Death Benefits

by Jennifer Becton

  So if it wasn’t an accident, then what were we looking at?

  First possibility: Theodore Vanderbilt wanted to commit suicide, but he wanted his wife to receive his life insurance money, and because his policy did not pay out on suicide, he had to make it appear as if he’d died in an accident.

  Second possibility: Theodore Vanderbilt had been murdered, and the killer wanted to hide the evidence.

  And the obvious corollary: Kathy Vanderbilt had murdered her husband and then burned his body to hide her connection to the crime—and perhaps to make the death appear accidental—so that she could receive a cool million dollars from Americus Mutual.

  But could Kathy have pulled that off on her own?

  “Has anyone stopped by during the course of your investigation? Any looky-loos?” I asked, wondering if Kathy had an accomplice who couldn’t resist a little peek at the carnage he’d caused.

  Eva thought back. “We had visits from the claims adjuster from Americus Mutual, who by the way wanted nothing to do with this case once she saw the body and the burn pattern, and a reporter from the Cranford Gazette, who was pretty excited to have an actual story to cover. Other than that, we haven’t had much traffic.”

  “When will you remove the vehicle?” Vincent asked, prompting me to look at Sheriff Harper. He’d probably be relieved not to have to send two deputies to guard it all night.

  “Soon as I’m done here today, and it’ll be a relief to finish sifting and metal detecting in the comfort of my own lab,” Eva said with a glance at the two deputies who were watching her as if she were hosting a TV show.

  “Keep us apprised of your findings and send us a copy of your final report,” Vincent said.

  “Certainly,” Eva said, “and you keep me updated on what you discover. It could help in my investigation.”

  We took our leave of Sheriff Harper, Fred, and Eva and returned to my SUV, where we stopped for a moment.

  “Nothing about that fire was accidental,” I said, realizing that I’d been rubbing my wounded arm unconsciously.

  “Agreed,” Vincent said.

  He was watching me tend my arm, so I dropped it to my side and asked, “But why was it set? And by whom? And what does that mean for Theodore Vanderbilt?” I paused and glanced back at the scene. “We could be looking at a seriously grisly suicide,” I said, shuddering at the thought of anyone choosing such a grim way to die.

  “Or the cover-up of a suicide so that the double indemnity rider would kick in,” Vincent said.

  I nodded. “But we could also be looking at murder.”

  Nine

  As the largest town and the county’s namesake, Cranford had managed to hang on to some of the amenities necessary to a rural community—grocery store, drugstore, county hospital, and deer processing center. But now its redbrick buildings and quaint architecture stood partially abandoned. The windows that had once displayed the goods that kept the community fed and stocked up on everything from horse feed to pianos were mostly vacant. Strange how this small town was now more of a blank spot in a bustling county.

  Fortunately for Vincent and me, there was a restaurant. The food there was pretty darn good, and it was settled fortuitously close to the Eternal Rest Funeral Home, our next destination, where we would meet with the coroner, Morton Ivey.

  As we walked together across the street, our appetites satisfied, I mused, “Have you noticed that our investigations seem to take us to the strangest places? Wastewater treatment plant, funeral home…what’s next?”

  Vincent shrugged. “Maybe one day we’ll get lucky enough to be called to some swanky resort on the coast.”

  “Now that would be nice,” I said, picturing Vincent in swim trunks. Quickly I forced myself to think of something else. “Ted would probably take that one for himself.”

  “Probably.” Vincent laughed and then sobered. “But I’d put up a hell of a fight,” he added, raking his eyes over me as if he might be thinking of me in a bathing suit too.

  Or maybe less than a bathing suit.

  Not that it was ever going to happen.

  A trip to the coast was a fantasy and nothing more, especially if things panned out as I hoped on the rape investigation. If I had my druthers, I’d learn the name of the rapist quickly, Tripp would arrest him, and he’d be convicted by a jury of his peers and sentenced to rot in prison. Then I’d quit my job at the DOI and do…well…something else.

