Fatal Burn by Lisa Jackson
Because that’s what Paterno thought they had here—someone not only out for blood but something else as well. The guy was playing a game, intentionally leaving clues, taunting the police and hoping to strike fear in those who were still alive.
Why else take the time to scrawl the weird symbol on the mirror in lipstick?
Why else leave a backpack with the identical drawing?
Why else make a point to let the police and everyone involved know that the kidnapping of Dani Settler was connected to Mary Beth Flannery’s death?
He glanced at one page of his notes, the ones dedicated to the victim.
Mary Beth Flannery had been thirty-three, a mother of two, and, if gossip was right, soon to be divorced from her husband, Robert Flannery, a firefighter. There was a sizable life insurance policy on her, nearly half a million dollars. But she was balking at divorce, so her death would both free Flannery of his marriage and put a lot of money into his pockets.
And Robert Flannery was in financial trouble. The family house had a first, second and third mortgage on it. Any bit of equity in the small ranch house had been already taken from it. Then there was the credit card debt and a brand new leased BMW.
Robert Flannery had plenty of motive to kill his wife, but why go to all the trouble of such an elaborate, staged killing? That part didn’t fit. Unless he was trying to throw the police off and knew enough to make it look like this killing was connected to the burned birth certificate left at his sister’s house. But Paterno didn’t think Robert had the brains, time, or wherewithal to kidnap the kid. He might be an opportunist taking advantage of an ongoing investigation, trying to muddy the waters after learning that the girl had been kidnapped. But Paterno didn’t think that, either.
Robert Flannery struck him as impulsive—a risk-taker, but not a plotter. He may have wanted his wife dead, but he would be the kind of guy who hired someone to do it. Or he might stage an accident himself, but not this bizarre, almost ritualistic act. Paterno felt this was outside the scope of the man’s imagination.
So who?
Paterno drummed his fingers some more and frowned.
There were others who probably would have liked to have seen Mary Beth out of the way including Cynthia Tallericco, Robert’s mistress, but again, why the over-the-top killing? The planning? The linking to Dani Settler’s disappearance?
The interesting part was that Tallericco had been instrumental in helping to put the girl up for adoption.
Coincidence?
Paterno didn’t put much stock in coincidence. In fact, he didn’t much believe there was such a thing.
Why would Cynthia Tallericco, or anyone, for that matter, draw the symbol on the mirror? Or on the backpack?
After searching the premises, the police had found the backpack left near the sink. It had been singed but had remained intact, so it must have been sprayed with some kind of retardant.
Upon questioning, Robert Flannery had insisted that the backpack didn’t belong to either of his kids or any of their friends, but Paterno wondered if the firefighter would even know. School had barely started and Flannery had been pretty involved with his new girlfriend. Chances were he was ignoring his kids as well as his wife while the affair was heating up.
However, the backpack and symbols didn’t seem to fit with Robert Flannery unless they were elaborate smoke screens. But Paterno didn’t buy it. No, the backpack and scrawled images were the killer’s doing, and that killer wasn’t Robert Flannery.
So what did he know?
First, Mary Beth had been strangled. There had been water in her lungs, but not enough to drown her, and the bruising around her neck indicated someone had cut off her air supply with his hands. True, her husband Robert had alledgedly been the last person to see her alive, but he had an alibi, the Tallericco woman, and Paterno believed they really had been together.
Second, Mary Beth’s place had been torched, with clues intentionally left at the scene.
Third, a search of her phone records revealed that Mary Beth had spoken to her brother Liam and Shannon Flannery within the hour before the fire had been called in.
Fourth, her kids were conveniently spending the night with Mary Beth’s sister, Margaret.
He decided to check with all of Mary Beth’s family and friends again. Officers were already canvassing the neighborhood, talking to people who lived nearby, looking for anything out of the ordinary on the night of her death.
Her family had called the police station repeatedly. And the press didn’t seem satisfied by the answers they’d gotten from the information officer. But they would all just have to wait.
Paterno’s chair squeaked as he got to his feet. He leaned over his desk again, his eyes drawn to the weird symbols that were left at two of the scenes. The first was an odd diamond-like shape missing a point. In the middle of the shape was the number six. Or, he supposed, nine, if he turned the shape upside down.
The second symbol was obviously part of a five-pointed star with one point missing. In the lower left-hand corner, there was a blank space, no point, but the number five had been written, boldly drawn. The lower right-hand point was visible, but it had been drawn with a broken line while the rest of the star was in strong, bold strokes. The number two, also written in a broken line, was situated in the middle of the lower right-hand point.
Paterno stared at the drawings and frowned. If he lifted the first image and placed it over the second, it fit perfectly, the number six in the center of the fractured star. Not nine, but six, so that all of the numbers were situated right-side up.
What the hell was the murderer trying to convey?
He picked up his cup of coffee. It was cold, but he downed it anyway, crushed the paper cup, then tossed it into his wastebasket under the desk. Who was this guy? What was his game?
