Sara Paretsky - Total Recall

“We worry about Paul,” I said. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he lives in a world of his own. He thinks the Nazis are after him. Did Dr. Herschel tell you when she was talking to you that it would be best if no one goes in to see him unless I, or his doctor, or the therapist Rhea Wiell is here, as well? He’ll get so agitated that he could get into serious respiratory difficulties right now.”

She told me to write up something for the nursing station. She let me use her computer in the back room, then taped my message up at the station and said she would make sure the central switchboard routed any calls or visitors to them.

Before going home, I went to my own office to send Morrell an e-mail, recounting the events of the day. So far no one has beaten me up and left me to die on the Kennedy, I wrote, but I’ve been having a strenuous time. I finished with an account of the conversation in Paul’s hospital room. You’ve done so much work with torture victims-could this be a dissociative protection, identifying with victims of the Holocaust? The whole situation is really spooky.

I ended with the messages of love and longing one sends to distant lovers. What had sustained Lotty over the years against such feelings? Had her sense of torment made her think she deserved loneliness and longing? When I got home, I sat on the back porch with Mr. Contreras and the dogs for a long time, not talking much, just drawing comfort from their presence.

In the morning, I decided it was time to visit Ajax Insurance again. I phoned Ralph from my own office and talked to his secretary, Denise. As usual, his calendar was full; once again I pleaded my case forcefully but with charm and goodwill; once again, Denise arranged to fit me in, twenty minutes from now if I could get to Ajax by nine-thirty. I grabbed my briefcase with the photocopies from Ulrich’s journals and ran down to the corner of North for a cab.

When I reached Ralph’s office, Denise told me he would be back from the chairman’s office in two minutes. She settled me in his conference room with a cup of coffee, but Ralph came in almost immediately, pressing his fingers along the corners of his eyes. He looked too tired for this early in the day.

“Hi, Vic. We have a big exposure in the Carolina flood zone. I can give you five minutes, and then I have to move on.”

I laid my photocopies on his conference table. “These are from the journals of Ulrich-Rick-Hoffman, the agent who sold Aaron Sommers his life-insurance policy all those years ago. Ulrich kept what seems to be a list of names and addresses, followed by a set of cryptic initials and check marks. Do they mean anything to you?”

Ralph bent over the papers. “This handwriting is just about impossible to read. Is there any way to get it clearer?”

“Blowing up the image seems to help. Unfortunately I don’t have the originals to work with right now, but I can read some of this-I’ve been looking at it a couple of days.”

“Denise,” he shouted to his secretary. “Can you come here a minute?”

Denise obediently trotted in, not showing any annoyance at the peremptory summons, and took a couple of sheets to her copier. She came back with various sizes of blowups. Ralph looked at them and shook his head.

“Guy was really cryptic. I’ve seen a lot of agency files and-Denise!” he shouted again. “Call that gal in claims handling, Connie Ingram. Get her up here, will you?”

In his normal tone he added to me, “I just remembered what was odd about that file, that disputed-claim file. Connie’ll know the answer.” He turned to the page showing the names and addresses. “Omschutz, Gerstein-are these names? What’s Notvoy?”

“Nestroy, not Notvoy. A woman I know says it’s a street in Vienna.”

“ Austria, you mean? We had an agent on the South Side selling insurance in Vienna, Austria?”

“It’s possible he started his insurance career there before the war. I don’t know. I was hoping you’d look at these and be able to tell whether they were insurance-related or not. A definite no would be almost as helpful as a definite yes.”

Ralph shook his head, rubbing his forehead again. “I can’t tell you. If it is insurance, these numbers, the 20/w and the 8/w, they could refer to a weekly payment-although, hell, I don’t know the German for week. Maybe it doesn’t start with w. Also, what was the currency? Do these amounts make sense for payment figures? And these others, if this is insurance, they could be policy numbers, although they don’t look like ones that I’m familiar with.”

He held it out to me. “Can you read them? What’s the initial letter, this thing that looks like a bee attacking a flower? And then a string of numbers, and then-is that a q or an o? And then there’s an L. Hell, Vic-I don’t have time for this kind of puzzle. It might be insurance, but I can’t tell. I guess I could ask Rossy-he might know if it’s a European system, but if it dates to before the war-well, they’ve changed all their systems since the war. He’s a young guy, wasn’t even born until 1958-he probably wouldn’t know.”

“I know it seems like it’s just a puzzle,” I responded. “But I think that insurance agent Fepple was killed because of it. Yesterday someone who was probably looking for these papers shot Rick Hoffman’s son.”

Denise came to the conference room door to let Ralph know Connie Ingram had arrived.

“Connie. Come on in. You doing okay? No more interviews with the police, I hope. Look, Connie, that claim file that’s been causing everyone such a headache-Aaron Sommers. There weren’t any personal notes from the agent in it. Something about it bugged me when I picked it up from Mr. Rossy, and looking at these, I remembered that’s what was missing.”

He turned to me to explain. “See, Vic, the agent would work up a sheet, numbers, whatever, he’d have a letter or some notes or something that would end up in the file-we rely on their private assessment, especially in life insurance. Guy can have a doctor in his hip pocket to clear him on a physical, but the agent sees him, sees he lives like me, on French fries and coffee, and tells the company the prospect either isn’t a good risk or needs to be rated higher, or whatever. Anyway, there wasn’t anything in the Sommers file. So, Connie, what’s the story-did you ever see any agent report in that file when you looked at it? He might have had handwriting like this.”

Ralph handed one of the sheets to Connie. Her eyes widened and she put a hand over her mouth.

“What is it, Connie?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “This writing is so queer I don’t know how anyone could read it.”

Ralph said, “But did you ever see any notes from the agent-what was his name? Ulrich Hoffman?-either written or typed? You didn’t? You’re sure? What happens when we pay a claim-do we deep-six all the background paper? I find that hard to believe-insurance thrives on paper.”

Denise stuck her head through the doorway. “Your London call, Mr. Devereux.”

“I’ll take it in my office.” Over his shoulder, as he left the conference room, he said, “Lloyds, about these flood losses. Leave the copies there-I’ll show ’ em to Rossy. Connie, think carefully about what you saw in the file.”

I collected my set of copies and handed Denise the blowups she’d made. Connie scuttled out the door while I was thanking Denise for her help. I didn’t see Connie when I got to the elevator: either she’d found a car waiting for her or she was hiding in the women’s bathroom. In case it was the latter, I moved away from the elevators to admire the view of the lake. The executive-floor attendant asked if she could help me; I said I was just collecting my thoughts.