by Frank Zafiro
“Fair enough.”
He spread his hands in a go-ahead gesture.
I thought about it for a second. Then I said, “I work for an attorney who has been asked to represent Mrs. Brassart. Before deciding to represent her, he has asked me to look into the case.”
“Why?”
“To help him decide whether to take it or not.”
“If he decides to take it, he’ll be defending Marie?”
“Yes.”
“Is he any good?”
“Yes. Very good.”
Richards thought about that for a second, then gave me a slight smile. “Well, I don’t believe Marie could ever harm Henry. And I think he’d want me to help out if it meant absolving her of that.”
I blinked, surprised. The way things had been going, I’d expected to be walking past the frosty receptionist on my way out the door in about two minutes.
“Well, thanks,” I said.
“What can I do to help?”
I shifted gears into investigative mode. “Let’s start with Mr. Brassart. What kind of work did he do?”
“Henry was a financial adviser.”
“What does that mean exactly?”
“He had a number of clients with portfolios through our firm. He managed those portfolios, working closely with the client.”
“Is that the norm?”
“What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “I guess I always pictured people handing their money over to a financial whiz, who did all the investing for them.”
“It may have been like that at one time,” Richards said. “But not anymore.”
“May have been?”
“I’ve only been in the field for the last six years. I manage the people who manage the money, so the way things used to be isn’t something I concern myself with. Honestly, I’m not too concerned with the way things are going to be in the future, either. That’s for the experts to figure out.”
“Like Brassart.”
“Yes, like Henry. My only concern is how they’re performing today, and if the client is happy.”
“Were Henry’s clients happy?” I followed his lead in using Brassart’s first name.
“Very. I mean, he didn’t blow them out of the water by any means, but he always over-performed when compared to the benchmarks. And in a down market, he still made money. That alone made him golden.”
I took the notepad from under my arm and scribbled a few words. Then I asked, “How many clients did he have?”
“About seven major ones, I’d say. Maybe another twenty smaller types.”
“Twenty-seven clients, and not a single one had any reason to be upset with him?”
“No. Like I said, Henry made money. He had a knack.”
I wrote the number twenty-seven, circled it and made a question mark. The odds of all twenty-seven being happy at the same time struck me as long, but I let it go.
“Any recent major deals?”
Richards looked at me quizzically.
“By recent, I mean around the time of his death,” I explained.
He shook his head slightly. “You really don’t get how this works, do you?”
“I…” I stopped, then said, “Is it that obvious?”
He nodded.
“Well, maybe you can explain it to me.”
He drew in a deep breath. “The simplest way to look at it is that it’s about being strategic with money, not tactical. Our financial advisers look for secure, long-term growth with a risk profile that fits the client’s comfort level. It’s about making good decisions that remain good decisions. It’s not about playing the market or being susceptible to the daily rallies or drops that inevitably occur.”
“All right. So no major deals, then?”
“No. We’re not day traders, or short-term speculators.”
I paused, thinking. “How about any enemies?”
Richards let out a small snort. “Henry? Not hardly. He was one of the nicest men you could hope to meet.”
“Rivals?”
“No. Again, it doesn’t really work that way in this sector of business. We don’t poach each other’s clients. And it’s not a zero sum game, either, so competition within the firm is pretty light.”
“Tell me about Henry, then. You said he was a nice man. How do you mean that?”
Richards looked perplexed. “He was just…nice. Friendly. Polite. Didn’t say a bad word about anyone. He worked hard. Maybe a little too hard, but that’s a sin most of us are guilty of, right?”
“What kind of hours did he work?”
“Pretty standard.”
“Which means what?”
“Sixty hours a week, maybe. More or less.”
“And business is good?”
“Better than good. Outstanding.”
“In this economy?” Things had been rough for the last several years, and River City didn’t have a Boeing or a GM to keep things moving along, or to help weather the economic storm.
Richards shrugged. “Like I said, Henry had a knack. He made money, even in tough times.”
“Sounds like he was important around here.”
“He was critical,” Richards agreed.
“Has his loss affected the firm?”
Richards looked mildly shocked. “Of course. We’re more than just a business here. We’re family.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, has his passing affected your business?”
Richards hesitated, then shook his head. “No. Other advisers have picked up most of Henry’s clients.”
Something in the way he answered pinged at my radar, but I let it go. He was already telling me more than I expected. So I changed directions. “You mentioned that you didn’t think Mrs. Brassart could have hurt Henry. Why do you say that?”
“She seemed like a sweet woman,” Richards replied. “I know Henry loved her. It just doesn’t seem like something she would do.”
“Were you close to the Brassarts?”
“No, not really. Honestly, no one was. Henry was a great guy, but he wasn’t very social once he left the office. He and Marie would come to the two or three official functions we had every year, but outside of that, they kept pretty much to themselves.”
I pressed a little. “Yet you don’t think she did it?”
