Death Benefits (2 page)

“So it's safe to assume that Abbott & Windsor will take the position that Stoddard Anderson was perfectly sane at the time he died?”

“It is indeed. And it is also safe to assume that Abbott and Windsor will vigorously oppose any contention to the contrary.”

I let it all sink in. “Why hire me?”

“You are the obvious choice for several reasons. You are from St. Louis. Presumably you are somewhat familiar with its people and institutions. You are, as I recall, a member of the Missouri bar. Thus, you could represent Mrs. Anderson before a Missouri tribunal, if that should become necessary. But those are trivial reasons, Rachel. Stoddard Anderson was a prominent and valued partner of Abbott & Windsor. His widow deserves excellent representation on this matter, and I am determined she will receive it. I know you. I trust you. And I have the utmost confidence you will provide Stoddard Anderson's widow with excellent representation.”

“I'm flattered.”

He smiled. “You should be.”

I mulled it over. “We could become adversaries here.”

“I am well aware of that, Rachel. I included that factor in my selection of counsel. You are trustworthy and discreet. You proved that to me beyond cavil in the way you handled that unfortunate Canaan investigation. You could have turned that into a media carnival. Others might have used it as an opportunity for self-promotion. You did not. Although this matter is far different from the Canaan situation, it could nevertheless present opportunities for attorney grandstanding. You are not a grandstander, Rachel.”

“What makes you think that Dottie Anderson will want me to be her lawyer on this?”

He smiled. “She has already retained you,” he said, removing an envelope from his suit jacket and handing it to me.

Inside was a letter from Ishmael Richardson to Dottie Anderson, confirming that Rachel Gold was her attorney “with respect to all matters relating to or arising out of that certain life insurance policy bearing the policy number 113-456-89J and issued to Stoddard Anderson by the Mid-Continent Assurance Company of Kansas on or about February 22nd of this year, including without limitation Endorsement No. 4, entitled ‘Accidental Death Benefits Rider A.'” The final paragraph of the letter assured her that Abbott & Windsor would pay “all of Ms. Gold's fees and expenses in connection with her representation herein.”

At the bottom of the letter was a place for Dottie Anderson to sign her authorization. She had so signed, in blue ink, in a fat, backward-sloping script.

***

We parted in the lobby of the University Club after Ishmael called Melvin Needlebaum to confirm that I would meet with him later that afternoon.

I had a court date at 2:00 p.m. On my walk across the Loop to the Federal Courts Building on South Dearborn, I reevaluated my decision.

I didn't like insurance law, and I wasn't crazy about taking on a case that could make me an adversary of Abbott & Windsor, particularly where there was the risk—if it ended up in court—of lots of publicity. No sense biting the hand that pays the fees.

But taking on the case would give me a chance to spend some time in St. Louis. Although my parents were in Israel for the rest of the summer, my sister and her two children were there. In addition, as I confirmed from the Cardinals' schedule I pulled from my purse while waiting for the light to change on State and Dearborn, the Redbirds were in town for the entire first week of August. When you live more than two hundred miles from Busch Stadium, you don't pass up the chance to return to St. Louis during a midsummer home stand.

Moreover, the case did sound intriguing. Particularly the missing days at the end of Stoddard Anderson's life. Was he insane? Or just depressed? Where was he those last few days? And what was he up to?

Chapter Two

Until Abbott & Windsor hired its first Irish Catholic in 1964, the columns of names on the firm's letterhead looked—at least to those who still pronounced the
h
in Amherst College or thought squash rackets was a mafia-controlled produce scam—as if some printer's imp had separated all the surnames from the Christian names, tossed the whole lot into a top hat, and pulled out pairs at random. The letterhead included Hayden James, Sterling Grant, Porter Edwards, Townsend Ward, Emerson Barnes, Rexford Dean, and—centered at the top of the letterhead—the long-dead founding partners, Kendall Abbott and Evans Windsor.

