After the Fire      

Marathon Nightmare

Hell In Texas


This series  features an insurance adjuster who specializes in investigating large fires (often businesses, hotels or expensive homes) of suspicious origin. Bev Deller lives in a college town in Ohio with her teen-aged daughter. Her job usually involves traveling to faraway and often exotic locations, but in the first novel, After the Fire, the fire destroys a restaurant in Bev's home town.

The series currently consists of three novels.  I plan to write at least two more stories featuring Bev Deller in the future.

The first chapter of each of these novels is below. Please enjoy.   

Contents

1. 1 After the Fire - Chapter 1
2. 2 Marathon Nightmare - Chapter 1
3. 3 Hell In Texas - Chapter 1

After the Fire - Chapter 1

Bev pulled up to the curb across the street from the gutted restaurant and parked behind the fire chief.  The local volunteer fire-fighters had brought the blaze under control, but the building was still smoldering.  Firefighters from neighboring towns were still hooking up their hoses to help with the mopping up. She heard a cop yelling at a firefighter to call for ambulances, as many as could be rounded up.  The police chief and the ranking firefighter on the crew that had responded first to the alarm provided a quick update to the chief.  Bev stood back far enough not to get into trouble, but close enough to hear what they said.

“This one's bad, sir.  There was a big crowd in the restaurant tonight.  A wedding rehearsal party was the biggest group, but it was a pretty full house.  The fire spread fast.  As far as we can tell it looks like the only people who got out were the ones in the bar waiting for tables and the people in the kitchen. Looks like most of the people in the dining room were trapped. We gotta get in there quick and see if there are any survivors.”

The chief nodded and waved his hand, “Do it.”

He pulled out a cell phone and made a call, “Dan, this is Ed Casey in Stanforth. I've got a serious situation, and I need help. We're responding to a restaurant fire with a lot of casualties. I need  as many firefighters and EMT's as you can spare.  I got a feeling I'm also gonna need some higher powered fire investigation technology than I have available here. Can you help me?”

After a few seconds, he nodded and said, “Thanks.”

Then he turned to Bev and tried to smile but didn't quite succeed.  “I suppose you're here for the insurance company.”

“Yes, sir. I'm the adjuster assigned to handle the claim, but I have to tell you as a preliminary matter, I have EMT training. With your permission, I'd like to help with the rescue operation.”

“Sure. We need all the help I can get.  I don't like the idea of letting an adjuster get inside the fire site before my investigators do, but if there are survivors, we need to get them out.  Get some protective gear from the truck and go ahead.” He put one hand on her shoulder and shook the index finger of his other hand under her nose. “Don't you touch anything you don't need to touch and you'd better share with me anything you think you discover in there. This is a potential crime scene and I won't have anybody fuck it up. You got that?”

She reached out and patted his chest, “Yes, sir.  I understand the rules. Trust me, you and I are on the same side here. First we get the people out, then we figure out what started the fire and how much damage there is.”

He pointed her in the direction of the nearest fire truck. The local firefighters knew her and nobody stopped her when she started pulling out protective gear.
A few minutes later, Bev stepped into hell.  Firefighters were battling hot spots at various places around the room.  The entire inside of the restaurant was gutted. Bev was glad she'd had the presence of mind to grab a bandanna to cover her mouth and nose for what little protection it would provide against the smoke and ash. The smell of burnt flesh was nauseating. 

A firefighter touched her arm and asked her to help him turn over a table: there were human legs sticking out from underneath it.  They moved the table and found four people who had crawled underneath it in an effort to stay low and away from the inferno.  Three of them were dead.  A lady who lay on the bottom of the pile, underneath a man's body, was still alive. 

Bev helped the firefighter pull the man's body off the woman. The firefighter called for a stretcher. They helped the EMT's get the lady onto the stretcher.  Bev hoped they didn't hurt the woman too much by touching her burned legs, although from the looks of the woman's injuries an the shallowness of her breathing, Bev thought she was probably a goner anyway. Considering how badly she was burned, Bev thought that might be a blessing.

They turned to the next table.  Two people. Both dead.

Slowly Bev, and the other EMTs worked their way around the room. There were perhaps eighty or so people in the main dining room, both customers and wait staff.  They found fewer than a dozen survivors.  Most of those who were alive were badly burned over most of their bodies.  If they lived, their recovery would be a hellish ordeal of multiple skin grafts.

Behind the leading line of of search and rescue workers, the volunteer firefighters and police officers hauled out bodies. They ran out of body bags and simply lined the bodies up on the sidewalk, covering them with table cloths someone had located in a storage closet off the bar. 

Bev had no idea how long the initial rescue operation had taken. She emerged from the building and gulped the relatively clean air outside.  She accepted a bottle of water from a Red Cross worker and sat down on the bumper of an emergency response vehicle to catch her breath. Helicopters and car sirens were approaching from different directions.

Soon, fire investigators from Cincinnati and Dayton hopped off the chopper and huddled with the fire chief. In only a few minutes they began processing the scene.  There were some bitter words about the chief letting EMT's -- not to mention a god-damned civilian, and an insurance adjuster at that -- into the crime scene, but that was all for show.  Everybody knew looking for survivors was, appropriately, the first priority. 

Bev's cell phone rang.  Her boss's number appeared on the screen. She was not ready to talk to him, so she ignored the call. She placed an outgoing call to her daughter, who was obviously sleeping, her “hello” was muffled and indistinct.  “Emily, it's Mom. I was called out on a fire. I may not be home when you get up in the morning.  I'm just letting you know not to worry if I'm not there when you get up. You will hear about the fire on the news.  I'm okay, but I can tell you, I'm gonna be real busy for a while. Talk to you tomorrow. Love you.”  Emily murmured something unintelligible, but it was at least an acknowledgment that she was awake enough to hear Bev's message.

A few minutes later the arson investigator and the ranking officer from the crime lab approached Bev, with Ed Casey right behind them. 

“You the adjuster?”  She took an immediate dislike to the arson investigator from Cincinnati. His tone and posture made it clear he thought the folks from this small town were a bunch of rubes, and he was a big-city guy who knew it all.

“Yeah.”

“You wanna tell me what you saw inside?”

She stood up and looked at him, matching his contempt and his swagger, “Not really because I don't like dealing with condescending assholes, but in view of the fact that you're a cop and I'm a witness to a potential crime scene, I'll cooperate.”  She described in as much detail as she could remember everything she saw inside. As she began speaking, she reached in her pocket and turned on the voice record feature of her phone. It occurred to her she might as well make her statement to the police count as her preliminary draft of an initial report to her employer.

