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file. She was wearing
khaki jeans and a sweater that had shrunk from too many washings.
“This is Connie Ingram, Mr. Devereux,” the secretary
said. “She has the information you wanted.”
Ralph didn’t introduce Rossy or me to Ms. Ingram. She
blinked at us unhappily but showed her packet to Ralph.
“This here is all the documents on L-146938-72. I’m
sorry about being in my jeans and all, but my supervisor is away, so they told
me to bring the file up myself. I printed the financials from off the
microfiche, so they aren’t as clear as they could be, but I did the best I
could.”
Bertrand Rossy joined me when I got up to look over
her shoulder at the papers. Connie Ingram flipped through the pages until she
came to the payment documents.
Ralph pulled them out of the file and studied them. He
looked at them for a long moment, then turned to me sternly. “It seems that
your client’s family was trying to collect twice on the same policy, Vic. We
frown on that here.”
I took the pages from him. The policy had been paid up
in 1986. In 1991, someone had submitted a death certificate. A photocopy of the
canceled check was attached. It had been paid to Gertrude Sommers, care of the
Midway Insurance Agency, and duly endorsed by them.
For a moment, I was too dumbfounded to speak. The
grieving widow must be quite a con artist to convince the nephew into shelling
out for his uncle’s funeral when she’d collected on the policy a decade ago.
But how on earth had she gotten a death certificate back then? My first
coherent thought was mean-spirited: I was glad I’d insisted on earnest money up
front. I doubted Isaiah Sommers would have paid to learn this bit of news.
“This isn’t your idea of a joke, is it, Vic?” Ralph
demanded.
He was angry because he thought he looked foolishly
incompetent in front of his new master: I wasn’t going to ride him. “Scout’s
honor, Ralph. The story I told you is the identical one I got from my client.
Have you ever seen something like this before? A fraudulent death certificate?”
“It happens.” He flicked a glance at Rossy. “Usually
it’s someone faking his own death to get away from creditors. And then the
circumstances of the policy—the size—the timing between when it was sold and
when it was cashed—make us investigate before we pay. For something like
this”—he snapped the canceled check with his middle finger—“we wouldn’t
investigate such a small face value—and one where we’d collected all the
premium years before.”
“So the possibility exists? The possibility that
people are submitting claims that aren’t rightfully theirs?” Rossy took the
whole file from Ralph and started going through it one page at a time.
“But the company would only pay once,” Ralph said. “As
you can see, we had all the information available when the funeral home
submitted the policy, so we didn’t pay the claim twice. I don’t suppose anyone
from the agency would have bothered to check whether the purchaser”—he looked
at the tab on the file—“whether Sommers was really dead when his wife filed the
claim.”
Connie Ingram asked doubtfully if she should talk to her
supervisor about calling the agency or the funeral home. Ralph turned to me.
“Are you going to talk to them anyway, Vic? Will you let Connie know what you
find out? The truth, I mean, not some version that you want Ajax to learn?”
“If Miss Warshawski is in the habit of hiding her
findings from the company, Ralph, perhaps we shouldn’t trust her with these
delicate questions.” Rossy gave me a little bow. “I’m sure you would ask your
questions so skillfully that our agent might be startled into telling you—what
he ought to keep between himself and the company.”
Ralph started to say that he was only trying to bait
me, then sighed and told Connie by all means to ask any questions she needed to
reclose the file.
“Ralph, what if someone else filed the claim,
khaki jeans and a sweater that had shrunk from too many washings.
“This is Connie Ingram, Mr. Devereux,” the secretary
said. “She has the information you wanted.”
Ralph didn’t introduce Rossy or me to Ms. Ingram. She
blinked at us unhappily but showed her packet to Ralph.
“This here is all the documents on L-146938-72. I’m
sorry about being in my jeans and all, but my supervisor is away, so they told
me to bring the file up myself. I printed the financials from off the
microfiche, so they aren’t as clear as they could be, but I did the best I
could.”
Bertrand Rossy joined me when I got up to look over
her shoulder at the papers. Connie Ingram flipped through the pages until she
came to the payment documents.
Ralph pulled them out of the file and studied them. He
looked at them for a long moment, then turned to me sternly. “It seems that
your client’s family was trying to collect twice on the same policy, Vic. We
frown on that here.”
I took the pages from him. The policy had been paid up
in 1986. In 1991, someone had submitted a death certificate. A photocopy of the
canceled check was attached. It had been paid to Gertrude Sommers, care of the
Midway Insurance Agency, and duly endorsed by them.
For a moment, I was too dumbfounded to speak. The
grieving widow must be quite a con artist to convince the nephew into shelling
out for his uncle’s funeral when she’d collected on the policy a decade ago.
But how on earth had she gotten a death certificate back then? My first
coherent thought was mean-spirited: I was glad I’d insisted on earnest money up
front. I doubted Isaiah Sommers would have paid to learn this bit of news.
“This isn’t your idea of a joke, is it, Vic?” Ralph
demanded.
He was angry because he thought he looked foolishly
incompetent in front of his new master: I wasn’t going to ride him. “Scout’s
honor, Ralph. The story I told you is the identical one I got from my client.
Have you ever seen something like this before? A fraudulent death certificate?”
“It happens.” He flicked a glance at Rossy. “Usually
it’s someone faking his own death to get away from creditors. And then the
circumstances of the policy—the size—the timing between when it was sold and
when it was cashed—make us investigate before we pay. For something like
this”—he snapped the canceled check with his middle finger—“we wouldn’t
investigate such a small face value—and one where we’d collected all the
premium years before.”
“So the possibility exists? The possibility that
people are submitting claims that aren’t rightfully theirs?” Rossy took the
whole file from Ralph and started going through it one page at a time.
“But the company would only pay once,” Ralph said. “As
you can see, we had all the information available when the funeral home
submitted the policy, so we didn’t pay the claim twice. I don’t suppose anyone
from the agency would have bothered to check whether the purchaser”—he looked
at the tab on the file—“whether Sommers was really dead when his wife filed the
claim.”
Connie Ingram asked doubtfully if she should talk to her
supervisor about calling the agency or the funeral home. Ralph turned to me.
“Are you going to talk to them anyway, Vic? Will you let Connie know what you
find out? The truth, I mean, not some version that you want Ajax to learn?”
“If Miss Warshawski is in the habit of hiding her
findings from the company, Ralph, perhaps we shouldn’t trust her with these
delicate questions.” Rossy gave me a little bow. “I’m sure you would ask your
questions so skillfully that our agent might be startled into telling you—what
he ought to keep between himself and the company.”
Ralph started to say that he was only trying to bait
me, then sighed and told Connie by all means to ask any questions she needed to
reclose the file.
“Ralph, what if someone else filed the claim,
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