Tom Reed Thriller Series

by Rick Mofina

  He had a beard and looked like the guy in the fuzzy home video footage. And there was something strange about Keller, something that just didn’t sit right.

  Be careful, Reed. This ain’t no movie. Hunches are mean, wild horses. You rode one last year and ended up getting stomped. The memory of Wallace’s widow slapping his face still stung. Wallace’s little girl clinging to her father’s leg hours before he put his mouth around a double-barreled 12-gauge.

  “Leave my daddy alone!”

  You’d better be careful. The reel clicked and stopped. This is it. BILL RODGERS WINS THE BOSTON MARATHON. MOUNT ST. HELENS ERUPTS. Photos of an anguished President Carter and the wreckage of U.S. helicopters in the desert where eight Americans died in the failed rescue of the hostages. And Keller’s story. A small item, inconspicuous. Below the fold:

  BUILDER’S 3 CHILDREN LOST IN FARALLONS TRAGEDY

  Three children are missing and feared dead after a family sight-seeing excursion ended in tragedy yesterday near the Farallon Islands.

  Nine-year-old Pierce Keller, his sister, Alisha, 6, and their brother, Joshua, 3, are presumed drowned after the small boat chartered from Half Moon Bay by their father, Edward Keller of San Francisco, capsized in a storm southeast of the islands.

  “The search for the children will continue through the night and tomorrow,” a U.S. Coast Guard official said. The chances of finding them alive were “remote,” he said.

  “The weather was severe and none of the children had life jackets. We found the father on a buoy, suffering from extreme exhaustion and hypothermia.”

  Keller is recovering in San Francisco General Hospital. He is the owner of Resurrection Building Inc., one of northern California’s largest contracting firms, specializing in the construction of churches. An official with the company was too distraught to comment when reached by the Chronicle.

  No other details were available.

  Resurrection Building? Churches? Keller built churches?

  Interesting. Explained his religious ranting. Reed punched the photocopy button. As the Minolta hummed, he searched the San Francisco phone book and the current state directory of companies for a listing for Resurrection Building. Nothing. He searched the phone book and city directory for Edward Keller’s listing. Nothing.

  He pulled the story from the copy tray and read it again. Then he snapped through his notes from his interview with Keller.

  “I know that soon I will be with my children again. That I will deliver them from purgatory. God in His infinite mercy has revealed this to me. Every day I give Him thanks and praise Him. And every day I wage war against doubt in preparation for my blessed reunion.”

  Reed went over the passages several times.

  He removed his glasses, chewing thoughtfully on one earpiece.

  “I will be with my children again.”

  He sifted through his papers for Molly’s article on the FBI’s psychological profile of Danny Becker’s kidnapper. The quotes leaped from the page: “--traumatized by cataclysmic event involving children--lives in fantasy world stimulated by alcohol, drugs or religious delusions...” Religious delusions!

  And there was another key about the suspect, the FBI had told Molly. Reed scanned her story. Here it was. Yes. They always followed the news coverage of their cases to learn what police knew and to enjoy feelings of invincibility, superiority.

  Keller told Reed that he had read his stories about Danny Becker and Tanita Marie Donner.

  Reed rubbed his tired, burning eyes.

  “You know you are crazy to be here at this hour, Reed.” Molly Wilson’s bracelets chimed as she breezed over to him, brandishing a first-edition copy of that day’s Star.

  “Let me see that.” Reed took the paper, still warm and moist from the Metroliner presses.

  “You should be in a bar, Reed. We own the front page.”

  The double-deck forty-point headline screamed:

  SERIAL CHILD-KILLER STEALS SECOND CHILD

  “I didn’t believe the night desk when they said you were working in here. What are you up to at this hour?”

  Wilson bent over behind Reed, her hair playing against his shoulder. He caught a trace of her Obsession.

  “Let’s go have a beer. Photo guys are saving a table at Lou’s.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “You’ll pass? Why? What’s so important here?”

  Reed looked at Wilson. Deciding to confide in her, he got up and shut the library door.

  “This is between you and me. It doesn’t leave this room, Molly.”

