-- 1 --

"So, what have you got for me this time?" I asked.

Steve McAuliffe smiled. "Some mysterious so-called accidental deaths, a few nasty dismemberments. That kind of thing."

"All in one case?"

"That's what I want you to find out."

"Sounds like fun. Where?"

"A town called Winship, in Lauck County. It's way the fuck upstate, out in the middle of nowhere. The next nearest town is Schramburg, and that’s more than twenty miles away."

I didn’t know upstate at all, it was just a big blank nowhereland to me. But I knew it would be a long drive. That was okay, I’d rather drive than fly anywhere. We were sitting in Steve's second-floor corner office.

He runs an organization that goes by the clumsy name of the Insurance Industry Consulting Group. Some big companies kick in to help fund it, and he has a big mainframe that sometimes spits out very interesting information. Computers are starting to make a difference in this business. A woman is murdered. Her husband is not charged but the police have reason to suspect him. If she happened to be insured for $100,000 nobody would think twice about it, but if there were six or seven different policies on her, each in that amount, with companies scattered across the land, then the picture would begin to look very different. Steve's powerful little team deals with such cases, and they never lack work.

I am a free lance insurance investigator. For a while I was a cop, but I gave it up. Too much boring paperwork and too many long hours spent hanging around the courthouse for petty bullshit cases. Then I was a private eye: working divorce cases, tracing bad fathers who skipped out on child support payments, looking for runaway teens. But the emotional wear and tear began to take a toll, and I often had to fight just to collect my expense money, so I was ready for a change when I landed my first insurance case. It was painless, elegant and entertaining, and the company paid promptly.

“Upstate, okay,” I said. “Tell me more.”

"We're concerned about nineteen claims in the last two years. Call it sixteen, I don’t want you to waste time on the three dismemberments. Sixteen accidental deaths."

"Ouch."

"Exactly."

"How many companies are involved?"

"Sixteen."

"How many local agents?"

"Right," Steve said with a smile of appreciation. "Three of the policies were bought by the parties concerned, but the sixteen we’re dealing with came through one independent agent. A guy by the name of Joseph Bellman."

"Sixteen companies, sixteen claims, and one agent."

"Right."

All of the major insurance companies have their own trained investigators, but in a case like this it simply isn't practical to have sixteen different people out there, each one looking into his own little claim. The total payout on all the claims is more than enough, however, to justify sending in one man who will try to save everybody's money. Someone like me, Jack Carlson.

"Mr. Bellman sure spreads his business around."

"Yes, he does.”

“Steve, you want me to look into sixteen different cases, talk to all the major people involved in each one?”

“No, no, that’d be too much,” he replied with a wave of his hand. “Look through the files, pick two or three that grab you the most and see what you find with them.”

“Okay.”

“I trust your instincts, Jack. The companies are under growing pressure to pay up on these claims, and if you tell me everything feels okay, they’ll do so. If you think something’s wrong, then we’ll back you all the way and we’ll see where it all leads. "You might start with Bellman. He’s the central guy in this."

"Oh, I intend to start with him."

“Too many cases, too much money.”

"Has anybody been there ahead of me?"

"Three companies not affiliated with us sent their own people in, but they had no luck. They decided Bellman looked okay, the claims were not outrageous, so they paid off and closed their books on it."

"Sounds a bit like Hopeville," I said.

"I had the same thought."

A couple of years ago Steve's people noticed that there had been a remarkable flurry of personal injury claims from the small town of Hopeville, down south, and he sent me to see what was going on there. It was a backwoods hamlet, desperately poor, and the people were very unfriendly. But there were an awful lot of shiny, brand new jeeps and pickups around the place. That was because close to half the adult male population of Hopeville had suffered an accident recently, and collected the insurance on it. Most of the time it was a hand or a foot that got blown off in an unlikely hunting mishap. A small price to pay for a new Cadillac or truck. There wasn't much that could be done about it, except to put the word out in the industry. The folks in Hopeville are probably still poor, but they've got some pretty toys to help them while away the time.

"What's the total payout at risk here?" I asked.

"Two point four."

