If Angels Fall (tom reed and walt sydowski) Read online

  “I talked to a relative of the Beckers’ and he told meDanny’s parents will offer a substantial reward for Danny’s safe return. Andthe family just released to reports a home video of Danny at his cousin’sbirthday party. Taken two weeks ago. Here’s a bit of that now. Danny’s thesmaller boy wearing a red shirt.”

  Danny’s cousins, Paul and Sarah appeared on TV withhim. Paul kicked a soccer ball to Danny. Sarah was skipping.

  The man in the chair stopped rocking, and turned hishead slowly to Danny, allowing him to see only half of his face.

  Danny took another step backward and searched the roomfor a door. He wanted to leave. Now. The man resumed rocking. Squeak-creak.

  On TV, a man and a woman seated themselves before themicrophones. Transfixed, Danny clasped his hands together, blurting, “Mom, mymommy!”

  Squeak-creak.

  The press conference room was electric with emotionunder the lights. Silent, except for the soft flashes of still cameras and the whir-clickof their rapid-fire motor drives. Nathan and Maggie held hands, sat with theirheads bowed, struggling to begin. Maggie brushed her eye. No makeup. Nathan wasunshaven. They had not slept.

  “I’m sorry,” Nathan said. “This is difficult.”

  They faced some one hundred reports, photographers,and camera crews. Relatives, friends, and police officials lined one wall.

  Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.

  “Take your time,” somebody said.

  Nathan nodded. The cameras flashed and whirred.

  “Danny is all we have” Maggie began. “To the personwho has our son, we say please bring Danny back, please let him go, that’s allwe ask. We beg you. Please.” Tears streamed down her face, making it shiny. Thecameras flashed, reporters made notes.

  Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.

  Nathan looked toward his family and friends. “We wantto say to the person who has Danny, our only child, please don’t harm him. Weknow you must be hurting to have taken Danny. Our son, Danny. We are nowsuffering together and only you can make things better. We beg you. Danny isjust a little boy, please let Danny go. Please.”

  Nathan brushed his eyes. “We are willing-“ he stopped.With the help of our friends, we are willing to pay thirty-five thousanddollars for information that brings Danny home safely. If the person who hasDanny finds it in his heart to return Danny to us, you will receive everyconsideration. Please bring Danny back safely. Please.”

  Several reporters started with questions. Nathan stoppedthem.

  “That’s all we can say. Thank you.”

  “Mr. Becker, a few short questions?” implored onereporter.

  Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.

  “I’m sorry. Please, it’s all we can say now. Thankyou.”

  “Waiiiittt!” Danny’s arms shot toward his mother andfather. “Come and get me please. I’ll be good. I promise. Mommy. Daddy.”

  They left.

  The chair stopped and so did Danny’s breathing.

  The man stood, switched the set off. Danny scrambledto his feet and hurried to the kitchen, afraid to look behind him. He heard thepaws of the dog, following him. He could see a door in the kitchen. He reachedup and grasped the handle. It wouldn’t move. He kept trying. “Home.” He pulledmightily, and kicked the door for not cooperating. The dog yelped. What if heasked the man nicely?

  “Home. Please.”

  Nothing happened.

  Danny looked over his shoulder-the man was across theroom, leaning over the big table with all the papers.

  “Home. Please!” Danny sobbed.

  The man raised his head, as if hearing Danny for thefirst time. He turned and faced him, smiling. He looked friendly. Danny noticeda silver cross hanging from his neck. The man squatted, held out his arms,inviting Danny to come to him.

  Danny didn’t dare move. Something was funny about theman’s eyes. They were big and wide the way Daddy made his eyes go when he wasZombie Man. The man stepped closer.

  “No! You leave me alone. Stop!” Danny shouted.

  He ran for the basement stairs. The dog scamperedafter him.

  Too small to run down them, Danny sat and bouncedalong each stair on his bottom as quickly as he could, racing to the room wherehe woke, slamming the door behind him, hurrying to a corner. Nowhere to hide.

  The door’s handle turned. The man entered and smiled.Danny pushed himself against the corner. “Leave me alone! Go away!”

  The man drew nearer, his black shadow looming againstthe wall. Towering over Danny, gazing down upon him from a few feet away.

