No Accident Read online

  A month later, Del saw Pamela leaving the house of one of his low-life gambling buddies. It turned out he had chatted her up when she and Alex and some friends had gone to one of Del’s parties early on in their relationship and Alex had left early. After Alex’s final house investment, this dude saw her out with her girlfriends one night and tried to re-make her acquaintance. And she was willing. And now Alex felt like his insides had been crushed.

  Del told Alex at the time that it was for the best, that he’d never really liked Pamela anyway, and that in a year Alex would look back and laugh about the whole thing. Well, it had been a year, and Alex still didn’t get the joke.

  His five houses were still a constant reminder of two big mistakes—foolish investing and corrupting his relationship with Pamela. Some days he blamed Pamela, some days he blamed himself. But his thoughts went in a circle, not forward.

  Outside the sky was still dark, but Alex got out of bed and shuffled to the kitchen to brew some coffee. He wanted to clear his boozy head. At some point last night, he’d figured out what to do. Once he found out the truth of the Cummings accident, he would present Chip Odom with a simple choice—either Chip would hire Alex back and restore coverage for Roberta Cummings, or else Alex would take his evidence to a lawyer who would sue Rampart Insurance and embarrass them.

  If Chip took the first alternative, Alex would also have his job back. If Chip refused to hire Alex back, then Alex would . . . what? After a couple sips of coffee he remembered—he would go out on his own as a private insurance investigator. The more coffee he drank, the more the plan actually made sense. Alex had enough experience and contacts now to make it as an independent investigator, and once Alex figured out what Beto’s scam was, he could get some splashy publicity out of the story, which would help him in starting his business.

  The sky was just starting to lighten outside, a bird was chirping . . . and something else was making a sound. Alex opened the kitchen window, and heard a persistent metallic scratch echoing in the quiet street outside. He poked his head outside the window and saw a large boxy shadow, which was his truck parked askew in his driveway—Christ, he wondered, did I actually drive myself home last night?—and he saw the shadow of a hunching man pressed against the driver’s side door.

  Alex dropped his coffee mug. It rattled in the sink as Alex ran into the front hall. A machine gun-fire narrative of self-reproach ran through his brain: This is what I get for getting drunk and parking in my own driveway instead of the side street, and I shouldn’t have driven home anyway; God, I’m an idiot. Alex grabbed the keys to his truck from a side table and opened his front door. Then he turned back and threw open the door to the darkened coat closet, which he explored by touch like a blind speed reader. Inside, he found Pamela’s jacket. Inside a pocket of that jacket, he found her canister of mace. Fucking repo man, Alex thought.

  Alex bounded out of his house on the balls of his bare feet, surprised the repo man with a hand to the shoulder, sprayed mace in his eyes from an inch away, then tugged the hunched, wailing man by the shoulders away from the truck and hurled him onto the small patch of grass that counted as Alex’s lawn.

  Alex pulled the repo man’s slim jim out of the truck door, inserted his own key into the lock and opened the door. He hopped into the driver’s seat and turned on the engine. Before Alex could close the truck door, a hairy forearm reached in right in front of Alex’s face and grabbed hold of the steering wheel. Without considering the consequences, Alex dropped his jaw open and bit down on the arm. A man shouted in pain, the arm withdrew, and Alex put the truck in reverse and hit the gas. The truck lurched out of the driveway at the same awkward angle it had been driven in on the night before, the tires making a serrated track across the lawn and bouncing over the curb onto the street.

  In his rearview mirror, Alex saw two men—Mr. Forearm and Mr. Mace—get up from his lawn and run to their own car. These guys are relentless, Alex thought.

  Given the light traffic at this hour, the pair caught up easily despite Alex’s head start. Alex saw a streetlight ahead and timed it so that he entered the intersection just as the light was turning red. The pursuing car barreled through the intersection a full second later. Alex started to worry. How bloodthirsty are these guys?

