[Tom Reed and Walt Sydowski 01.0] If Angels Fall

by Rick Mofina

  Gabrielle and the month were circled in red.

  Gabrielle. Gabriel.

  Gabriel. God’s ambassador to the world. The Angel who heralded Christ’s birth.

  He had found Gabriel. He turned the page to a recent color photograph of Gabrielle Nunn. Smiling, soaring on a park swing near her home. He smiled back, then flipped to a picture of Gabrielle hugging her dog, Jackson. Opposite, was Jackson’s missing-reward poster. Keller reached down to Jackson sitting at his feet, patted his head, and sighed as he flipped through pages of documents, detailed information, notes, and photographs of the Nunns and Gabrielle. She was going to turn six very soon. Alisha was six. Born in June.

  It was time. It was time.

  Keller closed the binder.

  Long into the night he rocked with Danny Becker sleeping on his lap. Drifting to sleep himself, he recalled the lines of Doris White’s long-forgotten poem, “My Angel.” “Their coffins were opened and all were set free, behold my Angel with the jeweled key.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Sunrise. Fog shrouded the city.

  Inspector Linda Turgeon came out of her neat house on upper Market and deposited herself into Sydowski’s unmarked Caprice Classic.

  “Good morning.” She yawned, accepting the steaming 7-Eleven coffee cup he handed her. “Thanks.”

  “Sleep well?”

  “Not a wink.” She placed her copy of Perry William Kindhart’s file with his on the seat between them.

  Traffic was light on Market, which would take them directly to SoMa, Kindhart’s most recent address.

  “What’s your take on Kindhart?” Sydowski said.

  “He’s our best potential connection to Donner. A molester who did time with Wallace in Virginia. We know Wallace did not act alone and that Kindhart was in San Francisco during the time of Donner’s abduction and death.

  “But in the picture, the hooded guy holding Donner has a tattoo. Kindhart doesn’t.”

  “Mr. Tattoo is the only guy we know of, right now. Maybe others are involved. Maybe Kindhart has nothing to do with it, but he may know something. Like who the tattoo is. I think we’d be remiss if we didn’t give Kindhart a good shake to see what falls out.”

  Sydowski nodded approvingly.

  Turgeon was pleased. They were on the same frequency. Partners.

  The fog was lifting when they glided into downtown. At the edge of the Tenderloin, the streets were strewn with used condoms and hypodermic needles. A few hookers were still working. One hiked her skirt, squatted, then urinated on the sidewalk at Market and Larkin.

  “Will you look at that.” Sydowski shook his head. “Somebody otta call a cop.”

  Turgeon burst out laughing. “So you do have a sense of humor,” she said.

  “Darn right. I’m a fun guy. Ask anybody.”

  “I did.”

  “Did a little background checking, did you?”

  “Mm-mmm.”

  “What’d you come up with?”

  “You live alone in Parkside. You raise birds. You’ve cleared more files than anyone else in the detail’s history. You’ve refused promotions because the job’s in your blood. The Donner case haunts you and you probably won’t retire until you close it.”

  “Anything else?”

  “People tell me you’re an arrogant Polack.”

  “I should put that on a T-shirt.”

  “They also say that after Brooks, you’re the finest Homicide dick the Golden State’s ever seen.”

  “I should put that on a T-shirt, to remind Leo.”

  “But there’s a disturbing side to you I am curious about.”

  “I may take the Fifth, here.”

  “Is it true you killed a guy, shot him?”

  Sydowski grew pensive. “It was during the war. I was a kid.”

  “What happened?”

  He gazed out the driver’s window. “I’ll tell you another time?”

  “Sure.”

  “What about you? I don’t see a ring--you married?”

  Turgeon peered into her coffee cup. “Came close.”

  “Yeah?”

  “An architect.”

  “An architect?”

  “Met him after his house in Marina was burglarized.”

  “Thank God for criminals.”

  “We lived together for a year, talked about kids, the future. Everything was rosy. We set a date. You know the tune.”

  “This were the violins come in?”