His gaze moved to the next sheet of paper: his notes on Shannon Flannery. She, he was certain, was at the center of whatever was going on. He was aware that the kid she’d given up for adoption thirteen years earlier, Dani Settler, was missing. A piece of the kid’s birth certificate had been partially burned and left at Shannon’s home and not too long after, a fire started on her property. In both cases the symbol for the center of the star had been left.
Was she number six? What did that mean?
Whatever was going on had to do with Shannon Flannery.
And had to do with fire. Why else bother to char the birth certificate, or burn down Shannon Flannery’s shed, or take the trouble to set fire to the bathroom where Mary Beth, according to preliminary reports, was already dead, the result of strangling?
Paterno’s phone buzzed and, still staring at the papers strewn over his desk, he jerked the receiver to his ear. “Paterno.”
“The preliminary toxicology report is back on Mary Beth Flannery,” Jack Kim said without preamble. “Nothing unexpected. Her alcohol level was over the legal limit for driving, but not for taking a bath.” The lab technician’s stab at a joke fell flat. “So far, there’s nothing else to write home about. Autopsy’s scheduled for the day after tomorrow. The family wants the body for the funeral.”
“I’m not releasing it until we’ve got a few more answers.”
“That’s what I told ’em.”
“Good.” That was always the trouble with victims’ families. They wanted answers, the criminal brought to justice, but they also were in a hurried-up rush to put their beloved’s body into the ground. Paterno hung up and scooped up his page of notes on Shannon Flannery. He was still waiting to get the case records surrounding her husband’s death three years earlier, and when he did, he planned to go over them with a fine-toothed comb, then go over them again. Something about the woman didn’t wash. Too many people who’d been close to her had seemed to die or fall off the face of the earth. Where the hell was the father of her child, Brendan Giles? And what happened to her brother Neville? He fleetingly wondered if they’d met some sort of violent end, just like her estranged husband. According to
Unlikely.
Paterno made a note to find out more about Shannon’s missing brother. People didn’t just up and vanish. Something didn’t fit.
So what was it?
He reconstructed what he knew about the murder of Ryan Carlyle and Shannon’s subsequent arraignment. The evidence was circumstantial at best, but the DA seemed to have a hard-on for nailing her.
The prosecution’s case had been pretty basic. Shannon Flannery’s husband had beaten her. There were hospital records of her injuries sustained on two separate occasions. The first time she’d insisted she’d fallen in the horse barn; the second she hadn’t tried to hide the fact that he’d struck her hard enough to crack her jaw. She’d filed charges, but he’d gotten out on bail, only to go after her again. That time she miscarried. She managed to get a restraining order against him and was heading for divorce. Before that could happen he violated the court order, refusing to be cast out of his own home.
But she’d been waiting for him, almost as if she’d expected him to show up, and she’d set a trap. With the aid of her brother Aaron, she’d installed a video-and-audio system to capture Carlyle on tape while breaking the law.
Almost on cue the stupid son of a bitch had shown up and started in on her. In Carlyle’s rage he’d discovered the video equipment and smashed it into a million pieces.
She’d ended up in the hospital again.
A week to the day after she’d been released, Ryan Carlyle’s body had been found, nearly charred beyond recognition. He’d died in a forest fire, which was started, the defense had insisted, either by Carlyle himself, a known fire bug, or by careless campers who had left their fire untended. The tinder-dry forest must have caught fire just as the wind had shifted and Carlyle had been trapped in a canyon surrounded by flames. Two thousand acres of national forest had been burned to cinders. As had Ryan Carlyle.
No physical evidence had directly linked Shannon to the fire.
Though she hadn’t had an alibi (she said she had been home alone with her dogs at the time), the defense had cast enough reasonable doubt into the prosecution’s theory that Shannon Flannery Carlyle had walked. Or skated, depending upon your viewpoint.
Ryan Carlyle’s family, including his cousin Mary Beth, had been up in arms at the outcome of the trial. The press had a field day. Speculation ran hot on whether Shannon Flannery had literally gotten away with murder.
No one, it seemed, felt that justice had been served.
Paterno mopped at his brow and noted that the temperature in his office was over eighty, though the air conditioner rumbled and wheezed, the fan blowing the papers on his desk.
Stretching, he walked to the window where, from the second story, he could look down at the sidewalk below. Pedestrians strolled, pigeons flapped and tiny pieces of glass within the concrete reflected the sun’s intense rays. There was a moratorium on all exterior watering and the trees lining the street looked withered, their yellowing leaves hanging limply from near-naked branches. Heat jiggled in waves as he gazed up the street at the cars, vans and trucks moving through the traffic lights, their images distorted and shimmering.
He wasn’t convinced either way of Shannon Flannery’s guilt or innocence, but he intended to sift through all the evidence once the old boxes of files were brought up from the warehouse where they’d been sealed for the past three years. Maybe then he’d be able to make his own determination.
Not certain what he expected to find in those documents, he hoped there was something that would help him figure out what was going on today. Why did it seem that everyone around Shannon Flannery either disappeared or died? Where the hell was the father of the child she’d put up for adoption? Brendan Giles’s family still resided somewhere around here…maybe Santa Rosa.