Richards hesitated again. “Well, maybe it’s more accurate to say that I hope she didn’t do it.” He sighed. “Although, from what I’ve read in the newspaper, it doesn’t look good, does it?”
“No,” I agreed. “It looks pretty damning.”
“All the damage to the car,” Richards said. “And the insurance money.”
“One point five million dollars is a lot of money.”
He gave me a strange look. “It’s a lot more than that.”
I shook my head. “I read the police affidavit. According to that, Henry had a policy for one point five million.”
“Oh, his personal policy. Right.” Richards nodded his head. “But there was a business policy, too.”
“A life insurance policy?”
“Yes. It’s called an ‘Important Man’ policy, although these days, I think they call it ‘Important Person’ or ‘Important Member.’ Anyway, we had one on Henry. There’s one on each of the partners, too.”
“And the purpose is?”
“Quite simply, to insulate the firm against the loss of a key member.”
“So the firm is the beneficiary?”
“Exactly.”
“I’ve never heard of that before.”
“It’s quite common,” Richards assured me.
“How much was the policy for Henry?”
For the first time, Richards gave me a suspicious look. “Well, now we’re getting into information that I don’t feel comfortable sharing with you. Suffice it to say we carry a policy for our most important employees that’s sufficient to offset the loss of their services.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “But wh
at does that have to do with Mrs. Brassart?”
His look of suspicion gave way to mild confusion. Then he shrugged. “As a benefit to our qualified employees, we add a rider to the insurance policy that benefits the spouse or child, or whoever they choose to name as beneficiary. Henry named Marie, of course.”
“Can you tell me how much that rider was?”
He thought about it. Then he said, “I imagine it’ll be public knowledge as soon as the trial starts anyway. The death benefit was five million dollars.”
“Five million?” I repeated, almost involuntarily. I’d heard him fine, but the number surprised me.
He nodded.
I sat there, thinking about it. From what Richards had just told me, Marie Brassart had six and a half million reasons to kill her husband.
“Like I said, it doesn’t look good, does it?” Richards asked.
“No,” I agreed. “It doesn’t.”
17
Thad Richards gave me his business card and promised to answer any other questions I might have, though he admitted he didn’t think he could be of much more help. I assured him he’d already helped a lot, and thanked him.
I rode the elevator down to the lobby, replaying my conversation with Richards in my head. In the end, the only thing of significance that came out of it was the five million dollar policy. I wondered why the police hadn’t put that in the affidavit. Then I wondered if they knew about it at all.
I was pretty sure they did. Katie MacLeod had been a stellar patrol cop when I knew her. Since I left the job, she’d been involved in several high profile incidents in which she conducted herself admirably. There was every reason to believe she was every bit as good at being a detective.
The lobby was mostly empty, and I walked through it, deep in thought. I stepped out of the front door of the building and onto the sidewalk, still thinking about what to do next. A few steps later, I collided with what felt like a brick wall. I staggered backward, unintentionally putting too much weight on my left knee, and crumpled to the ground.
“Oh, hey, sorry about that,” came a voice from above. “You should really watch where you’re going.”
For a crazy moment when I first heard the voice, I thought it was the guy I’d gotten into a fight with at the bar. Anger coiled in my stomach and my fists clenched. But when I looked up, I saw a stranger who was only a little taller than me but might have been half again as wide. His dark brown hair was cut into a military style flat top and his face was peppered with acne. He looked about twenty-five.
It definitely wasn’t the same guy.
“I didn’t see you,” I said.
He grinned but there wasn’t any real humor in it. “I’m kinda hard to miss.”
I shifted my weight to my right leg and stood up. “Well, sorry.”
“No worries,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Because you look like you were favoring that knee.”
“Old injury,” I said, and walked past him.
I tried not to limp, but that turned out to be impossible. Once I was around the corner and out of his sight, I forced myself to continue for another block or so. But when I came upon a concrete bench, I had to sit. My knee intermittently throbbed and screeched, and I knew I’d be popping some ibuprofen when I got home.
Rubbing the knee never helped much, but I always ended up trying it anyway. Touching the asymmetrical contours and missing pieces brought me back to that hot August night over a decade ago, when two gangsters emptied their magazines at me. At the time, the bullet that pierced my shoulder from behind, just under the vest, had been the worst of the two injuries. And while my strength and flexibility on that side is noticeably less than my right, it’s the knee injury that seems to plague me more often.
Nothing like having a constant reminder of where you’ve been.
I rubbed on the knee for a few minutes, then gave up and limped slowly back to my car.
18
That night, I sat in my small apartment, staring at the dark TV screen and sipping a beer for so long that it grew warm. In my other hand, I fumbled with my cell phone, turning it in my fingers, and thinking.
For a long while, I focused on the case, and what to do next. There wasn’t much in the way of leads, and I didn’t have a solid enough feel for the situation to make any kind of recommendation to Harrity. In a word, I was at something of a dead end.
