A Capital Offense

by Gary Parker

  “Is it any worse than usual this year?”

  Andy thought a second, then answered. “Nope, not at all. Fact is, the numbers are actually about 8 percent ahead of this time last year. If we keep that up through December, we’ll have an excellent year.”

  Connie sat straighter in her seat, her mind working fast. “So the first quarter report was actually pretty good?”

  “Yeah, not bad at all for the first quarter.”

  Quickly, Connie switched gears. “Have the police talked to you or Leslie?”

  “Sure, a couple of times. First on the Sunday after they found Jack, then again Monday morning for about an hour. Came out to the house. Wanted to know what we thought of Jack’s state of mind over the last few weeks, whether we saw anything different in him.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “Nothing much. Jack seemed like Jack, if you ask me. A bit quieter maybe, but he got that way when he had something on his mind. You know how he was.”

  “What do you think he had on his mind, Andy?”

  Andy took off his glasses and cleaned them with his tie again. “Oh, I don’t know . . . that gambling thing more than anything else. What a casino would do to the city if it came here.”

  “Anything else?”

  Andy put his glasses on again, then tugged at his tie. Connie could see his mind clicking, sifting what he thought important, worthy of saying.

  “Nope, nothing I can remember.

  Deciding to skip any questions about the alleged affair, Connie moved to another topic. Her voice picked up pace, like a prosecutor in a criminal trial.

  “What about the computer? Did you see Jack use it in the last few days before . . . before his . . . death?”

  “Nope, Jack practically refused to use it. We had to beat him with a stick to get him to put it in here for us to use.”

  “And the dead bolt? Did you or Leslie lock it the night Jack died?”

  “Nope, the cops asked us that already. We left the place like Jack always did. Door locked from the inside, but no dead bolt.”

  “And the computer keyboard, anybody clean that?”

  “Well, that one we can’t answer. We had a computer guy in here on Friday to install some new software, but what he did to the keyboard we can’t say. I know I didn’t clean it and neither did Leslie.”

  “What about the drugs they found in Jack’s body? You see any signs that Jack used drugs at any time or in any form?”

  Andy paused and tugged his tie down as if to stretch it to his belt. He exhaled quickly, a gasp of air pouring out.

  “Andy, what about the drugs?”

  He looked up from his tie. “Well, that’s a funny thing,” he said. “First, let me say I don’t think Jack had a thing to do with drugs. Never did and never would. But on Saturday morning before they found Jack, I came in about eight o’clock. As I walked back here to pull some petty cash from the safe,“ he pointed to a small metal safe standing in the corner, “I opened the desk drawer to get a paper clip. And there, big as you please, I found this.”

  Andy opened the bottom right drawer of Jack’s desk and pulled out a plastic bag the size of a piece of bread. Inside the bag, a powdery white substance lay glistening in the office light. Handing the bag to Connie, Andy took off his glasses and wiped them. Connie held the bag at arm’s length as if afraid it would bite. “Why didn’t you call the cops?” she asked him slowly, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “Well, I didn’t know what to do. Remember I found this before they found Jack and before they said he had drugs in his body. I didn’t want any stink at the store, you know . . . bad publicity or anything. Business is okay, but this kind of thing could shut you down for days. So, I just kept this to myself. Then, when they found Jack, I was afraid. You know . . . I didn’t know what it meant, so no need to go forward. When I saw the story about the drugs, well . . . at that point, I just couldn’t say anything. You and I know Jack didn’t die of an overdose, but not everyone knew him as well as we did. I didn’t want his reputation hurt by a bag of planted drugs.”

  Connie nodded, then reached out and patted Andy on the hand. “Thank you, Andy,” she said. “You’ll never know how much this means to me. Jack would bless you for it.”

  Andy smiled widely, and his teeth seemed to reflect in his glasses. “What are you going to do with that?” He pointed to the drugs.

  Connie bit her lip and lay the plastic bag in her lap. “I think we’ll keep this our secret for now, Andy. That okay with you?”

