by Rick Mofina
“I understand that you’ve been all over Northern California on the paper’s time following a tip.”
“Yes. That’s what you pay me for.”
“Is it the suspect the task force has in its sights?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know because you haven’t been around.”
“I believe the lead I have is solid.”
“Do you? Then why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“I needed to check a few things first.”
“Sounds like you were enterprising, Tom, following a theory.”
“No, I just needed to check--”
Benson’s fist came down on the table. “That’s enough!”
A few people near enough to hear stopped working, staring briefly at Benson’s office.
“I told you that I don’t care about your hunches on this story!”
Reed said nothing.
“I told you I want nothing more from you than straight-up reporting, yet you go off like some rogue contravening my orders. Now tell me right now why I should not fire you!”
Reed did not answer him.
“We know what happened the last time you followed one of your theories on an unsolved case, don’t we? It cost this paper a quarter of a million dollars! You are just not worth it, Reed. Now tell me why I should not fire you.”
“Because I think I know who took Danny Becker and Gabrielle Nunn.”
“You think you know?” Benson rolled his eyes. “Just like you knew who murdered little Juanita Donner.”
“Tanita.”
“Who?”
“Her name was Tanita Marie Donner.”
“What do you know, then? Who is your suspect, Reed? Tell me!”
“I’m not absolutely certain yet that he’s the--”
“Tell me now, or I’ll fire you on the spot!”
Reed digested the threat.
He was tired. So tired. Tired from driving to Philo and Half Moon Bay. Tired of fighting the Bensons in this world. Tired of the business. Tired of his life. He reached into his worn briefcase and pulled out his dog-eared file on Edward Keller. He told Benson everything he knew about Keller and showed him the photos the paper secretly took at the bereavement group. Benson compared them to the blurry stills from the home video at Gabrielle Nunn’s Golden Gate party. After Benson took in everything, he leaned back in his chair and set his plan in motion.
“Give me a story saying Edward Keller is the prime suspect.”
“What?”
“I want it today.”
“You can’t be serious. We’re still trying to find him.”
Benson was not listening. “We’ve got those grief group pictures. We’ll run them against those blurry police-suspect photos. It’ll be dramatic for readers.”
“But those pictures were taken surreptitiously.”
“What do we care? You’ve got him pegged as a child-killer. For all we know, he’s the prime target of the task force.”
“But I need more time.”
“You’ve wasted enough. Now get busy. I want thirty inches. You send the story to me and see me before you leave. Is that understood?”
“I think this is wrong.”
“You don’t think. You do what I tell you.”
He struggled to keep from telling Benson what a worthless little man he was. The words seethed on his tongue, but he clamped his jaw firmly and left the office.
Resign, he told himself.
Reed sat before his computer terminal and logged on. Quit on the spot. Benson was making him walk the plank, setting him up to be fired. End it all now. But conflicting emotions pinballed in his brain. Keller was the guy, wasn’t he? What about the two abducted children? Maybe he should call Sydowski. Right, if he needed more abuse, Sydowski was the man to call. Reed kicked everything to the back of his mind and began writing what Benson ordered.
Two hours later, he knocked on Benson’s open office door. Benson was on the phone and clamped his hand over the mouth piece.
“Done?”
“You have it on your desk now.”
“Wait right there, I’ve got Wilson at the Hall of Justice.”
Reed waited.
“Okay, Molly, yes...” Benson scribbled on a notepad. “Yes, anything beyond that?...Uh-huh. Okay good, keep us posted.”
Benson hung up. “Wilson’s sources at the hall say the task force has a prime suspect under surveillance somewhere right now.”
“You want me to help?”
“No. I want you to get the hell out of here and don’t come back until I call you personally. You are now on indefinite suspension.”
Reed said nothing, and turned to leave.
“By the way,” Benson said, “your employment here hinges on the integrity of the story you just wrote.”
Walking to his old Comet in the parking lot, it occurred to Reed that he had a few things to be grateful for. Edward Keller did not have a widow to slap Reed’s face, nor any children to scowl at him.