  I didn’t exactly know what that might be, but it was damn sure not going to involve visiting funeral homes and wastewater treatment plants on a regular basis.

  I turned my mind to the task at hand, pulling open the door of the Eternal Rest Funeral Home and waiting for the musty odor of dust, death, and day-old flowers to assault me.

  Why did all funeral homes smell the same?

  And why were they always so dimly lit? Death was depressing enough without sucking all the vitamin D from the room.

  I squinted into the gloom as Vincent and I headed toward the voices that were coming from somewhere farther inside the building. We discovered three men leaning over a casket in one of the viewing rooms. From the back, the men stood at equal heights and had similar builds, but one had iron gray hair.

  “You did a wonderful job on Mr. Perkins,” the eldest man said, his voice holding nothing but pride as he clapped one of the younger men on the shoulder. “I couldn’t have done it better myself.”

  “Excuse me,” I said softly.

  The gray-haired man, whom I assumed was Morton Ivey, turned slowly toward us. If he hadn’t been standing in front of a casket, I would have pegged him for a politician or a used-car salesman. His dark pinstriped suit was immaculately pressed, his hair was slicked into a perfect helmet shape, and he offered us an oily smile. But since we had met him over a casket, all I could see when I looked at him was death.

  “Ah, are you here for the Perkins viewing?” he asked, striding toward us with a loose-kneed gait.

  “No,” I said, producing my badge from my belt and holding it out for his perusal. “We’re here on behalf of the Georgia Department of Insurance.”

  “Ah, yes, we have a meeting scheduled.” He checked his watch. “I must have lost track of time. I’m Morton Ivey, county coroner and proprietor of this establishment.” He paused and then added, “Allow me to introduce my sons. This is Andrew, the acting funeral director here now that I’ve taken on the coroner duties for the county.”

  A clean-cut, middle-aged man with a paunch, Andrew reached out to shake my hand.

  “Pleasure,” I said, but when his hand touched mine I noticed his long, untrimmed fingernails and wanted to recoil.

  Not as clean-cut as I’d thought.

  “And Calvin,” Morton added, “who oversees all the mechanical aspects of the business. He takes care of our machines: hearses, crematory, you name it.”

  This time, before I offered a shake, I looked at Calvin’s hands. The nails were neat but stained with grease. Hardly a surprise if he worked on machinery.

  “Pleasure,” I said as Calvin looked away shyly.

  “Come this way.” Morton motioned us forward, leading us deeper into the funeral home. “My own daddy founded Eternal Rest way back in the forties, and I’ve had the good fortune to turn over many of the duties to my sons.” Morton Ivey’s pride seemed to shake the hallway.

  I didn’t know what to say about a successful undertaking business—it just seemed too morbid for someone to be happy over profiting from death—so I kept quiet.

  “Andrew followed after his daddy and became an excellent mortician in his own right.” Mr. Ivey glanced over his shoulder at me and smiled. “You should see what he can do with a body. We’ve had more open-casket funerals here since he took over downstairs. He can make a car-wreck victim look like he died peacefully in his sleep.”

  I acknowledged his words with what I hoped was a smile and not a wince. I don’t think Morton intended to sound ghoulish, but that was the result. Apparently, he must have believe
d my expression because he continued speaking without hesitation. Fortunately for me, he changed topics.

  “Calvin has a much more mechanical bent, so his embalming work is not up to our high standards.”

  “And what do you do here?” Vincent asked as we followed Morton down a narrow hallway to a door marked “private,” which opened to the business portion of the funeral home.

  “Officially, I’m still the funeral director and will be until I retire, but in actual practice, I’m more of a figurehead now. I’ve turned the day-to-day operations over to my sons. I keep an office here and only join funeral tasks when the parlor is busy.” Morton offered us the guest chairs, and instead of sitting behind his desk, he wheeled his own chair around to join us, making me feel as if he were about to engage in grief counseling.

