Soul Sucker

John Miller’s POV

Manhattan Life Building, New York City

Monday, August 8, 2022

I hung my suit jacket on the hook next to the entrance to my cubicle. My dad used to tell me, “Son, if you’re in your twenties and your name is on your shirt, that’s good. If your name isn’t on the door in your forties, that’s not good.” Here I was, forty-four years old, with a company badge clipped to my shirt. My nameplate was on the five-foot-tall wall enclosing my six-by-eight-foot cubicle, but at least I had a window.

Of course, my life wasn’t exactly the management path. I’d been a hockey phenom in high school, landing a hockey scholarship to Boston College. I’d been a better athlete than a student, lacking the talent in either area to go farther. I was more interested in the women and the parties, and there were plenty of both while I was there.

I joined the Boston Police Department after graduation, rising to Detective six years in. I worked in the gang unit, vice, property crimes, and organized crime before spending the last five years in Homicide. When the Floyd riots and the Defund the Police movements were in full force in the summer of 2020, things started changing for the worse and quickly. I took my retirement with many other cops who’d had enough.

I kept pictures on the wall of my cubicle to remind me of the good times. One photo was from the end of our 1999 college playoff run. Terry Callahan was sitting to my right on the bench, and we both looked crushed. I had my arm around his shoulders as we faced the end of our hockey careers. He’d gone on to law school before joining the FBI. I looked at the picture of him at his graduation ceremony with his wife Cathy on one side and I in my Boston Police dress blues on the other. Other frames were selected or cropped to remove my ex-wife from joint family vacations in happier times. The most recent photo was from my retirement party.

I didn’t blame Maggie for leaving me. Being a cop’s wife sucks, and I continually put the job before her. Add in a drinking problem and an affair, and I was lucky she stuck it out for ten years. Thank God we never had kids! Terry and Cathy helped me get my act together and got me into treatment for my depression and alcoholism.

It’s not a stretch to say the Callahans saved my life. I became a brother to them and an uncle to their six kids. With five daughters before he finally got a son, Terry needed all the male influences in his house he could get.

I fingered my eight-year sober coin in my pocket while waiting for my computer to boot up.

Terry spent fourteen years in the FBI before a drunk driver plowed into the driver’s side of his SUV while following a suspect. His left leg was crushed, and the doctors had to remove it above the knee. It took him almost a year to complete his rehabilitation, and he took medical retirement. With his investigative experience in white-collar crime, he was hired as a fraud investigator with Manhattan Life and Casualty Insurance. He’d taken over their Department of Investigations five years ago and hired me as soon as I processed out of the Boston PD.

I spent the next hour catching up on emails and updating the progress of the eighteen active cases I’m working on. Most of the office workload was around insurance fraud in our home and auto policies or suspicious death claims. In most cases, payouts get disbursed within thirty days of a claim. We only get involved If enough red flags get raised. If there is evidence of fraud or a crime, the investigation could stretch into years as the court cases work through the system.

All insurance policies have fraud and crime exclusions written in them. Our department determines if these exclusions apply and makes criminal referrals when warranted. Terry often assigns me life insurance claims, where I use my experience as a Homicide detective to look for unnatural deaths and suicides.

My computer beeps, warning me the morning staff meeting is in five minutes. I finish the email I’m working on and stand up, groaning as I do so. I played on the Boston Police Hockey Team for years until the wear and tear caught up to me. These days, I stay fit by bike riding and using a Mixed Martial Arts gym near my apartment. On Sunday, the gym held ranking fights. I was a middleweight, pushing 185 pounds on my five-foot-ten frame. I went up against a twenty-year-old kid with a strong ground game, losing on an arm-bar submission in round three. It was a good fight, but I didn’t bounce back like I used to. Aleve was the other ‘little blue pill’ I relied on these days.

I grabbed a notebook and headed down the hall to the small conference room where we held our morning staff meeting. “How was the weekend,” Bill asked as I sat down.

