Dying at a Premium

By Don Bissett

After being unemployed for nearly two years, Nathan Parker is finally hired as an insurance fraud investigator in Montana. While in New York, he is called back to Montana to investigate the death of a client, an eminent scientist. The police consider the death a hit-and-run accident. But there are too many coincidences for Nathan to feel comfortable with the ruling of accidental death.

His findings are dismissed by the police. And because of his checkered past, they chose to ignore him. Undaunted, Nathan presses the investigation forward alone. Witnesses start dying. Suicide. Drug overdose. A trail of bodies across Montana. The trail has gone cold.

But Nathan finds a clue, a thin thread of evidence that leads him to the West Coast. He teams up with an unlikely partner, who helps unravel the mystery as they dig deep into the tangled web of the people they are following. They discover an improbable biotechnology conspiracy that affects the health of the entire nation.

He and his new partner are drawn into the tangled web and are trapped. They are left with no choice but to fight to survive in the streets of San Francisco.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Don Bissett
• Release date: Apr 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476225487

Don Bissett

About the author: Don Bissett is originally from New England, growing up in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He attended the University of Connecticut and Michigan State University, obtaining degrees in chemistry. During his career as a scientist in industry, he published extensively in technical journals and textbooks. That experience nurtured a passion for writing. In addition to writing novels, he uses his science experience in consulting with industry. His hobbies include travel, hiking, and fossil collecting. The author currently resides in Michigan.Death Comes in the Morning is the author’s first novel. His second and third novels in the Nathan Hale Parker series (Dying at a Premium; Scheduled to Die) have since been published. And now his fourth, fifth, and sixth books (which form a trilogy with the same main character) are completed and available: Running Nameless, Running with Intent, and Running to Cover. Each of the three books in the Running trilogy has its own independent plot, along with a compelling story line that progresses across the entire trilogy.Contact the author: [e-mail]

Book preview

Prologue

In the final moments before he died, his thoughts focused on a better future. He had no way to know that his remaining time was so short, no way to know that there was no future for him. He simply looked forward to what he thought would be a long, productive career and a fulfilling life.

For months, his existence at work had been chaotic, because something had gone terribly wrong. It had tormented him to the point that he’d channeled all his energy on solving the problem. In doing so, he had completely neglected his personal life, his home, even his wife.

But all that would soon be in the past. He had found the source of the problem. And now he had all the materials needed for his critically important meeting tonight. They were safely stashed on a memory stick in his pocket. The meeting would bring an end to the nightmare that had plagued his life for nearly half a year.

Just minutes earlier, he had been in his office, looking out the window into the night. Bright lights flooded the parking area below. It was nearly ten PM. This late in the day, he had seen through the window that his car was the only one left in this half of the parking lot. That was usually the case. On nearly every day of every week, he was the last to leave the building. Such a rigid routine had become his life’s rhythm.

He locked the door to his office and checked his watch as he walked. He was running a bit late. If he hurried, he could still be on time. He pushed the down elevator button. The door didn’t open immediately, so he turned to his right and rushed through the door into the stairwell.

He looked over the railing and down the flights of steps. No one was there, and he couldn’t hear any sound. Quickly, he proceeded downward. His footfalls echoed loudly off the cinder-block walls of the stairwell. He increased his pace, moving rapidly from one step to the next.

Approaching the landing for the next floor, he took the last two steps in one long stride. He landed awkwardly. His right foot slipped out from under him, causing him to fall backward. Grossly off balance, he reached out with his left hand and gripped the railing to keep from falling completely to the floor. He pulled upward with all his strength. But he pulled too hard. The sudden change in direction thrust him toward the railing. His gut hit that metal barrier hard, knocking the wind out of him. And his momentum carried him over the handrail, his feet lifting off the floor and his upper body dangling in mid-air. He instinctively reached backward and grabbed the railing with his right hand to stop the fall.

He hung there precariously for several seconds, trying to suck in air and trying to tip himself backwards. Finally, he gulped in a breath and regained his balance. Then he rocked backward and planted his feet squarely on the floor. After several seconds, he regained his composure and took a deep breath of relief.