I liked that. I get a small retainer up front, and of course my expenses are covered, but in the final accounting I'm paid on a percentage basis, so the more I save the insurers, the more I get to take home. On the downside, if I don't save them anything, all I come away with is that dinky retainer. Sixteen cases, with two point four million dollars at stake. A lot of incentive.

"That's a nice number."

"Don't get excited," Steve said. “This doesn’t sound easy.”

"I know, but this guy Bellman has put up a lot of arrows and they're all pointing right at him. What's the story with the beneficiaries?"

"Just family members, spouses. Routine, nothing at all out of the ordinary there, or so it would seem."

"What about the local cops?"

"Not much help, but they haven't been a hindrance. They say a couple of the deaths might look a bit funny at a distance, but aren’t really, and they haven't come up with anything. You know how it is."

"If it looks like an accident, write it up as an accident."

"Exactly. And I'll tell you right now, Jack, most of these cases do look like relatively simple, unfortunate accidents."

"But the probability is off."

"Way off."

"What have you found out about Bellman?"

"Not much. The State Insurance Commissioner’s office has no record of any complaints against him. Ditto the police and civil courts. Seems like he was just an ordinary small town insurance agent, selling all the usual policies. Until the last two years, when people started dropping like flies on his turf."

"What would he get out of it?" I wondered aloud.

"That’s your job, to find out," Steve said. “Remember?”

"Oh yeah. You said there were some dismemberments?"

"A few, yes." Steve shrugged. "They might not be connected in any way, but I’ve got a brief outline of those cases for you, too, in case you do happen to come across anything relevant to them. Any significant claim that comes via Bellman is suspect now. Otherwise, don’t bother spending much time on them."

I nodded. There was a green folder on Steve's desk, bulging with papers. "Is that my homework?"

"Yes. Sorry it’s so big. I've thinned it down as much I can, but with sixteen different claims, well...."

"That’s okay. What about the other three?"

"You'll find a short summary of them in there for information, but they have been settled already. If you did manage to tie them into a fraud case, and any money is eventually recovered, I know that the companies involved would be happy to cut you in for your share."

I won’t hold my breath on that.”

Steve laughed. “Yeah, recovery’s always a breeze.”

"You want this done right away, right?"

"A couple of the parties are now threatening legal action to force payment. So, the sooner the better. As in, now. Any problem?"

"No, none at all," I said. "Today's Thursday. I'll make sure Bellman is going to be around next week. Assuming he is, I'll drive up over the weekend and get going first thing on Monday morning."

"Great. Oh, and here’s our usual paperwork.”

“Right.”

Steve and I each signed their standard hire agreement. I put my copy in my briefcase, along with the big fat file and my retainer check.

“You have the number of my direct line here.”

“Sure do.”

“And my home number?”

“Yep, but I shouldn’t need to bother you there.”

“Don’t worry about it, call anytime you need to.”

“Thanks, Steve.”

“Take care of yourself up there, it’s a long way from anywhere.”

I smiled and nodded. “I always do.”

Later that afternoon I was back in my little office at home. It was originally the dining room, but from the day I moved in it has been my work space. Now it's pretty cluttered, with a desk, some filing cabinets, a couple of chairs and a growing library of reference books on shelves along the wall and stacked up on the floor in various places – they were edging toward the living room.

I looked through the file Steve had given me, just skimming. I didn't find anything that jumped up off the page at me. A good deal of it was vaguely familiar, since even accidental deaths and dismemberments tend to follow certain well-worn paths. You don't have to know anything about insurance to appreciate the beauty of a hunting accident. It has a classic simplicity. I was climbing over a barbed wire fence, my sleeve got snagged, I fell forward, the shotgun got pulled around and blowed my left hand off. Or, Unbeknowst to me, I stepped in a gopher hole and twisted my ankle real bad, and when I hit the ground, boom, the shotgun went off, and the next thing I knew, my other foot was disattached. It's funny, but these accidents seldom seem to happen when you have four guys sitting around together in a duck blind.

To get away with this kind of thing, all you really have to do is endure the pain and stick to your story. It's also a very good idea to have a friend nearby in the woods, not so close that he actually sees what happens, but to get you to the hospital so you don't inadvertently bleed to death.

