What Happened To Flynn

by Pat Muir

  It was dark when I picked up Dane. It was only when we got to the airport that I saw how his recent divorce had impacted him. He was wearing a dark-brown jacket with gray pants. His wife would never have let him out of the house with that color combination.

  The United Airlines flight was not memorable. There were no in-flight movies, so I passed the time reading a novel by Sue Grafton. Her name spelled backwards is the same as mine, which came from my father, an opportunist from Germany who took advantage of my naïve and lonely mother while serving in the US army in Frankfurt. He’d simply wanted to acquire US citizenship, and after he had done so, he’d left my mother and me, never to pay child support. My mother, now deceased, had continued in the army until she’d retired. I digress. Our flight arrived in Orlando at 5:00 p.m. East Coast time. We picked up our rented car, a newer Chevrolet Impala, and Dane drove the thirty-five miles to Titusville. He didn’t ask me if I wanted to drive. Funny thing about men: driving is a masculine thing and makes men feel entitled to drive their womenfolk around. I’m so used to this male trait that I did not protest. We arrived at our centrally located hotel too late to check in with the Titusville police administration.

  The next morning, at eight thirty, we presented ourselves at the Titusville police station and showed our credentials and the official arrest warrants to the officer in charge. He provided two deputies and two patrol cars for the arrests. The deputy first drove us to Flynn’s real estate broker, where Dale and I went in to ask if Robert Smith were present. I looked around the office and saw that Flynn was not there. We showed our credentials to the receptionist and demanded Smith’s home address, cell phone number, and the make, model, year, and color of his car.

  “What’s this all about?” said the broker as he came over to the receptionist’s desk. I told them it was a police matter and impressed on them not to contact Smith.

  The deputies drove our cars to Flynn’s home in a mobile home park, a very upscale on full of retired citizens, many, by their accents, from Brooklyn. We knocked on the door, and Mary Smith opened it. A small, blonde-headed boy held her dangling shirt. I was momentarily nonplussed by the sight of the little boy. Before I could say anything, Mary began to cry, and the child began to wail with her. “I thought we would never be found after all this time,” she sobbed.

  “Mary Smith, you are under arrest for the murder of Robert Smith,” I said firmly to her, thinking best on how to handle the situation. I waved my warrant in front of her and moved inside the home, motioning her to sit down. She did so, putting her arms around the child and soothing him even as she wept copiously. I gave her a couple of minutes before asking her, “Is Arthur Flynn here?”

  “No. he’s out,” she said between bouts of sobbing.

  I went to the open door, where Hanson was standing, and told him to tell a deputy to call child protective services (CPS), hoping Mary would not hear me.

  “Do you know where he is?” I asked her.

  “He’s with a client in the park,” she responded, still sobbing. I told Dale to go with the other deputy and drive around the park to find Flynn’s car and arrest him there. I sat down, watching Mary as she slowly gained some composure. “I remember you,” she said unsteadily.

  “And I remember you,” I replied. “Is that your boy?” I pointed my finger at him. Mary nodded. Then she shook her head from side to side, tears still running down her cheek. The child continued to cry in concert with his mother’s distress.

  She looked up at me. “Did you say I was being arrested for murder?” she asked, her voice a little steadier.

  “Yes,” I told her.

  “I never murdered Robert,” she said. “He was dead when I found him.”

  “Tell me about it,” I asked, careful not to ask her questions before the expected demand for an attorney.

  “Robert was very ill. He had been for a long time. We had expected he would die at any time. It just happened just a day or so before Robert—I mean Art—was going on his fishing vacation.”

  “Really,” I said with a mild tone of skepticism.

  “Robert coughed a lot due to his emphysema. He would wake up to cough in the night every two hours. I grew used to being wakened by it. When he didn’t wake me that night, I went in to see him.” Mary saw my hidden thought. “Yes, we slept in separate bedrooms.” I nodded my understanding. “I saw he wasn’t breathing, so I woke up Art next door, and he came over in his pajamas. He said Robert was dead.”

