by Rick Mofina
Danny had to pee. He replaced a half-eaten cookie on the plate, stood up, and looked around. He had to find the bathroom. He went to the door, reached up, gripped the knob, and turned.
It opened.
The hallway was dark. A shaft of light from a TV illuminated a stairway, and distinct, rhythmic squeak-creak sounds came from above.
Sniffling, Danny tiptoed up the stairs. He heard a bark. A little blond dog waited for him at the top of the stairs.
It was brighter on the next floor and the bathroom was near the stairs. Danny entered and left the door open so it would be known he was doing the right thing. The dog waited for him at the door. He was friendly and licked Danny’s hand.
The TV and the squeak-creak grew louder as Danny entered the living room.
“...here’s the pitch; it’s a slider inside. Strike!”
Fifty thousand fans at Dodger Stadium roared. Danny turned and took in the room. It was barren. Torn rags and soiled sheets and towels covered the windows. No Mommy. No Daddy.
The walls were filthy. A large table, cluttered with a big computer, papers and maps was pushed to a corner.
Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.
“...the Giants are looking good here in Los Angeles...”
Baseball. The TV was on a tall stand in the middle of the room.
Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.
A strange man faced the set, rocking back and forth in a rocking chair. His back was turned to Danny.
“I want my mommy and daddy,” Danny said.
The stranger ignored him.
“...but so far they’re giving L.A. a drubbing today...”
Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.
Strewn on the floor beside the man were newspapers. Seeing something familiar, Danny inched closer.
Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.
Danny saw his own picture in one paper. He saw Daddy’s picture too--he looked worried and sad. Danny shuddered.
Who was that man in the rocking chair? He took half a step backward.
“Home field isn’t helping the Dodgers, Frank...Excuse me, Billy. We’re going to the network’s San Francisco affiliate for an update on the kidnapping of Danny Becker.”
Danny’s mouth dropped when he heard his name. His eyes were riveted to the set. What was happening?
A man on the TV said, “Good afternoon. I am Peter McDermid with an EyeWitness News special update.” Danny blinked, staring at himself on TV.
Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.
“Three-year-old Danny Raphael Becker was kidnapped...”
What is kidnapped?
“...from his father yesterday while they were riding home on San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit System subway from a baseball game at Oakland’s Alameda County Coliseum. It is believed a man abducted the boy from the Balboa Park BART Station. Danny is still missing. Police say his family has received no ransom calls and that they have no suspects, no useful description of Danny’s abductor. Today they are intensifying their investigation. One hundred additional police and one thousand volunteers are helping in the search for Danny. He is the only child of Nathan and Magdalene Becker.”
Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.
The picture of a little girl appeared beside Danny’s. He knew her. It was the girl he saw on the subway. The one who never smiled.
“A disturbing aspect in Danny’s case is that it happened nearly one year later, and in almost exactly the same area, where two-year-old Tanita Marie Donner was taken from her home. She was murdered three days later in Golden Gate Park.”
Murdered? Is that when you are dead? Is that murdered?
Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.
“An unprecedented investigation involving the FBI and San Francisco police has yet to find Tanita’s killer. Police refuse to say if Tanita Donner’s murder and Danny Becker’s abduction are linked. But EyeWitness News has learned the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, expert in profiling serial criminals, is again assisting.”
“There has been an outpouring of support for the Beckers. We go now to a news conference called by Nathan and Magdalene Becker. EyeWitness News reporter Jeannie Duffy is there. Jeannie, give us a sense of the impact the Becker abduction has had.”
Jeannie Duffy stood before a row of TV cameras. Beyond them, a table with a small mountain of microphones and portable tape recorders rose before two empty chairs.
“Peter, the people I’ve talked to are horrified. The abduction of Danny Becker is every parent’s nightmare. They say this kind of thing isn’t supposed to happen in their neighborhood. It’s something that happens in the movies, but not here. They’re taking precautions. Neighborhood watch parties are being formed, children are not allowed anywhere alone, and strangers are regarded with suspicion. A blanket of fear has fallen over San Francisco.”
“I talked to a relative of the Beckers and he told me Danny’s parents will offer a substantial reward for Danny’s safe return. And the family just released to reporters a home video of Danny at his cousin’s birthday party taken two weeks ago. Here’s a bit of that now. Danny’s the smaller boy wearing a red shirt.”
Danny’s cousins, Paul and Sarah, appeared on TV with him. Paul kicked a soccer ball to Danny. Sarah was skipping.
The man in the chair stopped rocking, and turned his head slowly to Danny, allowing him to see only half of his face.
