Cat's Claw

by Susan Wittig Albert

  It was the business about the insurance policies that puzzled her. She could understand the quarter-million-dollar policy that Dana Kirk had mentioned in her interview. It was prudent to insure a family wage-earner, and a high-value life insurance policy on a young man wasn’t very expensive. But who owned the larger policy? It looked as if the premiums were being paid by Harmon Insurance, where Kirk had once worked, which seemed odd. And the total amount of the insurance—a million dollars—was impressive. As Bartlett said, a pretty fair motive. Tina Simpson, who worked at Harmon, had sent the copies of the premium notices to Kirk and seemed to know something about the situation, at least enough to recognize it as an unusual transaction.

  Sheila flipped through her notebook and found the home address she had jotted down for Simpson, on the south side of Pecan Springs, in a quiet neighborhood not far from the high school. The small, ranch-style houses dated from the sixties, and the yards, haphazardly landscaped, were cluttered with soccer balls, bikes, and skateboards. By now, it was midmorning, and Sheila thought Simpson might have already gone to work. But when she pulled up in front of the house, she saw an older model red Volkswagen in the driveway. The front door stood half-open behind the screen, and a sleek black cat was sunning itself on the front steps.

  Carrying her briefcase, Sheila went to the door and knocked on the screen. Inside, a door slammed and from another room, a woman’s hoarse voice called, “Janine, is that you? Come on in. I don’t think I’m contagious.”

  “Police,” Sheila replied loudly, through the screen. “I’m looking for Tina Simpson.”

  There was a silence. Then, “What do you want?” The voice was startled.

  “I’d like to talk to you about Lawrence Kirk,” Sheila said. She heard the sound of flip-flops, and someone pushed the front door nearly

  shut.

  The woman spoke cautiously, through the opening. “Do you have identification?”

  Sheila held up her open badge wallet. “Sheila Dawson.”

  The woman who opened the door was in her early thirties, a head shorter than Sheila. She wore a flower-print quilted housecoat that zipped up the front and flip-flops. Under other circumstances, she might have been pretty, but her brown hair was uncombed and disheveled, her nose was red, her face splotchy. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. “What about… about Larry?”

  “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Sheila said sympathetically. “But I’m afraid that Mr. Kirk is—”

  “I know,” Tina Simpson said miserably. “I know he’s dead. I heard it on the radio this morning.” She pulled a used tissue out of a pocket and blew her nose. “Excuse me. I’ve had a very bad cold. Couldn’t go to work yesterday. And now this. Larry, I mean. It’s a shock. I just don’t understand—” She paused and tried again. “The radio said something about a gunshot wound, apparently self-inflicted. Is that true?”

  Sheila nodded. “May I come in? I’m hoping you can clear up a few things for me.”

  The woman looked uncertain and wary. “I don’t… I really don’t think I can—”

  “I think you can,” Sheila said firmly. “May I come in?”

  She stepped back. “Well, I suppose,” she said in a grudging tone. She looked past Sheila at the cat. “No, not you, Blackjack.” To Sheila, she added, “If I don’t make him stay on the porch, he’ll be in your lap the minute you sit down.”

  The door opened directly onto the living room. It was comfortable and homey, with white-painted bookshelves along a wall under a flower-filled window. The furniture—an upholstered love seat, a couple of plump chairs covered with crocheted granny afghans, and a coffee table made from a wooden crate with books stacked underneath—filled the small room.

  “Have a seat,” Tina said. “I can at least comb my hair.”

  Sheila took one of the chairs, putting her briefcase on the floor. After a few moments, Tina returned, her brown hair combed back and secured by a stretchy headband, and sat down on the love seat.

  “Are you going to tell me how it happened?” she asked.

  Sheila took out her notebook and pen. “You and Mr. Kirk were friends?”

  Tina crossed her arms and hugged herself. “Well, sort of. I thought he was a very nice guy who got a very raw deal from his sweet little wifey, who had fallen for some sleazy jerk she works with at the library. I felt I could maybe help him get over it. You know, mend that broken heart. But he…” She shrugged and tried for a smile. It didn’t work. “Once bitten, twice shy, he said. Or maybe it was just me.”

