[Tom Reed and Walt Sydowski 01.0] If Angels Fall

by Rick Mofina

  “So do I, Walt.”

  “How’s that?”

  “We just got a hit on the prints from the new bills in the truck buy and the meat tray from the Nunn home. Belong to an Edward Keller. Seems twenty-odd, nearly thirty years ago, he was bonded as a night security guard for a warehouse in the city. Got his blood type, too. It matches the trace we found on Nunn’s severed braids. We don’t have a good address for Keller yet. We’ve put the entire task force on him. What name do you have?”

  “Same one: Edward Keller.”

  “No kidding! You got an address for him, Walt?”

  “Not yet, but get this: he lost his three children in a boating accident twenty years ago. Two boys and a girl. The ages of Danny Becker and Gabrielle Nunn match the ages of two of them.”

  “That’s two. That means he’s got to take a third kid.”

  “Right. A boy, age nine.”

  “And he was in that group Reed wrote about?”

  “Yes, Leo.”

  “Get hold of Tom Reed. See if the Star has pictures, an address on Keller, anything.”

  SIXTY-FIVE

  The hobby shop was small, its two rows of shelves were crammed with model ships, racing cars, fighters, rockets, trains, landscapes, paints, and brushes. An eagle-sized P-51 Mustang was suspended in a dive by fishing line tacked to the ceiling. Soaring near it was a British Spitfire, a Japanese Zero, and a Messerschmitt. The air was pungent with plastic, balsa wood, and airplane glue.

  A sixty-year-old man, with thick sideburns drifting to his jaw, a Caesar’s crown of white hair, and horn-rimmed bifocals, was hunched over the glass counter, tinkering with a dragster. The two inches of ash on the Marlboro hanging from his pursed lips was dangling perilously over the cockpit. His bowling-ball gut strained the buttons on his stained shirt when he straightened to eye the ID and shield of Randall Lamont.

  “I’m looking for a boy, about ten years old, blond hair, backpack, sneakers. He was seen in this area within the last half hour.” Keller’s face was somber behind his dark glasses.

  The old man dragged hard, squinted through a smoky cloud and nodded to the corner. “Could be the fella you want, drooling over the Kitty Hawk there. He just came in.” The man coughed. “Anything to do with that gang shooting in Oakland?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss the matter.” Keller snapped his ID shut. He went to the boy, who was kneeling before the bottom shelf and a huge boxed model of an aircraft carrier.

  Keller crouched next to him. “Are you Zachary Michael Reed?”

  Zach’s gaze darted over him, blinking before he nodded.

  “Your mother is Ann Reed and your father is Tom?”

  Zach was suspicious. What was this? Who was this guy? Was this because he ran away? Was he one of those school cops Dad used to tell him about, the kind that chased runaway kids?

  “It’s all right. I’m Randall Lamont, a state detective.” The man reached inside his jacket and showed him his badge.

  A detective?

  “I’m a friend of your dad’s. He’s a reporter with the Star. We’re friends from way back. I live in Berkeley.”

  “Am I in trouble?”

  “Not at all.” Keller dropped his voice in a confidential tone. “Zach, your dad sent me to find you. We’ve got a problem.”

  “A problem?”

  “It’s your mom.” Keller put his hand on Zach’s shoulder. “She’s had an accident.”

  “What? So fast? How could--I just left.”

  “Your dad went with her in the ambulance. I live nearby and he called me to find you.”

  “Wha--I--what happened?” His voice was trembling. “Is she--”

  “Tell you on the way. You have to come with me to the hospital.”

  Zach grabbed his pack. “Is she going to be okay?”

  “I’ll tell you all I know on the way, son.”

  They left the store, hurrying to Keller’s rental van. Zach froze when he recognized it. It was the same van he had seen parked near his grandma’s for the past couple of days. The guy unlocked the passenger door and swung it open. Zach didn’t like those sunglasses. Wasn’t he the guy he had seen hanging around down the street? Something didn’t feel right. But didn’t he say he lived down the street? Still something didn’t feel right.

