She called her friend, Dale Porter, a FBI agent at the FBI’s Little Rock field office. He ran the info through the FBI’s database and came up with the same results.
Tasha then called the Medical Examiner’s office and spoke to Gary Fagin, the chief examiner, who reported that there was nothing unusual about Willie Davis’ death. “A run-of-the-mill drowning,” he said.
During lunch she told Bob about her dead-end search.
“Didn’t I tell you?” Bob said.
“Yeah, yeah, you told me. I promised the mother I’d look into it, didn’t say I would make it a national case. I’ll call her. She’ll probably complain that I gave it a peek instead of a good look.”
“Did you check with NICB?”
“No. You think I should?”
“A thorough investigation of a baseless claim wouldn’t be complete without it.”
After lunch, Tasha called the National Insurance Crime Bureau and listened to three voice recordings before finally speaking to a Tim Boxer, who wrote the info down and said he would be in touch.
Later that evening, Mrs. Davis called again. “What you come up with?”
“Mrs. Davis, unlike CSI, real-life investigations take longer, much longer.”
“Is it an official investigation now?”
“No, I didn’t say that. To be honest, Mrs. Davis, I haven’t discovered anything convincing me to keep looking. I’m sorry.”
“Did you talk to Perry?”
Tasha lighted a cigarette, inhaled deeply and blew smoke into the receiver. Amazingly, Mrs. Davis started coughing.
“Mrs. Davis, you do remember our agreement?”
“Yeah,” she said glumly and hung up the phone.
A few minutes later the phone rang again.
“Bob, cover for me. If it’s Mrs. Davis, I’m gone home.”
Bob picked up the phone, said hello and immediately handed it to Tasha. “Your friend.”
“What did I just tell you! Craps!” Politely: “Hello, Detective Montgomery, how may I help you?”
“Yes, I’m Richard Hollis. NICB. You called earlier inquiring of a Mrs. Perry Davis.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Detective Montgomery, the social security number you gave us is listed to a Perry Perkins. You said Perry Davis. Is that the same person?”
“If the social matches, I would think so.”
“May I inquire to the nature of your interest in Mrs. Perkins?”
“Routine check.”
“Routine check? Could you be a little more specific?”
“A lady called and expressed concerns regarding Perry Davis. I ran her name through a few databases to see if anything would pop up.”
“I see, so this is not an official investigation?”
“Mr. Hollis, I would love to sit here and talk shop with you, but I get off in a few minutes. We can continue this conversation some other time.”
“No, wait. I apologize. I like to know whom I’m dealing with. If you would wait a few minutes I’ll be right over. You may be interested in what I have to say.”
Tasha glanced at her watch. “I thought you guys were in Illinois.”
“Our headquarters is there. I’m located right here in Little Rock.”
“Something interesting, huh? Okay, I’ll wait.”
Twenty minutes later, agent Richard Hollis, a rail-thin, freckled-face man, appeared in front of her desk.
“Richard Hollis,” he greeted, extending a hand.
Tasha shook it, and to her chagrin discovered it wet.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “No paper towels in the bathroom.”
Great, Tasha thought. “No problem,” bathing her hands with Germ-X and rubbing it off with a Kleenex. “What’s all the excitement concerning Perry Davis?”
Richard Hollis frowned. “You keep referring to her as Perry Davis. Is that her current name?”
“According to our records it is. Are you actively investigating Mrs. Davis?”
“Yes and no. We have a file on her, but I’m sad to say, a closed file. I headed the investigation.”
“Insurance fraud?”
“Correct.”
“To what extent?”
“Good question,” Richard Hollis said. “According to my records, Perry Perkins has collected almost a million dollars in insurance claims.”
Tasha whistled.
“Yes indeed. Mrs. Perkins’ criminal acumen is the best I’ve ever seen. In my opinion she’s a criminal genius. No doubt you’ve checked her criminal history and came up blank.”
“Yes, I did.”
“She doesn’t even have a juvy record. No speeding tickets, no hot checks, nothing. Combine her criminal expertise with a small police department unwillingness to investigate unless there’s three or more eyewitnesses and a video tape, you have someone like Mrs. Perkins getting away with murder.”
