The Dead Room by Robert Ellis

marked urgent.
    “Who’s Dawn Bingle?” he asked.
    Jill shrugged. “She called a few minutes ago. It sounded like she knew you.”
    “What did she want?”
    “I think it’s got something to do with that personal injury case. I asked if she’d like to speak with Brooke, but she refused. She said it was important and that she’d only talk to you.”
    “Where’s her number?”
    “She didn’t leave one. She said she’d call back later.”
    The woman’s name didn’t register. Teddy shrugged it off, pulling the murder book out of his briefcase and sitting down at his desk. There was no real need to take a second look, but he did it anyway, reading through the preliminary reports until he came to the photo of his client, Oscar Holmes. When the phone rang, he picked it up and could hear a woman’s voice mixed with digital noise from a cell phone. The woman spoke through the breaks in the signal, introducing herself as Dawn Bingle and apologizing for her phone.
    “I’m in my car,” she said. “But we need to talk.”
    “Brooke Jones is handling the case now.”
    “She’s a bitch,” the woman said. “I saw her yesterday in court.”
    Teddy didn’t recognize Bingle’s voice through the breakup, but guessed that she was in her late thirties. “What’s this about?”
    “I work for Capital Insurance Life. I’ve got evidence that proves what my company did to your client is a matter of corporate policy.”
    Teddy closed the murder book and pushed it aside. “What kind of evidence?”
    “A memo sent to every insurance rep in the company detailing how to string out claims and avoid sizable payouts. When your client was hit by that truck, they knew he was injured all along. The memo is a how-to on how not to write checks and send them out.”
    “Give me an example.”
    He heard paper rustling, then Dawn Bingle’s voice. “I’ll give you two,” she said. “Paragraph three, using distraction to push a claim beyond the statute of limitations in order to win a zero payout. Paragraph four, recommending a physician from the following list because of their strong support and special relationship with the company.”
    Teddy couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The story he’d pieced together with letters from the insurance company amounted to fraud but was still open to interpretation. It sounded like Dawn Bingle, an obvious disgruntled employee, was ready to hand him the goods in black and white. The case would mushroom beyond a single client. The firm could hunker down and go for the kill.
    “How much do you want?” he asked.
    “You mean money?”
    “That’s right. How much?”
    She paused. The question had thrown her off, and Teddy took this as a good sign.
    “I don’t want any money,” she said after a moment. “It’s my company that’s corrupt, not me.”
    “Then we need to meet,” he said.
    “I work out of our Center City office, but I can’t take the chance of being seen with you. I don’t want to lose my job.”
    “You name the place,” he said. “I’ve got all afternoon.”
    “My husband’s the treasurer at one of the boat clubs. Maybe we could meet there.”
    “Which one?”
    “The Nautilus,” she said. “See you in half an hour.”
    When he asked for her cell phone number, she gave it to him and hung up.

 
     
     
     
    TWELVE
     
     
     
    Teddy marveled at the lack of traffic as he walked down the bike path along Kelly Drive. The sounds of the road were as faint as a country lane, the din of the city, behind him. He could see the Schuylkill River through the trees to his left. Even though it looked frozen solid, he could hear water spilling over the Fairmount Dam below the hill.
    It was almost as if he’d left his worries behind and stepped into an oasis, a place where he could see his former life and the dreams he had for his future, but not touch them. After all, the insurance case was no longer his. Whatever he received from Dawn Bingle would have to be handed over