  “Why didn’t grandma come find me?”

  “She’s on her way to the hospital, Zach.”

  “Well, how did you know where to find me?”

  “I saw the direction you left in just before your dad called me.”

  A distant siren sounded his dad’s warning about strangers.

  Never go with a stranger, no matter how smooth their line is. They may say I’m hurt, or Mom’s hurt, or there’s some emergency. They can make it sound real bad. And they’ll be the nicest people--they won’t look like creeps. Trust your instincts. If you don’t know the person then don’t go, Zach. Don’t go!

  “Are you scared because you don’t know me, Zach?”

  That was it. But Zach didn’t know how to say the truth. He looked at his feet, agonizing about his mom.

  The man removed his sunglasses and smiled. A friendly smile.

  “Tell you what son, we can go back to the store, call the hospital and leave word for your dad or grandmother to come for you. I’ll wait with you if you like?”

  Zach looked at him. “All right.”

  Keller patted Zach’s head and they started back to the store. No problems, no protest, which led Zach to conclude, this guy was for real. A bad guy would not take you back. He’d try some scam to get you into his car while he had you on the street. He’d never take you back.

  Zach stopped. “I changed my mind.”

  “You’re sure, son?”

  He nodded. “Tell me what happened.”

  Keller bent down, eye to eye with him.

  “It may be her heart. She collapsed after you left. I guess she managed to somehow call your dad.”

  Zach’s chin crumpled. “A heart attack?”

  Keller put his hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know. Your dad didn’t tell me any more than that. We should get to the hospital, if you still want me to take you.”

  He did.

  “I think it’s my fault,” Zach mumbled, bowing his head to sob as he let Keller help him into the van and buckle his seatbelt.

  “The whole thing with my mom and dad is my fault.”

  Keller climbed behind the wheel, slipped on his dark glasses, turned the ignition, felt the engine come to life with glorious victory, and pulled away.

  Zach had drawn his knees to his chest, hiding his face on them under his arms, crying softly. Keller stole glimpses as he drove south on Interstate 80 to Oakland.

  He radiates with the light of one million suns.

  His face buried, Zach did not know where they were traveling. “Is she going to die?” He sniffled from under his arms.

  Keller did not answer. They approached the Bay Bridge.

  “Mister, is my mom going to die?”

  The new van hummed silently, save for the tires--rhythmically clicking along the freeway. Keller touched Zach’s shoulder.

  Heaven’s warrior.

  Keller kept his eyes forward. “What is it like to look upon the face of God?”

  Zach recoiled.

  “Serpent slayer, chief of Heaven’s army.”

  Zach’s mind gathered speed, his eardrums pounded in time with his beating heart, for suddenly he knew. He knew what happened.

  Kidnapped. He had been kidnapped by a psycho.

  “You are my light and my salvation.” Keller smiled. “I praise you, beloved of God.”

  As the van moved west along the upper deck of the spectacular bridge to San Francisco, Keller reached under his seat for the plastic bag and the chloroform-soaked cloth.

  SIXTY-SIX

  Some days, when the mid-afternoon sun hit it just right, the Bay Bridge glowed like a portal to paradise. For an instant, its majestic span and spires changed from
flat silver to a surreal white against the blue-green waters of the Bay a few hundred feet below.

  Today, its beauty was lost on Tom Reed. For him, the bridge had become a tangible span of despair between everything he had done wrong and the futility of his future. It was his third crossing, and with each trip, his emotional freight increased, unraveling the worn thread by which his life was swinging. Reed was rushing east on the lower deck and wondering how much more crap a man was supposed to stomach in one day.

  His marriage lay in ruin, he was fired from his job, he was an alcoholic, or on his way to becoming one. He had caused the suicide of an innocent man and very nearly accused another.

  Could it get any worse?

  Sunlight strobed through the bridge’s steel girders. Reed glanced over his left shoulder at San Francisco’s skyline, then at the mesmerizing whitecaps below. Why not end it all? He had considered it when he arrived at his room in Sea Park after the blowup with Ann. It was an idiot notion, supplanted by his need to get into his room and reacquaint himself with Jack Daniel’s. Lila had not returned. So, he kicked the door. It opened with little damage on his second try. He’d pay for that move when Lila got back.