“Mr. Hollis, if you have credible evidence supporting a homicide, we will do everything possible to bring forth an indictment.”
He smiled at her, a patronizing smile. “You’ve seen her driver’s photo, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I’ve seen it.”
“Her head is down. You can’t distinguish her face.”
“That’s a mistake. The DMV’s mistake.”
“I don’t think so. This woman doesn’t make mistakes.
Two years ago I started this case thinking Mrs. Perkins had made a mistake somewhere in her schemes. I was wrong, dead wrong. At a distance it looks an easy, open-and-shut case--woman kills for insurance proceeds.
“Up close it’s a nightmare. Tons of circumstantial evidence, not a shred of physical proof. This woman makes me look bad, incompetent. Five months into my investigation my superiors shut it down. If you can add something solid, I can reopen the case.”
Tasha lighted a Newport. “Mind if I smoke?”
“Yes, I do.”
She stubbed the cigarette in a homemade aluminum foil ashtray. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hollis, I have no evidence whatsoever concerning Willie Davis’ death. In fact, we were convinced his death was an accident.”
“Who?”
“Willie Davis.”
“Who the hell is he?”
“The victim. Her husband. The guy she allegedly murdered.”
“Never heard of him. The claims I worked involved a Tyrone Banks and a Lester Perkins. Willie Davis,” shaking his head, “is a new one on me. Did she file a claim on him?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I called you.”
Richard Hollis scratched his chin. “She’s listed on the bureau’s hot list…any claim she files should red-flag. With a million and one insurance agencies out there, there’s no guarantee…Wait a minute! May I use your phone?”
Tasha nodded and Richard Hollis snatched up the phone.
“You got a social on Willie Davis?” Tasha shook her head. “No problem, if a claim has been paid we got him.” After a brief phone conversation he hung up. “No connection insurance-wise. Willie Davis drowned in a boating accident, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Damn! This is very interesting. Somehow she has managed to marry and become a widow again without our knowledge. Do you have a marriage certificate?”
“No. I’m sure there’s one on file. Why?”
Scratching his chin with both hands: “That makes three suspicious deaths. This recent one, though, Willie Davis listed a Keshana Green as his sole beneficiary.”
“Who is she?”
“You tell me?”
Tasha glanced at her watch. “Why don’t you tell me all you know about Perry Davis or Perry Perkins.”
“She’s originally from Dawson, Arkansas, near the
Louisiana line. Her maiden name is Perry Robinson. She came to Little Rock about ten years ago and married Tyrone Banks, a fifty-three-year-old truck driver. She must have given him the deluxe package because he divorced his wife of twenty-nine years and left his five children.
“The lovebirds
interrupted their honeymoon to purchase two life insurance policies, one totaling four hundred thousand and the other fifty thousand. Three weeks later, lo and behold, Tyrone’s ticker stopped. The paramedics reported that Tyrone was stretched out nude on the couple’s living room floor, clutching his chest and his piccolo.”
Tasha raised an eyebrow.
“Pardon me. Perry collected a grand total of four hundred and fifty thousand dollars on two policies, both of which not a month old. A short time later she met and married a thirty-six-year-old Lester Perkins. Lester was definitely a work in dysfunctional psychology.
“He once staged a slip-and-fall at Wal-Mart and fell outside of the wet spot. Before hooking up with Perry he was living at the Rescue Mission. Perry rocked his world by putting his name on all her bank accounts.
“A few weeks after their marriage, Lester, now worth almost a half million on paper, draws out two insurance policies, one for one hundred thousand and one for three hundred and fifty thousand, with you-know-who as beneficiary.
“His body was found two weeks later at the bottom of a sixty-foot cliff in Petit Jean State Park in Morrilton. The Crystal Hill Insurance Agency paid Perry off, but they were highly suspicious. After a futile investigation, they called us at NICB. This is where I come in.
“The first thing I tried to do was to get the Morrilton police to look at Lester Perkins’ death as a possible homicide. They wouldn’t budge. Next I tried to get the assistance of the Arkansas State Parks and Recreation Administration. They wouldn’t budge, either.