The fire inspector and the crime lab guy asked a lot of questions, but eventually they were done.

The guy from the crime lab looked at his notes and whistled, “Thanks, Ms. Deller, you're very observant. I think you gave us a lot of good information. May I have your card in case we need to follow up?”

She handed him the card, and ignored the fire investigator.  The two cops walked away to interview some of the other EMT's and local firefighters who had been inside the building.  Other cops were interviewing the people who had escaped the blaze and some witnesses who had been in the neighborhood.  Bev poured the last of her bottle of water on her bandanna and wiped her face with it.

Ed Casey chuckled.  “First of all, that only just smeared the soot around on your face. You might want to get an clean hankie and try again. Second of all, I want to thank you for your help tonight.  I also want to thank you for calling Bill Burnside an asshole. I've been wanting to do that for decades, but I have to work with him occasionally so I don't dare.”

She held up her hand indicating she'd be right back.  In a minute she came back with two bottles of water from the Red Cross truck and a bunch of wet paper towels. She handed him a bottle, and wiped her face with the towels.  

Casey said, “That's better. You don't look quite as much like Al Jolson.”  He moved in close and asked in a voice that was barely above a whisper, “What do you think about the fire?”

She shook her head in dismay, raised her eyebrows and then nodded, acknowledging what he already feared, “It sure as heck looks like arson, all right. Obviously, we're going to have to get experts and study it carefully, but I think the fire started in the far rear corner. It doesn't look like a professional job, but sometimes pros like to make it look sloppy to throw us off. The accelerant was assisted by the fact that the dining room had wood beams and support posts. Old wood. Dry, old wood salvaged from a couple of barns. I know because I eat here -- or I guess more accurately -- I used to eat here quite often. The whole place went up like a torch.”

“No sprinkler, I imagine.”

“I doubt it. I'll pull the policy and the application tomorrow, but this place had been in business for decades.  Hell, they didn't even have a computerized cash register.  I'm guessing they had the minimum amount of safety devices that was legal.  Maybe less than that.”

He nodded and cocked his head to one side.  “How well do you know Ron Mazzoli?

“I don't know Ron very well, personally.  I went to school with one of his sisters.  Actually, when I was in high school I worked at The Barn for a few weeks, busing tables and washing dishes.  At that time Ron's mother still ran the place.  He worked there, tending bar and occasionally working the front of the house.  Mrs. Mazzoli was the brains behind the operation, and the chief cook.”

“Is the one you knew the sister who's the cook now?”

“No. The one I knew moved to California right after college. She works in Silicon valley and makes a zillion bucks a year. I get Christmas cards from her, but I don't think she comes home to visit very often. The sister who works in the kitchen now is the youngest. I don't know her other than to speak to her on the street.”

He scratched his head. “You think Ron would torch his place?”

She shook her head and slammed the paper towels into a trash can for emphasis, “Absolutely not!  That restaurant has been his family's livelihood for generations. His grandmother started it in the 1950's. I can't see him destroying it.”

“Had you been there lately?”

She didn't look at him and shuffled her feet. She knew perfectly well where he was headed. “No. We both know the place has kind of gone down hill in recent years.”  She ran her fingers through her hair and looked sad, “I'm guessing that when we look closer we will find that the restaurant was having financial problems, not unlike a lot of businesses in this shitty economy. I'm guessing that Ron will have all kinds of motive. We will both probably have to ask him a lot of really uncomfortable questions.”

“You going to turn this over to your company's fraud unit?”

“Not yet. At least I'm going to try to get the company to let me investigate a bit more first.  I'll need some expert fire investigators to look at causation and to assess damages. I'm going to hire a herd of lawyers to defend Ron in the lawsuits that will be filed against him by the families of all the dead folks. Initially I plan to proceed as though this is a covered claim. 

“If we uncover evidence that Ron did it, at that point I'll turn it over to the fraud unit and turn my file over to the prosecutor. Then, I'll hire more lawyers to defend the lawsuits that will be filed against my company by Ron and by the families of the dead people. Hopefully by then my legal department will have taken the claim over and I'll be out of it.”

“Sounds like a bunch of lawyers will do okay on this deal.”

She put her hands in her pockets and looked toward the smoldering building, crawling with cops taking pictures and measurements.  “Lawyers are the only people who benefit from a tragedy like this.” She started to walk away, then she turned around and walked up to him. “There's one thing that occurred to me in there which I didn't mention to Mr. Fancy-Pants-From-Cincinnati.”

“What?”

“The place that I think was  the source of origin for the fire was  in one corner of the room near a bunch of diners.  If Ron were going to burn the place, I'd think, as an amateur arsonist, he would have started the fire either in one obvious place, like the kitchen, or he would have started it in several places around the room.  Why only in one corner?”

“Sounds like you have a theory.”

“I'd be interested to know a little about the people who were seated in the area where the fire started.”

He reached out to shake her hand, and said, “It appears we'll be seeing more of each other for a while.”

She shook his hand and smiled, “We'll be either best friends or bitter enemies before this is all over.”

“Have you ever worked a claim this big before?”

“Never in my own back yard, but yes. Big fires are my specialty.  Usually I handle fires in other places. This is my first big fire in my home town. Come to think of it, it's the only really big fire in this town as long as I can remember.”

She handed him the protective gear and added, “Thanks for letting me help with the rescue ops.  I'd feel like a jerk standing by and not doing anything.”

Someone yelled for Ed and he turned to go, waving in her direction.

She knew she couldn't put off calling her boss forever.  Her car was surrounded by firetrucks and cop cars, so she went across the street and sat down on a bus-stop bench.  Someone had arrived with more body bags.  Staff members from the coroner's office and cops were loading bodies into a van. 

She dialed her boss's number and he answered on the first ring.  “Where have you been?”

“Sorry. I was helping with search and rescue inside the restaurant.”

“How bad is it?”

“This one's bad, Dave. We pulled out maybe a dozen people who were still alive, but most of them were hanging on by a thread.  There were maybe fifty or sixty fatalities. The building is a total loss.”

“Causation?”

“More than likely arson.”

“You want me to call the fraud unit?”

