Page 5 of The List
In pleadings filed with the State Board of Workers’ Compensation, excerpts of which he’d read in the file, Pabon’s lawyer had passionately argued that the depression proximately resulted from his client’s “forced unemployment.” Psychiatrists and psychologists supported that assertion, their prognosis calling for prolonged hospitalization—which meant more skyrocketing of the already astronomical medical expenditures.
All total bullshit, for sure, designed by a clever workers’ comp lawyer to milk the company for a massive settlement.
Thankfully, the file also reported reality.
Surveillance reports documented Pabon’s regular barroom dancing.
The manual labor he performed every weekend lifting things far heavier than a bag of cement.
And the fistfights he seemed to love, mostly over women.
The reports also described Pabon’s hopeless addiction to heroin.
Not so amazingly, none of his doctors had made any mention of the dependency.
Certainly Pabon, an experienced injured worker who’d filed workers’ compensation claims before, knew enough not to volunteer it.
And since the doctors he’d been sent to apparently knew drug abuse was not a “compensable injury” under Georgia’s workers’ compensation law—which meant no insurance company would automatically pay their bill for services—no danger existed of them ever asking.
As far as the doctors were concerned Pabon had a back problem, caused by a “compensable on-the-job injury,” one fully covered by the employer’s workers’ compensation insurance.
Unfortunately for Brandon Pabon, he was another creature of habit. By nine o’clock nearly every night, especially on days after receiving a benefit check, he would be totally high.
Like tonight.
The Associate marched into the trailer park, turned left, and headed toward the rear of the wooded lots.
Pabon’s single-wide waited dark and quiet.
Never losing a step in his determined stride, he found the gloves in a vest pocket.
Not the same pair used earlier at the hospital—those were in the car along with the suit he’d worn, ready for incineration when he returned to Atlanta—these were new.
He stretched the squeaky latex tight, then slipped a lock pick from another pocket.
The file noted that Pabon’s trailer door came equipped with only a flimsy cylinder lock and no dead bolt.
He stepped up three concrete blocks doubling as stairs.
He liked to time himself on how long it took to trip a lock. His personal best? Twelve seconds. Twenty-one were needed to open Pabon’s front door.
A little slow tonight.
He slipped inside.
A miasma of coffee, alcohol, nicotine, urine, and sour clothes greeted him.
Stuff lay scattered including opened cans of pears, chili, and soup.
Lots of fast-food containers. Trash. Newspapers.
Even greasy auto parts. So much that he found his penlight and used the beam to thread a path back toward the bedroom.
Pabon lay sprawled on the bed, mouth open, breathing heavy.
No shirt, socks, or shoes, only a ragged pair of blue jeans, unbuttoned and unzipped, crotch soaked.
He surveyed the cramped cubicle. On the Formica table beside the bed lay the remnants of the night’s drug trip.
None of the heroin remained, only an empty syringe.
Where were the medicine bottles?
He slid open the pocket door to the bathroom.
The tiny sink was a collage of grease, hair, dried toothpaste, and caked soap.
The toilet lid stood up, its bowl muddy from a recent use without being flushed.
A row of prescription medicine bottles lined the porcelain tank top.
He held his breath, approached close, and studied each until finding the partially filled bottle of Valium that Pabon’s medical records said he possessed a prescription for.
It had been ordered for muscle spasms, but all it really provided was a legal supply of the barbiturates that, along with heroin, Pabon’s body desperately craved.
Plastic bottle in hand, he returned to the bedroom.
He tossed the pills on the sheets, and from another vest pocket found the hypodermic.
It had been gathered a few days ago from a trash can in Atlanta by another associate.
What it previously contained was anybody’s guess.
What it now held was enough heroin to kill.
And to ensure Pabon didn’t wake before the drugs took effect, he’d thoughtfully laced the depressant with Valium.
A couple of squirts. Air gone. Ready.
He set both the penlight and syringe aside, then gently grasped Pabon’s arm, prepared to react if the young man suddenly woke.
He didn’t want to snap the neck—the processing criterion called for a nonviolent death—but if necessary he would.
