Send Down the Rain Page 11

  She stood back and crossed her arms. “Joseph?”

  In the fourteen miles one way to school, I never—with God as my witness—broke the speed limit. Not once. Although every day, without fail, Allie propped her feet on the dash and we rode with the top down while she screamed at the clouds and sang CCR’s “Fortunate Son” at the top of her lungs.

  Then came the day the world changed.

  18

  I crawled out from beneath the car, and Mom met me at the door. She’d been crying. “Let’s go for a ride.”

  She didn’t like riding in my car, so I knew something was wrong. We drove to the north end of the island. Slowly. Windows down. We parked up on a small rise looking out over the ocean.

  Mom’s hand was trembling. She was clutching a piece of paper. It was wrinkled. Tearstained. Too heavy for her heart to hold.

  THE NEXT DAY, I found Allie on the beach. It was after sundown. Her hand was full of sharks’ teeth. She was smiling. Breeze tugging at her hair. Bathed in a golden light. Bronze skin. Cutoff jeans and a white tank top. Her brunette hair streaked blond from a summer in the sun. In the difficult years ahead, I would hold on to that picture in my mind.

  “Hey . . .”

  She could tell from the look on my face. Tears welled.

  I thumbed her hair out of her eyes. “I’ve got to go away for a while.”

  She dropped the sharks’ teeth, scattering them in pieces on the ground.

  I knew nothing I could say would make it hurt any less. “I’m going to California. Taking Bobby with me. Maybe cross into Canada. Try and outrun the war.”

  I held her as tight as I could, but I knew that no matter how tightly I held her, I could not stop the pain. Allie was cracking down the middle.

  She sobbed on my shoulder.

  Around midnight I walked her to her door and stood at the base of her steps. The screen door was open. She was holding my hand, looking up at me. Big blue eyes pleading. Her heart was breaking. “Come back to me?”

  The pain in my heart was indescribable. I could barely breathe. “Yes.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I’ll come back to you.”

  She pressed her forehead to my chest and spoke through sobs. “You promise?”

  I stared out across the Gulf, took her hand in mine, and gave her the keys to the thing I valued most in this world. “I promise.”

  19

  Nine o’clock found me with my radio on my lap, staring at the ocean. While Suzy entertained us, Rosco and I studied the water. North of us, a bonfire lit the beach. Black shadows sat around it. Every few moments a candle-lit balloon, three feet tall, would rise off the beach, where the breeze would catch it and carry it west out across the Gulf toward Texas. I followed them through my binoculars, losing sight about five miles out.

  After nearly thirty-six hours of sleep, Allie woke and appeared behind me. She put a hand on my shoulder. “Can I ask you a favor?”

  I turned. Even her face looked rested.

  She laid an official-looking piece of paper on the desk. The watermark showed in the light. “When we married, we took this policy out on Jake. Bought it through his company.” She laid the check stubs on the table. “Been paying on it ever since.”

  I read the face page. It was a twenty-year term life insurance policy insuring Jake for $500,000. The weight of this squelched her voice to a whisper. She pointed. “There’s a rider. Thirty dollars a month.” She flipped to the last page and showed me the addendum to the policy. “It doubles the face amount if the cause of death is an accident.” She spread the sheriff’s certificate of death on the table and pointed at the word accident. She rubbed her face. “I called and got an appointment.”

  She was ready to be done with this.

  “Let me clean up.”

  We drove to the national office of First General Life in Tallahassee where, to my surprise, we were taken to see the president, Dawson Baker. Evidently Jake’s death and the nature of it had captured wider attention than we’d realized.

  Dawson welcomed us into his office. “May I get you anything? Coffee? Water?”

  He wore a white shirt. The carpet matched his red power tie. The royal blue drapes matched the thin stripe in his suit. Everything was wood, and the office was probably two thousand square feet or more. Pictures of his family covered much of the space on the desk behind him. Somebody had signed a wooden baseball bat that hung inside a display case on the wall. Behind his desk, in a small framed plaque, hung a shoulder patch for Army Special Forces. The accompanying beret sat on the shelf next to it. Followed by a framed Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, and a Distinguished Service Cross.