The three cases that had already been paid off were hunting accidents like that, except that the people involved had died and it was their heads that had been disattached. Other people were in the area, but no one had actually seen the fatal accidents happen. I looked at one of the dismemberment cases, out of curiosity. A guy named Marcie Lebeau was cutting up some logs. A wood chip hit him in the eye, since he wasn’t wearing goggles. He jumped, and the chainsaw lopped off his hand – his left hand – at the wrist. He wrote that he would have taken the loose hand to the hospital to see if it could be reattached, but he passed out, and when his wife found him a few minutes later, the dog had made off with the hand and it couldn’t be found. I kind of wanted to believe that one. Sometimes companies will stall on a claim like that just because the claimant is usually righthanded and the hand that was lost was usually the left one.

The file showed sixteen supposedly accidental deaths in less than two years. Some poor souls are so hard-pressed that they'll commit suicide, and try to make it look like an accident, so that their families will be left financially better off, though most companies specifically exclude suicides that occur in the first two years of the policy. I hate those cases. And then there's murder, sometimes staged as an accident, that most appealing of crimes -- as long as it happens to someone else.

Seven men and nine women. All very ordinary, at first glance. A car crash on an icy road. A gas explosion. Two electrocutions. Not much so far. One man blew himself away with dynamite while working in his own garnet mine. Another man potted his wife while cleaning his rifle ("I would have swore on the Bible that the gun was empty"). A drowning, a fall and so on, to the inevitable hunting accident ("I still don’t believe it was Floyd, not a deer, but I guess it was").

I checked the atlas. Lauck County had a population of about fifty thousand people, of which some eleven thousand were in Winship. Obviously a rural area, and more accidents like these do happen in rural areas – relative, that is, to the population sample. The probability was off in Winship, not simply because the number of accidents was too large for that population base and time span, but rather because there were sixteen claims on sixteen different companies. That looked all wrong, it looked downright suspicious, as if the agent were deliberately trying to avoid attracting attention.

Most independent agents steer their business to a handful of major insurance companies, depending on the rates offered and the coverage required -- home, life, auto, medical, etc. But sixteen different companies for the same basic life/accidental death policy? Uh-unh. I still could not see how Joseph Bellman might profit from any of this. Because, you can find one evil person to join you in a plot to kill another person and then split the insurance money – but sixteen? Still, it all came back to Joseph Bellman, he was the man at the center, and I was looking forward to meeting him.

"Hello, Bellman Insurance," a sweet young voice answered.

"Hello. May I speak with Mr. Bellman's secretary?"

"I’m Chris Innes, Mr. Bellman’s assistant. May I help you?"

“Yes, I’d like to make an appointment to meet with him.”

"He's in right now, if you want to speak to him."

"No, that's all right. I have to go out in a minute.”

"Okay. Did you want to come in here to our office or would you like Mr Bellman to visit you at your home?”

“I’ll come in to the office.”

“Okay. And when would suit you?”

“Is he free Monday?”

“Morning or afternoon?” She quickly added, “He’s also available for evening appointments, if that would be more convenient for you.”

“Morning would suit me.”

“Ten o’clock all right, or something later?”

“Ten’s fine.”

“And your name?”

“Jack Carlson.”

“Thank you, Mr. Carlson, we’ll see you Monday morning at ten.”

“Looking forward to it.”

I hung up. She had a nice voice. Untroubled.

-- 2 –

Upstate has always been pretty much a blank to me. I know there are some scattered towns and small cities, mountains and lakes and a lot of rolling countryside. Dairy farms, apple orchards, potato fields as well. A good place for hiking, camping, fishing, swimming and skiing, if you like that kind of thing. I was up there one time when I was a kid, spent a week with an aunt and uncle and their two boys, my cousins Ricky and Jimmy. They’d rented a cottage on a lake, and I was invited along. The lake was slimy, the cottage was a dump, the mosquitoes and horseflies tormented us, and my aunt and uncle bickered about everything. That was upstate to me, thank you so much.