  My cell phone rang. The call was from Hanson. “I’ve arrested our man,” he said.

  “Take him directly to the city jail,” I told him. “I’ll meet you there after I get things straightened out here.”

  Mary’s son turned around in his mother’s arms to face me. He looked cautiously at me; I was entranced by his clear blue eyes, pink complexion, and golden hair. I smiled at him. Mary saw my smile. “His name is John,” she said. “You’re going to take me away from him, aren’t you?” she said, beginning to weep again. John turned to snuggle with his mother.

  “You are going to be questioned at the police station,” I told her. “We’ve called child protective services. If you have a relative or a friend to look after him, then I can call off CPS.”

  Mary did not reply, and I informed her I was searching the house. I asked the accompanying deputy to confiscate her cell phone if she had one and to guard her while I conducted my search. In a desk in the bedroom, I found a file drawer containing five files of medical records labeled Robert A, Mary, Bobby, John, and Robert. I looked at them and ascertained the Robert file pertained to the original Robert Smith. The file must have been kept there for a purpose. I looked for copies of the escrow document and bill of sale of the Smith mobile home and the handicap-equipped van, documents that might incriminate. I searched for any diary, letters, photographs, or personal documents that might reveal how Robert Smith died or their participation in forging sale documents. I found nothing useful. I returned to where Mary was sitting. Her son was playing with a toy in front of her and chattering with an amused deputy. “He’s a cute kid,” the deputy said. John looked at me fearfully.

  “Who is Bobby?” I asked Mary.

  “He’s my older son,” she replied though a tear-stained, reddened face. “He’s at primary school.”

  I asked her which one, making a mental note to have CPS pick the boy up there. Mary gave me the name and then added, “I don’t think I should say anything more until I have talked to Robert…I mean Art…and an attorney.”

  “I understand. I will be taking these documents,” I told her, waving them in front of her, “and also your laptop.”

  This jogged Mary’s memory. “We made a video of what we did when Robert died. It’s on a memory stick,” she said. She stood up, saying, “I’ll get it for you.”

  I restrained her and told her to tell me where it was. She gave me the information, and I retrieved it from a labeled can for gum in a desk drawer. CPS hadn’t arrived yet, and I was tempted to play the memory stick on their computer, but I wanted Hanson to see it at the same time, so I refrained. I asked Mary to help me prepare a suitcase of clothes for her two sons, which we did together. I felt sorry for the woman, who was going to be separated from her two small children while we determined her role in Robert Smith’s death.

  CHAPTER 34

  CPS arrived and took a screaming John away from his weeping mother, then in handcuffs, and went on to pick up the older brother. We drove to the city jail, where Mary was fingerprinted and processed. I told Hanson about the memory stick, and we decided to play it on Art’s conveniently available laptop before we questioned Mary or Art. The video lasted just under seven minutes. Robert Smith lay completely motionless on the floor in his pajamas. A woman’s hand was seen holding a mirror to the man’s mouth for a minute before turning over its mirrored face to show no sign of condensed moisture. The camera moved to show the entire pajama-clad body, indicating no observable wounds or blood or evidence of blunt trauma. The camera moved
to an adjacent newspaper showing the date of Thursday, September 9, 2008, i.e., three days before Flynn had left for the fishing camp.

  “I would say the man is clearly dead,” said Hanson.

  “I agree,” I said. “Unfortunately, the video doesn’t tell us how he died. He could have been poisoned or suffocated for all we know. Maybe we’ll get an answer from forensics when they examine it.”

  I had Hanson e-mail the video to the crime lab in San Diego while I looked at the medical files. The Robert Smith file showed the man had had a litany of illnesses, many in terms incomprehensible to me. Mary Smith’s file showed her getting prenatal and postnatal care in giving birth to her two sons. She’d also had a three-month bout of MS between the two births. Art Flynn’s thin file showed only his good health. Bobby’s file showed him born on April 24, 2009, with a weight of seven pound, thirteen ounces, the weight of a full-term baby. That would mean he’d been conceived on July 24, 2008, plus or minus a week. I deduced Mary had been about six weeks pregnant when Robert Smith had died. I wondered if she’d known then that she was pregnant. It could have affected what happened.

