If Angels Fall (tom reed and walt sydowski)

by Rick Mofina

  Gabrielle stood, she was a little dizzy. Maybe sheshould just sit here and wait. No! She had to do it. She had to, so shewouldn’t be in trouble. She had to phone home. And she had to pee.

  Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.

  The grease-stained burger boxes and bags crumpled asshe moved to the door. What if the man was watching from a spy hole, ready tocome in at any second? The wrappers, napkins, empty drink cups, boxes, and bagsrustled. Something squished. Yuck. A half-eaten burger. Stale ketchup bledunder her shoe. In the far off corner some wrappers were moving.

  By themselves.

  Gabrielle froze.

  The bags moved a little, trembling like something wasgnawing on them. Gabrielle watched. Maybe it was Jackson? What else could itbe? It had to be Jackson. Gabrielle cut a path to the corner.

  “Here, pup,” she cooed, lifting a large bag just as agiant rat with ketchup dripping from its mouth flew at her, coming so close shefelt its tail slap against her palm!

  Gabrielle screamed, jumped back, falling.

  A vanilla cream cookie whizzed by the rat’s head.

  “Go away!” Danny shouted, reaching into his bag foranother.

  Gabrielle scurried to Danny. Together they firedcookies at the rat. It had touched her. She was scared.

  The door swung open.

  Mr. Jenkins. Only, he didn’t look so friendly now. Abig silver cross was swinging from his neck. He spotted the rat, disappeared,and returned with a baseball bat.

  “Vermin!” he screamed, bring the bat down swiftly,missing the rat. It squealed, the bat went clank and garbage scattered.

  He yelled, swinging the bat down again.

  The fierceness of the man’s attack frightened thechildren more than the rat did. His eyes were huge, popping out of his head,the white parts as big as eggs. His hair wild like a nest o angry snakes.Spittle clung to his beard.

  Keller swung again, making a wet, squishing sound. Helaughed, his bat dripping with the blood of the rat. Gabrielle screamed. Kellerlooked at her.

  “It is done,” he said, moving toward the children.

  Keller’s expression changed. Raphael and Gabriel werebefore them. He saw their auras.

  The light of one million suns shone upon him.

  His rage was replaced by rapture. Like a victoriousbattle-weary soldier, he laid his foe at the throne. The bloodied, pulpycarcass, fur and mangled intestines, lay inches from Gabrielle and Danny.Gabrielle stifled her sobs, trying not to look.

  “W-We want to go home, now. Please Mr. Jenkins,” shepleaded.

  Keller did not hear her.

  “You have come, Gabriel. God’s emissary. You have cometo me!”

  “Please, Mr. Jenkins! Let me phone my mommy anddaddy!”

  Remembering the bat, Keller lifted it to his face,examining the blood with fascination.

  “I am cleaned in the light of the Lord. I have tastedthe blood of my enemies. None shall defeat me, for my mission is divine and Iam truly invincible.” He moved his fingers over the blood-slicked club. “I amcleansed in the light-I have tasted the blood of my enemies.”

  “My mission is divine. I am truly invincible.”

  Gabrielle pulled Danny tight to her.

  Keller went upstairs to the bathroom and ran the bathwater.

  God had answered his prayers.

  One more angel and the choir would be complete.

  Then the transfiguration would begin.

  Wiping the tears from his face, he stood and kissedhis crucifix.

  It was time for the second baptism.

  FORTY-THREE

  If Virgil Shook worshiped anything in this world beyond himself it was the Zodiac,the personification of power.

  The Zodiac was the hooded executioner who had murderedfive people in the Bay Area during the late 1960’s and mocked police in thecryptic letters he wrote to newspapers. His cunning eclipsed the best minds ofthe SFPD and the FBI. He owned the city, mastered its fear, yanking it by aleash at his leisure. The Zodiac was a visionary, a seer who knew that when hedied, his victims would be his slaves and he would be a king in paradise.

  They had never captured him. Shook signed.

  For a time last year, like the Zodiac, he had sippedfrom the cup of power. He had enjoyed Tanita, the little prostitute. Loved herto death and forced the city to tremble in the wake of his omnipotence. He hadmanipulated Franklin Wallace, outsmarted police, and taunted the priest withhis confessions, spitting in the face of his God, compelling him to genuflectto the power of The One.

