by Rick Mofina
One dismissed report came with a cassette recording. Sydowski rummaged through his desk for his machine, inserted the tape, rewound it to the beginning, put on a headset, and pressed the play button.
“We’ve been in love for more than a year...”
The words hung in the air like a bizarre smell. It was difficult to determine the speaker’s gender.
“Danny is with me now. It’s better this way. He loves me. He’s always loved me. Our first meeting was so beautiful, so innocent. I think it was preordained. Shall I tell you about it?”
Sydowski checked the accompanying report. The caller had phoned in on the task force line, which was wired to record calls.
“I was walking through the park when we saw each other. Our eyes met, he smiled. Have you seen his eyes? So expressive, I’m looking at them now. He is so captivating. I won’t tell you how we made contact, that’s my little secret, but I will say he communicated his love to me intuitively. A pure, virtuous, absolute love...” The voice wept, rambling for five minutes until the line went dead.
Sydowski removed his headset, went over the accompanying report. The caller was Chris Lorenzo Hollis, a forty-year-old psychiatric patient who called from his hospital room. The staff said he’d been mesmerized with the Becker kidnapping, and fantasized about being Danny Becker’s mother. He watched TV news reports, read the newspaper stories faithfully. He hadn’t left the hospital in sixty days.
Sydowski went to another cleared report, opening the thin legal-size file folder containing a single sheet of paper sealed in clear plastic and a two-page assessment. The piece of paper was left that night on the counter of the SFPD station in Balboa Park. Nothing on the person who delivered it. It was in a blank, white letter-size envelope. No markings. Sydowski read the document.
Re: Kidnapping of Danny Becker and Gabrielle Nunn.
Dear Sirs: This material was channeled spiritually so it is open to interpretation. The kidnapper is Elwood X. Suratz, born Jan. 18, 1954. He is a pedophile who was in the city recently for counseling. He cancelled his appointment when he became overwhelmed by his urges. While in a semi-psychotic state, he went XXXXXX hunting for prey on the subway where he abducted Danny Becker...
The letter graphically described assaults on Danny, then detailed biographical material on Suratz. The accompanying two-page report dismissed the tip as bogus. No such person existed. Every claim in the letter has been double-checked. Not one item could be verified. The letter was typed on the same portable Olympia manual that was used for ten other similar letters sent to the police on ten different high-profile cases. Police suspect the letters came from somebody who thought they had psychic abilities. They didn’t.
Sydowski gulped his coffee just as the fax machine began humming. The first of twenty-six pages, via the FBI liaison in Ottawa, on the Canadian police, prison, and psych records of Virgil Lee Shook were arriving, including copies of the most recent mugs of Shook. He was a forty-eight-year-old Caucasian, six feet tall, one hundred eighty pounds. He had light-colored hair. Put a beard on him and he fit the description in the Becker-Nunn cases. His tattoos matched those of the hooded man in the Polaroids with Tanita Marie Donner.
Sydowski felt his gut tighten and popped a Tums.
Shook was born in Dallas and drifted to Canada after he was under suspicion for assaulting a four-year-old boy near La Grange, Texas. In Canada, he achieved a staggering record of assaults on children. In one instance, he claimed to be a relative and lured a seven-year-old boy and his five-year-old sister from their parents at a large park near Montreal. Shook kept the children captive for five days in a suburban motel room, where he tied them to the room’s beds, donned a hood, and repeatedly assaulted them. He took pictures of the children and kept a journal detailing how he satisfied his fantasies before abandoning them alive.
Shook was arrested two years later in Toronto after three university students caught him molesting a five-year-old boy in a secluded wooded area. Shook had abducted the boy from his inattentive grandfather hours earlier off the Toronto subway. In court, Shook detailed his attacks on scores of children over the years. His actions were born out of his own misery. He said he was sexually abused when he was a nine-year-old altar boy by his parish priest. Shook was ten when his father died. His mother remarried and he was beaten by his stepfather. Shook grew up envying and loathing “normal” children. He would never overcome his need to exact a toll, “inflict damage” on them. After earning parole three years ago, he vanished.
