Death Benefits_ A Novel Part 15

He studied the cases, but found nothing about them that reminded him of Ellen Snyder. In even the most elaborate schemes, the culprits were stationary. They would submit a false claim and stay put, waiting for payment and hoping that n.o.body would learn what they had done or, in any event, would never find enough evidence to prove it.

Ellen Snyder's murder was not like that. The killers had known in advance that the fraud would be discovered, the checks traced, the trails followed. Their solution had exploited the weakness in the system, which was that these things took time. They were prepared to move faster. When the check came, they had it deposited within an hour in an account where it was sure to clear early, so it could be paid into the next set of accounts. And they had provided a prime suspect by making the McClaren's employee who had approved payment disappear.

That night, he went home and stared at the telephone for five minutes, then walked to a restaurant a mile away to eat a solitary dinner. When he came home, he found himself staring at the phone again. He took the card out of his wallet, turned it over, and dialed the number.

Serena's voice said, "Yeah?"

Walker paused for a moment at the sound. Now that he had heard it, this was real. "h.e.l.lo," he said. "Serena?"

"Yeah."

"It's me," he said.

It became Mary Catherine Casey's voice, tight with suppressed laughter. "Which me is it? Am I supposed to guess?"

"John Walker."

"Oh, that me," she said. "Are you calling to tell me that you've been dreaming of me every night, or that you want your money back on the flowers?"

"I'm glad you got them," he said. "At least that went right. You like flowers? I never asked."

She said, "I liked that Constantine was stricken with fear and dismay when they came here. He's afraid I'll run off with you. Don't get excited: if I felt like running, I'd run. Flowers wouldn't have much to do with it."

"But I have been dreaming about you."

"How romantic. Did I have clothes on?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"It's a perfectly reasonable question," she said with a laugh. "I didn't, did I?"

"Well ...not really."

"That's comforting," she said. "I was beginning to be afraid you were more complicated than that." She went silent for a moment. "I see you're calling from home. You must have found the girl."

"She's dead," said Walker. "They killed her in Illinois. I guess I thought Stillman told you, but ..."

"I wondered why I hadn't picked her up again," she said. "Are you okay?"

Walker took a breath as he considered. "I'm not sad for me. I guess that's what you meant. I'm sad for her. She was just this girl, a nice person who did her job and didn't harm anybody."

She a.s.sumed her business voice, as though he had been talking to Mary Casey and had not heard the click when his call had been transferred to Serena. "If we can help, call us."

"Not 'us.' The one I was calling was you. I wondered if I could fly down on the weekend and see you."

"Uh-uh."

"If this weekend isn't a good time, I could-"

"Not interested," she interrupted.

"Oh," he said quietly.

"You haven't finished with her."

"She's dead."

"That's worse. She's not going to turn out to be a thief, or make any mistakes you can't forgive. I can't compete with her."

"Who asked you to? She's gone."

"I can hear her in your voice. Look, if she was this nice person, then thinking about her for a while is no more than she deserved from you. So do it. When you've let go of her, you can call me." The line went dead.

Walker spent the next two hours searching his mind for arguments that she had not given him a chance to use. He was over Ellen Snyder, and if he had not been, she was gone. He still thought about her sometimes, but the way he thought had changed. She was an a.s.signment, a case that his boss had asked him to study and solve.

As he formulated the argument, he realized that it sounded false even to him. He was not in love with Ellen Snyder, but Ellen Snyder was not a case. She was a person who had been subjected to fear and probably pain, and worse, a nightmare feeling that n.o.body knew what was happening to her, and no help would come. And no help had come. It made him sick. The fact that he had once loved her had made her so familiar that he could see it happening in his imagination, know what she had been thinking. He did not love her anymore, but Serena was not wrong.

The whole next day, Walker worked on the fraud project. He moved forward in time to cases that were currently under investigation, but it was impossible to find anything that was suspicious in the same way as Ellen Snyder's case. It was nearly quitting time when he noticed a commotion in the bay. There were heavy footsteps, male voices, the sounds of furniture being moved.

He saw Joyce Hazelton pa.s.s by his doorway, so he stepped out. "What's going on?"

"Nothing, I hope," she said. "We're just getting the bay ready. If Hurricane Theresa keeps moving toward Florida overnight, we'll need to have a phone bank to handle the calls. Everybody sits in here and grabs whatever phone rings. After the L.A. quake in '94 we were at it for nearly two weeks."