On his way to the rooming house at Sea Park, he would stop at Harry’s Liquor Store for a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Sipping Whiskey.
He realized he had just been fired.
FIFTY-FOUR
The smell of hot food wafted from the basement windows of Our Lady Queen of Tearful Sorrows Roman Catholic Church on Upper Market. Turgeon was talking on her cellular phone to an SFPD dispatcher who was directing four marked radio cars to the area.
“Tell them to take up compass points a block back, out of sight of the church.” She trailed Sydowski and Florence Schafer down the stairs through a rear metal door.
They came upon the kitchen, steamy and noisy with a dozen volunteers grappling trays of food, dodging each other.
“Louey!” Florence called over the din. “He’s the kitchen boss.” Louey wiped a cleaver on his stained apron. He was in his thirties, had a three-day growth of beard, and the bleary eyes of an A.A. candidate. Florence introduced the inspectors saying they were looking for somebody and everything was fine.
“How many exits to the basement here, Louey?” Sydowski said.
Three: the back, the front,”--Louey pointed to a far corner with the cleaver--“and that stairway to the sacristy.”
“Thanks.”
“Anybody I know?” Louey said.
“Who?”
“The guy you are looking for.”
Sydowski glanced at Florence, who put her hand on Louey’s arm.
“You don’t know him. He’s one of my old friends. The inspector just wants his help.”
“Yeah? For what?”
“We’ll let you in on it a little later,” Sydowski told him. Louey went back to work.
Sydowski went to the kitchen door to check the layout. It was like a bingo hall with two sections of row upon row of long tables divided by a middle aisle. A fire marshal’s certificate near the door put the capacity at four hundred. Supper had begun. Less than two dozen people were seated and eating. A few hundred more were queued at the serving tables at the kitchen end of the hall. Volunteers dished up meals and encouragement.
Sydowski decided to give it some time. He and Turgeon knew Virgil Shook’s general description and his tattoos. In a few minutes they would join the volunteers casually walking the hall.
“If he’s out there today, we’ll have the uniforms cover the exits. Linda and I will take him quietly while he’s eating.” Sydowski removed his tie and suggested Turgeon let her hair down. “We don’t want to look too obvious.”
Barney Tucker, a retired diesel mechanic and devout Catholic, greeted the shelter’s “guests” at the door, his stomach expanding the words: JESUS IS LOVE on his T-shirt. Barney clasped his big hand warmly over Virgil Shook’s as Shook passed by with the others making their way to the serving table.
“Nice to see you friend,” Barney said.
Shook ignored him, breathing in the aroma of turkey, beef, peas, corn, tomato soup, baked potatoes, fresh buns, and coffee. Sustenance, sanct
uary, and pity from the pious. The God bless yous blended with the tinkling of cutlery as the holy ones tended their miserable flock. Contempt slowly painted Shook’s face. He battled the urge to scream: Do you know who I am? If they knew, they would bend their knees.
Shook’s migraines had started again. Cranium quakes. Aching in his head, his groin. God, it hurt. He needed to love again. It had been too long. So long. He searched the hall for someone. Maybe that little temptress from Nevada? Daisy of the incredible blue eyes. He couldn’t find her. The food line passed the cardboard donation box and he deposited a nickel.
Turgeon patrolled the far aisle, carrying a plate of fresh buns, wishing she were in jeans and a sweatshirt instead of a blazer-skirt combo. She did her best, smiling, scouring exposed arms for tattoos and faces for features matching Shook’s composite.
She stifled a yawn. She had not been sleeping well. At night, lying alone in bed, she was attacked by fear for Gabrielle Nunn and Danny Becker. She could not switch off Shook’s confession. They had to bring this all to an end. Were they too late?
A possibility jumped at Sydowski as he went from table to table, topping glasses with a pewter pitcher of milk. If they spotted Shook, spotted him clean with Shook making them, then maybe they could hold off grabbing him so they could surveil him. He might lead them to the children. If they were still alive. He might lead them to evidence. They could also lose him. He could abduct another child. It was a risk Sydowski weighed, studying the line that reached from the serving table to the door, searching for tattoos, the right body type and face. He constantly checked to be sure his sports jacket was buttoned so his gun was unseen. He concentrated, taking stock of the hall, the exits. How fast could he make them if Shook bolted? What would he do?