A wolf among the lambs.
Sydowski sat down and reread the entire file.
Trauma as a child. Religious overtones. Need to re-offend. Fantasy fulfillment. A pattern of crime that fit with the Donner-Becker-Nunn cases. Shook was lighting up the FBI profile like a Christmas tree. Sydowski reached for his phone and punched the number for Turgeon’s cell. They would bring the task force up to speed on Shook at the eight-thirty meeting.
“Turgeon.”
“It’s Walt, Linda.”
“You’re up early.”
“Get down here to 450 as soon as possible. We’ve got Shook’s file.”
“Is it him, Walt?”
“It’s him, Linda, and guess who his hero is?”
“I couldn’t begin.”
“The Zodiac.”
FORTY-SIX
At dawn, a white van squeaked to a stop at Gabrielle Nunn’s home and four sober-faced members of the San Francisco Police Department’s IDENT detail got out. Dressed in dark coveralls, they talked softly, yawning, finishing off coffee, and tossing their cups into the truck. A second van arrived with six more officers. They went to homes on either side of the Nunns’, waking owners, showing them search warrants. Yellow plastic tape was stretched the length of seven houses, sealing front and backyards with the message: POLICE LINE – DO NOT CROSS. The Nunn home was the middle house. Before the day’s end, every inch in the sectioned-off area would be sifted, searched, and prodded for anything connected to the case.
It was no ordinary Sunday morning here. Something had been defiled in the inner Sunset, where less than twenty-four hours earlier Gabrielle had skipped off to Joannie Tyson’s birthday party, radiant in her new dress.
Her neighbors knew the nightmare.
They had seen the news crews, gasped for reporters, watched TV, and read the papers. This morning, they stared from their doors and windows, shaking their heads, hushing their children, drawing their curtains. “I hope they find her. Her poor parents.” Something had been violated, something terrifying had left its mark, now manifest in yellow police tape--America’s flag of tragedy and death.
Ngen Poovong knew death intimately. But you couldn’t tell by looking at the shy eleven-year-old, standing at the tape with the usual cluster of gawkers and children. The horrors of Ngen’s life were not evident in his face, his T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers. His secrets never left his home, which was two doors down from Gabrielle’s. Ngen did not know Gabrielle and Ryan well. He had difficulty making friends, his English was so poor. His family had been in San Francisco a short time. He watched the men in coveralls. Police. Never talk to police. He knew what the excitement was all about, but he was frightened. He glanced over his shoulder to his house and saw Psoong watching him from the window.
Do not tell them what you know.
Ngen said nothing. Just as he had done last night when police came to their door, followed by the TV people. He remembered Psoong peeking through the curtains, then turning to Ngen and his older sister, Min. “Something is wrong,” Psoong told them in their own tongue. “Police are going to every door.”
Ngen and Min had not seen him this worried since the black days when they were all crammed on the boat, drifting hopelessly in the South China Sea. “They are going to every house taking notes. They will be here soon.”
“Maybe they know?” Min said, pulling Ngen close.
“We must make no mistakes. Remember the rules.”
The rules were simple: Listen to everything. Watch e
verything. Know everything. Say nothing. You are ignorant. Trust no one. Without the rules there was no survival. And Psoong Li, and Min and Ngen Poovong were survivors.
Their families had met on a smuggler’s trawler, crammed with one hundred other people who paid 1,000 U.S. dollars a person for safe passage from Laos to Manila. Four days out, pirates attacked. Ngen’s father and mother were killed. So were Psoong’s parents. Min was raped. Psoong was stabbed, but survived. Ngen wanted to jump to the sharks. Min became mute and stared at the sea. Psoong comforted the survivors, organizing the rationing of the little fresh water and rice that were left. He was especially kind to Min and Ngen, urging them to be strong to honor the memory of their families, to believe in their rescue. Psoong, Min, and Ngen became friends, forming a small family, and Psoong shared the secret that his father had wisely sent his savings to Psoong’s uncle in California, who had written that the best candidates for immigration to the United States were families with relatives living there. Psoong had a plan.