  That was then. Now the city was under the spell ofanother. A new player was reaping the harvest of Shook’s work and Shook wasenraged.

  Who did this new fuck think he was?

  Shook snapped off the late-night TV news afterabsorbing the reports of Gabrielle Nunn’s abduction in Golden Gate Park. Thehorror in Nancy Nunn’s face had seared him. Her pain should have been his torelish. Yet he watched mournfully from afar, like a starving wolf contendingwith the mark of a new predator.

  Shook paced his dirty flophouse room, oblivious to theopera of sirens piercing the foul of night air of the Tenderloin. If he wasgoing to be immortalized like the Zodiac, it was time to up the ante. Time toteach the challenger a lesson in a way even more thrilling than it had beenwith poor little Franklin Wallace, when he plucked him like a harp, savoringthe danger of it to the point of arousal.

  Franklin? It’s me.

  Oh Lord, don’t call me at home like this. Lorddon’t!

  They know, Franklin, he lied. They know aboutTanita. Me. You.

  NO!

  They know everything. And the press knows, too.

  No!

  They found the pictures of you with her in DoloresPark. They are coming for you soon. You know what that means.

  No!

  Remember our pact, Wallace. We must pay for oursins. We both know that.

  But, Virgil, I-

  Think of your family, the insurance. They won’tpay if you’re connected to anything criminal, Franklin. They are coming foryou.

  Wallace was sobbing, a sickly, man-child kind ofweeping.

  Virgil, please! I don’t know what to do.

  You do know. We both know. Good-bye, Franklin.

  Virgil-No, wait.

  May God have mercy on you, Wallace.

  Shook fired the blank from the.22, dropping itwith the phone on the floor. Wallace screamed through the earpiece, his voicetiny, distant. An hour later, Shook stood safely out of sight near Franklin’shouse, smiling to himself when that fool he called at the Star appeared onFranklin’s doorstep, like an obedient lapdog.

  Everything flowed. Beautifully. The Zodiac wouldapplaud him.

  Time to move on. Time to teach a new, painful lesson,one that would transcend his work with Franklin, one tempered with rage for thenew fuck.

  Shook pulled on a pair of gloves and went to thecorner newspaper box, returning with two fresh editions of the Star.

  He went to his bed, a huge steel-framed monstrosityfrom a St. Louis hospital that had burned down. He unscrewed the middle hollowbar from the head and carefully tapped out several rolled-up Polaroidssnapshots of himself with Tanita Donner. None one had seen these pictures. Andno one knew of the tantalizing clue he had left police before he dispatched thelittle prostitute to paradise.

  Shook traced gloved fingers tenderly over the photosbefore selecting two. He ripped the Nunn abduction story from the firstnewspaper and scrawled a note over the text, using a blue felt-tip pen like theZodiac. He folded the clipping, put it in a plain, brown envelope, scanned thephone book, then addressed the envelope to Paul Nunn.

  He made an identical envelope and addressed it toDanny Becker’s family. Then Shook left his room, taking the subway to Oakland,where he would drop the two letters in a mailbox.

  Another yank on the leash.

  FORTY-FOUR

  The Ayatollah Komeini glowered at Reed.

  EYE OF THE HURRICANE. AMERICANS HELD HOSTAGE AT THEU.S. EMBASSY IN TEHRAN. EL SAVADOR TEETERING,
MOUNT ST. HELENS SPEWING ASH ANDROCK. SOVIET INTERVENTION IN AFGHANISTAN. All there in black-and-white,bleeding on the front page.

  1980.

  All there except for Keller’s tragedy. Wrong page?Reed checked the skyline. Wrong date. He hit the advance button on the Minoltaand whisked through time along a microfilm torrent of photographs, headlines,and advertisements. The take-up reel buzzed. It was late.

  He stayed at the paper after reading the old Starclip on Edward Keller’s boating tragedy. Alone in the news library searchingthe past. Reels of microfilm newspapers and opened news indices were piled nextto him, signposts to Keller’s case. The Star’s clippings were a start.He was also going through the Chronicle and the Examiner fortheir takes, looking for something extra, any vital piece of information thatwould…what? Connect Keller to the kidnappings?