"What should I be doing?" he said.

"Going home," she said. "Get lots of sleep. If you're smart, you'll pack an overnight bag and keep it ready, so if it happens you'll be able to brush your teeth and wear clean clothes. They've clocked winds up to a hundred and twenty and growing. If it doesn't lose steam, the phones will be ringing when you get here tomorrow."

The call came even earlier. It was three A.M. A.M. when Walker's telephone rang, and he was awake instantly. Joyce Hazelton's voice was quiet and clam. "John, it's what we talked about this afternoon. I just got the call myself. We've all got to get into the office right away. It's already morning in Florida." She hung up before he could ask any questions. As he dressed, he decided she had probably been wise. The questions that he could have asked were things he would find out when he got there. when Walker's telephone rang, and he was awake instantly. Joyce Hazelton's voice was quiet and clam. "John, it's what we talked about this afternoon. I just got the call myself. We've all got to get into the office right away. It's already morning in Florida." She hung up before he could ask any questions. As he dressed, he decided she had probably been wise. The questions that he could have asked were things he would find out when he got there.

Walker drove through the nearly empty streets, making good time. He listened to the radio, tapping the b.u.t.ton from station to station, hearing the drone of voices on call-in talk shows, s.n.a.t.c.hes of sports reports, blares of music. When he finally heard the word "hurricane," it was on some sort of listing that had to do with travel, and the next words were "and in Minneapolis, partly cloudy turning to fair."

He parked in the garage at three-forty, started toward his trunk to bring his suitcase with him, then thought better of it. The parking s.p.a.ces around him were filling up quickly. If he arrived with a suitcase, some of those people would be amused. If there turned out to be a need for it later, they would be much less so. He entered the lobby and saw that night security was still in effect, so there was a short delay while he signed in at the desk, and then another delay while a security guard used his key to operate the elevators to the upper floors.

When Walker reached the seventh floor, he saw that the transformation was already complete. Twenty of the forty desks in the open bay were occupied. There were typists and receptionists beside actuaries and underwriters. There were even a few of the investment people in the s.p.a.ces at the corner nearest their corridor. But his most vivid sensation was the sound of telephones ringing all over the room.

People were s.n.a.t.c.hing up receivers, uttering a few acknowledgments as they took notes on message pads. Then they would tap in policy numbers on their computer terminals and stare at the screens while they tried to answer questions. Walker could see already that many of them were out of their depth. A few would look puzzled, then raise their hands in the air like schoolchildren.

Joyce Hazelton would stride up the aisle to answer the question or take over the call, but it was a Joyce Hazelton he had never seen. She had always been made up and combed like a minor official of the State Department, always wearing a ring, a pin, and small ear studs of some semiprecious stone that matched her suit. Today she was wearing faded blue jeans, a pair of bright white running shoes, and a gray sweats.h.i.+rt that said PRINCETON 70 PRINCETON 70 in blue letters. He moved closer to her as she took a telephone out of the hand of a man he recognized as a vice president who issued performance bonds on construction projects. in blue letters. He moved closer to her as she took a telephone out of the hand of a man he recognized as a vice president who issued performance bonds on construction projects.

"Yes, sir," she said into the phone. "I'm a supervisor. My name is Joyce Hazelton." She was leaning down to read the computer screen. "Your premium was received on the twenty-third, which is plenty of time." She pointed to a line on the screen so the vice president could see where it was. "Your coverage is in full force." She listened. "What I would do in your place is make a videotape of the house. Just walk through every room with your belongings still in place, and then the outside too. That part I would do while I was getting into the car to drive away from the beach area." She paused and listened again. "No, sir. If there really are hundred-and-fifty-mile-an-hour winds, we'd rather pay off on your home owner's policy than your life insurance."

While she was talking, Walker saw that there were some other managers walking the aisles, some of them getting novices set up at desks with hurried instructions, and others handling questions. He moved toward one of the empty desks, but Joyce handed the telephone back to the vice president and caught up with him. She guided him away from the desks and up the aisle, talking rapidly.

"John, did you bring your suitcase?"

"Yeah," he said. "Thanks for the warning. Where do you want me to sit?"

"We don't know yet if the hurricane will make it to the mainland, but it just brushed the edge of the Dominican Republic. It tore roofs off brand-new buildings and caused floods that took roads with them. The Miami office doesn't have enough people, so we're trying to rush reinforcements in ahead of the storm."