Luckily, Pabon stayed deep into his heroin-induced sleep, apparently enjoying the ride.
He clamped the penlight between his teeth, found a vein, then inserted the needle.
Pabon flinched, but the heroin already streaming through him kept his brain subdued.
He emptied the barrel then stuffed the spent syringe into the hand, pressing the appropriate fingers hard to leave sufficient residual fingerprints where they would be expected.
Next, he laid the syringe on the night table, dropping the one already there into a plastic bag for later disposal.
Even with all the talk about the dangers from needle sharing, junkies routinely used one another’s syringes.
Any subsequent autopsy would find Pabon’s blood full of heroin.
The addition of the Valium would be chalked up to pure stupidity.
No one would think twice about the overdose.
Nothing to pique any investigator’s curiosity.
He stood at the foot of the bed and surveyed Brandon Pabon.
Long-haired. Scruffy beard. Acne-worn face.
A residual scar, most likely from a knife wound, decorated a scrawny chest. His initial estimate hadn’t changed.
A worthless piece of crap good for only one thing—playing along with some clever workers’ compensation lawyer who knew exactly how to manipulate the system.
But others understood the system too and knew exactly what needed to be done to eliminate a claim.
Pabon’s demise would come from a totally non-compensable, non-work-related injury.
At death the disability checks would stop, including every fourth that, by law, went to his lawyer.
Pabon’s breathing became sporadic.
The chest heaved.
He checked for a pulse.
Faint and waning.
Just a few more minutes and one less claimant would be around to milk the system.
9:30 P.M.
B RENT PARKED AT THE CEMETERY.
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church loomed dark beyond a curtain of oaks, the swan atop the whitewashed wood building barely visible in the glint from a half-sickle moon.
After the union meeting he’d taken Hank back to the restaurant to get his truck, and they’d said their goodbyes.
It had been years since he’d last attended one of Hank’s monthly union revivals, and it had been nice to see things hadn’t changed.
He climbed out of the Jeep and noticed the sky, flashing with distant lightning, rumbles of thunder in the distance.
A storm was coming. Fitting.
He wandered through the graves, the tombstones providing a vivid testimony to the area’s rich history, markers dating back to colonial times. Hard to believe it had been eleven years since Paula drove away.
An hour later his wife was dead.
A one-car accident on the Augusta highway.
Her vehicle had slammed into a steel electrical pole, ramming the engine through the passenger compartment, killing her instantly.
He’d known the sheriff’s deputies and the highway patrolmen who’d worked the scene, and appreciated what they did afterward.
In the box marked CAUSE they checked ACCIDENT .
But nothing was further from the truth.
That highway was lined for miles with towering steel, electrical poles, spaced 150 feet apart, twenty yards off the shoulder.
The tire tracks from Paula’s car bore into the turf in a straight line from the pavement to one of the poles.
If she’d fallen asleep, or become distracted, or passed out, the tracks would have been erratic.
Instead, their intent was not in doubt. She killed herself.
In a horrible, violent way. No note, no warning, no explanation.
Just dead.
If he could relive that last day with her, would he have done anything different?
That question had tormented him for a decade.
They’d been married for two years and thought they were in love.
But he’d been wrong. He’d tried to make things work and had remained faithful.
Finally, he decided to take the advice of every relationship counselor on the planet and be honest, telling her it was over. No more. They were through.
“ You love her ? Don’t you? ” Paula asked.
It had been the question he most dreaded, but he decided to be honest there too.
“I think I do.”
“You sorry bastard.”
Those were the last words she ever said to him.
God, how he wished he’d lied.
He found her grave. A few chickweeds had sprouted near the white granite headstone. He stared down at the darkened grass and studied the lettering that summed up her life.
DAUGHTER SISTER WIFE.
A part of him died that day too. No question.
His life changed after the funeral. He’d lingered for a while in a daze, then closed his practice in Concord and found a new job 300 miles away in Atlanta.
He went from being a small-town street lawyer to a metropolitan prosecutor.
He’d been good at his new job. Made a name for himself.
Tried to forget his mistakes and do his best.
More thunder rolled through the air.
Now he was back home.
To finally face his demons.
9:50 P.M.