He proposed that Min act as his wife and Ngen as their son. Psoong was thirty-one, Min was twenty. With no documentation on their ages, they would lie to make it work. Afterward, they could go their separate ways, if they chose, but for now it was a matter of survival. Min stared at the sea and agreed. There was no other choice.
“Good,” Psoong said. “No one will ever learn the truth if we follow our rules.” Failure would mean deportation and death.
“Remember the rules,” Psoong whispered to Min and Ngen three days later when a Hawaii-bound Swedish freighter picked them up. After eleven months in a refugee camp, an American official granted them life when he stamped his approval on their applications to enter the United States.
In San Francisco, they lived in the basement of Psoong’s uncle’s house for several months, maintaining their secret, remaining family. Then they bought an old two-story house in the Sunset with Psoong’s father’s savings and the money they earned as office cleaners. They lived quietly in fear--fear that intensified when police came to them last night.
Remember the rules. We cannot go back. No one must know.
The two detectives, who were not in uniform, flashed their badges and Psoong let them in. They did not stay long after Psoong explained in faltering English that they knew nothing about the missing American girl. When the detectives left, Psoong thought that was the end of it and managed a smile. His relief vanished less than an hour later when one of the officers returned with an Asian woman. She was fluent in five Asian languages, including theirs.
She was a pretty, young, university language professor from Berkeley who could not be fooled. Right off she explained how the police were not the slightest bit interested in them, only their help, which they could give confidentially. After listening to her warm, friendly assurances, Ngen immediately wanted to tell her what he had seen.
The woman asked if they remembered seeing anything odd in the last month or so. Psoong and Min shook their heads. The woman showed them a picture of Gabrielle. Yes, Ngen knew her and talked to her once or twice. She was a friendly little girl who loved her dog.
“How do you know she loved her dog?” the detective said.
The professor translated.
Ngen shot a look at Psoong. Remember the rules. The professor caught the communication and placed herself on the couch between Psoong and Ngen, showing Ngen an enhanced picture of Gabrielle’s kidnapper. For a microsecond, recognition flickered in his eyes.
“Have you seen anything like this man around here before?”
Ngen swallowed and shook his head.
The professor knew the truth. “Are you certain? Nothing will happen to you if you think you know something.” Her pretty eyes held him prisoner. She would not let him look at Psoong.
“No,” Ngen lied.
The woman asked Min and Psoong a few more questions, then cards were left and requests made for calls if anything was remembered. This was a very serious case. A little girl’s life was in danger. Ngen noticed how the tall detective searched his eyes for something.
Now, watching the police scrutinizing Gabrielle’s yard, Ngen struggled to understand what was happening. More than twenty officers in white coveralls, with radios crackling, were investigating the neighborhood. The enormity of Gabrielle’s disappearance hit Ngen. He could no longer stand it. He hurried home and pleaded with Min to allow him to tell the police what he had seen. What if the kidnapper had stolen him? Wouldn’t Min and Psoong want help? This was the United States, people helped people here. Min called Psoong, who was at work. He came home, worry etched in his face.
“I, too, have thought about the matter. It is true that I could not bear another tragedy, if this abductor were to take Ngen. We must help police catch him. But first we need assurances.”
Psoong called the number on the professor’s card and she arrived with two new officers--Sydowski, a big man with gold in his mouth and his associate, a dark-haired young woman, Turgeon. Min made tea. The professor assured them the police were only interested in the kidnapping of the little girl who lived two doors away.
“The little girl’s dog did not run away a month ago,” Ngen began.
“What happened?” Sydowski asked as Turgeon made notes.
The professor translated.
“A man took the dog in the night.”
How did Ngen know?
“I saw him from my bedroom window,” the professor repeated.
