by Pat Muir
“Is Art a good agent?”
“He’s reliable and makes steady money. He had a good month in August. I wrote him two commission checks ten days before he left for a total of about ten thousand dollars.”
“So how much does Art earn each year?”
“Let me look at his W2 form for last year,” said Sam, moving from his chair to a file cabinet in an adjacent private office. He rummaged in the cabinet for three minutes before returning. “He only made forty-seven thousand five hundred dollars in 2007,” he said.
“Only?”
“All of my full-time agents made more than that. That’s because they’re selling real property, not mobile homes.”
I made a mental note. That would mean Flynn would have to pay fourteen thousand four hundred dollars each year in alimony…almost a third of his gross earnings. That would hurt. I popped the question. “Are any of your women agents interested in him?’
Sam responded cautiously. “Well, one of them had a short fling with him a couple of years before he met Marge. I think she gave up on him. He wasn’t ambitious enough for her and the lifestyle she wanted.”
“Could you give me her name, please? I might want to talk to her.” At the back of my mind was whether Flynn’s sexual prowess had anything to do with his disappearance.
“Julie Merchant went back to Colorado five years ago. I’ve no idea where she is now.”
I leaned forward as if in a confidential manner. “Is Mr. Flynn a woman chaser? Could he have gone away with one?”
Sam chuckled. “It’s possible. But I don’t think Art’s gotten over losing Marge. He would have let me know anyway.”
“What do you know about his ex-wife, Marge?”
Laurel paused, clearly choosing his words carefully. “Marge is a beautiful woman. She was a waitress with a small child when she met Art. I’m sure she liked him… Everybody likes Art…except Bert Swanson, the manager of Palomar South. I think she married Art because he offered her security and clearly loved her little girl, Sally. Not all men want to take on the responsibility of another man’s child.”
“Why does Bert Swanson dislike Flynn?”
Sam chuckled. “Have you seen Bert’s wife?” I nodded.
“Bert is jealous of Art because women like Art and don’t like Bert. Bert also sells mobile homes in the park. He’s an agent working under a real estate salesman license for his broker, Collins Realty. So, he competes with Art. Since a large proportion of homeowners in the park are widows, being a nice guy and single helps. Bert hates the competition.” He paused. “There is one thing more. Bert sold an older mobile home that had originally been registered with the DMV, or the Department of Motor Vehicles. Now, the DMV records titles of trailers by their length, including the hitch. When HCD, or Housing and Community Development, took over mobile home registration, the home had to be titled by its actual length, that is, without the hitch, an increment of three to four feet. Art discovered Bert had put down the full trailer length on the HCD title and had his client demand reparation. It cost Bert several thousand dollars, and he has never forgiven Art for pointing out the error.”
“Does Art have any other enemies other than Bert?”
“I wouldn’t call Bert Swanson an enemy. Art has sold some of Bert’s listings and vice versa, so they do cooperate professionally.” Sam paused. “Art is an especially nice guy. If an agent can’t make the phone roster, he is happy to step in. If an agent wants help with an open house showing, Art will be happy to assist. I cannot see how he could possibly have enemies.”
“What can you add to the description of Art that you gave in the missing person report?”
Sam seemed unable to answer, so I prompted him. “Does he have any tattoos or scars or history of broken bones?”
“None that I know of.”
“Is he overweight?”
“No, he’s fit. He exercises regularly.”
“Does he wear any distinctive jewelry or clothes?”
“Let me think,” replied Sam, and after a pause, he said, “He has a Maine University class ring on his right hand, and he’s very proud of the Indian silver belt buckle a client gave to him.”