“Lasted three rounds and lost, but I got my shots in,” I told him.

“I’m more interested in that blonde waitress you went out with on Saturday.”

I shrugged. “Joy was fun, but we don’t connect that well outside the bedroom. She didn’t stay over.”

“Did she add you to her booty-call list?”

I chuckled. “Joy is another party girl who hits thirty, sees her window closing, and is looking for someone to marry in a rapidly shrinking market with declining asset worth. I asked Joy out because she was hot and interested in me. I’m not interested in marriage, and I made that clear on Saturday. Never again.” I checked the messages on my phone. “She did text me twice after the date, and I haven’t responded. I wouldn’t mind another hookup, but that’s all she can hope for.”

“Either you rocked her world in bed, or she doesn’t believe you,” he replied.

“She’ll figure it out. They all do, eventually.” We didn’t have time to continue the conversation as Terry walked in. He was Boston Irish through and through, with close-trimmed red hair, a fair complexion, and freckles on his rounded face. He wasn’t fat, but he’d put on weight since leaving the FBI, leaving him with a “Dad Bod.” He got around pretty well now with his artificial leg, moving to the head of the conference table and setting a stack of files down.

After the usual updates of work in progress, we got down to the new cases. Terry slid me a file. “I need a rush on this one, John. It’s a ten-million-dollar term-life policy for Michael Petersen, purchased on June 8th.” I flipped the file open as he talked. “Beneficiary was his new wife, Jordyn Carter, who he married on July ninth in Indianapolis.”

I looked at the paper. “Deceased on July thirteenth?”

Terry nodded. “On his honeymoon cruise to Alaska. His wife called the emergency number on the ship at seven-ten in the morning and said he wasn’t breathing. The crew couldn’t revive him, and his body was taken to the coroner in Anchorage later that day.”

I flipped through the file to the autopsy, skimming the summary. “Death from unknown natural causes.”

“I flagged it because of the timing and the lack of a definitive cause of death. His widow had Michael’s body cremated the day after the death certificate was issued. She's the only beneficiary and next of kin. It’s all too clean for me, so see what you can dig up before we pay off.”

“I’ll get right on it,” I replied.

I took the case file back to my desk. I read through it quickly once, then read it carefully while taking notes. Michael was 29 years old and inherited his father’s transportation company after his death five years ago. Peterson Trucking was a mid-size firm with a valuation of around twenty-five million dollars. Michael had the same life and health insurance coverage as his workers. Their $500k death benefit had paid out a week ago.

The autopsy report was interesting. In medical terminology, ‘Natural Causes’ meant the proximate cause of death was not an external event. It was a baseline determination; it took evidence of foul play or external trauma for the coroner to change the cause to ‘accidental’ or ‘homicide.’ In this case, the autopsy showed no cardiac disease, the toxicology was clean, and the only marks on his body were horizontal scratches on his lower back and buttocks. “Fucked to death on his honeymoon,” I whispered to myself. “There are worse ways to go.” The report noted evidence of recent and repeated sexual activity. He had alcohol in his system, but the level was well below the legal limit at the time of death. Michael’s blood and hair samples showed no evidence of illegal drug use. The toxicology showed no poisons or other drugs. There was no bruising or evidence of a fall or other trauma. Based on the body temperature when the coroner took custody of the body, he’d died between midnight and six AM.

He was young, healthy, and active.

And then his heart stopped beating.

I had a lot of questions, but I kept reading. At this tier of insurance coverage, the person requesting coverage needed a simple physical. I read through the report from one of our affiliated doctors, finding nothing.

The file included the reports from the cruise line. Their medics found Michael in his bed at seven-fourteen. They began CPR and used a portable defibrillator to no effect, and the ship’s doctor declared him dead at seven thirty-five. The doctor’s statement said the death was consistent with heart failure. Ship’s cameras showed Michael and Jordyn entering their suite at twelve-fourteen, and both appeared healthy and relatively sober.