I left on Saturday morning, to give myself plenty of time for what promised to be a drive of 4-5 hours. I would need to find a decent place to stay, and my plan for Sunday was to get to know my way around Winship and the immediate area, and perhaps even to take a look at a couple of the accident sites. I had the map open on the passenger seat beside me. Once I hit the Northwestern Turnpike it was smooth sailing for a couple of hours. Eventually, the pike swung away from where I wanted to go and I had to use county roads, which were narrow, winding and often not in great repair. My progress slowed down considerably as I tried to pick the right turns to make. I'm one of those people who has a car compass mounted over the dash, so I knew I was driving more or less in the right direction, but the few signs I saw didn’t mention Winship.

After a while I had no clear idea where I was. What good is it to know that you're traveling in a northwesterly direction if you've already strayed beyond the point where northwest is right? I was fairly sure I had drifted into Lauck County, but I had yet to find any of the pinprick villages shown on the map.

It was the kind of area some people would call God's country, but they could have it. I see a pretty lake, and I can also see the big, ugly old snapping turtle hiding somewhere beneath the surface, ready to rip a chunk off my big toe. I see a forest, or a mountainside thick with dark trees, and I can imagine running into animals I would prefer never to see anywhere but on television. I see a lovely landscape, unspoiled by any human trace, rolling gently to the horizon, and I know that if I went for a walk there I would get lost – hell, I was driving and I was lost.

I saw few houses, and they all looked empty, uninhabited. Summer people, probably, who had packed up and left the week before, right after Labor Day. I suddenly realized that I couldn't remember the last car I'd seen on the road -- it might have been half an hour ago. I felt as if I were in some vacant place where you could meander up and down and around and back forever.

I would come to a fork in the road every so often. If there was a signpost, it invariably meant nothing to me. I stayed with my compass since there was nothing else to do. For some time the road climbed very gradually, but then I found myself over the top and on a steep descent. Three miles down, through a tight tunnel of trees -- it was like driving into a mineshaft. The bright sun disappeared, and I had visions of eventually running into a swamp before I could hit the brakes.

But then I was back in the daylight and the road leveled off as it merged with a slightly larger one, and just ahead was a gas station. Life. People. I parked at the pump, filled the tank and then went inside to pay. A young woman in blue jeans and a maroon sweatshirt sat behind the counter.

"Can you tell me how far it is to Winship?"

"You're there," she answered with a bright smile. "Stay on this road, you go around the bend just ahead a little ways, and you'll see the whole valley and the town right in front of you."

"Ah, great. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

I started to leave, but then stopped and turned back to her. "If you needed a room in Winship for a couple of nights, where would you go?"

"Oh, you've got several choices," she said eagerly. "You'll see a few motels on this road as you head into town and there are a couple more down in the south end. They're all okay places, they're clean, and it's off-season now, so the rates just went down. But if you want the best place, that’d be the Birch Inn"

“Oh? Where's that?"

"Right in the center of town, on Church Street. It's a big old country inn, you know? Real quaint and classy. The rooms at the front face the green, which is pretty, and the rooms at the back look out on the river, and that's nice too."

"Sounds better than a motel," I said.

"Their restaurant is really good too. The offseason just started, so the rates’ll be lower and you won’t have any trouble getting a room."

"The Birch Inn. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Have a nice stay."

Winship was right where she said it would be, and the view as I came around the bend was quite attractive. Some residential neighborhoods stretching up and down both sides of the river, and nestling in the middle of it all a clutch of white church spires, some taller buildings and the elegant arches of two iron bridges. On this side of the river the mountain loomed steeply nearby, but on the far side the land inclined gently, and I could see several terraced plots and greenhouses.

Then an official sign confirmed it: Welcome to Winship

I drove slowly, glancing around at the houses and stores. I soon realized that this place was different. I had seen a lot of small, isolated towns along the road that day, and they all had a tired, ramshackle look about them, as if they were caught in some interminable rustic paralysis. Peeling paint, unmowed grass, old appliances junked in the yard, sagging porches, dead cars, trucks and tractors, all the usual signs of sweet surrender and slow neglect.

