Mortimer Toynbee liked to have everything in its place. He did everything by the Book and was a stickler for details. This is probably why he was the perfect insurance investigator. Nothing ever got past him. Before he’d sign off on a claim, he’d check it twice and then go back and re-check everything again.
Sometimes his superiors were exasperated with his thoroughness. Whenever Mortimer was the investigator for a claim, inevitably calls came in to Fidelity Incorporated Insurance Company from the claimants complaining bitterly about their coverage. Normally, this would result in a lackluster rating for an adjustor. But Mortimer had stellar ratings.
Mortimer had a gift. He could sniff out insurance fraud like a hound following a blood trail. Sometimes it was the smallest, most insignificant thing that would raise the hackles on the back of Mortimer’s neck. But Mortimer would check into it and in doing so would inevitably uncover fraud. Over the years, Mortimer had saved Fidelity Inc. millions of dollars in false claims.
He was an insurance company’s dream.
Last week when Mortimer had received the final report from the field investigator investigating the total loss claim --- number XAV-3050900811 --- of a 2007 silver Lexus LS that had skidded on a patch of black ice and crashed into a retaining wall, he had been prepared to sign off on it. After all, it seemed pretty cut and dried. The car was totaled. The police reports had ruled out driver error. The driver, one Dr. Moira MacTaggart, had a spotless driving record and paid her premiums on time every month.
There had been no evidence of alcoholic impairment, no evidence of cell phone usage while driving, no evidence of speeding. In short no evidence of fraud and no reason why the company should not pay out the claim.
So why did the hackles on the back of Mortimer’s neck start to tingle as he read through the reports?
A week later, Mortimer had arrived in Westchester and was standing over the wreckage of the silver Lexus that was still in residence at Bob Bean’s auto body shop. He had done a little research prior to coming to Westchester. According to the National Weather service, the conditions for up to three days prior to the accident were not favorable for the formation of black ice. And the pictures of the accident scene he had acquired showed very little snow and no indication of melt off. So where had the black ice come from? He’d tried to call the witness, Mr. Covert, but had gotten a message that the number was no longer in service. His hackles rose even higher.
So now, under the watchful, curious eyes of Bob, the body shop owner, Mortimer took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and without thought to the conditions of the grease stained concrete flooring, he started his own painstaking inspection of the car.
Three hours later, a small rip was in the knee of his trousers and his dirty blond hair was matted with sweat and grime. But in his hand was a small twisted, slightly flattened cylinder of metal. And his expression showed triumph…and consternation.
“Is that a…?” Bob, guessing that Mortimer’s arrested expression while gazing at the object in his hand signaled something big, had come over to peer over Mortimer’s shoulder to see what he was staring at so intently. Instantly recognizing it, Bob’s mouth fell open.
“Oh yeah.” Mortimer breathed, his pale gray eyes glittered behind his round framed glasses as they lifted to meet Bob’s “This is a bullet.”
-:¦:-•:*'""*:•.-:¦:-
“Are you out of your mind!” Marie hissed as Jubilee pushed her into the great room that stood right off the front foyer.
“I’m telling you nobody will bother us.” Jubilee assured her casting one last look behind them in the foyer before sliding the mammoth pocket doors until they were barely one foot apart. “The teachers are all in a meeting up in the conference room and students never come in here unless their parents are visiting.”
“But why are we in here?” Marie glared at her friend “You told me you were going to get me a phone so I could call Bobby.”
Jubilee waved her hand with a flourish at the old fashioned roll top desk that set in a recessed alcove in the rear of the large room. On top was a phone.
“Voila! Phone.”
“Are you mental? You know we can’t make long distance calls on the school phones.”
“Normally, no.” Jubilee said with repressed excitement, but she waived the mysterious slip of paper she had retrieved from her own room’s desk. “But I have Miss Grey --- I mean Mrs. Summers’ --- long distance code. We can use it here.”
Marie groaned. Jubilee and her schemes were going to get them expelled. Marie and Bobby had argued via the phone during the whole break. He had admitted “ finally - that he had been a little interested in Kitty. Marie had been devastated. She had wildly accused him of not wanting her anymore since he’d gotten everything he’d wanted from her. Why buy the cow, etc.
Bobby had been stung and outraged.