  We sat, and Dawson held up a small stack of papers. “Jake’s policy was paid and current. Most everyone in Florida knows what happened, so after you called, we fast-tracked cutting the check.” He passed a piece of paper across the desk to Allie, who stared at it, her head turning sideways. Her bottom lip quivered just slightly. “But . . .” She spread her policy across his desk.

  Dawson nodded and presented a stack of papers. Something in the expression of his face told me the rest of this was not going to go well.

  “Jake canceled this policy three months after you purchased it. He transferred payment to this . . .” Another piece of paper. “The P&C on a Peterbilt.”

  Allie looked like she’d been shot. She spoke slowly. “P&C?”

  He nodded. “Property and casualty insurance. That check you hold there is the accidental death and dismemberment rider to that policy.”

  I was getting confused. As was Allie. She scratched her head. “So—” She held up her policy. “What about this one?”

  “Jake diverted payment to this.” He held up the Peterbilt policy.

  “So this is no good to me?”

  He nodded. “Correct.”

  Allie was starting to get agitated. “Even though I’ve been paying on it for almost ten years?”

  Dawson wasn’t enjoying this any more than Allie. “To your credit, you have been paying, but not on that life insurance policy. You’ve been paying on this truck insurance policy.”

  “But—”

  He looked at her check stubs. “See here, you even wrote the policy number for Jake’s truck insurance on the check stub.”

  She compared the policy numbers. The number on her check stubs, and the one she’d written on the check, corresponded to the truck insurance. Not the life insurance. “But—” Allie rubbed her flushed face. The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, and she couldn’t make sense of the picture. She held up the life insurance policy. “Are you telling me this policy doesn’t exist?”

  Dawson took his time. “I’m telling you that you and Jake did initially purchase a life insurance policy, which he cancelled three months after purchase.” He brought another sheet of paper from his file. “On this sheet of paper we have both your signature and his, with witnesses, showing the cancellation of that policy and the transfer of the payment to the policy that insured his truck. Your check stubs, the number you wrote on the checks, and Jake’s truck insurance policy all agree with this.”

  She eyed the paper. “I don’t remember signing that.”

  He held up the paper. “Is that your signature?”

  “It looks like it, but I don’t remember.”

  He then produced three certified mail receipts. “We sent three notices to your house, via certified mail, giving you both the option, over a ninety-day period, to reinstate the policy.” He shook his head and spoke softly. “That never happened.”

  Allie had broken out in a sweat, and her left leg was bouncing. Her face was ghostlike. “So my husband had no life insurance policy with you?”

  “Mrs. Gibson, I’m sorry. I realize this is a surprise, but you and Jake owned a policy with us that insured his vehicle.” He was careful in how he answered. “Not his life.”

  Allie sat staring blankly at the wall. Finally she turned to him. “Well, if I’ve been paying the insurance on t
hat truck, and that truck is now totaled, which I imagine is something you and I can agree on, shouldn’t I get a check for the value of the truck?”

  He nodded painfully. “You would if Jake had been driving the truck you’d insured.”

  Allie turned even paler. “What do you mean?”

  Dawson pulled out several pictures depicting the burnt and mangled truck on the rocks. “This is not the truck you insured.”

  Allie slapped the pictures. “Of course it is. Jake was driving it.”

  “Yes, ma’am, Jake was driving it. But it’s not a Peterbilt. It’s a Mack. According to the VIN stamped on the frame and some of the other markings our investigators pulled from the wreckage”—Dawson pointed to individual pictures—“it was an older Mack truck not insured by your policy. Or by us, for that matter.”

