by Jan Burke
When I first came to Bakersfield, manual typewriters were giving way to electrics, and a few hotshots had portable computers — although what passed for a portable computer then was a far cry from the notebook computers of today. A newsroom sounded different then. It was a noisy place, filled with the clatter of typewriters and the grinding rasp of carriage returns; the chunk-chunk-chunk of the Teletype; bells — real bells, ringing bells on everything — typewriters, Teletypes, and even telephones. Voices.
I thought of a young rookie cop I used to meet for breakfast at a nearby coffee shop at the end of our night shifts.
“I found it!” Brandon said. Then, noticing where I was standing, he asked, “You want to go into the newsroom, for old times’ sake?”
“No, thanks, Brandon. Not with a cop in tow.” I said it to irritate Cassidy, but it was really for old times’ sake that I refused to enter that changed world, with its muted keyboards and paperless monitors and silent wire services.
Brandon handed the fax to me. Cassidy moved closer, read over my shoulder.
Beneath a phony version of the Express’s letterhead, a fax purporting to be from me to Brandon listed four dates, all from one year.
June 18
June 19
September 23
October 26
“Mean anything to you, Irene?” Cassidy asked.
“Not offhand. But these aren’t my stories. This was the year after I left the paper.”
“Let’s pull the microfilm,” Brandon said.
We followed him out into the hallway and entered to a nearby room, where there were microfilm storage cabinets, each with a padlocked locking bar down the front.
“Why do you lock them up?” Cassidy asked.
“This collection contains every issue of the paper since 1866, except for one missing year. That one walked out of here one day before we started locking the cabinets.”
He used a key to unlock one padlock and pulled two boxes from a file. He locked the cabinet again, and we followed him back into the library. He motioned for me to take a seat at the microfilm reader and handed me the June spool. I began loading it onto the reader.
“What’s in these files?” Cassidy asked, gesturing to the cabinets.
“Clippings from the more recent years,” Brandon said. “Filed by subject.”
“You don’t have them on computer?”
“Not yet. By the end of the year, reporters will be able to retrieve files that way.”
As they talked, I used the fast-forward control on the reader, stopping here and there to scan dates, until I finally came to June 18. I had bypassed the front page and had to back up on the slower speed.
“A Monday,” I said, wondering how much of the paper I would need to read before something jumped out at me. For a panicked moment I wondered if there was any point at all in being in Bakersfield that afternoon. Perhaps this was a wild-goose chase, perhaps Hocus had only wanted me to leave the house, to be out of town for a number of hours….
But then the first page rolled slowly into view, and I knew I was looking at the story I was supposed to see. I knew it from the moment I saw the photograph beneath the headline:
FATHER’S DAY TRAGEDY:
TWO BAKERSFIELD MEN SLAIN WHILE SONS WATCH
It was the kind of photograph every photojournalist dreams of taking. Two women, their faces tearstained, mouths contorted in grief, arms outstretched, crouched slightly as they hurried toward two young boys. The boys’ faces were scraped and bruised but without expression, their eyes empty — too empty for their nine or ten years. One boy cradled his right arm, which was in a splint, as he leaned his head on a uniformed policeman’s shoulder. The other boy held on to the policeman with both arms. The policeman knelt on one knee, his arms around the boys, looking up at the women with anguished eyes.
I knew the officer’s name before I read the caption.
Some years after the photo was taken, I married him.
12
EVA RYAN AND FRANCINE NEUKIRK, whose husbands were found murdered Sunday, are reunited with their sons, who police believe were made to witness the slayings. Officer Frank Harriman of the Bakersfield Police Department holds the boys, Samuel Ryan and Bret Neukirk.’ ”
I took a deep breath and began reading the story itself:
A father-son fishing trip ended in tragedy this weekend, when two Bakersfield men were brutally slain while their nine-year-old sons were forced to look on in helpless horror. Police say Dr. Gene Ryan and Julian Neukirk, both 35, died in the basement of an abandoned warehouse, their throats slashed by an unknown assailant. Both men also suffered multiple stab wounds and bore marks indicating they had struggled with their assailant. No motive has been established for the killings.
Acting on an anonymous tip about a warehouse break-in, Officer Frank Harriman arrived at the scene to find the two boys, Samuel Ryan and Bret Neukirk, chained to a wall in a basement storage area, approximately seven feet from their fathers’ bodies. The Ryan boy suffered a fractured right arm; both boys received other minor injuries. Blood spatter patterns indicated the boys were in the room when their fathers were attacked. Police say the boys are severely traumatized and thus far have been unable to provide any information about the crime.
Ryan, an emergency room physician, had been looking forward to a week-long fishing trip with the boys and Neukirk, who owns a trucking business. Both men grew up in the area and have been friends since childhood.
“They loved one another like brothers,” said one family friend, who asked not to be identified. “Bret and Sam are just as close to one another as their fathers were.”
The article went on to say that the police were asking any members of the public who might have information about the case to please contact them immediately.