  He had a beard and looked like the guy in the fuzzyhome video footage. And there was something strange about Keller, somethingthat just didn’t sit right.

  Be careful, Reed. This ain’t no movie. Hunches aremean, wild horses. You rode one last year and ended up with your ass gettingstomped. The memory of Wallace’s widow slapping his face still stung. Wallace’slittle girl clinging to her father’s leg hours before his put his mouth arounda double-barreled 12-gauge.

  “Leave my daddy alone!”

  You’d better be damned careful. The reel clicked andstopped. This is it. BILL RODGERS WINS THE BOSTON MARATHON. MOUNT ST. HELENSERUPTS. Photos of an anguished President Carter and the wreckage of U.S.Helicopters in the desert where eight Americans died in the failed rescue ofthe hostages. And Keller’s story. A small item, inconspicuous. Below the fold:

  BUILDER’S 3 CHILDREN LOST IN FARALLONS TRAGEDY

  Three children are missing and feared dead after afamily sight-seeing excursion ended in tragedy yesterday near the FarallonIslands.

  Nine-year-old Pierce Keller, his sister, Alisha, 6,and their brother, Joshua, 3, are presumed drowned after the small boatchartered from Half Moon Bay by their father, Edward Keller of San Francisco,capsized in a storm southeast of the islands.

  “The search for the children will continue throughthe night and tomorrow,” a U.S. Coast Guard official said. The chances offinding them alive were “remote,” he said.

  “The weather was severe and none of the childrenhad life jackets. We found the father on a buoy, suffering from extremeexhaustion and hypothermia.”

  Keller is recovering in San Francisco GeneralHospital. He is the owner of Resurrection Building Inc., one of northernCalifornia’s largest contracting firms, specializing in the construction ofchurches. An official with the company was too distraught to comment whenreached by the Chronicle.

  No other details were available.

  Resurrection Building? Churches? Keller builtchurches?

  Interesting. Explained his religious ranting. Reedpunched the photocopy button. As the Minolta hummed, he searched the SanFrancisco phone book and the current state directory of companies for a listingfor Resurrection Building. Nothing. He searched the phone book and citydirectory for Edward Keller’s listing. Nothing.

  He pulled the story from the copy tray and read itagain. Then he snapped through his notes from his interview with Keller.

  “I know that soon I will be with my children again.That I will deliver them from purgatory. God in His infinite mercy has revealedthis to me. Every day I give him thanks and praise Him. And every day I wagewar against doubt in preparation for my blessed reunion.”

  Reed went over the passages several times.

  He removed his glasses, chewing thoughtfully on oneearpiece.

  “I will be with my children again.”

  He sifted through his papers for Molly’s article onthe FBI’s psychological profile of Danny Becker’s kidnapper. The quotes leapedfrom the page: “-traumatized by cataclysmic event involving children-lives infantasy world stimulated by alcohol, drugs or religious delusions…” Religiousdelusions.

  And there was another key about the suspect, the FBIhad told Molly. Reed scanned her story. Here it was. Yes. They always followedthe news coverage of their cases to learn what police knew and to enjoyfeelings of invincibility, superiority.

  Keller told Reed that he had read his stories aboutDanny Becker and Tanita Marie Donner.

  Reed rubbed his tired, burning eyes.

  “You know you are crazy to be here at this hour,Reed.” Molly Wilson’s bracelets chimed as she breezed over to him, brandishinga first-edition copy of that day’s Star.

  “Let me see that.” Reed took the paper, still wrm andmoist from the Metroliner presses.

  “You should be in a bar, Reed. We own the front page.”

  The double-deck forty-point headline screamed:

  SERIAL CHILD-KILLER STEALS SECOND CHILD

  “I didn’t believe the night desk when they said youwere working in here. What the hell are you up to at this hour?”

  Wilson bent over behind Reed, her hair playing againsthis shoulder. He caught a trace of her Obsession.

  “Let’s go have a beer. Photo guys are saving a tableat Lou’s.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “You’ll pass? Why? What’s so important here?”

  Reed looked at Wilson. Deciding to confide in her, hegot up and shut the library door.

  “This is between you and me. It doesn’t leave thisroom, Molly.”