Danny took another step backward and searched the room for a door. He wanted to leave. Now. The man resumed rocking. Squeak-creak.
On TV, a man and a woman seated themselves before the microphones. Transfixed, Danny clasped his hands together, blurting, “Mom, my mommy!”
Squeak-creak.
The press conference room was electric with emotion under the lights. Silent, except for the soft flashes of still cameras and the whir-click of their rapid-fire motor drives. Nathan and Maggie held hands, sat with their heads bowed, struggling to begin. Maggie brushed her eye. No makeup. Nathan was unshaven. They had not slept.
“I’m sorry,” Nathan said. “This is difficult.”
They faced some one hundred reporters, 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 person who has our son, we say please bring Danny back, please let him go, that’s all we ask. We beg you. Please.” Tears streamed down her face, making it shine. The cameras flashed, reporters made notes.
Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.
Nathan looked toward his family and friends. “We want to say to the person who has Danny, our only child, please don’t harm him. We know you must be hurting to have taken Danny. Our son, Danny. You must be suffering too, suffering tremendously. We are now suffering together and only you can make things better. We beg you. Danny is just 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 thousand dollars for information that brings Danny home safely. If the person who has Danny finds it in his heart to return Danny to us, you will receive every consideration. Please bring Danny back safely. Please.”
Several reporters started with questions. Nathan stayed them.
“That’s all we can say. Thank you.”
“Mr. Becker, a few short questions?” implored one reporter.
Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.
“I’m sorry. Please, it’s all we can say now. Thank you.”
“Waiiiittt!” Danny’s arms shot toward his mother and father. “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 scrambled to his feet and hurried to the kitchen, afraid to look behind him. He heard the paws of the dog,
following him. He could see a door in the kitchen. He reached up and grasped the handle. It wouldn’t move. He kept trying. “Home.” He pulled mightily, kicked the door for not cooperating. The dog yelped. What if he asked the man nicely?
“Home. Please.”
Nothing happened.
Danny looked over his shoulder--the man was across the room, leaning over the big table with all the papers.
“Home. Please!” Danny sobbed.
The man raised his head, as if hearing Danny for the first time. He turned and faced him, smiling. He looked friendly. Danny noticed a 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 the man’s eyes. They were big and wide the way Daddy made his eyes go when he was Zombie Man. The man stepped closer.
“No! You leave me alone. Stop!” Danny shouted.
He ran for the basement stairs. The dog scampered after him.
Too small to run down them, Danny sat and bounced along each stair on his bottom as quickly as he could, racing to the room where he 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 against the wall. Towering over Danny, gazing down upon him from a few feet away.
Danny wanted to push himself through the wall, balling his hands into fists, clutching them together against his chest, terrified something bad was going to happen.
“Go away! Go away!”
The man dropped to his knees, stretched out his arms.
“O Raphael! Holy Rescuer, Holy Guardian! Years I have suffered. Years, I have atoned. Years I have waited and now you have come! You have come!”
Edward Keller was enraptured, arms outstretched, palms to heaven.
“O Raphael! The prophet’s words are true. ‘Through me you 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, San Francisco’s top detectives gathered in Room 400 at the Hall of Justice on Bryant. Over the years the room had sucked up the sweat, the fury, and the very souls of investigators avenging the dead whose lives had been taken by evil, perpetually manifesting itself in every wicked force imaginable from crack cocaine to the Zebra, from the Dai Hen Jai to the Zodiac.
Enlarged photos of Danny and Tanita gazed from the corkboard Inspector Gord Mikelson had wheeled into place. Beneath their faces a city map was pierced with tiny flag pins. Pink for locations in the Donner case, blue for Becker. Each had a related file. Notebooks were opened. Reports and witness statements were circulated.
“Right off, we’ve got one unidentified suspect and little else on Becker. No calls, letters, demands. No body,” Mikelson said.
“Not yet,” someone muttered, alluding to statistics that show that if an abducted child was not found alive within forty-eight hours, the child was likely dead.
“We will have none of that talk here. Understand? Or tomorrow you are working a koban giving directions to a hayseed from Boise.” Lieutenant Leo Gonzales, head of the Homicide Detail, unwrapped an imported cigar and squinted at the talent in the room. Among them were Sydowski, Turgeon, and FBI Special Agents Rust and Ditmire. Gonzales made eye contact with everyone, including Captain Miles Beck, Deputy Chief of Investigations, Bill Kennedy, and Nick Roselli, chief of inspectors. Many in the room were unfamiliar with the Donner case. Adhering to the city’s no-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 to Donner, Walt’s file. Now listen up.” Gonzales nodded to Mikelson. “Go, Gord.”