  I had the urge to scoot my chair away from him, but instead I sat up straighter and looked him in the eye.

  Vincent was watching him carefully. “You are the county coroner and you own a funeral home in town. Doesn’t that constitute a conflict of interests?”

  I glanced at Vincent out of the corner of my eye. So much for not putting the witness on the defensive.

  And indeed, Morton Ivey appeared slightly taken aback by the question, and though he recovered some of his political pallor, the question seemed to disorder his thoughts just enough. He hesitated, seemed to try to find the right words, and finally managed to say, “It’s a perfectly legal arrangement, I assure you.” He leaned back and crossed his arms. “We may acquire a large percentage of the county cases, but I always keep my coroner duties completely separate from my work here at Eternal Rest. Unless the family of the deceased chooses to entrust us with the final arrangements for their loved one, I don’t even mention county cases to my sons. I’m very discreet.”

  I wondered how many families didn’t choose to use Eternal Rest, given that it was one of the few funeral homes in the county, but I didn’t ask because Morton leaned forward and posed his own question. “Now, what’s this about? I’ve never even heard of the Georgia Department of Insurance, much less had a visit from two agents.”

  “This is in regard to one of your coroner cases,” I said and then went on to explain the large life insurance policy, Kathy Vanderbilt’s suspiciously fast claim, and our involvement in the case.

  Vincent cut right to the heart of the matter. “We’re here to find out what you can tell us about the body removed from the LTD.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you much. I’m afraid we don’t have the equipment here to perform a full, scientific autopsy. We get so few suspicious death cases here in Cranford County that my role is usually limited to confirming medical death and signing the certificate. Sometimes I take fingerprints to identify a body, but that’s rare, and of course, in this case, it wasn’t possible.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “No fingers, no fingerprints,” he said. “In fact, the right side of the body sustained so much damage that the fingers were no longer attached. The remaining digits were reduced almost to bone.”

  “Were you able to discern any damage that might not have been caused by the fire?” Vincent asked.

  Again, Morton leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands over his chest as he thought. “You’re concerned that Theodore Vanderbilt was murdered,” he realized.

  And then he laughed.

  “You find murder amusing, Mr. Ivey?” Vincent demanded.

  “No, of course not,” Morton said, sobering quickly. “It’s just that there hasn’t been murder on the books in Cranford County in ten years. It seems unlikely that—”

  “No one said anything about murder, Mr. Ivey,” I interrupted. “This is simply routine. As part of our investigation, we are required to identify cause of death before any insurance monies can be paid. So is there anything you can think of that might serve as evidence that Theodore Vanderbilt did not die in that fire?”

  Morton thought again. “Well, the skull did show signs of fractures.”

  I could see Vincent immediately perk up. I admit that I perked up too. Skull fractures could indicate blunt force trauma and, thus, a potential murder.

  “However,” Morton continued, “I would bet that those fractures resulted from the exposure to such high temperatures. The ME will have to look at them under a microscope to be sure.”

  “Was there any other evidence of trauma that might not have been caused by the fire?” I asked, hoping he might be able to tell us something—anything—definitive before we left.

  Morton’s eyes closed in thought, leaving his face peaceful and serene. “There was some splitting of skin on the torso and neck, but again, that could indicate either trauma or fire damage. In fact, those could have been old surgical scars opening due to the heat.” He opened his eyes and looked directly at me. “Without the proper tools, it was impossible for me to tell.”

  The room fell silent for a moment, and I was mentally ruling this trip as a colossal waste of time when Vincent said, “You’ve told us exactly nothing. I cannot believe that you, the county coroner and expert in death, would have nothing of use to add to this investigation.”

  Morton sat up straighter under the attack, and his face went rigid. “I do apologize, sir, but there is no need for rudeness. My role here in Cranford County is largely ceremonial. I’m really more of a politician. That’s just the way it is in small towns.”

  Vincent too sat straighter, and I spoke before he could say another word. “Just tell us this, Mr. Ivey: is there any way for you to rule out foul play?”

