Anna. And I know Caleb-it will be good to see him again, too.”
AFTER I talked to Frank, I spent some time on my computer looking up archived stories on the Fletcher family.
Caleb’s name brought up a lot of matches to stories from the trial.
I spent a few minutes reviewing those. The paper had ferreted out family trouble then-his mother’s parents and the Fletchers had lined up against Caleb and his mother, Elisa Delacroix Fletcher. Nelson Fletcher’s testimony against Mason had helped the prosecution. He said Richard had confided to him that he was having difficulties with Mason, that Mason argued with Richard and often lost his temper.
Although the prosecutor had asked for the death penalty, Caleb and Elisa had apparently been persuasive at that point. Caleb had said, “I don’t believe for a moment that Mason killed my father or my sister. But if the jury believes it, I’ll ask you to keep him alive, or we’ll never find out what really became of her.” Mason was given a life sentence.
So now, five years after the trial, Caleb’s sister was still missing, his half brother still in prison.
I kept reading.
I got a lot of hits from the business section on the name Fletcher. I narrowed it down to Nelson and still came up with quite a few.
Nelson Fletcher was generally accounted to be a man who loved his privacy. He was the respected owner of several manufacturing firms. I learned that he was actually Nelson Fletcher, M.D.-he had a medical degree from UC Irvine but had practiced medicine for only three years after his residency, during which time he also took up a study of engineering. He held a number of patents on medical devices used in a wide variety of surgical procedures, a line of work that apparently paid very well.
I tried a search for Elisa Delacroix Fletcher and found only one other hit, but a relatively recent one. It was dated about two years ago.
To my surprise, the story was a small wedding announcement: Elisa had married her late husband’s brother Nelson Fletcher. First marriage for Nelson. Elisa had a son, Caleb Fletcher, by a previous marriage.
No mention of Mason. No mention of the drama of just three years earlier. Man, oh man, someone in Features had been asleep at the wheel to let that one go in without a shout. Didn’t they even notice that she wasn’t going to have to change the last name on her checks and return-address labels?
It seemed likely to me that this marriage had led to Caleb’s estrangement from his mom. What the hell had persuaded the woman to marry a man who had testified against her son?
I started to wonder if she knew more about her son’s guilt than had been said during the time of the trial, and looked more closely at those stories. The reporting was clumsy, not some of the best to come out of the Express. From all I could gather, the defense hadn’t put up much of a fight. I was trying to piece events together and thinking about looking up the trial transcripts, when Mark walked over.
“Kelly, you haven’t lost your touch. Damn if your instincts weren’t right about this one.”
“What one?” I said absently, still absorbed in my reading.
“The dead dude out at the Sheffield place. You were right-could go big.”
“Who is it?”
“If that’s his wallet, it’s one Gerald Serre.”
My jaw dropped. “Gerald Serre?” I spelled the last name out.
Mark frowned, as if I had spoiled a surprise. “Yes, he-”
“Supposedly kidnapped his own child…”
Mark gave me a suspicious look. “You talk to Frank or something?”
“No, no-I mean, I did, but not about this. Serre’s ex-wife called me today.”
Now the look was really suspicious, but I was worried about something that was far more important than dirty looks.
“Mark, if he’s dead, what happened to his little boy?”
He didn’t get a chance to answer, because Lydia Ames called out to us from the City Desk.
“Mark-Irene-either of you know a Sheila Dolson? Irene, she says you can vouch for her. She claims she and her dog are out at the Sheffield place. The dog just found more remains.”
“Shit,” Mark and I said in unison. He turned to me and said, “Kelly, you know her. You’ve got to come with me.”
I caught the urgency in his voice and remembered that Mark, who had been viciously attacked by a dog when he was ten, has a fear of them. He’s embarrassed by that fear-no one else in the newsroom knew about it-and he’s tried to overcome it. But the look on his face said he didn’t want to deal with this situation alone.
“Sure, Mark,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Three minutes later, we were on our way to the Sheffield Estate.
CHAPTER 14
Monday, April 24
6:05 P.M.
THE SHEFFIELD ESTATE
THE gate was open this time, and no police officer was stationed at the top of the road. When we reached the parking lot at the construction site, a familiar Chevy Suburban was already parked near the area where the remains had been found earlier in the day. The big SUV belonged to Anna Stover, a professional dog trainer-and Ben’s ex-girlfriend. Sheila Dolson was standing outside the vehicle, smoking. In the back, one of Anna’s Labradors was in his crate. Altair was in the crate next to his. The back windows were down.
The crime-scene tape that had been tied around the area earlier in the day was nowhere to be seen. I wondered if it had been removed by the police or by Anna and Sheila. I couldn’t believe Anna would dare it.
Anna stepped out of the Suburban. Sheila was a little younger than Anna, and there was that tiger hair of hers, but they were both slender and athletic. Sheila’s smoking had yet to take a real toll on her.
One other major difference was immediately apparent: Sheila looked extremely confident, in fact, smug. Anna, who usually exuded an air of self-confidence that was not so much smug as based on real competence, looked decidedly uneasy.
I greeted them and started introductions, but got no further before the flashing lights of a patrol car caught our attention. Right behind the patrol car were two vehicles: an unmarked Crown Victoria and Ben’s pickup truck.
It was getting crowded in the parking area by then. I heard Anna say, “Oh Jesus, Sheila. Tell me you didn’t call Ben.”
“I called the coroner’s office,” she said. “They must have called him.”
“Of course they did,” I said. “It’s his case. But Sheila, you knew that.”
Anna looked back and forth between us, frowning. Sheila shrugged and ground her cigarette out beneath the heel of a muddy boot.
A stiff wind came up, and we all hunched our shoulders in defense against it. It scattered leaves below and clouds above. Only a little more than an hour was left before sunset, but the sun declared its presence rather spectacularly, breaking through the clouds to make one of those inspirational skies.
Nothing could have been in greater contrast to the mood of the people quickly gathering below.
Ben got out of his truck, Caleb following. I noticed they had changed clothes.
Vince Adams and his partner, Reed Collins-the two detectives who had worked the scene earlier in the day- emerged from the Crown Vic. The two of them seem like opposites in many ways-Vince looks as if he took up police work after a career in the boxing ring, while Reed looks as if he could leave police work for a film career at any time. More than one criminal has made the mistake of thinking Vince lacks sophistication or that Reed is too genteel to get his hands dirty. They’re both streetwise and smart as hell, and have the kind of dogged persistence that solves cases. At the moment, they both looked extremely unhappy. So did Ben and Caleb. The woman patrol
