Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 02 - Crash Course (24 page)

“Um. An ‘89 Lincoln, a ‘91 Corvette, and a ‘92 Corvette. All claims paid by the other driver’s insurer. And here’s something interesting. There’s a code on the report for the claims adjuster who approved the claim. The number is the same on both the Corvette claims. I’ll have to call Mary Anne back to see what name goes with the approval code.”

“I thought you said it was three different insurers,” Truman said.

“I did,” she said patiently. “But lots of companies use freelance claims adjusters. The same guy could work for twelve to fourteen different companies, especially if he’s set up with a drive-through arrangement. A one-person outfit can handle a lot more volume in one of those, because there’s less paperwork.”

“And how does the claims payout work?” Truman asked.

“Different ways for different companies. But if you’ve got the right documentation, and the damages aren’t too high, some of these places have authorization to issue checks right away. If the damage is less than ten thousand dollars.”

“And it always is,” Truman said. “What about the others? Did she find anything on them?”

“Remember, if the insurance companies aren’t reporting members to Globalfax, the claim might not be on their database,” Clarice said. “I found one for William D. Weems. He was at fault in a collision in ‘92, involving, hey! a ‘91 Lincoln owned by Ronald Bondurant.”

“Before they figured out it wasn’t a good idea to file cross-claims,” Truman guessed. “What else?”

“Weems was the victim of a rear-end collision last week. He was driving a Corvette.”

“Who was the driver at fault?”

“William Tripp,” Clarice said. “Poor guy. He’s driving a ‘74 Pinto. His insurer paid Weems eight thousand nine hundred.”

“What about the claims adjuster’s code on that one?”

She laughed. “I get it. Yeah, it’s the same code as the others. 0012381.”

“So it’s likely they’ve got a claims adjuster working with them,” Truman said.

“He’s the one I’d like to nail,” Clarice said. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you this guy’s name. We don’t need this kind of scum in the business.”

“Any other claims for Tripp?” Truman asked. “I think he’s one of Ronnie Bondurant’s gofers. Monkeys, he calls them.”

“That was all I found,” Clarice said. “You better pony up with a lot of paperback books for this.”

“A box load,” he promised. “What about the last name I gave you? Jeff Cantrell?”

“Funny you should mention,” Clarice said. “Mary Anne couldn’t find any auto claims at all. But she likes to be thorough. I think it’s another fetish. So she checked everything. Home, life, personal, the works. Your Mr. Cantrell had a burglary at his home just last month.”

“An apartment on Allamanda Road?”

“Mmm-hmm. Cantrell had some pretty valuable stuff taken. Two fur coats, some gold jewelry, a four- thousand-dollar gold Rolex, and a lot of expensive electronics. Laser disc movie system, CD player, a PowerBook laptop, altogether, twenty-eight thousand dollars worth of goodies.”

“All that? The guy was single. He lived in a converted garage and sold used cars for a living. Where does a twenty-six-year-old get the money to buy all that?”

“He’s actually twenty-four,” Clarice corrected him.

“A single twenty-four-year-old with two fur coats? In Florida?”

“State Farm paid the claim,” Clarice said. “Talk to them, not me.”

“Any chance there are other claims we don’t know about?” There were only a handful of claims. Not enough to really establish what you could call a crime ring. And not enough money involved in what he had uncovered to suggest a motive for killing Jeff Cantrell.

He had a start, but the
St. Pete Times
wasn’t going to run a big story on some penny-ante racket run by a small-time used-car king. There had to be more. Truman knew there was more.

“According to Mary Anne, the database is supposed to be up-to-date within seven days,” Clarice was telling him. “But it’s the same old story. Somebody has to type the stuff into a computer. Not everybody’s reliable about doing that. They’ll save the claims up for a month or six weeks or longer. You know how it is. More paper-work.”

They cruised the streets around the neighborhood for forty minutes, but there was no sign of the gold Honda hatchback.

“I can’t believe it,” Ronnie was saying. He was hurt. “We had a good thing going. I had plans. Everybody knows, Ronnie Bondurant treats the ladies right. Why’d she want to rip me off and run away like that?”