“I'd rather you wait.  I think the fire was set, but I'm not prepared to accuse the insured yet. You have to understand that this is my home town. Both the insured and probably most if not all of the victims are my neighbors.  There's a good chance that at least a few local families were all but wiped out tonight. I don't want to be too hasty to make things worse by raising the specter of insurance fraud too soon. The Mazzolis are a respectable and well-liked family.”
The line was silent for a long time and Bev knew her boss was torn between ordering her to turn over the investigation to someone else who could be more objective and trusting the judgment of his most experienced fire adjuster. Eventually, he said, “Okay. I won't turn this over to special investigations, yet. But, I mean it Bev, the minute you have one inkling the insured was involved, I want you to relinquish that file.”

“I promise I will, Dave. For one thing, if I think the insured is involved, I don't want to be the one making that accusation. I live here, remember.”

“What's your plan?”

“I need to get some experts in here. Cops and CSI's have been all over the place, but I would like to get Ben Tucker on board early. I've worked with him before and he does a good job. I also think we should hire counsel.  There are a lot of dead people.  I know this restaurant.  It was a bit of a fire trap on its best day and everybody in town knows it.  I expect the first lawsuits to be filed about the time they start digging graves.”

“Okay. Go ahead and get Ben on board. Who do you want for counsel?”

“I have to think about that.  I would prefer to have a local guy as lead counsel, but I'll need some bigger firepower for later when the national plaintiff's lawyers start arriving.”

“Do you have any idea what we should set for reserves?”

“Put up policy limits on both the property and the liability.  In the unlikely event there's any excess coverage, go ahead and tell them to reserve at limits, too.  While you're at it put up a couple of million for defense costs as well. There is no way we're going to get out of this without multiple  lawsuits.  I'd frankly almost consider simply tendering limits and walking away now -- except for that arson element.”

“Understood. Keep me closely informed. When can I expect your initial evaluation?”

Asshole!!!! She struggled to keep her voice calm. It was five-thirty in the morning, smoke was still rising from the ruin and the coroner was loading bodies in the back of a third van --  and this jerk-weed was asking for a written report. “I'll email you a preliminary report by the end of the day. Right now, I'm going to go home and get some sleep.”

She paused and added, “Would you do me a favor and call Ben Tucker this morning.  Ask him to come as quickly as he can.”

“Sure. Go get some rest.”

“I'll do that. There won't be much rest for me for a while.”

“Do you want me to reassign your other cases?”

“Yeah. I think so. Cassandra can babysit the small stuff, but that hotel thing in Dallas will have to go.”

“I'll give that to Steve. He's fine with all that damages negotiating stuff.”
“Actually, he's better than me at that stuff. I've been meaning to talk to you about that one. We're going to need a forensic accountant for the business interruption part of that claim.”

“I gotcha. Steve works with a guy on that kind of thing already. Don't give it another thought. You concentrate on getting a handle on this one.” He was quiet for a while, then he said, “Are you sure you are okay about handling this one yourself. The insureds and the victims are your neighbors. Any relatives or friends among them?”

She shook her head, “I have no idea.  The bodies were so badly burned I wouldn't have recognized anyone. If it turns out there's somebody I know personally among the victims, I'll let you know immediately.  You'll need to reassign it. While we're talking about potential conflicts and shit, I guess I do need to disclose that I worked at this restaurant when I was in high school, for about a month. I don't feel that's a conflict, but you might want to run that by legal.”

“Why are you, my biggest rogue adjuster, all of a sudden getting all legal and above-board on me?”

“Because the fire marshal let me go inside the restaurant to help look for survivors. I'm definitely going to be a witness in whatever lawsuits and or prosecutions come out of this.  For once in my life I'm going to have to go strictly by the book.”

Jamison tried -- without success -- to stifle a laugh, “It'll be interesting to see if you can pull that off. I'm not putting any money on it.”

“You're an ass. I'm going to bed.”

She hung up the phone and asked a police officer if she could move her car.  They had to move several emergency vehicles, but they let her out. 

Marathon Nightmare - Chapter 1

The plane bounced once and then screeched to a halt at the gate of the dinky airport in Marathon, Florida. Exiting the plane, Bev Deller paused on the top step to smile at the the sun blazing from a turquoise sky with not even a hint of a cloud. She had not seen the sun in weeks of cloudy, chilly Ohio weather. Bev had been to Florida before, but always in the summertime when it was hot, humid and miserable. She had never understood the attraction of Florida until that November day.

Bev shook off the temptation to go find a beach chair and a trashy novel, reminding herself that she was not on vacation. She picked up her rental car and asked for directions to her hotel. The rental agent gave her a map of the island that looked like a restaurant place mat. He drew a line from the airport to her hotel, which was a straight line with one left turn. She looked at the map and discovered that Marathon Key was only a few miles long, very narrow and had only one main road, the Overseas Highway, which ran from the mainland of Florida to Key West. She pulled into the hotel parking lot less than ten minutes later. Seven of those minutes had been spent at interminable traffic lights.

The desk clerk checked her in while she reviewed the phone messages that had stacked up in her voice mail while she was in the air. She dropped her suitcase in her room, but didn't take time to unpack it, shuffling the messages, putting them in the order that she would return the calls. Her first call was to Ben Tucker, her expert fire investigator. He picked up on the second ring and asked how long it would take her to get to the fire scene. She looked at her map and said, “Where is the hotel that burned?”

He gave her the address, telling her that the fire scene was on the north side of the Overseas Highway. She looked at the map and found that she was only about three blocks away. She decided to hoof it, telling Ben she'd be there in a few minutes.

Next she called her daughter to let Emily know she'd arrived safely. Emily asked what the weather was like. Bev responded, “Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to. What's it like in Ohio?”

Emily laughed, “Well, the good news is they've already canceled school for tomorrow due to the expected ice.”

“Perhaps we should consider having you come here for Thanksgiving.”

“You won't have to ask me twice about that. You want me to book a ticket?”

“Not yet. Let me see how things go here over the next couple of weeks.”

Bev was power-walking up the sidewalk by the time they finished their conversation, relishing the warm salty air. She couldn't see the ocean, but she could smell it. She smiled to herself. There sure as heck were worse places to have to investigate a suspicious fire!

Her next call was to Peter Dietz, the head of the fraud unit at Midwestern Casualty Insurance Company. She was on loan to his department for this investigation. Pete picked up the phone on the first ring and asked her if she was on the scene yet. She explained that she would be meeting Ben Tucker at the hotel in a few minutes. She asked if Dietz had received the preliminary report from the fire department. He told her it had come in shortly after she left the airport in Cincinnati.

