Swan Dive

chartreuse-on-black lettering like the dying of a soul.
    ”Sorry for the clutter.”
    ”Secretary on vacation?”
    ”No, actually I initiate most of the paperwork, and, uh, the absence of staff substantially improves the confidentiality of our work.”
    I shoveled my way past that and said, ”I’d like to know if Marsh had any enemies you’re aware of?”
    ”Enemies?”
    ”Yes.”
    He rubbed his chin with a bony index finger and thumb. ”Well, no. No enemies.”
    ”I’m told he made a lot of money through the agency here. That can sometimes lead to bad feelings.”
    ” Roy ’s family situation had, uh, deteriorated rather badly recently. But he was an excellent insurance salesman. I don’t believe I, uh, ever had a complaint about him.”
    ”What about the other salesmen in the agency?”
    ”Others? There aren’t any others.”
    ”Just you and Marsh?”
    ”Yes. Well, uh, actually just Roy . He was sort of the outside, customer relations man. He was marvelous at that sort of thing. A lot like my, uh, uncle.” Stansfield swung the chair and plucked an old photo in a stand-up frame from a table behind the desk. It showed a man in his fifties, with Stansfield’s features but somehow stauncher, sharper. ”My uncle Mark, Dad’s oldest brother. Dad, uh, died in Korea , and Uncle Mark took me in. Raised me, especially after Mother passed on.” The frame wavered in Stansfield’s hand. ”Uncle Mark, uh, built this agency from nothing in the forties. Of course”—Stansfield waved his free hand around as he replaced the frame on the table—”the family already had this, uh, house. The Stansfields were an old whaling family, and this was the mansion of Captain Josiah Stansfield who—”
    ”I wonder if we could get back to Roy Marsh?”
    ”Uh, yes. Sorry. When my uncle died, I... well, I was going through a, uh, divorce, and the agency was in need of a good outside chap, to meet the customers, renew old contacts, that sort of thing. Roy came along, and I was quite, uh, impressed with his enthusiasm.”
    ”He got along well with your customers?”
    ”Yes. Well, uh, not all of them, of course. But that was hardly Roy ’s fault. Many of our customers had come to rely heavily on Uncle Mark and just couldn’t, uh, imagine dealing with a newcomer. But Roy quickly made up for that, and more.”
    ”How?”
    ”By establishing new business. You could hardly, uh, believe how successful he was in attracting clients. I could hardly believe it, and I’d already been in the business for umpty-ump years. And once he’d brought new clients into the fold, they were always, uh, increasing their coverage and adding riders.” He moved his hand over the muddle on his desk. ”Trust me, this is just the tip of the, uh, iceberg.”
    ”So Marsh would beat the bushes and bring in the business, and then you’d execute the paperwork?”
    ”Well, uh, basically, yes. Our relationship is, uh, sorry, was amazingly symbiotic. You see, Roy didn’t care that much for the technical side of the insurance game. Matching the right, uh, rider for the right peril and so on. That’s my forte.”
    Most of which is done by the insuring company, anyway.
    ”I understand that Marsh maintained a pretty substantial life policy on himself.”
    ”Uh, you do?”
    I felt a little muscle in my stomach go ”ping.”
    ”He represented during the divorce negotiations that he had a two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar face-amount policy in favor of his wife and daughter.”
    Stansfield looked uncomfortable. ”Is the wife a, uh, suspect in his... death?”
    ”Mr. Stansfield, is there a policy or not?”
    ”Well, yes. And no.”
    ”Maybe you’d better explain.”
    He looked around his desk for help, but didn’t act as if he saw any. ” Roy did have a policy on his life. Uh, in fact, two policies. One was what we call ‘key man’ insurance. Are you familiar with it?”
    ”Where a partnership or corporation takes out a policy on an important employee?”
    ”Correct.”
    ”And there was such a policy on Marsh here?”
    ”Right. For, uh, two hundred fifty thousand.”
    ”Payable...”
    ”Oh, to me. I mean, uh, the agency, technically, but Roy and I were so, uh, indispensable to each other, it’s practically the same thing.”
    ”And the other policy?”
    ”That’s the problem, I’m afraid. You see, Roy is, uh, was such an impulsive fellow.”
    ”Impulsive how?”
    ”Well, it was some months ago, I assume when things, uh,