Patrick Kennedy, the first Irish Catholic, joined the firm in 1964. Stanley Handelsman, a German Jew and a third-generation Yalie but a Jew nevertheless, joined the firm five years later. Four Jews, two Catholics, and eight years later, A & W hit the Title VII trifecta when it hired Louise Simpson, a blind, black female attorney. She lasted fifteen months before going in-house at Monsanto.

By the time I joined Abbott & Windsor after graduation from Harvard Law School, the firm had enough Jews for a
minyan
, enough blacks to field a competitive basketball team in the Chicago Bar Association league, and enough women attorneys to cause most of the senior partners to stop referring to their secretaries, at least in the common areas of the firm, as “my girl” (as in, “Let's schedule a meeting for next week. Have your girl call my girl”).

For the student of the legal profession, there are several criteria for determining which of the thousands of law firms across the nation belong in that most exclusive of categories, the Major League Law Firms. There are the obvious disqualifying characteristics, such as a bold-type listing in the
Yellow Pages
or the presence of any workmen's compensation work or domestic relations matters. And then there are the necessary threshold requirements, such as size (generally over two hundred attorneys), percentage of graduates from the Big Seven (Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Chicago, Michigan, Stanford, and Berkeley), and profits per partner (over $400,000).

Although taxonomists can debate the subtle distinctions for hours, on one issue they all agree: You cannot be a Major League Law Firm without at least one Melvin Needlebaum. But never more than three. Abbott & Windsor's Melvin Needlebaum is actually named Melvin Needlebaum. You can look it up in
Martindale & Hubbell
.

While the Melvin Needlebaums of the legal profession travel under many aliases, they all look remarkably like Abbott & Windsor's Melvin: pale eyes swimming behind thick glasses, thinning brownish hair slicked back, a manic laugh, scuffed brown tie shoes, a fat tie anchored by a crooked tie clasp, and a Dacron short-sleeve (even in January) white shirt with the tail hanging out.

At first glance, Melvin Needlebaums remind you of the nerds from your high school Audio-Visual Club—the extra-chromosome types who ran the film projector in driver's ed. But first impressions are misleading. Melvin Needlebaums are not nerds, at least not in the ordinary sense of the term. Yes, they are workaholics. And yes, they can crank out reams of motions and briefs on short notice. And yes, they have astonishing recall of the thousands of court opinions they have read.

But what truly distinguishes the Melvin Needlebaums of the legal profession from garden-variety nerds are their astounding reserves of hostility and aggression, all of which they can focus on opposing attorneys in the lawsuits they work on. Within the sunken chest of a Melvin Needlebaum beats the heart of a serial killer. Staring out from behind those smudged lenses are the subzero eyes of a contract hit man.

Melvin Needlebaums are entirely at home within that peculiar version of reality known as the law—where a corporation is a “person,” a claim for damages is a “prayer,” and a seventy-page document is a “brief.” For obvious reasons, Melvin Needlebaums are not often seen outside the prestigious firms in which they work. They don't mingle with the firm's clients at social events, they seldom appear in court, they never ever interview law students visiting the firm on job interviews, and they rarely become partners.

But they survive at the Major League Law Firms, and even prosper for many years, because they are extraordinarily profitable. The typical Melvin Needlebaum works twelve hours a day, six to seven days a week—and every minute of his time is billable to a client. Multiply 2,600 hours a year by a billable rate of $200 per hour, subtract his salary and overhead, and one Melvin Needlebaum delivers more than $325,000 of pure profits to the partnership's bottom line each year. Numbers like that invariably tap into hitherto unknown reserves of tolerance among the partners. Sterling Grant, one of those partners, was once overheard in the hall reverently describing Melvin to another partner as “a cash cow.”