He said, “It doesn't look good. The investigator believes the fire was intentionally set, and offered the opinion that it was a very professional job. The only injury was minor smoke inhalation on the part of a maid who was cleaning in one of the rooms. There were no registered guests. I'm thinking this one should be simple.”

Bev made a face and shook her head, “Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We have a fire with suspicious origin. We don't know who set the fire or why. I have to say that the fact there were no registered guests at the hotel sets off alarm bells for me. Was the hotel in financial trouble?”

“More than likely, but that might not be a particular problem. The hotel was purchased a couple of years ago by a guy named Victor Diaz. He does a lot of things, but basically he appears to be in the restaurant and nightclub business. He bought the hotel for the purpose of tearing it down and building a nightclub. The City of Marathon denied his application stating that they don't want Marathon to turn into the kind of place Key West has become.

“Since the city commission refused his application to build a club, he has operated the hotel only half-heartedly while pursuing a fight for his rights to do she pleases with his property. He's got piles of money. It seems to me that the Simply Paradise hotel provides a tax write-off for him during his battles with the city over tearing it down.”

Bev reached the corner and could see the fire scene across the street. She told Pete she'd call him back later. She pushed the button for the walk light and called Tucker to let him know she'd be there in a minute. “Can we get inside the building?”

“Yeah. Local fire department and cops are being cooperative, so far, anyway. They know they've got arson on their hands, and they're deferring somewhat to us to corroborate that and to let them know what to do next. As usual, they're going to let us tote the load on the investigation, so your company can pay for my services and save the fire department money.”

“Okay. I'll be there as soon as this light changes.”

He laughed. “I'll go get lunch. You won't believe how long the lights are here. I guess they like to keep the main drag moving, but it's a nightmare to try to cross the street from north to south.”

After what seemed like an eternity to Bev, the light finally changed. She joined Tucker and the local fire investigator in front of the shell of the former Simply Paradise hotel. Tucker introduced her to the chief and a few of the cops who were milling around. She asked for a full briefing. Tucker rattled off the information they knew and added a longer list of things they were investigating. Basically, what they knew was that the hotel had been a dump, that it had been losing money for years, and it had been torched using a sophisticated combination of accelerants in various places throughout the building. Tucker believed it was a professional job.

“Insured could afford to hire someone?”

“Yep. Insured's loaded as far as we can tell. The cops think this is a simple case of the insured torching the hotel because the city wouldn't let him tear it down.”

Bev laughed. “That's actually a really good theory, under the circumstances. When was the last time the preliminary theory in a fire investigation turned out to be right?”

Tucker chuckled and said, “Oh, I don't know. Like ... never.”

“What do you think?”

“I think that explanation is among an array of possibilities, but it's too neat and it almost raises more questions than it answers. I don't have a theory yet. I want to talk to the insured first.”

“You haven't interviewed the insured yet?”

“Nobody can find him.”

“What?”

“He's not at home in Key Biscayne. He's not checked into any of his usual getaways in the Islands. Nobody seems to know where he is.”

“Has he at least checked in with the fire department?”

“Nope. That's the main reason the local fire investigators think he's behind it.”

“It could be guilt, but it could be lack of interest. I'm told this guy owns a lot of properties.”

“Yeah. He owns restaurants and nightclubs in Florida, Mexico, Jamaica, the Virgin Islands and Aruba.”

“I suppose that his behavior could be a sign of guilt. Strikes me more as utter lack of interest in a crummy property in Marathon that was not turning a profit and not likely to fit into his core line of business. Maybe this hotel is such a small part of his holdings, he doesn't care.”

“That's kind of my line of thinking.”

They walked around the building. Like many Florida motels built in the fifties and sixties, the office was detached from the motel itself, and had not been damaged. Bev scrunched her eyebrows together, and muttered, “That seems odd. You'd think the person who torched the place would have burned the office, too. That's where the records are that I'm assuming would incriminate the owner because the place was obviously a money pit.”

“You are correct on both counts. All the records are intact and they demonstrate that the hotel was hemorrhaging money. In fact, it had never made a profit in even one quarter during the four years Victor Diaz owned the place. He did absolutely nothing to rectify the situation. And, it's not as though he was a bad businessman. On the contrary, his restaurants are goldmines. In all his other operations he runs a really tight ship.”

“This place was a tax write-off?”

“I think we should get a forensic accountant to look at his business operations, but that would be my guess. I think he figured that if the city of Marathon wouldn't let him open a nightclub, which is the kind of business he knows best and runs well, he'd use the hotel as a tax write-off for a while. Based on what I've been able to learn about him from some brief Internet searches, he probably needs the deduction.”

“Is there any indication Mr. Diaz is into anything other than restaurants and nightclubs. Like, maybe, something illegal?”

“I think that will be your department, but I'd be surprised if there weren't a shady side to his operations. Restaurants and nightclubs are often fronts for other business operations, including illegal ones. Diaz is very rich and he runs an operation that caters to the kind of people who might be interested in gambling, drugs, prostitution or Lord knows what.”

Bev's phone beeped. She glanced at the screen and then answered on the second ring. “Hey, there. What good news do you have for me today? Has the boss decided that I've been working too hard and I should come home now?”

Her assistant laughed and said, “Nope, he thinks you're such a pain in the ass, he likes to keep you as far away from the office as possible. Which isn't hard today. The ice storm has shut down the city. I'm working from home. If you need me, call my cell.”

“Okay. What's up?”

“I was calling to let you know I just emailed you a copy of the policy on the hotel. It looks weird to me. The way the manager, who reported the loss, described the property, it sounds like a kind of typical crummy motel in the Middle Keys that shouldn't be worth more than a couple of million mainly on account of the land. According to the policy, the Simply Paradise was insured for $25 million. That struck me as odd.”

“I don't know what it looked like before it burned, but judging from the size of the building and the seediness of the office that did not burn, I'd say that's probably in the vicinity of $23 million more than I'd expect this property to be worth. Perhaps I should pay a call on the agent. Who is it?”

“Guy from Miami. I called his office this morning because our file doesn't include a copy of the original signed application. I asked the agent for a copy of their file, including especially the app.”

Bev laughed, “How cooperative was he?”

“Oh I didn't talk to him. The account manager told me he's in New Zeland on a boondoggle from one of the national insurance companies. She made it a point to tell me he's a big shot producer for several national carriers and is way too important to actually come into his office on a Monday.”

“What does our file show?”