"Me?" said Walker. He stared at the activity around them. There were already people with their hands up.

Joyce saw them too. "You were on the list from upstairs. Obviously you don't have to-"

"I'll go," he said. "What do I do?"

"Meet the others at the airport as soon as you can. Delta Air Lines." She took a step toward a confused-looking twenty-year-old typist. She stopped and looked back at Walker. "Keep your receipts."

Walker watched her turn her attention to the new problem, then hurried toward the elevators. When he arrived at the airport, Bill Kennedy came across the polished floor to meet him. Walker could see that Kennedy already had a ticket in his coat pocket.

"We can't fly to Miami," Kennedy said cheerfully. "They're afraid their planes will get stuck on the runway when the storm hits."

"What are your tickets for?"

"Atlanta."

"Atlanta? That's got to be five hundred miles away."

"Six hundred sixty-three," said Kennedy. "That's what they said, and they're an airline, so they must know."

"Can't we do better than that?"

Kennedy shrugged. "Better? From a rational perspective, Anchorage would be a lot better." He put his arm around Walker's shoulders and turned him toward the ticket counter. "Look who's here."

Walker recognized Marcy w.a.n.g, Maureen Cardarelli, and a few of the new people who had just completed training to be agents. "So?"

"We're all young and unmarried. It's a squadron of the unloved, the unwanted, and the cheaply dispensable. It's an insurance company, for Christ's sake-they're weighing risk against reward. They know they're liable to lose somebody. Atlanta is only an hour from Miami if planes are flying when we get there. If they're not ..."

"What about Orlando?"

"Orlando? Don't know him. Let him die."

"Florida. That's only a couple of hundred miles from Miami, and there are huge numbers of flights. Has anybody checked to see if they're still on?"

"Beats me," he said. "The flight leaves for Atlanta in a few minutes, so if you want to go ..."

Walker stepped to the counter, where a middle-aged man was waiting. "Are the flights to Orlando still scheduled?"

The man looked at him judiciously. "At this time, there haven't been any cancellations."

"Are there any leaving soon that I can still get on?"

The man clicked his computer keys, stared, then clicked some more. "There's one in twenty minutes." He turned his attention to Walker. "There are lots of pa.s.sengers who haven't checked in yet. I don't know if you've heard, but they're expecting a hurricane in Florida. I could sell you a ticket. You'll probably get on, if it goes. I have to say that I think the no-shows are probably right. If the plane takes off, it may be diverted. If it lands in Orlando, you may regret it."

"I know," said Walker. "I have to try. It's an emergency."

The man seemed to be making an effort to say no more. His eyebrows slowly rose as he clicked in the reservation and started to print the ticket. At last he said quietly, "I happened to be working there when Andrew came in. You haven't seen an emergency until you're stuck in one of those things."

Walker took his ticket and returned to the waiting area to tell the others, but they were gone. He looked up at the schedule on the television screen, and saw the flight for Atlanta blinking. In a moment, the notation changed to DEPARTED DEPARTED.

Walker hurried through the airport to his gate, and got in line to board the flight for Orlando.

At one o'clock in the afternoon, Walker was making his way through the Orlando airport toward the baggage claim. As he reached the escalator to take him down to the lower level, he heard a sweet female voice announce, "All incoming flights have been canceled."

A few minutes later, Walker was in a rental car driving out of Orlando on the turnpike toward the southeast, staring across the flat country at a small, distant bank of puffy white clouds just above the horizon.

19.

Walker found an all-news station on the rental car's radio and kept it on as he drove. The weather reports had been superseded by recitations of an official notice that said a hurricane watch had been declared for a stretch of Florida from the Keys up the Atlantic coast to Daytona Beach. It was followed by a long list of the communities that fell within those boundaries. Since Walker still had not reached the first of them, he began to feel increasingly uneasy, especially after he heard the revision that extended the watch all the way up to Jacksonville.

When he reached the coast, the sun was s.h.i.+ning brightly on the road ahead, and the white surf stood out from the sea as it did in every picture of Florida he had ever seen, but the puffy white clouds in the distance had changed. They seemed to be piling on top of one another, growing into towers. Somewhere beyond them, something very big was happening, something that he had never seen before. It was as though he could see the night following the sun in from the east, slowly rolling in over the ocean and darkening it across the whole horizon.