I asked to look into Art’s desk, and Sam took me to it. I went through the two file drawers it had on just one side to find only listing, sales, and escrow documents. No personal correspondence. I asked Sam for a copy of Flynn’s real estate license and his employment application. I stayed seated until Sam returned with the documentation. Then I stood up, thanked him for his time, asked him to call me if he or any of his agents heard anything, and left. We had been talking for nearly two hours, so no time for gym that evening. I went back to the McDonald’s and bought a hamburger, fries, and a Coke, none of which would help my BMI. As I drove home sipping my Coke, I congratulated myself on having a good day in moving the case along.
Flynn’s address book contained the name, address, and phone number of a nursing home in Maine where I assumed his mother resided. The next day, at 7.00 a.m.—midmorning in Maine—I telephoned that nursing home and asked to speak to Mrs. Flynn. The receptionist connected me to a supervisor. “This is Mrs. Rogers. I understand you wish to speak to Mrs. Flynn?”
“Yes. I’m Detective Notfarg with the sheriff’s office in San Diego, California. I am investigating the disappearance of Arthur Flynn and wondered if his mother had heard from him.”
“Detective, I don’t think Mrs. Flynn could be of help to you. She has advanced dementia and would be unable to say anything useful to you.”
“That’s strange. I understand Art Flynn writes letters to his mother. Doesn’t she understand those letters?”
There was a pause before Mrs. Rogers replied. “Well, we read those letters to her, and perhaps she feels there is someone who cares about her. I think those letters say more about her son.”
I digested this information before I spoke. “Have you heard from or seen Arthur Flynn?”
“No. We have had no visit from Mr. Flynn after his mother no longer recognized him.”
‘Can you tell me if Mrs. Flynn has any siblings or children other than Arthur Flynn?”
“I understand Mr. Flynn is her only child. She has no other relatives.”
“Who pays for her nursing home costs?”
“I will have to respond to that question with a judicial request.”
I told her a formal court order requesting that information would be sent. When I later prepared a request for that court order, I added to the request a doctor’s confirmation of her dementia and copies of Flynn’s letters of the past year. There was always a chance that his true feelings would be revealed in letters that nobody of significance would understand. I also wanted to find out if Flynn was paying for his mother’s nursing home costs in some way even though they did not appear on his bank statement. If he were, then his disappearance could be his way of sloughing them off since they could amount to several thousand dollars per month.
Marge Holmes phoned me, clearly surprised to be answered by a live person instead of a recording. I told her I was investigating the disappearance of her former husband and wanted to speak to her in person. She said she had to go down town the next day and would be happy to meet me at the sheriff’s office. Delighted at not having to drive to San Marcos again, I readily agreed to her suggested time of 10:30.
CHAPTER 4
Flynn’s cell phone records arrived, and I scrutinized them carefully. Flynn had made no phone calls after Friday, Sept 12. I began calling the numbers in the records of the prior two months. This was tedious work since, half of the time, the receiving person was either out or was screening incoming calls. I left messages for them. Most calls were to clients, co-workers, and to the office. Some calls went to various mobile home park managers, where Art had wanted to know what the rent would be for a new purchaser. In the afternoon after the phone records had arrived, I grew quite tired of making phone calls. I decided to look at Flynn’s monetary affairs by going to a nearby branch of his
bank—Chase Bank. I introduced myself to one of the bank officers, served them my search warrant, and was given a printout of his records for all of 2008.
Flynn’s bank account, set up as a trust account, showed a balance of just under twelve thousand dollars. Interesting, I thought. If he had wanted to disappear, he would have cleaned out his account. Those funds told me he did not intend to disappear. He had no savings account. Not much money for a realtor, I thought. His last deposit had been on July 8 for thirty-nine hundred and fifty dollars, presumably a commission check. His account showed paid bills to the Palomar South mobile home park, San Diego Gas and Electric, Cox Cable, Olivenhain Water District, and to his Visa charge card. There was also a steady one-hundred-and-twelve-dollar monthly payment to Pacific Southern Life Insurance and a corresponding twenty-dollar monthly payment to the charity Habitat for Humanity. Nothing out of the ordinary. No payments to his mother’s nursing home. His last withdrawal had been for five hundred dollars cash on September 8, just six days before he’d left on his fishing trip. A suitable amount of walking-around money, I thought. I noticed two payments of twelve hundred dollars to Marge Holmes on July 15 and August 15 respectively, clearly alimony payments. If Flynn had decided to disappear, it had been on impulse, or he was lying injured in a hospital or dead somewhere.
