Accidents Waiting to Happen (28 page)

Hungrily, he read through the information and the grin dropped from his face like a rock.
 
Margaret Macey had made a viatical settlement with Pinnacle Investments less than two years ago and he’d acted as the agent.
 
Bob’s brief notes detailed that the medical treatment she had undergone for a weak heart was beyond what her medical insurance would cover.
 
He’d helped her to pay for medical bills and provide cash for further treatment with the viatical settlement of her hundred and fifty thousand dollar life insurance policy that her dead husband had made her take out years before.

It wasn’t the revelation that he’d acted as agent to Pinnacle Investments to both Josh and Margaret Macey that left him slack-jawed.
 
He had hundreds of clients he’d dealt with for years, but he rarely remembered their names a few days after dealing with their accounts.
 
But in this case, he remembered the senior citizen’s name because James Mitchell had asked about her and Josh at their meeting.

Bob moved his chair back from his desk in shock and it came to an abrupt halt against something on the floor.
 
He looked down.
 
One of the castors on the swivel chair was wedged under some of the files he had placed on the floor.
 
He leaned down and picked up the offending items.
 
He looked at the file names on the fly covers—they read Joshua Michaels and Margaret Macey.
 
He had removed the files to show them to James Mitchell.

***

Josh groaned when the telephone on the bedside table rang.
 
Cursing, he reached across for it.
 
The digital clock radio displayed the time—12:01 a.m., he had been asleep less than half an hour.
 
Kate stirred in the bed next to him.

“Hello,” he said sleepily.

“Josh, it’s me,” the excited voice said.

“Bob?”

“I’ve found something.
 
Margaret Macey is a client and you two are connected.”

“What?”
 
Josh sat bolt upright, taking the comforter with him.
 
The sleep that fogged his mind was burnt away like a morning mist.
 

“Josh, what’s going on?” Kate asked, disturbed by the phone then by her husband stealing the covers.

Josh stuffed the phone into the bedclothes for privacy.
 
“Honey, go back to sleep.
 
It’s Bob and he has got something on that woman the cops say I threatened.”

“Oh, Jesus, Josh.
 
Leave it alone.
 
This household has been in enough turmoil over the last two weeks without you looking for more.”
 

“I’ll tell you what he knows.
 
Go back to sleep.”
 
Josh put the phone to his ear.
 
“Bob, I’m going to change phones, hold on.”

Josh got out of bed and slipped into a pair of shorts.
 
He wondered if Bob had something that made sense of the situation he was being drawn into.
 
Was there finally a beacon in the night leading him to safe waters?
 
“Honey, will you put the phone down when I pick it up downstairs?”
 

Kate nodded, taking the phone from him, and started interrogating Bob on what he was doing.

Josh rushed downstairs in darkness and switched on the lights.
 
He took the cordless in the living room.
 
Kate put the receiver down.

“What did you find out?” Josh asked.

“Margaret Macey is a seventy-seven year old woman living over in the rough part of downtown.
 
And she had a life insurance policy with me,” Bob said.

“She had?”
 
Josh paced.
 
He went from the living room, to the dining room to the kitchen to the hall and back to the living room, switching lights on as he went.
 
Disapprovingly, Wiener looked up from his bed in the kitchen.
 
Josh couldn’t be still when he was excited.

“Yeah.
 
Like you, she made a viatical settlement and I was the agent.”

“She sold her life insurance.
 
When?”

“About this time two years ago.”

He wasn’t getting information quick enough, it was maddening—he wanted to scream.
 
Who did she sell the insurance policy to?
 
The fear grew within him that he already knew the answer.
 
Josh paced even quicker as if to outrun his anxiety and threatened to cut a groove in the carpets and floorboards.
 
“Who to, Bob?”

“Our good friends at Pinnacle Investments.”

He was right and hated it.
 
Patterns were emerging.
 
The truth was presenting itself.
 
But it wasn’t making any of this go away.

“I should have known,” Josh said.
 
“You’ve got a good memory to remember that, pal.”

“But that’s not the reason I remembered her.”

Invisible spider’s feet crawled up Josh’s spine.
 
“What do you mean?”
 

“The reason why her name meant something was because I had her file out.
 
When James Mitchell saw me, he remarked on my past clients with Pinnacle Investments and he raised your name, Margaret Macey’s and some other guy who died a couple of years ago.
 
We discussed your files.”

Josh stopped pacing.
 
James Mitchell was his would-be killer and he wasn’t the only one Mitchell had his sights on, but why?
 
What was the point?
 
The invisible spider crawled across his face.

Mitchell claimed he was an employee of Pinnacle Investments, but he wasn’t.
 
Josh could hear the penny dropping, but he didn’t know what he was getting for his money.
 
“I’m not insane.
 
That bastard wants to kill me and this woman, but for what possible gain?”
 
Josh asked.
 

“You’ve got me, pal,” Bob said.

Josh started pacing again, this time faster.
 
His mind worked through events as he lapped the first floor of his home at a brisk pace.
 
