Read Online Lake on the Mountain: A Dan Sharp Mystery by Jeffrey Round - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jeffrey Round
Tags: Romance MM, erotic MM
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income, got swallowed up by welfare rolls or were glad-handed from relative to relative while waiting out the endless doctor reports and psychiatric assessments — the company doctors always finding reasons why the claimant should be working and the lawyers’ doctors finding equally valid reasons why they should not. It was all a matter of perspective, unless you happened to be the sufferer.
This was where Dan came in. He was there to challenge the perspective. He became adept at disguising himself outside claimants’ homes, snooping through their garbage, and making discreet enquiries of the people next door who were sometimes only too eager to divulge their neighbours’ secrets. “He operates a business in his basement, customers come and go at all hours.” Or, “I see her working down at the pub on the corner on Sundays.” Many of those Dan caught in lies later expressed shock that the young man on their corner had been able to keep invisible till it was too late. After a handful of incriminating pictures, the potential lawsuits and hoped-for insurance payments became history.
His first month on the job, he located ten claimants who’d been impossible for others to find. He got incriminating pictures of seven. His supervisors were impressed and commended him every chance they got. He’d had misgivings about a couple of the ones he’d shadowed, wondering if they really were scamming or just making do the best they could. A guy who claimed to have a bad leg and got caught playing football was one thing, but several claimants he’d photographed doing everyday things that had to be done, like it or not. The pictures didn’t show whether it had been easy for them to perform those tasks or how costly it had been in terms of pain and suffering.
He expressed his concerns to a supervisor. She gave him a wormy smile, the veins of a chronic drinker mapping her nose. “We know,” she said. “It’s a tough call. Just get the pictures and don’t worry about it. Let the courts decide who’s lying.”
“Luck of the draw,” a co-worker told him with a shrug. “Hey! It’s not up to us to judge.”
The more he got to know his colleagues, the more Dan realized he was working with people who’d rubbed themselves sideways against the law more than the norm. Confessions of impaired driving, assault, tax evasion, drug possession, and fraud were commonplace amongst his co-workers. Most of them talked freely about their pasts. Some bragged about the things they got away with. One admitted he was working off the payments of a paternity suit. Dan began to feel he’d been drafted into the city’s virtually unemployable fringe set.
One cold April afternoon, he watched an older woman hobbling around her front walk with a shovel. She wore oversized rubber boots and a ragged overcoat. With a record snowfall blanketing the city, her movements hardly made a dent in the drifts thrown up by a street plough. According to the report, a fall had left her unable to fill her duties at a stationery factory where she’d worked for the past twenty-seven years. She was widowed, the mother of a thirty-year-old. If she’d been Dan’s mother, he thought, she wouldn’t be out there shovelling for herself.
He rolled down the windows and took a couple of pictures then sat watching, his breath hanging on the air. The woman stopped every few seconds to draw a lungful of oxygen and stretch her left arm. Dan saw the pain in her face. He put the camera down and stepped out of the car.
She looked up when he approached.
“Do you need some help?” he asked.
She leaned on the shovel and regarded him. “I hurt my arm.”
“I can see that.”
He took the shovel and cleared her sidewalk with a dozen brisk motions.
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
“It’s no problem.”
She stood there watching him. “They told me I’d better watch out for anyone with a camera. They said the insurance company would take pictures of me and show the
This was where Dan came in. He was there to challenge the perspective. He became adept at disguising himself outside claimants’ homes, snooping through their garbage, and making discreet enquiries of the people next door who were sometimes only too eager to divulge their neighbours’ secrets. “He operates a business in his basement, customers come and go at all hours.” Or, “I see her working down at the pub on the corner on Sundays.” Many of those Dan caught in lies later expressed shock that the young man on their corner had been able to keep invisible till it was too late. After a handful of incriminating pictures, the potential lawsuits and hoped-for insurance payments became history.
His first month on the job, he located ten claimants who’d been impossible for others to find. He got incriminating pictures of seven. His supervisors were impressed and commended him every chance they got. He’d had misgivings about a couple of the ones he’d shadowed, wondering if they really were scamming or just making do the best they could. A guy who claimed to have a bad leg and got caught playing football was one thing, but several claimants he’d photographed doing everyday things that had to be done, like it or not. The pictures didn’t show whether it had been easy for them to perform those tasks or how costly it had been in terms of pain and suffering.
He expressed his concerns to a supervisor. She gave him a wormy smile, the veins of a chronic drinker mapping her nose. “We know,” she said. “It’s a tough call. Just get the pictures and don’t worry about it. Let the courts decide who’s lying.”
“Luck of the draw,” a co-worker told him with a shrug. “Hey! It’s not up to us to judge.”
The more he got to know his colleagues, the more Dan realized he was working with people who’d rubbed themselves sideways against the law more than the norm. Confessions of impaired driving, assault, tax evasion, drug possession, and fraud were commonplace amongst his co-workers. Most of them talked freely about their pasts. Some bragged about the things they got away with. One admitted he was working off the payments of a paternity suit. Dan began to feel he’d been drafted into the city’s virtually unemployable fringe set.
One cold April afternoon, he watched an older woman hobbling around her front walk with a shovel. She wore oversized rubber boots and a ragged overcoat. With a record snowfall blanketing the city, her movements hardly made a dent in the drifts thrown up by a street plough. According to the report, a fall had left her unable to fill her duties at a stationery factory where she’d worked for the past twenty-seven years. She was widowed, the mother of a thirty-year-old. If she’d been Dan’s mother, he thought, she wouldn’t be out there shovelling for herself.
He rolled down the windows and took a couple of pictures then sat watching, his breath hanging on the air. The woman stopped every few seconds to draw a lungful of oxygen and stretch her left arm. Dan saw the pain in her face. He put the camera down and stepped out of the car.
She looked up when he approached.
“Do you need some help?” he asked.
She leaned on the shovel and regarded him. “I hurt my arm.”
“I can see that.”
He took the shovel and cleared her sidewalk with a dozen brisk motions.
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
“It’s no problem.”
She stood there watching him. “They told me I’d better watch out for anyone with a camera. They said the insurance company would take pictures of me and show the
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