What Happened To Flynn

by Pat Muir

  WHAT HAPPENED TO FLYNN

  By Pat Muir

  What Happened to Flynn is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is either coincidental or, if real, used fictitiously with no relation to their actual conduct.

  All rights are reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or any portions thereof in any form whatsoever as provided by U.S. Copyright Law.

  Copyright © 2017 by Pat Muir

  ISBN: 978-0-9676060-2-6

  Published by PMBOOK

  2240 Encinitas Blvd, Suite D

  Encinitas, CA 92024

  Website: www.whathappenedtoflynn.com

  Also by Pat Muir: Stories to Entertain You…If You Get Bored on Your Wedding Night (1999) and The Numbers Man (2010).

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The author wishes to acknowledge draft manuscript reviews by Ralph McCroskey, Audrey McDowell, Mary Hartley and Gary Haigh, especially the latter whose knowledge of law enforcement procedures was invaluable.

  Cover by Kathy Brite of www.kfbrite@kfbdesign.com

  Editing by Jefferson of www.firstediting.com

  CHAPTER 1

  In early October, my boss, Sergeant Thompson, assigned me the missing person file on Arthur Flynn. How was I to know it would take me seven years to resolve and make me encounter thieves, forgers, money launderers and murderers? “Harry, you gave me a missing person case last week,” I complained. Can’t you give it to Steve?”

  “Shane, you found that missing guy in less than two days,” he replied. “Steve still has one outstanding, so run with it.” A backhanded compliment with a work assignment. That’s just like Harry. He turned away from my desk, clearly unwilling to hear further protests from me.

  I gave the finger at his retreating back, an unprofessional act, but one that, fortunately, could not be seen from outside my office cubicle. I wanted my boss’s job when he retired in five years. Harry, Sergeant Thompson to everybody else in the group, hated me calling him by his first name, but he tolerated it since I was the only female in the group, and black as well.

  Let me introduce myself. I am Shanisha Notfarg, a detective in the homicide section of the sheriff’s office in San Diego. I was and am still known as Shane, a takeoff from the 1946 movie of the same name. In that movie, Shane, the lead character, played by Alan Ladd, had remarkable speed with his gun. My reputation came from speaking quickly, especially out of turn. I came to like the name Shane so much that I have since avoided using my given name, a typical Afro-American name. It is clear I am a black American when people look at me, but do I need to advertise it? It is not that I lack pride in my black heritage; it is that I do not want my name to suggest in advance I might be poor or uneducated. I am five feet eleven, slightly overweight, divorced with one son, and keep myself fit with semi-regular visits to the gym. I have a degree in criminal justice from San Diego State University.

  I was fifty-one years old when Flynn went missing. At that time, I had been a detective for ten years and had worked hard to become senior in my detail. The sheriff’s Central Investigation Division (CID) in California’s San Diego County had several units that specialized in the various types of felonies, including financial crimes, elder and child abuse, family protection, sexual assault, and murder. There were around fifty detectives in the division. I considered my homicide detail primo, one requiring more skill and persistence than other units, and one into which other detail detectives sought promotion.

  The case of Flynn was one of about ten actual or potential homicide cases I handled at any one time, some of long and some of short duration. I did not work on this missing person case all the time, only intermittently as other cases came and went. I don’t like missing person cases, because, ninety percent of the time, these persons turn up in sound health, and all the effort spent trying to find them is a waste of investigative resources. Missing healthy adults do not usually stay missing for long. They go off to have an affair. They go to Las Vegas. They go off to sulk after a fight with their spouse. They disappear because they have committed a crime or because they have done something they don’t want their peers, their boss, or their spouse to find out. They disappear to escape from bill collectors or needy relatives. Missing adults simply do not get the attention that missing young children or older persons with disabilities do. I mention this so you understand why I did not hustle on the investigation of this missing man, no different from other detectives lacking enthusiasm for this type of case.

  The case had been handled by an area detective called Bernard Walker at the sheriff’s station in San Marcos, a town thirty miles to the north of San Diego and the site of a state university of the same name. The case had come to the main office and me because Flynn had not been found after ten days of investigation. I poured myself a cup of coffee from the office setup and went over the case file, which Walker had prepared in a less-than-orderly fashion. He probably felt the same way about missing person cases as I did. Flynn, a real estate agent, had been reported missing by his broker, Sam Laurel, on Tuesday, September 30. Laurel had last seen Flynn on Friday, September 12, and had expected him back in the office ten days later. Laurel had given a description of Flynn: Caucasian, age fifty, sixty-nine inches tall, with a pink face, very short white hair, and glasses. The file contained a group photo of Laurel’s staff showing the missing man, an amiable smile on his face. Flynn drove a black 2005 Toyota Camry with the custom vehicle license plate MBLHM4U, which Walker had entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC). Flynn had driven to a fishing camp on the Russian River in Northern California on Sunday, September 14, and had left there on or before Thursday, September 18. A brochure of the camp lay in the file. The brochure showed the campground had started in the 1930s and had originally catered to people with tents or simple trailers. Over the years, electric, water and sewer lines had been added, and visitors to the camp had then arrived in motorhomes and utility equipped trailers. A cafeteria and a community center had been built in the 1960s. A water slide had been added in the 1990s. These additions had limited the area reserved for the original type of visitors to just ten spaces furthest from the entrance. Flynn had camped in one of these end spots. The word “camp” no longer fit in the original title of the Russian River Fishing Camp.