“Well, there's an application that is signed by the agent. There is no indication the agent ever saw the property or ordered an inspection.”

Bev pursed her lips and shook her head, “So how come a big dog kind of producer who works with national carriers placed this policy with Midwestern Indemnity? Does he do much business with us?”

“Not much. He's been appointed with us for about five years. It looks to me as though he places his really crappy properties with us.”

Bev laughed, “Oh, I'm guessing that since profit sharing bonuses are based in part on loss history, he puts his good properties with the companies that offer bonuses, and parks the shit on our books.”

“That's what it looks like to me. He has about fifty policies with us, most of them rental houses in crummy neighborhoods in south Florida, few seedy motels and a bunch of mom and pop businesses in pretty bad areas. He seems to be the agent for a lot of slum lords.”

“Who the hell is the marketing guy who signed up this agent? And what underwriter is approving these accounts? Remind me to talk to someone in underwriting when I get back. We don't need business like this on our books. I like this guy less every time you open your mouth.”

“I've sent you his contact information so you can call him and make friends. The current marketer here is Stan Bostwick; he's new and I don't know him. The underwriter is Felicia Rodriguez. I asked her what she was up to with this. She said he's a big agent in South Florida and she thought maybe if she took some small stuff from him he might be willing to move some of his good stuff.”

Bev sputtered, “What the hell do you suppose she was she smoking when she came up with that theory? I know times are bad in the insurance industry, but that's ridiculous.”

“When you get home are you going to go introduce yourself to Ms. Rodriguez? I'm sure she'll love having a visit from you. Everyone in the underwriting department just loves you, and of course I know the feeling is mutual.”

“Cut the sarcasm. No. I am not going to but into the business of the underwriting department. I've gotten in too much trouble for that in the past. I will, however, share my opinion with anyone who might ask.”

“Yeah, like they want your opinion! In any case, I emailed the stuff to you. Let me know if you need anything else. Do not tell me what the weather is like down there.”

Bev clicked off and rejoined Tucker. Then she looked at her watch. “I missed lunch. The five and a half tiny pretzels they generously served me on the plane have worn off. Let's go grab a bite. Where are you staying?”

“Same place as you. There's a greasy spoon on the corner that served me the best breakfast I've had in a while. Waitress told me they were making a seafood chowder for lunch that is supposedly great.”

“Let's go!”

They walked into the diner, which had approximately ten tables, only one of which was occupied. The waitress greeted Tucker as though he were a regular and showed them to a table. Tucker asked if they had any of the fish chowder left. She shook her head, “Sorry. You gotta get here early to get chowder. Cook only makes one pot. Every week. On Monday. Carry out orders alone clean us out by noon.”

Bev smiled, “I'm guessing pretty much everything on the menu is good.”

The waitress wrinkled her nose and said, “Some things are better than others. You like fish?”

“Love it.”

“How about a grilled fish sandwich with a side of the best Cole slaw you'll ever taste?”

“Make the fish blackened.”

The waitress winked and said, “Even better.”

She looked at Ben Tucker and said, “You look like a burger and fries kind of guy.”

“I am when I'm traveling, and my wife isn't here to nag me about the fat content.”

The waitress looked confused. She looked from Bev to Tucker. Bev explained that they worked for the company that insured the hotel that burned. The waitress nodded, and finished taking the order with no further questions. The food was fabulous and so reasonable it fell into the category of downright cheap. Bev remarked that for once in her life she expected her boss wouldn't bitch about her meal charges on her expense account. Tucker tasted the burger and said that he'd be happy to eat there three times a day for as long as they were in town.

Tucker took out his list of things requiring further investigation. They divided it up between them. Then they walked the three blocks to the hotel where they were staying. Bev unpacked her suitcase and set her laptop on the the table by the window. She called the insurance agency in Miami to request an appointment with the agent who sold the policy. The receptionist told her that Mr. Ochorios was out of the country. Bev asked who had actually dealt with Victor Diaz and how much business he had placed through the agency. The receptionist said, “I'll transfer you to Maria-Elena Hernandez, she's the customer service rep for Mr. Diaz's account.”

A few moments later, a pleasant sounding woman came on the line and asked how she could be of service. Bev introduced herself and said she wanted to discuss the Diaz account and specifically the hotel that burned. The woman said, “I hope you don't mind, but I'd like to verify that you are the investigator for the insurance company. We often get calls regarding our high net worth customers which are from people who are trying to get information they're not entitled to receive.”

“I'm not in the least offended. We can do it one of two ways. I'll make an appointment to come to Miami tomorrow to sit down and chat. I'll show you my ID. The other option is I can give you the main number at the company's headquarters in Ohio. They'll put you through to my assistant who will tell you that I'm in Florida on a fire investigation. Actually, let's do both of those things.”

The woman paused for a long time and finally said, “Okay. I'd prefer to talk to Mr. Ochorios before providing you with information from our files, but if you're the claims adjuster, I know I need to cooperate.”

Bev gave her the main number at the company's office in Dayton, Ohio. Then they confirmed an appointment for the next day at 10:30 AM.

After that, Bev went for a walk. She was amazed by all the old people riding bikes, walking, running and even roller- blading on the wide sidewalks and bike trails that were everywhere on the island. The temperature was in the mid-seventies, and a light breeze, humid and salty, blew in from the Atlantic. Bev found herself daydreaming about how much fun it would be to have Emily join her for Thanksgiving.

She passed a bike rental shop and noticed a sign offering weekly rentals for $75.00. She knew she would be in Marathon for at least a week and she loved exploring new places by bike. She paid the rental fee and the deposit. The clerk looked at the clock and said, “You've got just about enough time to ride to the end of the island, there's a part of the old Seven Mile bridge that they left standing. It juts out over the ocean for a couple of miles. It's a very easy ride from here. The sunsets from the bridge are amazing. Sunrises, too, if you're an early-bird.”

Bev thanked the guy and rode off, heading west. The bike wasn't as nice as her cross-country bicycle at home, but it would be fine for short trips, and all trips on Marathon would be short. She arrived at the end of the bridge a few minutes before sunset and stopped to watch the show. As soon as the sun passed the horizon she hurried back toward her hotel before it got completely dark, but then realized that the bike trail, which ran along the highway, was very well lighted, and still busy with bike traffic, as well as walkers and runners. She needn't worry about being caught out alone at night, at least not on the main road. By the time she reached the cross street to her hotel, it was dark and the side street was not well lighted. She rode down the middle of the street to her hotel, and took the bike inside the room with her rather than mess with the bike chain in the dark.

