Custody of the State

  As he wrapped up the conversation, a final thought popped up.

  “Did you remember any words—anything that Henry Pencup said?”

  Mary Sue thought for a few seconds. “There was only gibberish. He was in tremendous pain.”

  “What kind of gibberish?”

  “Actually, there were two kind-of-nonsensical things he kept saying to me. What were they?”

  Mary Sue took a minute or two. Will watched the upper reaches of the sky flash with lightning, deep within the storm clouds.

  “I think it was…‘insecure’…and the other one—let’s see—it was ‘unsign.’”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  Will thought for a minute. He wanted to get clarification. Something more—anything. But the telephone line crackled, and then it went dead.

  As the thunder rolled and rumbled, Will went to the window. He could smell the water in the air, and the pines, as he listened to the shimmering waves of rain falling on the surface of the lake.

  Insecure.

  Unsign.

  Will repeated those words over and over. There was a message inside those cryptic references made by a dying bank president. A message perhaps as clear as the confession he had made to Father Godfrey.

  It was late when Will stumbled his way into bed, exhausted. He had not had a chance to call Fiona. And he still was trying to figure out Jason Bell Purdy’s enigmatic involvement in Mary’s Sue’s case. He knew that Purdy wanted to destroy her credibility—at all costs. But why? There were no connections between Henry Pencup—or his bank—and the Eden Lake Resort. So, why Purdy’s obsession with Pencup?

  One thing he did know. Unless he performed a legal vivisection on each of the county’s witnesses the following day, his client might never enjoy the security of her family again.

  58

  BOB SMILEY WAS NOT SMILING. His face had the look of a turkey before Thanksgiving. He fidgeted in the stand, stretching his neck out and tugging at his tie.

  “Now you were telling us,” Harry Putnam said, “about the insurance policy. Mary Sue asked for it to be written up.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you wrote it for $100,000?”

  “I sure did. Did it myself. Submitted it to the life insurance company per Mary Sue’s request.”

  “And the policy was issued?”

  “I’m not sure. I think that the full premium wasn’t paid—so it may have been cancelled, ultimately.”

  “But as of the date that Joshua was sick, and they took him to the Delphi hospital and took blood from him—you’ll recall that we established that date?”

  “Yes.”

  “About that same time is when Mary Sue made the insurance application for $100,000 on the life of Joshua—listing herself and her husband as sole beneficiaries in the event of Joshua’s death?”

  “I think you’ve got that right. Correct.”

  “Did your insurance company have concerns about that?”

  “Well, that particular company wasn’t doing physical exams for children’s life-insurance policies. We just asked the parents to check a list of boxes about a whole long list of disabilities, and whether they knew the child to have any—you know—cancer, AIDS, things like that.”

  “As you mentioned, was the insurance policy cancelled—you think—for nonpayment of premiums?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Well, after Mary Sue left the area and Joe was arrested, the remaining portion of the premium was not paid. So it got cancelled.”

  “So Mary Sue fails to pay the premium after she knows the police are looking for her and the gig is up, right?”

  Will could have jumped all over that one—but he deliberately let it go.

  “It sure looks that way,” Smiley confirmed.

  “Is $100,000 an unusually high life-insurance policy to have on a young child?”

  “I don’t sell many that high on children—that’s right.”

  Putnam rested. Harriet Bender waived any questions and then glared at Will.

  Will began his cross-examination by asking permission to approach the witness. Once it was granted, he strode up to a position directly in front of the insurance agent. Then Will held out his hand, palm up.

  Smiley gave him a strange look.

  Will kept his hand outstretched.

  “Did you bring it, Mr. Smiley?”

  “What?”

  “The very thing we demanded in the subpoena we served on you,” Will answered.

  “Oh, that?”

  “Yes, Mr. Smiley. Your file on policy number 000258HGB, on the life of Joshua Fellows in the name of Joseph and Mary Sue Fellows.

  “Not here I don’t have it,” Smiley replied.

  “Where is it?” Will asked.

  “It’s on the bench there where I was sitting.”

  “Then please fetch it, Mr. Smiley. By all means.”

  The agent scurried down, grabbed the thin green folder, and returned, clutching it in his hand firmly.

  “May I see it, please?” Will asked as courteously as he could.

  Smiley handed it over, throwing Will the kind of look one would expect from a schoolboy whose secret note to his girlfriend had just been intercepted by the teacher.

  Will paged quickly through the file.

  “Mr. Smiley, you took the information from Mary Sue, wrote up the application, and then submitted it to the insurance company?”

  “That’s exactly the way we do it.”

  “These application forms are standard?”

  “Yep. Standard forms. I always use the same ones from that company. I am an independent insurance broker—so I can offer a range of different insurance products through different companies, depending on the individualized needs of the insured.”

  “The insured—that would be Mary Sue?”

  “Technically—in the insurance industry—Joshua would be considered the insured. Mary Sue is one of the owners of the policy.”

  “What insurance needs did Joshua have, then?”

  “Oh, that would be hard to say.”