  Sam Laurel had gone to Flynn’s home, space 74 in the Palomar South mobile home park on Grand Avenue in San Marcos, on Tuesday, September 30, had gained entry, and had found no sign of Flynn or his car. Flynn had not answered Laurel’s calls to his cell phone over the prior week. Laurel thought Flynn such a reliable agent that he’d considered his disappearance unusual and unsettling, so much so that he’d filed the missing person report the same day. Walker had repeated the steps taken by Laurel and had taken a bank statement, a telephone bill, and a charge card bill from Flynn’s home. He’d seen nothing unusual in them. He had also interviewed Flynn’s next-door neighbor, Mary Smith, and the park manager, Bert Swanson. Both had reported that Flynn had been unhappily divorced four months earlier and had had to pay significant alimony to his ex-wife, who had gone to live with Larry Swift, a wealthy man in the North San Diego County community. Walker had concluded Flynn had decided to leave on his own, but he’d found it puzzling that Flynn’s car had not been found and his cell phone was inactive. The general rule in the sheriff’s office was that if a person had not been found after being missing for more than ten days, one should consider the possibility of homicide.

  I decided to repeat most of the steps taken by Walker. I phoned him to give him my name and let him know the homicide detail had been assigned the case and to ask him
to relay any further information on Flynn he might subsequently receive. I too called Flynn’s phone number and got an automated response that he was unavailable and to leave a message, which I did. I called the cellular phone company servicing Flynn’s telephone and asked for the records of any calls made from July 1 to the current date. I wanted to see if there was any pattern in the phone calls, ingoing or outgoing, that might tell me why Flynn had disappeared and where he might have gone to. I particularly asked for data on the cell towers pinged after he’d left for the fishing camp. The phone company did not require me to get a warrant. I then called Sam Laurel and, after introducing myself, told him I had taken over the Flynn investigation and wanted to interview him.

  “Is this really necessary,” he said brusquely. “I’ve already told the first detective everything I know.”

  I hate people pushing me around. “I can have you brought down to our San Diego office for the interview,” I replied as neutrally as possible, “or would you prefer to be interviewed at your office?”

  There was a distinct pause and a noticeable change of voice in his reply. “Well, uh…my office gets busy after nine o’clock in the morning. Could you please come tomorrow at eight sharp?”

  It would be a pain for me to drive to Laurel’s office twenty-five miles away at that time in the morning, but I responded to his “please” with “I’ll be there.”

  I was about to hang up when Sam asked me, “Have you found anything new?”

  “No,” I replied. “I’ve just been assigned this case and am following up on what you told the San Marcos detective… How did you get into Flynn’s home?”

  “A neighbor let me in.”

  I looked at the file. “Hm. That would be Mary Smith?”

  “That’s right. She’s next door, in space 76. She has the key to Art’s home since she’s looking after his cat.”

  “Would she be there to let me in if I came up this afternoon?”

  “I think so. She doesn’t work.” There was a pause. “If you’re coming up this afternoon, would you prefer to interview me after all my agents have gone home instead of tomorrow morning?’

  That would save me time and a trip. “When are they all gone?”

  “Probably by six.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you at your office at six and I’ll call you if I’m delayed.” I felt pleased I had moved things along. I checked Flynn’s vehicle license with the DMV database and confirmed the accuracy of the information that had been entered into the NCIC missing vehicle database. I downloaded a copy of Flynn’s driver’s license, noting his height of sixty-nine inches and a weight of one hundred and seventy pounds. That meant a body mass index (BMI) of twenty-five, the ideal, implying Flynn to be a fit individual. My own BMI is twenty-seven, a measure I continually work on reducing. I then checked with the Vehicle Accident database for any accidents involving Flynn’s Camry and found that none had been reported. I prepared an affidavit justifying why I needed to enter Flynn’s home and examine his bank and charge card accounts. I filled the search warrant form accompanying the affidavit and had Robert Neill, the district attorney (DA) representative attached to my unit, look it over. I drove to the downtown courthouse to get a judge to approve the warrant, and I noticed the street sign outside the CID had been vandalized. It should have read Cope St., but somebody had painted over the “E.” I kind of liked working on Cop St., but the word would eventually get around to city maintenance, and the correct name would be restored a few months later. It was and still is a source of amusement to most of us to determine if we are coping or copping. The judge I reached had no problem coping with my search warrant request.

  I returned to CID and phoned the Russian River fishing camp and spoke to its manager, Tom Small, making him aware I was recording the conversation, as I do with all sources of information.