“I’m being honest with you.” He’d blasted. Marie could practically taste his rage dancing through the phone lines. “I love you, Marie but I’m not dead. I can still think that other girls are nice and interesting but that doesn’t mean I want to date them or dump you. Why can’t we just be like we were?”
“Because I didn’t know about your love for Kitty then.” She shot back. For one bleak second, Marie flashed back to a memory of her own mother having a horrible argument with her third husband, Senator Kelly, accusing him of having an affair with his secretary. God! Marie didn’t want to be like her mother.
Then there was yesterday. After yesterday’s bitter argument, there was something infinitely different in his voice. He’d been weary and it had leeched through his voice.
“Look, Marie. I’m sick of this. If you want to be with me you have to trust me. I can’t be there if you’re going to accuse me all the time of things I haven’t done. Think about it tonight. If you seriously can’t get past this then we’re done. I won’t be coming back this term. Call me tomorrow and let me know. If I don’t hear from you then I’ll know my answer.” And he had quietly disconnected his phone.
At first Marie had simply been pissed. In a fit she threw her phone against the wall and silently defied his stupid ultimatum. But after a while, her anger had shifted into fear. What if he really wasn’t going to come back? What if he really had gotten so disgusted with her he was willing to simply chuck school for a whole term just to get away from her?
Determined to discuss things with him rationally, she went to call him back only to discover that she had hopelessly broken her cell phone.
Figuring to buy a new one this morning, Marie had corralled Jubilee with the idea of going to the Mall. But to her horror and chagrin, Mall trips were still being highly regimented and chaperoned. And there were no mall trips planned until the day after tomorrow.
“I need a phone to call him back.” She’d insisted “Let me use yours.”
“Don’t have one.” Jubilee answered, popping a big wad of gum while flipping through the latest InStyle magazine with Halle Berry on the cover “man, she is insanely hot. I wish I had her boobs. Just one of them would add at least a cup to what I’ve got.”
“What do you mean you don’t have a cell phone?” Marie wailed bewilderedly.
“Don’t like them.” Pop! “I think they give you cancer of the ear. Do you think she’s had any work done? Nobody looks this perfect unless they’d had work done. I hear that she’s flawless in Hi-Definition.”
Marie flopped down on Jubilee’s bed with her head in her hands.
“How can you, of all people, not have a cell phone? You’re always talking to people.”
“I like to talk to people in person.” The wad shifted to the other cheek “I need to see faces and get reactions. For instance, I am loving yours right now.”
“Jubes, “Marie whined “I need to call him.”
With a long suffering sigh, Jubilee gave her friend a considering look and then stood up abruptly.
“Wait here.” She said and went over to her desk to riffle through the top drawer. “Follow me.”
Marie and stood up meekly and followed Jubilee from their dorm room over the lawns and into the main building where they were now in front of the roll top desk staring at the phone.
“What if somebody comes?” She asked, her anxiety over Bobby outweighing her anxiety over using the stolen phone code.
“Do you have your cell phone with you?” Jubilee asked.
With a puzzled look, Marie dug her phone out of her jean pocket and handed it over to Jubilee.
“Good. Now you go sit back there on the other side of the desk and make your call. I’ll stand here and ‘talk’ into your cell phone.”
“But it doesn’t work, Jubes.”
Jubileee rolled her eyes in exaggerated frustration “Of course it doesn’t work, but I’ll be pretending to talk. That way if someone approaches I’ll make it seem like I just stepped in here for a moment of privacy to use my perfectly legal and honorably paid for personal phone. If I see anyone coming I’ll say something really loudly like ‘Oh that’s just stupid!’ and you can hide by the bookshelf.”
Jubilee pointed out a little recessed nook of built in bookshelves that stood just beyond the roll top desk. From where they were standing in the front of the room, the combination of the desk and bookshelf obstructed the view of anyone looking in that direction.
In a moment of agonizing indecision, Marie just stood there looking from the phone to Jubilee back to the phone again.
“What are you guys doing in here?”
Startled, both girls whirled around to see Kitty standing quietly in the doorway.
“Perfect.” Marie mumbled but Jubilee rushed forward, grabbed Kitty by the arm and jerked her fully into the room, closing the doors completely this time.
“Marie needs to make a call.” Jubilee announced baldly.
“What --?”
“ --- Oh, great, Jubes, tell the world why don’t you!” Marie fumed, shooting Kitty a dark look.
“Bobby’s going to break up with her and not come back to school if she doesn’t call him today.”