  “What insurance needs did Mary Sue have?”

  “That also is hard to say at this point—I can’t recall.”

  “Those standard forms. Is it important to fill them out properly?”

  “You bet it is. Otherwise the company sends the application right back.”

  “And with your experience, I’ll bet you know exactly how to fill out those application forms?”

  “Sure do.”

  “Dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s?”

  “I think I do a pretty good job at it.”

  “Anything missing from this application form?” Will asked, handing the green file back to Bob Smiley.

  The agent glanced at it.

  “No, I think this is just about right. Uh-huh. Yep. This one’s up to snuff.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yes. It’s all filled out correctly. Yep.”

  “What’s at the bottom?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There,” Will said, pointing to the bottom of the application form.

  “That,” Smiley said, “appears to be a line.”

  “A blank line?”

  “Yep.”

  “A line for Mary Sue Fellows’ signature?”

  “Yes sir, it does appear that way.”

  “Does her signature appear on that line?”

  “Well…not on this one.”

  “What do you mean—this one?”

  “This is not the original. The original is sent to the insurance company.”

  “But this is a carbonless copy, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “The signature—if it was ever signed, which I think it was not—the signature would go through to the copy marked ‘Agent’s Copy.’ Is that correct?”

  “Ah…well, now—you have a point there.”

  “And the form says in bold letters, ‘TO TH
E AGENT—MAKE SURE SIGNATURE GOES THROUGH ALL COPIES.’”

  “Yes. It sure does.”

  “Mary Sue never signed this application form, did she?”

  “Hard to tell. Very hard to tell.”

  “By the way, Mr. Smiley—did you win the sales contest this year for your company?”

  “Not this year, I’m afraid. I came in runner-up.”

  “What was first prize?”

  “An all-expense trip to Hawaii,” and with that Smiley gave a faded smile.

  “How do they tally the total volume of life insurance sales for that contest? By the amount applied for—or the amount actually issued out in the final policy after the premium is paid?”

  Smiley paused and bounced his head a bit from side to side.

  “Amount applied for.”

  “So if you send in an application for a $100,000 insurance policy for Mary Sue Fellows, the company gives you credit for that in the sales contest?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Even if the client would later come back and say, ‘Hey—I really only wanted $10,000—reduce the policy.’ By then, you would have already been credited for the $100,000 you submitted. Right?”

  More head-bouncing by Smiley.

  “I guess so…I suppose so.”

  “Didn’t you approach Mary Sue to sell her some insurance?”

  “I may have actually made the originating call.”

  “And you told her that the cost of covering the funeral of a child would be about $10,000—so why didn’t she think about taking out a policy in that amount?”

  “Possibly. I can’t recall everything…”

  “And you said, ‘It’s the cheapest policy in the world—literally just a few dollars—and we’ll bill you, no need to pay now—and by the way, I’m trying to win an insurance sales contest and I sure would appreciate your getting a policy.’ That’s about how it happened, correct?”

  “Um…it may not have been in that order, exactly.”

  Will stared Smiley in the eye.

  “But it was something like that.”

  The attorney continued. “You were an old high-school friend of Mary Sue’s, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah. That’s true.”

  “You liked her back then?”

  “Yeah. A lot of people did.”

  “She was the kind of person that always liked helping people out, correct?”

  “Oh, yeah. Softhearted. That was Mary Sue.”

  “In sales lingo—you would call her a ‘soft touch’? An ‘easy mark’?”

  “I’m not sure I understand you there.”

  Will knew that Bob Smiley understood—and so did the judge, who at this point was adjusting his glasses and looking intently at the witness.

  Before the agent retreated from the stand, Harry Putnam tried one more charge through the barricades.

  “Is it a fact, Mr. Bob Smiley, that you signed up an insurance policy for $100,000 on the life of Joshua Fellows, with Mr. and Mrs. Fellows as beneficiaries—true or false?”

  “True!” Smiley shouted out, as if it were a game show and he had finally heard the TV host call out a question he could nail with ease.

  When the judge excused him, Bob Smiley scampered off the stand and walked directly out of the courtroom.

  Without looking back.

  59

  DOROTHY ATKINSON, MSN. Nursing supervisor at Delphi Hospital. I was Mary Sue’s day supervisor.”

  After the preliminaries, Harry Putnam led the nurse into a series of questions that established her knowledge of Mary Sue’s situation.

  “Did you ever hear her despair over being able to continue handling her son’s medical problems?”

  “Several times.”

  “Can you give us one instance?”

  “Yes—about the time Joshua was admitted for tests at the hospital as an outpatient. She seemed overstressed. Upset. She complained about the pressure on her marriage. She said she was tired of trying to manage Joshua’s medical problems.”

  “Did she say that more than once?”

  “Yes, quite a few times.”

  “Did she seem desperate?”

  “I would say so.”

  “Did she get teary-eyed when she complained of being tired of handling Joshua’s problems?”

  “Yes. I believe she was crying.”

  “Did she complain of having to take care of her son’s health problems all by herself—with not enough help from her husband?”

