“Got to keep it tidy,” she said with hardly any inflection at all.
I looked around the reception room. Cracked plaster showed at its edges, cobwebs decorated the corners and there was a half inch of dust sticking out from the wall. The ashtray urn to my left had enough cigarette butts in it to give Missouri lung cancer.
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Nothing like tidiness.”
The hippo smirked, went to shuffling papers on her desk. After awhile her phone lit up. She clutched if in her chubby paw, said, “Okay,” into the instrument, then said to me, “All right, Charlie — Mr. Fredrickson — will see you now. Go on back.”
I stepped into an office of tasteless luster. A rotund man with a whisky-veined hose, blue-pin-stripe suit and a three-dollar maroon tie greeted me from across the desk with an extended hand and hundred proof breath. I fought the urge to peek and see if he was wearing white socks.
I took the clammy hand and shook. “Charlie Fredrickson,” he said as if that explained everything. “Sit down, Mr... Sorry, what was it again?”
“Hunter,” I said. “Leif Hunter.”
I dropped in the chair across from his desk. He sat down behind his desk, twisted in his swivel chair like a nervous cobra.
“Now, Mr. Hunter. What can I do for you?”
I explained who I represented, and gave him a brief rundown of the coincidences that bothered International Underwriters. He listened passively.
“And how may I help?” he asked with an expansive spreading of his hands. The left hand just missed knocking his coffee cup off the desk and his right rocked a bottle of Bug Off Roach Spray.
I nodded at the roach spray. “Interesting paperweight.”
Fredrickson offered me an embarassed smile. “Roaches are bad in this building. Constant war.”
“I bet.”
Fredrickson gave me a cold stare. “Now, you were saying...?”
“First,” I said, “you can let me speak to the employees who wrote up the agreements with my three clients.” I named them again for him.
Fredrickson leaned back in his chair, cupped his hands together over his stomach. “Do you suspect wrong-doing?”
“I don’t suspect anyone of anything, yet. But I suspect everyone.” Someone had said that corny line in a movie once and I had been saving it for just such an occasion.
“Well,” Fredrickson said, “we’re a small company. I mean there isn’t anyone else except myself and Miss Little.”
“You wrote the agreements then?”
“That is correct, Mr. Hunter. Uh, would you care for a cup of coffee? I have some cups in my desk drawer here.” He made a gesture for the bottom, right hand drawer.
“No thanks. Doesn’t it strike you odd that three people would come to you for a loan, sign you as beneficiary for their insurance and all three die of a coronary in the same area? And why were you named as beneficiary? Any idea?”
“Yes, I do, Mr. Hunter. All three clients you named were credit risks. The younger of the three, Dravek, had a good solid job, but he was an alcoholic. You know how that is?”
I didn’t know, but I nodded.
“The others were old, had meager incomes from the government. I know how this is going to sound, but I was very much afraid to give them a loan. At their age it was unlikely they could manage the payments. They just might up and die at any moment.”
“But you did approve the loans?”
Fredrickson sighed. “Yes. My humanitarian instincts got the better of my common sense. Well, not entirely. The three were deadbeats, really. So that being the case, I suggested, as a protection for myself and the company, that they take out policies from International Underwriters. Insurance is not written out to dying people, Mr. Hunter. Insurance companies are a solid business. I knew that if they approved the clients, then I wasn’t taking such a big chance. I chose International Underwriters because of its reputation.”
“But why sign the policies over to you?”
“More security for my company. If they should die, well, I wouldn’t be left holding the bag, now would I? American General would be sure to get its money.”
“In triplicate,” I said.
“Mr. Hunter, you’re looking at this through a knothole.” And with that he made with the expansive gesture again and nearly clobbered the roach spray as before. This time he put the bottle in his bottom desk drawer. He continued as if nothing had happened. “None of these people had any family to speak of, so I doubt if I deprived any loved ones of funds. It was just a business transaction, nothing more.”
“But they all turned up dead shortly thereafter, and all within a few blocks of each other.”
“That is indeed an incredible coincidence, Mr. Hunter, but I can hardly be held responsible for that, now can I?”
“I wonder,” I said. “I don’t suppose you would allow me to look at your files on the three.”
“They are confidential, but in a case like this, of course, you’re welcome. I’ve nothing to hide.”
“May I see them then?”
“Certainly, certainly,” he said, flashing teeth all over the place. “They’re in the front office. Ask Miss Little for them on your way out. I’ll dial into the front office and have her accommodate you.” He did just that. “Sure you won’t have a cup of coffee? It’s hot.” He waved a hand at a Mr. Coffee perched on a small table to his left.
I got up and went to the door. “Fredrickson.”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you use some of that insurance money to remodel this joint?”
“Now, Mr. Hunter,” he whined. “That’s no way...”
I went out with him still talking. Miss Little gave me the files and breathed chocolate mint breath down the back of my neck all the while I was examining them. The files didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. Fredrickson had made notations about them being credit risks and about his suggestion that they take out policies from International Underwriters to assure American General of their steadfastness. The loans American General had granted to the three were all for a thousand dollars or little over. Everything seemed in order.
I gave the files back to Miss Little, told her not to take any wooden chocolates and got out there before she could throw her desk at me.
That night as I lay back on the couch watching John Wayne single-handedly decimate the Japanese army, I managed to slip the nagging events of the day from my mind. At least until the commercial, and damn if it wasn’t a commercial for Bug Off and that brought to mind Fredrickson again and gave me a headache. I knew that clown was guilty as sure as I knew my name was Leif Hunter. But how to prove it? It looked as if Fredrickson had literally gotten away with murder. And then again, maybe it was all coincidence.
The commercial did nothing for my headache. A fellow dressed like a headhunter pleaded, “It blows roaches away!” With that the pseudo head-hunter put a blowgun to his lips and dispatched a silverfish the size of a horse.
An insult to the intelligence, I thought, and the termination of that commercial seemed like a good place to call it a night. The movie would go on without me. I got up, turned off the tube, took a couple of aspirin for my aching head and went to bed.
About three in the morning I woke up with the answer.
Eleven a.m. found me in the office of American General with two plainclothes detectives at my side. One was James Harrison, a friend of mine from when I had been on the force, the other a recently-promoted detective named Jacobs.