Tom Reed Thriller Series

by Rick Mofina

  Cry out. Kick. Scream.

  But she had. Her legs and wrists burned. Overwhelmed by terror since it happened, she had struggled until they were raw. It was futile. She had to think of something. Anything. But there was nothing. Absolutely nothing she could do. This was not like any of the movies she’d watched at home with Tom. It was real. It was happening.

  Please, somebody, help me. It’s so hot. All she could hear now was thudding and scraping. Be strong.

  She went back, trying to remember details of everything. About twenty minutes after the robbery she’d felt the car gain speed like they were on an expressway. Not long after, she’d felt it slow down to exit. They couldn’t have driven long enough to leave San Francisco. After getting off the freeway they’d made several turns as if driving in a neighborhood. Then they’d come to a complete stop.

  Ann feared they had purposely taken an indirect way to her home to threaten her family. But before she knew what was happening, a bag, or hood, was slipped over her head. She couldn’t see. They’d bound her more securely with tape, hefted her from the car and into the back of a larger car, which was cooler as if it had been in sheltered parking. Then she heard them move the cars, felt them toss bags into the second car. Doors thudded closed. She realized they’d switched cars as they’d pulled away into the noise of heavier traffic and the hum of an on-ramp, an expressway, gathering speed. They drove and drove with Ann drifting in and out of consciousness.

  She’d lost all sense of time and direction, clinging to the hope they would let her go or that, somehow, someone would deliver her.

  Now they had finally stopped and all she could hear was thudding and scraping. How many hours had it been? It felt like night. Where were they? The heat. Were they near a factory? A boiler? An oven?

  She thought of Tom, Zachary, her mother.

  I love them so much. Let me see them again, God, please.

  The thudding and scraping stopped. Someone approached.

  The rear door popped open. The hood was pulled from her head and Ann saw the stars, more brilliant than she had ever seen them before.

  The air was still hot but fresher. She inhaled it, feeling it swirl around her. A flashlight beam pierced the darkness and burned into her face. She squinted at the two silhouettes blotting out the heavens and froze.

  Large work-gloved hands hoisted her out by her shoulders and calves, carrying her around the car for several yards before laying her on the ground, rolling her onto her stomach.

  She saw nothing in the night. She’d no idea how long or how far they’d traveled. No hint of where she was.

  She lay there, cheek pressed to the hot ground, minutes passing in silence. A horrible chilling silence slithered along slowly before it reared to shriek to her: A decision has been made. Ann’s heart nearly burst, her eyes widened, her pulse throbbed in her ears.

  Oh God. No, please. Please.

  The flashlight beam hit her eyes, forcing her to lift her head and turn it, to see the pick, the shovel.

  The fresh grave.

  SEVENTEEN

  By 6:00 A.M. Sydowski was at his desk at the Hall of Justice going hard on the latest reports, making notes before the case status meeting.

  He knew Reed was right. There was little hope. At any time Sydowski expected his double homicide to become his triple, depending on where they found Ann Reed. He’d met her a while back. Nice lady. Too good for Tom, who was as close as you got to being a friend without being called one. Even though Reed was a pain-in-the-ass reporter, Sydowski liked him. Would make a helluva detective, he thought, opening his file on the murdered officer.

  Rod Jerome August. Born in San Francisco. Recognized for bravery after jumping into the bay to pull out two Japanese tourists whose van went off a pier. Sydowski turned to another citation when his telephone rang.

  “Walt, it’s Harm. Figured you’d be in.” Harm DeGroot and Sydowski had graduated from the academy together. Harm was a sensitive guy who had once been August’s supervisor. “So, how’d it go?”

  Word had gotten around that Sydowski had accompanied the chief, Darnell, the chaplain, a POA rep, and a crisis counselor to deliver the news to August’s ex and their son.