But Winship, in contrast, was postcard bright and tidy, a prosperous-looking community of trim lawns and crisp white homes. I found myself thinking of Norman Rockwell's paintings, but there was a little roughness around the edges in most of his work, and everything in Five Towns had a smoothed-out look. Even the kids that I saw were neatly dressed, hair combed and brushed in place. I had expected something run-down and backwoods, the kind of town that sleeps for nine months of the year and wakes up only for the summer visitors. Wrong again.

Downtown, it was more of the same. The commercial district was only a couple of square blocks, but it looked lively enough. No empty storefronts or FOR RENT signs in the windows. The city green was right out of the textbook, with a fountain, a grey stone war memorial and some benches beneath the maple trees. It was surrounded by churches, the town hall, the courthouse, the public library and a number of beautiful old colonial houses that had been converted to professional use. It took me a second turn around the green to find the Birch Inn, since the only sign was a small brass plate mounted beside the door -- hard to see from the street. But I liked the look of the place at once -- wide stairs up to a long veranda that had several cushioned wicker chairs, so you could sit comfortably with a drink in hand and observe life's slow parade. I might even do that before I left.

Inside, the lobby was delightful, with lustrous old wood and soft lights, cool and soothing. It was indeed the offseason and the older gentleman at the reception desk offered me a choice of rooms on the second or third floor. I took the one on the corner of the second floor, overlooking the green and the city center.

"Can I get something to eat from room service?" I asked. It was past three in the afternoon, and I hadn't stopped for lunch.

"Yes, of course. There’s a menu in your room, but if you know what you want I'll take your order now, and save some time."

"Club sandwich and a bottle of beer?"

"Club sandwich and -- any particular brand of beer?" Before I could answer, he continued. "May I recommend Five Towns? They make a very nice lager, a strong ale and a dark beer. You can't go wrong with any of them. It’s a local brew, very fresh."

"There's a brewery here?"

"Oh yes, for decades, going back even before Prohibiton. Or as the saying goes, before, during and after,” he added with a sly smile.

"Well, let’s try it then," I said. "Make it a lager."

"Very good, sir."

I felt much better a little later, sitting back on the bed, a stomach full of food and the rest of the beer in my hand. The kinks in my body were gone and I didn't want to move. The room was pleasant, the furniture was more comfortable-old than precious-old. Most of the time when I'm out on the road for a job I have no choice but to stay overnight at a chain motel. I can't knock them, they're handy, clean and cheap, and at the end of a long day it's good to know you'll get all the basic comforts. But the Birch Inn was a welcome change.

I looked at the label on the brown bottle: Five Towns Lager, South River Road, Winship. There was a simple decorative motif, a shield emblazoned with an ornate cross. They weren't the first brewery to use an image like that. I did like the beer, it had a bit of a hoppy edge. A bit of text on the back label informed me that Winship was formerly known as Five Towns, deriving from the five original villages that grew up there in settlement times.

Late afternoon, a balmy Saturday in September. I had opened the window, and a soft breeze filtered into the room. I felt comfortable, a little drowsy. So far, Winship looked like a nice town in a nice setting. The kind of place I might even bring Jacqui to for a romantic long weekend, if we were still together. I might even bring Maggie here, but we’re no longer married and not on speaking terms. I was still just on the right side of forty, but on the wrong side of life.

I heard children singing. I couldn't tell where the sound came from but it had to be choir practice at one of the churches nearby. Clear young voices. But they weren't singing any hymns that I knew. I went to the window and listened carefully. It was difficult to make out any words, but they didn’t sound like English or Latin. French? Perhaps they were going over some wordless choral harmonies, though it didn’t sound exactly like that either. Whatever it was, it was lovely. A shimmering, ethereal sound, like something out of Debussy. I put the bottle on the table, stretched out, and soon the voices faded away. I fell asleep.

It was just after six in the evening when I awoke. I washed my face, put on a jacket and went outside for a walk. It was the dinner hour, but there were quite a few people about. Perhaps it was the lingering summer weather. The winters had to be long and brutal there, so every moment of sun and warmth counted. The sun had just moved down behind the hill across the river, and the sky was pale and luminous, with faint pink shadings off to the west. I was on the street behind the hotel. It ran along the river and was closed to vehicles for a couple of blocks, thus creating a pleasant promenade. When I came to an outdoor cafe I sat down and ordered a cup of coffee.

