What Happened To Flynn

by Pat Muir

  I thanked Jim Westin for the information and rubbed my hands with glee. My theory that Flynn had taken Robert Smith’s identity had been confirmed. I buttonholed Steve and told him about my findings. “I think we can safely tell Barnsky the murdered man was not Flynn,” I said. “In addition, since the DNA of the corpse and that from Flynn’s home match, we know murder, if any, was carried out in San Diego County.”

  “I agree,” said Steve. “He’ll be happy to avoid effort on what would have been a difficult case. I’ll call him today,”

  “Should I tell the insurance adjuster?”

  “You still don’t know if Flynn is alive. He could have died accidentally in the past seven years.”

  “Yes, but I think I should tell her of our suspicions so she can request a delay in the court hearing. She can tell the attorney handling the Holmes petition.”

  Steve concurred. I called Brenda Williams to tell her of the developments.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” she said. “You mean to say Flynn was hiding all these years, letting people think he had been murdered?” She paused. “Then whose body was identified as Flynn’s?”

  “I’m fairly certain it was his neighbor, Robert Smith.”

  “Wow!” Brenda paused before speaking again. “I’m sure glad I don’t have to prosecute Swift for murder now. I thought we were lucky to get a conviction on conspiracy to commit murder, though I have no doubt he attempted to have Flynn killed. I take it you are getting an arrest warrant for the murder of this neighbor?”

  “It’s a little complicated. Smith’s head was cut off, and the medical examiner states Smith had to be dead before the head was removed.”

  “And so?”

  “And so, he states the cause of death is unknown.”

  “How odd. Keep me posted on what you are doing. Has anybody contacted the Sonoma county DA?’

  “Yes. Steve has, and they are saying if Smith was killed in San Diego, it occurred in San Diego and it will be your office’s responsibility to prosecute the murderer.”

  “Thanks a lot,” she said with resignation in her voice. “I’ll have to tell my boss about this turn of events.”

  That ended the conversation. I called Lily Gross to give her partial information. “We’re not sure the corpse is Arthur Flynn’s. There’s a possible DNA mix up.”

  “Then whose corpse is it?” she asked.

  “We’re still trying to figure that out.”

  The Wells Fargo bank officer called me to say they normally purge their files of records more than seven years old but had been a little slow doing so this early in the New Year. The check, just two months older than the seven-year purge date, had been signed by Mary Smith and deposited into a Bank of America account. He said he would e-mail me a copy of the deposit slip.

  I needed to track down Robert Smith’s son. I did a Google search of Kirk Douglas to find his given name was Issur Danielovitch. I searched phone numbers in New York City for an Issur Smith and found there were only two. I struck gold on my first call when a Mrs. Smith answered the phone and confirmed her husband’s first name was Issur. He had not yet returned from his job at the post office. I explained I was a detective in San Diego, California, and was conducting a murder investigation. Her husband had never told her anything about his estranged father except that his name was Robert. She would have her husband call me when he arrived home.

  The e-mail from Wells Fargo arrived with the Bank of America account number. I called that bank and asked if the account was still active. I was connected to a senior officer named Barb Nefke. “I can only tell you the account is active. You will need a search warrant before I can release further information,” she said. I told her I would get the warrant and be back to her the next day.

  Issur Smith phoned just as I was going to the gym. “What’s this all about?” he asked, suspicion rather than curiosity in his voice.

  “I’m detective Shane Notfarg, and I’m investigating the disappearance of a man who was a neighbor to your father.” I did not want to tell Issur at this time it was likely his father had been murdered. “Do you know anything about your stepmother?”

  “Nothing except my mom told me her name was Mary and that she was quite a bit younger than my father.”

  “Have you ever heard from her?”

  “No, never.”

  “Mr. Smith, we have found a corpse that may be your father’s. It is too decayed for visual identification, so I want you to go to the local police station and arrange for a DNA swab to be sent to me.”