  “You know how it is, Harm. They never go well,” Sydowski said. “She’s a real estate agent near Belmont. She knew the instant she saw us pull up. Wouldn’t let us in. Stayed on her side of the door, yelling, ‘He’s not my husband anymore, don’t you bastards know he’s not my husband anymore?’ We tried to calm her, to get her to let us in. Everything went all quiet inside for a few moments; then the door swings open and August’s six-year-old boy, Billy, is there kneeling beside his mother. She’s weeping in a heap on the floor. Billy looks up at us and says, ‘Is my dad the one that got shot?’ The chief gets on his knees and tells him his dad died a hero.”

  DeGroot cleared his throat. “Christ almighty, Walt. We got to find these guys. Got anything on them?”

  “Working on it.”

  “We got to go flat out on this.”

  “Harm, I got a task force meeting coming up. Got to go.”

  “Thanks, Walt.”

  Sydowski removed his bifocals, rubbed his eyes, then reached for Leroy Driscoll’s file. Car thief. Armed robbery suspect. Murder victim. August and Driscoll. Honored hero. Convicted felon. Later, Sydowski would be witnessing the autopsies on both men.

  Inspector Linda Turgeon set a mug of fresh coffee before him. Reading that faraway look in her partner’s face, she attempted conversation to bring him back. “So, Walt, you and Louise getting hitched?”

  “Thinking about it. How about you?”

  Turgeon sipped her coffee. “Thinking about it.”

  Sydowski drank some coffee. It was strong, the way he liked it. “This case delays things. I called Louise. We’re putting Las Vegas on hold.”

  “She good with that?”

  “She’s got no choice, Linda. Can’t get married alone, can she?”

  “Easy there.”

  Sydowski popped a Tums into his mouth. That was breakfast. He collected his files. “Time to go to the meeting, Linda.”

  In room 400 of the Hall, enlarged photos of August, Driscoll, Ann Reed, a 2003 silver four-door Jetta, Driscoll’s van, and the San Francisco Deluxe Jewelry Store were posted on wheeled corkboards. FBI agents and SFPD detectives from homicide, auto theft, and robbery took places around the table, others lined the wall. Several dozen investigators in all. As information sheets were circulated, Bill Kennedy, Deputy Chief of Investigations, kicked it off.

  “The department took a hit on this. It hurts. But until we arrest the suspects we’ve got a deadly situation here. Let me remind everyone in this room that we have concurrent jurisdiction with the FBI. They’ll focus on the abduction of Ann Reed, we’ll focus on the homicides and robbery. We’ll work together on everything. Leo, bring us up to speed.” Lieutenant Gonzales listed major steps taken so far. The SFPD Special Services Unit went to their street sources, the unit in state parole on fugitive parolees was shaking down all avenues. “We’ve got nothing on the two suspects. No prints, not even a composite. No security video. Nothing so far. We hope that will change. We’re checking traffic and toll cams,” Gonzales said.

  “We’ve got August’s final transmission, and we’ve got the tape of Driscoll’s last words in the ambulance. He was incoherent and there was a lot of background noise. Voice analysis is trying to clean them up,” he said.

  “We’re talking to Driscoll’s parole agent, working through his employers, his associates, inside and out. We got an address but it’s outdated. We haven’t got any clean latents yet from the van, which was stolen out of Fresno.

  “Or the plate. Stolen from Bakersfield. Preliminary work at Hunter’s Point shows the cartridges found in the van are the same as the casings found in the store and on the street. The thinking is the bullets recovered from the autopsies will match, which will link the van to the heist and shootings.” None of Ann Reed’s credit or bank cards had
been used since the heist.

  “She had a large amount of cash in her car at the time. She apparently was en route to make an unscheduled bank deposit from one of her stores that raised money through a sales event for charity.”

  Gonzales said robbery detectives were going through the jewelry store’s employee lists for the last several years. They also inventoried the jewels stolen in the robbery to put out on the FBI’s jewel and gem database, which would alert police and jewelers’ associations nationwide.

  “The take was above average, nearly one million. They’re going to want to unload this stuff, or it could have been a commissioned job. Either way we need a fix on a buyer pool. Might give us a lead on their destination.”

  The FBI was working with ATF, military police, and records on the grenades used. ATF was trying to trace the dead suspect’s weapon.