He looked down at his feet and saw that the landing floor was wet. It had just been washed. The custodian failed to put out a sign warning about the slipping hazard. Even this late at night, a warning sign should have been posted. He would send a note about that to the building manager tomorrow. For now, though, he continued his climb downward at a more measured pace, with a hand firmly on the rail.

When he got to the ground floor, he scanned the lobby area. Empty. He used his key card to exit the building. He took long strides toward his car. In the glare of the parking lot lights, he immediately noticed that the right rear tire of the sedan was flat.

Damn, he blurted. Now, for sure, he would be late to his meeting. But he wasn’t going to let that annoy him. It was just a minor inconvenience. Being a few minutes late to a meeting that would start to fix a months-long problem wasn’t really such a big deal. He would call ahead as he drove to let the other party know.

He opened the trunk and leaned over, pulling out the tire-changing tools. The tools hit the ground with a metallic clatter. Then he lifted out the spare tire and turned to his task.

He never heard the vehicle approach from behind. It hit him with its left-front bumper, knocking him face-first to the ground. The left side tires rolled over him, crushing tissues and bones. The final moments of his life had already passed.

The vehicle braked to a stop. The driver jumped out and leaned over the man on the ground. Finding him dead, the driver rushed back behind the wheel of the vehicle and sped away silently into the night.

Chapter 1

The call from my boss came at nine o’clock in the morning. It could not have come at a better time for me. His call was urgent. Somebody dying usually is urgent.

I had been sitting through a long training session in New York City, in a darkened, windowless, stifling conference room. Structured training was a bureaucratic expectation of working for a big company. This was Wednesday, the start of yet another long day. The instructor had managed to stretch a one-day training into nearly an entire week of mind-numbing drivel. The reason for this drawn-out event was, of course, simple. A longer training justified a higher consulting fee. Since Sunday evening, I’d watched his chest puffed out in a show of importance, his overweight frame strutting back and forth across the stage, an endless stream of words spilling from his round goatee-framed face. I silently pleaded, Please, someone shoot him. Or shoot me.

But once this required training was completed, I would officially be fully on-boarded into Nation’s Best Insurance Company. What had the guy been talking about? Actuarial tables, the impact of life-style choices on life expectancy, risk profiles? What did any of this have to do with my job of investigating insurance fraud? This training was sucking the lifeblood out of me.

I had been peering at my cell phone repeatedly, checking the time as it crept onward so slowly. I willed my phone to ring. It didn’t. Instead, the speaker’s assistant tapped me hard on the shoulder. Ms. Abigail Whittle. Tall, slender, attractive, bright, efficient. But with her hair in a tight bun, oversized black thick-rimmed glasses, ultra-conservative outfit, nylon stockings, prissy manner, and icy temperament, she brought no joy to the world. The Ice Queen.

When she tapped my shoulder, I thought she was about to remind me to pay attention or that cell phones should be turned off. I had already been tapped several times when she found me texting on my phone. Only this time there was no reprimand. She simply handed me a folded piece of pink paper, one of those WHILE YOU WERE OUT message pads. Then she turned sharply on her spiked high heals and strode purposefully back to her duties in the audiovisual booth in the back of the lecture room.

I opened the note. All the appropriate spaces had been completed in the neat handwriting of Ms. Whittle. The note summarized a call from my boss back in our home office in Helena, Montana. He had a case for me to work on. The death of a client. It was urgent. I was to call him immediately. The note meant that freedom from this training was just a return phone call away.

I leapt from my chair and bolted for the door. The speaker, Professor Richmond Stuck, stopped in mid-sentence at my abrupt departure. But he quickly fell back into stride in his monotonous monologue.

I stepped out of the room and closed the door. I dialed my boss. He answered on the first ring. Is that you, Nathan?

Yeah. What’s up, boss? I asked. In my mind, I pictured him. Mid-forties, clean-shaven, tall, slim, energetic. He combed his slicked brown hair straight back from his forehead, giving the top of his head the appearance of a freshly plowed field. That style seemed to suit him.