Maybe I could have thought my way out of it, or had coffee with Clell or Adam to spur some ideas along. But for some inexplicable reason, the person who kept popping into my mind was Officer Annabel Lee.
There was a feeling I had about her, like some kind of phantom itch I couldn’t quite pin down to a location long enough to scratch. Sure, she was attractive, maybe even a little exotic, but when I focused on that, the resulting reaction was somehow incomplete. Maybe it was the mysterious air she had to her, or the way Sean the nurse responded to her. Or Adam’s vague pronouncements.
I wasn’t sure, but one thing was sure. I couldn’t shake her from my thoughts.
Finally, I rose from the chair and limped to the kitchen counter where a small pile of unopened mail sat. I fished out the crime victim card she’d given me and took it back to my chair. As I read over the card, it was both familiar and foreign at the same time. I recognized parts of it from the version I’d handed out as a patrol officer, but much of it was changed. The print was smaller, for one. And there were more resources listed, as well as web addresses and emails.
Underneath the place where she’d written the incident number was the official message line for patrol officers.
Before I could think about whether it was a good idea or not, I punched in the number. An automated female voice answered and asked me to enter the extension. I pushed 4-7-3 and the automated voice told me that wasn’t a valid extension.
I hesitated, thinking back. Slowly, I remembered that police badge numbers were actually the officer’s city personnel number, and those were technically four digits. I quickly hit 0-4-7-3 and there was silence. Then Officer Lee’s professional tone filled my ear.
“You have reached Officer Lee of the River City Police Department. I work night time hours on a rotating schedule. If you’ll leave your contact information along with the associated incident number, I will get back to you as soon as I can. Since I work night shift, please let me know what hours are acceptable to return your call. Thank you.”
The beep told me I was on.
“Officer Lee,” I began, then paused. What the hell should I say?
The silence dragged for what seemed like forever, until I almost decided to just hang up. Instead, I forged ahead.
“It’s Stefan Kopriva. We met the other night when you gave me a ride to the hospital. I wanted to say thank you.” I paused again. Then I finished, “And I’d like to buy you a cup of coffee sometime.” I left my number, and hung up.
Funny thing. After I made the call, I still sat for a long time in my chair, sipping the last of my warmed beer and turning that cell phone in my fingers, and thinking.
19
When I woke up the next morning, I had an answer to at least one of my questions.
What to do next?
The answer came from thinking about why I had called Officer Lee. In the end, I didn’t really know for sure, but I decided to call her anyway, and just ask her.
And as I drank my morning coffee, I decided I would do the same thing with Marie Brassart. Did she know about the five million from the corporate policy on Henry? The only way I’d get the answer to that question is if I just asked her. Maybe she’d answer, maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she’d tell the truth, maybe she’d lie. But there’d be a reaction, and I could read that reaction, and maybe that would help me decide what to tell Harrity.
I sure as hell didn’t have much in the way of evidence to share with him. The Important Man policy was about the only thing I’d uncovered that wasn’t part of the public record.
After
I cleaned up, I headed straight to the jail. I wasn’t looking forward to the sniping from the visitation corrections officer, but maybe I’d get lucky and someone else would be on duty. After all, the sun was out and it was a bright and cheery spring day.
No such luck. The same white-haired, yellow-skinned grouch sat behind the thick plate of glass.
“Visiting Marie Brassart,” I told him, my tone cool as I slid my identification through the slot.
He picked up the ID, read the name and scowled at me. I gave him a flat stare in return. There was no profit in getting into a pissing match with a guy like this. He turned to his computer and typed. Then he turned back to me and shook his head. “Can’t do that.”
I pointed at the sign on the wall. “Visiting hours are ten to four. It’s ten-thirty.”
He made a show of looking at the clock and checking it against his own watch. “So it is,” he said.
I shook my head. “Are you telling me she has a restriction on visitors or something?”
“No,” he said. “She can have all the visitors she wants.”
“I should be on the list,” I said.
He pretended to study the screen, then nodded. “So you are.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“There is no problem.” He slid my identification back to me.
“Good.” I waited for a visitor’s pass and a sign in sheet, but the guard just stared at me impassively. Finally, I repeated, “What’s the problem?”
“Like I said, no problem.”
“Then sign me in and give me a pass.”
He shook his head. “I can’t do that.”
I was starting to get frustrated. “Why not?”
A shadow of dark glee touched his eyes and made the corners of his mouth twitch upward. “Marie Brassart is no longer here.”
I stared at him, uncomprehending. After a few moments, I sputtered, “Then where is she?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea. But she bonded out about two hours ago.”
“How is that possible?” I said.
“Well, see there’s this thing call bail, where people put up money as a promise that they’ll appear in court, and then they get released. She paid the money, and she got released.”
