Читать книгу The Burnt House - Faye Kellerman - Страница 14

7

MARGE’S EAR WAS hot and sore from being pressed against the receiver for so long. On top of that, she’d made the mistake of wearing the new pearl studs that Will Barnes had given her, making phone work extremely uncomfortable. But they were so pretty and she was so thrilled with the gift that she couldn’t help herself. The voice on the other end of the line was giving her a hard time.

“Yes, I know that Roseanne Dresden’s name is on the victims list,” Marge explained. “I’m asking you if she had always been on the list or was her name added later because I know that lists are revised when more information is given … no, don’t put me on hold … Shit!” She slammed down the phone.

Decker happened to be passing by her desk. “Everything all right?”

“I hate being sent into the electronic void.” She checked her watch. “I’m on lunch hour. I think I’ll pay our illustrious paper a visit.”

“How’s your afternoon?”

“Not bad.”

“In that case, since you’ll be in the area, pay a visit to North Mission Road. It’s been a while since we’ve talked to the recovery team. Find out how many bodies on the list they’ve recovered and/or identified. Also, while you’re there you can ask them if they’ve recovered any artifacts that might have belonged to Roseanne Dresden.”

Marge had been taking notes. After he stopped talking, she stowed her pad in her purse. “Not a problem. What about you?”

“I’ve got an appointment with Arielle Toombs, the only person other than Rottiger that returned Oliver’s call. She didn’t sound thrilled, but I got her to commit to a time. Nice earrings, by the way.”

Marge’s smile was wider than her neck. “Will got them for me.”

“Will’s a nice guy.”

Marge picked up her bag and studied her boss and her friend. “You look tired, Pete.”

“All of a sudden we’ve got another epidemic of burglary reports, mainly from people who had to evacuate their homes when flight 1324 went down.”

“Yeah, Paul Deloren was talking to me about that. How many of those calls do you think are legit?”

“Not all of them, that’s for certain. We’re going through them one by one along with the insurance investigators.”

“I know we’ve had a surge of DUIs this past week.”

“That and drunk-and-disorderlies, discharging a weapon in a public place, and about twice as many assaults as normal. Bar fights, but domestic violence, too. And higher-than-normal sudden heart attacks.”

“The aftermath,” Marge said. “You, me, and everyone else are going crazy. At least this time, there’s a reason.”

THE CITY’S LARGEST and oldest newspaper had set up its headquarters in downtown L.A. over 125 years ago when the area had breathed the air of youth, with its bustling streets, its posh department stores, and the famous Angel’s flight cable car. In its fourth reincarnation, the paper had settled into its current headquarters at Spring and First streets. The structure was a paean to American Art Deco and the WPA artists who fashioned the building, with its bronze bas-relief, friezes, carving, and adornments.

Once inside, Marge stood in a rotunda, the centerpiece being a rotating globe banded by the signs of the zodiac done in bronze relief. To her right was a brief history of the paper; the left side was manned by a uniformed guard; and straight ahead, through alarmed turnstiles, was a bank of elevators. She had several names and numbers from her phones calls this morning and gave them to the guard, who rang up a couple of extensions. He announced that Mr. Delgado would be with her shortly.

Twenty-six toe-tapping minutes later—after reading a self-aggrandizing history of the paper—Marge saw a stocky man lumber through the turnstiles. He had jet black hair combed straight back, Dracula style, and dark brows gave a roof over startling pale blue eyes. His skin was tan but without wrinkles, so Marge put his age in the late twenties to early thirties. He wore a white shirt, black slacks, and penny loafers. His blue-and-graystriped tie was loosened at the neckline.

“Mr. Delgado?” Marge asked.

“Rusty is fine.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name.”

“Marge Dunn.” She shook his hand. “Thank you very much for seeing me on no notice.”

“No problem. And this is about …”

“It’s complicated,” Marge told him. “Is there somewhere we can go that’s more private?”

“Uh, sure …” Delgado’s voice edged toward the higher side of the male range. He led her into the heart of the paper. If Marge had expected an area overrun with cubs and stringers and editors barking out commands, she was sorely disappointed. The floor was filled with open cubicles and was as quiet as a library. Placards hung from the ceiling—health, real estate, calendar, metro, home: section headings of the Times.

She tailed him down a foyer where featured photographs and prizewinning articles hung on a wall, passing a display case filled with vintage news cameras, and into a second area of open cubicles. A skeleton wearing a hula skirt and a coconut-shell bra was displayed on a pole.

