her an original of the policy itself and had it introduced as People's 10 in evidence. It seemed to Jaywalker that Burke derived great satisfaction from finally being allowed to get one of his own documents received as a prosecution exhibit.
MR. BURKE: You used the phrase 'term' a moment ago. What is a term life insurance policy?
MS. THOMAS: A term policy continues in ef fect for a stated period of time. During that period, or term, as well as during any subsequent renewal pe riods, a term policy pays off in case of death. But un like a whole life policy, a term policy builds no equity. Hence, it has no cash value or value that can be borrowed against. At the end of the term, unless renewed, it has no worth.
MR. BURKE: What was the term of this particular policy?
MS. THOMAS: Six months.
MR. BURKE: Is that a normal period for a life insurance policy?
MS. THOMAS: No. A year is much more com mon. But we'll issue a six-month policy if asked to, under certain conditions.
MR. BURKE: What sorts of conditions?
MS. THOMAS: People occasionally take out a short-term policy when they're going to be traveling abroad or engaging in some dangerous occupation. If you were going up in a space shuttle, for example, you might want a policy of that sort.
MR. BURKE: As far as you know, was Mr. Tannenbaum planning on going into space?
MS. THOMAS: Not so far as I know.
MR. BURKE: Are you by any chance familiar with the date of Mr. Tannen baum's death?
MS. THOMAS: Yes, I have it right here in my notes.
MR. BURKE: How long before Mr. Tannen baum's death was this policy first applied for?
MS. THOMAS: Let me see. Thirty-three days.
MR. BURKE: And paid for?
MS. THOMAS: Twenty-seven days.
MR. BURKE: And issued?
MS. THOMAS: Twenty-two days. Though by regulation, it would have related back to the date the check was put in the mail and postmarked. So in that respect, twenty-seven days, again.
MR. BURKE: Do you know if Mr. Tannen baum was required to undergo a medical examination before this policy was issued?
MS. THOMAS: No, he would not have been.
MR. BURKE: Why not?
MS. THOMAS: Because the policy was written with certain exclusions, so as to exempt death from any specified pre-existing medical conditions. As you can see from the application, several of those are typed in under the medical history section. Specifically, had Mr. Tannenbaum died from either cancer or heart dis ease, the policy would not have paid off.
MR. BURKE: Wouldn't you consider those pretty major exclusions?
MR. JAYWALKER: Objection.
THE COURT: Sustained.
MR. BURKE: Had Mr. Tannenbaum not died during the term of the policy, and had Mrs. Tannenbaum elected to renew it for succeeding terms, would the premium have remained the same?
MS. THOMAS: No. As Mr. Tannenbaum got older, the premium would have increased with each renewal, eventually becoming prohibitively expensive.
MR. BURKE: So as a long-term investment, how much sense does this sort of policy make?
MS. THOMAS: No sense at all, really. It only makes sense if you're afraid the individual is likely to die very soon.
MR. BURKE: But not of cancer.
MS. THOMAS: Correct.
MR. BURKE: And not of heart disease.
MS. THOMAS: Correct again.
MR. BURKE: Did there come a time when Equitable learned of Mr. Tannenbaum's death?
MS. THOMAS: Yes.
MR. BURKE: Was that because a claim was made under the policy?
MS. THOMAS: No, no claim has yet been made, so far as I can ascertain.
MR. BURKE: How long does one have to make a claim?
MS. THOMAS: The policy says seven years. But the courts seem to say a claim can always be made.
MR. BURKE: So how did the folks at Equi table learn of Mr. Tannen baum's death?
MS. THOMAS: Like everyone else, I imagine. Someone at Equitable saw it on the news or read about it in the paper.
MR. BURKE: And did there come a time when either that someone or another someone at Equitable put two and two together and realized, 'Hey, we've got a twenty-five-million-dollar policy on that guy'?
MS. THOMAS: Yes, something like that. Ac cording to our records, the issuing agent, a Mr. Gari baldi, realized that.
MR. BURKE: And what, if anything, did Mr. Garibaldi do at that point?
MS. THOMAS: He informed his supervisor.
MR. BURKE: And what did his supervisor do?
MS. THOMAS: He phoned your supervisor. He thought it looked pretty fish
MR. JAYWALKER: Objection.
THE COURT: Sustained, as to anything after, 'He phoned your supervisor.' The rest is stricken, and the jury will disregard it.
But there it was, hanging in midair, just waiting for the jurors to fill in the final syllable for themselves. No openbook exam, with the answers typed in bold at the end of each chapter, could ever have been easier.
Burke sat down, barely able to suppress a triumphant smirk. Jaywalker had labored hard and long to prepare the jury for just this testimony. He'd brought up the life insurance business as early as jury selection and hammered away at it repeatedly. He'd talked about it again in his opening state ment. He'd even tried to defuse it in his cross-examination of the previous witness, the accountant, Mr. Smythe. But none of those efforts had come close to preparing the jury for just how devastating the evidence would prove to Samara. Talk about motive? Here she'd bet twenty-seven thousand dollars of her own money, hoping to rake in a pot of twenty-five million on the possibility that within six months' time her husband would be dead. Not from cancer or heart disease, the things he was known to have had, and the things that just about everybody died from. What did that leave? Drag racing? Lightning? Snakebite? Spontaneous human combustion?
What it left was murder.
Still, Jaywalker couldn't very well leave Miranda Thomas alone. She'd hurt Samara far too much for that. He rose slowly from his seat, gathered his notes and worked his way over to the lectern, all the while giving the witness his most dangerous gunfighter squint, as though he knew he had something on her.
Though Lord knew he didn't.
MR. JAYWALKER: Ms. Thomas, you'd have us believe that policies such as this, where the payout is huge but so are the premiums, make no sense except for risk takers. Yet that's not quite true, is it?
MS. THOMAS: Excuse me?
MR. JAYWALKER: Isn't it true that there's an en tirely separate category of individuals who take out precisely this sort of life insurance with very little re gard to risky endeavors?
MS. THOMAS: I'm not sure what you're getting at.
MR. JAYWALKER: By any chance, does the term 'estate taxes' help you re member?
MS. THOMAS: I don't know.
MR. JAYWALKER: You do know what estate taxes are, don't you?
MS. THOMAS: Yes.