  He returned to his chair. Wilson sat on the table.

  “Remember, I joked to you about this Keller guy fromthe bereavement group when you were doing up the FBI profile?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Before I go any further, read this.” He handed herhis notes from Keller, the old clippings from the tragedy twenty years ago, andher article on the psych profile. It took less than two minutes for her toingest everything. Next Reed handed her working prints of the police compositeand a still from the blurry home-video footage of the suspect in Golden Gate,then Henry Cain’s contact sheet of the pictures he shot of Dr. Martin’sbereavement group. Although Edward Keller didn’t want his picture taken, Caintook it. Secretly. Most photographers would have. It’s an unwritten rule in thebusiness. You never know when you’ll need a photo of a certain person. Likenow. Wilson held the contacts up to the light and squinted through a loupe atthe one-inch-square shot of Keller.

  “Holy fuck, Tom. Put dark glasses on Keller and helooks just like the composite. What do you think?”

  “he’s got to be a suspect. There’s got to be somethingthere.”

  Wilson pulled up a chair, sat next to Reed, and beganpicking through the papers. “What do you think is going on?”

  “I think he could never come to terms with the drowningof his three children. Something snapped inside and he grabbed Danny Becker andGabrielle Nunn as surrogates.”

  “What about the Donner case? Where does it fit in?”

  “I’m not sure. So far it’s different. I mean in thatcase a body was found. Maybe something went wrong with that one, or it’s notrelated. I don’t know anymore.”

  “Look at this!” Wilson underlined the ages of Keller’schildren when they drowned, then drew a line on a blank piece of paper, writingthree-year-old Joshua Keller’s name on one side of the line. Opposite Joshua’sname she wrote, “Danny Raphael Becker, 3”. Under Joshua, she wrote, “AlishaKeller, 5”. Across the line she wrote “Gabrielle Michelle Nunn, 5”.

  “Look at the old stories Tom. Gabrielle will be six bythe anniversary of the tragedy, the twenty-first.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Something else. These names”-Wilson circled Raphaeland Gabrielle-“these are angels’ names.”

  “I thought that too. Are you sure?”

  “I’m lapsed Catholic. I wrote a high school paper onangels.”

  Reed studied the names, thinking.

  “Angels. Maybe to him the kids are angels orsomething.”

  “Maybe guardian angels?”

  “Maybe. It would fit with the profile. I mean we’vegot him on the traumatic ca
taclysmic event with children.”

  “Right, the drownings.”

  “And we’ve got him on religious delusions.”

  “Church building, Scripture spewing, grief-strickennut who is stealing kids with angel names who are the same age as his deadchildren.” Wilson shook her head.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know, Tom. It’s just so incredible.”

  “Not really, Molly. Look, remember I did that featureon the woman who posed as a maternity nurse and walked out of an East Bayhospital with a newborn?”

  “It was a good piece.”

  “Well, the FBI’s research showed that a key motivatorfor child abductors-and it’s mostly women who do newborn hospital abductions-isthe need to replace a child. So it’s not unreal. And I’m thinking, this couldbe the same thing Keller is going through.”

  “Yeah, but for twenty years, Tom? We’re making a leaphere.”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  “Okay, so it fits. So why not go to the police? Whynot tell Sydowski about your theory? Let him check it out.”

  Reed stared at her, saying nothing. Her suggestionmade perfect sense, but he couldn’t do it. Wilson knew.

  “It’s because of what happened last time you playedyour hunch, right? You’re a little gun-shy?”

  “Something like that. What if I tell Sydowski, and hegoes to Keller and it turns out he’s not the bad guy at all? Keller’s in acounseling group, the anniversary of his kids’ deaths is coming. What if thepolice spook him and he loses it or-“

  Reed couldn’t finish the thought.

  “You don’t want another suicide.”

  Tom rubbed his face. “I may have been wrong aboutFranklin Wallace, Molly. It’s been haunting me. I just don’t know.”

  “I don’t think you were wrong there. Wallace hadsomething to do with Tanita’s murder. Maybe it was a partner crime.”

  “Okay, say I was right about Wallace. But I wentthrough so much shit with that. It cost me so much. I’m torn up with this.”

  “But what if Keller is the one? There’s so much atstake here. The kids could be alive.”