“With no outside interest, the Lester Perkins’ investigation was a no-win proposition. The man had no friends, no relatives, nothing. A hobo with no connections. So I turned the focus on Tyrone Banks, which at first glance was weaker than the Lester Perkins investigation. I went and talked to Shirley Banks, Tyrone’s ex-wife.
“Mrs. Banks swore on her dead mama’s grave she knew for a fact Perry killed Tyrone for insurance money. The ME’s report said Tyrone had a weak ticker and it was due to play out sooner rather than later. The mystery was why Tyrone ingested four hundred milligrams of Sildenafil, an impotency drug seldom prescribed to weak-hearted men.
“I figured all I had to do was find the prescription and connect it to Perry, because I was sure she’s the one who bought the drug and somehow slipped it to Tyrone. Couldn’t find it, and I checked every pharmacy in the city, the surrounding counties, almost half the state. Maybe she got it off the Internet, I don’t know. My last card to play was to go talk to Perry. You haven’t met her, have you?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“She’s a knockout, a TKO in the first round. She has this…I don’t know…It’s more than sex appeal. She’s sexually hypnotic, the best way I can describe it. When I first met her she was very friendly, overly polite. When I requested she submit a polygraph, her attitude changed. She called me a Crayola Cracker. I’ve no idea what it means.
“My superiors told me to produce or move on to another case. I submitted an Injunction File on her. It was sent back with the word Hold stamped on it in big, bold letters. I’ve been an NICB investigator going on thirteen years and never had a case come back with Hold stamped on it. Never.”
“Now,” Tasha said, “I’ve brought it up again.”
“It’s like an old scab that will not heal, and the more you pick at it, the more it bleeds.”
“We’ll get her. Might take a little legwork, but we’ll get her. First we need to find out who this Keshana Green is.”
“Yes. She might be the missing link.”
Tasha wrote the name down. “K-E-S-H-A-N-A, right?”
“Correct. I’ve worked this case for months and not once has that name come up.”
Tasha stood and crossed to the exit, hoping the insurance investigator would follow. “Thanks for coming down, Mr. Hollis. I’ll keep you informed.”
“Maybe we could scratch on it together. Two heads better than one.”
Tasha shook her head.
Richard Hollis walked out with a sullen look on his freckled face.
Chapter 3
Tasha called Neal and told him she would arrive home late, then she and Bob drove to the Pleasant Grove Retirement Community. Bob had balked initially, until Tasha promised him a steak dinner.
East of downtown Little Rock, Pleasant Grove, formerly projects built in the fifties, was bracketed by a steel mill and a lumber company. The dank odor of wet pulp slightly dominated the stench of molten steel.
“You really think Willie was murdered?” Bob asked when they arrived at apartment number forty-two.
“I sure do,” Tasha said. “Richard Hollis thinks his widow is a southern-fried femme fatale. I’m telling you, Bob, this might be the case that takes us over the top. We pop this one and we might get a spot on truTV.”
Bob laughed. “Hell, I’ll need a new suit.”
Tasha stared at his expanding paunch. “Now that may be a problem.”
Bob knocked on the door. “Yes,” said a voice from inside.
“Little Rock Police,” Tasha said.
The curtain moved and a woman peeked out at them.
Tasha held her badge to the window.
“What do you want?” the woman said.
“Ma’am, I’m Detective Tasha Montgomery. We talked on the phone.”
Immediately the locks popped and the door swung open.
“Thank you, Jesus! Thank you!” the woman exclaimed, a hand over her mouth, eyes wide with excitement. “Do come in…please!”
Though the woman’s hair was bone gray, she appeared younger than she sounded over the phone. Smooth chocolate-colored skin; the complexion of a woman in her early forties.
“Mrs. Davis,” Tasha said, “this is my partner, Detective Bob Kelvis.”
“Thank you, Jesus! You heard my cry! I called Your name and You heard my cry!”
“Ma’am, we would like to talk to you about your son’s…death.” She’d almost said murder. No need to excite the woman further.
“Yes,” Mrs. Davis said. “Have a seat.”