  “Last night we got a lead on the wheelchair. Stolen from a hospital in San Jose. We’re checking with security there,” Gonzales said.

  FBI Agent McDaniel left the room to take a call after his cell phone began vibrating on his belt. A few moments later, he returned to the meeting. “Excuse me,” he said, interrupting the discussion. “We may have something.”

  “What do you have?”

  “Anyone hear of the TV show Worldwide News Now?”

  “It’s a new show,” Turgeon said. “Dishes up trash on the stars. Why?”

  “Our liaison office at the U.S. embassy in London says the program has footage on our heist.”

  “So what,” Sydowski said. “So do all the local stations, I don’t get it.”

  “No, not after the fact, Walt, actual footage of the shooting on the street. The whole thing, start to finish. Our people say the show is set to air it.”

  Sydowski grabbed one of the room’s phones.

  “Who you calling, Walt?” Turgeon asked.

  “Our media people. I think this outlet had a reporter at the news conference. Seems to me someone asked specifically about security cameras or amateur video of the suspects.” Sydowski jabbed at the extension. “Damn! We learn about this a day later. I don’t believe it.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Reed woke, clawing his way through the fog of not knowing where he was, then remembering why Ann’s side of the bed was empty and cold. It was his first morning without her.

  He sat up, fingers gripping the sheets. Still wearing the clothes he wore when he’d rushed to the jewelry store, he went to the living room, which adjoined the kitchen. Investigators were poring over reports faxed from the case meeting, working on their laptops, talking on their phones. Zach sat before the TV with an FBI agent. Doris was making scrambled eggs. The aroma of coffee was in the air.

  Reed braced himself, then said, “Anything?”

  “Nothing, sir,” a young FBI agent said.

  Reed went to the window, saw more news crews outside, then went to the kitchen. Doris hugged him. He hugged her back.

  “Did you get some sleep?” he asked.

  Doris ignored his question with what he thought was a chilly wave of resentment. He dismissed it when she said, “Have some breakfast, Tom.”

  He wasn’t hungry. Headlines from the Bay Area papers screamed at him from the counter. The heist was the lead item in every one. Huge news pictures. In the Star, Molly’s story ran across six columns. It began:

  His assignment was to take you inside yesterday’s deadly jewelry store heist but when veteran Star crime reporter Tom Reed arrived at the scene of a murdered police officer and a dying suspect—

  He couldn’t read it.

  “Dad.” Zach came to him. “Maybe with all the news, it will help find Mom.”

  “Maybe.” Reed put his arm around him. “I’m going to take a shower. I’m really not hungry right now, thanks, Doris.”

  Somebody’s cell rang.

  “Tom, it’s McDaniel for you.” A female agent held out her phone.

  Reed’s stomach tightened. Was this it? Was this the call? “Tom, do you have a VCR?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “We’ve got something to show you before the whole country sees it.”

  The FBI in London had taped the San Francisco heist report from Worldwide News Now, then bumped it to FBI headquarters in Washington. Technicians there fed it to the San Francisco field office, where it was transferred to a VHS tape, which McDaniel inserted into the machine at Reed’s home, then told him what to expect. Reed and Doris had decided to let Zach see it with them. He should know and see what everyone else would see.

  The show’s generic intro rolled with a montage of some of the world’s most famous faces, fading to Amanda Christianson, the hostess. She smiled from Worldwide’s glittering set in London.

  “Welcome back. Now, our world exclusive report of a shocking tragedy. Somewhere in America the kidnapped wife of one of the nation’s top crime journalists is facing a life-and-death struggle with the cold-blooded killers of a police officer. The drama began yesterday when jewel thieves launched a commando-style robbery on a San Francisco boutique that left two people dead and sparked an intense manhunt.” Footage of the scene rolled in slow motion next to Christianson’s pretty face. Then Reed saw himself talking to detectives. “But the story takes a bizarre turn as the horror was compounded for Pulitzer Prize-nominee Tom Reed, a newspaper reporter dispatched to cover the robbery. Please be warned, the images you’re about to see may be disturbing. With more, here’s our San Francisco correspondent, Tia Layne.”