Some canoists and kayakers were there, drinking beer and talking animatedly. I was struck by how attractive it seemed just then, everything -- the time of day, the season, the setting of a neat little town in a pretty, rural valley, the cafe perched on the river, the light in the sky, and the people around me. It felt almost European, maybe Swiss or Austrian, in its picturesque tidiness. But that was probably because I had come to Winship with such low expectations.

By the time I finished my coffee and lit a rare cigarette, I noticed that the sky appeared brighter. That didn't make sense. It should be getting darker. The rosiness was gone, but the pale white glow was somehow more vivid. Was it an illusion? But no, I was sure my eyes weren't fooling me. I turned to the people at the next table, an elderly couple.

"Excuse me," I said. "Is it my imagination, or does the sky seem to be getting a little brighter now?"

"It's not your imagination," the woman replied with a kindly smile. "It's often like this in the summer and fall. You're not from around here."

"No, I'm just passing through." I looked up at the sky once more. It seemed to be glowing with a high and clear white light. "What causes it?"

"The further north you go," the man answered this time, "the more likely you are to see unusual atmospheric effects. Look out later, when it's dark, and you may see the aurora."

"At this time of the year?"

"Yeah, sure," he told me. "All year round."

"Especially in this valley," his wife added.

"Why is that?"

"Just the location," the man said with a shrug. "We're very fortunate. We don't have too much industry and development here, or in the surrounding area, so you can see the sky more clearly at night."

That didn’t sound very convincing to me, but I let it go.

I had a late dinner in the hotel restaurant, a cozy room at the back of the Inn, with more of that fine old woodwork. The sound system unobtrusively played Telemann, Vivaldi and other baroque composers. The food was as good as promised. I had brook trout with wild rice and assorted vegetables – all local produce, according to the menu. Customers came, ate and left, replaced by more of the same. They were older, and they had the marbled, smug look of a provincial upper set.

After dinner I went into the next room, the hotel bar, for a quick nightcap. It had the look and feel of an tavern. I tried the Five Towns dark ale but it was a little too sweet and heavy for me, so I washed it away with a mug of lager -- and that was even tastier coming from the keg.

The moment I stepped into my room I saw the faint flickering in the dark. I left the light switched off and went to the window. The sky was alive with glimmerings of color -- red, purple, and a transparent whiteness -- that appeared briefly and dissolved, and then blossomed again elsewhere a second or two later. The colors flowed in and out of each other against the black backdrop of the night. It was remarkable, the street lights below were not strong enough to diminish the display. I stood there watching the sky for some time.

-- 3 --

The kids woke me. It was Sunday morning, and the unseen choir was in action again. I didn't mind at all. I was starting to like the sound of it, although I still had no idea what it was they were singing. Besides, it was after nine o'clock, time to be up and about.

I showered, dressed, ate a light breakfast and then went out for another walk. The green was full of people emerging from the various churches around it, and the bells were ringing loudly, as if in competition. It was evidently something of a social event. The children horsed around underfoot while the adults gathered in small circles and chatted among themselves. I carefully threaded my way through the well-dressed crowd.

Main Street runs north and south from the green. It took me five minutes to locate Bellman's office. It was in a spruced-up lane just off South Main. Bellman had the second floor of a two story brick building that had recently been given a fresh coat of colonial white paint. The ground floor was occupied by a Hospice chapter. I didn't expect to find anyone there on Sunday morning, and the entry door was indeed locked.

But I was satisfied with my first look at Bellman's place of business. It wasn't shabby, it wasn't plush modern. It was the kind of place where a man might work who pulled down a decent but not extravagant annual income, I thought. But people can begin to get ideas in any setting.

I went back to the hotel by way of the river walk. The cafe was packed with churchgoers who had moved on to brunch. It was a brilliant, sunny morning, and they all looked festive and lively. It occurred to me that it was never like this anywhere I'd lived. There was something seductive and corny about Winship. It had the clean-cut look of an ideal American community, the kind that probably never existed outside of a scriptwriter's mind. It made you want to smirk -- but at the same time it conjured up thoughts and images that reached some other part of you, and almost made you want to belong.

