THE POLICY

by Bentley Little

  “I know.”

  “Well, I think he keeps his name secret purposely. Shit, before I got arrested, I even thought that if I found out his name I could… I don’t know, blackmail him or something, use it to my advantage. But you’re right. There’s something there. He’s not giving that name out to anyone.”

  A guard came by, a thin ferret-faced man with a wispy Prince mustache and an obvious chip on his shoulder. He poked Del with his nightstick. “Daley? Your lawyer’s here to see you.”

  The fat man scrambled over the back of the bench. “Appeals,” he explained. “I’m hoping I have grounds for a retrial.” He waved at Hunt as the guard led him out of the mess hall. “See you at lunch.”

  But Del didn’t make it to lunch. Sometime around midmorning, a harsh low-tech alarm buzzer echoed through the facility, and suddenly there were guards everywhere shouting “Lockdown! Lockdown!” Hunt didn’t know what that meant, but after it was all over, after the commotion died down, he heard two inmates in another cell talking about a fight in front of one of the upper units, a brutal beating that resulted from an earlier racial incident. One of the combatants had been taken away to the hospital either comatose or dead.

  When Del didn’t show up in the mess hall, Hunt knew that it had been him.

  He should not have been surprised, and he wasn’t. Shocked, horrified but not surprised. He tried to tell himself that it had nothing to do with him, that Del had not been penalized for telling tales out of school, that whatever had happened was the result of unfinished business between Del and the insurance agent, but he could not quite make himself believe it.

  Later, the thought occurred to him that Del had been sent by the insurance agent, that he had not really been an inmate but had been placed in county jail specifically to talk to Hunt and convince him to buy insurance. It was a crazy idea—but no less crazy than a lot of the other things that had been happening lately.

  Just because you were paranoid didn’t mean they weren’t out to get you.

  He was lying on his cot, staring up at the ceiling, when he heard footsteps and then the loud clang of nightstick on bars.

  “You have a visitor.”

  Jennings was supposed to be stopping by that afternoon, but Hunt hoped that it was the insurance agent. He’d had a long night and an equally long morning to think about the coverage he’d been offered, and he’d come to the conclusion that he would purchase conviction insurance even before he’d met Del Daley.

  Sure enough, the insurance agent was sitting behind the bulletproof safety glass at the far end of the visitors’ room.

  He picked up the phone, motioned for Hunt to do the same

  Hunt sat down, reached for the phone and put it to his ear.

  “How are you today, Mr. Jackson?” The agent’s voice was jovial and hearty. Not what he’d been expecting.

  “Fine,” Hunt said slowly.

  “I understand that you are interested in taking us up on our offer of additional insurance coverage.”

  Hunt nodded, feeling vaguely guilty, as though he were acquiescing to an illegal or immoral act.

  “I’m glad to see you finally came to your senses. Now you still have to qualify, and I still have to ask you a few questions. Will that be all right?”

  “Yes,” he said tightly.

  “Fine, fine. I’ll try to get through this as quickly and painlessly as possible. Now, question one—”

  “Small enough to be tight but big enough to handle me. Does that answer your question?”

  “Are you big down there? Got a lot of meat on your bone?” The agent chuckled. “Sorry. Let’s stick to the questions. Now, in answer to our first query, ‘Have you ever been convicted of a crime?’ you answered that your wife’s vagina is ‘Small enough to be tight but big enough to handle me.’ Do I have that right?”

  “What is this? What the hell’s going on here? Last time, you asked me—”

  “I’m sorry. That was my fault. I was looking at the wrong form. Now can we just get through this?”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “Mr. Jackson…”

  “Fine.”

  “All right, then. Now, question two: does your wife enjoy anal intercourse?” The agent laughed, held up his hands. “Joking! Joking! I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist.”

  “Fuck!”

  “Why don’t I give you the application form and let you fill it out. Do they allow you to have pens in there?”

  Hunt took a deep breath, tried to calm down.

  That’s his way. He’s just testing you.

  “No,” he said. “I’ll answer the questions. Just read them off to me. I want to get this done as quickly as possible.”

  “That’s a good attitude. Okay, have you ever been convicted of a crime?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever been arrested before?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever committed a crime for which you were neither caught nor punished?”

  “Drunk driving, maybe, in college. Some vandalism when I was a kid, I guess.”

  The agent picked up the form, slipped it into his briefcase. “We’re done.”

  He could not believe it. “That’s all? Those are the only questions?”

  “Yep.”

  “When will I know if I qualify?”

  “Right now.”

  There was a long pause.

  “So?” Hunt prodded.

  “You qualify. Now would you like to purchase a personal injury policy with the supplemental conviction coverage?”

  “Yes, both of them.”

  “Very well. I will fill out your application for you although I still require your signature. I’ll have a guard bring in the form for you to sign when we’re done.” He withdrew new papers from his briefcase. Beneath the white top sheet, Hunt could see pink and yellow pages. The agent placed the tripartite form on top of a clipboard. “Name… address… occupation,” he muttered. He began writing furiously. “Reason for arrest… type of charges…

  “Okay!” He looked up. Holding the application next to the window, the agent went over the terms of the policy in detail. It was so specific, the provisions and stipulations so self-explanatory, that there was really no reason to go over every single line, but the man delighted in explaining the details of insurance coverage, and he savored the description of each and every condition covered by the policy.