Paterno made a note to contact anyone who knew Giles and find out what the hell had happened to him. As he already had about Neville the brother who had, after Ryan’s death, disappeared. Another one who had done a major vanishing act. Without a damned trace. Had Neville been involved in Carlyle’s murder? Was he guilty and running from the law? Or had he been silenced, his body dumped? Maybe somewhere in the forested hills or deep in the Pacific Ocean, which was only a couple of hours west.
He would take a second look at the other brothers, too. Though Paterno felt Robert was innocent, he didn’t completely scratch him off the list yet. He had motive and opportunity. As for Shea Flannery, the guy was all right, but he was secretive and nervous. Paterno didn’t like him, was glad to relieve him of his duty for a while. That left Aaron, who was now a PI because he’d gotten himself kicked out of the fire department. Why? He circled Aaron’s name, decided to do some digging into his past.
Then there was the one about to become a priest, Oliver, who had been in a mental institution, not once but twice. Why in the world would the church take someone into the priesthood who was so obviously unstable? Even though the Catholic clergy was in trouble these days, it didn’t make sense that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel so deeply that they had to take nutcases into the priesthood.
Oliver had not only tried to slit his wrists as a child, but had become completely undone after the discovery of Ryan Carlyle’s body. He’d grown silent, nearly a recluse, and had ended up in the loony bin for several weeks. Then he received “the calling.”
Sure.
Another question mark. Another person who had to be interviewed.
Along with Shannon Flannery, her brothers and Mary Beth’s family.
Restless, Paterno tried to open the window, but it was painted shut. Frustrated, he leaned against the window ledge and tried to imagine what Mary Beth Flannery’s death had to do with a little girl who had been kidnapped in Oregon.
The girl Shannon Flannery had given up for adoption.
It was all tied together, he just had to figure out how. And he would, he decided.
Stretching one arm over his head he heard his spine pop from too many hours seated at his desk, too many long minutes held in one position while the wheels of his mind turned.
What he did know was that the fires that had been ravaging the area three years earlier, all started by an unknown arsonist the papers had dubbed the Stealth Torcher, had stopped with the death of Carlyle. Seven buildings set on fire. One death. Paterno checked his notes—a thirty-two-year-old woman by the name of Dolores Galvez.
The phone rang and he scowled. He didn’t want to be disturbed as he tried to work things out. Yanking the receiver to his ear, he bit out, “Paterno.”
“Hey, Tony, guess what?” Ray Rossi asked. “Those prints taken off the backpack? We got a hit from NCIS.”
“Let me guess. They belong to Travis Settler.”
“Bingo,” Rossi said. “Give the man a prize.”
“Anything else?”
“Nothing that matched. We figured the other prints were probably the kid’s.”
“Probably,” Paterno said. “I’ll talk to him.”
Her truck slid to a stop in front of the garage.
Shannon, who had been at her desk, sorting through bills, heard the engine and flew out the door as Oliver, dressed in slacks and a golf shirt, hopped out of the cab. Khan was beside himself with excitement and ran up to be petted.
“Sorry it took so long,” her brother said. “I had a little trouble getting Mother motivated.”
“Mom?”
“She’s on her way.” He picked up a stick from the yard and threw it, spinning it end to end across the gravel lot. Khan was after it like a shot. “I needed a way back into town,” Oliver explained.
“I would have taken you.”
“Mom wouldn’t hear of it. Oh, wow…” Squinting, he gazed at the shed and exhaled on a long sigh. “Intentional, I heard.”
“Yeah.” She heard the purr of her mother’s t
Great, Shannon thought, knowing that the visit wouldn’t go all that well.
She wasn’t wrong.
As she ushered her mother past the rubble and into the kitchen, she heard all about “poor Mary Beth” and “I can’t imagine what your brother’s been thinking” and “Have you seen the doctor again? How’re you feeling?” Shannon offered instant coffee and Maureen gave her a look.
“At this time of day?” she asked. “I think I’d rather have some iced tea, if it’s not too much trouble.” She took a seat at the round café table.
Quickly Shannon scooped up her bills and calculator, placing them onto a corner of the counter before her mother caught a glimpse of Shannon’s finances. It wasn’t that she had anything to hide so much as she didn’t want her mother worrying, fretting, and asking about her current Visa card balance or mortgage payment.
“I just don’t understand it,” Maureen started as Oliver, insisting Shannon take it easy and sit at the table across from their mother, found the instant iced tea and began whipping up a glass. “Why would anyone want to harm Mary Beth? And those poor children.”
Oliver, ever dutiful, deposited the glass in front of her, but she barely noticed.
“I tell you it’s the Flannery curse,” Maureen insisted, dabbing at her eyes with a napkin from the holder on the small table.
“You said so last night.”
“Well, it’s true!” Maureen snapped.
She was known for her will of iron. Her friends had marveled at how she’d handled her strapping, big, hellions of sons and yet Shannon knew that her mother had her own secrets, her own demons to deal with. This morning she was on a roll, taking up where she’d left off the night before.