  Danny wanted to push himself through the wall, ballinghis hands into fists, clutching them together against his chest, terrifiedsomething bad was going to happen.

  “Go away! Go away!”

  The man dropped to his knees, stretched out his arms.

  “Oh Raphael! Holy Rescuer, Holy Guardian! Years I havesuffered. Years, I have atoned. Years I have waited and now you have come! Youhave come!”

  Edward Keller was enraptured, arms outstretched, palmsto heaven.

  “Oh Raphael! The prophet’s words are true. ‘Through meyou enter where the lost are sent.’ Raphael. The resurrection has begun!”

  Keller bowed before Danny.

  Danny cried harder than he ever had in his life.

  THIRTEEN

  An hour after Danny Becker’s mother and father pleaded for his safe return, SanFrancisco’s top detectives gathered in Room 400 at the Hall of Justice onBryant. Over the years the room had sucked up the sweat, the fury, and the verysouls of investigators avenging the dead whose lives had been taken by evil,perpetually manifesting itself in every wicked force imaginable from crackcocaine to the Zebra, from the Dai Hen Jai to the Zodiac.

  Enlarged photos of Danny and Tanita gazed from thecorkboard Inspector Gord Mikelson had wheeled into place. Beneath their faces acity map was pierced with tiny flap pins. Pink for locations in the Donne case,blue for Becker. Each had a related file. Notebooks were opened. Reports andwitness statements were circulated.

  “Right off, we’ve got one unidentified suspect andlittle else on Becker. No calls, letters, demands. No body,” Mikelson said.

  “Not yet,” someone muttered, alluding to statisticsthat show that if an abducted child was not found alive within forty-eighthours, the child was likely dead.

  “We will have none of that shit here. Understand? Ortomorrow you are working a fucking koban giving directions to a hayseed fromBoise.” Lieutenant Leo Gonzales, head of the Homicide Detail, unwrapped animported cigar and squinted at the talent in the room. Among them wereSydowski, Turgeon, and FBI Special Agents Rust and Ditmire. Gonzales made eyecontact with everyone, including Captain Miles Beck, Deputy Chief ofInvestigations, Bill Kennedy, and Nick Roselli, chief of inspectors. Many inthe room were unfamiliar with the Donner case. Adhering to the city’sno-smoking rule Gonzales did not light his cigar, though he yearned to.“Although we’ve got no body, we are concerned with the obvious similarities toDonner, Walt’s file. Now listen up.” Gonzales nodded to Mikelson. “Go, Gord.”

  “We have nothing unusual in the twenty-four hoursbefore Danny Becker’s abduction. We canvassed their route. A couple of peoplebelieve they saw a man follow Nathan and Danny onto the bus. Their descriptionsare vague, but generally fit with Nathan’s. But we really don’t have anythingstrong in that department.”

  “What about a composite?” Inspector Art Tipper said.

  “The father got a glimpse of the bad guy at Balboa,but his description is unclear. We’ve got the police artist and Beth atComputer Enhancing working something up.”

  “The game, anything there?” Tipper asked.

  “Working on it with guys across the bay,” Sydowskisaid.

  “We’ve got, hold it”-Milkelson checked his notes-“atlast count, one hundred sixty phone notes to sort through, about the samenumber of E-mail tips. We expect it all to go up because of the newsconference. We’ve dozens of re-interviews and we have to go over the family’sbackground again.”

>   “Let’s hear it, Gord.” Gonzales wanted Mikelson tooffer what his gut told him. “Give it up.”

  “The Beckers stuck to their routine in the twenty-fourhours before the kidnapping. The impulse on Nathen Becker’s part was to takeDanny to the game on public transit and not to drive his BMW on the weekend,which he loves doing. That was an impulse. Only someone who was stalking themwould know. I think our guy is a stalker.”

  “That’s what you think?” Gonzales said.

  “I believe our guy knows the Beckers inside out.Probably studied them for weeks, months even.”

  Gonzales wanted checks for any strange vehicles nearthe Becker home and a run through parking citations for the area.

  Okay, Walt”-Tippet turned to Sydowski-“is the guy whotook Becker our missing link in the Donner file?”

  “Wait. For the benefit of everyone coming to thisfresh, walk us through Donner, Walt,” Deputy Chief Kennedy said.