  “Wanted me to leave the job. It was too dangerous for him. He wanted me to quit the force, stay at home, look after the cats. He was asking too much. To quit would be denying what I am.”

  “And what’s that, Linda?”

  She looked at him. “A cop. I’m a cop like you, Walter.”

  “Like your old man, you mean.”

  “Yeah. I mean, my biological clock is ticking down and I still want to get married, have kids. But it’s just that when my dad was murdered, I vowed to be a cop and now I am one. I can’t give it up.”

  They left it at that as they rolled into SoMa, South of Market.

  “They used to call this ‘south of the slot’ for the cable car line that ran through here.” Sydowski said.

  “You’re betraying your age, Walt.”

  “Used to be a helluva neighborhood.”

  SoMa was now the realm of machine shops, warehouses, Vietnamese restaurants, and gay bars. Latinos who fled Central America’s bloodbaths made their home here in decaying tenement houses, which were the quarry of visionary developers who complained over cell phones about San Francisco’s sunshine codes and zoning laws. Red tape kept SoMa on life support. They wanted to pronounce last rites.

  Kindhart’s building had risen from the rubble of the 1906 quake and fire, a small hotel that evolved into a bordello, a shooting gallery, then a fleabag apartment complex. All it offered now was a view of the James Lick Skyway, Interstate 80, the Bay Bridge, and Oakland.

  Sydowski and Turgeon climbed the creaking stairs to the third floor and pounded on Kindhart’s door. It was 5:45 a.m. No answer. Sydowski pounded again, harder.

  “Mr. Kindhart?” he called loudly.

  Sydowski continued pounding. Down the hall a door opened, and a one-armed man stepped from his apartment.

  “Knock it off,” he growled.

  Sydowski flashed his shield. “Mind your own business.”

  “Pigs.” The man’s door slammed.

  Sydowski resumed pounding.

  “Who the hell is it?” a deep voice snarled from Kindhart’s unit.

  “Police, Mr. Kindhart, we’d like to talk to you.”

  “Go away. I won’t talk to you.”

  “We’re investigating a case. Won’t look good if you refuse to cooperate, Mr. Kindhart.”

  There came a string of unintelligible cursing, a mattress squeaked, empty bottles clinked, then more cursing, locks were rattled, and the door opened. Shirtless, unshaven, and barefoot, Kindhart stood just over six feet. His unbuttoned, torn Levi’s yielded to his pot belly. He held the door defensively, reeking of alcohol, assessing Sydowski, then Turgeon.

  “May we come in?” Sydowski said. “We’d like to talk to you.”

  “What about?” One of Kindhart’s lower front teeth was missing, the survivors were rotting.

  “Franklin Wallace,” Turgeon said.

  “Franklin Wallace?” Kindhart scratch his whiskers. “Franklin Wallace?”

  “Prison. Virginia. Think hard,” Sydowski said.

  Lying was futile. Kinhart surrendered his door, went to the kitchen of his studio apartment, put on a kettle for coffee, sat at his tiny kitchen table, and lit a Lucky Strike.

  “Hurry it up, I gotta go to work.” He exhaled, rubbing his eyes.

  Turgeon looked around. Sydowski joined Kindhart at the table.

  “What kind of job do you have, Perry?”

  “You know the answer to that. So why are you here?”

  A handful of pornographic magazines dropped o
n the tabletop contained color pictures of naked children in obscene poses with men.

  “This is a violation of your parole.” Turgeon said.

  “That’s unlawful seizure, I know my rights, hon.”

  “You have rights.” Sydowski casually slipped on his bifocals, wet his thumb, and flipped leisurely through his notebook. “You’re a carpenter’s apprentice at Hunters Point, Perry?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Work with lots of other guys, family men with children.” Sydowski turned to Turgeon. “I think they’d understand the term ‘predatory pedophile,’ don’t you, Inspector?”

  “We could always show them a picture of one.”

  Sydowski smiled.

  Kindhart’s kettle piped. He made black coffee for himself only.

  “Tell us about the last time you saw Wallace,” Sydowski said.

  “Why should I? You’re just going to report me.”

