A Flame in the Wind of Death

by Ann Vanderlaan

  She winced. “The side that’s nearly immobile.”

  “Yes. When this healed, extra bone likely built up from the damaged soft tissue at the joint, immobilizing it.”

  “You said he was eight when that happened?” Kiko asked from across the lab.

  “Yeah.”

  “Here’s one from four years later.” She held up another film.

  Matt waved her over, and Kiko replaced his film with hers on the light box. “Fracture of the distal ulna,” she said. “He was skateboarding.”

  Leigh stared at the X-ray aghast. “What on earth was he doing skateboarding? Even if he was capable of it, the risk of injury would be too great. Is that his left side again?”

  “Yes.”

  “He probably couldn’t keep his balance with that kind of fusion already starting in his shoulder,” Paul said.

  Leigh turned to where he sat at his writing station. “What do you mean?”

  “Think about skateboarding,” he said. He stood up and set his feet like he was on a skateboard, his knees bent and his arms slightly spread from his sides. “You have to be able to constantly adjust to keep your balance as you board.” He mimed taking a curve. “Every turn, every bump. He wouldn’t have been able to if his shoulder was fused.”

  “No,” Matt said, slowly. “He wouldn’t.” He stared at the X-ray, his lip starting to curl in distaste. An idea was forming in his mind, and he didn’t really like the implications.

  Leigh touched his arm. “What are you thinking?”

  He pulled his gaze from the X-ray to find her intent green eyes fixed on his face. “Not sure yet. Let me work it through.”

  She stared at him curiously, but finally nodded.

  It was Juka who found the next piece of the puzzle. “I found something too.”

  “Another break?” Matt asked.

  “No. Nothing that dramatic. He had a cavity filled.”

  Leigh set down her report. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “A lot, unfortunately,” Matt said. “What happens before your dentist drills?”

  “They freeze your mouth?”

  Matt simply held out both hands in a there you go gesture.

  “The needle? An injection is enough to do damage?”

  “Yes. Anything that causes soft tissue injury.”

  “God almighty. This kid never had a chance.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  Shaking her head, Leigh turned back to her report. She found the connection they’d been looking for less than five minutes later, drawing Matt’s attention when her hand slapped down on the countertop in triumph. “I’ve got it!” She grinned at him. “I got a connection to Simpson.” The triumph in her voice was infectious.

  He abandoned his notes immediately. “What is it?”

  “Look at this. This is the report from Graves Chemical Corporation, out in Worcester.” She ran her finger under an entry.

  Matt’s gaze skimmed over it, from the date, to the product number to . . . “Salem Boatworks. Simpson’s company ordered the red phosphorus.”

  “I can go one better than that. I saw his office and what he does. Simpson ordered it himself. Now, this is last May, but he could have kept it since then, or there may be another order. I’ll keep checking. But this is our first real connection. Our first piece of real evidence.”

  “There must have been a legitimate reason for them to order it. Surely someone would have questioned it between last May and now otherwise.”

  “A custom marine shop ordering phosphorus? No one would question that.”

  Both Matt and Leigh turned to Juka who sat on a stool in front of the gurney, papers spread out before him. “Why not?” Matt asked.

  “Did you see a smelting furnace there?” Juka asked Leigh, ignoring Matt’s question.

  “A smelting furnace? I’m not sure that I’d recognize one if I even saw one. They had a lot of equipment in the building and . . .” She closed her eyes for a moment as she pictured the back workspace. “Would the furnace have a crucible?”

  “Yes.”

  Her gaze swung up to Matt. “There was a heavy cylinder suspended from an I-beam frame so it could run down the length of the workspace.” She turned back to Juka. “Could that have been it?”