  Reed collapsed in the sofa chair, his head pulsating. What was he going to do? Leave town? Chicago? He had some buddies at the Tribune and the Sun-Times. He could beg for a job. He could see Molly tonight after she finished her shift. She wasn’t the answer and he knew it.

  Reed decided to take the care of his immediate needs: shaving, showering, and changing into better-smelling clothes, ignoring the flashing red light of his telephone answering machine until he finished, which was half an hour later.

  The first call he played back was the most recent one.

  “Reed, Walt Sydowski. Give me a call a soon as you can.” He left his cell phone and pager numbers.

  Sydowski? Reed sneered. Likely found out he had been fired and wanted to relay condolences from the Homicide Detail. Sure, I’ll get back to you, Walt.

  Next, came a panicked message from Ann: “Tom, is Zach with you? I can’t find him! I think he’s--”

  The phone rang. Reed stopped the machine and grabbed the call.

  “Tom, do you have Zach?” Ann was hysterical.

  “No, Ann, I don’t. What’s going on?”

  “I can’t find him! It’s my fault. He ran away. He took his school backpack with some of his favorite stuff and his savings, about a hundred dollars. I’m so scared!”

  Ran away? He must have heard us. “How long has it been?”

  “An hour, forty-five minutes, I don’t know.”

  “Did you call Jeff and Gordie’s parents?”

  “But they’re in San Francisco.”

  “That’s likely where he’s headed.”

  “I’ll call them!”

  “Call all the Berkeley cab companies. Call BART security. He may try to cross the Bay that way.”

  “All right. I already called the police. They said they put out a description and will send a car over.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Now, as Reed guided his Comet along the interstate off-ramp for Berkeley, he could not stop blaming himself for dragging Ann and Zach into the cesspool of the self-obsession which blinded him to the toll it was taking on Zach. He would talk to Ann, tell her everything. Make one last intelligent effort to work things out before it was too late. If anything, anything happened to Zach, he’d never forgive himself. He glanced at the water below.

  When Reed turned on Fulton, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up at the sight of a Berkeley patrol car parked in front of Ann’s mother’s house.

  Ann was sitting at the kitchen table, talking through a crumbled tissue to a uniformed officer who was taking notes.

  “Oh, Tom!” she sobbed, hugging him tight. Letting him know that she needed him. Truly needed him. Reed’s eyes stung. When was the last time he held Ann in his arms?

  “Mr. Reed?” the officer asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Officer Pender, Jim Pender, Berkeley PD. We’ve already got a description of your son out to radio cars. I’d like to talk to you.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Alone, please, sir.”

  Pender was a tall, black officer, at least six-four. He had a cropped goatee and exuded calm capability. His utility belt and holster gave leathery squeaks when he stood, his polished badge over his heart gleamed. The shoulder mike of his radio crackled, and Pender turned it down as the two men talked in the living room.

  “Tell me what you think happened, sir.” Pender said softly.

  Reed told him everything. The officer’s eyebrows shot up when he told him he was the reporter behind the Tanita Marie Donner controversy and had been fired that morning. When Reed finished, Pender said, “Okay, there’s stress in your household. Zach overhears his parents arguing and decides to head out on his own. To his friends in San Francisco, you figure?”

  Reed nodded. “Or my place in San Francisco.”

  “Okay, we’ll add this new info to the alert we’ve already got out on your son. We’ll notify SFPD and campus police.” Pender checked his notes as they returned to the kitchen where Ann sat, face buried in her hands.

  “Mrs. Reed, we’ll do everything we can to find Zach,” Pender said. “I’ll ask you both again to try and put yourself in his shoes. Is there any material thing he wanted, a type of toy or something? Or any place he wanted to go, an arcade, a certain movie? Or any individual he would turn to? Give it some thought that way.”

