Read Online Death Benefits by Michael A. Kahn - Free Book Online Page A

was. The smudge of flour on her nose seemed the final touch.
    â€œWe were high school sweethearts,” she said in answer to my question. “We were married after Stoddard graduated from college. I taught kindergarten at the Flynn Park School while Stoddard went to law school at St. Louis University. I haven’t worked since my son was born.” She looked down at her hands in her lap. “I’ve been an active volunteer, though. In fact, I have a Red Cross committee meeting tonight, and tomorrow is my day at the gift shop at Barnes Hospital. I do that every week.”
    She gave me a tour of the house. The upstairs seemed like a series of museum period rooms. The bedrooms of her dead son and institutionalized daughter looked the way they must have looked on the day each had departed.
    â€œThis was Stoddard’s bedroom,” she said as she opened the door.
    My head involuntarily turned toward her bedroom, which was at the other end of the upstairs hallway. She caught the look, and I saw a brief glimmer of pain, or shame, in her face.
    â€œWould you mind if I looked around Mr. Anderson’s room?” I asked. “It shouldn’t take long.”
    â€œTake your time, dear. I’ll be downstairs in the kitchen.”
    I spent fifteen minutes searching his bedroom. If it contained a clue to his mental state, I missed it. The room was bereft of personality, and seemed more like a room in a residence hotel. The only reading materials were several Fortune and Forbes magazines on his nightstand and a pile of old Wall Street Journals on the corner of his desk. The only personal papers were neat stacks of old bills and magazine subscription notices in the center of his desk. The faded English hunting prints that were framed on the wall seemed as anonymous as the rest of the room.
    â€œWhat were his work habits the last week or so?” I asked Dottie. We were seated at the small table in the kitchen.
    â€œHe worked late most of those nights. But that was hardly unusual.” She shook her head sadly. “Stoddard worked late most nights.”
    â€œDid he have any drinking or drug problems?”
    â€œNo. He liked a glass of wine with his meal. And he often made himself a highball before dinner. When he came home before dinner, that is. I’m afraid that an attorney’s wife gets used to cooking for one. As for a drug problem, I would be shocked if he did. He wrote articles about the need for longer jail terms for drug offenders. He was chairman of the ‘Say No To Drugs’ campaign in St. Louis under President Reagan. I met Mrs. Reagan, you know. We had tea together at Old Warson Country Club.”
    â€œDid you see him the night before he disappeared?”
    â€œWe had dinner here. I made my pot roast.” She tilted her head to the side, remembering. “He seemed moody. And distracted. I remember I was in the middle of telling him about something that happened at the hospital gift shop when he just…got up and…and just walked out of the room. He wasn’t angry, or any such thing as that. He just wasn’t even aware I was talking.”
    â€œDid you see him again?”
    She closed her eyes and shook her head. “By the time I cleaned the dishes he was in his bedroom and the door was closed. He left for work the next morning while I was in my bath. I never saw him again.”
    â€œDid he contact you before he died?”
    She looked down. “No.”
    â€œWere you afraid he’d been kidnapped?”
    After a moment of silence, she looked up, her eyes moist. “I was frightened, but not that Stoddard had been kidnapped. I’m…I’m so ashamed of myself, Rachel. I was afraid that he…that he had left me for another woman. Every time that telephone rang after he disappeared, I was afraid it would be Stoddard, calling from one of those horrible places like Reno or Tijuana—calling to tell me he wanted a