“How much cash did she get?”

Ronnie winced. “Seven thousand. I was going to put it in the safe at the lot. This morning.”

“She must have heard us talking,” Wormy said. “About everything. Including Cantrell.”

“Conniving little bitch,” Ronnie said. “Now we’ve got to stop what we’re doing and go after her. Make sure she keeps her mouth shut.”

“Let Boone do it,” Wormy suggested. “It’s right up his alley.”

“Boone’s not going to know about this. Any of it,” Ronnie said. “We’ll take care of it ourselves. Like before. Right?”

“If you say so.” Wormy was getting moody. “Like I don’t have enough to do. Shit. It’s nearly noon now. What about the lot? We got people due in with their payments today.”

“I’ll call the old man,” Ronnie said. “Tell him where the keys are. He can open up, take care of business for a few hours. People don’t start really coming in till later anyway.”

Wormy scowled. His back was starting up, and his pain pills were in his desk. At the lot.

“I don’t trust that old guy. I caught him snooping around out back the other day. Right near the red ‘Vette.”

“Chill out,” Ronnie said. “He’s a harmless old buzzard. What’s he gonna do? Find a skeleton in a closet?”

Truman found the spare keys to the lot right where Ronnie had said they’d be, under the floor mat of a dusty gray Crown Victoria at the very back of the lot. After he unlocked the front door, set out the signboards that said INSTANT CREDIT! EVERY-BODY RIDES! and moved the barricades that kept the lot lizards off the property after dark, Truman took a good long look at the keys in his hand. There were five of them, all of the same general make and color.

Moving as quickly and calmly as he could, Truman tried the keys on each lock he could find. One opened Ronnie’s inner office door. Another opened the middle drawer of his desk. There were some bank deposit slips, odds and ends of pencils and pens, a few business cards, nothing else of interest. He swiveled around in Ronnie’s chair, looked down, and noticed where the carpet had been cut. With his toe, he moved the carpet. The safe.

No time to fool with it now.

Another key fit the door to the garage, where he’d been once before. And out back, in the storage area, a padlock kept that gate locked. His last key was for the padlock. But no red Corvette.

Disappointed, he went back into the showroom. Someone called to say they couldn’t make it in today, “‘Cause I gotta work double shifts.”

“He’ll be expecting you tomorrow,” Truman said severely. “With the full amount of payment.”

While he was at Wormy’s desk, Truman slid open the top drawer. It was much more interesting than Ronnie’s desk. For one thing, there was a large clear plastic medicine bottle containing probably fifty light-orange oval-shaped tablets. There was no label, no name on the bottle. He’d seen Wormy popping these pills at different times during the day. Truman took one of the pills and stashed it in his shirt pocket. There were more bank deposit slips in Wormy’s drawer. Truman took one from what looked like three different accounts. He rifled through a small black- bound appointment book, found notations for “Doc Sperduto” and “Call Joe” as well as a scribbled phone number with a local exchange. He jotted down the names and the phone number. At the back of the desk, he found a key attached to a blank paper tag. It was unlike the other keys on Ronnie’s desk.

He got up and roamed the room, looking for other locks the key might fit. Not the file drawers, not the bathroom, not the supply cabinet. He was still roaming around with the key in his hand when Eddie’s black pickup roared up.

“Sonofabitch Weems,” Eddie shouted, throwing open the showroom door. “Where is the sonofabitch?”

“Not here yet,” Truman said. “What’s the problem?”

“You know that snatch I made the other night? I was opening the door with my Slim Jim, you know, to release the parking brake, when all of a sudden two cop cars pull up. Now, you know they don’t believe a black dude is supposed to repo a car from a white man, even if the white man is the biggest lowlife cracker in the city of St. Pete. I tried to explain, but they said they didn’t have no papers from Bondurant Motors. Cops wanted to impound my truck. My forty-thousand-dollar truck! I got hot and we got into it, and they locked me up overnight for resisting arrest. That sonofabitch Wormy did it on purpose. I ask you, Truman, did he or did he not say he’d taken care of the paperwork?”