Since landing a job, I had taken a liking to having a boss. It meant I belonged somewhere, that I had value. While others complained about having to report to someone, I found it comforting after being unemployed for so long, a desperate victim of the Great Recession. It helped that my boss, Steven Donner, was for the most part a practical guy to work with. Perhaps if he were an ass 24/7 like so many other bosses I had encountered in the past while a cop in Cincinnati, I might have a different take on the word boss. But in my current situation, it suited me just fine.

Nathan, we just learned that one of our clients has died. The death benefit is large on two policies, and both of those policies were taken out just last year. So I need you to investigate this one to determine if we should be paying up.

But I’m in this required training, I protested meekly.

Yeah, like you give a shit about that, he chuckled. He didn’t wait for any more mock protest from me. I’ve already sent the details to your email. Get on a plane to Missoula ASAP.

You got it. I closed my phone. Yes! I shouted, pumping both fists high over my head as if celebrating a touchdown. It came out louder than I intended and was probably heard inside the lecture hall. On thinking about it, my response was inappropriate considering I just learned that someone had died. Yet, while my reaction might be unsuitable for the circumstances, this was an opportunity to escape from this training torture.

Behind me was the abrupt sound of someone’s throat being cleared. It was certainly meant to get my attention. The sound was not loud. It was just to let me know that someone was there and that my outburst was heard and inappropriate. I turned quickly to find the Ice Queen, Abigail Whittle, standing there, hands on hips, fixing a deadly glare directly at me.

Mr. Parker! she began sternly, scrunching her face so that deep vertical furrows appeared between her eyebrows. It was an intimidating sight. You may think you’re a hot shot investigator, facing danger every day. Maybe this class doesn’t give you that kind of thrill. But this is important work we do here. You have been the most disruptive and non-participative student in this class all week. I will be reporting this behavior to your superiors at your headquarters in Montana.

I grinned widely and strode right up to her, stopping less than a foot away. She didn’t back off. She fiercely returned my gaze. Duty calls, Abigail. I regret to say that I must be off. I leaned over, clasped her upper arms firmly with my hands, and planted a long wet kiss on her forehead. Thanks for everything.

It was an impulsive move. If I had thought about it, it wouldn’t have happened that way. But now it seemed perfectly fitting. She glared at me, and her eyes showed a flash of dark anger. I expected her to plant her knee in my crotch or, at the least, say something in protest. But she didn’t react at all. She stood there unmoving, her lips partly opened, apparently frozen in uncertainly of quite how to respond. Maybe it was the first time she had ever been kissed. Probably I just needed to leave. Immediately.

I let go of her arms, wished her a good day, turned, and walked off down the corridor, heading for my room to pack and get out of this place. Halfway down the hall, I raised my right arm and waved briefly. She still stood there unmoving, watching me depart. If she said or did anything in response, I didn’t hear it since now I’d already turned a corner and was out of earshot.

Chapter 2

At the airport, I exchanged my ticket out of New York to an earlier departure and to a different destination, though it cost a small fortune for that late change. I was just glad that it was my boss’ expense money, not my personal funds.

On my way to the gate, I thought about how much I dislike flying. The speed of transport over very long distances was the only positive aspect. Other than that, I was too tall for the design of plane seats. At six foot two inches, I was not a giant. And I wasn’t even 200 pounds. Yet the seating space was far too cramped. My knees were crunched by the seat in front of me. The headrests weren’t high enough for my head to actually rest on them. At best, the base of my skull brushed the top of it. I always tried for a window seat because I could angle my legs inward to steal a couple extra inches of knee space. And I could at least rest my head against the side of the plane. Regardless, my favorite sound was the ding when the plane parked at the gate, and I could unbuckle and escape the cramped quarters.

The flights from LaGuardia to Chicago and then from Chicago westward were uneventful. Cramped and uncomfortable, but uneventful. I was distracted, though, by the reading material I’d brought along. My boss had sent me an email with background information on the death case I would be working. He had not revealed how he acquired so much information, but I suspected he had contacts throughout Montana that had not yet been revealed to me. Regardless, I gladly downloaded all of it at the airport to read during the flight west.