  The show threw to Layne, standing in front of the jewelry store.

  “Amanda, Tom Reed is a newspaper reporter for the San Francisco Star, whose work put him on the short list for American journalism’s greatest award, the Pulitzer Prize. For years he has covered the toughest of all beats, crime on the streets of San Francisco. But yesterday when he rushed from his newsroom to cover this terrible case, he found himself facing the story of his life. One that is still unfolding....” Layne detailed events.

  Reed was stunned as the pictures rolled. Ann handcuffed in the chair, the suspects, like players in some freakish macabre production, one popping his handgun at the van, the other rattling his M16 at the officer, the police radio crackling with their voices, their faces disguised in brilliant red and white, Ann’s pleas ripping into him.

  The item showed Reed getting Zach at school, the police press conference, news crews keeping a vigil at Reed’s home, the report ending with a fading ghostly image of Ann’s face.

  Zach was transfixed. His jaw muscles pulsed. Reed pulled him tighter, his heart breaking for his son. Reed was helpless to protect him. Zach still held the tiny photograph of his mother. Refusing to let go. Refusing to give up.

  “This segment airs tonight at 7:30 P.M. Pacific time,” McDaniel said when it ended. “Three hours sooner in the East.”

  They played it several more times for Reed in the hope he might notice something the detectives missed. They slowed parts. Froze frames.

  “What about their shoes, Tom, anything familiar?” McDaniel asked.

  “No.”

  “Their walk? Body build? Clothes?”

  Reed concentrated but recognized nothing.

  “Their voices?”

  Over and over, as he had the previous night, Reed listened to the tinny scratchy blasts of conversation. “No. Nothing.”

  “Body movements? The wheelchair?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Is that definitely her car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is Ann trying to communicate anything?”

  “No.”

  After they finished, McDaniel stepped away to make calls. Reed sat alone in an alcove, on a love seat at a bay window overlooking the flower garden Ann tended. This was her favorite spot to read, or just sip tea. She’d wanted to put in more roses. No. Don’t think of her in the past tense. That footage. He wanted to reach into it and pull her to him. But it was futile. How do you fight a nightmare? How do you battle a hurricane? She’s gone. He saw her face, heard her voi
ce entangled with the voices of those who took her. Did he recognize them? He searched his memory but found nothing. He ran his hand over his face. His eyes burned and the flowers Ann had nurtured began to blur.

  NINETEEN

  In the San Francisco bureau of Worldwide News Now Tia Layne was typing on her keyboard with the phone pressed between her ear and shoulder.

  “I told you. My account should show a large deposit. I called the bank in New York, they’ve assured me the money’s there, but I don’t see it, hon.”

  Someone knocked on the door.

  “Cooter, get the door,” Layne called out but heard no movement. “I have to go,” she said into the phone. “I’ll call you right back and when I do my damn money better be there.”

  Layne slammed down the phone, cursing the bank and Cooter’s absence. She opened the door to Sydowski and McDaniel. They held out their identification. “Can we come in, Miss Layne?” McDaniel said.

  She considered closing the door. Instead she swung it open.

  The two men positioned two cheap stools in front of Layne’s desk. She lit a fresh Camel and rocked in her chair. “What’s up?”

  Sydowski looked her over. “Why didn’t you alert police to the fact you had pictures of the murder of a police officer and abduction of a citizen?”

  “Why? Because I don’t work for you, that’s why. Freedom of the press.”

  “You cost us twenty-four hours. Critical time that may have saved a life.”

  Layne dragged hard, thinking Sydowski wasn’t bad looking for an old fart. She was wondering about his stamina when McDaniel said, “Miss Layne. We’d like you to volunteer us your raw, unedited footage.”

  “Would you?” She flicked ash on the floor. “What’s in it for me?”

  Sydowski leaned to her. “We don’t go looking up your name on Interpol, your alleged links to organized crime in Thailand. Your acting career.”