Kitty’s shocked exclamation was drowned out by Marie’s strangled shout.
“Jubes! Why don’t you just go up to Professor Xavier’s office and announce it on the intercom? Geez!”
“Is she serious?” Kitty asked.
“Yes, she is.” Jubilee inserted smartly, returning Marie’s glare with a pert smile of her own. “Look, I’m sick of the animosity. I am Kitty’s friend, I am your friend. We used to all be friends until you got your brain fried by love. Bobby has said he’s not interested in Kitty and Kitty has said she’s not interested in Bobby. Right, Kitty?”
“I don’t want Bobby. I---I like someone else.” Kitty cleared her throat awkwardly as she made that admission.
“See. She likes someone else, whom I’m sure she’ll tell us all about later cuz I for one am dying to know who it is. But Marie,” Jubilee’s voice had finally lost some of its lightness and became utterly serious “can we just give it a rest? Bobby is obviously in love with you if he is willing to sacrifice school. Give the boy some credit. And while you’re at it, give Kitty some too.”
“I’d never poach on your boyfriend, Marie,” Kitty said hesitantly “I am not a girl who would do that to a friend.”
Marie felt tears prickle in the back of her eyelids. She had been so angry for so long that she didn’t know how else to be. Truthfully, Kitty wasn’t the real problem. Kitty had simply been a convenient target because the real object of Marie’s anger, her mother, wasn’t around.
She was tired of being mad all the time. She loved her mother desperately and hated her fiercely. It had taken near tragedy almost three years ago to even get her mother to come for any extended visit. Now she was lucky if she’d even heard from her mother twice a year. Marie had more contact with the lawyers who administered her trust fund than she did with her own mother.
No, Kitty was just an easy target. Especially since Kitty’s relationship with her mother was exactly what Marie had longed to have with hers. The Prydes visited often and never missed a parent’s weekend. And Mrs. Pryde was forever sending care packages. Really, it wasn’t Kitty’s fault that Marie’s mother was a terrible parent.
“I’m sorry, Kitty.” Marie finally said after a long minute of painful silence “I’ve been a jerk to you.”
Kitty gave Marie a tentative smile, reaching out to hesitantly touch her hand only to draw back quickly.
“That’s okay.”
“Whew!” Jubilee burst out with an exaggerated wiping-the-brow gesture. “Glad that’s settled. Now Kit-Kat you can help us with the great phone caper. Miss Cell Phone Killer over here needs to call her boyfriend but has no phone to do it. So we have to use the phone in here. I have it all planned out.”
“If her phone isn’t working, why not just let her use yours?” Kitty gestured to the phone in Jubilee’s hand.
“This isn’t my phone, this is the Dearly Departed. I don’t own a phone.”
“You don’t have a cell phone?”
Jubilee threw up her hands “What are they, like, measles shots or something?”
“She thinks they cause ear cancer.” Marie said dryly.
But Kitty was whipping hers out of her pocket and handing it to Marie. “Here use mine.”
As Marie gratefully reached out to accept the phone, they heard the unmistakable sounds of a large group of people approaching the room.
“We can speak privately in here Detective Bishop.” It was Miss Munroe’s voice.
The three girls glanced at each other in startled panic before, as one, they dived behind the roll top desk and crouched out of sight in the shadowed nook.
Just in time as the pocked doors slid open and what seemed to be a veritable troop of people entered.
“I’m sorry, I’ve already met Officers Ortiz and Dale but I don’t think I caught your name?” Ororo turned to a tall, pale skinned, striking brunette in a mannishly tailored black suit which had a gold detective’s badge affixed at her waist.
“I’m Detective Fixx, Jane Fixx. I’m Detective Bishop’s partner.” Her voice was a surprisingly sweet soprano to come from someone who looked so severe. She was a complete contrast to the ruggedly built black man who was her partner.
“Please have a seat,” Ororo motioned them to the cluster of overstuffed chairs and the large couch that made of the seating area in the front of the big bay window.
As they all sat, Jean came striding in followed quickly by Scott and Logan.
“Do we need to call Evangeline?” Jean asked Ororo eyeing the pair of detectives, the two officers and the odd looking smaller man with the dirty blonde hair and round eye glasses.
At Detective Bishop’s raised eyebrow, Ororo clarified.
“Evangeline Whedon is my father’s lawyer.”