  There was excitement in Issur’s voice. “Really. How did he die? When did it happen?”

  “It’s too soon to be sure. It’s part of an ongoing investigation.”

  Issur was enthusiastic in his willingness to help. I gave him our address and thanked him for his time. The next morning, I obtained my search warrant for any account of Robert or Mary Smith and presented it to Barb Nefke at a nearby branch of the Bank of America. She inspected the search warrant and stated firmly, “With my computer, I can only access eighteen months of records, while your warrant requests records going back to August 2008. If you need to go back that far, I will need to have our back office do so.”

  “I do need those records, Ms. Nefke.”

  “Ms. Notfarg, I can’t promise you we can get records that far back. Like most banks, records are purged after seven years. “

  “I understand. Just do the best you can.”

  Barb had me sit down on the other side of her desk while she checked files on her computer. “The Mary Smith account is active,” she said. “It has a current balance of one hundred dollars, which is our minimum for a checking account. There is a steady payment of four hundred and fifty dollars per month being paid into it. There appears to be cash withdrawals from that account at about six-month intervals, the last one being five weeks ago.”

  “At which bank are those withdrawals made?”

  Barb juggled some keys on the computer. “They are made at the Logan Street branch in Orlando, Florida.”

  “Are there any other deposits or withdrawals to that account?”

  “Not in the eighteen months of records I can see here.”

  “Who is paying the weekly payment to Mary Smith’s account?”

  Barb juggled keys on the computer. “There is an automatic deduction from the Robert Smith account.”

  “What can you tell me about that account?”

  My search warrant did not cover the Robert Smith account. I did not mention the issue, and Barb continued typing on the computer keys.

  “That account has a current balance of one hundred and seventy-three thousand five hundred and seventy-seven dollars and sixty-four cents. It shows a steady seventeen hundred and five and thirty-two cents being paid monthly into the account from a pension administration entity. There is also a five hundred and thirty-one dollars and eighty cents paid in each month from the Veterans Administration. There is an automatic monthly payment to Mary Smith of four hundred and fifty dollars. There are no other transactions during the past eighteen-month period.” She paused. “I see Mr. Smith has a certificate of deposit with the bank of a nominal value of twenty thousand dollars that has accumulated an interest of three thousand six hundred and thirteen dollars and fifteen cents.”

  Why do these bank officers feel it is necessary give me these numbers down to the level of cents? Is it because, in conveying such precision, they want to convey self-worth? She must surely know I’m not interested in that level of detail. “Thank you for the info,” I said. “Could you please give me a printout?”

  Barb juggled keys, and a printer began coughing out the data.

  “Who are the signatories to these two accounts?” I asked.

  Barb looked at the computer. “On the Robert Smith account, he is the only authorized signatory. On the other account, both Mary and Robert are authorized signers.”

  “What address do you have for them?”

  “They both have the same ad
dress, at 3753 Grand Ave, Space number 76, San Marcos, California 92078.”

  Does this gal like precision in numbers? I’d merely wanted to find out whether Mary had put down a Florida address, but I had found that she had not changed from the one in the Palomar South Park. “I also need the Smiths’ Social Security numbers, which you must have had to open accounts for them.”

  Barb wrote the numbers down on a bank notepad. She wrote down her name and direct phone number on it as well. She asked for my business card and said she would call me when the Smiths’ long-term records had been recovered. I felt very pleased with myself. I had found the Social Security numbers of the missing couple and discovered they were now living in Florida, most likely in the Orlando area. I wondered what statute Mary Smith was violating by taking money credited to her account from a dead man who shouldn’t be receiving the money in the first place. I’d let Brenda figure that one out. I contacted the Logan St branch of Bank of America in Orlando and got a hold of the manager. I asked if they had the CCTV recording from five weeks ago. I hoped I might see the make, color, and even license plate of the car Mary Smith had been driving. The manager told me that their CCTV kept records for only a month, not long enough to help my search.