Melvin the Cash Cow sounded more like Melvin the Mad Dog when I walked into his office to discuss his work on the Stoddard Anderson situation. He was barking into the telephone, the receiver pinned between his neck and shoulder. His desk was a cluttered jumble of yellow legal pads, computer printouts, pleadings binders, and deposition transcripts. There were documents scattered in piles throughout the office. A dead rubber plant sagged against the wall in the corner of the office, one withered yellow leaf drooping from an otherwise bare trunk.

“Patently absurd,” Melvin snorted into the phone in his nasal staccato. He was rapping a pencil on the red Lexis terminal on his desk. “Anyone with the brains God gave a goose would know that was patently absurd.”

I lifted a stack of pleading files off a chair and sat down to wait. There was a beep from the Lexis terminal, and I realized Melvin was running a research project on Lexis while talking on the phone. The other computer terminal on his credenza displayed a full screen of text, no doubt the court document Melvin had been typing when the telephone rang.

Melvin slammed down the receiver and leaned forward to squint at the Lexis screen, his face gradually breaking into a manic grin.

“Superb!” he said, and he spun his chair toward the word processor on his credenza. “Just a moment, Miss Gold,” he barked as he typed rapidly on the keyboard. He finished typing, spun back toward his desk, typed a new search instruction into the Lexis terminal, and then looked up, his eyes blinking rapidly. “Yesssss?”

“Stoddard Anderson,” I said.

“Ah, yes. The dearly departed managing partner of our St. Louis office.” Melvin removed his glasses, tilted the smudged lenses up to the light, and then put them back on. He leaned back with a lopsided grin. “I have been advised that you, Miss Gold, have been anointed special insurance counsel to the widow Anderson. Your mission is to convince the insurance carrier that her husband was mad as a hatter at the time he, shall we say, cut himself shaving.”

I had to smile. Melvin was definitely a trip. “That's not my mission. At least not yet. Ishmael said you've already done some work on the matter. I came here to find out what you've learned so far, and to learn why his sanity has to be an issue.”

Melvin nodded his head rapidly while he rubbed his hands together. “How much do you know about the life insurance laws of Missouri?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Then we shall begin with the most common misconception.” There was a beep from his Lexis terminal. Melvin leaned forward and squinted at the terminal screen. “Another Posner opinion! Lord have mercy.” He started typing a new search instruction.

“What's the most common misconception?” I asked.

“Ah, yes.” Melvin pressed the TRANSMIT key and leaned back in his chair. “Most people erroneously believe that death by suicide is
not
covered by life insurance. Wrong. Indeed, in many states, including Missouri, the legislature has enacted a statute that forbids any attempt to deny life insurance benefits on the ground that the decedent committed suicide. Unless,” Melvin leaned forward and rhythmically jabbed his index finger at me for emphasis, “unless the insured intended to commit suicide at the time he purchased the policy. If so, Miss Gold, the bastards don't have to pay.”

“Is there any evidence that Stoddard Anderson intended to kill himself back when he bought the policy?” I asked.

“Nothing other than the relative proximity of his death to the date he quadrupled his life insurance.”

“Four months?” I said dubiously.

There was a beep from the Lexis terminal. Melvin glared at the screen in outrage. “Two hundred and eleven cases! What kind of computer search is that? Oh, well,” he said with a snort, “millions for defense, not a penny for tribute.” He punched the PRINT FULL key on the keyboard. Down in the firm's library one of the Lexis printers would shudder on and start printing 211 court opinions, most of them already available in the library's enormous collection of hardbound federal and state court reporters. Melvin's print full command would keep the printer busy for hours, while print requests from other attorneys backed up like planes at O'Hare on a Friday afternoon.

I had had enough. As Melvin started typing a new search request, I stood up and lifted the lightweight Lexis terminal off his desk.

“What is the meaning of this, Miss Gold?” he demanded, rising out of his seat so that he could continue typing.

“I've got better things to do with my life than watch you play around with this damn computer. Either turn it off now, or I'm going to throw it through the window.”