  “We are going to report you, but whether we tell the judge you helped us with our investigation, or obstructed it, is up to you.”

  Kindhart squinted through a pall of smoke and slurped his coffee. “I shared a cell with Wallace in Virginia and looked him up when I got here. Being a Sunday school teacher he was plugged in, figured he could help me get a job. I saved his ass inside. He owed me.”

  “A real job, or something in the trade?” Turgeon said

  “Look, I just take pictures, that’s all I do.”

  “What about the three cousins, the little girls in Richmond, Virginia?” Turgeon said

  “I just took pictures. They wanted me to.”

  “And the two five-year-old girls last year in the Mission?”

  “I told you I just take pictures when they want me to. They love to have their pictures taken. I don’t date them like Wallace did. I don’t know anything about what happened with that little Donner girl last year and why he offed himself. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “We never suggested you did.” Sydowski said.

  “Right. Like I don’t know why you’re here.” Kindhart shook his head. “Ever since that boy got grabbed, it’s been all over the news again. I just take pictures, that’s all I do. I don’t date them.” Kindhart dragged hard on his cigarette, then pounded the magazines with his forefinger. “Besides, they’re all little prostitutes anyway. They know exactly what they’re doing. Always coming on to the people who know. Wallace and his friend had terrific insights into them.”

  “What’s his friend’s name?” Sydowski asked.

  Kindhart shook his head and took a pull from his cigarette. “Only met him once or twice. I think he was from Montana or North Dakota. Some far-off place like that.”

  “Describe him.”

  “Describe him?”

  “Race?”

  “White. A white guy.”

  “Height.”

  “Just under six, average.”

  “Age?”

  “Late forties, I’d say.”

  “Anything specific you remember about him?”

  “No...” Kindhart stubbed out his cigarette. “Yeah. Tattoos. He had tattoos. Snakes and fire, or something, here.” Kindhart brushed his forearms.

  “Where does he live? Where does he work?” Sydowski said

  “Don’t know.”

  “How did you know him?”

  “Through Wallace. He was Wallace’s friend.”

  “He do time in Virginia, too?”

  “I don’t remember him, but he was a con.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Walked the walk. Talked the talk.”

  “Where’d he do his time?”

  Kindhart shrugged.

  “Where’d you meet him?”

  “Bookstore off Romolo. I was there with Wallace when he came in and started talking.”

  “He like to date children?”

  “Wallace said he did.”

  “Ever take his picture while he was on a date?”

  “No way. I hardly knew the guy.”

  Sydowski dropped a print of the Polaroid showing Tanita Marie Donner sitting in the lap of the hooded man with the tattoos. “Who’s that man?” Sydowski asked.

  Kindhart picked it up. Examined it, then put it down. “That’s Wallace’s friend.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The tattoos.”

  “Who took the snapshot?”

  Kindhart shrugged.

  “You used a Polaroid last year with little girls in the Mission, didn’t you, Perry?”

  Kindhart didn’t remember.

  “Tell you what”--Sydowski closed his notebook and smiled--“you better come over to the Hall with us while we get a warrant to tidy up your place here.”

  “I told you I had nothing to do with Wallace and that girl.”

  I’m sure you’re being truthful and won’t mind telling us again after we wire you to a polygraph?”

  “A lie-detector?”

  “You have a problem with that, Perry?” Sydowski asked.

  “I want to call my lawyer.”

  Sydowski slowly folded his glasses, tucked them into his breast pocket, and stood. “You know what I find interesting?” He towered over Kindhart. “I find it interesting how an innocent man with nothing to hide never thinks of calling a lawyer. Now why would you need a lawyer, Perry?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Sydowski leaned down and whispered into his ear: “Did Tanita Marie Donner get to call a lawyer?”

  Kindhart said nothing.

  “Did Danny Raphael Becker get to call a lawyer, Perry?”

  Sydowski clamped his massive hand firmly around the back of Kindhart’s neck and squeezed until it started hurting.

  “Don’t worry, boychik. You can talk to your lawyer about the big bad SFPD and your right to prey on children. And I’ll talk to the construction workers at Hunters Point about baby molesters, skinners, and all around pieces of crap. Sound good?”