  Allie’s hands were shaking. She stood, stuffed half the papers back into her bag, and walked out. When we reached the truck, she walked to the grass, bent at the waist, and vomited. Then she vomited again. Her body tried to heave a third time, but the first two had emptied her, so she heaved dry.

  The ninety-minute drive back to Cape San Blas was quiet. I drove to the cottage, thinking she would pull the covers over her head, but when she exited the truck she walked to the restaurant. Briskly. She unlocked the door and walked immediately to the bar, where she pulled out a dusty bottle of bourbon, poured a tumbler full, and turned it up. Followed by a second. Then a third. Finally she looked at me. “I don’t ever remember signing that.”

  I kept quiet.

  Another tumbler. “Never.” She looked around. “I’ve lost it. For good.” Without a word, she returned to the cottage and shut the door.

  I stood at the base of the dunes scratching Rosco’s head. Something was bugging me about the whole life insurance thing. I believed Dawson was telling us the truth. I just wasn’t sure he was telling us the whole truth.

  I got a number from Allie’s phone and dialed it.

  He answered after the third ring. “Hello?”

  “Bobby, it’s me. Before you left, you asked me if there was anything you could do. I think there might be.”

  I told him what I needed, and he was quiet a minute. Finally he said, “Give me a few hours. Maybe a day.”

  “Thanks.”

  He stopped me. “Jo-Jo?”

  I knew what he was about to ask, and he was right to ask it. “Yes.”

  “Let’s say you’re right. I mean, think about it . . . Are you sure you want to be?”

  Politics had taught him well how to think two and three moves down the line. To ask what is the effect of this decision and the next. “No, I’m not. Honestly, I’d rather be wrong. But I have a feeling I’m not.”

  “I’ll be in touch . . . You’d better give me your number.”

  I figured Allie would be asleep for several hours, so I returned to Tallahassee. I didn’t know if Dawson Baker would be there or not. I imagined he kept a rather full schedule, but I only needed about sixty seconds. I rode the elevator to the sixth floor and spoke to the receptionist, who phoned his secretary. She came out to meet me. “I’m sorry, Mr. Brooks. Mr. Baker is tied up for the remainder of the day.”

  “Ma’am, if you could just tell him. I only need a minute. That’s all.”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I wish I could help. If you’d like to make an appointment for tomorrow or next week . . .”

  “No, thank you.”

  With that, she returned to her office. While I stood there feeling rather foolish, the receptionist scribbled on a piece of paper, turned it upside down, and tapped it with a pencil. It read Governor’s Course. 2:30 tee time.

  I punched the button to the elevator and said, “Thank you.”

  The Governor’s Course wasn’t difficult to find. I found Dawson on the practice range. He saw me and leaned on his club. Staring at me through dark sunglasses. He was younger than me by maybe ten years. He did not look impressed that I’d found him. And while his voice had been kind inside his office, it was not now. “How can I help you?”

  “Where’d you earn your Purple Heart?”

  This took him by surprise. “Someplace we weren’t supposed to be. You know something about them?”

  “I’ve got a couple.”

  That got his attention. He took off his glasses. “Where?”

  “Four tours. Most inside Laos. Or somewhere along the supply side of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.”

  He glanced at his watch. “I’m real sorry about your situation.”

  I stepped closer. “I realize you’re in a bit of a pickle and there’s only so much you can tell us, but . . . is there something you’re not telling us?”

  He used the blade of the iron in his hand to drag a ball out of the pile in front of him. He stood over it, swung backward slowly, and then struck the ball, which traveled about 175 yards in the air. When it landed, he culled another ball from the pile, stood back, and looked at me.

  “Did Jake Gibson own a second life insurance policy that named someone other than Allie as beneficiary?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “I’m not a legal expert, but I have a feeling that since Allie is Jake’s legal wife, she can hire an attorney who can compel you to answer that question.”

  He took off his hat. “What do you gain from this?”

  “Honestly, I will lose far more than I gain.”

  “Why then?”