  He nodded. “It’s a custom boat shop. If they do custom fittings, then they’d smelt their own metals on site. Phosphor-bronze is a mix of copper, tin and phosphorus, in this case, red phosphorus. They’d likely heat the crucible in the furnace and then, if it was suspended, they could move it down the line, filling molds for the parts of the fittings. Now you don’t use much phosphorus in phosphorbronze; it’s less than one percent of the total mixture, but if they make enough of it, they might still order quite a bit.”

  “Enough that a few missing grams might not be noticeable over the long run,” Matt said. “What you put in is never what you get out, depending on your scale’s calibration, so no one would think twice about small amounts that were unaccounted for. But what are you thinking? That Dodsworth knew about the phosphorus and managed to secret some out of the shop? Or that Simpson was in cahoots with him and he stashed it away? If it happened months ago, then no one would connect the missing materials simply because of the time frame.”

  “No one but us. I’m going to keep looking. There may be other orders, or there may be orders from other companies. Then I’ll get copies of the invoices and, if possible, the delivery receipts to the company. We need this tied up neatly.”

  They went back to work, but with clearly increased enthusiasm.

  Matt broke the silence again a few minutes later. “I have two more fractures. A supracondylar fracture of the elbow. Bad one too. And a scaphoid fracture.”

  “Those breaks are classic fall injuries,” Kiko said. She held out her left arm, tilting toward the floor as if she was falling, her arm outstretched and her open hand flexed, her fingers spread. “If he was falling and tried to catch himself, his weight landing on his palm and the force radiating up his arm would do it. How did he fall? Does it say?”

  “He was knocked off the porch steps by his dog, a Tibetan Mastiff.”

  “That’s a big dog. How old was he at the time?” Leigh asked.

  “Nine. Combined with the other injuries, this would have finished off his left arm for sure. I’ll bet he was looking at complete fusion by the time he was thirteen or fourteen.” He flipped through a few more pages. “There are lots of comments here about bumps and bruises. That’s something that would never make it into anyone else’s medical records, because they’d simply heal normally, but not with Flynn Simpson. Every bruise could become a new area of ossification.”

  “Mrs. Kent commented that he was a clumsy child. Actually, come to think of it, Simpson referred to himself the same way.”

  Matt carried the elbow X-ray to the light box and stood staring at it for a long moment. Could it be? Still . . . who would do such a thing? It disgusted him, but he knew such things really happened.

  “I have a theory,” he finally said. “It might explain motive.”

  “You’re still thinking abuse?” Leigh asked.

  “Yes. But with a horrific twist.” He blew out a long breath and laid his cards on the table. “I’m thinking Münchausen. More specifically, Münchausen by Proxy.”

  Leigh closed her report with a snap as she swiveled around in her chair. “I’ve heard of that before. Isn’t that—” Her breath caught in her chest in horror as understanding dawned. “Isn’t that when a parent hurts their own child, simply to bring attention to themselves?”

  “Yes.”

  Kiko’s shocked gasp sounded behind him, and Matt let silence hang heavily in the lab for a moment, giving everyone a chance to absorb his theory. “Think about it. What’s the one thing that everyone has consistently said about Moira Simpson? That she was all flash and no substance.”

  “She was a member of the parish and made large donations to the church, but only as long as Father Bri
an was showering her with attention. Once that stopped, she left,” Leigh said.

  “She joined the coven, and bought all the expensive tools of the trade, until she realized there was no hierarchy to climb and no one was listening to her ideas,” Kiko said. “Then she left.”

  “She used her own son to attract attention to herself?” Disbelief and horror laced Paul’s tone. “Münchausen is bad enough for any child, but in this case, she was doing permanent physical damage.”

  “It’s a nightmare to think about, but look at the injuries he suffered. By the time the serious injuries started, Simpson was already diagnosed. Yet he was riding a bike and skateboarding, two activities he never should have been allowed to do by a responsible parent.”

  “And the dental work,” Kiko said. “She must have been told by the doctors that any injection would cause inflammation and that in turn would stimulate ossification. If she’d passed that on to the dentist, surely he would have found another way, maybe used an inhaled anesthetic.” She whirled on Juka. “What about vaccinations. Did he get those?”

