“But I mean, that’s what he did?” Dr. Todd pursued.
“It appears so, yes.”
“So let me get this straight,” Dr. Todd said, with the same sort of eager enthusiasm she might show while regarding a crooked spine. “Denton Pope thought that he had home-owner’s insurance…or he thought that his mother did.”
“That’s correct. That’s what we think,” Schroeder said.
“But he…they…didn’t.”
“That’s correct.”
“Oh.” Silvia Todd settled back in the padded swivel chair, shaking her head. “I don’t suppose we can indict somebody on the other side of the grave, huh.”
Schroeder laughed gently, resting his hand over the microphone. “Any other questions right now for Undersheriff Guzman?”
Various heads shook in the jury, and Schroeder nodded at Estelle. “Undersheriff, how long did you investigate the insurance dealings of George Enriquez?”
“Over the course of approximately four months, sir.”
“And during that investigation, did you discover that other people had been writing checks or giving cash to Mr. Enriquez, thinking that they were making insurance premium payments?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In some of those cases, is it true that no insurance policy had actually been issued?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In how many instances?”
“We have established thirty-seven separate cases so far where premiums were allegedly paid but no policy was issued.”
The courtroom fell silent as Schroeder gave the jury time to digest the number, and then he said, “Thirty-seven people were paying George Enriquez for insurance policies that did not exist. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
The district attorney rested both elbows on the podium, his hands clasped together under his chin. “Did any one of these thirty-seven people ever file a complaint that they had been denied payment of an insurance claim by Mr. Enriquez or his agency?”
“No, sir.”
“Not one?”
“No, sir. Not one of the thirty-seven people that we interviewed.”
“Were any claims actually settled or paid out during that period to any of those thirty-seven people?” He waved a hand in dismissal. “Other than the one to the sheriff’s deputy that you’ve already mentioned.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What claims were paid?”
“We found a total of nineteen claims that were paid by personal checks written by Mr. Enriquez.”
“Over how long a period?”
“Approximately four years.”
“Did you compute an average amount for the claims?”
“Yes, sir. The average for the nineteen claims was two hundred twelve dollars and nineteen cents.”
Schroeder once more looked up at the ceiling, as if the figures were on the acoustical tile rather than in bold red ink in his notes. “Nineteen claims averaging a little over two hundred dollars. Some more, some less. Added together, Mr. Enriquez paid out a total of about four thousand dollars in claims. Is that correct?”
“Four thousand thirty-one dollars and sixty-one cents.”
Schroeder pursed his lips. “So four thousand bucks over four years. Out of his own pocket.” He shrugged. “Acting as his own small insurance pool, so to speak. Do you happen to know the average payment made by those thirty-seven customers to Mr. Enriquez?”
Estelle glanced down at her small notebook. “The average monthly payment was seventy-two dollars and thirteen cents.”
“Math isn’t my strong suit, but let’s see if we can make this simple. You’ve got an average payment of seventy-two bucks a month. So that’s something like eight hundred a year.”
“Eight hundred and sixty-five dollars and fifty-six cents,” Estelle said.
“Per person.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So thirty-seven times that eight hundred dollars.”
“Yes, sir. Thirty-two thousand twenty-five dollars and seventy-two cents.”
Schroeder turned in wonder to the jury. “Thirty-two grand a year, for four years.”
“Yes, sir.”
He glanced at his notes. “My math tells me that’s a hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Four thousand out, a hundred and twenty-eight thousand in.”
“Yes, sir.”
For a long moment, Schroeder stood quietly, gazing at his notes. “Undersheriff, during your investigations of these activities, did you come to believe that there was any certain type of person that Mr. George Enriquez favored with his insurance ‘deals’?”
“A certain type of person, sir?”
A flash of impatience shot across the district attorney’s face. “Did any of the thirty-seven people share common characteristics…or to put it another way, was there anything about their circumstances that they had in common?”
“It appeared in each instance that the person either had difficulty obtaining insurance through normal channels or had an insurance history such that their rates would be higher than they were able to afford,” Estelle said.
“So each one was a tough case. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In Mrs. Pope’s case, why would home-owner’s insurance through normal channels have been difficult…or expensive?”
“They were heating with a defective, out-of-date wall unit as well as a wood stove elsewhere in the trailer that had not been installed according to code. They had also run a number of extension cords out to livestock pens in lieu of appropriate wiring. The mobile home itself was an older model that had been extensively altered by the home owners over the years.”
“You understood this after conversations with fire department investigators?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Had you been an insurance agent visiting the Popes’ property, would you have issued a policy based on what you saw?”
“I’m not an insurance agent, sir. I couldn’t say.”
“But George Enriquez issued the policy, didn’t he?”
“As far as we can tell, there was no policy issued, sir.”
“I stand corrected.” Schroeder grinned at the jury. “Mrs. Pope thought that she had an insurance policy and was no doubt grateful to Mr. Enriquez for providing some form of protection against loss. It appears that she was making monthly payments on that fictitious policy. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
He was about to say something else when the door beside the vacant judge’s bench opened. Howard Bell, the court bailiff, stepped into the courtroom, closing the door behind him with exaggerated care. “Excuse me a minute,” the district attorney said to the jury, and walked across the courtroom toward Bell. The two men conferred briefly, and then Schroeder nodded and strode back toward the witness stand.
As he bent close, he pushed the microphone boom far to one side. “You’ve got a phone call that you need to take, Undersheriff Guzman,” he said. “Use the phone in the judge’s chambers.” He turned to the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to take a short break. Please remain in the courtroom. If it’s going to be more than five or ten minutes, I’ll let you know.”
Estelle’s pulse kicked as she hurried out of the courtroom, glancing at the wall clock as she passed the door to the court clerk’s office. She’d been in court for less than thirty minutes-a little more than an hour since she had left Perry Kenderman with instructions to go home and behave himself.
Chapter Eleven
Estelle settled the telephone receiver back in its cradle. Another button flashed on the phone console, a message just as quickly routed somewhere else in the county building as business carried on as usual. She pushed the chair back in and skirted around Judge Lester Hobart’s tidy walnut desk.
Back in the courtroom, most of the jurors lounged in and around the jury box. One walked the perimeter of the room, swinging her arms to encourage a return of blood to her extremities. The jurors looked toward Estelle with interest as she reentered. Dan Schroeder leaned on the broad table used by the prosecution during regular trials, his hands planted among a sea of papers. He glanced up as Estelle approached. She leaned over the table, her back to the jurors.