She'd had a long day, so she went to bed early. She set the alarm for 5:30 AM, intending to ride out to the bridge and watch the sunrise before heading for Miami

Hell In Texas - Chapter 1

The magnificent ranch house that had often been featured in architectural and home design magazines was reduced to a pile of rubble and ash, with its enormous marble fireplace, charred but still standing, in one corner. The local fire chief handed Bev Deller and her fire expert a folder containing photos of the exterior and interior of the house before the fire. It had been a showplace that had cost $8.5 million to build. Furnished, it was insured for in excess of $17 million. Based on the photos Bev worried that it might be under-insured.

The chief launched into a monologue, reviewing the time line of events that led up to the fire. He explained that at the time the fire started the owner, Walker Trent, was at his fishing camp in Tennessee. His ex-wife was in Nashville attending a charity function. Their daughter was away at college and their son was at home in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Bev looked up from the photos, “Wait a minute. Do you mean the house was vacant?”

The fire chief shook his head. “It wasn't exactly vacant. There's a caretaker who stays on the property and housekeepers come in daily to keep it clean and ready just in case Walker decides to visit, but nobody lives in the house any more. The family lived here full time for several years after they build the place, but when the Trents' marriage started to fall apart, Walker moved out and spent most of his time either working in Nashville or hiding out in his cabin near Gatlinburg. Tamra continued to live here with the kids. It went on like that for several years, but, when they finally got around to getting a divorce, Walker refused to let her keep this house. He gave her the house in Charlotte and a vacation home in Aspen, but he insisted on keeping this place. As far as anybody knows he hasn't set foot in it since.”

“How long ago was the divorce?”

“A year or so.”

Bev checked her copy of the policy and verified that it did, indeed, indicate that the house was vacant. It was equipped with a central station fire alarm and the file noted that someone on the staff checked the house daily. She studied the pictures of a beautiful home nestled among trees near a small stream in the rolling hills of East Texas. It was huge and expensive, but there was something about the house that seemed both inviting and homey. “Who are these people who are so rich and have so many houses they can just walk away from a place like this and not use it?”

“Walker Trent is the owner.”

Bev gave the chief a blank look. “I'm supposed to recognize that name, right?”

He laughed, “You obviously don't follow country music.”

“No. I'm the kind of a snobby jazz/blues purist who's favorite singer died decades ago. I don't mind certain bluegrass music, but I'm not much for contemporary country.”

Ben Tucker, the fire expert, said, “Oh, for God's sake, Bev. Even I've heard of Walker Trent. He's like some kind of icon in the country music world.”

“Okay, so I'm culturally ignorant. I'll look him up on Google. I get the picture that he's rich. Does he have enemies?”

The chief shrugged, “Most rich people have some enemies, sometimes enemies they don't even know about. Almost all famous people are subject to attack or stalking from kooks. Trent is a kind of good-old-boy country star. He had a spell with the bottle a few years ago, but straightened up. He's not a womanizer or hell-raiser. As far as I know he's very well thought of in the country music world. This is his home town and the people here love him, mainly for all the money he brought into the area by building this big house and living here. He put Everly on the map. His biggest known enemy is Tamra Sterman Trent, his ex-wife. But, there could be others.”

“Was the divorce bitter?”

“Very. It was interesting – mostly I know this from the papers and from local gossip – their marriage always appeared perfect from the outside. They made a lot of public appearances together, sometimes with the kids. They were a beautiful couple who had been married more than 20 years. Suddenly right after their 20^th anniversary, Walker moved out. No one outside of the family knows why. There have been all kinds of rumors, but both Walker and Tamra have played it close to the chest. His official residence is a house in Nashville that is almost as nice as this one was, but they say he spends as much time as he can in a cabin in the Smokies. Their separation shocked the country music world. I shouldn't have to tell you how much it freaked out the locals around here.

“They were separated for a few months and then Tamra filed for divorce alleging abandonment and emotional cruelty. It took a long time to finalize the settlement. The rumors flew around that it was a very bitter fight.”

Bev raised one eyebrow. “Don't tell me. The issue was money.”

“The divorce settlement is confidential, but that has been the general opinion.”

While Bev and the fire chief were talking, Ben Tucker walked around the ruin in gradually tightening circles taking pictures. From time to time, he took a plastic baggie out of his pack, picked up something from the ground and put it in the baggie. He numbered each one, and labeled it as to where it came from. He put the baggie down where he had picked up the sample and photographed it. The fire chief jerked his chin in Tucker's direction, “Appears his reputation is accurate.”

She grinned. “He's the best in the business. But don't tell him I said so.”

“I'm surprised you can afford him. Insurance companies don't usually like to hire high-priced experts.”

“He's originally from Dayton, Ohio. He did a lot of work for Midwestern Casualty when he was young and new to the business. We've worked together for twenty years. He gives my company special rates, which are still higher than we pay anybody else, but he'd be worth it at twice the price.” She chuckled and winked, “But don't tell him I said that, either.”

Tucker walked over to Bev, flipping through the fire department's report, and said, “I might as well go home. This was clearly arson. There wasn't even any attempted to cover it up. The outside of the house, including the shrubbery, was soaked in gasoline. Four first floor windows were broken. Traces of melted milk jugs that had contained gasoline were found inside each of the windows. My guess is that the perpetrator doused the outside of the house, tossed in a few very large unlit Molotov cocktails – based on the speed that the fire spread, I'm guessing analysis will show that there were other chemical accelerants mixed in – and then set fire to the outside. The flames entered through the broken windows. The bottles of accelerant inside exploded, causing the fire to spread fast and hot. The whole building burned to the ground in only a couple of hours. Since there was nobody here, it was almost completely destroyed before the first fire truck arrived.”

Bev looked at the fire chief, “You said there was a central station alarm. Why did it take so long for the pumpers to get here.”

The chief nodded, “The alarm went off, but this is a big county. The fire department is in Poston. I live almost in the outskirts of San Antonio. I got here about an hour after I received the call. The fire truck beat me by ten minutes. By the time I got here the fire had almost burned itself out.”

Bev asked, “If there was gasoline all over the outside of the house and shrubbery, why wasn't there a grass fire?”

Tucker said, “I think the fire inside the house was so hot it created a vacuum that didn't let the fire outside spread.”

The fire chief said, “That, combined with the fact that it had rained for several days in a row earlier in the week, and the ground was soaked.”