  Sheila didn’t answer. She waited, letting the silence build. After a moment, Tina sighed.

  “So no, we weren’t friends, if by that you mean that we went out together and had a good time. For a while, I thought he was still hung up on Dana. But then I found out that he and Jackie were—” She looked at Sheila, her eyes defiant. “We weren’t close. But I knew him well enough to know that he didn’t shoot himself, the way the radio said. That guy hated guns. I mean, with a passion.”

  “We don’t have a definitive ruling on the cause of death,” Sheila said quietly. She met the other woman’s eyes. “But personally, I agree with you.”

  “You mean, you… you think Larry was murdered?” Tina took a deep breath and let it out, raggedly. “Well, I guess if he didn’t do it himself, it stands to reason that somebody else did it.” She narrowed her eyes. “Who? Do you have any leads?”

  “That’s where I’m hoping you can help me,” Sheila replied. “Not long ago, you sent Larry a note about some premium notices you found in the files at Harmon Insurance.”

  Tina frowned. “How did you know about that? That’s confidential, between me and Larry. What right do you—”

  Sheila interrupted. “We’re investigating a suspicious death that is likely to be ruled a homicide before the day is over. We’re looking into everything that might help us learn what happened and why. I hope you’ll cooperate.” She gave Tina a moment to digest that, then opened her briefcase and took out the plastic evidence bag that held the note written on lined yellow paper. She put it on the coffee table. “This is the note you wrote?”

  Tina glanced at it, swallowed once, and said, “Yes. I thought maybe if I helped him a little bit, he would—” Coloring, she stopped, but Sheila knew what she had been about to say. She had hoped that being helpful to Larry might convince him that she was on his side, that she was his friend. He might be grateful. “Yes,” she said, in a lower voice. “Yes, I wrote that.”

  “And you sent him three photocopies of insurance premium notices, along with the note?”

  “Yes.” Tina hesitated, biting her lip, as if she was trying to decide how much to tell. Obviously, she was weighing the possibility of losing her job against helping the police.

  “I’m sure this is difficult for you,” Sheila said. “But the more I know now, the sooner we’ll find out what happened to Larry Kirk.”

  Tina thought another moment, then came to a decision. “I found the premium notices by accident when I was cleaning up some old files,” she said. “When I asked Ms. Harmon where I should file them, she got really red in the face and snatched them away, which made me curious. So I—I looked on her desk until I found them. I copied them.”

  “Why?” Sheila was making notes.

  “Well, the notices had Larry’s name on them. And the way she acted, it seemed like they were kind of important. Secret, even. Like this was something I wasn’t supposed to know anything about.”

  Sheila kept writing, and after a minute, filling the silence, Tina went on.

  “At the time, I just thought it was a little weird. Ms. Harmon is that way sometimes, sort of like a drama queen, even over little things. But when I told Dorrie about what happened—that’s my sister, she’s really smart—she said she had just that week read an article that might explain things.” She fished for the tissue and blew her nose. “Dorrie tore it out of the magazine and gave it to me. When I first read it, I thought it was kind of funny�
��what it’s called, anyway. ‘Dead peasant.’ That’s when I made the copies and wrote that note to Larry. I just thought he ought to know. After all, it was his life that was worth a million dollars.”

  “I see,” Sheila said, noting the term. Dead peasant rang a bell and she remembered something she had heard in a radio news broadcast a few months before. She looked up. “Did you give him the article? Do you know whether he read it?”

  “Yeah. He called me up as soon as he got my note and said he’d like to have a copy. So we met for coffee at the diner over on Nueces, and I gave it to him. But I ran into him a week or so later, at Wong’s, where he sometimes gets takeout.” She looked away, half-guiltily, and Sheila wondered if she had gone there, hoping to see him. “When I asked him about it, he said he couldn’t do anything. It was water under the bridge. He didn’t want to talk about it.”

