The Burnt House. Faye Kellerman

my ignorance, but who would be added on? Isn’t there a flight list of everyone on the airplane?”

      “Only those who have purchased tickets. That wouldn’t include infants and toddlers—”

      “Ah, yes, of course. And you’re investigating the names because …”

      “It’s routine after every crash.” Marge didn’t know if that was true, but she suspected it was. “Before insurance pays, it wants to make sure that those who were listed as dead actually died. Sometimes, especially with small infants, well, I hate to be graphic. Let’s just say it’s impossible to make identification on the bodies … or even to find the bodies can be tricky. Even with adults. Sometimes, people commit fraud.”

      Delgado’s curiosity was definitely piqued. He was smelling a story. “How so?”

      “Well, let’s put it this way. Someone calls up and says Ms. So-and-So also had an infant daughter who perished in the crash. Ninety-ninepoint-nine percent of the time, that’s what happened. Every once in a blue moon, you get a real psycho who made up Ms. So-and-So’s daughter to collect more insurance, or the infant actually does exist, but she was mercifully tucked away with grandparents and not on the plane. We’ve got to check things like that out.”

      “People actually claim that children are dead when they’re not?”

      “Mr. Delgado, when it comes to insurance payment, we’ve seen everything.”

      “I’m sure you have.”

      “So you have the list given to you by WestAir?”

      “Sure, and I could get that for you right now. But in the future, all you have to do is pull it out of the paper’s archives.”

      “See, that’s the rub. I’m not looking for the first list that the paper printed. I’m looking for the first list that was called in to you from WestAir. Just to see if there are any discrepancies.”

      “So why can’t you get this information from WestAir?”

      “I did,” Marge lied. “But Ace Insurance has asked me to go directly to the paper and compare it to the WestAir list.” She let go with a wide smile and a wink. “You’re a newspaper person, you know how important it is to check your facts.”

      Delgado nodded. “If anyone had a list, it would have been Tricia, but she’s on vacation.”

      “Dang. And there’s no one else who might have had that list?”

      Delgado thought a moment. “Let me see what I can do. Would you mind waiting here for a few minutes?”

      “No problem. Thank you very much, Mr. Delgado. You’ve been an enormous help. It sure beats talking to voice mail.”

      “I’m glad, although I haven’t done anything.” Delgado smiled. “Wait right here. As I said, it may take me a few minutes.”

      After he left, Marge thought about Delgado, who wasn’t much older than Vega. Her daughter seemed to be making unexpected headway in the social-arts department. After her first successful party experience, Vega was once again asked out by Josh, from her particle-physics course. This time it was dinner. After the requisite panic attack, she calmed down enough to accept the invitation and call Marge for more advice. When Marge suggested talking about a recent book, Vega went out and bought the top-ten books on the New York Times hardcover nonfiction list and polished them off in three nights.

      The minutes stretched on.

      Marge checked her BlackBerry. Will Barnes had called, text messaging that he was coming down to Santa Barbara for an interview. Did she want to come up? A weekend in the resort city sounded nice, and she was thinking about walks on the beach and a terrific halibut dinner when Delgado came back, holding pieces of paper in his hands. Marge stood up, but Delgado didn’t hand her the sheets right away.

      “The first list actually printed by the paper wasn’t hard to find. That’s this one.” He gave it to Marge, then rattled another piece of paper in front of her eyes. “As far as I can tell—and I’m not positive about this—but I believe this is the original list given to us by WestAir, and just as you said, it has fewer names than the list the newspaper printed.”

      “See? I actually was sent here for a purpose.” She held out her hand.

      “Uh, I should have asked you this in the beginning. Could I see some ID, please?”

      “Sure.” Marge rifled through her purse and debated showing Delgado her police identification. Sometimes, when she showed it quickly, people barely read it. This wasn’t one of those cases. Delgado wanted to verify who she was. She said, “You know, I don’t have my business cards with me. I can show you my driver’s license.” She presented it to him. “Don’t read my birth date. It’s not polite.”

      He smiled, but studied the license. “You are indeed Marge Dunn, but you could be anyone.”

      The only way she was going to slip out of this unscathed was if he smelled a big scoop slipping away. “You know, maybe I should wait for Tricia Woodard and go through proper channels. We both want to be careful, right?”

      Delgado frowned. “What are you really after, Ms. Dunn?”

      “Why don’t you let me look at the list and I’ll tell you.”

      The young man made a calculated decision. He handed her the slip of paper. Rusty was nothing if not efficient. At the bottom of the first list were three names that had been added to the printed list. The first two were Campbell Dennison and Zoey Benton. Marge’s eyes scanned the list and found ticketed passengers to match: Scott and Lisa Dennison and Marlene Benton. These poor souls were children under the age of two. She’d verify them later.

      The last name on Delgado’s added list was Roseanne Dresden.

      Marge pointed to the first two names. “It looks like these two were the children of ticketed passengers. This last one—Roseanne Dresden—she was a flight attendant who worked for WestAir. But she wasn’t working the flight; she was on her way to San Jose. Any idea why she wasn’t on the first list?”

      “None whatsoever. What do you think?”

      “Spoken like a true newspaper person. Any idea who called her name in as an official victim?”

      “Probably WestAir.”

      “Probably, or do you know that for sure?”

      “No, I don’t know that for sure. I didn’t have anything to do with compiling the list. That was Tricia’s job. I’m just showing it to you, and I probably shouldn’t be doing that because you suspect something is amiss. Want to tell me about it?”

      “I don’t think anything’s wrong. I was sent to verify who called Roseanne Dresden in as a victim and who added her to the official list. It was probably WestAir, but we need to verify that, just to make sure it wasn’t called in by a third party who wanted to scam insurance.”

      “Then the woman would be alive,” Delgado said.

      “Alive and scamming or she could be dead by some other means. It could have been called in by someone who had something to gain if Roseanne had died.”

      Delgado was definitely interested now.

      Marge said, “Let me ask you something theoretically. What if it wasn’t WestAir who called in her death? What if it was a third party? You wouldn’t automatically add Roseanne’s name to the list, would you?”

      “No. Tricia would have fact-checked the call with the desk editor and with WestAir. What are you thinking? That Roseanne might have faked her own death or that she was murdered?”

      “I’m not thinking anything, I’m just verifying.” Marge placed a hand on his shoulder. “Could you do me a favor, Mr. Delgado? Could you find out the name of the person at WestAir who called in Roseanne’s name as one of the official