Bishop nodded his head “I’ve heard of the formidable Ms. Whedon. But I don’t believe you will be needing a lawyer.”
Ororo gestured to the smaller man “But you said you were from the insurance company and that there was a problem with the claim. And you’re here accompanied by the police. I can only believe that you’ve discovered some evidence that leads you to believe that the accident was caused by some negligence on my father’s part or his wife’s.”
“Miss Munroe we have uncovered new evidence and it does pertain to the claim.” Mortimer Toynbee explained “however it isn’t about negligence.”
Logan, who had come to stand behind Ro, speared Bishop with a sharp look.
“Detective Bishop, exactly which department are you with? I can’t imagine a simple traffic accident would require the attention of a detective first grade such as yourself.”
Bishop studied Logan intently. Because he was one himself, he instantly recognized a dangerous man when he saw one. Now how did Xavier manage to sneak a wolf in amongst his sheep here? Bishop wondered to himself.
“We’re with Homicide.”
For a moment all the air seemed to suck out of the room as the Xavier occupants digested that bit of information. Behind the desk, three pairs of eyes widened with uncertainty.
“Homicide?” Scott, having unconsciously taken up a stance similar to Logan’s behind his wife, stared incredulously at the police. “B-But…they were in a car accident.”
“Miss Munroe,” Detective Fixx addressed Ororo but allowed her eyes to touch the other three Xavier occupants “The fact of the matter is, as far as the police were concerned it was an accident. There was no evidence of any other vehicle, there was an eye-witness statement that clearly matched what the officers on the scene had observed and what we were able to ascertain in our subsequent investigation. But Mr. Toynbee here discovered something rather disturbing. Mr. Toynbee.”
He turned toward Ororo, his attention planted firmly on her. For such an unprepossessing little man, he somehow managed to command everyone’s attention effortlessly.
“I was prepared to give the final approval of the total loss claim on your father’s vehicle when something caught my eye on the report. It was the witness statement whereupon he indicated that the driver lost control on a patch of black ice. Well, as I am sure that you know, black ice is not at all black. In fact it is invisible to the naked eye. By his own account, Mr. Covert was well over four meters away from the car when it skidded and had insisted that he hadn’t approached the car until the police had arrived. I was interested to know how he was so certain that black ice was the cause.”
The room was quiet as death as the occupants listened mesmerized to Mr. Toynbee’s clean tones. Behind the desk, Jubilee had clamped her fist in her mouth while Marie had forgotten how to breathe. But Kitty was sitting at the very edge of their hiding space, trying to hear every word.
“At first, I was simply curious. So I checked with the National weather service and your own local newspaper to see the weather reports for that day and up to three days preceding the accident.” Mr. Toynbee continued his narrative explaining his thought processes. Ororo felt a chill dance over her skin as she listened to his precise little narrative.
“And then, that is when I found it.”
“Found what?” Jean’s voice was almost a whisper, like that of a child listening to an adult telling an enthralling fairytale.
“The bullet lodged deep in the tire.”
Ororo’s breath hissed in as she looked at Detective Bishop for confirmation.
“Miss Monroe, what I am about to tell you does not leave this room. It is privileged information but I believe you need to hear this because I believe you can help us. The bullet Mr. Toynbee found in your parent’s car has been identified by our ballistics experts as coming from the same gun that killed two people in the Mall shooting that happened almost four months ago. One of those people was your coworker.”
“What about Mr. Covert? The eyewitness? He didn’t say anything about a shooter?” Ororo could barely recognize her own voice. The thin spiral of panic did not sound like her.
“Miss Munroe,” this time it was Officer Ortiz of the compassionate eyes “Mr. Covert has effectively disappeared. His last known address has been empty since early January. We can’t find any information on him going farther back than three years. We think he caused the accident.”
“But ---But why would he call the police and save their lives if he was involved?”
“I am not sure what his motives are Miss Munroe,” Detective Bishop’s face was hewn from stone “but I am sure of three things. First, this Mr. Covert is our sniper. Second, the name --- Mr. Covert , Eric D. -- is most assuredly as alias. And Third, he has targeted your school or individuals in your school.”
The mischief and dangerous pleasure that Kitty, Jubilee and Marie had felt as they hid and listened had completely dissipated as they stared at each other now in naked fear.
“Oh, I should add a fourth thing.” Det. Bishop’s voice mercilessly broke the silence one last time “I am pretty sure he has not finished.”
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