I sat on a park bench facing the water and stretched my legs. A man and little boy were at the far end of one of the piers. The kid squatted on his haunches and inspected something at his feet.
Sherri and I had been close, growing up in a family that discouraged closeness. Mother and Father had provided nannies, expensive toys, and precious little personal attention. I'd often wondered why they'd bothered having children at all, unless it made them look good.
The little boy stood and stepped closer to the edge, so he could look into the murky water. His father grabbed his hand, and the kid squealed as he leaned out across the water, windmilling his free arm as if he were falling.
Unlike Sherri, Bobby, my older brother by eight years, had thought of me as a nuisance. He had repeatedly referred to me as an accident, and I couldn't now remember how old I'd been when I figured out what he meant. But I would never forget the hurt. Bobby was a carbon copy of the old man in looks and aspirations. The last I'd heard, he was a financial adviser for some blue-chip company. He'd divorced his first wife, a smart move by all accounts, considering she was higher up the soci-eco food chain and possessed the arrogance that went with it. Together they'd produced two snot-nosed little brats who I imagined would grow up to be just like him.
I hadn't seen Sherri since the wedding, and I wondered when I ever would. I closed my eyes and felt the chill in the air and the warmth of the sun on my skin. Behind me, a bus accelerated through the intersection, and a grate rattled under the heavy wheels of a truck. As far as I was concerned, the harbor and Foxdale could have been on different planets.
The man and boy headed toward Rash Field, and after a while, it was time for me to go. I left the harbor behind and headed north on Calvert Street.
Five blocks later, I stopped in front of the wide plate-glass windows of a jeweler's store and glanced at the sign above the door. Geoff and Teal Jewelers. Behind me, a horn blared, followed by the high-pitched squeal of poorly-adjusted brakes. The sound bounced and ricocheted off high walls of concrete and glass. I looked at my watch and saw I was ten minutes early.
'Steve?'
I turned around.
She held out her hand. 'Marilyn,' she said. 'Nick's sister.' She kept her blond hair short, and a pair of large wire-rimmed glasses couldn't hide a dusting of freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose. Based on Nick's comments, I assumed she was in her early forties, but the animation in her eyes made her appear younger.
'Thanks for taking the time to meet me,' I said.
'No problem. Let's go inside.' Marilyn turned without waiting for a response and strode briskly down the sidewalk.
She was wearing a navy blazer with gold piping and a skirt that reached her knees. The cut looked expensive, but the length accentuated her thinness. She looked prim and professional, the opposite of Nick in every respect. And she was my height. Taller than her brother.
At the corner, she pulled open the door to a dingy-looking cafe and chose a table at the far end of the room. Only then did the logistics of our meeting become clear. I sat across from her, realizing she was taking a chance talking to me and didn't want anyone to overhear our conversation. If she was nervous, though, she didn't show it.
She shifted in her seat, crossed her legs, and opened her menu. 'How do you like working on a horse farm?'
'I like it.' I thought about how frustrated I would have been if I'd gone through two or even six more years of college only to find that I hated the actual job. 'It suits me.'
She nodded. 'Nicky, too. Now, me.' She crinkled her nose. 'By the time I was eighteen, I'd trudged through enough mud and muck to last me a lifetime.' She saw the blank look on my face and said, 'Dad used to train timber horses and steeplechasers. He even trained a Maryland Hunt Cup winner.'
'I didn't realize.'
'Nicky loved it, of course. Anyway,' she said, 'what do you want to know about insurance fraud?'
'Well, uh, for a start, how would Mr. Sanders profit-'
She raised her hand. 'Hold on a sec. It would be unethical for me to talk specifically about one of our clients, but there's nothing wrong with discussing insurance in general, is there?'
I grinned. 'I suppose not.'
A waitress came over and took our drink order-iced tea for Marilyn and a Coke for me-and before she could leave, Marilyn ordered a chicken salad sandwich on wheat. I asked if they could do a BLT. They could. She scribbled down our order, then tucked her pencil behind her ear and the pad under the ties of her apron.
'Okay,' I said when our waitress was out of hearing range. 'If I had a horse I wanted to…'
'Defraud an insurance company with?'
'You said it.'
She grinned. 'Of course, like everything else, there's more than one way to skin a cat, or should I say, lead a horse to water?'
'Ugh.'
The wrinkles that radiated from the corners of her eyes when she smiled disappeared as her gaze swept the room. Except for an elderly man in a booth by the front window, we were alone.
'One of the most common frauds in equine mortality insurance starts out innocently enough,' She said. 'You buy a horse with no thought of defrauding anyone, then the horse's performance, for whatever reason, starts to slide. The horse suffers an injury of some sort, or develops a subtle lameness, or some condition becomes evident that you know won't respond to treatment. The horse is no longer doing his job, and you know you'll never sell him for what you dished out. Instead of taking it in the teeth, you eliminate him before the problem becomes too obvious and collect on the insurance. As far as everyone's concerned, you're just another poor slob with bad luck. A victim.'
'And if the original owner knowingly passed on a horse with a problem,' I said, 'that's exactly what I would have been… in the beginning, anyway.'
'Yep. So you have the horse killed or, more likely, kill it yourself. Pretending it was stolen involves more risk.'
I frowned. 'Why?'
'The police aren't going to do anything about a dead horse, unless it's obviously the result of a malicious act. And with horses, the two most common methods, electrocution and suffocation, aren't that easy to spot. But with theft, you're likely to become a suspect.'
'Yeah, but if I board my horse in a public stable and take a bunch of other horses with it-'
'You'd be less of a suspect,' she agreed. 'Any reason you think a certain someone's guilty of anything underhanded, I'd like to hear about it.'
I shook my head. 'No reason. I'm just fishing.'
Marilyn relaxed into her chair. 'Though it doesn't happen as often, thank God, some people purchase a horse with the deliberate intention of defrauding an insurance company. If you're cautious and not too greedy, you buy an inexpensive horse and inflate the purchase price on the bill of sale. Not much, but enough to make it worth your while. If the horse is doing okay at the shows, his inflated price won't be questioned. Putting a value on an animal is fairly subjective at the best of times, and you've got your fake bill of sale to back you up. So when you dispose of the animal, you collect on the policy, less any deductible. It's a nice little fraud that's hard to prove unless you've made some glaring mistakes. Clear?'
'As glass.'
Marilyn rolled her eyes.
'But it doesn't seem like you'd make all that much,' I said. Not when you consider the actual purchase price, the insurance premium, plus the usual board and upkeep of the horse.'
'And don't forget the vet exam the policy requires,' she said.
'So, where's the profit?'
'There's not much. But if you insure your horse with more than one company…'
'Oh, wow.'
'There's more risk, but the profit's considerably higher.' Marilyn shook her head as if she couldn't believe she was telling me this. 'Let's say you and a couple of your buddies have this horse that can do the jumper circuit. He's