Back in my room at the Inn, I picked up the slender telephone directory (it covered all of Lauck County) and looked up Joseph Bellman. I found his office number in Horseshoe Lane, and beneath that was a residential listing on Whipoorwill Road. I bought a local map at the front desk on my way out.

It wasn't far from downtown. A quiet neighborhood of modest ranch houses where the hills started to rise on the west side of the river. When I spotted the right number on a mailbox, I drove ahead another quarter of a mile or so, then turned back. I stopped just before I got to it again, opened my road atlas and the town map and made like I was lost. I had a good view of the house. I just wanted to see where he lived. Every little bit helps.

It was a slate-blue ranch, and judging by the yard plantings it had been there quite a while. It wasn't one of those long expensive places that snake around country clubs, but merely a middle class six-roomer. A family room with a wood stove had been tacked on the side, and maybe something else had been added on out back, but overall it was nothing special.

He had about a half-acre cleared, and I didn't know how much of the surrounding woods were his. It was a lazy man's yard, not really too far gone, but in need of more attention. There were a couple of apple trees choked with suckers, and some bare spots in the crabgrass. Stuff you mean to get around to.

Two cars in the driveway, both American. One a large sedan, three years old, which surely doubled as the family and work car; the other a compact, maybe five years old, which was for the wife to toodle around in. They had two kids, according to the note in Steve's file, not yet teenagers.

An antenna on the roof. No obvious signs, no hint of greed or excess about the place. He was even then probably stretching out on the sofa, ready for the football games on TV. How was the reception, so far from anywhere?

I found myself hoping that this fellow had not gone and done something wrong, that he had a perfectly convincing explanation I could take back to Steve with me. Maybe he was just eccentric and was trying to set a record for the number of companies he did business with -- while his clients had an astonishing run of very bad luck. Unlikely, but certainly not out of the question. I hated to think about his family, and what they would go through if their little domestic world came crashing down around them, thanks to dear old Dad. I had seen enough for the time being. I put the map away, and drove back to the inn.

I had lunch and then sat on the veranda for a while. It was nice, but it soon crossed over onto the boring side. I took another drive around the city, trying to get my bearings and recognize my way. I spent the rest of the afternoon and the evening in my room, reading the file over and over, until I was thoroughly familiar with the details of every case.

I missed the white sky at dusk, but when I looked out before going to bed I saw the northern lights again. No choir, nothing, not even the sound of a car on the street. Winship, pretty quiet on a Sunday night.

I was right, she was blonde. Nice smile, intelligent eyes, good shape. I don’t care for blonde jokes. There are plenty of bright blondes around – I know, because I meet them and I never get anywhere with them. Chris Innes, according to the nameplate on her desk. Innes, was that Scottish? I wondered if her family was among the first settlers in Five Towns. We exchanged smiles and introductions, and I took a seat. She didn't ring her boss, she stepped into his office to tell him I had arrived. The outer room was small and plain, a reception area with a couple of seats, her desk, filing cabinets and a copier. No frills.

"Mr. Carlson? You can go right in now."

"Thanks."

He was coming around to the front of his desk to greet me. A little on the short side, a little overfed, beige suit and matching necktie on a white shirt, and the work smile of instant bonhomie.

"Mr. Carlson? I'm Joe Bellman."

"Hi, how are you?"

"Fine, thanks, and you?" We shook hands. He had the hearty salesman's grip. "Come in, sit down."

"Thank you."

There was nothing special about his office. The knotty pine paneling was inexpensive, as was the off-white industrial carpeting. An oak desk and cracked brown leather chairs that could have been picked up at a bankruptcy sale. His phone was overloaded with buttons, as if he sometimes juggled half a dozen calls at the same time. He had several civic plaques and certificates on the wall, family photos on the desk. Joe Jaycee, at your service. It’s a wonderful life, if it is.

"Carlson," he meditated aloud as he took his seat across the desk from me. "I know a lot of the people in town but I'm darned if I can think of any Carlsons. Are you from WInship?"

"No."

"But, Lauck County."

"No, I’m not from around here." Like the lady told me.

"Oh, really?" Slight tremor in the voice. “Where are you – ?”

