Angry enough to strangle the old fossil, Charlie walked briskly out of the managing editor’s office and back to her desk. It took several minutes of calming breathing to get to where she could do it, but she eventually began writing the email – the second email that Hugh and Jenny had seen – she hoped would soften Hugh enough to let her meet with him again.
She had no idea how she was going to get Hugh to invite her to ride with him in his truck. It was a long shot, but she was going to have to think of a way to make it happen.
Chapter Ten
As Hugh and Jenny were slowly bearing down on Phoenix from way up north, but still two days away, and Charlie was thinking of a way to hook up with Hugh, Joe Montoya was on the phone with shyster Phoenix-area attorney Bill Fishburn.
“Have you got a plan to make it happen yet?” Fishburn asked the ring leader of the insurance scam gang. Joe knew the attorney was referring to the nuclear-verdict-level scam action he had been commanded to set into motion.
“I’m working on it right now, boss” Joe replied. The attorney hung up.
Joe was at his modest, not-so-upscale tract home. Weeds grew between the cracks of his paved driveway, and sprouted up throughout the rocked front yard that passed for landscaping in Phoenix’s desert climate. Shrubs needed pruning. The palm trees had the shaggy remnants of several years’ worth of dead fronds hanging down like an unkempt homeless person’s long beard. The house was long past the time when it needed a new coat of paint.
Two adults occupied Joe’s worn couch, and two children played on the dirty, out-of-date shag carpet. They were his four newest soon-to-be crash “victims.” He had scouted them and selected them because of the special qualifications they’d had for this specific one-time mission.
The adults were sisters, mother and aunt of the two children, two and three-year-old toddlers, who were playing at their feet. They were the ones who were going to help bring the attorney and Joe a mega-million insurance settlement or jury award against a trucking company.
The mother was married. She had been estranged from her husband since the birth of her second child, but nothing had been put into writing. Their marital strife stemmed from the fact that although the two children were conceived and born during their married time together, neither of the two children were his progeny. She had no other family besides her sister.
The plan consisted of two contingencies. It could go either way, depending on what happened on the day of the accident.
On the one hand, if it didn’t come off the way Joe planned, and the crash resulted in only injuries, the mother and sister would receive the settlement or be awarded a jury verdict – granting a generous “off-books” fee to the attorney, of course.
That would likely not be the giant settlement and nuclear verdict award the attorney and Joe had planned for. More along the lines of their usual. But it would be better than nothing.
On the other hand, if the crash came off the way that Joe had been diligently planning, he had already arranged with the mother’s husband to be the aggrieved surviving spouse who would be the recipient of a much-larger settlement or nuclear verdict award.
It would be handled through the attorney’s office of course, so the attorney would get the largest share of the award. The husband would receive a generous share. Joe would make sure the husband understood the consequences of welching on the deal.
The sister would be collateral damage, but the husband had no more love for her than he did for his cheating wife. She was instrumental in turning his wife against him, badgering her sister until she had finally kicked her husband out of the house.
The mother wanted the sister to come along, or she wouldn’t do the deed for Joe, so he’d had to agree.
Joe had no idea what the attorney needed the money for or what he was going to do with it. He didn’t care. What he wanted to do with his large share of this jackpot was to get out of the fake-crash insurance scam business and disappear from Phoenix. Joe knew it would be too hot for him after successfully pulling that one off. He didn’t trust the attorney not to try to tie up loose ends.
“OK, here’s the plan. You know the general idea of what we are doing. Now we are here to talk about how it’s going to work. A lot of money could be involved. You know you’re going to be very comfortable after this is over,” Joe told them, keeping as neutral an expression as he could in the face of his lie.
The sisters nodded their understanding and approval. Joe had told them this would be an easy gig. He’d done it many times before. It involved a little crash with a truck. Very minor injuries. But the payoff would be worth it.
“Normally, we would use only one car. The driver looks for a truck, drives alongside, edges over into the truck’s lane, and gets tapped by the truck. Fender damage and minor injuries, mostly,” Joe explained.
“Truck and car pull over to the shoulder. Insurance information is exchanged, the truck’s company offers an insurance settlement to keep it simple, the car driver pays the attorney for his services from the settlement, and everybody goes home happy.”
The attorney’s portion of the settlement, as agreed to beforehand with the victims, was sizable. Off the books, of course, and much higher than the percentage found in the usual schedule of allowable attorney fees.
The fake-crash accomplices were thrilled with their share of the payout, as it usually represented a