  “I want to measure Becker against Donner from squareone.”

  Sydowski knew the case history by rote. “Angela Donneris a single, young welfare mother. She puts her daughter, Tanita Marie down fora nap in the playpen of the fenced rear patio of their ground-floor suite inBalboa almost one year ago. When Angela goes to answer the phone, someone grabsTanita, unseen. No witness, no physical evidence at the scene. No ransom call,no letters. No demands. Nothing. Three days later, two girls on a science tripfind her about eleven a.m. in Golden Gate, in a garbage bag, under a tire.”

  “Time of death and location, Walt?” Inspector BrucePaley asked.

  “Coroner puts it at eight hours before she was found.She was killed the night before about three in the morning.”

  “At the park?” Paley asked.

  “No. Her stage of rigor indicates she was not killedthere. She was held for three days, then killed and dumped.”

  “What about the baby’s farther?”

  “Checked out clean. Her throat was cut with a small,tooth-edged knife. Some details of her death are hold-back,” Sydowski said. “Wehad nothing, no weapon, no witnesses. Nothing, except suspicions about FranklinWallace. We lit the ‘hood, ran everybody in a twelve-block radius of the girl’shome. Wallace came up, among others. He was a short-order cook, married, andhad a four-year-old daughter. He lived near Tanita, read Bible stories to herand kids at his Sunday school day care, He also had a ten-year-old convictionin Virginia for molesting a five-year-old girl. He made our suspect list, alongwith others in the area. We questioned Wallace superficially through a routine canvass.We never went hard on him. He was alibied and we had nothing at the time, whichwas days after the case broke.

  “Quantico’s profile leaned strongly to a two-personteam, which was bang on when we got a break later. A patrol officer chasingdrugs in Dolores found Tanita’s plastic diaper and these two Polaroids hiddenunder some bushes.” Sydowski passed around enlarged copies of the twosnapshots. “This material is also hold-back.”

  One picture showed Tanita alive, naked, being held bya man wearing no shirt. The man’s head has been cut out of the picture. Thesecond photo showed a different man with tattoos on his forearms, wearing ablack hood and gloves, holding Tanita, her little eyes open wide.

  Turgeon covered her mouth with her hand.

  Sydowski continued.

  “We’re still working on the tattoo’s. Looks like he’sdone time. The man in the first picture is Wallace. His prints were on Tanita’sdiaper. We’re certain two men were involved with Donner. Fits the profile. Isuspect the diaper and picture were trophies they kept.”

  “Why’s that?” Tippet said.

  Sydowski nodded to the FBI agents. Rust answered.

  “Because the killer is usually aroused by reliving orfantasizing about any aspect of the act. Look, the material is not in andresidence. Our boy is smart to hide it in a public place. Makes it tough tolink him to the crime. He can return to the pictures and enjoy them. He likelysavored the baby’s scent from the diaper, it was a clean one. The killer wasthe dominant team member who literally cut Wallace out of the fantasy byremoving his head from the picture.”

  “Didn’t the guy try to set up Wallace somehow?” Paleysaid.

  “Yeah, he fucked us over good,” Sydowski said.“Everything happened at once. Right after we found the stuff in Dolores andbefore we could nail Wallace, Tom Reed at the Star got an anonymous callsaying Wallace was the killer, that we had pictures of him with the girl andthat he had a record in Virginia. We figured the killer must have seen our guyfind the pictures. How else would he know? Reed called Virginia, whichconfirmed Wallace’s record for child molesting. Reed confirmed from neighborsthat Wallace lived near Tanita and had her in his toddlers’ Bible classes. Thenhe called me for confirmation that Wallace was our suspect. He got nothing, Iassure you.” Sydowski stared at Ditmire. “then Reed went immediately toWallace’s home, confronted him with what he had. Wallace never knew we had thepictures, the diaper, his prints, his records, until Reed told him. He deniedto Reed that he was involved, then blew his brains out with a shotgun when Reedleft. We never got to question Wallace hard about the diaper, the pictures, hispartner.”

  “We fucked up there,” Rust jumped in. We are going tosurveil Wallace, wire his phone, watch his mail, hoping it would lead us to themasked man. Tom Fucking Reed got in the way.”