“On the phone this morning, remember?” I said, looking up at Cassidy. “ ‘He’s our hero.’ Which one do you think I talked to, Samuel Ryan or Bret Neukirk?”
“I’ll run a check on those names,” Cassidy said. “Mind if we make a couple of copies of this, Mr. North?”
“Not at all,” Brandon said.
“I can just print them out from here,” I said.
“I vaguely remember this case,” Brandon said. “I may even have some photos of the boys on file. I think one of the photographers won an award for that photo.”
While Cassidy made a call asking for research on Neukirk and Ryan, I focused the machine as sharply as I could, made two copies of the article, then moved the microfilm to a related story.
The long front-page article included four portraits, the fathers and sons: SILENT WITNESSES: FRIENDS MOURN FATHERS, EXPRESS CONCERN FOR SONS. I skimmed the article, which talked about Gene and Julian’s long friendship and how deeply they were mourned.
It also claimed neither of the two boys had spoken a single word to anyone since their rescue. According to the reporter — for this story, a man — the boys seemed extremely frightened of male strangers. With the killer or killers still at large, and the motive for the killings unknown, police were guarding the two households closely. So far, the boys had allowed only one officer anywhere near them — Frank Harriman.
There was a sidebar to the articles. Police were now looking for a brown Volkswagen van that had been seen by several witnesses in the warehouse parking lot over the weekend.
I printed this set of stories, then rolled the film forward to the next issue. Cassidy was looking over my shoulder again. A banner headline jumped out at us: BODY OF RYAN-NEUKIRK KILLER FOUND.
“Hmm. That didn’t take long,” Cassidy said, moving closer.
“What does it say?” Brandon asked, his view blocked by Cassidy’s large frame.
“ ‘An alert highway patrol officer discovered the body of Christopher Powell, twenty-eight, a man who is now believed to have murdered Dr. Gene Ryan and Julian Neukirk,’ ” I read aloud. “ ‘Early Monday, while patrolling Highway 178 between Bakersfield and Lake Isabella, Officer Cecilia Parker….�
�� ”
“What’s wrong?” Cassidy asked.
“ ‘Cecilia Parker,’ ” I forged on, “ ‘noticed a van matching the description of the one sought by police in connection with the murders. Parker, who is based in Bakersfield, knew of the Ryan-Neukirk case and immediately became suspicious when she saw the van parked on a gravel turnout on a ledge above the Kern River. At first believing the vehicle to be abandoned, on closer examination of the area, Parker spotted Powell’s body lying in some brush between the ledge and the river. Powell, who may have stopped at the turnout on his way back to his home near the lake, is thought to have misjudged the edge in the darkness and fallen to his death.
“ ‘Police said evidence implicating Powell in the Ryan-Neukirk murders had been found, but declined to be any more specific about the nature of the evidence. Sources close to the department say bloodstains not consistent with Powell’s own wounds were found on his clothing, and keys that fit locks at the warehouse were on his key ring.
“ ‘Equally damning was the silent identification given by the only witnesses to the brutal murders — Ryan’s and Neukirk’s young sons. Each boy was independently shown a number of photos and asked if he saw the murderer among them. Both boys pointed out Powell’s photo.
“ ‘Although Powell had previous arrests for assault and battery, as well as drug possession, he had never been convicted of any charges.’ ”
There was a photo of Powell, a mug shot taken during one of his quick visits to the city jail, back in the days when he was breathing. He had one of those fierce expressions that hardcases sometimes adopt for mug shots; he had chosen the one that says, “I call Satan on his private line.” He could have been practicing for a Charles Manson look-alike contest. He would have won, if he had been willing to dye his stringy blond hair a few shades darker.
I printed this article, too, then browsed forward. The articles about the Ryan-Neukirk murders grew smaller and began to appear only on inside pages. There was an interview with Powell’s mother, who proclaimed her son could not have done all those terrible things they said he did. “Those were just little boys telling lies, like little boys will,” she was quoted as saying.
But the other articles revealed that the police had a rather conclusive array of evidence against Powell, from his footprints being found in the blood on the warehouse floor to the victims’ skin and hair under his nails. The van was dismantled, and a knife with the victims’ blood and Powell’s fingerprints was found hidden behind a wooden panel. Even without the boys’ identification of him, it seemed clear that Powell had been the murderer.
The motive was not so easily established. Police and hospital records showed that Ryan had treated Powell in the emergency room a year or so earlier. Powell had been brought to the hospital by police after sustaining injuries while resisting arrest. (The charges, which were not specified by the police, were later dropped.) Powell had never complained to anyone about Ryan’s treatment of his injuries. No one knew why he would attack both men and their sons or even Ryan alone — but Ryan was the only one of the four who had ever met Powell. The stories disappeared entirely by the beginning of July.
I began to rewind the reel. As Brandon went to look for photographs, I leaned back in the chair and put my fingertips over my eyelids, trying to stave off images.
“Feeling sympathy for them?” Cassidy asked.
“Naturally I am. Nothing like this should ever happen to anybody.”