  “Art’s been a regular visitor to our camp for quite a few years,” volunteered Tom.

  “When did he arrive, and when did he leave?” I asked

  “I told the other officer before,” replied Tom. “Art arrived on Sunday, September 14. He paid with his charge card for a week. He didn’t get his charge card receipt on his departure, so I’m not exactly sure when he left. When I went to check that some adjacent tenters had left as scheduled on the following Thursday, Art had already gone… That would be September 18.”

  “So, neither you nor any of your assistants saw him leave?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did he arrive or leave with anybody?” I asked, realizing the latter part of the question was irrelevant.

  “Let me see.” I could hear Tom talking to his assistant. “Terry says he came alone,” said Tom a minute later.

  “I see. Did you hear of anything unusual at the camp during that period?”

  “Not really. Much of the camp is taken with motor homes whose owners are quite demanding. The end of the camp where Art was has no utility connections and is meant primarily for people with tents or trucks with just a camper top. The only thing down there during that week was a dispute between a couple of campers about colliding fishing lines. It did not involve Art.”

  “Okay. I have a brochure of the camp, but I need more information. Could you please send me a detailed map of that end of the camp with each site labeled and the data you have on each camper and his vehicle there from…say, September 9 through September 18… Let me give you my e-mail address.”

  I also gave Tom my phone number, asking him to call me if he thought of anything relevant. I called Flynn’s cell phone once more and again received no answer. I grabbed a burger and a coffee at a nearby McDonald’s and headed up Highway 15, where a hot Santa Anna wind pummeled the car. Then it was on to Highway 78, which I hated since it became busier each year as the student population of San Marcos State University grew. I turned off the freeway, driving south to the Palomar South mobile home park in San Marcos. I wanted to talk first to Bert Swanson, the park manager, since park managers in general are gossip gatherers. They can tell me if rent is past due, if tenants have drug or alcohol problems or debilitating illnesses, or are faithless husbands or wives. More importantly, managers retain applications for tenancy that contain background information on park tenants.

  Mobile home parks are often perceived as places full of trailers that can be pulled behind cars. They are nothing of the sort. The trailer mobility has long since gone. They are factory-built units constructed to meet the criteria of the Housing and Community Development (HCD) agency of California. They are brought down on wheels with specialized trucks to the park and then mounted on jacks or more permanent foundations. The wheels are frequently sold. Thus, the word “mobile” for such parks is a misnomer. These parks in north San Diego County were constructed when land was cheap, being distant from the core city, and cities have since grown up around them. The parks now occupy prime property, and the landowners would be better off financially if they could get rid of the renters and sell the land for redevelopment. The residents have fought back, some by getting their cities to enact protective ordinances and some by buying the land for themselves. Palomar South remained one where the mobile home owners paid a monthly rent.

  CHAPTER 2

  I was grateful to find the park office air-conditioned since the outside temperature had reached ninety-three degrees. Inside sat a woman behind the reception desk, a very ugly woman, about sixty, with an ill-fitting wig, overweight, with smudged lipstick, poorly applied makeup, and dressed in a gaudy Hawaiian muumuu. She scowled at me. I am used to being scowled at by white women since I am black, well dressed, and have a life. I introduced myself, saying I needed to see Bert Swanson. The ugly woman got up from the desk and said, “I’ll get my husband.”

  Bert Swanson emerged from a rear office, a short man, smaller than his wife, completely bald, casually dressed, a grimace on his face. I figured him to have a perpetual grimace on his face. Bert motioned me into the back office and offered me a seat. “I heard Art Flynn went missing,” he
remarked. “I haven’t seen him since he paid his September rent.”

  “Do you have any idea why he might want to disappear?”

  “Well, I’d heard he was upset that his wife divorced him. That shouldn’t have bothered him too much, though. He had his way with a lot of women around the park.”

  Did I detect a note of jealousy? “So, you reckon his getting divorced might have been sufficient reason for him to want to leave the park?”

  “It probably was. But it wouldn’t surprise me also if he promised some women more than he could deliver.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “That he promised to marry them.”

  “Could you give me their names?”

  Swanson hesitated. “I don’t really know anyone in particular. It was just well known in the park that Art Flynn was a womanizer.” He paused and raised his head. “You could ask Eleanor Bratz in number 77.”

  I made a mental note to talk to her before asking, “Has he been a bad tenant?”

  Swanson swallowed. “No, he pays his rent regularly. It’s just that I don’t like to see somebody upsetting the other tenants.”

  “And you think he upset them.”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  I could see Swanson did not like Flynn and had little further information on the missing man. He confirmed Sam Laurel had called him and he too had gone to Flynn’s home and found nobody there.

  “How did you get in?”

  “His neighbor, Mary Smith in Number 76, let me in. She has a key since she’s looking after his cat.”

  “What happens if Flynn doesn’t return to pay his rent? Isn’t his October rent due?”