Melvin put up his palms and giggled. “Okay. Okayokayokay.” He reached for the power switch, paused, bit his lip, and then turned off the terminal as I lowered it back onto his desk. “Great stuff, Miss Gold. Great stuff. Some first-rate cases.” He sat down.

“So,” I said, “there may be a factual dispute as to Stoddard Anderson's intentions at the time he purchased the additional insurance. What about the insanity issue?”

Melvin stared at me, his eyes blinking rapidly behind the smudged lenses. He said nothing.

“Melvin?”

“Ah, yes,” he said, shaking his head. “Mr. Anderson had an accidental death endorsement on the life insurance policy. This is most often known as the so-called double indemnity rider—”

“Like the James Cain novel,” I said with a smile.

“Cain?”

“
Double Indemnity
.”

“Judge James Cain? Of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals?” He leaned forward to turn on the Lexis computer. “Good God, has he issued an appellate opinion on this matter?”

“No. And don't you turn that terminal back on. You were describing the double indemnity rider.”

“Ah, yes. Actually, this particular policy had a triple indemnity rider. It provides that Stoddard Anderson's death benefits increase to thrice the face amount of the policy in the event that he meets an untimely demise as a result of an accident.”

“And a suicide isn't an accident,” I added.

“Unless he was
insane
at the time he killed himself,” Melvin replied.

“And if he was?”

“If he was insane at the time he committed suicide, then his death would be deemed an accident under Missouri law, and the carrier would have to pay an additional one-point-four million dollars in death benefits.”

“How insane is insane under Missouri law?”

“Excellent question. Let's see, hmmm.” Melvin craned his head back toward the ceiling. “Wait, wait.” His left hand shot up in the air, his fingers clenching and unclenching, his eyes squeezed shut. “Ah, yes. The case of Diller versus the American General Life Insurance Company. It's a 1987 decision by the Missouri Court of Appeals. Eastern District, I believe. Volume 694 of the South Western Reporter, second series.” Melvin lowered his head and opened his eyes, leveling a triumphant stare at me.

“Go on,” I said. Having witnessed Melvin's astral-projection routine dozens of times as a junior associate at Abbott & Windsor, I was no longer amazed by it.

“The facts of that case are straightforward,” Melvin said. “On August 7, 1981, one Henry R. Diller, Jr., committed suicide. Mr. Diller's insurance company paid the life insurance benefits but refused to pay the additional accidental death benefits, contending that the taking of one's life while sane does not qualify as an accident under Missouri law. The issue at trial, therefore, was the late Mr. Diller's sanity at the time of his death.”

“And was he?”

“Not according to the jury.”

“What was the evidence?”

“On the night before he died, he told his two longtime friends”—Melvin squeezed shut his eyes, recalling the exact text—“and I quote, ‘I can't go on. I can't function. I'm in pain. Something in my brain snapped. I'm going to kill myself.' Unquote.” Melvin gave me a manic grin. “To put it mildly, this was an individual who needed to get his carburetor adjusted.”

“And?”

Melvin shook his head. “Insufficient evidence of insanity. It's not enough that the decedent's behavior was unusual or peculiar. Under Missouri law, the test requires proof that the decedent's behavior, when viewed by objective standards, makes the conclusion of insanity obvious. In the case of Stoddard Anderson, you will need to find witnesses who will testify to conduct during the last days of his life that displays psychotic behavior. If you can do that, Miss Gold, you will have the insurance carrier by the short hairs. If not, however, you and your client will be S.O.L.”

I mulled it over. “Did you know Stoddard Anderson?”

“I never met the man. He became managing partner of the St. Louis office after A & W acquired Anderson, Raymond and St. Germain, which was his prior law firm.”

“What kind of firm was it?”

“It was principally a tax and securities boutique, consisting of three partners and eight associates. Anderson was a securities lawyer. Allegedly quite good. And supposedly well-connected within the business and social elite of St. Louis. He was heavily involved in an absolutely bizarre native ritual known as the Veiled Prophet Ball. It's the most extraordinarily weird—”