The sole charge card showed Flynn to be a model of prudence. There were few charges for restaurants and no charges at any Indian casinos, jewelry stores, or high-end department stores. He’d made one extravagant buy eight weeks before he’d gone to the camp, a set of high-end fishing rods and reels costing eleven hundred dollars, not the kind of purchase one would make if one wanted to disappear or commit suicide. Clearly, a commitment by a dedicated fisherman. Flynn had used his credit card to make his campground rental payment of two hundred and ten dollars on August 15th, i.e. four weeks before he’d left. Thus, the trip had been fully planned. In addition, he had visited a tackle shop and bought eighty dollars of supplies on September 5. There was a supermarket credit bill of a hundred and twenty-six dollars on August 29 and a Home Depot bill of nineteen dollars on September 10. He’d bought gasoline in San Marcos on the same day. The statement showed Flynn getting gasoline at Oceanside on Highway 5, the main route to the north, on Sunday, September 14, the day he’d driven to the fishing camp. He’d purchased gasoline at Junction 379 near Mendota and stopped at a McDonald’s in San Rafael at 3:10 p.m.
I looked at MapQuest to get the distances between gas stations that Flynn had stopped at. The distance between Oceanside and Junction 379 was three hundred and ten miles, and from there to the Russian River camp near Guerneville was a further two hundred and twenty miles. I reckoned Flynn would arrive at the camp around four o’clock, when it was still light enough to go fishing. If he gassed up his car about every three hundred and ten miles, then he would need to fill up his car within ninety miles of the camp. If he’d had a car accident, then it would most likely have been within that distance. I prepared a list of hospitals along his return route within that radius and began telephoning them.
Tom Small’s e-mail arrived next morning. He had drawn by hand a map of that end section where Flynn had set up his tent. Tom Small explained this section, pictured below, had no utilities and was set aside for people with tents or camper trucks.
Section T lay adjacent to the river; section R lay on the other side of the graveled access road. Tom provided for each site copies of the registration folios around the time Flynn had come to the park. Most of the campers used a charge card to pay for their stay, but three paid in cash. Tom attached copies of the charge card receipts. I took the data from the folios and listed them in summary form, in the table below. The vehicle license numbers are listed under VL, but some campers had omitted that important data. “IN” and “LAST” in the table refer to the dates in September the camper stayed overnight. Included in the e-mail was a note saying the phone number on the folio was more to contact the registrant in the event of a lost child and that most campers did not fill it in. Tom also apologized in the e-mail for his registration clerk’s failure to get all folios completely filled in.
I was still absorbing the above information when the receptionist called saying Marge Holmes had been ushered into one of our questioning rooms. Marge was still standing up when I entered the room, and I motioned her to sit down as did I. Sam Laurel had described her as very attractive but had understated the fact. She was indeed a beautiful woman, about sixty-seven inches tall and with a figure only slightly less voluptuous than Marilyn Munroe and the same blonde hair that had been fashionably styled. Not my place to ask if it’s natural. She was dressed quite simply, but very elegantly, in a Michael Kors gray crew neck sweater over a Giorgio Armani tight woolen skirt. Yes, we women notice these things even if we can’t afford them. She carried a white crocodile leather Gucci purse that I would have died for. She wore a double string of pearls and a diamond ring—nearly two carats by my estimation—on her left middle finger. There was no wedding ring. Her attire and manner said money. Her manner was direct and purposeful. She actually started the conversation.
“Do you know when Art went missing?” Her voice seemed flat, very matter of fact, with no hint of concern.