The living room was sparsely furnished: a brown suede couch, a small oak coffee table and two metal folding chairs. On the floor, a box fan leaned on the unpainted concrete wall, blowing hot air, circulating a suffocating scent of bug spray.
Tasha sat on a folding chair while Bob opted for the couch, almost falling in.
“Could I get y’all something to drink?”
“No, thanks,” Bob and Tasha said in unison.
“Are you sure? It wouldn’t be any trouble.”
“Um…What you got?” Bob said, wiping sweat from his brow.
“I’ve got grape Kool-Aid and Kool-Aid with grape.” She laughed at herself and Bob laughed along with her.
“I’ll take grape Kool-Aid with water,” Bob said, grinning.
The woman stopped laughing. “Is that supposed to be funny?”
“Mrs. Davis,” Tasha intervened, “grape Kool-Aid will be fine.”
“Maybe,” Tasha whispered to Bob when the woman left the room, “I should do the talking.”
Presently, Mrs. Davis returned with a wooden tray, three jelly glasses, each brimming with grape Kool-Aid. No ice.
She said, “I knew it when you knocked on the door. Jesus told me to have patience, told me to wait on Him. He sent me to you, you know. I’ve called everybody. Nobody would give me the time of day. Ask and you shall receive. You gotta believe, though. Won’t help if you don’t believe.”
“Ma’am,” Tasha said, “please don’t misconstrue our being here as confirmation of your son’s death as anything other than an accident, okay? We’re here to make an inquiry of your complaints.”
Mrs. Davis raised her glass to her mouth and sipped, dark-brown eyes fixed on Tasha. She sat her glass on the coffee table.
“Don’t play with me, you hear!” Nostrils flared. “I’m old, not a damned fool! Been calling you people every day since I buried my boy. Called and called and called and called--and the
way I’ve been treated, you’d think I murdered somebody. Now you in my house drinking my Kool-Aid outta my best glasses”--Bob sat his on the table--“blowing smoke up my butt. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t think my boy was murdered.”
Bob cleared his throat, a signal for Tasha to say something.
“Ma’am,” Tasha said, “we’re just--”
“You see this?” she said, touching her hair. “That’s right, gray to the scalp. My hair was charcoal black before my boy was murdered, charcoal black!” She started crying. “My only son…my only child…murdered!”
Bob and Tasha studied the floor, admiring the whirly beige patterns in the white linoleum.
“You know,” Mrs. Davis said, composing herself, “my boy always wanted to fly airplanes. When he was about five or so, he told me he was going to buy a airplane and fly me to Jamaica.”
“Mrs. Davis,” Tasha said, “how would you describe your son’s marriage?”
“Effed up!”
Tasha waited.
Mrs. Davis laughed. “He met her at the car wash, what that tell you? When he first told me about her, I thought she was a skink he was playing with, you know, no big deal. He told me he wanted me to meet her, and still I didn’t think much of it.
“I’d met a few of his girlfriends before--skinny, bug-eyed fools, to be honest with you. When he took a shower and put on clean clothes, I knew something was wrong. You see, my son suffered from…goodness, I can’t remember what my husband called it…hydro-something-or-other…I can’t remember. It caused him to have a negative reaction to water.
“My husband, God bless his soul, had to beat him into the tub. Willie would carry on so, you’d think we were killing him. So all a sudden he’s jumping into hot water without being whipped. I couldn’t believe it. Next thing I know, Miss Thang knocking on my door, looking like she just stepped out one of those naked magazines. Figured she was lost, you know. I says, ‘Can I help ya?’
“She say she here to see Willie. ‘Willie who?’ I says. Then Willie come strutting out, dressed to the nines, smelling like Ivory soap, skinning and grinning like a damned fool. He say, ‘Momma, meet my future wife. Her name Perry.’ That’s when I had to sit down.
“She’s kissing and hugging on him like a baby with a new teddy. She say, ‘Mrs. Davis, your son and I are getting married.’ I says, ‘Now why you wanna go do that?’ I knew they had just met weeks ago. I also know a mismatch when I see one.
Pernicious Page 3