Chapter 6
The transport-van fire began to unravel next.
The body found inside had never been conclusively identified as Daniel.
The medical examiner had listed identification as provisional.
Why was everyone so certain?
Personal effects.
Daniel’s wallet.
His wedding ring.
His watch.
Vehicle access records.
And a statement from Ryan that Daniel had taken the van.
Then investigators pulled gate-camera footage from Vance Memorial’s preparation facility.
Daniel never entered the van.
A figure wearing a hooded jacket did.
The image was poor.
But the height did not match Daniel well.
More importantly, Daniel’s company access card had opened the vehicle gate.
Access-card logs could show use.
Not the person holding the card.
Then came the body.
The deceased man was already dead before the vehicle caught fire.
That fact was established through forensic examination.
He had been an unidentified indigent decedent temporarily held under a county disposition contract at one of Vance’s facilities while authorities attempted to locate relatives.
The Vance company had lawful custody of his remains.
It did not have lawful permission to move him into a company van and present him as Daniel.
DNA testing finally returned.
The body was not related to Emma.
Not Daniel.
The man was later identified as Patrick Haines, sixty-one, after his sister saw public notices connected to the investigation.
Patrick had died from natural causes days before the vehicle fire.
His body had been used after death.
Sarah cried when she learned that.
Not because she knew him.
Because somebody else’s family had been denied the truth too.
Then the coffin chain of custody was reconstructed.
The closed casket at Daniel’s funeral was never prepared by the independent chapel director.
Ryan delivered it from a Vance-owned facility already sealed.
Paperwork said:
Family-directed sealed transfer due to condition of remains.
No remains were inside.
At least not Daniel’s.
The casket was initially empty except for Daniel’s phone and several sealed document envelopes hidden beneath the lining.
On the morning of the funeral, Walter entered the Vance preparation facility after tracing the phone.
He confronted Ryan.
Security video showed them arguing in a hallway.
Then the cameras went offline for eighteen minutes.
When they returned, Ryan and another employee pushed the sealed coffin toward the transport bay.
Walter was gone.
The second employee later told police:
“Ryan said Mr. Sloane had left through another exit.”
He believed him.
He did not know Walter was inside the coffin.
Margaret’s phone records showed Ryan called her during the camera outage.
Duration:
Four minutes.
Immediately afterward Margaret called the chapel and ordered:
“No one opens Daniel’s casket under any circumstances.”
Her attorney argued she was protecting Sarah from seeing damaged remains.
There had been no remains inside to see.
The explanation was collapsing.
Charles’s phone showed no call from Ryan that morning.
When investigators confronted him, he looked genuinely ill.
“I thought Daniel was in that coffin.”
Sarah stared at him.
“You never checked.”
May you like
Charles lowered his head.
“No.”