  “I recall her saying that her husband was busy with the farm—and that the burden on her, handling things alone, was too much.”

  Harriet Bender rose slowly.

  “Do you occasionally handle children who have suffered abuse at the hands of their parents?” she began.

  “Unfortunately, I do.”

  “And you have dealt with parents of pediatric patients—parents who have committed child abuse or neglect?”

  “Sadly, that also is true.”

  “Do you see any similarities between Mary Sue’s emotional state and such parents?”

  Will objected, expressing his disbelief that Bender would try to qualify Atkinson as a de facto expert in child abuse. But to his consternation, Judge Trainer seemed unmoved by the argument Will had advanced and calmly overruled the objection.

  The nurse continued. “Yes, I would say that most of the abusive parents exhibit the same kind of frustration, despair, and exasperation as shown by Mary Sue. Those kinds of feelings often lead the unskilled parent into taking their frustrations out on the child.”

  Bender, though she looked tired, seemed satisfied enough with those answers, and she sat down.

  Against a strong temptation to do otherwise, Will decided to avoid any mention of Atkinson’s discussion of Henry Pencup’s death at the hospital banquet, where she and Mary Sue had been in the presence of Jason Bell Purdy. At least with this witness, that would be wandering in the wilderness. He needed instead to stay focused and controlled.

  “Do you deal with pediatric patients—children—who have chronic health problems?”

  “Quite a few.”

  “And you work with the parents of such afflicted children?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Would you agree that the vast majority of parents of children with chronic serious health problems exhibit ‘frustration, despair, and exasperation’ to the same degree that Mary Sue has?”

  “I don’t think that is a fair comparison.”

  “But you are familiar with the nursing literature that indicates that caring for a chronically ill child places a tremendous emotional, physical, and financial drain on the average parent?”

  “I do read the nursing journals—that is true.”

  “If we assume that Joshua has MA—methylmalonic acidemia—would that qualify as a chronic disease?”

  “From what I know about it, it would.”

  “And Mary Sue would be expected to display the same kind of emotional fatigue that parents of other chronically ill children display?”

  “Well,” the nurse responded, “that’s an assumption—we don’t know that Joshua has MA.”

  “But he is now back in your hospital, is he not?”

  “Yes.”

  “He is?” the judge exclaimed, whirling toward Will.

  “He was airlifted to the hospital at the directive of Mary Sue and her South Dakota doctor.”

  “That is where she was—South Dakota?” the judge asked.

  The attorney nodded.

  “So,” Will continued, “Joshua is in your hospital, in your pediatric unit. Surely you know what the working diagnosis is, right?”

  “We have the consulting report from Dr. Forrester…It was faxed to our unit—”

  But before she could finish, Putnam was up, waving his arms to object. By that point, Bender seemed to have lapsed into fatigue and did not bother to rise to the occasion.

  Judge Trainer cut to the chase. “Mr. Putnam, you called this witness�
��you opened the door to this area. And even if you hadn’t, now that I know that the child is at the Delphi hospital, I certainly would have opened the door to this area of questioning myself. Please finish, Ms. Atkinson.”

  “Dr. Forrester’s credentials are impeccable. His report indicates MA for Joshua—that’s our working diagnosis.”

  Dorothy Atkinson was excused.

  Now Will knew that the most important witness of the trial was about to be called.

  But the judge looked at the big clock on the wall of the courtroom.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s almost noon. Let’s break for lunch—till one-fifteen. Then we will take the testimony of Dr. Parker.”

  The courtroom rose in a clatter of feet and chairs as the judge slipped into his chambers.

  Will pressed his way through the crowd with files and notebooks under each arm. He jumped into his car and made it out to Denny’s Log Cabin restaurant in time to beat the lunch crowd.

  He ordered a steak sandwich and ginger ale while he made notes for his cross-examination of Dr. Parker and plotted out the argument he was planning to give at the close of the county’s case.

  The restaurant started filling up. Stanley Kennelworth trotted in with what appeared to be a client, smiling—until he locked gazes with Will. Then he quickly looked away.

  In the noise of the crowd, Will was still grappling with his questions about Dr. Parker. And how Jason Purdy fit into the big picture. And he still had no idea about those last words of Henry Pencup—“insecure” and “unsign.” What on earth could they mean, if anything?

  He was finishing up when the waitress whisked by and dropped the check on the table. After he put his credit card out, she scooped it up and was back in a second with the charge slip.

  A few minutes later she came by again. “Ready for me to take this, hon?”

  Will nodded, distracted by the tangle of loose ends in the case.

  “Say, hon,” the waitress pointed out, “you forgot something.”

  “What?”

  “You forgot to sign the slip. If I tried to pass this off to my boss I’d be in a whole lot of trouble.”

  Will nodded, took out his pen, and was just about to sign the slip—a contract authorizing his credit-card company to pay the sum of $7.43 to Denny’s Log Cabin, which represented the value of a steak sandwich and a ginger ale. And by the terms of which Will agreed to pay that sum back to his credit-card company, with interest.