  We were informed that Art and Mary had hired an attorney, who was waiting to talk to us. Dale and I went to reception, where the attorney, a woman of sixty dressed in fashionable black top and pants, sat in an adjacent chair. We introduced ourselves, and she, in a faint Baltic accent, gave her name as Caroline Mehr. “Both of my clients have told me about the death of Mr. Robert Smith,” she said, “and that you have the video they made of it. May I see it?”

  I told Caroline that our crime lab was examining it now and I would e-mail it to her later, but she said it wasn’t right for us to question her clients about the death scene having seen it while she had not. So, I conceded and set up the computer for the viewing. She made no comment on it. “What specific crimes are you charging my clients with?” she asked.

  “We are charging Mr. Flynn with forgery, identity theft, mutilation of a corpse, and improper disposal of a body,” I responded. “We are, of course, investigating both of your clients in the murder of Mr. Robert Smith.”

  “I would like to address that issue, Ms. Notfarg. My clients claim that Mr. Smith’s death was due to natural causes.”

  “That can be determined upon their return to San Diego.”

  “My clients want an extradition hearing. Mr. Flynn is quite prepared to return to San Diego to face the first set of charges. He wants the charge against him and Mary Smith for murder dropped. There was no murder, and he wants his wife, I mean Mary Smith, to stay in Titusville with her two small children.”

  I told Caroline I would need to consult with my unit head. Then I immediately called Steve.

  “An extradition hearing will cost,” he said. “We would have to send out a medical examiner and a lot more witnesses if Flynn wants to fight the other charges as well.” He paused. “You and Dale should question the two of them separately to check for consistencies in their stories. Get a feel for how truthful they are. I’ll have the crime lab accelerate its review of that video. Don’t forget to scan Smith’s medical records and send them on. Before you go much further, you need to have someone confirm the body in the video is indeed that of Smith.”

  I told Steve the Bessins at Wesley Palms would be able to make that identification. He said he would take care of it.

  Hanson and I discussed Robert Smith’s demise. “Flynn didn’t need to get involved with the man’s death,” Dale said. “He could have let Mary call 911 and let matters take their course. She could have joined him later wherever he was hiding from Swift and company. She probably had to persuade him to undertake this bizarre behavior.”

  I replied, “I agree, so let’s talk to Flynn first and get his side of the story.”

  We then went to the questioning room, where Flynn in an orange jumpsuit was talking to Caroline Mehr. He had aged well in the past seven years. Now fifty-five years old, he appeared fit, his face pink from tanning in the Florida sun. He stood up to introduce himself and his attorney. His voice was calm, and his demeanor positive.

  I could sense why he would be a successful real estate salesman. I opened the conversation after turning on the voice recorder by announcing the date, time, and names of those present. I gave Flynn a Miranda warning before starting our questioning. “I was the detective assigned to investigate your disappearance seven years ago. I and Mr. Hanson here are only going to question you about Mr. Smith’s death. The charges already filed against you of identity theft, mutilating a corpse, improper disposal of a dead body, and forging real estate documents will be addressed in San Diego when you are returned.”

  Flynn replied, “I understand. I’m sorry you went to a lot of trouble, but I heard that as a consequence, you were able to prosecute Larry Swift for money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “So, you were aware the damaged gas connector in your mobile home was deliberate?”

  “I figured it very likely,” replied Flynn, so I thought it better for me to disappear until the DEA had Swift in jail. Then I would be able to return to San Marcos without fearing for my life.” His reply reminded me that until we contacted the DEA, that agency had not undertaken or proposed any action against Swift.

  “So, whose idea was it for you to switch identities with Robert Smith?” asked Dane.