Wiener, fascinated by his master’s actions, joined him on his walk.
 
“He must have used the phone here to call Margaret Macey.
 
I gave him the chance when I told him about Pinnacle Investments sending the wreath.”

“He’s got some balls on him—big brass ones.
 
You’ve got to admit that,” Bob said.

Josh agreed.
 
He couldn’t deny it, but he didn’t have to like it.
 
The man had been in his home and committed a crime for which Josh was now the primary suspect.

“But why use your phone?” Bob said.

“God knows.
 
Maybe he didn’t expect Margaret Macey or me to be in any state to get the cops involved.”

“Maybe.
 
It all sounds risky.”

“Only if it doesn’t work.”

“And it hasn’t so far,” Bob said.
 
“Where do we go from here?”

Josh thought.
 
The answer was to the cops.
 
The more menacing this situation became, the more he knew he was out of his depth.
 
Also, it was an opportunity to stick it to that disbelieving bastard, Brady.
 
That would be especially sweet.
 
He now had a reason for his telephone number to be on Margaret Macey’s telephone records.
 
It was his chance to get the police off his back and prompt an investigation into James Mitchell.

“I’ll talk to the two officers who were here and at the hospital.
 
I’ll tell them not only did James Mitchell run me off the road but that he had been checking up on Margaret Macey and me, then he came to my party and made the phone call to Margaret while he was here,” Josh said.

“You’re forgetting he doesn’t exist.
 
We couldn’t find him.
 
If these two cops think you’re their man, they won’t really give a shit about this invisible man.
 
They’ll think it’s a bullshit story to get you off the hook,” Bob said.

“But they have nothing better on me.
 
Suddenly I decide to call a woman I have never met and threaten to kill her?
 
What sort of case is that to convict on?” Josh asked.
 
Although he knew Bob had his best interests at heart, Bob was right—the police could dismiss him for putting up a smokescreen.

“I don’t know,” Bob said.

“I’ll see the cops in the morning,” Josh restated.

“No, don’t.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“I’ll go to the cops.
 
I’ll tell them I had James Mitchell at my office.
 
I have a record of his appointment and Maria saw him.
 
And I’ll tell them he made a call from your house and that you believe that he was the man on the bridge,” Bob said.

Josh paced in silence considering Bob’s offer.
 
“Okay.
 
You’re probably right.
 
It’ll sound better if someone independent can verify the story.”
 
He gave Bob the police officers names.

Josh felt tired and excited at the same time.
 
Tired because he’d walked at least a mile around the first floor of his home and excited because he felt he was finally getting somewhere.

“I’ll tell you something I do know,” Bob said.

“What?”

“Mitchell may have missed you so far, but I guarantee he’ll try again.”

Chapter Twenty

The noise of the landing twin prop drowned out the minivan’s radio.
 
Josh knew the FAA building was close to Sacramento Executive airport, but not its exact location.
 
He spotted it on the opposite side of the road from the airport and he pulled a U-turn at the light.

Pulling up in the parking lot, the jitters took hold of Josh.
 
He had a plan, but now he wasn’t sure how to play it.
 
How could he convince the FAA the plane crash had been intentional?
 
When he received the initial findings from them, he was just unsatisfied with the report, but after seeing Jack Murphy, he no longer believed it was an accident.
 

According to Jack, the mechanical failures were possible, but were suspicious due to their unlikely nature.
 
If the attempts on his life hadn’t occurred, Josh would have brushed Murphy’s comments off as ludicrous.
 
However, recent events told him it wasn’t that insane to believe his aircraft had been tampered with on purpose.
 
And deep down he really knew Mark’s death hadn’t been an accident—the same way as soon as he heard the newsflash on the radio he knew it was his plane that had crashed with his friend aboard.

With the knowledge that his aircraft had been intentionally disabled to kill him came the guilt.
 
Mark wasn’t the intended victim.
 
Christ, did he feel like the scum of the earth.
 
He’d been leaving Jack Murphy’s hangar when it hit him and the sour river taste returned to his mouth.
 
His mistakes had killed an innocent person.
 
Josh didn’t know how he would live with himself, but one way was to get the FAA and the NTSB to look for signs of foul play and nail the bastard who’d done this.

Josh knew James Mitchell was Mark’s killer.
 
Mitchell had forced him off the road into the river and he was at his birthday party.
 
He knew Josh and Mark were flying partners and he knew when and where they would be flying next.
 
Josh had remembered all the details and put it all together once Jack Murphy had made it all click for him.
 
All he needed was a look at his airplane to be sure.
  

The FAA district office in Sacramento was unassuming for its significance and was nestled uncomfortably amongst a number of unsexy commercial enterprises from mini-storage centers to breakdown recovery services and a smog check center.
 
The office’s jurisdiction stretched out from Sacramento to the Sierras and up to the Oregon State line.
 
Responsible for enforcing FAA rules and regulations from aircraft safety to pilot certification, the officials had the unenviable task of crash investigations as part of their remit.