  He returned to his chair. Wilson sat on the table.

  “Remember, I joked to you about this Keller guy from the bereavement group when you were doing up the FBI profile?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Before I go any further, read this.” He handed her his notes from Keller, the old clippings from the tragedy twenty years ago, and her article on the psych profile. It took less than two minutes for her to ingest everything. Next Reed handed her working prints of the police composite and a still from the blurry home-video footage of the suspect in Golden Gate, then Henry Cain’s contact sheet of the pictures he shot of Dr. Martin’s bereavement group. Although Edward Keller didn’t want his picture taken, Cain took it. Secretly. Most photographers would have. It’s an unwritten rule in the business. You never know when you’ll need a photo of a certain person. Like now. Wilson held the contacts up to the light and squinted through a loupe at the one-inch-square shot of Keller.

  “My God, Tom. Put dark glasses on Keller and he looks just like the composite. What do you think?”

  “He’s got to be a suspect. There’s got to be something there.”

  Wilson pulled up a chair, sat next to Reed, and began picking through the papers. “What do you think is going on?”

  “I think he could never come to terms with the drowning of his three children. Something snapped inside and he grabbed Danny Becker and Gabrielle Nunn as surrogates.”

  “What about the Donner case? Where does it fit in?”

  “I’m not sure. So far it’s different. I mean in that case a body was found. Maybe something went wrong with that one, or it’s not related. I don’t know anymore.”

  “Look at this!” Wilson underlined the ages of Keller’s children when they drowned, then drew a line on a blank piece of paper, writing three-year-old Joshua Keller’s name on one side of the line. Opposite Joshua’s name she wrote, “Danny Raphael Becker, 3”. Under Joshua, she wrote, “Alisha Keller, 6.” Across the line she wrote “Gabrielle Michelle Nunn, 5.”

  “Look at the old stories Tom. Gabrielle will be six by the anniversary of the tragedy, the twenty-first.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Something else. These names”--Wilson circled Raphael and Gabrielle--“these are angels’ names.”

  “I thought that, too. Are you sure?”

  “I’m a lapsed Catholic. I wrote a high school paper on angels.”

  Reed studied the names, thinking.

  “Angels. Maybe to him the kids are angels or something?”

  “Maybe guardian angels?”

  “Maybe. It would fit with the profile. I mean we’ve got him on the traumatic cataclysmic event with children.”

  “Right, the drownings.”

  “And we’ve got him on religious delusions.”

  “Church building, Scripture spewing, grief-stricken nut who is stealing kids with angel names who are the same age as his dead children.” Wilson shook her head.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know, Tom. It’s just so incredible.”

  “Not really, Molly. Look, remember I did that feature on the woman who posed as a maternity nurse and walked out of an East Bay hospital with a newborn?”

  “It was a good piece.”

  “Well, the FBI’s research showed that a key motivator for child abductors--and it’s mostly women who do newborn hospital abductions--is the need to replace a child. So it’s not unreal. An
d I’m thinking, this could be the same thing Keller is going through.”

  “Yeah, but for twenty years, Tom? We’re making a leap here.”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  “Okay, so it fits. So why not go to the police? Why not tell Sydowski about your theory? Let him check it out.”

  Reed stared at her, saying nothing. Her suggestion made perfect sense, but he couldn’t do it. Wilson knew.

  “It’s because of what happened last time you played your hunch, right? You’re a little gun-shy?”

  “Something like that. What if I tell Sydowski, and he goes to Keller and it turns out he’s not the bad guy at all? Keller’s in a counseling group, the anniversary of his kids’ deaths is coming. What if the police spook him and he loses it or--”

  Reed couldn’t finish the thought.

  “You don’t want another suicide.”

  Tom rubbed his face. “I may have been wrong about Franklin Wallace, Molly. It’s been haunting me. I just don’t know.”

  “I don’t think you were wrong there. Wallace had something to do with Tanita’s murder. Maybe it was a partner crime.”

  “Okay, say I was right about Wallace. But I went through so much with that. It cost me so much. I’m torn up with this.”

