by Brad Parks
“You are an investigative reporter, are you not?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Can you tell me, what are you investigating with regards to Mrs. Okeke?”
I considered this for a moment. Hakeem Kuti was not there to kill me. But he still may have had an agenda in conflict with mine—chiefly, that he represented an insurance company that was trying to cheat Tujuka Okeke out of her claim.
“No offense, Mr. Kuti, but we just met and I don’t know why you’re here. So, no, I cannot—”
“I apologize. Of course, of course. If I tell you why I am here, maybe you can tell me if you are here for the same purpose.”
Kuti’s face, scars and all, did not suggest any ill will. Still, all I offered was, “Maybe.”
“Very well,” he said. “Perhaps you are unfamiliar with my employer, Obatala Insurance. It markets itself to the Nigerian ex-pat community here in the States. It is a relatively small underwriter. Allstate or Prudential measure the number of policies they write in the millions. Obatala measures it in the thousands.”
“I understand.”
“Because it is small, it notices claim irregularities faster than the larger insurers. Prudential has billions of dollars in assets. When it pays a seventy thousand dollar claim, it is of little consequence. Obatala cannot afford to be so casual.”
“I’m following you,” I said. Sweet Thang had also gotten out of the car and walked around until she was by my side. I was glad she was hearing this.
“My employer began to notice an unusual number of claims related to carjacking. Obatala is like all insurers, in that it bases its rates on actuarial tables. This is not my area, of course. My background is in the military. I cannot describe how this calculation is made. But the man who hired me said Obatala’s number of carjacking claims were six thousand percent higher than what the tables suggest it should be.”
“Wow. Yeah, I guess that would get anyone’s attention.”
“They hired me to investigate. And that is what I have been doing for several months now.”
“Because Obatala suspects fraud?” I asked.
“Correct.”
“But how could Tujuka Okeke’s claim possibly be fraudulent? I mean, her husband was killed. You can’t exactly fake that.”
“That is why I am here, watching the Okeke house,” Kuti said. “Mrs. Okeke could have submitted a claim. She was named the beneficiary in the event of Mr. Okeke’s death. But she did not submit anything.”
I thought back to the notation made in the prosecutor’s office file, the one Kathy Carter told me about. All it said was “insurance disbursement not made.” I never paused to consider it was because no one made a claim.
“But … why not?” I asked.
“We don’t know,” Kuti said. “That is why I have been watching her for the last two weeks. Mrs. Okeke distinguished herself by not making a claim when she was entitled to. Obatala sent a claims adjustor to speak with her, but she did not explain her actions to him. Obatala’s executives think she knows more than she is letting on. They have ordered me to watch her.
“You were the first unusual visitor she received,” Kuti continued. “I thought you could lead me to the answers. That’s why you saw me following you yesterday. Then I learned you are Carter Ross, the great investigative newspaper reporter, and now I am hoping you can help me.”
He bowed his head slightly when he said it. I had to give him credit: there are few better ways to woo my assistance than to describe me as “the great investigative newspaper reporter.”
But in this place, his faith in my alleged greatness was misplaced. I didn’t have any more answers than he did.
* * *
Into the midst of this shared confusion, there came a phone call that filled me with the hope that things were about to became a lot more clear.
It was Buster Hays, actually using his cell phone—a rare occurrence for a man who detested any technology introduced after the Ford presidency. I knew that meant it was important.
“Give me a moment,” I said to Sweet Thang and Kuti. “I have to take this.”
I walked down toward the end of the street so I had some privacy.
“Hey, Buster,” I said. “What’s up?”
“Well, I don’t know if this is good news or bad news for you. But I talked to my guy on the task force. He ran through every name on that membership list. Other than Tiemeyer, you got nothing.”
I responded the only way I could at the moment: with dead silence. It was the last thing I expected him to say and my mind wasn’t fast enough to catch up.
My mouth soon started moving. “But that’s … that’s not possible. Are you sure?”
“I didn’t stand over him while he did it, Ivy. But, yeah. I’m sure. I’ve dealt with the guy before. He doesn’t always tell me everything, but what he does tell me? It’s gospel.”
“So just to make sure I’ve got this right. As far as the Essex County Auto Theft Task Force is concerned, the only Fanwood Country Club member to have been carjacked is Kevin Tiemeyer.”
“Yeah.”
I felt my shoulders sink toward the street. I started sputtering again. “But how could that … that’s not—”
“You want to close your eyes and have me write it in Braille for you?” Buster said. “I’m just telling you what the guy told me. And, no, before you ask, this is not a guy with any reason to mislead us. He’s as straight as they come.”
“Okay. Thanks, Buster.”
He hung up. For thirty seconds or so, I watched a plastic bag blow along the street. Eventually, I began coming to the conclusions I should have been reaching the moment Buster started talking. In order for my theory to have been true, there should have been at least a half-dozen hits, if not many more. Two carjackings did not a criminal enterprise make. Doc Fierro wasn’t my guy. Earl Karlinsky wasn’t my guy.