  He did this for both personal injury and the supplemental conviction insurance, either of which could have been accurately and succinctly described in single sentences, then stood, walked over to a guard, and spoke with him for a moment. The guard opened the security door and handed it to his counterpart on this side of the wall, who then brought it over to Hunt.

  Hunt read over each form to affirm that no additional lines had been magically added since he’d seen them through the window—not an impossibility—then signed his name. He handed the application to the guard, who opened the door and handed it to the other guard, who brought it over to the insurance agent, who quickly and greedily snatched it from his hands.

  The agent put it in his briefcase and stood, bowing slightly to Hunt. “You won’t regret this,” he said.

  But watching the hard smile creep up the man’s suddenly sharper face, Hunt already did.

  Less than two hours later, he met Jennings in what he’d come to think of as the lawyer/client room. The attorney was somber and ashen-faced when Hunt walked in, sitting very still, and Hunt knew immediately that something was wrong.

  There were no papers on the table this time, no tape recorder, no briefcase. Hunt sat down opposite Jennings and pushed in his chair. His heart was pounding in his chest. “Hello, Ray,” he said. “What’s happening?”

  The lawyer didn’t speak for a moment, and that in itself was unusual. Each time Hunt had met with him, he’d been ready with a response, prepared for anything at any time, filled with a self-confidence that was catching. Now he seemed doubtful, unsure, and Hunt found that tro
ubling.

  “I have to ask you a question,” Jennings said.

  “Go right ahead.”

  “I need a straight answer.”

  “Of course.” His stomach was knotting up.

  “Remember, we’re covered under attorney-client privilege here, so there’s no reason for you to lie. Do you…?” He paused. “How do I put this delicately? Do you have any ties to… organized crime?”

  Hunt stared at him incredulously. “What?”

  “I need to know. Are you in any way… connected?”

  “Of course not!”

  The lawyer sighed, pushed himself back from the table. “Then you have to be the luckiest man on the planet.”

  “Why? What are you talking about? What is all this?”

  “Kate Gifford was killed this morning in an auto accident in front of her school.”

  Hunt felt dizzy, as though the floor had fallen out from under him. Two words kept echoing in his head: conviction insurance, conviction insurance, conviction insurance… “How did it happen?” he whispered. “Was Lilly there? Was she hurt?”

  “No, she wasn’t involved. Kate was carpooling with another friend. She was in the backseat, and when the car parked in front of the school, she got out on the street side. A pickup truck was speeding by, way too fast for the school zone. The driver didn’t see her until the last second, and couldn’t stop or swerve over in time. He hit her and took off the car door.”

  “Oh my God.”

  Conviction insurance.

  “Yes.”

  “She’s dead?”

  “Killed instantly. Not only that, but the videotape of her describing the alleged sex acts has disappeared. Or I should say all copies of the videotape have disappeared. The one in the police evidence room, the one in the psychiatrist’s office, the one the DA has… and mine.” He looked at Hunt over his glasses. “So you can see why I might start to wonder.”

  “I don’t know how this happened,” Hunt lied, “but I had nothing to do with it.” He sounded insincere even to himself, and he was sure that the lawyer looked upon him with renewed suspicion. In his mind, he saw that creepy smile sliding slowly up the insurance agent’s face. You won’t regret this.

  It was his fault. He had killed her. If he had not signed up for conviction coverage, if he had not agreed to pay the insurance company to save his own ass, she would be alive right now.

  But if she had not lied about him—

  No. He refused to go there. Kate was an innocent victim here. He didn’t know how, but they had made her testify against him, had brainwashed her and even gotten her to believe the lies. All of this in order to convince him to buy insurance.

  Which he had.

  And now she was dead.

  But what did he expect would happen? How else did he think a dismissal of his case could be guaranteed? Did he think the insurance company would buy off the district attorney and the police and get the charges dropped? For a measly thirty dollars a month? That would be too cost prohibitive with too high a possibility for failure. No, they’d gone with the simplest, cheapest, easiest answer.

  They had killed the girl.

  And stolen all the tapes.

  Hunt thought about playing basketball with Kate and Lilly in Joel’s backyard, remembered Kate’s giggly infectious laugh. The emotions within him were all mixed up: horror and sadness, anger and relief. He felt everything and nothing.

  “Needless to say,” Jennings continued, “the charges against you are being dropped for lack of evidence.”

  He forced himself to speak. “What does that mean? I’ll be able to leave?”

  “As soon as the paperwork arrives and is processed, you’ll be free to go.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “Theoretically, the DA would be able to charge you again if additional evidence came to light, but that is highly, highly unlikely. So, yes, I would say that’s it.”

  Whatever rapport they had developed was gone. Jennings couldn’t prove it, but in his heart he believed that Hunt was responsible for Kate’s death. Hunt knew he was responsible—but for entirely different reasons than the lawyer could ever suspect. They completed their business together formally, impersonally, and two hours later when Hunt was officially and expeditiously released thanks to the attorney’s diligent efforts, the two of them met for one last time to tie up loose ends.