  “But what if Keller is the one? There’s so much at stake here. The kids could be alive.”

  “I know.” Exhausted, he placed his face in his hands.

  Wilson bit her lip and blinked. Her bracelets tinkled as she brushed her hair aside. She tapped a finger on the table thoughtfully before turning to him.

  “I’ll help you, Tom.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s only one thing you can do.”

  “What?”

  “Check Keller out yourself, quietly. Take a few days, dig up everything you can about him, then decide whether or not to pass it to the police. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

  It would be risky. The paper would fire me if it found out what I was doing.”

  “Nobody would have to know. I’ll cover for you. I’ll help you.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  Sydowski was wide awake. The numbers of his clock radio blazed 3:12 a.m. from his night table. He tugged on his robe, made coffee, and shuffled to the aviary to be with the birds.

  He deposited himself into his rocker, a Father’s Day gift from the girls, running a hand over his face, feeling his whiskers as he sat in the dark, listening to the soft chirping.

  Turgeon had volunteered to stay with Mikelson, Ditmire, and the crew keeping an all-night watch at the Nunn home. For all the sleep he was getting, he might as well have stayed, too. He fingered his beeper. Linda would page him if anything popped.

  Damn. This was a tough case.

  The out-of-focus video footage was good, but it wasn’t enough. They had squat. No good calls. No solid leads. Virgil Shook’s file was supposed to arrive today. That should help. They had zip on Becker and Nunn. DMV was working up a list of all Ford pickups and the California partial tag. They were certain the severed braids they found were Gabrielle’s. Beyond that and the footage, they had no physical evidence on Becker and Nunn.

  IDENT would hit the Nunn house and neighborhood at daybreak, concentrating on the dog’s pen, comb it for anything. More than two dozen detectives were dissecting each family’s background for a common denominator. Why were these children selected? Was it random? Becker was stalked; Nunn was lured in a calculated plan. But the guy risked getting caught. If he was fearless, he was on a mission, and when there was a mission, delusion fueled it. What kind? Nothing surfaced to lead them to terrorists. Nothing to lead them to a cult, or human sacrifice, according to Claire Ward with Special Investigations. The families’ religious backgrounds varied. Angela Donner was Baptist, the Beckers were Protestant, the Nunns, Anglican. No common thread, except their Christianity. And those faces.

  Angels’ faces.

  Tanita Marie Donner. Peering into that bag. What he did to her was inhuman. Was it Shook? Was he their boy? Was he now out of control? Tanita may have been stalked. Taken in broad daylight. But he killed her, left a corpse, left pictures, left his mark, and called the press. Why? To mock the police? Was he just practicing with Tanita?

  Practice makes perfect.

  Sydowski was alert now. Might as well go to the hall.

  In the shower, he thought of the children. What about their birth months? Signs of the Zodiac. The Zodiac? He patted Old Spice on his face after shaving, pulled a fresh pair of pants over his Fruit of the Looms. He chose the shirt with the fewest wrinkles, a blue Arrow button-down, plopped on his bed, and laced up his leather shoes. The Zodiac had taunted police with his mission. Sydowski took a navy tie from his rack, knotted it, then strapped on his shoulder holster, unlocked his Glock from the safe on the top closet shelf. He checked it, slipping it into his holster. He hated the thing, it was so uncomfortable. He put on a gray sports coat, rolled his shoulders. Gave his hair a couple of rakes with a brush, reached for the leather-encased shield, gazing at his laminated ID picture and his badge. A lifetime on the job. Twenty-six years of staring at corpses. He looked at the gold-framed pictures on his dresser--his girls, his grandchildren, his wedding picture. Basha’s smile. He slipped the case into his breast pocket and left.

  On the way to the hall, he stopped at his neighborhood all-night donut shop. A few nighthawks huddled over coffee. Jennie, the manager, was wiping the counter with an energy that, at 4:30 a.m., was painful to witness. Her face told him he looked bad. “You’re working too hard, Walt. You getting enough sleep? A growing boy needs his sleep.” She poured coffee into a large take-out cup. “You need a woman to take care of you.” She spooned in sugar, a couple of drips of cream, snapped on a lid.