  “What about Reed’s tip? Did he tape it?” Paley asked.

  “No. It was cold, out of the blue,” Sydowski said.

  “Reed’s tip had to be Wallace’s partner,” Sydowskisaid. “I think it was the killer. I think he panicked when he saw us discoverhis trophies and, fearing Wallace would finger him, tried to set him up.Something like that. Wallace’s widow told us Wallace got a call about an hourbefore Reed arrived. The call scared him, but he refused to tell her who itwas, She thought it was Reed saying he was coming over, but Reed told us henever made an advanced call. Wallace and the other likely plotted to grabDonner for a day or two with the aim of returning her. It’s been done before.But it goes wrong and she ends up in a garbage can with her throat cut. Ourtattooed guy is likely a hard-core skinner who manipulated Wallace, then tripsup the case.”

  “We never publicly said Wallace was a suspect?” Paleysaid.

  “No Wallace was dead,” Gonzales said. “We want toleave his partner in the dark. So we publicity doubt Reed’s story. It may notbe nice, but we’re chasing a child-killer.” He paused. “Merle, Lonnie, you gotanything?”

  Ditmire leafed through his notes.

  “Nathan Becker is a computer systems engineer withNor-Tec in Mountain View, head of a project for the U.S. military. The CIA toldus this morning that it would not rule out a terrorist act as one plausiblescenario here.”

  “But we have no demands,” Sydowski said. “And doesn’ttradition show that responsibility for acts of terrorism is usually claimedwithin twenty-four hours?”

  “Not in every instance, Walt,” Rust said.

  Ditmire continued with the results of a VICAP check.“Two recent child abduction-murder cases around Dallas-Fort Worth in the lastthree years. And for the same period, there has been one in Denver, Seattle,Detroit, Memphis, and Salt Lake City. We’re getting files on them. We’ve gotagents posing as kids and agents posing as pervs, baiting whatever is outthere. That’s it for now.”

  Gonzales nodded. “Claire, any hint of cult, our humansacrifice?”

  Inspector Claire Ward an expert on cults, had beentaking notes.

  “Too soon to say, Lieutenant, I’d like to look at theevidence from the Donner case again.”

  “Walt will help you there,” Gonzales said. “All right.We are going to chew up every shred we’ve got on this, understand?Every-fucking-thing. The heat on this one is intense.” Gonzales stood up,looked at his watch, then ended the meeting. “You’ve got your assignments. Youall know the words to the song. This is a green light. All overtime isapproved. We go hard into the backgrounds. We re-create the day. We check andrecheck every tip.” He tucked his unlit cigar in his inside bre
ast pocket.“Questions?”

  None.

  “Turgeon, please see me in my office,” Gonzales said.

  Papers and reports were collected as the investigatorsfiled out of the room. Turgeon followed Gonzales to his office several doorsaway, where he fished through a top desk drawer, then placed her newidentification in her hand.

  “Sorry, Linda. I should’ve gotten this to you lastweek.”

  Turgeon looked at the laminated photo ID which read: Inspector Linda A. Turgeon. San Francisco Police Department. Homicide Detail.She ran her finger over the shield bearing the city’s seal. It depicted asailor, miner, and a ship passing under the Golden Gate. Above it, a phoenixrose from flames. Below was the city’s Spanish motto. Oro en paz, fierro enGuerra.

  “You know the jingle,” Gonzales said.

  “Gold in peace. Iron in war.”

  Turgeon’s heart swelled. Her father’s gold shield washome in a jewelry box, with her favorite picture of him smiling in uniform ather. She was eight, wearing his cap, smiling up at him. She blinked severaltimes. I did it, Dad. I did it, she thought.

  “Welcome to the dark ride,” Gonzales said”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  Gonzales cleared his throat. “I knew Don in the earlydays.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Yeah, we walked the Mission together. For a spell.”

  Turgeon nodded.

  “Linda?”

  “Yes.”

  “You done him proud, real proud.”

  FOURTEEN

  Vassie Laptak, the choirmaster for Our Lady Queen of Tearful Sorrows RomanCatholic Church, tapped his baton crisply on the podium’s edge, halting “TheLord is Risen.” He pushed aside his wild, maestrolike strands of ivory hair andstudied his sheet music.