Dr. Conrad Fisher, a middle-aged scientist in the biomedical field, had died in what was preliminarily ruled by the local police as an accidental hit-and-run incident. Dr. Fisher had left his office at Vector Biopharma. He and his partner had founded Vector Biopharma a few years ago to develop new treatments for diseases. According to the police report, he left his office late on Monday night and died just minutes later.

His car, which was parked facing east just outside the building, had a flat right rear tire. The rear of the car was facing toward the right-of-way through the parking lot. Since the tire-changing tools were on the ground nearby, it was presumed that he had been in the process of replacing the flat when a car, traveling on the right-of-way, struck him from behind. He was apparently hoisting the spare tire out of the trunk when struck by the vehicle, which was traveling south through the parking lot. Dr. Fisher’s face landed on the spare tire, which was still clutched in his hands. His right cheekbone was broken, probably from striking the tire’s metal rim when he landed.

The vehicle rolled over him, crushing the left leg, the pelvis, the chest, and the right shoulder. His neck was also broken. Since his head was elevated off the ground by the spare tire when the vehicle rolled over his upper body, the weight of that vehicle could have put sufficient pressure on the body to cause the neck to break.

It all sounded like a horrible way to go. Mercifully for Dr. Fisher, it would have been a very quick ending.

There were skid marks on the pavement just past the spot of the accident. This suggested the vehicle had stopped abruptly immediately after striking Dr. Fisher. Based on video surveillance camera footage at the building, the driver stopped only for about a minute. The report did not indicate if the driver was male or female and did not indicate if the driver exited the vehicle to attend to Dr. Fisher. Then the driver fled the scene in his or her vehicle without reporting the incident. Neither the vehicle nor driver had been identified or found yet.

The accident was reported to police by a security guard at Vector Biopharma. He had not witnessed the collision. He found the body after an attorney called asking about the whereabouts of Dr. Fisher. Fisher and the attorney were to meet late Monday night. When Fisher did not show, the attorney called Vector Biopharma inquiring about him. The guard indicated that Dr. Fisher had already left the building. Then, when he looked through the window to check the parking lot, he saw Dr. Fisher’s car was still there. When the guard exited the building to investigate, he found the body and called 9-1-1.

There was other evidence being processed. Based on the tire tread marks, the preliminary conclusion was that the hit-and-run vehicle was probably an SUV. The tire marks on the pavement were being analyzed further to determine, if possible, the specific type of vehicle. Broken plastic and glass from the headlamp of a vehicle were found. Some pieces were collected from the ground. Other pieces were embedded in Dr. Fisher’s clothing and body. These could also be useful in determining the specific type of vehicle.

There were recordings from security cameras on the building. One of them revealed a brief glimpse of an SUV passing the front of the building at the approximate time of the accident, thus supporting the preliminary conclusion. The recordings were being examined in detail by the police to determine what other information might be obtained from them.

Local repair shops were notified and asked to report anyone bringing in a vehicle, in particular an SUV, for repair of front-end damage. No witnesses to the accident had yet come forward. Since it had been over twenty-four hours since the accident and the hit-and-run driver had not reported it yet, the incident was being investigated as a crime. It was widely reported through Missoula TV broadcasts, radio stations, and newspapers. A reward was offered by the Missoula police for any information leading to the identification and arrest of the driver.

There were two Nation’s Best life insurance polices on Dr. Fisher, each one of them being for two million dollars. The beneficiaries were his wife Jessica Fisher on one policy and his business partner Anthony Barcus on the other. The policies had been taken out less than a month apart. My task was to determine if any evidence existed to believe the death was intentional, thus suggesting insurance fraud. It happens a lot: take out a policy on someone, kill the insured person, and claim the money.