  Issur Smith’s saliva swab arrived by express mail, and I turned it over to forensics. I reckoned Flynn and Mary Smith had started their life together in Florida with about one hundred thousand dollars. That would give them funds to live modestly for maybe three years. The monthly draw from Bob’s account would help, but one or both of them would have to go to work. It seemed very likely Flynn would assume Robert Smith’s identity and use either his own or Smith’s Social Security number for employment purposes. I submitted an inquiry to the Social Security Administration about these two alternatives as well as one for Mary Smith.

  Two days later, Danny Chu called me. “There’s a familial relationship between the DNA taken from Flynn’s home and the son’s swab you sent me,” he said. “I guess somebody snookered me.” I was delighted to have confirmation that the recovered body of bones belonged to Robert Smith. “Our handwriting expert also believes there is a ninety-five percent chance that the man who signed the employment application also signed the sales documents,” added Danny.

  I notified Steve, who said he had already called the DA in Sonoma County to tell them of the body identification. “They were very relieved,” he told me, “because it meant that Robert Smith was killed in San Diego County. As far as they were concerned, that meant it was our jurisdictional responsibility. They are quite right, of course. You should prepare a warrant for the arrest of Flynn and Mary Smith for murder.”

  “Yes,” I replied, “but the problem is that the certificate of death for Smith states the cause is unknown.”

  “Well, you can at least start off by making the arrest warrant out for improper disposal of a body and for forgery.”

  “The forgery only applies to Flynn himself, not to Mary, though.”

  “You’d better check then with the district attorney’s office on what charges need to be filed against Mary Smith. They should be of sufficient magnitude to justify extraditing the pair from Florida once you are able to locate them.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Angie Haigh from Sonoma County called me. “I was sitting with Vojin Barnsky when your boss called in on our conference line. You should have seen Vojin’s face when he heard the news. He had been freaked out on how to prosecute your Larry Swift for murder, since he didn’t believe your theory of how those two guys carried it out. He’s been very hard to work with ever since the case came up, so I want to thank you for letting us off the hook.”

  “I wouldn’t have found out what happened without your asking me to look over the autopsy of the corpse,” I replied. “So, you should thank yourself also.” We chitchatted a little more and agreed to stay in touch.

  I called Brenda Williams to ask about the specific charges to be filed against Flynn and Mary Smith. “Do you think either Flynn or Mary Smith were motivated to kill Robert?” she asked.

  “Flynn would have no motivation as far as I can see,” I replied. “It would also be completely inconsistent with his character. Mary, on the other hand, is different. She was married to a man who kept her on a financial shoestring, did not father children with her as he had promised, and blamed her for having MS.”

  “He sounds like a pretty miserable husband,” said Brenda.

  “We both know about that, don’t we?” I said, chuckling.

  Brenda laughed also before she replied. “I don’t think we need to worry about what the medical examiner said. We need to get this couple to come clean when you’ve caught them. It’s best to arrest them for the murder of Robert Smith and question them there. You will get a better sense of what happened and who participated in Robert Smith’s demise and helped in the transport of his body to north California. A warrant for both of them for failure to report a death and improper disposal of a body will add a clear legal sufficiency for that arrest. You can add forgery and mutilation of a corpse to the warrant for Flynn. Make sure the warrant includes the search of their home for information pertinent to the death of Robert.”

  I thanked Brenda for her advice and promptly got Robert Neill to approve my warrant affidavits, after which I took the warrant applications to the courthouse and obtained the pertinent warrants. The Social Security Administration reported there had been no report of income on any of the three Social Security numbers I had submitted. I was disappointed. Finding Flynn was not proving to be easy. Barb Nefke e-mailed me the records for Robert Smith’s bank account going back to January 2009, exactly seven years. I made a graph of the data to extrapolate the data back to September 2008, when his death had occurred. I wanted to see if the account had been plundered. If that had been done, it would be useful in preparing the warrant for Flynn and Mary given the ambiguity as to the cause of Robert’s death. The extrapolation led to a balance of about twenty thousand dollars. Clearly, the account had not been robbed. The data told me that Robert Smith, while not rich, had been a long way from destitute. In 2008, he’d owned his mobile home outright, had twenty thousand dollars in savings, and received a monthly pension of over twenty-two hundred dollars. No reason to keep Mary on such a miserable monthly allowance for groceries and personal expenses. I could see why she would resent it. But did she resent it enough to kill her husband?