“We have nothing unusual in the twenty-four hours before Danny Becker’s abduction. We canvassed their route. A couple of people believe they saw a man follow Nathan and Danny onto the bus. Their descriptions are vague, but generally fit with Nathan’s. But we really don’t have anything strong 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 at Computer Enhancing working something up.”
“The game, anything there?” Tipper asked.
“Working on it with guys across the bay,” Sydowski said.
“We’ve got, hold it”--Milkelson checked his notes--“at last count, one hundred sixty phone notes to sort through, about the same number of email tips. We expect it all to go up because of the news conference. We’ve got dozens of re-interviews and we have to go over the family’s background again.”
“Let’s hear it, Gord.” Gonzales wanted Mikelson to offer what his gut told him. “Give it up.”
“The Beckers stuck to their routine in the twenty-four hours before the kidnapping. The impulse on Nathan Becker’s part was to take Danny 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 them would 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 near the Becker home and a run through parking citations for the area.
Okay, Walt”--Tippet turned to Sydowski--“is the guy who took Becker our missing link in the Donner file?”
“Wait. For the benefit of everyone coming to this fresh, walk us through Donner, Walt,” Deputy Chief Kennedy said.
“I want to measure Becker against Donner from square one.”
Sydowski knew the case history by rote. “Angela Donner is a single, young welfare mother. She puts her daughter, Tanita Marie, down for a nap in the playpen of the fenced rear patio of their ground-floor suite in Balboa almost one year ago. When Angela goes to answer the phone, someone grabs Tanita, unseen. No witnesses, no physical evidence at the scene. No ransom call, no letters. No demands. Nothing. Three days later, two girls on a science trip find her about eleven a.m. in Golden Gate, in a garbage bag, under a tire.”
“Time of death and location, Walt?” Inspector Bruce Paley 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 killed there. She was held for three days, then killed and dumped.”
“What about the baby’s father?”
“Checked out clean. Her throat was cut with a small, tooth-edged knife. Some details of her death are hold-back,” Sydowski said. “We had nothing, no weapon, no witnesses. Nothing, except suspicions about Franklin Wallace. We lit up the ’hood, ran everybody in a twelve-block radius of the girl’s home. Wallace came up, among others. He was a short-order cook, married, and had a four-year-old daughter. He lived near Tanita, read Bible stories to her and other kids at his Sunday school day care. He also had a ten-year-old conviction in Virginia for molesting a five-year-old girl. He made our suspect list, along with others in the area. We questioned Wallace superficially through a routine canvass. We never went hard at him. He was alibied and we had nothing at the time, which was days after the case broke.
“Quantico’s profile leaned strongly to a two-person team, which was bang on when we got a break later. A patrol officer chasing drugs in Dolores found Tanita’s plastic diaper and these two Polaroids hidden under some bushes.” Sydowski passed around enlarged copies of the two snapshots. “This material is also hold-back.”
One picture showed Tanita alive, naked, being held by a man wearing no shirt.
The man’s head had been cut out of the picture. The second photo showed a different man with tattoos on his forearms, wearing a black 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 tattoos. Looks like he’s done time. The man in the first picture is Wallace. His prints were on Tanita’s diaper. We’re certain two men were involved with Donner. Fits the profile. I suspect 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 or fantasizing about any aspect of the act. Look, the material is not in any residence. Our boy is smart to hide it in a public place. Makes it tough to link him to the crime. He can return to the pictures and enjoy them. He likely savored the baby’s scent from the diaper, it was a clean one. The killer was the dominant team member who literally cut Wallace out of the fantasy by removing his head from the picture.”
“Didn’t the guy try to set up Wallace somehow?” Paley said.
“Yeah, he screwed us over good,” Sydowski said. “Everything happened at once. Right after we found the stuff in Dolores and before we could nail Wallace, Tom Reed at the Star got an anonymous call saying Wallace was the killer, that we had pictures of him with the girl and that he had a record in Virginia. We figured the killer must have seen our guy find the pictures. How else would he know? Reed called Virginia, which confirmed Wallace’s record for child molesting. Reed confirmed from neighbors that Wallace lived near Tanita and had her in his toddlers’ Bible classes. Then he called me for confirmation that Wallace was our suspect. He got nothing, I assure you.” Sydowski stared at Ditmire. “Then Reed went immediately to Wallace’s home, confronted him with what he had. Wallace never knew we had the pictures, the diaper, his prints, his records, until Reed told him. He denied to Reed that he was involved, then blew his brains out with a shotgun when Reed left. We never got to question Wallace hard about the diaper, the pictures, his partner.”