  I stared down the range, then back at him. “At one time I did a lot of things I’m not real proud of. Sometimes I think if I do some good, it will either erase or help me forget the bad.”

  “Has it?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  He stood over another golf ball, wiggling the head of his club. He chose his words carefully. “When you two left my office, you left some papers behind. I’ll call my secretary and have them waiting for you.”

  I had a feeling my answer lay in those papers. I shook his hand. “Thank you.”

  I returned to the offices of First General, where the receptionist met me with a thin envelope. I tucked it under my arm and then sat in the front seat of my truck studying its contents. Four pieces of paper. The first three were certified mail receipts. The fourth was one legal-sized sheet of paper stating a change of address. It was dated a month after the purchase date of the policy. Jake had requested to change the mailing address of the policy from Allie’s address on Cape San Blas to an address in North Carolina. None of this was making any sense until I looked again at the certified mail receipts. All three had been sent to North Carolina.

  As I was driving back to Allie’s, my phone rang. It was Bobby. “You own a smart phone?”

  “No. Flip.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Leaving Tallahassee.”

  “Buy a smart phone. Something with a screen and Internet access. Text me from that number when you get it.”

  “You find something?”

  “Just text me.”

  Driving south on Highway 319, I stopped at a Verizon store and bought a no-contract phone with a screen that looked like a small tablet. When I asked the salesman if people actually kept these things in their pockets, he slid one out of his. He then educated me on how to send texts, surf the Internet, and use the maps program. He was launching into a dissertation on social media when I thanked him and paid my bill. An hour after having hung up with Bobby, I texted him. Thirty seconds later, my new phone chimed. Then it chimed again.

  I opened Bobby’s text. It read, A little grainy but it’s taken from 90 miles above the earth. I clicked on the attachment and a video loaded. I pressed the play icon, and the video showed a dark road bordered by the ocean. That much I could see. Four seconds into the video a moving object appeared on the right of the screen, winding along the road toward the waterline where the road curved. The object was long, thin; headlights shone on the road in front, and as it stayed on the road, I could only assume it was Jake’s semi. A half mile from the wall of rocks a
nd the turn in the road, the semi veered into the other lane, the oncoming lane. As it did this, a second set of headlights appeared quickly on the driver’s side of the truck. It moved in close, the truck door opened, and the driver hopped into what appeared to be an open-topped Jeep. The Jeep slowed, veered left down a dirt road, and disappeared from the picture about the time Jake’s truck exploded on the rocks and a large white flash appeared on the screen.

  I was having a tough time believing what I saw.

  I returned to the crash site, following the same northerly path as both Jake’s semi and the Jeep. A quarter mile from the crash site, a dirt road peeled off to the left, snaking through the woods and then making a complete U-turn, emptying south again onto the two-lane road that served the island.

  While I sat on the side of the road shaking my head, my phone chimed a third time. Bobby again. This is video taken from the sur-veillance cameras recording traffic onto and off the island. We have an “intelligence base” on the island. Have for years. Without it, these pics and video don’t exist.

  I pressed play and two seconds’ video footage from eye level showed Jake’s semi, followed closely by a light-colored Jeep—top down—turning right, onto the island. From the rear, only the driver could be seen. No passenger. The video continued as the red taillights of both the Jeep and Jake’s semi disappeared a mile down the road. Here the video had been spliced, as the timer on the bottom of the screen jumped forward several minutes. As the seconds ticked by at the bottom of the dark screen, a large flash was seen suddenly in the distance, turning much of the screen white. Again, the video had been spliced, as the timer jumped forward four minutes to a single set of headlights appearing in the distance, slowly growing larger and closer. The headlights were narrow, like a Jeep’s. After a few seconds, the Jeep rolled to a stop at the flashing red light. Two people were now sitting in it. Given the reflection, I could not tell if they were man or woman. Just figures. The video continued as the Jeep turned left toward Port St. Joe, exposing its rear bumper where the license tag had been removed.