The three of them walked around the ruin one more time. Bev said to Tucker, “Okay, so it's arson. Who set it? Mr. Trent? Or someone else?”

He shrugged, and said, “I'll take these samples back to the lab and see what I come up with.” He looked at the fire chief, “Any chance your guys would be willing to share some of their samples and photos with me?”

The chief laughed and said, “You can have anything you want. If Ms. Deller's company doesn't pay off on this fire, everybody and their brother is going to get sued. I want this to be a totally clean investigation.”

Tucker handed the chief his card, and said, “Have them send samples and photos to me at this address. The sooner the better.”

Bev asked, “Where's the nearest motel where I can set up shop?”

“There's a Hampton Inn about 10 miles east, at Poston.” He added, “I don't know that you'll be here long. Nobody here knows anything.”

Bev pursed her lips and said, “This is a very rural area, dotted with small towns. I'm from a similar area in Ohio. In the rural farming communities near Stanforth, no strange cars or people come or go without somebody noticing. Usually several somebodies, in fact. I'm guessing the same is true here.”

The chief nodded, “You're absolutely right about that. Everybody around here knows everybody else's business, sometimes before they know it their selves. But, it's strange. My guys have asked around all the gas stations and coffee shops in the county. Nobody saw any strangers. We think the fire started around 11:00 PM. The pumper arrived around midnight. I got here a few minutes after that. Sunset had been at 6:00 PM. There was time for someone to drive from San Antonio or maybe even Galveston, in the dark. They could have driven straight to the ranch, without stopping for gas or coffee, set the fire at 11:00, and then drove back to where they came from without anybody noticing.”

Bev nodded, “That's certainly possible. But they had to get the accelerant gasoline from somewhere.”

“We think they brought it with them from outside.”

Bev asked, “Where does the caretaker live? Did he see anything unusual?”

“He has a bungalow about a mile and a half from the main house, but as it happens he was out of town the weekend of the fire attending a family wedding in Houston. He didn't even know about the fire until he saw it on the news the next morning.”

Tucker said, “Whoever set this fire made no effort to hide the fact that this house was intentionally torched.”

Bev continued the thought, “Could the fire have been a message to somebody? I'm wondering if the person who set the fire could be a hired third party.”

The chief nodded and said, “That's been my initial working theory.”

Bev chewed on the inside of her cheek and muttered, “But that doesn't tell us the content of the message or who the intended recipient may have been?”

She flipped through her notes and bounced the eraser end of her pencil against her note pad, “The obvious first hypothesis is that the ex-wife burned the house in revenge for her husband refusing to give it to her in the divorce.” She looked up at the chief. “Have you interviewed her?”

“No. She's back in North Carolina now. I spoke to her on the phone. She said her lawyer told her to tell me she knew nothing about the fire. She has no interest in the ranch and nothing to be gained from the fire. Therefore, she has nothing to say.”

“What about Mr. Trent?”

“At the time of the fire, he was in Gatlinburg at his retreat, rehearsing for an upcoming record tour. His assistant told us that his attorney says he's willing to talk to us, but we have to come to Tennessee. He doesn't have time to come here to tell us that he doesn't know anything about the fire. His story is that the fire is a tragedy because he loved this home for many years before it started to build up bad memories. He says there is no reason for him to interrupt his work and come down here to see it. I don't have travel money in my budget to allow me to go half way across the country to get a statement that tells me nothing.”

Bev looked at Ben Tucker with a puzzled expression. “Don't you think that's odd? Most home owners want to see the fire site, if only to confirm the reality of the loss.”

The fire chief interrupted, “Yeah, it seemed strange to us, too, but remember, Walker hadn't set foot on this ranch in a couple of years. Rich people like that often simply lose interest in a piece of property and move on.”

Bev asked, “You got a lot of really rich people in this area?”

“Yeah. This county is a weird mixture of poor Mexicans, middle class folks who commute to San Antonio but like living in the country and really rich people, including several country singers and a couple of movie actors, who have ranches here. I've seen people like that spend millions on a home, and then simply abandon it until somebody buys it, often for much less than it is worth.”

Bev twirled her pencil like a majorette. There was something about what he said that made some logical sense, but her gut was telling her that things were not adding up.

Bev thanked the chief and asked Tucker where he was staying. He chuckled, saying, “I guess I'm staying at the same Hampton Inn as you. It's too late to get a flight back to San Francisco tonight. Besides, I have the feeling you're yearning for my company tonight at dinner.”

“I wouldn't use the word 'yearning', but since we're both stuck out here, I figure we'd might as well make the most of it.” She turned to the chief, “Where do you recommend we have dinner.”

“If you want barbecue, the brisket at Walter's Bar-B-Q is as good as it gets in these parts. We also have a couple of good Mexican places, Tia Carmelita is the best. You might be surprised to learn that we have a very good Vietnamese restaurant here as well. A local guy married a Vietnamese girl back in the Seventies. She opened a restaurant and it's been in business ever since. It's the weirdest combination of Texas redneck food and Vietnamese ethnic food you could possibly imagine, but it's all good.”

Ben said, “Vietnamese cuisine is my all-time favorite.”

Bev said, “I'm not familiar with it. So maybe you can educate me. Seems a shame not to eat barbecue in Texas, but I'm up for something different.”

The chief gave them directions, and they parted ways.

They checked into their rooms and agreed to meet in half an hour for dinner. They were both in the lobby in closer to twenty minutes. They headed for the Vietnamese place, and ordered Vietnamese beer. Tucker was a Vietnam veteran, and he ordered a beer he remembered from his days in Saigon. Bev asked for the same. The waitress asked her what she wanted for dinner. She smiled, “I know nothing about Vietnamese cuisine. I like spicy food. I don't eat much meat. Chicken or shrimp is okay, but I prefer vegetarian dishes. Why don't you have the cook make me some kind of vegetable dish that he or she likes.”

The waitress looked positively thrilled. She jotted something on her pad and then glanced at Ben. He said, “I'll have Pho with chicken. As hot as your cook will make it.”

The waitress laughed, “Mom's gonna love taking care of you two. You might as well plan on being here for a while. You're probably gonna get a few courses.”

Bev said, “We're on an expense account, but it's not unlimited.”

The waitress said, “Don't worry. This place is super cheap. You'll eat well and not break the bank.”

When she had gone to the kitchen, Bev asked Ben, “What do you think?”

“I think that somebody burned your insured's house down.”