The voice on the radio said, "The Weather Service has just upgraded the hurricane watch to a hurricane warning. Hurricane Theresa is now seventy miles east-southeast of the Florida coast, moving at approximately twenty miles an hour. It contains extremely heavy rains, and winds up to one hundred and sixty miles an hour. All residents are advised to take immediate precautions, and to expect that the storm will make landfall within the next four hours. I repeat. The hurricane watch has been changed to a hurricane warning ...."

It was shortly afterward that Walker noticed that the lanes coming toward him were filling up rapidly. He noticed that some of the cars were heavily loaded with luggage. He supposed that most of these people probably were tourists who had decided that this might be a good time to move on to the next stops on their itineraries. But before long, traffic on Walker's side began to thin out and move faster, so the contrast was more and more clear. He kept remembering that these were people who had spent time in this part of the country. Many of them probably had been through hurricanes before. If they were leaving, driving in the other direction began to seem more and more like idiocy. He could be sitting in a hotel in Atlanta with the others, drinking mint juleps and watching weather reports on the television above the bar. He had been too clever for that.

The words of the radio announcements did not change much for the next half hour. It was the voices that changed. The announcers were sounding less slick and jovial, reading their scripts carefully now with a sober, measured enunciation. They began to add a short paragraph about the Emergency Broadcast System. A few minutes later, advice was inserted from some official agency that low-lying coastal areas could be subject to damaging waves, particularly during high tides. Then they read a list of cities that were precisely like that, all the names that evoked college spring vacations: the Keys from Key West to Key Biscayne, Coral Gables, Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, Boca Raton, Palm Beach, and sixty or seventy that he had never heard of, most of them with the words "beach," "island," or "sh.o.r.es" in them somewhere.

By the time Walker reached North Miami Beach, the announcers were reading addresses of buildings that had been designated as shelters for those who wished to leave their homes, and warning others that official evacuation orders might be issued. It was not the radio that undermined Walker's confidence. What bothered him most was being nearly the only one driving southward past the hundreds of cars moving steadily north, while the enormous, dark shape over the ocean to his left grew bigger and darker.

He had never been within a thousand miles of a hurricane, and had paid attention to them only in the most detached way while he was growing up. They were television pictures of palm trees bent in the wind. After he had gone to work at McClaren's, he had learned a bit from checking the facts in Kennedy's vulnerability a.s.sessment of south Florida, but it was becoming clear to him that his imagination had failed him.

The report had been about money-about dollar values of specific properties and projected replacement costs-and not about small clouds in the distance that grew into horizon-to-horizon black ma.s.ses that rolled in and killed you. He sensed that he had better be indoors before the spectacle turned into an experience.

Walker had to stop at a telephone booth to look up the address of the McClaren regional office. He paged through the telephone book and found it, then pushed a couple of quarters into the phone and dialed. A recording came on of a soothing female voice: "You have reached McClaren Life and Casualty. We're sorry, but due to increased calling volume, all our lines are busy. Please hold and the next available representative-" He hung up. Of course their lines were busy. That's why he had been sent down here. He got back into the car and drove until he found a gas station.

He filled the tank and bought a good local road map, then asked the man at the cash register for directions. The man gave a nervous glance over Walker's shoulder. "Gee, I'm sorry, but there are five customers behind you, and more coming in every second. You can wait if you want, and I'll try."

Walker stepped aside to let the next person take his place, then moved down the line and stopped. The faces in the line bore that mixture of sullenness and eye-avoiding stolidity that seemed to come over people forced to wait. He held up his map. "Can anybody give me directions to Seventh?"

"Street or Avenue?" It was a man in late middle age with a Spanish accent who stood near the end of the line.

"Uh ...Street." He added, "Seventy-five eleven Northwest Seventh."

The man raised his hand to point out the window with the package of flashlight batteries he had picked up while he was waiting. "Streets are east-west, avenues are north-south. And they get duplicated. There's a Southwest, Northwest, Southeast, Northeast. Northwest Seventh Street is down there about ten, fifteen blocks. What's your cross street?"

Walker looked at his map again. "I think ...Southwest Tenth Avenue. Is that possible?"

"Sure it is," said the man. "Down there ten, fifteen blocks. Turn right and keep going about a mile."

"Thanks," said Walker. "Thanks a lot." He reached to shake the man's other hand, but there was a big package of cookies in it.

The man smiled. "Better get going, though. It could get here soon."