by Rick Mofina
“Ever spank him in public?”
“About six months ago. We were grocery shopping and he smashed a bottle of ketchup on purpose. I spanked him right there.” Her voice trailed off. “But he’s a good boy, really. He was just tired that day and I was impatient.”
“Have you and Nathan had any marital problems, have you been seeing a marriage counselor, a clergyman?”
Maggie looked at him.
“No.”
“Have you or Nathan ever had an extramarital affair?”
“No.”
“I have to ask.” He made a note.
“Are you or Nathan under psychiatric care? Have you ever been?”
“No.”
“Anyone in your husband’s circles you think would do this?”
“No.”
“Has your husband ever used or dealt drugs?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Does he gamble?”
“No.”
“How are you set financially?”
“Comfortable, I guess.”
“No heavy debts, large loans?”
“No.”
“Do you know Angela Donnor or Franklin Wallace?”
“Only from the news last year.”
“Would you object to a polygraph test.”
“A lie-detector! My son’s missing and you think I’d lie to you?”
“It’s routine, but it will help. I am being straight with you.”
Maggie covered her mouth with her hands and nodded.
“Good. It really is routine,” Sydowski continued. “Can you think of anyone in your, or your husband’s, past who might hold a grudge, might have a strong dislike for either of you?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Is there anyone in your families, or circle of friends or acquaintances, who desperately wants children, but can’t have any?”
“Just us. Before we had Danny.” Tears rolled down Maggie’s face.
Sydowski put his big hand on hers.
“Maggie, what we’re going to ask you is very important. As soon as you can, we need you to write out a daily schedule, with a detailed hour-by-hour breakdown of the entire family’s routine for the last month. What you do, where you go, everything, with all the detail you can provide. Places, name, everything. Inspector Turgeon can help you. It’s crucial. Can you do it?”
“I will do anything you ask of us, Inspector.”
“Don’t answer your phone without us knowing.”
Maggie nodded.
“You were very helpful. We’ll talk again later.”
“Is my son dead, Inspector?” Her voice became ragged. “I know what happened last year with that little girl at Golden Gate Park. I know you and Linda are homicide police, so you tell me right now if you think my boy is dead. You tell me.”
Sydowski stood, remembering Golden Gate. The rain. Tanita Marie Donner’s body in the garbage bag. Her killer may have just claimed another victim, Maggie Becker’s boy. What could he tell her?
“We don’t know if Danny’s dead. We have no evidence to suggest it. All we know right now is that a stranger took him. Maybe he just wants him for a little while and will let him go. That happens.”
Maggie’s eyes searched his for a trace of deception until she was satisfied there was none.
“Please. You have to bring him back. He’s all I have.”
“We’ll do everything in our power to bring Danny home. You have my word on that.”
Sydowski patted her hand, then returned downstairs.
SEVEN
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this, Walter.” FBI Special Agent Merle Rust implanted a chew of Skoal between his right cheek and gum. “How’s your old man keeping these days? Down in San Mateo, isn’t he?”
“Pacifica. Got a garden, he’s fine. And you, Merle?”
“Thought I’d hang it up this year, but the job has a way of interfering with your life sometimes, doesn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know.” Sydowski sipped his coffee. “I have no life.”
They were in the Beckers’ kitchen with Ditmire, Turgeon, Mikelson, and Ray Tilly from General Works, who had the lead on the case.
“Let me introduce my new partner,” Sydowski said. “Inspector Linda Turgeon. Joined Homicide today from Vice.”
“Turgeon, Turgeon?” Rust was remembering. “You Don’s girl?”
Turgeon nodded, helping herself and Ditmire to coffee.
SFPD Officer Don Turgeon was working Chinatown twenty years ago when he was shot and killed shielding a tourist in the cross fire of a gang war. Linda, his only child, was ten years old at the time.
She decided at his funeral to become a police officer.
“I knew Don. He was a good cop,” Rust said.
“From Vice,” Ditmire said. “Then you don’t know the Donner file?”