She laughed. “Okay, that much we know. Now, we have to figure out who did it, so I know whether or not I can pay my insured. How do you propose we proceed?”

“I plan to go home and start generating computer models. I think you'd better start interviewing potential witnesses.”

Bev pulled a note pad out of her brief case, and reviewed her notes. “The local fire investigators have done a poor job. Well, actually, they've done no job at all. They have not talked to neighbors to see what they know. They have not interviewed the insured. They've simply taken his word over the phone that he doesn't know anything. Looks like the only thing they did do was visit a few gas stations and convenience stores to see if anybody saw any strangers.”

Tucker interrupted, “You're probably not going to get an interview with the insured either. The chief already told us Trent has a lawyer.”

“If the insured wants his $18 million, he'll cooperate with me. When are you leaving?”

“I'm flying out of San Antonio tomorrow morning early. Are you going to Nashville?”

“I'm going to stick around here for a few days. I want to hang out in coffee shops and chat up the locals. Sometimes people know things they don't know is significant. It may be difficult to get them to talk to me, what with me being an insurance adjuster and a damned Yankee – I'm not sure which one is worse – but I have to try. After that, I'll head for Nashville, or wherever the insured is at that point. I also plan to visit with an attorney in San Antonio who my boss thinks walks on water.”

About then, the waitress brought the first course of what was to be a memorable evening for both of them. Bev fell in love with Vietnamese food when the delicate spices started dancing in her mouth.

The next morning, Bev stopped by a local coffee shop for breakfast and bought both the San Antonio paper and a local weekly. She scanned the papers and then sipped her coffee while jotting notes on her 'to do' list.

The waitress, who Bev instantly thought of as “Flo”, asked, “You the insurance adjuster?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

The lady shrugged, “It's a small town. Word went out yesterday that a the adjuster arrived to investigate the fire. A Yankee woman stranger shows up here this morning. I make a wild guess.”

Bev laughed, “You're a crack investigator. You can have my job!” She looked at the woman for a long time and asked, “Who do you think I should talk to?”

“For what?”

“I have to figure out who set the fire.”

“Why? Ain't that the cops' job?”

“The fire investigator and I will work together.”

“What's it matter to you who set it?”

“Because if the owner of the property set the fire, our policy won't pay anything.”

“You think Walker Trent burned his own house down? I think you're wrong.”

“I don't know who burned it, but it's my job to find out. If Mr. Trent burned it, I won't pay for the damage. If somebody else burned it, I will write Mr. Trent a check with a whole lot of zeros.”

Bev leaned forward and cocked her head to the side, “Why don't you think Mr. Trent did it?”

The waitress exhaled, making a disgusted sound, and looked at Bev as though she was an idiot. “Walker loved that place. Granted, he ain't been around for a while. Locals figure that he kind of got turned off on the house after he and Tamra got divorced. This was kind of their dream home and love nest. After the divorce, he didn't come around much. I expected him to sell it.”

“You know the Trents?”

“I knew Walker when he was young, before he went off to Nashville and got rich and famous. He grew up a few miles from here. He was a little younger than me, but we went to school together. My best friend dated him in high school. When he came back years later and built that big house, he used to come in here sometimes for coffee. We'd talk about old times. I always thought he was okay. Even when he was young, he was kinda strange, though.”

“In what way?”

“Well, he ain't what I'd call bashful, but he don't like to be around people much. He's kind of a loner. They say that these days he spends most of his time at a cabin on a crick in the mountains. When he lived here, he didn't socialize much. My friend broke up with him because he didn't want to go to the Homecoming dance her senior year. His idea of a great date was to go to a movie or, better, sit around the house and listen to records. My friend liked to go out to parties and dances.”

“What do you know about his wife?”

“She wasn't from around here. By the time she came to live here, she and Walker had been married several years. He was at the top of his career, making millions. She waltzed around like the Queen of Egypt, with the attitude that she was better than everybody. The people who worked at the ranch said she was positively a raging bitch. I only met her a coupla times. She was pleasant enough, but she seemed to be very full of herself, and she acted very superior.”

“Do you know why they got divorced? I hear they had a kind of storybook marriage that kind of suddenly crashed and burned.”

“Nobody really knows what happened. He always seemed to almost worship the ground she walked on. She didn't seem quite so wrapped up in him, but she liked her role as the wife of a superstar, so from what I heard, she did everything she could to keep him happy. It just all kind of fell apart suddenly, but I never heard a reason. It wasn't like one of them was cheating or boozing or whatever. If it was, people would of known.”

“Have you heard any talk about anybody seeing a strange car or weird activity the night of the fire?”

“No, but then we're little farther down the road. You should go over to Everly. There's a little diner there. Food sucks, so you should eat here before you go. The people who live around the ranch go there because it's closer and it's right next to the feed store. You may have some luck there. You think somebody from the outside came in and burned down the house?”

“That's one theory. Right now it's kind of the only one I have until I've had a chance to check out some of the local crackpots. In my experience remote rural communities often have a few people who are eccentric and strange. Sometimes something snaps and weirdos become criminals.”

The waitress laughed, “Ma'am, this is Texas. 'Bout everybody falls into the category of potential criminal. But, you're right, we got our share of crackpots.”

“How do I find out who they might be and if any of them had reason to want to burn that house?”

The waitress laughed, “I'd reckon that most places you'd want to ask the fire chief about that. But, our chief is a lazy assed sumbitch and he ain't gonna tell you about any of those folks because then he'd have to go out and interview them. He'd rather sit on his ass in his office and drink coffee than get out and do his job.”

“You are not a fan of the chief?”

“Bob Rosen is a nice enough guy. Seems to be a good husband and a great father. Coaches little league football and he's a Cub Scout leader. He's lazy, though, when it comes to his job. He also kind of worships Walker Trent. He's not going to do anything that would turn up any evidence against Walker. He'll let you do that so you can be the bad guy.”

“Okay, then who should I talk to in order to find out about any locals who might be suspects?”

“How 'bout the guy who runs the local weekly paper? He's a nosy bastard, but I reckon that's his job. He might be able to give you the skinny on the local weirdos. His name is Joe Wertzel.”

Bev flipped over the local paper and saw that the editor's name was Wertzel. She looked at the masthead for the address of the paper's office, and then she glanced at her watch. “You think he'd be in his office now?”

“Probably. He keeps kind of regulars hours.”

Bev paid for the food, added a generous tip and waved on her way out the door.