Steven Havill: Scavengers

“Murder comes to mind,” Estelle said.

“Maybe he was tired of life with mother,” Torrez added. “If he was trying for a tricky homicide, he succeeded. Or suicide, in this instance.”

Estelle sat silently, looking at Pasquale. But it was clear that the gush of words had subsided. “Why don’t you just call up Enriquez and say, ‘Hey look, George, I need a copy of my motorcycle insurance policy. I’ll be over this afternoon to pick it up.’ Wouldn’t that be the simplest thing to do?”

“I was going to do that,” Pasquale said hastily. “I just got to thinking, is all. Like about the check.”

Estelle sighed and glanced at Torrez. “The check?”

“Well, when I got the policy, I asked for comprehensive coverage as well as liability, and Enriquez said it was expensive, but he’d see what he could do. He called me in a day or so and said that he’d been able to add it to my policy-”

“Which you don’t have.”

“Right. And I was glad I went ahead and bought it, ’cause remember that wind storm we had in early January? That wasn’t more than a week after I took out the policy. The wind took a limb off the elm tree in our front yard and that blew into my bike and bent the gas tank. I called Enriquez to see if my comprehensive covered it, and he had a check out to me that afternoon. A hundred and seventy bucks.”

“And that’s bad?”

“Well, no. I thought it was pretty cool. But when I’m thinking about it here recently, I remembered that it was a personal check. Not from the insurance company. Not from Enriquez’s company. It was one of his own personal checks. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I was just glad to get the money, you know.”

“George Enriquez paid you with a personal check? On an insurance claim?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I don’t suppose that you kept a copy of that check?”

Pasquale made a face. “Ah, no. I didn’t. I cashed it, and that was that.”

“Rates go up?”

“Pardon?”

“Did your insurance rates go up after that?” Estelle couldn’t repress a smile.

Pasquale hesitated. “Well, I guess they did, a little. Enriquez sent me a new schedule. But don’t they always?”

Estelle rubbed her face wearily. “Ay.”

“What are you thinking?” Torrez asked.

She sat for a long moment with her eyes closed, head bowed.

“Thomas, when you make your monthly insurance payments, how do you do it? Where do you send the check?”

“To Enriquez’s office.”

Estelle looked at him without lifting her head. “Where’s the bill come from?”

Pasquale looked puzzled. “The bill?”

“The bill, Thomas. La cuenta . Someone has to bill you.”

“Well, that’s another thing, see. He told me that with the kind of no-frills policy that he wrote me, the paperwork would be faster if I just paid his office. So I do.”

“Once every six months, or what?” Estelle knew what the young deputy was going to say before he opened his mouth.

“Well, no. It’s due by the fifteenth, each month.”

“Do you make out the check to him, or the insurance company?”

“I just write it to him. George Enriquez, CLU.”

“So you never receive mailings from National. No bills, no policy, no nothing.”

He shook his head. “Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

Both Torrez and Estelle laughed. “Yes, Tomás , it makes me wonder,” Estelle said. “It makes me wonder why you don’t call National’s regional office, wherever that is, and ask if you have a policy with them.” She smiled from the nose down. “That’s sort of an investigatory thing to do.”

She saw the flush creep up from Pasquale’s collar and felt a pang of sympathy for him. “And just imagine,” she added kindly. “You’re busy, you’re smart, you even work with the law all the time…and you step into something like this. Imagine Denton Pope and his run of luck. His grand plan was all for nothing, if he was after insurance. If George Enriquez was holding a fake policy, collecting every month from Eleanor, all he had to do was deny that she had a policy after the fire.” She held out an empty hand.

“So what do you think?” Torrez asked again.

“I think,” Estelle said, pushing herself out of her chair, “that Tom needs to make a discreet call to his insurance company’s regional office and find out the simple answer to his question. If there’s no policy on record, he could ask casually if there’s such a thing as a discretionary policy that the agent writes himself. And if the answer to that is no, and we all know that it will be, then we go from there. And you’re right, Bobby, the district attorney is going to be very interested. We would need to contact the state Attorney General’s office for some guidance in this.”

“There’s not just going to be these two cases,” Torrez said.

“No. Indeed not. What works once isn’t tried just once. Folks like to keep a good thing going,” Estelle said. “We need to move carefully. If the Popes thought they had insurance, but really didn’t…and Thomas thought he had insurance and really doesn’t…” She shrugged. “There’s no reason to believe that they’re the only two complaints. If George Enriquez has himself a little insurance scam going on the side, it’ll be interesting to find out how many people got suckered in.” She glanced at Pasquale. “Sorry, Tom.”

“So what should I do?”

Estelle smiled at him. “Well, you’ve got about this much paperwork to do for the Madrids.” She held her hand four feet off the floor. “We’ve got around-the-clock security at the hospital now, in two different rooms, to make sure that Isidro doesn’t hobble down the hall and jerk out Eurelio’s tubes. I’m sure you’ll take your turn at duty. If you can find time in all that to give your insurance company a call, then that’s the first step. If they say you have nothing on file, then maybe you could saunter on down to George Enriquez’s office and casually ask for a copy of your policy. I’d be interested to hear what he has to say.”

“I can do that.”

“Good,” she said, heading for the door. “And tread softly. The last thing you want to do is tip him off. Enriquez’s been around for a long time, and he’s not about to run out of town tonight.”

Gayle Torrez met Estelle in the hallway. “Francis just called. I didn’t want to interrupt you guys.” She handed Estelle a small deck of While You Were Out notes, and then stepped past into her husband’s office and handed him his own assortment of messages.

“He wonders if you have time to meet him for lunch,” Gayle said. Out of reflex, Estelle’s eyes drifted to the hall clock. “I told him I’d give you the message. And there’s about ten other people who want to talk to you, too.”

“Lunch sounds good,” Estelle said, and handed the messages back to Gayle without reading them. “And then a long nap, and then the afternoon with Francisco and Carlos, and a long chat with my mother…would you stick those in my mailbox?” She grinned at the impassive expression that had settled over Robert Torrez’s face. “Just kidding, Bobby.” She turned to Tom Pasquale.

“And I’m serious about calling your insurance company, Tomás . It’d be really interesting if a little insurance fraud was tied in with that fire.”

“Because I really do want to arrest somebody,” Torrez said, with a fair imitation of Estelle’s soft alto voice.

“Yes, I do,” she said. “If Francis calls again in the next thirty seconds, tell him I’m on my way over to the hospital to pick him up.”