The Turnout(74)

On her way back to the studio from the Ballenger, she stopped at the bank so she could pay Benny and Gaspar. A large sum, larger than they seemed to have expected. It turned out, Charlie told her, Derek hadn’t paid them in weeks.

“It’s okay, ma’am,” Gaspar kept saying as she counted out the cash. “Everything’s fine.”



* * *



*

Ms. Durant,” Benny said, organizing his bills, folding them neatly into his wallet, “we can still complete the work. We know what to do.”

“I know you do,” Dara said. “But we’ve got a lot going on here now and—”

“Ms. Durant,” he said, then paused, as if deciding something. “I hope you know you don’t need to worry.”

“Worry?”

“About all the questions. I mean, we don’t have anything to say.”

Dara looked at Benny, who wouldn’t quite meet her eyes.

“Are the police still asking you questions?” she asked. “Were they here today?”

“Just the lady,” he said. “From All-Risk.”

“What? Someone was here—”

“She’s in the back office now,” he said. “Your husband let her in.”



* * *



*

Randi Jacek,” the woman in the navy pantsuit said, a tape measure in her hand. “All-Risk.”

She was a bright-eyed woman of middle age, the yellowed fingers of a smoker, and she had the office to herself, her left shoe treading slightly on the bleach stain on the floor.

Reaching into the pocket of her pantsuit, she pulled out a card, its corner slightly bent: randi jacek, claims investigator, all-risk insurance.

“Ms. Jacek, I think you’ve made a mistake,” Dara said. “We’re not All-Risk. We’re Consolidated Life.”

“You are. But your contractor was All-Risk.”

“Oh.”

“I explained to your husband—”

“And where is he?”

“Don’t tell him I ratted him out,” the woman said, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “but I think he went for a smoke.”

“Was there something you needed you didn’t get from the police?” Dara said. “They were here all day yesterday. They told us they were done.”

The woman looked at her, squinting slightly.

“You know, I love those guys. Cops. Overworked, underpaid,” she said, removing a small digital camera from her pocket, rubbing its lens with her cuff. “The thing is, Ms. Durant, they’d just as soon I do their work for them. And it just so happens it’s my job.”

“You must be very busy then,” Dara said, her voice clipped. None of it sounded right. “Going to every place someone took a bad fall.”

The woman smiled. “You got me,” she said. “We don’t usually make house calls. But I knew him a little. Derek.”

Dara felt her chest pinch. Folded her arms. “Really?”

“Everyone knew Derek,” she said, eyes dragging around the office. Scanning the windows, the floor, settling on the staircase. “You know.”

“I don’t,” Dara said. “We didn’t. I mean, he was overseeing this project, but—”

“We go way back. De La Salle, Class of mumble-mumble-mumble,” she said, turning to the staircase, eyeing it again. “And he took out a lot of policies with us. The nature of his biz. We used to call him D-Wreck. Hey, how many contractors does it take to change a lightbulb?”

“What? I—”

“Two,” Randi said, snapping a photo of the staircase railing. “One to screw it in and another to knock over the ladder and file an accident claim the next day.”

Dara didn’t laugh.

“Well,” Randi said, “probably not funny to his family either. You kinda get a gallows humor in this line of work.”

“His family?” Dara said, her eye twitching. Derek’s family. Who? His brother? The one in the upper bunk? If that story had even been true.

But Randi wasn’t listening, still focused on the staircase. Dara didn’t like it. She also didn’t like looking up the staircase. She didn’t like remembering anything that had ever happened on the staircase, or through the mouth into the third floor.

“See, this is what I mean,” Randi said, lifting the drooping hazard tape from the railing. “Police photographs, measurements, they don’t tell the whole story. But if you can get in there and see the space, lay your hands on it, sometimes things become instantly clear.”

She reached out and grabbed one of the balusters, hard.

Dara watched the stairs shiver.

“These,” Randi said, shaking her head at the staircase as if it were a disobedient child, “are accidents waiting to happen.”

“Yes,” Dara said, exhaling at last. “We should have torn it down years ago.”



* * *



*

When Charlie eventually returned, cigarette stub between finger and thumb, his face red from the cold, he looked surprised to see her.

“You left her in there alone,” Dara said tightly, shutting the door behind him.

Charlie stopped. “I thought it would be better. She wouldn’t ask me questions.”