  “Hold on, let me look.” Juka flipped back through his paperwork. “Yes, several. Mumps, measles, rubella, polio. Some were before his diagnosis, some weren’t.” He paused squinting down at the notes. “This doctor has terrible handwriting, but I think it says that he counseled that Simpson not receive the injection and Mrs. Simpson insisted.”

  Matt looked over at Leigh to find her staring off into space, but he could tell from her unfocused eyes that her mind was going a mile a minute. He walked over to her, laid his hand lightly on her shoulder and waited until she looked up. “Got something?”

  “I’m just trying to put the pieces together. I think it’s a sound theory. But what if it all started before Flynn Simpson’s birth? Moira’s husband was killed in an industrial accident. What if it all started there? There she was, widowed and pregnant. That probably attracted a lot of attention. What if she decided she liked being the sympathetic figure?”

  “Simpson’s diagnosis would have only strengthened it then. Imagine the attention she got once they figured out it was FOP,” Paul said.

  Matt suddenly found Leigh’s green eyes narrowed on him accusingly. “What?”

  “I’m just remembering your reaction to him. You totally checked out during that discussion, you were so floored by his condition.”

  “Well, sure. Most osteologists will go through their entire careers never seeing a clinical patient like that.”

  “That’s exactly my point. I’m sure they called in specialists and made a big deal out of him.”

  Matt could imagine the reaction and the response. “And all the time they fussed over Flynn, they fussed over Moira too. She caught the limelight tangentially, and that only strengthened her desire. And since she didn’t work, she could devote all her time to him.”

  “Remember that Simpson said she was devoted to him and totally involved in his health care. That she told him she felt responsible for not being able to find the right treatment for him—meaning a cure, I assume—so she kept taking him to different specialists.”

  “There is no cure,” Juka said.

  “I understand that. I bet she did too, but every new doctor was a new ear, and a once-in-a-lifetime clinical opportunity. I’m sure they were all very sympathetic to her plight, as well. She could have played the part of the loving mother, and everyone would feel terrible for her because there really wasn’t anything anyone could do. And then all those injuries happened.”

  “Requiring more visits to doctors and trips to the ER,” Kiko said, shaking her head in disbelief. “If it’s true, it was cruelly subtle. She should have ensured he stayed safe. Instead, she provided sports equipment he wasn’t physically able to handle because of his existing disability, thereby causing further injury.”

  “The dog is an interesting touch,” Paul interjected. “Don’t buy anything small. Buy a large dog, something that could be a guard dog for a single woman and her child, but one that Flynn wouldn’t be able to handle. Restraining a dog of that size would be the only way to keep Flynn safe, but that clearly didn’t happen. So he gets injured and ends up back at the doctor’s office. And then likely again and again during the healing process. All those visits must have been crazy expensive, but it sounds like she had the money to afford it.”

  “If we’re right, her money simply allowed her the leeway to keep all those doctor appointments.” Leigh stood up and wandered over to the light box to stare thoughtfully at the X-ray. “I’ll bet the child never even knew he was being abused. It wouldn’t have been anything as obvious as a slap or a punch. If any of the doctors had asked him, he would have been able to genuinely say that his mother never mistreated him. In fact, she appeared to be a very loving, protective and involved parent.”

  “And his injuries lined up nicely as expected accidental fractures,” Matt said. “There are typical pediatric fractures that are associated with child abuse—skull fractures, for instance, tend to be common, so are rib fractures—but none of Simpson’s fractures would automatically raise an alarm since they aren’t typical abuse fractures.”

  “Okay, so we’ve potentially identified the mother as the abuser. How does that explain the priest? Why would he be a target?” Paul asked.

  “What if the priest knew?” Leigh asked. “What if Flynn Simpson figured it out himself as he got older and went to Father Brian as a trusted adult, but the priest didn’t believe, or maybe didn’t help him?”