Florence’s scalp tingled. She saw the flames. The broken heart. And the cobra curled around Virgil Shook’s left forearm.
It was him. In line, making his way to the serving table.
“Whatzamatter, Florence? You look like you seen a ghost.”
“Huh?”
“Something catch your eye, there?” Marty, an ancient bottle-and-can collector, smiled at her from his plate of food, then followed her gaze across the hall to the long line of people waiting to be served.
“Oh. No, Marty. I’m sorry.” Florence distracted him by putting her hand on his frail shoulder. “Ran off with my thoughts, I guess. Say, how about some gravy for that turkey?”
“Well, I don’t want nobody goin’ out of their way.” A toothless smile came out from hiding in Marty’s grizzled beard.
“No trouble for a handsome man like you.”
Florence stole another glimpse at Shook. Their eyes locked, charging her with raw panic. She looked away, struggling to conceal it, squeezing Marty’s shoulder.
“Gravy. Coming right up, Marty.”
Lord Jesus, please help me! Was she running to the kitchen? She didn’t know, or care. She was numb with fear and ordered herself to be strong. Be calm for the children.
“Careful!”
She nearly ran into a volunteer carrying an urn of hot soup inside the kitchen door. She leaned against a wall, gasping. Louey came to her. “Florence, you okay? What the hell is going on?”
What was it with that woman? Why was she gawking at him like that? Like she knew something about him. Shook couldn’t place her. Screw it. Let it simmer. He had enough to think about right now, like the letters. It had been a week. Nothing had surfaced in the news. Nothing to help him get off. The blue meanies kept a lid on it, denying him the pleasure of increasing San Francisco’s pain. What would the Zodiac do? Send the letters to the press, threaten harm if they weren’t published.
Slices of turkey and roast beef were heaped on Shook’s plate next to a mountain range of mashed potatoes.
“Welcome, friend,” a young woman volunteer said.
Shook was cold to her kindness. Moving down the serving table, he grimaced. His pain was nearly unbearable, his need to love again was overwhelming and this other player, the new guy, made it too hot to hunt. The letters, the game with the priest were poor substitutes for the real thing. He couldn’t stand it any longer. He had to do something.
Kindhart.
They could hunt together. Shook could plan something like he did with Wallace. Grab a little prostitute, enjoy her, and turn up the heat. It would be rapturous. But where was Kindhart these days? He seemed to be scarce. To hell with him. Shook could do it himself. He grabbed a couple of buns and it hit him again. Who was that twitching dwarf gaping at him back there? She was familiar, yet he couldn’t place her. Why had she acted so strange? Pious old woman. Maybe he would give her a lesson in humility.
Shook bit savagely into a bun and headed for a solitary table.
Florence was hysterical.
“It’s him! It’s him! Sweet Lord, he saw me!”
“Listen to me, Florence! Take a deep breath!” Sydowski said.
Turgeon was on the cellular phone. “Have the units move in to the church exits now! No lights, no screamers!”
Florence was sobbing. Sydowski was bent over, holding her shoulders in his big hands, comforting her. Turgeon pinpointed Shook from the kitchen door.
“I’ve got him, Walt. Doesn’t look like he suspects anything yet--yes.” Turgeon described Shook over the phone, “Caucasian, white T-shirt, beard.”
“Good work, Florence. It will be over with soon.”
Curious kitchen staff had gathered in a circle.
“Folks, this is San Francisco Police business. It is a matter of life and death that you tell no one we are here.” Sydowski flashed his shield. “Please. It’s important that you carry on.”
“What exactly is going on, officer?” one man asked.
“Sir, we will tell you later. Please. Your help is vital now.”
“Walt, dispatch called the TAC Team.”
“We’ll sit on him until they get here.”
“And if he runs, Walt?”
Sydowski didn’t answer. He went to the door for a look at Shook.