  Sheila made another note. “Water under the bridge? What do you think he meant?”

  Tina shifted uncomfortably. “He said he asked her about it and she wouldn’t let him off the hook. Those are his exact words. ‘She won’t let me off the hook.’”

  Sheila stopped writing. “Who? Who is ‘she’? What hook?”

  “Jackie Harmon.” Tina twisted her hands together in her lap. “She’s the one who owns the company I work for. My boss.” She laughed mirthlessly. “Dead peasant. Real cute, huh? Well, at least she doesn’t have one of those policies on me.”

  Jackie Harmon. Sheila thought of the email on Kirk’s computer, the one she had printed out. Yes, you did sign the consent form at the same time we set up the health insurance package. It sounds like the matter has slipped your mind. Sorry for any misunderstanding, but I’m afraid it’s water under the bridge now. It had been signed Jackie.

  “Do you have a copy of that article? The one you gave Larry?”

  Tina nodded. “Actually, I’ve got the original. Want it?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Tina got up and left the room. In a moment, she was back with a piece of paper in her hand. “If you’d like some coffee,” she said, “I can make it while you’re reading.”

  “Coffee would be great,” Sheila said.

  “Black?”

  “Perfect,” Sheila replied, and settled back in the chair to read.

  HOW MUCH ARE YOU WORTH?

  by Michael Bailey

  Most of us know how much we’re worth, on paper, at least. But some of us might be surprised to learn that we are worth more dead than alive—to our employers, that is.

  Say, for instance, that you work for one of the big banks—Bank of America, for instance, or Wells Fargo—or a large corporation, like Walmart or Walgreens. You may be insured by your company under a policy known as a COLI policy: corporate-owned life insurance. In traditional life insurance, the insured owns the policy, pays the premiums, and names the beneficiaries. In a COLI policy, the corporation insures your life, pays the premium, and names itself as the sole beneficiary. When you die, your employer pockets the money. Your family doesn’t get a nickel.

  According to Professor Samuel W. Blake, who teaches at the University of Texas at Austin, corporate-owned life insurance began with companies insuring the lives of their most valuable executives, or “key men.” As time went on, Dr. Blake says, the “key man” practice was extended to lower-level employees, many of whom have no idea that they are covered by what has come to be called a “dead peasant” policy. The term “dead peasant” first appeared in a memo written by an insurance brokerage firm to describe the policies on janitors, cashiers, and other rank-and-file employees purchased by the grocery store chain Winn-Dixie. The term caught on when it was popularized by reporters for the Wall Street Journal and the Houston Chronicle. It also appeared in a documentary by filmmaker Michael Moore.

  In Texas, such policies were illegal until 1999, when the legislature approved COLIs, with the stipulation that the employee had to consent to the coverage. Dr. Blake points out, however, that employees might be coerced into consent. “If they don’t sign off on the life insurance, they don’t get the health package either,” he says. “Just because somebody signs, it doesn’t mean that the person freely consented.”

  Nationally, it is estimated that between five and six million Americans are covered by COLI policies. What’s more, as long as the company continues to pay the policy premiums, these policies remain in force, even after the insured person quits or is fired. The premiums are deducted as business expenses, but the company pays no tax on the death benefits, which can be substantial.

  But there’s a new twist to this story. Several corporations are being sued by the families of dead employees, who are enraged to learn that a rich corporation has profited from their loved one’s death. “Life insurance has traditionally been used to protect the family against the loss of its breadwinner,” says the attorney for one of the plaintiffs. “This is an investment scheme, pure and simple. The company is in it for the tax benefits. It’s immoral.”

  To complicate the situation further, some corporations are suing their life insurance companies, claiming that they were not warned of the inherent legal dangers in COLI policies. Walmart, for instance, has filed suit against AIG and Hartford, claiming losses of more than $150 million.

  Tina came back in the room, carrying a mug in each hand. “Here you go,” she said, and put a mug on the table beside Sheila. She sat down and nodded at the article, which Sheila had laid on the coffee table.