“He said he had,” Truman said.

“I’m gonna kick his sorry white butt all over town when he gets in here,” Eddie stormed. “And that’s the last time I do business with Ronnie Bondurant. Man, I never did like them two. Some of these cars I grab for them? Shit. People be driving cars they had no business trying to buy. Some of them owed twice what the cars be worth. Ronnie Bondurant is a maggot, sucking the guts out of the sisters and brothers.”

Truman had seen the way Ronnie did business, and he had to agree with Eddie. Maybe now was the time to do some gentle interrogation.

“Do you know anything about an insurance scam they’re working? Corvettes usually, sometimes Mercedes or BMWs?”

“I’m not supposed to be a wrecker service,” Eddie said, looking uncomfortable. “But yeah. They had me pick up cars two or three times that had been in bad wrecks.”

“Where do you take them?” Truman asked.

“There’s this guy named Joe. That’s what they call him, he’s Cambodian so nobody really knows his real name. He’s got a body shop out in Kenneth City. I think I pulled all the cars out there to him. Ronnie paid me an extra fifty dollars for the wrecker service.”

“Did you tow a red Corvette over there lately?”

“Nah,” Eddie says. “Last time was a white one, maybe a month or so ago.”

Truman went to the showroom window to be sure there was no sign of Ronnie and Wormy.

“Eddie, I’m pretty sure Ronnie and Wormy, and maybe Hernando Boone, killed Jeff Cantrell. He was apparently mixed up in this insurance scam they’ve been running. I saw them stage a wreck last night. One of their drivers almost got killed.”

“Where was this?” Eddie asked.

“Out on Weedon Island. They’re building some kind of overpass or something out there. Right at the entrance to the wildlife refuge. There’s a barricade, all kinds of heavy equipment, and no traffic at night, because the park closes at sundown.”

“I know the place,” Eddie said. “One of those ‘Vettes I pulled, I picked up out there. It had been smashed into the concrete. Messed up bad.”

“That’s how they work it,” Truman said. “Look, Eddie, I hate to get you mixed up in this mess. I know you’re just an honest businessman trying to make an honest buck.”

“Usually,” Eddie said, dropping a broad wink.

“But I need to see this body shop, Joe’s. And I don’t want these people to tell Ronnie I’ve been snooping around out there.”

“You go out there with me,” Eddie said immediately. “None of them boys speaks English too good. I’ll just tell them you’re thinking of buying a new lot and you want to see how good their body work is. Nobody’s gonna pay no attention to you if you’re with me. They all think I’m some kind of freak anyway.”

“It’s a deal,” Truman said.

“Where them two maggots at now?” Eddie asked.

“I think they’re up to something,” Truman said. “Ronnie called me at home and asked me to open up for him. I’ve been looking around, trying to find some evidence, something on paper. But Ronnie’s smart. The books and important files must be locked up somewhere. Probably in that safe in his office.”

Eddie nodded. “He’s always got plenty of cash on hand. I always figured he had a safe. But what about Jeff? If they killed him, where’s the body?”

“It can’t be too far away,” Truman reckoned. “The night he was killed, Jackie and Ollie were watching the place. They swear it was only maybe twenty minutes between the time Jackie found the body in the red ‘Vette until the cops arrived and searched the place.”

“Cops,” Eddie said disgustedly. “Don’t talk to me about cops. Is that ‘Vette still here?”

“No,” Truman said. “It was out back Tuesday before I left. Now it’s gone.”

“Twenty minutes,” Eddie said. “And they didn’t see anybody leaving the place?”

“Jackie didn’t. Ollie could have been distracted. He was watching the comings and goings at the Candy Store. Hoping to see some skin, probably. He’s had kind of a sheltered life,” Truman said apologetically.

“So the body could still be here,” Eddie said, glancing around the showroom.

“Or they could have moved it later,” Truman said. “Where the heck could you hide a body on a used-car lot? With the police swarming all over the place? And I’ve been here all week. In this heat, it’s hard to keep a corpse secret.”