  Andy smiled again and tugged at his tie. “You’re the boss,” he said. “Whatever you think.”

  Satisfied she had learned as much as she could from Andy, Connie stood to leave. As she did, Andy leaned to his left and lifted a small cardboard box off the floor. Standing beside her, he handed her the box.

  “Jack’s things,” he said. “Just a few personal items . . . pictures, a few loose papers . . . you know the stuff.”

  Taking the box, Connie smiled briefly, tossed the bag into it, then hugged Andy one more time. Ten seconds later, she headed out the back door. She would go through Jack’s things later. Right now, other chores demanded her attention. In three hours or so the kids would get home, and she wanted to have the house cleaned and a good meal fixed for them for supper. They needed to see their mom in top form again, and she planned to see that they did.

  CHAPTER

  11

  For the next two days, Connie busied herself with a thousand and one errands, things she had neglected in her days in bed, items she had to complete as part of the after-the-funeral-process. She wrote thank-you notes to scores of people—the ladies from the church who had stayed so faithfully at her house, all the people who brought food or sent memorials to the church in Jack’s name, the workers at the funeral home, the Main Street merchants who closed their shops the day of the funeral in honor of Jack.

  In addition, she had legal matters to attend—papers to sign at the coroner’s office, at the bank, and at the funeral home. Plus, she had to visit the lawyer Jack used occasionally to handle matters at the store. The lawyer, a man she barely knew since Jack used him so seldom, told her the store was established in her name as well as Jack’s and that he would immediately begin the process to get it listed in her name only. To her surprise, he knew nothing about a will. If Jack left one, another attorney had drawn it up. Distressed but unable to do anything about it, Connie left his office and moved to her next task. Though knowing she didn’t have to do everything all at once, her tendency to get loose ends tied up drove her to do as much as possible as soon as possible.

  Consumed by everything else, she found it easy to put off the thing she most dreaded doing—going through Jack’s personal belongings, including the box Andy had given her. Telling herself she needed some space before she faced the emotional wringer that chore would create, she shoved the box onto a shelf on Jack’s side of their closet and put off the whole job.

  On Friday morning, she drove to the funeral home and asked if she could have a few days to get her finances in order before she settled up the bill. The owner, a man she had known for almost ten years, graciously told her not to worry, she could take as long as she wanted. Grateful for his understanding, but scared her finances might not improve soon, she left and headed for the bank. She needed to know exactly how much equity she held in the house and how much more she owed. Plus, she planned to change the names on the accounts she and Jack kept there—one money market for the store, one checking account for her and one for Jack. To this point, they were in both their names. Might as well get that fixed. She knew all this could wait, but she couldn’t let it rest. Get it done, she kept telling herself. Get it done.

  An officer at the bank gave her the first word of good news she’d heard in days. Jack, true to his dislike of debt, had been paying extra on the house principal for several years and had almost paid it off. The original loan of $59,000, taken out eleven years ago, had shriveled to only $18,000. Knowing
that property values had escalated in the last decade, she figured the house would bring close to $100,000 on today’s market. If worse came to worst, she could either sell the house or take out an equity line on it to pay the funeral home and take care of the loan Jack had taken out.

  Comforted somewhat, she worked through the stack of papers she had to sign to remove Jack’s name from their accounts. Signing the last document, she dropped her pen and smiled at the bank officer. Then, glancing at her watch, she stretched and stood to leave. A stop at the grocery store and she could get home in time to fix a good meal for the children again.

  Last night had gone so well. She and Katie and Daniel had eaten their first meal alone together since Jack’s death, and the evening turned out wonderfully. When she grabbed their hands to lead them in prayer before eating, she saw that both Katie and Daniel had gotten misty-eyed. Unsure whether to say anything or not, she had simply gone on and prayed.