No wonder Doc was trying to get me fired. I thought about my behavior toward Fanwood through the lens of this new information. Me sneaking into the pro shop. Me skulking around the perimeter. Me making a wild accusation about the general manager to a board member. Doc probably thought I was mentally unstable and was just trying to protect his club from whatever undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia was afflicting me.
I couldn’t blame him. I had screwed up. If apologies were planets, I owed him Jupiter.
Yet where that door had been closed, I realized a new window had opened up, one involving insurance fraud. Was that really what was going on here? Was that what Joseph Okeke and Kevin Tiemeyer had discussed on the golf course that day at Fanwood Country Club? A scheme to defraud their insurers? Had Okeke been recruiting Tiemeyer in the scheme? Or was it the other way around?
But, if that was the case, why did they both end up dead? And killed by the same blue-ski-mask-wearing thug, no less?
There was still much to learn. Toward that end, Tina had already e-mailed me back, saying she would stop by Zabrina’s house to pick up insurance documents—paperwork I might now use to prove the opposite of what I had originally thought.
Either way, it would be useful. And even if my understanding of recent events had been turned upside down, there was one thing that remained unchanged: I needed to give Rich Eberhardt a story if I wanted my employment at the Eagle-Examiner to continue uninterrupted.
I walked slowly back toward Sweet Thang and Kuti, who watched my trudge with curiosity.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Sweet Thang said.
“Yeah, unfortunately, it might be my journalism career,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Nothing, I’ve just … remember all that stuff I told you about how I thought this was a scheme being operated out of Fanwood Country Club?”
“Yeah.”
“I was wrong. That was just Buster Hays calling. The only Fanwood member to have been victimized was Tiemeyer. Whatever is happening has nothing to do with Fanwood.”
Sweet Thang’s head cocked to one
side. Kuti was just watching the two of us go back and forth like it was a tennis match.
“So what’s going on?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” I said. Then I pointed toward Tujuka Okeke’s house. “But maybe some of the explanations are in there.”
I turned to Hakeem Kuti. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to excuse us,” I said. “Depending on what we learn, I may end up being very interested in talking to your employer.”
“And my employer to you,” he said.
“Deal,” I said. Then I looked at Sweet Thang. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 38
As Tujuka Okeke opened the door, the smell of something savory and delicious wafted over us.
“Good evening, Mr. Ross,” she said without smiling. She was dressed in pale blue nurse’s scrubs that set off her dark skin dramatically.
“Please, call me Carter,” I said. “And this is my colleague, Lauren McMillan.”
I gestured toward Sweet Thang, who asked, “Is that iyere?”
“It is,” Tujuka said.
“I just love iyere,” Sweet Thang gushed. “Where did you get it? I have the hardest time finding it.”
Trust Sweet Thang to know a spice prominent in Nigerian cooking. Tujuka Okeke smiled for the first time.
“There’s a market called Makola on Lyons Avenue,” Tujuka said. “They always have it.”
“It’s just so fragrant,” Sweet Thang said. “What are you making with it?
“Suya,” Tujuka said.
Whatever that was. All I knew is that Sweet Thang had now bonded with our host. Naturally. Easily. Perfectly.
“Why don’t you have a seat,” Tujuka said, pointing us toward a room inside and to the right.
Sweet Thang and I grabbed spots on the couch. Tujuka took an easy chair that was across a coffee table. The entertainment center was to our left. The furnishings appeared Scandinavian. The electronics were Korean. The artwork on the walls was African. It was, in other words, the typical American family room.
“I understand you spoke with Maryam yesterday,” Tujuka said.
“Yes. I hope you don’t mind I didn’t ask your permission. You were—”
“Maryam has a good head on her shoulders. I trust her to make her own decisions.”
“She seems like a lovely girl,” I agreed. “And I understand her father was very proud of her.”
“Oh, Joseph,” she said, shaking her head.
That was how we launched our conversation on Joseph Okeke. I asked Tujuka about her ex-husband’s background, his business, and so on. It was much of the same material Maryam and I had been over the day before, although Tujuka covered it with more adult precision about details and dates. It wasn’t necessarily anything I was going to write, but it was good to have correct.
Besides, it got her talking. Sweet Thang interjected questions now and then, and I got the sense that Tujuka was getting comfortable with both of us. And that was important for where I was soon to shift the conversation.
First, it was the day of the carjacking itself. Then, more important, it was what came afterward. Or, rather, what didn’t.
“I understand you didn’t submit a claim for Joseph’s carjacking,” I said. “If I may ask, why not?”
Here Tujuka paused for the first time in what had previously been a free-flowing conversation. She smoothed her scrubs pants, not that they needed it.
Finally, she said, “Because I don’t want to go to jail.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you came here yesterday, I told you Joseph got what he deserved,” she said.
“I remember.”
“That was harsh of me. But it is also somewhat true.” She looked down at her pants again and, finding them sufficiently wrinkle-free, continued. “This is very difficult for me to talk about. But I try to teach my children the importance of telling the truth, so I must model the same behavior.”
Neither Sweet Thang nor I said a word. This was her confession. Might as well let her spit it out on her terms.