I opened my eyes again just as Brandon brought over a pair of photographs. “We don’t hang on to all our old photos here, the way some papers do,” he said. “But I found these two. You’re lucky they weren’t tossed out.” He handed them to me. “There were several copies of that first one in the files. I think it’s the one that won the award.”
It was the one of Frank holding the boys. The photo in the paper had been cropped down from this one, but this print, with more definition than the microfilm could offer, was even more moving.
Brandon handed the second one to me. It showed the boys dressed neatly for school, their arms around each other’s shoulders, their faces serious. There was another quality there, one that took a little longer to see. It was in the fierceness with which they held on to one another, in the wariness in their large, dark eyes.
They were scared.
Cassidy took the photos and studied them as I loaded the second reel of microfilm. I moved the film forward to September 23.
There was nothing on the front page. I went slowly through the pages that followed, but it wasn’t until I reached the features section that I came across the photograph Brandon had just shown us. WHEN CHILDREN TAKE A VOW OF SILENCE, the headline read. The caption on the photo said, “This week, Bret Neukirk and Sam Ryan return to school after a summer of silence. Speech therapist Regina Szal hopes to help them find their voices.”
The article was on elective mutism, a communicative disorder in which a person who is physically capable of speaking refuses to do so. Szal, who was quoted extensively, said that elective mutism should not be confused with shyness. Some elective mutes speak in certain environments, such as the home, or with certain people, such as a parent or sibling. “Twins sometimes refuse to speak to others for a period of time during early childhood,” she said. “They’ve been known to develop secret languages, shared only between themselves. But later — often when they begin to go to school — they form new friendships, establish separate identities. While they may continue to use their secret language between themselves, they will begin to talk to others.”
Then, after recapping the stories from June, the article focused on Bret Neukirk’s and Samuel Ryan’s mutism. Some had expected the boys to begin to talk once they knew Powell was dead. Instead the boys had developed a secret language — including words, manual signs, and written symbols. The language was used only when they were with one another; they continued to be silent when others were present. The complexity of their system of communication was a sign of the boys’ intelligence, Szal said.
Szal also said that this type of elective mutism, the result of extreme emotional trauma, required more complex treatment. Counselors, parents, teachers, and speech therapists must work together. “Usually, with a case rooted in trauma, we would be working with an individual child,” she said. “In this case, there are two children who, in many ways, consider themselves to be brothers. They’ve grown up together. Their fathers, though not related, were very close, and their mothers are the best of friends. The boys are the same age and survived a horrific experience together.” Asked how the problem should be approached, Szal said, “Gently and patiently. Bret and Samuel are frightened, as anyone would be. We need to help them to feel safe again. Perhaps then they will speak to us.”
Looking at the date of the final article, I expected it would be some type of progress report on Szal’s efforts. I was wrong.
SLAIN DOCTOR INVOLVED IN DRUG TRAFFICKING, the headline read. Before I could read the first paragraph, Hocus sent another fax.
13
HE HAD BEEN IN A CAR ACCIDENT, he decided, struggling to understand his circumstances. His mind seemed not his own; this one seemed slow and easily distracted.
Something was wrong, and his head hurt. Those two sensations kept returning, although at first he seemed to be able to will them away. Now the sensations were more persistent.
He awakened only gradually, but mindful that he must do so quietly this time. Why did he need to be quiet?
Something is wrong, that’s why.
What’s wrong?
He couldn’t remember. This is what it’s like to be stupid, he thought, frustrated.
Recent memory was difficult to hold on to. The car accident memory was an older one, but it helped him to explain the baffling world he was in now.
He was in a hospital bed, with curtains drawn around him. There were muffled voices on the other side. He was wearing a hospital gown. His head throbbed. He tried to reach to touch it and panicked. His wrists
were restrained. His ankles, too.
Why?
They were the soft but immovable restraints used in hospitals and psych wards.
Had he gone crazy? Hurt someone? An image came to him, an image of hurting a magician. He could make no sense of it. Another dreamlike memory crossed his mind, of a rolling dive and furniture breaking. Maybe he was crazy after all.
Crazy and stupid. Christ, both? Why couldn’t it be one or the other?
He was distracted by a tenderness in his left hand. He saw a bandage on it and focused his attention on the back of the hand, which had been pierced by — and still held — an intravenous device, capped off. He tried to remember what it was called and couldn’t. There was no tubing now, but….
He was waking up and continued to study the hand. No IV bottle or tubing now, but, yes, there had been one before. He remembered it, remembered that he had awakened and had spoken, and they’d come over with an IV bottle. They’d told him to calm down.
Calm down? While lying here restrained, nearly bare assed, wondering what the hell they were feeding through his veins? Wondering if his slowing breaths were his last?
Calm down?
Yes, it was good that he had been quiet when he awakened this time. At least, he hoped he had been.
Within a few minutes, his memories of the journey to Riverside, the trap, the struggle with his attackers, all became clearer. He remembered dreams, too, but not much more. One thing he knew for a certainty. This was no hospital.