I hesitated. I wanted to find out how much she knew before revealing anything I had found out. “We don’t know the exact date yet. We believe it was within three to four days after he arrived at the Russian River fishing camp.”
“I know the place. Art dragged me and Sally there one year. Too primitive for me. If he’d had a camper or a motor home, I might have liked it, but no, he liked being in a tent. It didn’t bother him having to walk two hundred yards to use the camp washroom facilities.”
“So, you knew Art was going there?”
“Yes. He called me in early September and told me he might be late paying his alimony.”
“Do you know if Art might have any reason to disappear?”
“Art’s not a very assertive person. He doesn’t like having to pay me alimony, but I don’t think he has the guts to flee to avoid making payment.”
I wanted to confirm the amount of the alimony. “Twelve hundred dollars per month, I understand.”
“That’s correct.” No hint of embarrassment. No wonder Sam Laurel thought her a gold digger.
I couldn’t help it. “You’re obviously well off and don’t need the money. Do you think that could have been a factor?”
Marge’s face tightened sharply. “That’s none of your business. Alimony reflected the court decision. Art knows I spend much more than that on oncology treatment for Sally.” She stood up. “If you don’t have any more useful questions, I’m going to leave.”
I apologized since I needed to get a better feel for this missing man. I asked her to sit down. “Please, tell me, what kind of a man is Art? You were married to him for several years, so you should know.”
Her face softened very slightly, but her voice remained in a very matter-of-fact tone. “Art’s an honest man. He’s been very sweet to my little girl, Sally. He’s a good salesperson in his specialized field…selling mobile homes…but it doesn’t pay as well as regular real estate. He seems to care more about his clients than making decent money. I know he follows through on all his listings and sales, but his lack of ambition disappointed me.”
I refrained from asking why she married Art in the first place, but I found that out later. I had to probe carefully. “Was there any aspect of your divorce that might have triggered Art to want to disappear?”
Marge paused, clearly thinking how to answer this question. “It was a shock to Art and me when Sally was diagnosed with leukemia. Art didn’t have any health insurance, and treatment costs were…are expensive. I didn’t want to go back to waitressing. Larry, who owns Palomar South, where we lived, had seen me at the park office and offered me a job, one where I could take my daughter, who was…is too ill to go to kindergarten. Larry’s been very good to me and Sally.”
“Why did you divorce Art
?”
Marge responded angrily. “What’s that got to do with Art’s disappearance?”
I needed to offset this anger. “I’m sorry if the question offended you. I’m trying to ascertain whether Mr. Flynn had any motivation to disappear.”
I could see Marge wondering whether she should answer the question. She took her time to respond. “Larry plays a role in society here in north San Diego County. Living with him when I was married to another man became a source of gossip that irritated him, and he wanted it gone. Art still wanted to visit Sally…and me. It was as though Art had a possessor interest in me and Sally as long as we were married. On one of these occasions, Art got nasty to Larry, who said he would call the police if Art didn’t leave. Larry then demanded I divorce Art, and he played a role in establishing the terms of the divorce.”
“What did Art think of that? Did he object very strongly?”
“Of course he objected, but there was nothing he could about it in this no-fault divorce state. He was more upset that he could no longer visit Sally. But Larry values the privacy of his home, and so he demanded that condition in the divorce. I know that’s been a disappointment to Art, but he’s a pragmatic soul. I expected him to accept it and move on just like he had to accept that his mother developed dementia.”
“Does Art have any enemies?”
“Good Lord, no. Art’s very popular in the park. I’m considered the Wicked Witch of the West because he married me instead of one of the park widows closer to his age.”
“What do you know about Art’s relatives?”
“He has no brothers or sisters. His father was a soldier who was killed in Vietnam. Art grew up in Maine and went to the University of Maine. He loved his time there and wears his class ring with pride. His mother has Alzheimer’s disease and is in a home near Bangor. She was an only child.”