  “It was my idea,” Flynn replied. “Mary woke me up at four in the morning to tell me she had found Bob dead in bed. He slept very badly and woke every couple of hours coughing… That’s why they didn’t sleep in the same room. She realized she hadn’t heard him coughing, and that’s why she went to his room.”

  “And she came straight away to you after that?” I asked

  “That’s right. I’m a sound sleeper, and I might not have woken if she’d called on the phone,” Flynn replied.

  “Wasn’t she sleeping in your bed instead?” demanded Dane.

  Flynn waved his hands, a gesture to acknowledge we knew he had been intimate with Mary Smith. “Not that night. Mary knew that Bob was very ill and might die soon. So, she felt she needed to be vigilant in watching him to see when he should be taken to hospital.”

  “So, what did you do?” asked Dane aggressively.

  “I went across and confirmed Bob was indeed dead,” replied Flynn.

  “How did you know he was dead?” I asked.

  “There was no pulse in his neck,” replied Flynn.

  “Was his body warm?” I asked.

  “It hadn’t gotten cold. We saw his arms and legs were still flexible when we pulled him out of bed,” replied Flynn.

  “Why didn’t you call 911 right then and there?” asked Dane.

  “Mary wanted to, but I asked her to wait,” Flynn replied.

  “Why was that?” I asked.

  “I wondered what would happen if the DEA investigated Swift and found nothing. He’s a clever man with a lot of resources. He might even have had a confidant in the DEA to tip him off. Where would I be if the drug money people were not behind bars? They would continue to go after me,” said Flynn.

  “What did Mary say to that?” asked Dane.

  “Nothing really. She asked me what I had in mind, which I was rapidly formulating. I told her we had an opportunity if she would take it with me. I suggested burying Bob’s body and taking his identity. I thought coming back to his home and pretending to be him would make it impossible for people to connect the two of us. I had planned the fishing trip to the Russian River fishing camp a couple of months before this Swift money laundering thing came up. I thought I could bury Bob’s body up there and if it was ever found, then they might think it was me. Then they might suspect Swift, a payback for his trying to kill me.”

  “And for seducing Marge?” I said. Flynn just shrugged at my comment.

  “Did Bob know you were sleeping with his wife?” asked Dane.

  “I very much doubt it,” replied Flynn. “If he even suspected it, he would have stormed at Mary,
but he never did so. In his last two months, he had become very ill, sleeping most of the time, and had little interest in what was going on around him.”

  “Did Mary love Bob?” I asked.

  Flynn seemed perplexed by the question and its abrupt change of substance. I could see he was thinking how he might reply without compromising Mary, so I pushed him. “Isn’t it true he mistreated her?”

  “You should only answer what you saw or heard there,” interrupted Caroline, “not what Mary told you.”

  Flynn did not listen to his attorney. “Well, Mary said Bob never physically abused her,” he replied. “He certainly didn’t have the strength to do so in his last year.”

  “So, he verbally abused her, then?” asked Dane aggressively.

  I could see Flynn mentally backpedal. “Well, she told me he called her spendthrift and wasteful, but then his mind was twisted by illness, leading to an unnecessary frugality… Why are you asking me these questions about Mary?”

  Dane ignored his question. “So, Mary knew you were going and might not come back. Did you know she was pregnant at the time?”

  “Yes. She told me that morning.”

  “So, she was motivated to be with you, the father of her baby.”

  “Of course. I was ecstatic I might become a father. I had adored raising Sally when she lived with me.”

  “Didn’t it occur to you Mary might have moved Bob’s death along?” asked Dane.

  “What do you mean?” responded Flynn.

  “Didn’t she tell you she suffocated Bob by putting a pillow over his head and that he was too weak to resist?” asked Dane.

  Flynn’s mouth opened, shut and opened again. He had clearly never considered the possibility. “That’s impossible. Mary would never do a thing like that. She’s a sweet soul, whom I love dearly. You can’t possibly think she would do a thing like that.” Moisture came into his eyes.