People who commit this type of insurance fraud are generally easy to detect. It’s easy because these people have no experience in killing. They are amateurs. They leave behind clues, concoct weak alibis, are caught on video surveillance, and fail to notice witnesses. And then most of them can’t lie convincingly when questioned, or their story changes with each telling. So I learned to read people and probe them for the weaknesses in their stories. Reading them is the real challenge since these are people I’ve never met before, and I’ll only have a short time to interview them. I have to quickly get close enough to dig out the facts.

Some people are better at this fraud game than others. That just requires me to dig deeper to ensure I have all the real facts. And I have to be persistent. It’s hard to commit the perfect murder. So I would dig until convinced that the death was murder or was simply an accident.

It was often difficult for me to dig out the real facts. It was difficult because I did not have any real authority. I had no badge. I did not carry a weapon. I didn’t have a crime lab. People could lie to me without any real legal consequence.

Yet I still had power. My recommendation back to my company, Nation’s Best Insurance, would determine if any money was paid out. If I had suspicions of fraud, my recommendation would be to not pay. That is power. And the implied threat of using that power did give me leverage to push my investigations forward with the beneficiaries, because I am the obstacle that stands between them and their money.

But those who are not beneficiaries are a different matter. They have nothing at stake. So they can easily ignore me. Yet people, at least most people, tend to be cooperative. I depend on that to dig out the truth.

Since Dr. Fisher’s wife and business partner were beneficiaries, surely the police had their eyes focused on them. They both had a lot to gain financially from the death of Conrad Fisher. It was the job of the police to sort out guilt or innocence.

For my part, I didn’t need to prove anything. Just report my findings and make a recommendation to my company. The company would then decide if paying the death benefit was warranted. If there were any suspicions of fraud from my investigation, then we would report our findings to the police. And any benefit payment would not happen, or at least would be delayed a long time until the police finished their work. While not paying at all was the desired business outcome, delaying payment was also considered a win. The longer the company could hold the money, the longer they could derive investment income from that money.

My role in all this might be considered by some to be a dirty job. But it was a job, something that was hard to come by in this economy. It also gave me the opportunity to learn to be an investigator, something I’d always wanted to graduate to when I was a cop in Cincinnati. I had training as a detective, but was never promoted to that position on the police force. So I had little actual field experience. Then the downsizing came in Cincinnati, and I was out. After being unemployed for over a year, now I was finally back in the game, doing investigations.

I was still new to this job. So I suppose that meant my investigative style had not yet been forged completely. But doing these kinds of investigations already felt comfortable to me, as I learned to be adaptable, applying different strategies and styles to each situation.

Many insurance companies hire private investigators for such work. Nation’s Best often did that, especially for investigations outside of Montana. But they also had a small in-house staff to handle many cases, particularly those where the payout was very large. I was on that in-house staff and was now assigned to handle this large payout case in Missoula, Montana.

Investigation of the death of an insured person is routine practice before paying benefits. If the insured was murdered, the beneficiary has to be formally cleared of any involvement, or even suspected involvement, before payment will occur. The situation with Dr. Fisher was not obviously a murder, so it fell into what is called a contestable death investigation. While it was unclear if there was foul play involved, his death occurred less than two years from the time that the life insurance policies were issued. When a healthy middle-aged man like Dr. Fisher dies so soon after two large-benefit policies are put into effect, there is automatic suspicion of foul play.

This particular case also seemed unusual, at least to me, in that the claims for benefits were filed so quickly after Dr. Fisher’s death. He had only been dead two days, and the beneficiaries were already asking for their money. Especially for the doctor’s wife, Jessica Fisher, I would expect that grieving and making funeral arrangements would consume her attention. But people are all different. They do what they do to the beat of their own drums.

Yet the early filing for claims was also quite helpful because the trail, if there was one to follow, would still be fresh. If there had been a very long wait before filing the claims, then any trail might have gone cold and perhaps impossible to follow. Or impossible to even find. So I was on my way to Missoula, Montana to investigate, to follow the trail.

Chapter 3

With the time change going west, I landed at the airport in Missoula in the middle of the afternoon. There was still time to start this investigation today. I had made a rental car reservation before leaving New York, and the vehicle was ready when I arrived. So I loaded my bag into the trunk of the rental car and was on the road inside half an hour.