  And then he was free.

  Beth was seated on a bench in the waiting room next to family members of other prisoners. She jumped up and ran to him the moment he walked through the doorway, and he threw his arms around her. She hugged him back, burying her face in his neck. He did not know if she was crying from relief because he had been released and their hellish ordeal was over, or because of the way it had happened, because a little girl was dead. Probably a little of both.

  Hunt didn’t want to stay in that building a second longer than he had to, so when her crying ebbed, he ushered her out the door into the glorious fresh air of freedom.

  They made love as soon as they got home—there was nothing like the potential of permanent separation to rev up the old hormones—and it was rough and dirty the way he liked it, the best sex they’d had in a long time. Afterward, they lay in bed talking, and he told her about Del at breakfast and his last meeting with the insurance agent in the visitors’ room, when he’d agreed to purchase personal injury insurance with its supplemental conviction coverage. He told her about Kate, although she’d already heard through Jennings.

  “Maybe it is unconnected,” she said hopefully. “I mean, we haven’t paid dime one of that premium yet.”

  “He said it took effect upon signing.” Hunt shook his head. “No, I killed her. I signed her death warrant when I signed that application.”

  Beth started crying again.

  And held him close.

  The guest room started up after dinner.

  They ate out to celebrate his release, going to Terra Cotta, ordering exotic and expensive entrees, watching the beautiful sunset through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and when they arrived home, it was dark.

  They could hear the sounds of the guest room as they entered the house.

  Knocking and tapping, as of wood on wood. The dry whoosh of a nonexistent wind.

  Hunt was determined to be brave this time. After everything he’d been through, a little noise in an empty room didn’t seem quite so frightening anymore. But when he was in the hallway and walking toward the guest room, when he saw the door slowly swing open and caught a hint of movement in the black shadows that hovered over the top half of the unmade twin bed, his fear returned full force.

  Next to him, Beth’s breath caught in her throat.

  “We’ll stay in a hotel tonight,” he said, stopping where he was. “I don’t want to put up with this. Not tonight.”

  She nodded, afraid to speak as, down the hallway, the door swung closed.

  FOURTEEN

  1

  Monday morning.

  Steve sat behind a stained and battered desk in his corp yard office, scowling. “If it was up to me, you wouldn’t be coming back,” he said. “I would’ve fired your ass the first day you spent in jail. And believe you me, if we were working for a private company, that’s exactly what would be happening.” His voice was filled with disgust. “But this is government work. Which means that every loser and layabout on the planet Earth can leech off the public trough. At least until the board contracts you guys out.”

  “If you hate it so much, why do you work here?” Hunt asked.

  “That’s enough smart-mouth from you! I may have to give you your job back, but I don’t have to put up with insubordination!” The maintenance services manager glared at Hunt, who remained respectfully silent. “Now as I said, you’ll be docked four days for the days you didn’t work. You won’t have a punch card for those days, so when your time sheet comes around, put down Z time before you sign it.”

  Hunt had been right. Word of his arrest had spread througho
ut the ranks of the county employees. One of their own was a child molester. Luckily, no one he knew had believed it, no one from tree trimming had given the accusations any credence. But belief in his innocence dropped off precipitously after that small circle of people, and no doubt everyone else in maintenance services and those in county government’s other departments, believed him guilty under the “where there’s smoke there’s fire” rationale.

  Steve was one of those.

  “On a personal note,” the manager said “you disgust me. I don’t want to see your face in the morning, and I don’t want you to talk to me. If I have anything to say to you, I’ll say it in a memo.”

  Edward stuck his head in the open doorway. “Hey, Steve, how’s the house coming?”

  From the yard outside came derisive chuckles and several guffaws.

  The manager stood and yelled angrily out the window. “You’re all going to be outsourced if I have anything to say about it! And I’ll be laughing every day as I sit here reading reports from the companies that took your jobs, you worthless bunch of goof-offs!”

  “We go, you go, Steve!” Chris Hewett called out. “Ain’t no need for a maintenance services manager if there’s no maintenance services department!”

  Steve turned back toward Hunt. “I’ll settle for eliminating tree trimming. Now get out of here and get back to work.”

  The crews were already starting to leave. Edward and Jorge had hooked the mulcher up to their truck and were leaning against the cab, drinking coffee and waiting. “Ready to go, boys?” Hunt asked, jogging across the asphalt to meet them.

  Edward grinned. “You’re back?”

  “I’m back, baby!”

  Edward laughed. Jorge slapped him on the back. “Let’s get out of here, bro.”

  Hunt was quiet on the drive out to Tanque Verde, where they’d be working for the next week. He was riding shotgun with Edward driving, but it was Jorge in the cramped backseat of the truck who kept up a steady stream of conversation and who kept pressing Hunt for details as they made their way through the stop-and-go morning traffic. He finally gave them an abridged account of events, a sanitized version of what had really happened, but Jorge was still not satisfied, and Hunt could tell that his friend sensed he was covering something up.