  “Guess that tells the whole story, huh? Larry didn’t even remember signing the consent form. He said he remembered signing a bunch of papers when Ms. Harmon enrolled him in the company health plan, but he had no idea what they were. I think that must happen a lot. Every personnel office has a gazillion forms for employees to fill out. People don’t look at them.”

  Sheila frowned down at the article. “But what did the company—Harmon Insurance—get out of it? Just the write-off? That doesn’t sound like much.” On the other hand, the million-dollar death benefit sounded like plenty.

  “I wondered about that, too.” Tina kicked off her flip-flops and pulled her bare feet up under her. “I looked into it and found out that it’s usually only the bigger companies that do this. The ones with lots of employees, that is, where the write-off is big enough to make a difference. And then, of course, there are the death benefits.”

  Sheila picked up her coffee mug and sipped. “Harmon Insurance—isn’t it local? It’s a small company, right?”

  Tina nodded. “Small, yes. There are just five of us in the office right now, Ms. Harmon, three agents, and me. I’m an administrative assistant, glorified secretary, really. But local, no. Actually, we’re affiliated with a larger company, which has its headquarters up in Dallas. I did some digging and found out that, at the time Larry’s policy was written, the company was putting pressure on all its affiliates to insure their employees. It was part of some deal they made with one of the large insurers. The more policies they wrote, the bigger the commissions.” Her mouth twisted. “I’m willing to bet that somebody got a huge kickback. The company executives, probably.”

  Sheila shook her head. Companies betting on their employees’ lives, using their premiums to leverage a hefty tax break in the meantime, then reaping the death benefit. It was incredibly sordid and sleazy.

  Tina was watching her over the rim of her coffee mug, her eyes narrowed. When she spoke, her voice was taut. “You’re asking these questions because you think Jackie Harmon might have killed him, aren’t you?”

  Sheila hadn’t walked into the room with that in mind, but it now seemed to her like a definite possibility. “We’re keeping all options in mind,” she said, and paused strategically. “What do you think? Could Ms. Harmon have done it?”

  The silence stretched out like a rubber band. “Well, I know she was seeing him,” Tina said finally.

  “Seeing him?” Saw JH. The five yellow sticky notes on the calendar in Larry Kirk’s kitchen, the first one dated October 21, the last the da
y before he died. JH. Jackie Harmon.

  “As in sleeping with him.” Tina put down her mug so hard that coffee sloshed out. “At least once. Maybe more. But then one day she stormed into the office and said she never wanted to hear his name again. I guess he told her to go fly a kite.”

  “When was that?”

  Tina thought. “A couple of weeks ago. I can’t give you the date just off the top of my head, but I might could do it if I looked at my desk calendar.” She leaned forward, more intent. “Jackie had a thing for him, you know. From what Dana told me, Jackie and Larry had a relationship going before he and Dana got married. In fact, Dana said that, at one point, Jackie threatened her.”

  “Threatened her?”

  Tina smiled a tight little smile. “Said she’d claw her eyes out, something silly like that. But that’s Jackie. She’s a manipulator. She’s possessive and controlling. Once she gets her hooks into somebody, she just won’t let go. I’ve seen her act like that with other guys.” Her face darkened. “Please don’t think I’m saying this because I’m… well, jealous or anything. I’m not. But yes, I guess she could have done it.”

  Sheila thought of the email Harmon had written to Larry, the email she’d printed out and had in her briefcase. Still friends, I hope. I was sorry to hear about Dana (rocks in her head, if you ask me). I’d really love to get together, for old times’ sake. Could we?

  She thought quickly back through the chronology of events, as she understood them. Tina’s “dead peasant” note to Larry, with the attached premium notices, was dated October 15. He could have read the note and the notices, and then the article, and then—perhaps on October 16 or 17—contacted Jackie Harmon asking for information about the policy. Harmon had emailed him back on October 17, inviting him to “get together, for old times’ sake.” The first sticky note—Saw JH—was dated October 21. There were four other JH notes, the last one dated the day before he died.