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"Right And all along this case felt to me like one with a financial motive"

"Your dream," she said "Remember? Too much money' "

"Uh-huh And now it's turned on its head, because as a h to kill for" She started to say soet killed every day for chuue over the change, and one stabs the other Aon to his wallet and takes five dollars off the corpse But that's different The people who commit crimes like that don't have sixty thousand dollars to invest They don't live in suburbs in the Midwest and fly to New York to kill strangers"

"That's not what I was going to say"

"Oh"

"I was going to say it's not enough to kill for if you just do it once But if you take the proceeds and buy another policy-do you see what I et your twenty-five-percent return in sos up and get it in four or five months, and then buy another policy and repeat the process-"

"You're row rapidly"

"But you still can't see it"

"Not really," I said "Anyway, aside from that one policy, Illinois Sentinel Life never heard of Mr Havemeyer of Lakewood So if he's done this before it's been with other coin to look for his traces How many insurance companies are there in the country?"

"Too many"

"TJ would tell me it's possible to hack your way into so you could possibly want to knoithout leaving your desk And s' expertise and a few thousand dollars' worth of computer equip felonies left and right In the meantime-"

"He didn't purchase a policy issued by, as it, Illinois Sentinel?"

"That's right So?"

"But he may well have participated in other viatical transactions involving other insurers Wouldn't he have gone through the same broker?"

"Oh, for God's sake," I said "Why didn't I think of that?"

20

I called Viaticoot a recording advising me that their office hours were from nine to five I looked at my watch, frowned, and then remembered the time difference It was an hour earlier in Texas I waited an hour and called again, and the woirl who'd put me on hold the day before I asked for Gary and she wanted to know ain

I was there for a while When she came back on the line to tell me that Gary was out, her voice was different, thick with suppressed anger She didn't like having to lie, and she was irritated withher in such a position

I asked when she expected hirier than ever

I went through the h she hadn't bothered to ask for it, asking that she have Gary call me as soon as possible I didn't think he would, and a little before noon I stopped waiting for his call

Nancy Chang at the Chase had wondered if I'd have to go to Arlington Or could I let ers didn't seem equal to the task, but that didn't necessarily et on an airplane

I called Wally Donn at Reliable We'd spoken briefly after the Whitfield-as-Will story broke, and he said now that he still couldn't get over it "The son of a bitch," he said "You knohat he did? He hired us to protect hi bad e couldn't do it And noe look worse than ever, because ere right next to hi on"

"Look on the bright side," I said "Now there's no reason in the world why you can't bill the estate"

"Which I've already done, and don't think I didn't pad it just a little to cover the aggravation factor Now the question is will they pay it, and I' my breath"

I asked hiton, Texas, and he came up with a fellow named Guy Fordyce He was based in Fort Worth, with an office on Hemphill