A-Sides Read online

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  The setting was a comfortable studio lot, but the circumstances were not. For this segment, the reporter had need of more than a bare bones field crew. A lighting man prudently disguised the identity of the speaker in sinister shadow, and a sound man digitally altered his voice to a hoarse, semi-robotic drone with a watery undertone. The investigation into William X’s death had officially returned the verdict “death by misadventure,” an accidental death not due to crime or negligence, a legal way of saying a death is fishy, but which can’t be prosecuted. The insurance investigator wasn’t buying it.

  “How,” the reporter began, “could you call the mysterious death of William X anything more than a Fortean anomaly?”

  “There was,” the insurance investigator said, in that warbling, underwatery voice, “a great deal of insurance money to be had. Any death where such a sizable policy was involved would be investigated. Especially when the circumstances of the death were so... mysterious. True death by misadventure is as rare as an unbought politician. Just because someone is hit by a car, or falls off a high place, or even gets burned alive with no apparent explanation, it doesn’t mean that somebody didn’t want them dead.”

  “And how sizable were these policies?”

  “All in? A million dollars.”

  “Don’t you,” the reporter asked, “run the risk of being seen as a heartless bureaucrat trying to stiff the grieving beneficiaries of a man who died a mysterious death?”

  The shadow chuckled softly, without humor. “So what’s new? The money was a concern, yes, but, really, only a secondary one. An insurance investigator is like a dog with a bone: my main goal was to find the truth.”

  “When the police couldn’t?”

  “Police have to deal in hard evidence; we have a little more leeway. We can consider circumstances to build our case, even though we ultimately have to prove it with hard evidence.”

  “And what did your investigation find?”

  There was a thoughtful moment of considered silence before the shadow continued speaking.

  “Any investigator worth his salt will quickly determine two things: who profits, and who doesn’t. Cui bono. In this case, two people were in line for the gravy train. One, his daughter, who gained control of his estate in the case of incapacity, and the insurance payout upon his death. Two, his secretary, who inherited a good deal of his personal assets.”

  “Was there any connection between the two?”

  The insurance investigator shifted in his seat and was mum for a few moments, as if mulling how heavy to tread with his next remarks.

  “In the months before his death, William X’s behavior had grown steadily more erratic; his writing more disordered and incoherent. It was no secret that his health was failing and he was under treatment with insulin, nitroglycerin, blood pressure medication, probably even pain killers. He may have been suffering from the onset of dementia, and some quiet -very quiet- inquiries were made about the feasibility of having him institutionalized. These inquiries were made by a Bob Gable who, incidentally, was and is the brother-in-law of Sharon Sales, the administrator of the rehab center that Amy X used as a vacation resort. Small world.”

  Impossible to see though it was, the viewer could almost picture the heaviness in the world weary investigator’s face.

  “His only close friend at the end -possibly his only confidant- was his secretary, watching him become more and more feeble and pain wracked, addle minded and befuddled, and refusing to be hospitalized.

  “Nature would have taken its course soon enough, but before that could happen, William X’s life ended in an unnatural conflagration. His body was so badly burned that a tox screen would have been at best inconclusive, and the number of medications he was on would have made any results suspect.

  “So we were left with a secretary who saw her employer as a wounded animal without the good sense to die, a stoner daughter with access to any kind of illicit drug, and a body that, for all intents and purposes, could not be PM’d.

  “Even though William X’s body would yield no definitive answer, the fire had left almost everything around him undamaged. A number of items in his apartment were gathered and tested, including his hypertension medication, insulin vials, and nitroglycerin tablets. There were some surprises, such as Lyrazil, a Schizophrenia drug used to alleviate hallucinations and psychotic breaks. And a final, more than intriguing item.”

  “And that would be?”

  “His nitroglycerin tablets. It’s all circumstantial, of course, and an ugly thing that none of us really wanted to believe.”

  “And?” the reporter persisted.

  “Whether she did it herself, or Amy X pushed her along and assisted her- Sheila had, for months, been coating his nitro tabs with LSD.”

  The reporter’s mild shock would later be edited out, and after a couple of minutes to compose herself, she asked a final question.

  “Even if what you think is true, how do you explain the total incineration of his body with no sign of an accelerant?”

  A troubled, unseen shadow passed over the insurance investigator’s secret face.

  “We in the insurance biz call that ‘an Act of God’.”