“Our son is at Duke, as Maryam may have told you. Maryam starts college in the fall. We get financial aid, of course, but it is never enough. Joseph and I believe in giving our children the best education they can possibly get, regardless of what it costs. It is the best way to get ahead in this country. It is why we came here, for the opportunities our children would receive.”
She took a deep breath and went on. “We had our savings, but that is gone now. We were worried about how we were going to cover the next bill from Duke. And then there’s Maryam. She has applied to Princeton. I do not understand how these financial aid formulas work, but between Joseph and I, we make enough money that we are expected to be able to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year. How we would be able to do that and not lose our houses, I could not say. Joseph and I worried about it frequently.
“Then two months ago, Joseph came to me with this wild scheme. He said if he let someone rob him of his car, he could get us fifteen thousand dollars.”
“How exactly would that work?” I asked.
“Are you familiar with the concept of a replacement automobile policy?” Tujuka asked.
“I think so,” I said. “But maybe not.”
Sweet Thang hopped in: “My dad actually got me one for Walter. It’s something that can be smart to have for more expensive cars.”
“Yeah, that’s not something I’d know about,” I said.
“Okay, so normally when your car is totaled, the insurance company just gives you what the car is worth, right?” Sweet Thang said.
“Right.”
“But in the case of a replacement policy, they give you the amount needed to actually replace the car. It can be a big difference if you’re talking about a new car.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “Because of the whole a-new-car-loses-a-quarter-of-its-value-when-you-drive-it-off-the-lot thing.”
“Exactly,” Sweet Thang said, and now she was looking at Tujuka. “Now, I don’t know about your policy. But with mine, it basically said that if you were driving a car that was six months old or less and it was totaled or stolen, they would pay a claim equal to whatever you paid for the car. Is that what Joseph had?”
“Yes,” Tujuka said.
“I’m still a little confused,” I admitted. “I’m assuming Joseph probably financed the car with very little down, based on what you guys were laying out in tuition. That meant he still owed almost the entire value of the car in a loan he’d have to pay off. How would Joseph make any money out of being carjacked unless…”
And that’s when it clicked in my wee little brain. “Oh, I get it. He was going to use the insurance money to pay off the loan. And the people he had carjack him were going to give him a kickback from their sale of the car. That’s where the fifteen grand came from.”
“That is my understanding, yes,” Tujuka said.
All I did was shake my head. For two days now, I had figured the Okekes’ insurance company was the perpetrator of wrongdoing. It now appeared it was the victim.
“I tried to talk him out of it,” Tujuka said. “I said to him, ‘Joseph, isn’t this illegal?’ And he said, ‘Tujuka, don’t worry about that.’ I begged him not to do it. But my husband could be very stubborn. He said there was no choice. I thought perhaps he had decided not to go forward with it. Then I got that awful visit from the police, saying he had been murdered while his car was being stolen.”
She now had her pants bunched tightly in her fists, like she was just trying to hang on to them. “The police spoke as if it was a random event. But I knew it was not. So you asked me why I did not submit an insurance claim and that is why: because I knew it would be a false claim.”
“Did you tell Obatala Insurance that when they sent a claims adjustor to speak with you?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I did not want to tell anyone at first. I was worried what it would do to Joseph’s life insurance policy. But I have since spoken with a lawyer, and
he assured me the policy would still have to pay out. Regardless of the fraud he was involved in, his death was still a homicide. And that is covered under our policy.”
“And you are the beneficiary of that policy?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “It will be enough to cover our children’s tuition. I am thankful for that.”
As was Joseph Okeke, if he had managed to find a place where he could still appreciate such things.
* * *
We spent a little more time discussing the bucket of financial slop Joseph had left behind. Naturally, the fifteen thousand that was supposed to come from the carjackers had never materialized. Tujuka said she wouldn’t have accepted it if it did. “Blood money,” she called it.
There was also the matter of his car loan and town house mortgage. It was looking like Joseph Okeke had left this life in a hole his estate would never get out of. There would be no inheritance. The life insurance was all he was leaving behind.
As we spoke, I kept my eye on a digital clock that was on one of the devices in her entertainment center. The numbers were creeping closer to eight. I didn’t want to rush things. But, at the same time, Joseph Okeke’s lingering credit card debt was not among my chief concerns.
Finally, I was able to work the conversation back around to what I considered to be the big question.
“From everything I’ve learned about your husband, he wasn’t the sort to go around dreaming up scams to defraud insurance companies. Somebody obviously put him on to this or even recruited him for it. Do you have any idea who?”
Tujuka shook her head. “I’m sorry, I do not.”
“Did he know the people who were going to rob him?”
“I don’t know. All he told me was that he would drive to a certain place at a certain time, and that’s where the robbery would happen. He made it sound like it was a very simple thing.”
I thought back to what Johnny, the convenience store clerk, had told me about Joseph Okeke stopping for a green light. It hadn’t made any sense at the time, but now it did. That was where he was supposed to rendezvous. He would have stopped no matter what color the light was, because it was where he had agreed to get himself carjacked.
