The Burnt House

“Too quick! It’ll take time for me and the missus to get over there.”

“Where are you calling from, Mr. Lodestone?”

“Fresno.”

One hundred and eighty-six miles away as the crow flies. “And you’re calling this station house because your stepdaughter lives in this area?”

“Two-three-one-one-six Octavia Avenue. That’s where you’ll find the sumbitch.”

“And who is this sumbitch?”

“Ivan Dresden. He’s a broker for Merrill Lynch in Porter Ranch. My stepdaughter’s name is Roseanne. Roseanne Dresden.”

Decker tucked the receiver under his chin as he wrote it down. As he saw Roseanne’s name in print, he realized he wasn’t reading it for the first time. “Her name is familiar. Would there be any reason that I might know her?”

“Well, you mighta probably read her name in the papers saying she was on that WestAir flight that crashed down on the apartment building.”

That was it! Decker’s mind was racing, trying to understand the purpose of the call. “Mr. Lodestone, are you saying that your stepdaughter wasn’t on that WestAir flight?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“But the papers reported her as one of the victims.”

“Young man, I’m sure someone somewhere musta told you that you should never believe what you read in the papers.”

THEY MATERIALIZED AT the station house at ten minutes to five in the afternoon. Farley and Shareen Lodestone were dressed in their Sunday finest, the man in a decently fitting gray suit with a white shirt and a tie, and Shareen in a flowered dress and low heels. She had taken the time to put on rouge and lipstick. Blond and blue-eyed, with good skin, at one time the woman had been attractive, but grief had deepened her eyes and depressed their light, giving her face a beetle brow.

Farley was thin and of average height with a mop of white hair. Yet Decker had seen enough of these guys to know that they were deceptively strong and wiry. He knew that beneath that jacket and shirt were some stringy arms with good grip strength. The man looked more mad than upset, but that was often a man’s way of coping with heartache.

Decker got them both cups of coffee and settled them into two seats opposite his desk. After closing the door, he sat down and took out a notepad, although he suspected that what they were going to tell him was a case of extreme denial. He said, “Before we get started, Mr. and Mrs. Lodestone, I want to express my condolences. I am very sorry for your loss.”

“Yeah, I am, too,” Lodestone grunted out. “So if you want to help, you’ll put that sumbitch behind bars.”

“I always had a queasy feeling about him,” Shareen added.

“Him … meaning your son-in-law?”

“That’s right,” Shareen said. “Ivan Dresden.”

Decker wrote down the name. “And you suspect … what?”

“That Ivan killed her.”

“Didn’t I already tell you that?” Lodestone butted in.

“Yes, you did.” Decker paused. “Before you came in, I called up WestAir. They verified that Roseanne had been on the flight.”

“Yeah, verified in what way?” Lodestone said. “They haven’t found her body.”

“They haven’t finished all the recovery, Mr. Lodestone.”

“They finished most of it,” Shareen added. “They got thirty-eight so far.”

“Then maybe we should wait until they have all forty-seven.”

“They aren’t gonna find forty-seven bodies, Lieutenant,” Farley said. “Besides, it don’t matter if they do find everyone on the passenger list because WestAir didn’t issue her a ticket.”

That threw Decker momentarily off guard. “They didn’t?”

“No, they didn’t!” Farley said triumphantly. “So how the hell did they know she was on the flight?”

Decker didn’t answer. He wrote down no ticket? while stalling for time.

Shareen rescued him. “Let me start from the beginning, Lieutenant. Roseanne was a flight attendant for WestAir. After the crash, when we couldn’t get hold of Roseanne, we called up the airlines. But WestAir told us she wasn’t working on flight 1324. Then the company called us up a couple of days later and backtracked. No, she wasn’t working 1324, but she was on the plane, hopping a ride to San Jose to work the route up there for a couple of nights … which is why they claimed they didn’t issue her a ticket.”

“Wait a minute.” Decker started to take notes in earnest. “I thought every passenger who flew on an airline had to be issued a ticket.”

“That’s what I thought,” Shareen said. “But I was wrong. This was told to me by one of Roseanne’s friends, so I hope I’m getting this right.” She took a deep breath. “Okay. Here we go. I think if you work for the airlines and you’re flying to work at a destination, you don’t have to be issued a ticket even if you’re not working the flight.”

Decker nodded. “So it was possible for her to be on the flight and for the airlines not to have a record of it. But then they’d have a record of the assignment, wouldn’t they?”

“They should have a record,” Shareen said. “But they’re not telling me yes, they have one, or no, they don’t have one.”

“Right now they’re not saying nothing without their lawyer,” Lodestone said.

Shareen said, “Roseanne used to work San Jose. So I figure that maybe WestAir was shorthanded in San Jose. So I called up San Jose, and asked if Roseanne was scheduled to work some routes up there. First they tell me no, then they tell me yes, then they tell me that if I want to talk to them again, they’ll put me in contact with their attorneys.”

“Same old, same old,” Lodestone said.

Shareen patted her husband’s knee. “Their hemming and hawing was making us very suspicious.”

Decker nodded. It did sound funny on the surface, but the airline was probably in disarray.

“I talked to Ivan,” Shareen said. “I just didn’t like what he told me.”

“What did he tell you?”

“That at the last minute, Roseanne changed her plans to work in San Jose. He told me emphatically that she was on the plane and he was upset enough without me making up stories about her not being on the plane. Then he said, in the long run, we were hurting not helping and that he and several other people had lawsuits pending, so we should kindly shut up.”

“He told you to shut up?”

“Not in those exact words, but that’s what he said between the lines. Then he told me I was in denial.” The old woman’s eyes watered. “I’m not in denial, Lieutenant. I know in my heart of hearts that Roseanne is dead. I just don’t think it was the crash that killed her.”

“You said Roseanne had worked San Jose before,” Decker said. “Could she have gone up to San Jose to visit someone?”

“Who, sir?” Lodestone said. “She’s married.”

“I was thinking about a friend.”