Дэвид Балдаччи - One Good Deed

They again ate at the Checkered Past, this time opting for chicken over steak. And this time Archer paid for the meal with his slaughterhouse money.

When Shaw put down his second cup of coffee and wiped his mouth with his red and white checkered napkin, he eyed Archer closely.

“You been spending time with Miss Crabtree.” It wasn’t a question.

Archer’s face fell. “How do you know that?”

“My job is to know everything, Archer. Sometimes I get there, and sometimes I fall short. But I’m always trying.”

“She’s letting me stay at her place till I can afford something else. Look, you don’t have to tell anybody about this. She’s just helping me out. There’s no funny business going on.”

“I don’t doubt that. And from all accounts, Miss Crabtree can take care of herself.”

“Now, I went over to Jackie’s last night. And slept there.” Before Shaw could say anything, he added, “On the couch, by myself.”

“So why’d you go to Jackie’s?”

“I told her about Pittleman’s cancer.”

“And why did you do that?”

“You think I messed up again?”

“Not necessarily, I just want to hear your reasoning is all.”

“I guess I wanted to see if she already knew about all that. See her reaction.”

“And?”

“And either she’s as good an actress as Katharine Hepburn, or the woman didn’t know anything about it.”

Shaw took this in, rubbing at his jaw.

“And Miss Crabtree?” he said, his tufty eyebrows hiking suggestively. “Despite what you just said, you like her, don’t you?”

Archer nodded. “She’s a special gal.”

“Nothing wrong with liking special gals.”

“And the woman has had to deal with some bad stuff.”

“Like what?”

Archer was about to tell the lawman about what was in the scrapbook but decided not to. It had nothing to do with the case, and he didn’t feel he had the right to share such personal information that he had gained only by looking at something he had no business looking at.

“Just boys being idiots. Catcalls and crummy notes passed under her door. Even a deputy sheriff who’s got the hots for her.”

“She’s a fine-looking woman. Just the way it is. Like you said, boys are boys. Not saying it’s right. I got a daughter and two sons. Up to the parents to teach them right. Respect goes both ways, or it don’t count.”

“That’s all I got. What about you?”

“I tell you on the condition that you don’t go blabbing it around, you hear me?”

“I hear you. I guess I’m kinda surprised you’re even letting me know anything. Or work with you on this thing.”

“First time I ever let a suspect help me investigate, Archer, and that’s no lie.”

“So why me?”

“I got my reasons. And that should be good enough for now.”

“Okay.”

“Anyway, met with a medical specialist Pittleman was seeing on the south side of the state, good ways from here, I tell you. Put some miles on the Buick.”

“What’d the man say?”

“He confirmed that Pittleman was dying. Incurable. Even cutting him up woulda done no good. This was about six months ago. Told Pittleman he had about a year left to live at that time.”

“Okay. But we already knew that.”

Shaw held up a finger. “What we didn’t know was that the doc told me that Marjorie Pittleman was there with her husband on a couple of occasions.”

“So she knew he was sick?”

“That’s right.”

“How’d you even figure to check on that?”

“I don’t take nothing people tell me as the truth till I get someone or something else to absolutely confirm it. See, the thing is, people lie, all the time.” He gave Archer a hard stare. “We call it corroboration .”

“Okay. But why is that important?”

“Think about it, Archer. When someone lies, it means they’re trying to cover something else up, only reason to lie. Hell, son, you should know that, as much as you lied to me! Now, when a husband kills a wife or a wife kills a husband, there are normally only two motivations, least in my experience. First, they have somebody on the side.”

“Well, Pittleman had Jackie, but Marjorie knew about that.”

“Doesn’t mean she was happy about it.”

Archer thought back to what Jackie had told him about it and nodded his head in agreement. “And the second motivation?”

“Hell, Archer, ain’t it obvious? Money!”

“But we found out that he might not be as rich as some think.”

“Which is why I checked with the insurance company that wrote a policy on Hank Pittleman.”

“Insurance policy? How’d you hunt that down?”

“It’s my dang job, Archer. I got good relations with all the insurance folks. See, they don’t want to pay out money any more than you and me would on debts we owe. We find a way to save them the dough, they like that. And they cooperate.”

“So what’d they tell you?”

“That a half-million-dollar life insurance policy was taken out on Hank Pittleman about four months ago. His wife’s the sole beneficiary.”

“Hold on, why would they give a policy to a sick man who’s dying?”

“You struck the nail on the damn head there, Archer. I like that. You could be a detective yourself with some training. You got the right nose for it.” He motioned over the waitress and ordered another cup of coffee and a piece of the cobbler.

“Here’s the thing. They had Pittleman undergo a physical, see. I mean, they all do that. Nurse or a doc comes and does what they do. But they ain’t gonna find a tumor in your head by sticking a thermometer under your tongue or putting a stethoscope against your chest.” Shaw grinned. “But there’s a but. You figure out what it is?”

Archer took only a moment to think about this. “If he was told six months before that he was dying, and they took out the policy four months ago and didn’t tell the insurance folks?”

Shaw’s grin deepened, and he pointed at Archer. “Bingo. That’s insurance fraud. See, on the form they got a little clause that says the applicant knows of no medical or other health condition that would materially alter the risk of the policy being written, or some such legal language like that. Companies do that to cover their ass, and keep the customers honest, and, more important, build in a way not to pay out the money.”

“And since they knew he was dying when they got the policy, the Pittlemans committed fraud?”

“Damn right. And it wasn’t just the wife’s doing. I mean, Hank Pittleman had to know about the policy, otherwise why would they be sending somebody to check out his health? Now Pittleman’s beyond the law, but his wife’s not.”

“You think she had him killed? I mean, I can’t imagine her doing it herself.”

“Naw, if she did kill him, she got someone to do it. Now we just have to prove it.”

“But you have the motive right here. A half-million bucks.”

“Yeah, I can prove insurance fraud all right, and that’ll get her a year in prison maybe. But that’s not why I’m here, Archer. I’m here to catch a murderer. Whoever killed that man needs to hang. And if his wife paid someone to do it, she needs to go to prison for a long time, maybe the rest of her life. Hell, they might hang her, too.”

Archer shook his head.

“What?” said Shaw.

“She just looked like a lost old lady, not a killer.”

Shaw wagged a finger at him. “Remember this, son, if you remember nothing else: Sometimes it’s the ones that look and act like angels you got to watch out for. People are funny. And sometimes a nice outside covers up a real nasty dark side. Dealt with a lot of folks like that in my time. Smile at you while they’re readying the knife to cut your throat.”