“I haven’t read it yet, I just--”
Sydowski moved toe-to-toe with Ditmire. “What do you know about anything, Special Agent Ditmire, three years out of Club Fed?”
Ditmire stood his ground with Sydowski.
“I know the press is outside, probably chanting your name.”
Sydowski inventoried Ditmire top to bottom. “Picking up where you left off, huh, boychik?”
“Forget him, Walter,” Rust said. “Lonnie, don’t irritate the inspector. I told you he killed a man for doing that.”
Killed a man. Turgeon looked at Sydowski. Mikelson and Tilly chuckled. Rust sent a stream of brown tobacco juice down the garbage disposal. “Now that we can feel the love here, let’s get humpin’.”
Mikelson had arranged through Pacific Bell to run a tap on the Beckers’ phone to immediately give them the address of any in-coming calls. Mikelson’s crew would also record all conversations. A phone tap was also set up at Nathan Becker’s Nor-Tec office in Mountain View where an FBI agent waited to answer any calls. And Angela Donner, Tanita Marie’s mother, allowed police to put a tap on her phone in Balboa, in case she received any suspicious calls.
The security cameras on the BART system did not keep tapes, so detectives were interviewing BART station workers and BART Police from every stop from the Coliseum to Balboa. They had dozens of witness statements from passengers to go through. The FBI was running down everybody at Nor-Tec, along with family friends, acquaintances, checking histories, criminal records. They had searched the house and yard three times using canine units. Alerts with Danny’s picture went to Bay Area airports, bus and train terminals, cab companies, and police departments. U.S. Postal inspectors monitored the Beckers’ mail and boxes in key areas. Bay Area courier services were alerted. Garbage pickup in Balboa and Jordan Park was halted. Summaries of abductions around the Bay and across America over the last year were ordered.
After several separate interviews with Maggie and Nathan, they were convinced Danny had been taken by a stranger.
“Do you think Donner and Becker are linked?” Turgeon asked.
“It’s too soon to think anything,” Sydowski said.
“If nothing comes tonight,” Tilly said, “the Beckers will make a plea for Danny in a news conference tomorrow. The mayor’s office is considering a reward. So is Nathan’s company. We’ll give the TV people some recent home-video footage of Danny. It may kick something out for us.
The sketch artist arrived. Mikelson and Sydowski took him to the den where Nathan was waiting. Sydowski sat at the edge of Nathan’s oak desk, next to a small, gold-framed picture of Danny on his mother’s lap. Both were laughing. Sydowski set it aside gently, then checked his watch. For more than an hour, Nathan Becker struggled for the sketch artist, trying to describe the face of the man who kidnapped his son. So far, it had been fruitless. Nathan was growing angry.
“Try to relax, Mr. Becker,” Mikelson said.
So many faces. They flowed together. Nathan remembered few details other than the beard. The BART people hadn’t seen the man as clearly as Nathan had. The kidnapper likely knew about BART’s security cameras
and avoided them, Sydowski reasoned. He suspected that he was a stalker who had waited for his golden opportunity. But why Danny Becker? From Nathan Becker’s account, everyone concluded that his glimpse of his son’s kidnapping had lasted half a second. It was a needle in a haystack. Nathan’s frustration and anguish increased.
The phone in the study rang.
“Okay, Mr. Becker, let’s go.”
They rushed to the living room. Additional phone lines had been installed. Two were new numbers, two were extensions. Pacific Bell would have the caller’s address in seconds. The phone rang again.
“Nob Hill!” Someone shouted the address of the call.
Tape recorders were rolling, an SFPD hostage negotiator put on a headset to listen in. He had a clipboard and pen, ready to jot instructions to Nathan. The room was silent. Nathan looked at the negotiator. He nodded, and Nathan answered on the third ring.
“Hello...” He swallowed. “Oh. Hello, Mr. Brooker.” Nathan shook his head.
Sydowski went to the bank of telephones, slipped on a headset and listened to the call. An officer, already listening in, had scribbled the caller’s name on a pad: Elroy Brooker, Nor-Tec’s CEO.
“I just heard what happened, Nathan. Two FBI agents just left my home. I’m so sorry. How are you and Maggie holding up?”
