work.'
'Some people would call that one of the good things about AIDS.'
'Like not having to worry about skin cancer? I'm sure you're right.
But Byron wasn't like that. He liked having a job to go to.'
'He had money in the bank,' I said. 'Close to forty thousand dollars.'
'Is that how much it was? I knew he didn't have to worry about money. His health insurance was in force, and he said he had enough money to last him. To see him out, that was the expression he used.'
She was silent for a moment. 'This past winter he said he thought he had about a year to go, two years at the outside. Barring a miracle drug, or some other kind of miracle.'
'I understand there was a will,' I said. 'Simple and straightforward, he used a printed form and had two of his neighbors witness it. He left everything to a couple of AIDS charities.'
'That's what he told me he was going to do.'
'Was he ever married?'
'For about a year, right after he got out of school. Then they got divorced, or maybe it was an annulment. I think that's what it was.'
'No children, I assume.'
'No.'
'Any family?'
'A broken home, and both parents were alcoholic.'
'So he came by it honestly.'
'Uh-huh. They both died, his father many years ago and his mother sometime after he got sober. One brother, but nobody's heard from him in years, and Byron thought he was probably dead. There was another brother, and he'd been dead for some years. Byron said he died of an esophageal rupture, so I guess he must have been an alcoholic, too.'
'All happy families are alike,' I said.
'God.'
'Where do you figure the forty thousand came from? And it must have been more than that to start with, if he stopped working before last Christmas. Even if he started putting something aside each week when he sobered up, that's a lot of money to have saved in such a short amount of time.'
'Life insurance.'
'He was somebody's beneficiary?'
'No, he had a policy on his own life. He took it out years ago because somebody convinced him it was a good investment.'
'And maintained the coverage all those years?'
'He said it was the luckiest thing that ever happened to him. There were stretches when he didn't have the money or he forgot to send in the premiums, but they were automatically paid by loans against the cash value. So when he got sober it was still in force, and he went on paying the premiums.'
'Who was his beneficiary?'
'I think it was probably his wife originally. Then for years he had his mother as beneficiary, and then when she died—'
'Yes?'
'I'm sorry, it's hard to get the words out. I didn't know it at the time, but as it happens he listed me as the beneficiary. I guess he had to put someone.'
'You said you were close.'
'Close,' she said. 'You know how I found out? I had to be notified when he cashed in the policy. The company had a requirement to that effect, so there was a paper I had to sign. I didn't have to consent to it, but he was required to notify me.'
'A lot of them have that rule,' I said. 'In case the insured is required to maintain coverage, say as part of the terms of a divorce settlement.'
'He was almost apologetic, Matt. 'I'm afraid you're not going to be a rich lady after all, Ginnie. I'm going to need the money myself.' '
'How much was the policy for?'
'It wasn't a fortune. Seventy-five thousand dollars? Eighty? Under a hundred, anyway. I don't know how much he got for it.'
'That would depend on the cash surrender value of the policy.'
'Oh,' she said. 'Well, I wouldn't know anything about that.
Whatever it was, it had to last him the rest of his life.'
'I don't know much about it myself,' I admitted, 'beyond the fact that it's based on what you've paid in premiums over the years. You gradually build up a cash value for the policy, depending on the type of policy you've got. With straight life you pay high premiums and your policy's cash value builds up gradually over time. With term coverage your premiums are lower but you don't build up any cash value.