  The gold in Sydowski’s teeth glinted as he smiled. “Good. Now, if you don’t mind. I think we should be on our way.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  BOY’S ABDUCTION HAUNTS MOTHER OF KIDNAPPED-MURDERED BABY GIRL.

  The head of The San Francisco Star’s lead item skylined above the fold across six columns, over a four-column color shot of Angela Donner in Tanita Marie’s room, hugging a teddy bear. A large familiar poster of Tanita dominated the background with REWARD emblazoned above Tanita’s face. “Murder” was, by chance, at Angela’s eye level. Photos of Tanita and Danny Becker accompanied the story by Tom Reed. It began:

  Angela Donner can’t stop her tears as she hugs her dead child’s teddy bear and prays for Danny Becker who was abducted in the same area where her daughter Tanita Marie was kidnapped and later murdered a year ago.

  “I pray Danny Becker will come home alive, that his mom and dad won’t have to go through what I’ve gone through, and live with every day. And I pray my baby’s murderer is brought to justice.” Angela, 21, cries softly in the first interview she’s given since her two-year-old daughter’s slaying shocked The City...

  Not bad, Reed thought, taking a hit of coffee at his desk in the newsroom after reading his package of stories. His lead piece turned to page two and keyed to his feature on Martin’s group, the anchor piece on the front of the Metro section.

  He had beaten both the Chronicle and Examiner. Mixed with the satisfaction of scooping the competition and owning today’s Star was Reed’s sympathy for Angela Donner. She was an obese, homely young woman who kept apologizing for her home, a dilapidated apartment permeated with a pungent odor. Her father was in his chair before a General Electric fan that oscillated atop a TV supported by a wooden fruit crate. He was shrouded in a white bedsheet. From time to time, his wrinkled hand would slither from under it to gather ice chips from a plastic bowl. His skeletal jaw worked slowly on the ice.

  “Earth to Tom. Did you hear me?”

  “Sorry. What?” Reed looked up from his paper and ov
er his computer terminal at Molly Wilson, typing feverishly.

  “I said, how much longer are you going to admire your work? You’re worse than a summer cub with journalistic narcissism.”

  All morning, Reed had accepted compliments on his stories.

  “You know,” Wilson said, “I half expect you to start dusting your awards and telling me about your glory days.”

  “This is how it is with us old guys, Molly. It’s rare for us to get it up. But when we do, the sensation is indescribable.”

  Wilson halted her typing. “I wouldn’t know, Tom.”

  Reed turned to the Metro section and the feature on Martin’s group. Whatever was happening here with Wilson did not sit right. What did she want? A relationship? Sex? It didn’t matter. “Ann and I are trying to get back together.”

  Wilson had a pen clamped in her teeth. She typed aggressively for several moments before removing it. “Would you go over this for me?” She was all business now.

  Reed turned to his computer and called up her work on his screen.

  “It’s all the notes for my piece on the FBI’s psychological profile of the guy who kidnapped Danny Becker,” she said.

  “When is it going?”

  “Tomorrow. I just can’t find a lead.”

  Wilson’s notes were a transcription of her interview with FBI Special Agent Merle Rust. Reed caught phrases like: “Deeply scarred individual--traumatized by cataclysmic event involving children--lives in a fantasy world--stimulated by alcohol, drugs or even religious delusions--appears normal--will most likely re-offend.”

  He chuckled. “Sounds like Ed Keller.”

  “Who?”

  “One of the parents in the bereavement group. A religious nut I left out my piece because he was a goof--” He touched a finger to a line on his screen. “Here’s your lead.”

  Wilson glided around their workstation to join him as he typed: “Danny Becker’s kidnapper is likely a psychologically traumatized man with the potential to abduct another child, says an FBI profile obtained by the Star, blah blah blah.”

  “That’s it. Thanks.” Wilson returned to her desk.

  “Reed?”

  It was Jebb Harker, the metro assignment editor. His tie was loosened, and he held a rolled paper in one hand. “You hear anything about a suspect being arrested this morning in the Becker case?”