re done with the local PD, we’ll need you back at the office.”

  And that was that. It was going to be a long day.

  I ended the call and looked up to see that Tripp had rejoined me in the hall at some point.

  “You had a look?” He nodded toward the office.

  I slipped my phone into my purse. “I’m afraid there’s not much to say. It’s a mess, but my work bag and laptop, and maybe some of my papers, were taken along with Amber.”

  “Maybe something else will pop if you take a second look.” He nudged me back into the room where Starnes was waiting. As I entered, I said to them both over my shoulder, “I’m wondering if we might be looking too closely at the Southeastern angle. If the abductor truly was after me—”

  “And it seems he was,” Starnes said.

  “—then it could be a coincidence that it took place here at Southeastern.”

  “You working on anything else?”

  “Yes, I was assigned a case of suspected arson here in Mercer.”

  “The DOI handles arsons regularly?”

  “The fire marshal is attached to the DOI, and we got an anonymous tip that Roger McKade had lit up his own warehouse. After looking into it, we discovered McKade had also filed an insurance claim, so the case was immediately bumped to suspected second-degree arson. I visited the site this afternoon, and our fire inspector is due out next Monday. The owner knew I’d be there.”

  “Was he on site when you visited?”

  “No, but he could have been watching from a distance and then followed me back here.”

  I didn’t like to admit that I could have been followed, but I supposed it was possible. When I was a cop, I checked for tails, but I’d gotten out of the habit since I’d joined the DOI.

  Insurance scammers are generally nonviolent, and there aren’t many variations on their schemes. Occasionally, investigators run into some large, developed group, but it’s rare. Usually, scammers give up pretty easily and we avoid messy litigation. Of course, there are some who have pushed their luck and ended up in prison.

  One, apparently, abducts insurance fraud investigators. And arson is generally a predictor of more violent predilections. Statistically speaking, an arsonist was more likely to carry out an abduction than the average white-collar criminal.

  Plus, McKade had prior arrests for public drunkenness and assault.

  “If he followed you here and was watching the building, wouldn’t he have seen you leave in the Explorer on your coffee run? Wouldn’t he have known what you were wearing?” Tripp asked.

  “Seems like he would, but if he were watching from a distance, he might not have been able to see much detail. He might have only had a vague impression: general height, w
eight, hair color, clothing color. Men don’t often pay attention to clothing, I’ve found.”

  “How did he locate your office?”

  “Can’t say. He had my name, so he could have asked an employee.”

  “We’ll ask around about that. Maybe we can get a better description of the guy.”

  Starnes made a note and then asked, “How is it he got in with a gun without someone in the adjacent offices seeing? Or hearing the girl being taken?”

  I considered the question. “In the morning, the main office space is full of interns and part-timers. Some of them leave at lunchtime, and the rest leave around 2 PM. Only the interns stay until the close of business.”

  “So there weren’t many people here,” Tripp said.

  I shook my head. “And if there wasn’t a struggle, it’s possible that he basically just walked in, took Amber, grabbed my bag and files, spread some papers around to hide what he’d taken, and then walked right back out.”

  We all pondered that for a while. It sounded like the crime had been shockingly easy to commit.

  Starnes looked back at his notes. “So you pissed off anyone else we need to know about?”

  What a charmer.

  I cut my eyes over to him. “No more than usual.”

  “Could this be related to one of your past cases?”

  “It seems unlikely. Most scammers don’t resort to revenge, and I can’t think of anyone who seemed to harbor a grudge against me.”

  “Do you think….”

  Tripp’s uncharacteristic hesitation told me more than his words might. I knew what he was about to say, and I really wished he wouldn’t.

  “Do you think this might have anything to do with your personal investigation?”

  Tripp was one of the few people who knew about my inquiry into Tricia’s rape, but anyone with any sense must have known I’d chosen to become a cop for that reason. Only he knew the full story. He knew that from the day of her rape, I’d decided the best way to help Tricia and the whole family was to find the guy who assaulted her. Tripp knew the lengths to which I’d gone, and would still go, to bring justice to my sister.

  He knew about my copy of Tricia’s cold case file. It didn’t contain much. Back when the rape occurred, forensic science was in its infancy, but her evidence box contained the fluid-stained fabric of her underwear, a fingerprint, a partial tire track belonging to a tire probably used on zillions of Honda Civics, and the police report. It wasn’t much, but I hoped one day something in the box would help me identify her attacker.