  A block ahead was another intersection, this time crossing a major artery. The light had just turned yellow, and Alex saw that, even at this early hour, cars were waiting to cross as soon as the opposing lights turned green. Alex gunned the engine and flew through the intersection, again just as the light was turning red. This time his pursuers had cross traffic to slow them down. He heard screeching tires and car horns—no crashes, thank God—and in his mirror saw his pursuers weaving slowly through the intersection around cars whose drivers had dared to assume that at 5:00 a.m. they could proceed safely on a green light.

  That little delay was all Alex needed. Many of the side streets down by the beach were narrow one-way alleys that gave access to garages and carports. Alex turned the truck the wrong way down one of them, and then turned into the first empty carport he saw. Standing next to him in the humble carport was a nearly new Mercedes, which he knew cost close to a hundred grand. It was people like the owner of the Mercedes who drove up property values. God, I love gentrification, he thought. A few seconds later, he saw his pursuers speed past the alley, not looking in his direction.

  Alex would wait here a while and then move the truck somewhere else for the day. He obviously couldn’t leave the truck in his driveway anymore. The bill collectors were watching him like ghouls. The encounter had shaken Alex, but in a strange way he felt satisfied. The morning’s excitement proved that Alex’s obsessive rituals to avoid his bill collectors were actually justified. He would just have to be more careful to follow them consistently.

  Alex remembered something his brother said the other day, that the two of them were alike. Now that Alex had been chased from his home before dawn by people who wanted money from him, that comparison no longer seemed so crazy. Alex knew the repo men would be back. Maybe Del can give me some tips on making my way as a deadbeat, Alex mused.

  Alex heard a beep come from the car seat next to him. His cell phone, which he didn’t remember leaving there, was telling him he had a message. He didn’t remember leaving his phone here. How drunk was I? Alex took the phone and listened to the voicemail. The message was from the night before. His uncle Hugh was returning his call—that’s right, I called Hugh from the bathroom at the bar—and Hugh said that in fact he and Aunt Melinda were hosting Del for dinner tomorrow—which was now today—and they’d love for Alex to join them.

  All Alex had really wanted was a quick, five-minute conversation with Uncle Hugh about the life insurance policies from Liberty Industries, but he couldn’t back out now. He waited a few more minutes, then drove off to find someplace where he could get a cheap greasy breakfast to settle his roiling stomach.

  12

  Del was already making merry at Uncle Hugh and Aunt Melinda’s house when Alex arrived, playing rock n’ roll songs on the piano. Their mother was there, too. As if things couldn’t get more awkward, Alex thought. He quickly accepted Hugh’s offer of a glass of wine.

  On her way to the dinner table, Alex’s mother stopped him and whispered, “I think Del may be in trouble again.” Del only played the piano when he wanted to ingratiate himself with his mother; Alex of course already knew that Del was broke. Before moving on to the table, his mother shook her head with pity and whispered, “Things are always so hard for him.”

  Alex responded with a sympathetic smile, but thought, yeah, like things are easy for me. Del’s downward spiral over the years had drained their mother’s spirit, and Alex’s relative success was a boon for her. He could tell that his mother, worried again about Del, was even now barely keeping her composure. If she found out how precarious Alex’s own financial situation was, it would be another disappointment. He couldn’t let that happen.

  Melinda served dinner at a l
ong, sturdy oak table that she had set with her good china. Their house was big enough to have a formal dining room that only got used on occasions like this. The house was spacious and tastefully, if conservatively, furnished, thanks to Hugh’s successful accounting practice and Melinda’s attention to homemaking.

  The family had a reassuringly familiar conversation during the salad course. Melinda was overbearing and bossy, Mom was scatterbrained and ditzy from half a glass of Chardonnay, Del, still in entertainer mode, related a rambling story full of mildly off-color anecdotes, and Hugh occasionally tossed in little hand grenades of sarcasm. It was the usual, comfortable pattern. Alex’s immediate family had felt smaller after his father died, even though his father had earlier moved out, and even though Hugh had sort of taken his sister and her two teenaged sons under his wing. Ever since then, they had get-togethers like this every few months. But as Alex saw it, the family members were all so different in personality that mutual aggravation was slowly wearing down the bonds of love and tradition. Like grains of sand in a gearbox, Alex thought.