  “Lord Jesus, as we sit down to eat tonight, we feel a real loneliness. We might as well admit that. There’s an empty seat at our table, and so long as we live, we’ll notice the absence of one we love. But, even as we feel Daddy’s absence, we know that he would want us to move forward. He would tell us to mourn him but not to forget you in our sadness. So I pray tonight that we’ll do that, that we’ll always remember Daddy. At the same time, though, I pray that we always remember you too. Daddy believed in you with all his heart and he wants us to do the same. Help us tonight, Jesus, help us trust you as much as Daddy did. Amen.”

  As she opened her eyes, Daniel squeezed her hand and she squeezed Katie’s.

  “Daddy’s in heaven, isn’t he?” asked Katie, her eyes wet with tears.

  Connie nodded and leaned over to hug her. “Yes,” she said. “Daddy’s with the Lord.”

  “I miss Daddy,” she said.

  “We all miss him,” Daniel said softly. “He was the best dad ever.”

  “We’ll never forget him,” said Connie, still holding their hands.

  “And we’ll never forget Jesus,” said Katie. “Will we, Mom?”

  Though close to tears herself, Connie smiled at her precious child. “No, Katie, we won’t forget Daddy or Jesus. They’ll be in our hearts forever.”

  Thinking of the meal, Connie decided she wanted to duplicate it tonight. She knew her family required lots of nights like that in order for them to heal. With a gaping hole in their family unit, they needed to redraw the shape of their relationships. Though they didn’t talk about Jack after the prayer, the very fact they were together without him made his presence so much more real. Evenings like that would give them a chance to note his presence and his absence and so begin to live with both.

  Anticipating another good night, Connie pivoted and headed out of the bank.

  “Mrs. Brandon!”

  She faced the bank clerk. “Yes?”

  “I wondered if you wanted to change the safety deposit box too, since you’re here and all.”

  Connie gulped. She didn’t know she had a safety deposit box! Another secret from Jack. Not wanting the bank officer to see her ignorance, she walked easily back to the desk and had a seat.

  “Sure,” she agreed. “Let’s do everything we can today. No use leaving anything hanging.”

  It took about fifteen minutes to fill out the forms. Just like everything else, Jack had the box in her name and his, so he wasn’t trying to hide anything. But he hadn’t told her about it. Staring at the documents that detailed the rental of the box, she tried to figure why he kept it a secret. He had opened the box only four months ago, on his fortieth birthday.

  Curious about the contents, but not sure if the bank would open it for her without her having a key and hesitant to ask, she hurried through the paperwork and skipped out quickly when finished. No time for any small talk. Gunning the van and ignoring a few speed limit signs as she headed home, she jumped out the second she pulled into the yard and rushed into the house. She assumed she’d find the key to the bank box inside.

  She searched through his dresser first. With no desk at home, she assumed he kept the key in one of the drawers with his clothes. But, pushing aside his socks, shirts, jeans, underclothes, and shorts, she found no key. Okay, where to look next?

  His truck? Sure, his glove compartment! But wait. The cops still had the truck downtown. She hoped Jack hadn’t put the key in the truck. She suspected it would require a good bit of hassle to get anything from it so long as the police held it.

  Disappointed, she racked her brain. Where could it be? She looked under the bed and spotted Jack’s penny jar. She smiled. Jack kept a mason jar under the bed and emptied his spare change into it every night when he came home. When the jar filled up, he gave it in alternate possessions to Katie and Daniel. With a real good jar, one heavy with more quarters than pennies, the kids made ten to fifteen dollars when he emptied the jar into their laps.

  With loving tenderness, Connie slid the jar from under the bed. Filled about half full, she decided to split it at supper between the kids. She rolled the jar over in her hands, wondering how much money the kids would get, not that it would matter. They would count it out evenly, one quarter for Daniel, one for Katie, one here, one there, a penny to a penny— Connie stopped rolling the jar. She saw a red wrapper in the middle of the pennies—a wrapper about the size of a tea bag. Instantly, she recognized the wrapper as a key container, a key for a safety deposit box.