“Obits,” Delgado announced.

“The place is empty.” Marge smiled. “People must be dying to get out.”

Delgado smiled back. “How can I help you?”

Marge launched into her prepared spiel, a dodge to keep the young man from asking too many questions. “I work for Ace Insurance Company, which subcontracts for other more recognizable insurance companies. I’ve been assigned to find out about the original victims list from WestAir flight 1324 that was given to your paper for publication by WestAir itself, and compare it to the final list of flight 1324 victims. Originally, Tricia Woodard did the articles on the crash. I thought she might be able to help me.”

“Tricia is out of town.” Delgado looked baffled. “Isn’t there only one list?”

Marge’s smile was gentle. “That’s what I’m trying to ascertain. I was told that the list was updated several times during the first couple of days after the crash, and that additional people were added.”

“Excuse my ignorance, but who would be added on? Isn’t there a flight list of everyone on the airplane?”

“Only those who have purchased tickets. That wouldn’t include infants and toddlers—”

“Ah, yes, of course. And you’re investigating the names because …”

“It’s routine after every crash.” Marge didn’t know if that was true, but she suspected it was. “Before insurance pays, it wants to make sure that those who were listed as dead actually died. Sometimes, especially with small infants, well, I hate to be graphic. Let’s just say it’s impossible to make identification on the bodies … or even to find the bodies can be tricky. Even with adults. Sometimes, people commit fraud.”

Delgado’s curiosity was definitely piqued. He was smelling a story. “How so?”

“Well, let’s put it this way. Someone calls up and says Ms. So-and-So also had an infant daughter who perished in the crash. Ninety-ninepoint-nine percent of the time, that’s what happened. Every once in a blue moon, you get a real psycho who made up Ms. So-and-So’s daughter to collect more insurance, or the infant actually does exist, but she was mercifully tucked away with grandparents and not on the plane. We’ve got to check things like that out.”

“People actually claim that children are dead when they’re not?”

“Mr. Delgado, when it comes to insurance payment, we’ve seen everything.”

“I’m sure you have.”

“So you have the list given to you by WestAir?”

“Sure, and I could get that for you right now. But in the future, all you have to do is pull it out of the paper’s archives.”

“See, that’s the rub. I’m not looking for the first list that the paper printed. I’m looking for the first list that was called in to you from WestAir. Just to see if there are any discrepancies.”

“So why can’t you get this information from WestAir?”

“I did,” Marge lied. “But Ace Insurance has asked me to go directly to the paper and compare it to the WestAir list.” She let go with a wide smile and a wink. “You’re a newspaper person, you know how important it is to check your facts.”

Delgado nodded. “If anyone had a list, it would have been Tricia, but she’s on vacation.”

“Dang. And there’s no one else who might have had that list?”

Delgado thought a moment. “Let me see what I can do. Would you mind waiting here for a few minutes?”

“No problem. Thank you very much, Mr. Delgado. You’ve been an enormous help. It sure beats talking to voice mail.”

“I’m glad, although I haven’t done anything.” Delgado smiled. “Wait right here. As I said, it may take me a few minutes.”

After he left, Marge thought about Delgado, who wasn’t much older than Vega. Her daughter seemed to be making unexpected headway in the social-arts department. After her first successful party experience, Vega was once again asked out by Josh, from her particle-physics course. This time it was dinner. After the requisite panic attack, she calmed down enough to accept the invitation and call Marge for more advice. When Marge suggested talking about a recent book, Vega went out and bought the top-ten books on the New York Times hardcover nonfiction list and polished them off in three nights.

The minutes stretched on.

Marge checked her BlackBerry. Will Barnes had called, text messaging that he was coming down to Santa Barbara for an interview. Did she want to come up? A weekend in the resort city sounded nice, and she was thinking about walks on the beach and a terrific halibut dinner when Delgado came back, holding pieces of paper in his hands. Marge stood up, but Delgado didn’t hand her the sheets right away.

“The first list actually printed by the paper wasn’t hard to find. That’s this one.” He gave it to Marge, then rattled another piece of paper in front of her eyes. “As far as I can tell—and I’m not positive about this—but I believe this is the original list given to us by WestAir, and just as you said, it has fewer names than the list the newspaper printed.”

“See? I actually was sent here for a purpose.” She held out her hand.