Sydowski asked to see Ngen’s upstairs bedroom. They saw the small telescope on Ngen’s nightstand at the window. They remained calm. The bedroom’s large corner windows overlooked the Nunns’ backyard. Sydowski could see two IDENT people kneeling in the dog’s kennel.
“Tell the officers everything,” the professor said.
Ngen loved to look at the stars and moon. They were his hope when they were adrift at sea, and now his communion with his dead mother and father. The night the man came there was a three-quarter moon. It was about two a.m. because he had set his alarm to get the best view. All was tranquil in the neighborhood. Ngen could hear the Nunns’ air conditioner humming. He was studying the moon when he saw a man walking down the back alley. He focused his telescope on him. He looked like the man in the police picture. He unwrapped some meat and fed it to the dog, then walked away with the dog to his truck, which was parked down the alley, and drove away.
Sydowski and Turgeon absorbed Ngen’s account.
“Did he get a license plate?”
The professor translated and the boy said something at length, reaching for the star journal he kept, flipping through the pages.
He kept a journal! Sydowski couldn’t believe it.
At school they taught you to take license numbers if you ever saw anything bad. But he didn’t get the entire plate.
“The first three characters: B75,” the professor translated.
“Was it a California plate?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of truck was it?”
Ngen didn’t know trucks.
“If we showed him pictures?” Turgeon asked, while taking notes.
The professor explained. Ngen nodded. “Yes, that would help.”
Sydowski wanted to know what kind of meat the man gave the dog, and did Ngen see a store’s logo on any wrapping or packaging?
The professor translated. Ngen thought for a moment. It was hamburger in a white tray with transparent wrap.
“What sorts of things does Ngen write in his star journal?”
The professor asked Ngen.
“Dates and times of everything he saw in the night.”
“Did Ngen make such notes the night he saw the man take the dog?”
Yes, he did because it was so unusual.
“May we borrow the journal?” Turgeon asked.
The professor made the request. Ngen looked to Psoong, who nodded.
One more time, because this was so important, Sydowski wanted to know what happened when the man approached the Nunns’
yard.
Ngen said the man threw some hamburger into the dog’s kennel and the dog ate it without making a sound. Then the man opened the gate and the dog ate more from his hand. Then the man picked up the dog, took him under his arm, and walked to his truck and drove off.
“Did the man throw the wrapper away?”
Ngen thought. Yes, he tossed it aside.
“Where?”
Somewhere in the alley near the yard.
“Again, what did it look like?”
The woman explained, then said something to Min, who left the room. She returned with three packs of frozen meat. Ngen touched a package of sausages, packed on a white foam meat tray with clear plastic wrapping and a producer’s label with a bar code on one corner, with the date, weight, cost, and a product code.
Turgeon made notes. Sydowski reached for his radio and summoned the head of the IDENT unit to Ngen’s room. The man arrived, his eyes darting to the boy, the meat, Sydowski, then Turgeon.
“This is what we’re looking for, Carl,” Sydowski said.
Captain Carl Gray turned the package over in his hands.
“Sausages?”
“A meat tray and wrapper just like this one,” Turgeon said.
“The guy lured the dog away with wrapped hamburger,” Sydowski said. “If we could find the wrapping, label, and product code--”
“Right.” Gray came up to speed. “Then we could narrow where and when he bought it.” Gray reached for his radio. “I’ll call my team for a briefing. But it’ll be a needle in a haystack, Walt.”
“I know. It’s been nearly a month.”
Gray left, and while they thanked Ngen and his family, something ate at Sydowski, something he needed to know, so he told the professor to ask.
“Why didn’t you come forward yesterday?” the woman said.
Ngen looked at Psoong, at Min, and the professor, who immediately knew the answer. They were scared.
Sydowski nodded.
Then Ngen looked directly at Sydowski and in a little boy’s voice that was awash with emotion, spoke spontaneously, rapidly, forcing the professor to struggle to keep up with him.