  Moving fast, she twisted off the lid of the jar, plucked out the key, and resealed the lid. The kids would still get their money tonight, but she would find out right now what, if anything, Jack had in the rental box at the bank.

  She drove even faster back to the bank than she had driven home. Within twenty minutes, she had parked, signed into the vault room, pulled out the box, and taken it to the private room the bank provided for people to examine their valuables. The box sat on the one table in the room. She inserted the key and held her breath as the tumbler clicked. Her hands trembling, she pulled open the box. There, she saw a plain manila envelope.

  She pulled out the envelope and dumped its contents into the bottom of the rental box. For a second, she simply stared at the document that had fallen from the envelope. Without examining it, she knew it detailed something pivotal. Her neck reddened with anxiety, and she took a deep breath. Her eyes narrowed, and she lifted the document off the table and began to read. It didn’t take long to figure out it was an insurance policy, dated the day before Jack’s fortieth birthday.

  She wondered about the timing. Had Jack taken out the policy because he had turned forty and wanted to make sure his family had financial security if he had a heart attack or something? Or did he buy it because he had a premonition that something else might happen to him, something not nearly so natural as a heart attack? But, if he thought he was in danger, wouldn’t he have warned her in some way, left behind some clue to what happened to him?

  Overwhelmed by questions, but unable to reach any conclusions, Connie decided to deal with the mystery later. For now, she needed to know more about the policy. Quickly, she scanned the document, looking for the most important factor, the face value of the policy. The numbers leaped out at her from near the bottom of the first page. One million dollars! Jack had taken out an insurance policy for one million dollars!

  Stunned, Connie pulled out a chair and sagged into it. What a relief! Now she and the kids could stay in their house! They could even keep the store if she wanted, not sell it to Johnson Mack and see it leveled to make way for some oversized convention center. She could keep the store and let Andy and Leslie run it while she stayed at home to care for the children or went to work part-time with a law firm. All the options opened to her like a door on a beautiful spring morning, and she felt a rush of gratitude toward Jack for providing this support for his family, even in his death. A huge wave of tension rolled from her body, and she leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. She would never get over losing Jack, but with this she could at leas
t take care of her kids.

  Her eyes popped open, and a jab of terror struck her. She bounced forward again, every nerve in her body alert. Wait a minute! Insurance policies usually carried a stipulation, a rider that made her as nervous as the discovery of the policy had made her relieved. Running her eyes through the fine print, she searched the document for the stipulation paragraph. Nothing on the first page. Nothing on the second page. On the third page she saw the paragraph she feared.

  Her breath coming in short gasps and her face red, she digested the legal jargon. Just as she suspected. The policy would pay under any circumstances except suicidal death.

  Her mind clicking a thousand miles a minute, she envisioned what would happen next. The insurance company, a national firm with a good reputation, would naturally want to know the manner of death. Not only did they have the right to know, they had an obligation to their other clients to know. If they could avoid paying, they would. Business worked that way, and Connie didn’t begrudge them their right to do business. But that didn’t make her situation any easier. If the policy paid, she could take care of her kids for the rest of their lives. But, if it didn’t . . . well she could still sell the store, but she would definitely have to go back to work full-time. Though she knew scores of mothers who managed to work and raise children, she didn’t want to leave her children at such a vulnerable time in their lives.

  Stuffing the policy into her purse, Connie closed the rental box and walked back into the bank vault. With a deliberation she hoped concealed her anxiety, she pushed the box back into place and left the bank. Behind the wheel of her van again, she reached a sobering conclusion. More than one person had reason to want her husband’s death declared a suicide. The murderer himself and the insurance company that would have to pay her one million dollars if a murderer was found. Yet, she now had another reason to want her husband’s death declared a murder. Though a murder trial would mean an alleged affair would almost certainly come to light, it would also mean financial security for her family. Getting the money might mean sullying Jack’s good name. Letting it go meant she might manage to protect it.