“The Insurance Industry Consulting Group,” I said. “I’ve been retained by them to investigate sixteen cases of accidental death. For which, claims have been filed on sixteen different companies.”

“Oh really. Heh. Nice work, if you can get it.”

That was pure instinct, the words popping out automatically. But Bellman's skin dialed down a few notches to the shade of greenish-white you associate with incipient nausea. Just guessing, the dumb fuck had anywhere from one to sixteen somethings to hide.

“On policies issued through this office. By you.”

He did his best to hold the anxiety in check, and gut it out. He nodded stiffly and rearranged pens and things on his desk, as if this had suddenly become a colossal waste of his time. He no longer bothered looking me in the eye with that implacable salesman’s stare.

"I don't understand what the problem is," he said, switching to a gruff tone. "I've had other investigators in here the last few months. I cooperated with them. They looked into their claims, they talked to the people involved, and they've all since paid the benefits. As they should.”

"And I hope we can clean the slate," I told him. "But there are still some questions and details I’d like to -- "

"Fine, fine," he cut in. "You go ahead. But I can't in all conscience tell these people to wait indefinitely. Some of them, they're poor folks, widows, with their houses on the line. And I can't just tell them not to take legal action. I know what these people are going through -- first a terrible family tragedy, then this. It's not fair. They're friends and neighbors to me. What am I supposed to do?"

Joe didn't know how to give good gruff, at least not to me. There was a lot of wind, but it kept turning petulant. I saw the way he wiped sweat from his forehead, trying to make it look like he was simply smoothing his hair back. His cool steady gaze, the hallmark of a born marketing man, was gone, and he kept shaking his head slowly and sadly, as if this was a matter of such regret – which, no doubt, it was, to him.

"These policies are all pretty much the same," I said.

"Yes." Impatiently.

"Life, full and partial disability, the loss of a limb or an eye, and so on."

"That's right."

As if to prove a point. Almost made me want to like him.

"Well, can you tell me," I asked, "why you put these sixteen policies out to sixteen different companies? I mean, they're all the same."

"Yes?" he said with a blank look. "What's the problem?"

"I'm just asking you why."

"Look, I'm an independent insurance agent." He then pointed to the familiar eagle-topped IIA logo on a brochure. "It happens to be in the best interests of both my client and myself to get the best terms I can in each case, and I do that by dealing with a lot of companies, all over the country. That's the market."

"Okay. I'd like to look at your files."

"No."

"Just the files on these cases," I explained.

"No," he repeated. "I'll produce them in court if I have to but I'm not opening them up for just anybody who comes along on a fishing trip. They contain a lot of confidential personal information."

That was kind of a dumb attitude. I didn't expect to find anything of interest in his files, it was just a toss-out request. If he was willing to show them in court, why not to me? And if there was something awkward in there, all he had to do was say sure, come back tomorrow, and clean the file between now and then. But maybe he was being obstinate over this minor point simply to convince himself that he really could tough it out. Never give an inch.

"If you could -- "

"I'm sorry, but I've got work to do, and then I have a lunch to attend." He thought he was in command now. "I suggest you go see the police, and the doctors involved. Then, if you still have any questions, give me a call."

I let him show me out. Give him time to think, and stew. I had other things to do, and then I would come back to him. In the few seconds it took to step into the front office, he had worked up a fresh infusion of strength.

"Chris, this man is an investigator for some of the companies that are stalling on some of those outstanding claims,” he told her. If he contacts you, you don't have to talk to him about anything, and you are not to discuss anything that has to do with this agency."

“Yes, sir,” she said, casting a glance at me.

"I'm staying at the Birch Inn," I told him. "If you give it some thought and decide you want to talk more about this, call me, leave a message. One way or another, I’ll get back to you."

Joe got it, but tried to ignore me, speaking instead to his secretary. "If this man comes here when I'm out, all you have to do is tell him to leave. If he refuses to go, call the police. Understand?"

"Yes."

I left, feeling upbeat and encouraged. I didn’t have anything, nothing at all. But Joe hadn’t reacted well. It’s like playing chess against somebody whose hand shakes a little when they move a piece. The tiniest wobble tells.