“Uh, I should have asked you this in the beginning. Could I see some ID, please?”

“Sure.” Marge rifled through her purse and debated showing Delgado her police identification. Sometimes, when she showed it quickly, people barely read it. This wasn’t one of those cases. Delgado wanted to verify who she was. She said, “You know, I don’t have my business cards with me. I can show you my driver’s license.” She presented it to him. “Don’t read my birth date. It’s not polite.”

He smiled, but studied the license. “You are indeed Marge Dunn, but you could be anyone.”

The only way she was going to slip out of this unscathed was if he smelled a big scoop slipping away. “You know, maybe I should wait for Tricia Woodard and go through proper channels. We both want to be careful, right?”

Delgado frowned. “What are you really after, Ms. Dunn?”

“Why don’t you let me look at the list and I’ll tell you.”

The young man made a calculated decision. He handed her the slip of paper. Rusty was nothing if not efficient. At the bottom of the first list were three names that had been added to the printed list. The first two were Campbell Dennison and Zoey Benton. Marge’s eyes scanned the list and found ticketed passengers to match: Scott and Lisa Dennison and Marlene Benton. These poor souls were children under the age of two. She’d verify them later.

The last name on Delgado’s added list was Roseanne Dresden.

Marge pointed to the first two names. “It looks like these two were the children of ticketed passengers. This last one—Roseanne Dresden—she was a flight attendant who worked for WestAir. But she wasn’t working the flight; she was on her way to San Jose. Any idea why she wasn’t on the first list?”

“None whatsoever. What do you think?”

“Spoken like a true newspaper person. Any idea who called her name in as an official victim?”

“Probably WestAir.”

“Probably, or do you know that for sure?”

“No, I don’t know that for sure. I didn’t have anything to do with compiling the list. That was Tricia’s job. I’m just showing it to you, and I probably shouldn’t be doing that because you suspect something is amiss. Want to tell me about it?”

“I don’t think anything’s wrong. I was sent to verify who called Roseanne Dresden in as a victim and who added her to the official list. It was probably WestAir, but we need to verify that, just to make sure it wasn’t called in by a third party who wanted to scam insurance.”

“Then the woman would be alive,” Delgado said.

“Alive and scamming or she could be dead by some other means. It could have been called in by someone who had something to gain if Roseanne had died.”

Delgado was definitely interested now.

Marge said, “Let me ask you something theoretically. What if it wasn’t WestAir who called in her death? What if it was a third party? You wouldn’t automatically add Roseanne’s name to the list, would you?”

“No. Tricia would have fact-checked the call with the desk editor and with WestAir. What are you thinking? That Roseanne might have faked her own death or that she was murdered?”

“I’m not thinking anything, I’m just verifying.” Marge placed a hand on his shoulder. “Could you do me a favor, Mr. Delgado? Could you find out the name of the person at WestAir who called in Roseanne’s name as one of the official dead? And if it was a third party, who fact-checked her name with WestAir? If you keep me in the loop, I’ll keep you in the loop.”

Delgado ran his fingers through his hair. “I wouldn’t want Tricia to get into trouble because of this.”

“I can appreciate that, sir, but you wouldn’t want your paper looking like a bunch of boobs. And you certainly wouldn’t want Roseanne or anyone getting away with fraud. I don’t think we have to get Tricia involved. All I want is verification that it was WestAir and not a greedy relative who phoned in Roseanne as a victim.”

“I take it Roseanne Dresden’s body hasn’t been identified. Otherwise why would you be bothering with this?”

The guy was sharp. Marge said, “The recovery efforts are still ongoing, but no, she hasn’t been officially ID’d. How about if we both keep that fact a secret? The fewer people who know what I’m doing, the better off we are.”

Finally, Delgado nodded. “Give me a day to poke around and dig through some phone slips, okay?”

“Great.” Marge wrote down her cell number. “Whatever you find out, I’d like to hear about it. For someone to commit fraud and profit from a death is not only pathetic, it’s immoral.”

“I agree, but just look at 9/11.”

“Of course,” Marge said. “You know, your paper should write a story about that. You know how vultures swoop within minutes of tragedy to find a profitable angle for themselves.”

Delgado considered the idea and found it a good one. He spoke quietly and with a conspiratorial air. “If your investigation turns out to be fraud, I’ll run the whole thing past the desk editor. I’m sure with the right pitch, I can parlay this into some kind of a feature story.”