  I felt assured Flynn and Mary Smith were in Florida. An internet inquiry revealed three thousand seven hundred Robert Smiths living in Florida. I could narrow that down to perhaps three hundred and seventy if they were living within a fifty-mile radius of Orlando. I mentioned my problem in locating Flynn to Steve.

  “Flynn could be working in the underground economy,” he said. “If he has enough money, he could stay low like Whitey Bulger, the Boston gangster who evaded capture for fourteen years.”

  “Yes, but Whitey had saved a huge stack of cash and could afford to lay low,” I offered. “Flynn and Mary have money enough for three years at most. They would need to get an income.”

  “Shane, if you were Flynn, what would you do?”

  “Let me think.” I took several deep breaths as I postulated before answering. “I have been selling real estate, mostly mobile homes, for many years. That’s my specialty. I would try to go back in that field but with a phony Social Security number.”

  “Sounds like you’ve given yourself a good lead.”

  I smiled. “You’re absolutely right.” Inside, I was kicking myself for not thinking of that independently. I wanted to solve this case all by myself. But Steve is a smart guy, one of the reasons why he’d become my boss. I returned to my desk and went to the website of the Florida Real Estate Commission. I was able to download an Excel spreadsheet of all their real estate licensees. The spreadsheet gave the names of the brokers’ offices where these licensees worked. There were twenty-one Robert Smiths. I began to call each office and ask for the broker of record. I identified myself as a detecti
ve in San Diego, California, to the broker or to the receptionist if the broker was unavailable. “I’m looking for a missing person who is using the name Robert Smith,” I said. “Will you give me your e-mail address so I may send you a picture of the missing man?” I reached fifteen offices that day and sent off fifteen e-mails.

  The next afternoon brought a return e-mail from a broker in Titusville, who said their Robert Smith matched the photo I had sent. I told Steve that I had located Flynn. “Fly there with Hanson and bring them back here,” commanded Steve. “Don’t forget to call Lily Gross and tell her Flynn is alive and well.”

  “Will do,” I responded. “I need to thank you very much for your suggesting he would go back to selling mobile homes.”

  “You’d have thought about it a little later anyway, and the case would never have broken without all your effort in putting these things together,” Steve replied. I appreciated that generous comment. I had become reconciled to Steve as my boss; he had proved to be fair minded and very efficient, a vast improvement over Thompson.

  I called Lily Gross and told her we had determined the corpse was not Flynn’s. I then told her our man was alive and living in Florida.

  “Wonderful news,” she responded. “You’ve worked hard on this case for many years. You’ll be glad it’s wrapping up.” I acknowledged the truth of that comment. Lily said she would notify Marge Holmes’ attorney so he could call off the petition hearing. “National Harper Insurance will be delighted at not having to pay out a couple of million dollars,” she added.

  Our travel department booked flights to Orlando for me and Dane Hanson, including a rental car for the Wednesday. Return flight dates and times were left open. I notified the Titusville police we were coming to arrest two residents of their town and requested they help us with deputies for the arrest as well as use of their questioning room. I went home and packed for a two-day trip that would start at 6:40 a.m. the next morning. That’s the trouble with the coast-to-coast flights: they nearly all start early in the morning on the West Coast so the plane can be turned around and fly back (with a different pilot) on the same day. I would need to get up by four o’clock the next morning to make the flight and pick up Dane Hanson on the way.