The Burnt House

“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.”

8 (#u4ed9c3e9-232c-5df1-b5ae-30f1b3495387)

STUDIO CITY HAD gotten its moniker from its proximity to the major movie corporations and broadcasting systems. It was ten minutes away from Universal, a quick trip across the canyon from Paramount, CBS, and all of old Hollywood, and a speedy fifteen-minute freeway drive from NBC in Burbank. The Greenwich Village of the Valley, it was a section of boutiques, florists, clubs, and coffeehouses, and most important, it had a big bowling alley where the beautiful and young Hollywood elite were often seen spending a recreational night out, just being plain folk.

Arielle Toombs lived in a wood-sided complex that was shaded in the hot, hot summers by dozens of lacy elms and giant sycamores. Each apartment had its own private balcony, but the pools, gym, and the recreation room were communal—enjoyed by anyone with a rent check that didn’t bounce.

Morning fog had given way to a tent of blue above, and as Decker climbed the stairs to Arielle’s third-floor apartment, he was already planning his weekend. Cindy and Koby were coming in for a wayoverdue Friday-night dinner, Saturday would be synagogue and study group in the afternoon, but Sunday would be his to plan, time unscheduled and unfettered by obligations. If Hannah had arranged something with her friends, a very frequent occurrence since she reached her teens, maybe he and Rina would take a spin out to Oxnard, to the kosher winery and restaurant. It had become one of their favorite places.