He sat alone, back close to the wall, stabbing at his food with his right hand, his left forearm draped defensively around his plate, displaying his tattoos, letting the world know he was not to be messed with. He scanned the hall continuously, trusting nothing. It was the way you ate inside. Old habits died hard. But he never faced trouble here. It was one of the things he liked about Our Lady. That, and the fact that it was clean. The hall was clean and the church was clean, smelling of candle wax and lemon furniture polish. Pure and clean.
That was it.
Shook stopped chewing.
She cleaned upstairs. Polished the pews. And she was always there when he visited the priest! He had a clear line to the kitchen door as a thin young man carrying a tub of dirty dishes entered. In the half second the door opened, Shook saw a professional-looking woman in a blazer talking on a phone. And he saw the old woman talking to a man in a suit, with gray hair, tanned face--he recognized him from TV news.
He was a cop!
Shook’s pulse rate exploded. The twitchy old woman was telling them about him.
They had come for him!
Shook heard the squeak of brakes, an engine idling. Through a cracked basement window, he saw the car’s rocker panels, it’s black-and-white paint scheme. The window was too small to get through.
Think! Think! Think!
Uniformed officer Gary Crockett joined Sydowski and Turgeon in the kitchen, a radio in his hand.
“Use your earpiece,” Sydowski demanded. “Tell the others.”
Crockett relayed their order through his radio.
“You got bodies at all the exits?” Turgeon asked him.
Crockett nodded. “Who’ve we got?”
“Suspect in the child abductions—oh, no!”
Sydowski saw the Channel 5 Live News van pull up to the rear.
“Crockett, have somebody keep the press back!”
“TAC is rolling, Walt,” Turgeon said from her phone
. “Yes. Patch him through--Walt, it’s Lieutenant Gonzales.”
He took the phone. “Leo. It’s our boy.” His eyes were on Shook.
“We need him, Walt. Sit on him ’til TAC gets there.”
“I know my job, Leo.”
“I’m ten minutes from you. Rust and Ditmire are on their way.”
“Jesus!” Sydowski tossed the phone to Crockett. “He’s made us. Linda, come on! Crockett have your people move in when I shout.”
Shook rose, walking calmly to the door. He heard their footsteps on the hardwood floor behind him.
“One moment please!” It was the male pig.
Shook’s stomach tightened. He kept walking. He was not going back inside. Never going back. He reached down into his boot. “Police! Stop right there!”
The economy had cost Dolores Lopez her job cleaning toilets in the office towers of the financial district. Her boss, Mr. Weems, was a born-again Christian who cried when he let Dolores go. She was a single mother with four children. She didn’t know what she was going to do. In one month, she would lose her apartment on Potrero Hill. Every day she prayed to the Virgin who smiled upon her. They had found Our Lady’s shelter last week and Mr. Weems had arranged a job interview tomorrow with a cleaning firm in Oakland. Dolores was telling her children to never abandon hope, to always pay homage to the Mother of Jesus, when she felt her hair being torn from her head, as she was lifted by an arm crushing her neck.
The steel point of a knife was pressed solidly below her eye.
She heard shouting, but did not scream.
“Mama! Mama!” Carla, her three-year-old daughter, ran to her. Someone pushed her back. Dolores pulled weakly at the arm around her throat. And she prayed because she knew she was going to die.
Please, Holy Mother, watch over my children.
Sydowski pulled his Glock from his hip holster. Turgeon had her Smith & Wesson trained on Shook’s head.
“Drop the knife, now!” Sydowski was ten feet away. Turgeon moved to Shook’s side. Shook glanced at her and said nothing.
“Everybody on the floor!” Sydowski locked eyes with Shook. “Don’t be stupid! Release the woman! We want to talk!”
Two uniformed officers entered the doorway, guns drawn. Sydowski noticed the eye of a TV news camera peeking through one of the basement windows. His fingers were sweating on the trigger of his gun. He hated this. Christ, did he hate this. Shook was encircled, four guns aimed at him. Sydowski ordered the officers into a pattern to avert crossfire.