  “You think so?”

  “I know so. You’re early today. Bert ain’t made no chocolate yet. I’ve got some fresh old fashions though. Warm from the oven.”

  “Fine.”

  She dropped four plain donuts into a bag. Rang up the order. “It’s a shame about them kids, Walt.”

  A moment of understanding passed between them.

  “You’ll crack it, Walt. You’re a wily old flatfoot.”

  Sydowski slid a five toward her. “Keep the change, Jennie.”

  At the Hall of Justice, in the fourth-floor Homicide detail, three faces watching him from the mobile blackboard in the middle of the room stopped Sydowski in his tracks. Poster-size blowups of Tanita Marie Donner, Danny Raphael Becker, and Gabrielle Michelle Nunn.

  Score: Three to zero.

  A couple of weary inspectors were on the phone, pumping sources on the abductions. Files and reports were stacked next to stained coffee mugs. The Star’s morning edition was splayed on the floor, the front-page headline blaring at him. The enlarged, city case map at one end of the room now contained a third series of pins, yellow ones, for Gabrielle Nunn. Someone was shouting in one of the interview rooms. A door slammed and a massive slab of Irish-American righteousness with a handlebar mustache, in vogue for turn-of-the-century beat cops, stepped out: Inspector Bob Murphy.

  “Who you got in there, Bobby?”

  Murphy had been up for nearly twenty-four hours. He slapped a file into Sydowski’s hand. Sydowski put on his bifocals and began reading.

  Donald Arthur Barrons, age forty-three. Five feet, three inches tall, about one hundred pounds. Red hair. No tattoos. No beard. Nowhere near the description of the suspect. He was the flasher pervert whose prints were lifted from one of the stalls in the girls’ washroom at the Children’s Playground after the abduction. Witnesses put Barrons at the park earlier that morning.

  “Accomplice?” Murphy anticipated the question of description. Barrons had molestation convictions. Worked downtown. Parking lot attendant.

  “Vice picked him up about midnight at his apartment.”

  “And?”

  “We got zip. Not a thing, Walt. I jumped him too soon.”

  “Why�
�s that?”

  “He admitted right off to being there. Said he goes there to play with himself in the girls’ can. But he’s alibied solid. Was working his lot well before Nunn was grabbed. It checks. He’s got clock-punched parking receipts. Witnesses. And a hot dog vendor remembers selling him a cheese dog. So nothing.”

  Sydowski went back to the file. Barrons worked for EE-Z-PARK, a company that owned several small lots in prime downtown locations. “Do you know if the Beckers and Nunns ever parked at his lot?”

  “No.”

  “Ask them. If they can’t be sure, get the company to show you records. I know they computerize tag numbers of all cars. Check the Ford and the partial tag with them, too. May be a common factor there.”

  Sydowski slapped Murphy on the back and handed him the file. “I’d kick Barrons loose, go home, and get some sleep.”

  Murphy nodded. He was a good cop. The boys in Vice did jump Barrons too soon, Sydowski thought, starting a fresh pot of coffee in the coffee room. He stared at the fading poster above the counter. A .38 Smith & Wesson with a steel lock through the action--“Keep it locked at home.” They may have blown it with Barrons. Too many divorced, heart-broken cops thinking like fathers instead of detectives here.

  Notice of a case status meeting was scrawled on the blackboard: 8:30 a.m. Sydowski eyed the fax machine. Nothing from Canada. He sipped coffee and flipped through a basket of the most recent tips and leads that had been checked, or dismissed. He went through the email printouts. Lots of advice on how to conduct an investigation. Cyber advice from around the world pointing them to suspicious websites and kiddie porn stuff. Most of the tips came from crazies. Most of it was plain useless stuff. Sightings across the Bay Area of a man fitting the general description. “Suspect spotted on BART last year, caller can’t remember when.” Impossible to check. Psychics and anonymous kooks such as: “Caller says she was instructed to inform police by the Lord.” Sydowski shook his head.