The sky was clear and deep blue, a perfect backdrop for the forested hills and mountains on the distant horizon. I felt a great sense of release after the confines of New York. That city was certainly a vibrant and energized place, and I enjoyed visiting there. But I much preferred the wide-open spaces out here. That is what had drawn me west a year ago. I lost my job as a cop in Cincinnati, looked everywhere for employment, and then drifted to Montana. Once I got here, I stayed. Seeing the mountains, I longed to go out into them, hike through them, touch them, and breathe in the air. But that would have to wait. I had work to do.

My destination was Vector Biopharma, which occupied part of the fourth floor of a building near the University of Montana campus. Along with the background information, my boss also sent directions to the building that he pulled off an Internet site. I didn’t know how much of a rush hour there was in Missoula, Montana, but it was fortunate I arrived early enough in the afternoon to avoid having to find out.

I soon pulled into a parking lot in front of a five-story glass and brick building. The sun reflected off the windows, creating a blinding glare that forced me, even though I wore sunglasses, to bring my hand up over my eyes to shield them. I pulled into a parking space near the front of the building, next to some orange traffic cones. Around the cones were wrapped strips of plastic yellow ribbon that had the repeated message POLICE LINE: DO NOT CROSS. Nearby, I saw dark skid marks on the pavement. This must be the spot where Dr. Fisher died.

Between this area and the front of the building lay a paved surface, the right-of-way, which was plenty wide enough for two cars to pass. The report indicated that the hit-and-run vehicle had been moving south, which meant the building would have been on the driver’s right. There was no centerline marking on the pavement. Yet for the hit-and-run vehicle to strike Dr. Fisher near the rear of his parked vehicle, it would have been well away from the right-hand curb. It basically would have been going south in the northbound lane.

It could be a case of very bad driving. Or perhaps a distracted driver who was on a cell phone or texting while driving. But to me, it felt like more than that. Yes, there are a lot of bad drivers in the world, and certainly there are a lot of distracted drivers. Still, this seemed unusually bad to so quickly write off as an accidental hit-and-run. That was the preliminary conclusion the local police had made. I needed to be convinced.

Nearby stood a small cluster of demonstrators slowly marching in a circle, carrying signs, each with the word FREE printed near the top and the image of a guinea pig along the border. The signs also held specific messages in bold capital letters underneath. One read, RELEASE THEM NOW. Another, PUT SCIENTISTS IN CAGES. And a third, KILL THE SCIENTISTS.

I didn’t recall if the letters F R E E were an acronym or simply their message. FREE was an animal rights group that wanted to release all animals, from research labs, zoos, farms, ranches, and even the homes of pet owners. That first one, research labs, was the category into which Vector Biopharma certainly fell since the pre-reading material indicated mice were used in their research.

From their founding, FREE advocated radical methods to achieve their goal, from breaking into facilities to release animals, to burning buildings, and to hinting at violence against individuals, even those who simply opposed their views. I noted that one of the signs being carried in this demonstration cheered an extreme stance: ONE ANIMAL ABUSER DEAD. NEXT? So this group of demonstrators was clearly taking a daring position, celebrating the death of Dr. Fisher.

While FREE had hinted at violence against individuals to achieve their goal of releasing animals, as far as I knew, that stance had not actually led to any violence against an individual. I had to consider the possibility that the death of Dr. Fisher might be FREE’s first use of the tactic. If they were involved, their picket was a very bold statement, considering the close scrutiny that might follow the death of a prominent scientist so nearby. Yet if they were involved in his demise, they seemed unconcerned about the possible consequences. It was not deterring them from delivering their message of freeing animals. I guess the old statement that any publicity is good publicity holds for anyone wanting attention.

From the news articles I had read off the Internet while waiting for my flight in New York, this place was a media circus on the day after Dr. Fisher’s death. There were police, reporters, cameras, and FREE demonstrators in abundance. FREE would have been getting loads of free publicity, in newspapers, on radio, and most importantly on TV. I could see now that they had even