  “Wouldn’t Father Brian have been required by law to disclose that information to the authorities?” Juka asked.

  “Today he would,” Leigh answered. “But it would depend on when he found out. He might not have been required by law back then.”

  “Only by morality,” Matt muttered. “Let’s run with this. Let’s say that Father Brian was aware of the type of subtle abuse going on, but didn’t do anything to step in or even talk to Moira Simpson. Why? Because of her donations to the church? He didn’t want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg?”

  “Possibly,” Leigh conceded. “If so, then Flynn Simpson was sold out by a man of God for money.”

  “If that was me,” Paul said, “I’d be pissed off. If it’s true, then Father Brian allowed Moira Simpson to go on causing irreparable damage. Essentially, he was allowing her to slowly kill her son.”

  “So the whole time Simpson’s been singing his mother’s praises, it was all part of the cover,” Leigh said. “He was deflecting attention away from himself and, therefore, away from Dodsworth because there was no motive for revenge. And in the meantime, Dodsworth was killing for him.”

  Matt raised a finger and started to say something, then abruptly pulled back, suddenly unsure.

  “What?” Leigh asked.

  “What if it’s not Dodsworth doing the killing?”

  “If not him,” Kiko said, “then who?”

  “What if it’s Simpson himself?”

  Leigh simply stared at him. “But he’s not capable of carrying out those murders. You saw for yourself how little mobility he has. You were the one who told me I wasn’t giving his disease enough credence when I first suggested him.”

  “I know.” Matt paced up and down along the length of the bench. “And I’m kicking myself for it now. Did I dismiss him out of hand because I know too much about his disease? Do you remember when we first discussed him that I said his disease was more progressed than I expected for someone his age? Sure, some of that’s because of the abuse, but what if some of it’s an act?” His eyes stayed on Leigh, watching her turn the idea over in her mind.

  “We discounted him from the start because we didn’t think he’d have the strength and mobility,” she said. “But from the beginning, we were considering women because the victims were incapacitated. Maybe they had to be incapacitated so he had time to make a clean kill.”

  “Exactly. And while we were thinking that Simpson was alibiing his lover, what if it was the other way around? Dodsworth
was alibiing Simpson? And then when we look at the red phosphorus, it wasn’t Simpson getting it for Dodsworth to use, but for himself.”

  “But why is Simpson doing this now?” Kiko asked. “Assuming that we’re onto something here, why did he wait so long to exact his revenge?”

  Leigh shrugged. “I’m not sure. There might be an angle of this that we’re not seeing yet.”

  Matt went back to his files and flipped through some of the later entries. “Maybe it’s something very basic. Maybe he’s simply losing his ability to take action. As it is, he has to incapacitate his victims before killing them. What if he suspects that in another few years he’ll be so trapped inside his own skeletal cage that he won’t be able to avenge himself?”

  “You may be on to something.” Leigh checked her watch. “I need to go talk to Simpson.”

  “I’m coming with you.” At her pointed look, Matt glared right back, not willing to back down. “Remember Bradford. In the end, it was our teamwork that took him down.”

  “Good point.” Leigh turned back to Matt’s students. “Thank you for your help. Can you guys—”

  “We’ll handle it,” Kiko said. “Go.”

  Matt and Leigh didn’t need to be told twice. They were already running out the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: FLAME FRONT

  * * *

  Flame Front: outermost boundary or edge of the fire.

  Tuesday, 5:27 p.m.

  Simpson Residence

  Salem, Massachusetts

  “I’m sorry; Flynn’s not back from work yet.” Aaron Dodsworth checked his watch, then looked back at Matt and Leigh standing on his doorstep. “The shop doesn’t close until six, so I don’t expect him home until about six thirty.”

  “We’ll check back another time then, thank you,” Leigh said.

  “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “Now that you mention it, I did want to ask you about the key to the antique shop again.”