Cavanaugh Strong. Marie Ferrarella
Noelle echoed.
“That other person I was referring to when I told you that Henry was the second friend I had who’d died in the last few months,” she explained to Noelle.
Her grandmother hadn’t really said anything much about this first friend who had died. Or maybe she hadn’t really been paying attention. It could have happened when she and Cavanaugh were hip-deep in getting the goods on a designer-handbag counterfeiting ring.
“Tell me about Sally,” she coaxed.
There was a lengthy pause on the other end. She was just about to ask if Lucy had heard her when the other woman began to answer. “There isn’t all that much to tell, really. One day she seemed like she was in fantastic shape—training for a 5 km marathon—the next day, she was gone.”
“Dead?” Noelle asked.
“Very. Her running partner got concerned when she didn’t show up in the park for their daily run, so she went to Sally’s house—Sally had given her a key. She let herself in when there was no answer and she found Sally in her bed, unresponsive and very cold. It looked like she’d died somewhere in the middle of the night.”
“And you were suspicious?” Noelle pressed, wanting to get to the bottom line.
“Well, yes. Sally said she’d gotten a clean bill of health from her doctor when she went for a checkup a couple of months earlier—that was just before she applied for a life insurance policy.”
Noelle’s antennae went up on high alert. Two life insurance policies on senior citizens, two deaths. Was there a pattern here?
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cavanaugh returning to his desk. His attention was clearly on her and her end of the conversation. She thought of calling her grandmother back. But right now, getting more details out of Lucy was more important to her than not arousing her partner’s radar.
“Then Sally had applied for insurance, too?” she asked, just to double-check her facts.
“Yes.”
That couldn’t be just a coincidence, could it? That had to be a connection. Now all she needed was the right follow-through. “Why didn’t you tell me about Sally? And her life insurance policy?” she added for emphasis.
Lucy made no apologies for her actions—or her lack of them. “Well, to be honest, I didn’t think you’d be interested.”
Now came the big question. Mentally, Noelle crossed her fingers. “Would you happen to know if Sally got her life insurance policy through the same company that Henry did?”
Lucy paused for a moment, obviously thinking and trying to remember the answer to the question. “I think she’d said something about deciding to go through a broker. Supposedly the broker was going to turn her onto the best insurance company to go with.”
“Do you have his name?”
“Her,” Lucy corrected. “I remember Sally said her broker was a woman and that she found women easier to deal with than men.”
Noelle saw Duncan eyeing her curiously. For once it looked as if he wasn’t having any luck piecing together what was going on. Good.
“Yes, I know what she means,” she told her grandmother. “Do you remember the broker’s name?” she asked hopefully.
The next second, her heart sank—then buoyed up again, all in the space of one sentence.
“No, but I have a card here somewhere. Sally gave me the woman’s card, saying that I might want to get a life insurance policy so that you won’t have to face any unexpected expenses that might come up when it’s my turn to kick the bucket.”
The last thing in the world Noelle wanted to think of was her grandmother’s passing. “You’re not going to be kicking any buckets any time soon,” she informed the other woman firmly.
The laugh was short, humorless and ironic. “That’s what I told Sally, but to humor her, I took the card anyway.”
It was a good thing that she had. It might lead them to something—or at least allow them to rule out something if they didn’t.
“Do me a favor, Lucy,” she went on to tell her grandmother. “When you go pick up Melinda from school today, could you swing by your place and find that card for me?”
“Then you do think something’s wrong, don’t you?” Lucy pressed.
As far as the world was concerned, she processed everything slowly. It was only the brass—and her partner—who knew exactly how fast she could be if necessary. And she intended to keep it that way.
“Not sure yet, but having all the facts won’t hurt,” she answered her grandmother evasively.
She heard her grandmother snort on the other end and knew that the woman wasn’t buying that. “I’m not sure where I put the woman’s card, but I’ll give you a call as soon as I find it.”
“Great.” She was about to hang up when she remembered something else. “Oh, wait, one more question, Lucy. Did Sally have a family?”
Lucy thought for a second, wanting to make sure she had her facts straight. “A few distant second cousins somewhere,” she recalled, “but beyond that, I don’t think so.”
“She was never married?”
“No, poor thing. According to her, she never found Mr. Right. I tried to talk her into Mr. Right Now, but Sally was stubborn. She didn’t want to hear about it. She said that she wanted the bells and the banjos—or nothing. She settled for nothing.”
Well, she couldn’t blame Sally for wanting it all, Noelle thought. On the pragmatic side, this was beginning to sound eerily like a pattern that led to a fatal end.
“Do you know who she took the policy out for?” Noelle asked next.
“I think she mentioned that it was some charity or foundation. Sally was into helping others whenever she could. I told her to spend the premium money on herself, that you only go around once in life and should enjoy yourself, but she was adamant. Said that someone told her it was a good thing she was doing.”
Noelle could feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. Was this “someone” the person who was responsible for her friend’s death? Possibly even for Henry’s death? She knew that sounded far-fetched and pretty much off-the-wall, but you never knew when something would pay off—and truth had a habit of being a lot stranger than fiction.
“Would you happen to know who this ‘someone’ was?” she asked.
“Haven’t a clue. I’d better go,” Lucy said abruptly. “School’s letting out soon. I’ll give you a call when and if I find the card,” she promised. The next moment, the line went dead.
As Noelle hung up her desk phone, she could almost feel Cavanaugh watching her. When she raised her head so that her eyes met his, he had one question for her.
“What did I miss?”
She tried to play dumb, hoping to get him to drop the subject. “What do you mean?”
He laughed, not taken in for a second. “I mean that I could see your detective antennae go up and quiver clear across the room and all the way down the hall. Now stop playing innocent and come clean. What did I miss?” he repeated.
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