  As usual, Alex tried his best to keep anyone from getting too annoyed with anyone else. He was now annoyed with them all, but that was a cost he could bear to keep the peace.

  Then Aunt Melinda said, “Alex, I called your office this morning to ask what time you would be coming, and the woman who answered the phone said you don’t work there anymore. I’m sure she just made some sort of mistake?”

  Nosy Aunt Melinda. Thanks a lot. Alex noticed the look of surprise on Del’s face, and replied quietly, “It’s not a mistake.” Then, into his wine glass, he added, “It was a . . . politics . . . thing.”

  His mother said, “I’m sorry to hear that,” and her expression of concern and surprise confirmed it. Just what Alex didn’t want. “Especially in this economy,” she added.

  “There’s always demand for accountants,” Aunt Melinda said.

  His mother nodded. “I know accounting isn’t the most exciting profession, but it pays well,” she said gently. Alex rolled his eyes a little. Every time they were all together, his mom prodded him into join Hugh’s accounting firm. She had liked his being a reporter, because it seemed like an upstanding profession, and didn’t like his becoming an insurance investigator, mostly because the job was unfamiliar to her and, Alex surmised, struck her—incorrectly—as routinely dangerous. She didn’t understand anything about accounting either, but knew from her brother’s experience that it was safe, respectable and stable—as aspirations went, stability was a greased turkey that the Fogarty family had been fumbling for years now.

  “Accounting pays well enough,” Melinda said. “By the way, Hugh, Alex wants to speak with you after dinner.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” his mother said. Great, Alex thought, she thinks I’m finally going to hit Hugh up for a job. But her mistake seemed to ease her anxiety, and Alex didn’t speak up to correct her misunderstanding.

  Alex caught Del giving him a dirty look, and Alex immediately deduced why. Del must have come here to ask Hugh for money himself and so he assumed that Alex had done the same. Alex was angry that Del would dare think that. We’re not that alike, Alex thought.

  “Mom, you don’t know the half of it,” Del chortled. “Alex has bill collectors crawling around his house like cockroaches. I was there—he keeps the lights turned off to fool them into thinking he’s not home.”

  Del smirked triumphantly at Alex. So this stink bomb was Del’s revenge—proving to the whole family that Alex had spoiled his own life just as much as Del had. Alex smiled back at Del and lifted his glass ironically, which was a more sober response than reaching across the table and dousing his brother’s head with the contents of the wine glass.

  Their mother turned very sad. The muscles in her face went slack, and she suddenly looked older. “Oh, Alex, I didn’t think it would be like this for you,” she said.

  “What about me?” Del said. “I’ve got bill collectors, too.”

  He’s even jealous of the attention I get when he rats me out, Alex noted. Del was on his third glass of wine, and Alex assumed Del had warmed up with a couple more drinks before coming.

  Mom patted Del’s hand. “If only your father had set a better example,” she said.

  “Mom, please don’t make this about Dad,” Alex said in annoyance. Whenever her sons needed a gut-check, they always heard it was Dad’s fault—for leaving, for getting caught up in the insider-trading scandal that sent him to prison, for dying there, for getting cancer. Alex was tired of the Ghost of Christmas Past haunting every important family conversation. Del was ever ready to accept Mom’s little fairy tale, but Alex found it insulting to his intelligence.

  “All I mean is, you’re almost thirty,” his mother said.

  “What about me?” Del said again. “I’m twenty-six.”

  Their mother sighed and spoke solely to Alex. “I just hoped you would be more settled by now.”

  “Me too, Mom,” said Alex.

  “By the way,” Del said, still pleading for attention, “my car got repossessed weeks ago, not that anyone cares—you’re never this disappointed when I screw up.”