I got up after ninety minutes and made copies of the autopsy report, physical, and cruise ship statements. I walked to the elevator and exited two floors down. Doctor Amanda White’s office was just around the corner. Her office door was open, so I knocked on it. “Got a minute, Doc?”

Amanda looked up from her computer, her grey eyes looking over her reading glasses. She was in her late fifties, married, and came here to escape the medical insurance nightmare of modern medical care. Most of her work revolved around reviewing physical exams for health risks. “Sure, John. What do you have?”

I handed her the papers before sitting on the other side of her desk. “I need some help on this one. The autopsy shows a natural death, but the timing and the widow’s behavior is suspect. I’ve picked up the investigation.”

She read the autopsy summary. “You think the spouse might be a Black Widow?”

That was the term for a person who mates and kills their spouse for the money, and it’s not as uncommon as you might think. The spouse is almost always a suspect, especially when big insurance payouts are involved. “Married four days, heavily insured, and he suddenly dies? It’s a possibility.”

She looked at her computer. “I can put this in my inbox and get to it in a few weeks, or?”

I rolled my eyes. “What kind of lunch can I buy you?”

She smiled. “Seafood Cobb Salad from Dock’s Oyster Bar. I should have an answer by the time you get back here.”

“Deal.” I changed into my biking clothes and headed out into midtown traffic. I picked up her order, plus a lobster roll and fries for me. I went straight up to her office, ignoring the appreciative glances from the office ladies as I walked by in the tight shorts and jersey. “Mind if I eat here?”

“Not at all,” she said as I unloaded her lunch.

When I finished my lunch, Doc was still working on the file and her salad. “Should I come back?”

“No need,” she replied. “I’m not going to find anything definitive.”

“What is your professional opinion?”

She took her glasses off. “Have you heard the stories recently about sudden cardiac arrest in young athletes?”

It was hard not to. From high school to professional sports, men with no previous history were dropping dead. “I’ve heard, but no cases like that came through me. The conspiracy theorists say it is a side effect of the Covid shots.”

“Some are, but the health authorities are trying to minimize that. The truth is that the shots increase the risk of acute myocarditis and pericarditis among young males. The autopsy showed no evidence of that, though.”

“So why did his heart stop?”

“We don’t know,” Doc replied. “The medical term is ‘sudden death.’ The WHO classifies it as occurring within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms. Others define it as death within an hour of collapse, death in the absence of a witness, or in the absence of a known or suspected condition that may predispose to fatal disease. It’s rare in young adults, only 0.8 to 6.2 per 100,000 deaths. Michael Peterson has few known risk factors like advanced age, high body mass, diabetes, smoking, cardiac disease, or a bad diet. The only risk factors he showed were being male, stress, and physical activity.”

“He died in his sleep,” I said.

“Perhaps. These deaths are commonly associated with physical exertion, and the guy WAS on his honeymoon.”

“The widow said she woke up to find him.”

“I’m just saying the risks were higher during prolonged sexual activity, and they may not have recognized the onset of symptoms. We will likely never know the true cause of death.”

Could this case be a nothing-burger? “How likely is it to have an inconclusive autopsy?”

“Among those with sudden death who are young, it’s thirty to fifty percent in the studies I reviewed. The suspicion is that there is a hereditary aspect, but I’d need access to the family’s medical histories to know more.”

“His parents are dead,” I told her. “I can look into why.”

“Don’t bother,” she replied. “The time for that was before we issued the policy.”

“Sorry to waste your time, Doc.”

“Thanks for lunch, John.” I bagged the garbage from lunch and tossed it in the can by the elevators so it wouldn’t stink up her office. Heading back to my cubicle, I was leaning towards closing the case, but something wasn’t right. It was just too convenient.

If Michael couldn’t answer my suspicions, I’d have to dig into Jordyn Carter and the millions she stood to walk away with.