The Fishermen and the Dragon by Kirk Wallace Johnson

Author:Kirk Wallace Johnson [Johnson, Kirk Wallace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

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As Adamo remembers it, David Collins had a pending settlement from a car accident that he’d agreed to accept as payment on the case.

As Marilyn Collins remembers it, there was no pending settlement because there was no accident—at least not yet. After being slapped with the injunction, David drove around in search of the nicest car on the road he could find. He pulled in front of a little old lady in a Cadillac and drove in such a way as to get rear-ended. “Adamo knew a doctor,” Marilyn said. “Some hospital on the other side of Houston who went along with putting David in the hospital. I think he ‘hurt his back,’ supposedly. Insurance paid for our lawsuit.”

David wasn’t a newcomer to insurance scams. Around the same time, after falling behind on payments on his Oldsmobile, he realized he could fetch more by reporting it stolen to his insurance company than by selling it, so he drove it over to Jody’s ranch, where his brother flattened it with a tractor and buried it in a sedan-size grave.

Months later, a fire broke out at 1:20 a.m. on Jody’s boat, the Cherry Betty. At 3:15 that same morning, Kemah firefighters extinguished an attic fire at David’s home on West Sixth. Fifteen minutes later, the Apache Warrior, a larger trawler owned by their older brother, John—who had salvaged Billy Joe’s trawler—caught fire. Shortly after that, David and Seabrook firefighters inspected the Miss AKIA and found several gasoline-filled plastic bags in the engine room, alongside candles that had apparently blown out when they toppled over.

Federal arson investigators were once again called in, but no arrests were made. David cashed in on the insurance payment; it would be decades before he admitted to setting the fires himself.

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