“We’re praying,” Nathan sniffed.
“Be strong, Nathan. Never give up hope.”
“Did the agents tell you anything?”
“They asked a lot of questions about you and the project. If you were a gambler, or ran up debts you couldn’t repay, if you were capable of selling information about the project.”
“Yeah?” His voice wavered between anger and disbelief.
“I told them to go to hell and find your boy. You’re one of our top people. Outstanding in every way.”
Nathan had regarded Brooker as a bumbling, spineless relic.
“Listen, Nathan, I won’t tie up your line. I’m going to call the board now. I think we can pull thirty, maybe fifty thousand from our corporate donations account. It’ll be at your disposal, a reward, ransom, whatever it takes to see your son is returned safely. As you know, Ruth and I have nine grandchildren. Our prayers are for Danny, Maggie, and you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Brooker.” Nathan hung up. The recorders stopped. He put his face in his hands.
“Mr. Becker, we should work on the composite.” Mikelson said.
Nathan moved his jaw to speak, looking into his empty hands.
“It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I should have been watching him. He’s our little boy. He’s the same age as that murdered little girl. What if...what if...Oh, please, I have to go and find my son.”
Nathan bolted for the door. Ditmire grabbed him. Sydowski helped, and they held Nathan until he finally broke down and wept.
During the night, an oppressive silence fell on the Becker home. Sydowski picked up a Giants’ ball cap he spotted peeking from under the sofa. Child-size. Danny’s cap? He noticed the fine strands of blond hair caught in the weave. In Victorian Europe, parents would cut and cherish locks of hair from their dead children before burying them.
One of the police phones rang. Ditmire grabbed it and said, “One second,” then passed it to Sydowski.
“Give me the score, Walt.” It was Lieutenant Leo Gonzales. Sydowski told him everything, while peering through the living room curtains at the half dozen police cars, the unmarked surveillance van, and the news cruisers out front.
“What about Donner, Walt? We got a serial here?”
“It’s just too soon, Leo.”
“Probably. Can the father ID the bad guy?”
`Don’t know. We’re working on a composite.”
“We got people canvassing all night in Balboa and Jordan Park. We’ll get vice and robbery to help,” Gonzales said. “We’ll shake down the registry and see what falls out. We’re also checking prisons and mental hospitals for escapees, walk-aways, recent discharges, and complaints. Halfway houses.” Gonzales promised a grid of the park and neighborhood at dawn and bodies to hit the bars, porn, and peep clubs. “The mayor called the chief. We need this one, Walt.”
“You’re talking in obvious terms, Leo.”
“Sorry about your new partner. That was supposed to be official at the hall on Monday.”
“It’s o.k., Leo.”
“I love you too, dear. Keep in touch.”
Later, Ditmire was in the study with Nathan and the sketch artist. Turgeon was with Maggie upstairs. Rust was reviewing reports. Sydowski borrowed his cellular phone. The press outside could not monitor its scrambled frequencies. He wanted a moment alone and went to the kitchen. He noticed its black-and-white-tile floor, skylights, lace curtained windows, French doors led to the patio and backyard. The table looked like maple. On the refrigerator door, at eye level, was a newspaper clipping with tips on quake readiness. What about kidnappings? Below it, tiny Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse magnets held up a colorful finger painting with a “D” scrawled at the bottom. There was a Smurf’s calendar next to it. Danny’s doctor’s appointment was next Friday at two.
Sydowski called his old man’s unit at Sea Breeze in Pacifica.
“Hahllow.”
“Hey, Dad. You got home okay?” Sydowski said in Polish.
“Oh sure, no problems. Sixty dollars for the cab. Do you believe that? I remember when you could buy a house for that.”
“So, who won the game?”
“A’s, ten to eight.”
“It got interesting after I left?”
“You going to be working all night on this? I saw it on the TV. It’s pretty bad. It breaks my heart.”
“The ones with kids always break my heart, Dad.”
“Why do people do this? What does it prove? It’s crazy. Crazy. Better to shoot the guy.”