  The Reeds agreed.

  “Most kids who run away mad at Mom and Dad turn up within a few hours, especially the young ones,” Pender said.

  Ann tried to smile, but swallowed it. “At least the police shot the kidnapper yesterday in San Francisco,” she said.

  Pender nodded, but Reed caught something in his face.

  “If the family is going to look for Zach, please keep someone here in case he returns or more information surfaces. I’m going to call this in. Then I’d like to search the house. Sometimes kids will crawl into a hiding spot to cool off for a while.”

  “Thank you, officer.”

  “Ann.” Reed took his wife’s hand. “I’m going to search the area between here and the BART station. I’ll call you every few minutes.”

  “Yes.” Her voice was barely audible.

  “We’ll find him, Ann, I swear. ” Reed hugged her, then caught up with Pender outside. He was in his cruiser entering his notes into his mobile computer terminal.

  “What’s up, officer?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Your face registered something a moment ago when my wife mentioned SFPD shooting the kidnapper.”

  Pender contemplated whether to tell Reed whatever it was he knew.

  “You’re a police reporter, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  Pender scratched his goatee. The police radio blurted coded dispatches. “You reported on the big abduction cases of Danny Becker and Gabrielle Nunn across the Bay, right?”

  “That’s what got me fired, officer. Please.”

  Pender tapped his pen on his notebook, thinking. “Okay, I’m going to show you something. Get in.”

  Reed slipped into the passenger side, watching Pender’s big hands dwarf the computer’s tiny keyboard as he typed in commands. “SFPD and the FBI put out a new alert on the case. It’s hot. I got it just before I got this complaint. Here you go. Says the task force now has a number one suspect in the Nunn-Becker cases and they’re hunting him. Ever heard of a guy named Keller? Edward Keller?”

  Reed was stunned. “Edward Keller--yes, I, Christ--”

  “Nobody knows I showed you this.” Pender pivoted the terminal to Reed, who devoured the short bulletin.

  Edward Keller of no fixed address was wanted on a warrant for the kidnappings of Daniel Raphael Becker and Gabrielle Nunn.

  “I was right all along!”

  “You know this guy?”

  “I met hi
m recently and thought he was weird, so I did some digging into his past.” Reed shook his head in disbelief.

  “Mr. Reed, do you think there’s any link to your son’s running away and Mr. Keller?”

  Reed’s heart stopped. No. There couldn’t be. “No, I think it is a coincidence. Zach ran off because he heard us arguing about our problems. We had reconciled and we were on the brink of getting back together. Zach wanted that with all of his heart. But it fell apart this morning.”

  “I see. You said you started digging into Mr. Keller’s past. Is there anything about him that you know that may be useful to the task force across the Bay? Anything we should pass on?”

  “No. He’s a lunatic, a Bible thumper. I met him on a story about university research on parents of dead children. He lost three a long time ago and babbled about resurrecting them with God’s help. He was nuts. I tried to find him again, but I couldn’t.”

  “Why did you want to find him again?”

  “I had a gut feeling. But I wanted to find out what I could about him on my own before going to the task force, having been stung badly the last time I followed a hunch.”

  “Did you go to the task force?”

  Reed shook his head. “And I was fired because my paper thought, given my track record, I was dangerous with my theories. It’s complicated. Look, officer, I’m going to find my son. I have some ideas where he might have gone. Any other day, I’d be calling my paper, tipping them with that alert.” Reed nodded to the computer terminal. “But to hell with them. I was right. They were wrong and I don’t work for them anymore. I’ve got more important things on my mind.”

  Reed moved to leave.

  “Hold on there.” Pender was friendly.

  Reed waited. Pender stared at him. A streetwise cop with impeccable instincts, he was not going to let Reed leave him.

  “Where’s the first place you’re going to look?”

  Reed sighed. “Next to us getting back together, Zach wanted to buy a model of a ship.”

  “A hobby store then?”

  “Thought I’d start with the nearest one.”

  “Buckle up.”

  “What?”

  “There’s one on University. I’ll take you.”