  “Don’t be silly,” their mother said with exasperation. “I’m disappointed in you both.” Then she realized what she had said, and excused herself from the table before anyone could see her tears.

  * * *

  Dessert wasn’t so much served as it was foraged, with Del and the two women taking their bread pudding to the living room where they started a game of rummy in front of the television. Alex and Hugh retreated to Hugh’s study, where they sat in two oversized leather chairs, accompanied by the soft rhythm of an antique wall clock counting off the seconds.

  “So you didn’t really come here to ask me for a job, right?” Hugh said.

  Alex shook his head.

  “Or ask me for money?” The tone of his voice told Alex that Hugh was ninety percent sure Alex hadn’t come to ask for money. That was reassuring.

  “Of course not,” Alex said. “I wanted to ask you about this.” He handed Hugh the faxed life insurance policies from Liberty Industries and explained that they related to a case he was working on.

  “Looks like janitor’s insurance,” Hugh said after scanning the first few pages of the fax.

  “These guys weren’t janitors, they were mechanics,” Alex said.

  “That’s just a little accounting humor,” Hugh said with a playful smile. He was in his fifties, balding, soft. He hadn’t let himself go so much as he had never been in shape in the first place. Aunt Melinda was quite good looking in her day, and Alex had always wondered how exactly their odd pairing originated.

  “The formal term is corporate-owned life insurance,” Hugh said. “It started off with companies buying insurance on their top executives—if the CEO dies from a heart attack, the company gets a payout to help it with the transition. When the policies are on low-level employees, like these are, people sometimes call it janitor’s insurance. You’re probably more used to seeing a company buy life insurance for its employees, for the employees’ benefit. This is a company buying life insurance on its employees, for its own benefit.”

  That confirmed what Alex had guessed. “So the employee dies, and the company gets paid.”

  “Exactly. Guaranteed payment when the employee dies.”

  “What does the employee’s family get?”

  “Nothing. Not under these policies, at least. But if the widows and kids are beneficiaries under another policy, they’d get paid under that.”

  Hugh handed the faxed sheets back to Alex. Alex took them hesitantly. “It all sounds a little creepy,” Alex said. “I wouldn’t want my boss to have an incentive to off me.”

  Hugh chuckled. “Used to be illegal for just that reason. To get insurance on somebody, you need to have what they call an ‘insurable interest’ in the person—you have to suffer some sort of economic loss if the person dies. That way people won’t buy insurance on random strangers and,
as you say, ‘off’ them.”

  Alex leaned back into the leather cushions and pondered his uncle’s explanation. “I can see the economic loss if your spouse dies. I can even see it with a company and its CEO. But if your motor pool guy dies, you just go hire another mechanic. It doesn’t make sense to call that a loss for the company.”

  “That’s logical, but it’s not the law. Not anymore, at least.”

  “So what purpose does it serve?”

  “Companies basically buy janitor’s insurance to get a tax benefit.”

  Alex’s eyes flashed with excitement. “Uncle Hugh, I knew you’d be all over this.”

  “When the employee dies, the money the company gets from the insurance company is tax free, just like most insurance proceeds are. That’s better than the alternative. The alternative is for the company not to buy the janitor’s insurance, and to take the premiums it would have paid the insurance company and go invest them in something else. Under that alternative scenario, the company has to pay tax on the gains from its investment.”

  Alex’s excitement faded just as quickly as it had arisen. “So it’s just a tax game.”

  “The point is definitely not for the employees to die, which is where I think you were going with this.”

  Alex shook his head in protest. “Hold on. Killing the employees might not be the motivation for these policies, but even so, the company still makes out better when the employees die young, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s true . . .” Hugh said. “The company gets its money sooner, and in the meantime it’s paid less in premiums to the insurance company.” Hugh shook his head vigorously as if trying to cast Alex’s suspicions from his mind. “No, you’re chasing shadows. These policies may be a little weird, but they’re just an innocent tax-planning technique.”