“Listen, I’m going to be working hard time on this one, but I’ll come down and see you when I can.”
“Sure, sure.”
“What are you going to do tomorrow?”
“I got to cut hair for John. Remember Big John?”
“The retired bus driver.”
“Yeah, I’m going to give him a haircut.”
“Good. Well, I got to get back to work, Dad.”
“Sure. You better catch him. Shoot him.”
“I’m doing my best, Dad. Good night.”
Sydowski was tired. He poured coffee and took a bite of a pastrami on rye, delivered by a deli. Turgeon entered.
“So, you killed a man, did you? Who handled the file, Ditmire?” She sat down next to him. “Going to tell me about it?”
“Maybe.”
She smiled, took some coffee, brushing back the hair that had curtained over one eye. She was pretty. Reminded him of his daughters. His heart swirled with warm, then sad thoughts.
“I’m sorry, I never knew your dad.”
“It was a long time ago, too. Look”--Turgeon shifted topics--“I’d like to go to the hall tonight and read the Donner file.”
“Forget Lonnie. I’ll bring you up to speed. It’ll be a long night.”
“Fine, but while we’re speaking of Ditmire, I appreciate your help, Inspector, but you don’t have to protect me.”
A scolding. He bit into his sandwich.
Dad, please. You’re suffocating me with your loving concern. His oldest daughter would chide him whenever he offered misgivings on her dates. Sydowski understood.
“And,” Turgeon said, “for the record, I asked to be teamed with you. Insisted, actually.”
“Let’s hope you won’t regret it. Getting what you want can sometimes be terrible.” Sydowski finished his sandwich and coffee. “I need some air. Tell the Hoover boys I’ll be outside with this.” He left with the cellular phone.
Strolling through the backyard to the park helped Sydowski think. The cool night air invigorated him. At the edge of the pond, he watched the swans sleeping with their heads tucked under their wings.
It could be
the same guy who murdered Tanita Marie Donner. Catch this guy and you could clear both. That was the department’s thinking. Results were expected fast before it got out of hand.
Sydowski picked up two round pebbles, and shook them like dice. It was just a little too pat. Could’ve been planned to appear like the first one. Could be coincidence. He looked up at the darkened windows of Maggie Becker’s studio.
Sydowski threw the pebbles into the pond, startling the swans.
EIGHT
“I visited my baby’s grave this morning.” Angela Donner felt the eyes of her weekly bereavement group upon her. It was always hard when her turn came.
Don’t be ashamed, embarrassed or afraid. We’re here together. That was the group’s philosophy. Still, it was difficult to face them. Angela was painfully self-conscious. She was an overweight, twenty-one-year-old, living on welfare with her father, who had lost both his legs below the knee to cancer. She couldn’t help being uneasy when it was her time to talk. She apologized with a smile.
“Poppa went with me. We brought fresh flowers. We always do.”
Angela fingered the pink ribbon, bowed around the folded, grease-stained, take-out bag she held on her lap, like a prayer book.
“Today, when we got to Tanita Marie’s spot--it’s pretty there in the shade of a big weeping willow--I started pushing Poppa’s chair, he points and says, ‘Look, Angie. There’s something on her stone.’ And I could see it. The wind blew this bag up against it. Poppa wanted to complain to the groundsman. But I said no.” Angela caressed the bag, then squeezed it.
“I took the bag and folded it. I took the ribbon from the flowers from our last visit and tied it nice around the bag and saved it. Because of all the hundreds of stones in the children’s cemetery, this bag came to my baby’s grave. It came for a reason. Just like all the babies in this city, mine was murdered.”
The room’s fluorescent lights hummed. Angela stared at the bag in her plump hands. The group listened.
“But, what’s the reason? Why was my baby murdered? I was a good mother. I loved her. Why did someone take her? How could somebody be so bad? Poppa says somebody who would kill a baby must be dead inside already. But why can’t the police find my baby’s killer? He’s still out there. He could kill another baby.” Her voice grew small. “I know it’s been a year, but sometimes, at night, I can still hear her crying for me.” Angela held the bag to her face and wept softly.