  Morton turned his gaze from Vincent to me, but it didn’t soften. “No, ma’am, I’m afraid I cannot.”

  He clearly had no pertinent information to impart, so I added, “We can trust you to keep the reasons for this meeting confidential.”

  Morton gave me a waxy smile. “Of course. I haven’t mentioned a word to anyone. Won’t start now.”

  “Good,” I said, “then we’ll let you get back to work here.”

  Vincent and I stood to take our leave, and Morton also rose to escort us from the building.

  I was fairly sure he wanted to kick us—well, at least Vincent—to the curb.

  “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help with your investigation,” Morton said as he led us back past the vacant viewing rooms. As we neared the entrance, I noticed that a small, sedate crowd had begun to gather around Mr. Perkins’s body. Morton straightened himself, reapplying his funeral director formality for his guests. “I’m at your service,” he said to Vincent and me with a slight smile.

  Morton pushed open the front door, and blessed sunlight and fresh air rushed in at me.

  I took a deep breath as I stepped outside, and Vincent and I headed silently back toward the square, leaving the Iveys to their morbid business while I pondered the wisdom of mixing the jobs of politician and undertaker.

  It was far too creepy.

  Ten

  We returned to the DOI to do the necessary paperwork, and by the time we’d finished telling Ted what we learned in Cranford County, it was full dark outside, and I was starving.

  As if reading my mind, Vincent closed the laptop he’d brought into my office and began stacking files that had been spread out on my desk. Without raising his eyes from his task, he asked, “Want to grab dinner?”

  An image of Vincent and me walking to a restaurant in the moonlight invaded my mind. I pushed it away.

  “Can’t,” I said. “My sister had surgery, and I’m spending the night at Mercer Med with her and my mother tonight. I’m bringing takeout.”

  He looked at me. “Anything I can do?” he asked with a touch of concern. I knew he wasn’t worried about my sister. They’d never met.

  “No,” I replied automatically. “It’s only a broken ankle, and I’m just going to give my mother a break.”

  It sounded normal when I said it that way. Too bad there was nothing normal about Tricia’s situation. A normal woman her age wou
ld not have ended up on a ventilator for a broken ankle.

  Vincent’s forehead crinkled.

  “But don’t worry about me,” I added quickly. “I spent years on the night shift at the MPD. I’ll be fresh as a daisy tomorrow morning.”

  Vincent looked at me evenly. “I wasn’t worried,” he said. “Not about you, anyway. I was trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my night.”

  I laughed as I slid my own laptop into my work bag. “What about Justin?” I asked.

  “He’s with his mom tonight.”

  “Ah,” I said. So Vincent’s ex-wife was in town. Or lived nearby. I didn’t know, and I sure didn’t want to ask.

  Apparently, he didn’t want to elaborate either because he was silent until his phone rang. He pulled it from his belt and checked the caller ID.

  His eyes brightened, and he smiled at me before turning to leave the office. “Hey, Justin,” I heard him say.

  I smiled too. Maybe his night was saved after all.

  As for me, instead of having a nice dinner with Vincent, I was going to be sleeping in a hospital recliner.

  Lucky me.

  As I hauled myself up to Tricia’s room in the ICU, I lamented that being the only responsible adult in the Jackson family was a demanding job. I’d already swung by Varnie’s, a home-cooking restaurant, and I had a bag of takeout in one hand and my overnight duffel swinging from the other.

  When I entered Tricia’s room, I found her sleeping and my mother sitting in front of the TV, which was softly playing a daytime rerun on the soap opera channel. I studied the screen and wondered if these were the same actors I’d watched as a child when I’d had to stay home from school.

  Probably.

  And they were probably still acting out the same storyline too.

  I turned to my mother and whispered, “I brought food.”

  “Oh! Thank goodness you’re here,” my mother said as she stood and smiled at me gratefully. “I’m starved for real food.”