by Rick Mofina
Then the other morning.
Seeing Ann in her suit, looking good, smelling so nice. He was reading the paper, eating an orange. She grabbed his chin to turn his head to hers before she set out for the day. She rubbed his whiskers. “Good luck telling them at the paper and don’t forget to shave, pal.” An extra moment in the good-bye; then she added, “I love you.” She kissed him. For the last time. I love you. For the last time.
No. Not for the last time. Please. She was fine. This was a dream. A wild dream. It just seemed real. Like the report in his hands. Felt so real, man, it was scaring the hell out of him. He had to shut this nightmare down. Reed got to his feet. Only one friend could help him now. That was J.D. He rubbed his lips. Find him because this was a bad one.
These papers in his hand were so real and their words were eating into his heart. J.D., it hurts bad, you gotta help me.
Reed went to a top shelf in the bedroom closet. So high, Ann needed the chair to reach it. He rummaged through it, knocked things over, magazines, old papers, Ann’s old cassette tapes, hats, old purses. Ann smiled at him from the old snapshots spilling from the photo albums. Opening her first store. Stop it. Painting the nursery. Stop it. Hands searching, reaching into an old purse. Nothing there. Ann with her arms around Reed and Zach. Laughing. Come on. Fingers feeling inside a canvas bag until he gripped his neck. J.D. Old friend. A hidden bottle of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Sipping Whiskey.
The report fluttered from his hand as he caressed the label, the glass, while sounds and images exploded in his brain. Ann in the wheelchair. Gunshots. Muzzle flashes. Voices on the police tape. Ann’s plea searing him.
Please. Don’t, just please!
Seeing them lift the dirt-covered corpse in the desert.
God, help me. Pull me out of this. The images, the sounds from the tape. Ann’s pleading, piercing him, making his ears ring. The phone. The phone was ringing. Thank God. It’d wake him up. It’d end now. The ringing continued. Reed was underwater, swimming to the ringing phone. Wake up. You’re supposed to wake up now, damn it.
“Dad?”
His son’s voice staggered him.
“Dad, are you there?”
Reed couldn’t wake up. Why? Jesus, wake up!
“Dad, please answer me.”
Reed’s words crashed together in his throat coming out in a liquidy bubble. “I’m here, Zach.”
“Dad, when are you coming to Grandma’s to get me?”
Reed’s fingers tightened on the phone and the bottle.
“I’m on my way now. I’ll be there.”
“Hurry, please, Dad. I need you here.”
Reed hung up.
His breath came in hot, raw gasps as he hurled the bottle, the glass shattering, its contents blossoming, bleeding down the bedroom wall, dripping like tears from Ann’s nightstand to the floor and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s report, unable to douse the words burning on the pages.
Indications of violent sexual assault...victim's head and hands removed. Not located at scene.
Sunlight strobed through the steel girders of the Bay Bridge as Reed drove east on the lower deck, a few hundred feet above the blue-green waters of San Francisco Bay.
The skylines that necklaced the Bay Area would never again be the same for him. During his years as a crime reporter Reed had seen every manifestation of evil. In each case he’d edged as near as he could, feeling its power brush against him, enjoying the privileged access of an avid observer while in the secret, darkest regions of his heart, he had thrilled at its touch. Now the karmic wheel had turned full circle on him, coiling around him with a hold so overwhelming that every moment Reed had lived until this point evaporated in the presence of its awful majesty.
Just don’t get too close.
Be strong for Zach, Reed urged himself in Berkeley, after pulling on to Fulton and parking in front of Ann’s mother’s house. He found strength in their presence.
“There’s some place we need to go.” That was all he said to Zach and Doris after a tearful embrace.
Few words were spoken as they crossed the Bay Bridge, taking 101 South through San Francisco. Reed found a classical music station and they listened to Mozart as they continued south on Highway 1 at Daly City.
Columns of sunlight shot through the clouds above the ocean as they rolled along the coastline of the peninsula beyond Sharp Park, passed Pacifica, the curling highway hugging the coast. Then somewhere after that, Reed stopped at a quiet stretch of beach and shut the car’s engine off.
Gulls cried, gliding in the sea winds as the surf rolled and hissed over the sand and rocks.
“She loved it here,” Reed said, putting his arm around Doris, who searched the horizon.
“Her father and I would bring her here when she was a little girl to fly her kite. She used to joke that it was Ann’s beach.”
“Dad.” Zach was standing away from them near the car.
“Doris, give me a moment alone with him. Come on, son.”
Doris hugged her grandson, seeing her daughter’s face in his; then Reed took Zach’s hand. They began walking along the beach. They walked for some time, leaving two sets of footprints fading in the surf. Reed’s search for the words to begin ended when Zach came to the point. “Mom’s not dead.”
Reed stopped, put his hands on Zach’s shoulders, and met his eyes.
“Zach—”
“No, Dad. I don’t believe it.”
“Zach, we have to accept it. She’s gone. Mom’s gone.”
“Stop saying that. Everyone’s wrong.”
“No, no, son, they’re not wrong.”
“You’re a liar.”
“Zach—”
“I don’t believe it. Did you see her?”
“Yes. In the desert.”
“No. She’s not dead.”
“I know it’s the hardest thing in the world to face.”
“Dad, she can’t be dead. She’s my mom. She can’t be.” Reed felt Zach slip to the sand and slipped there with him, both of them on the beach holding each other as the Pacific rolled over the sand and the gulls cried. Reed rocked his son in his arms, not knowing how they would survive this, only that they had no choice, that maybe they should move here to somehow honor her dream of living by the ocean and oh Jesus, he thought he felt her, could hear her calling him Tom over the ocean. Tom!
“Tom!” Doris was trotting. Her face was serious but not sad. “Tom!” His cell phone from the car was in her hand. She was breathless. “Tom, Inspector Sydowski.” Confused. Putting the phone to his ear.
“Tom, it’s Sydowski. I’m so sorry.”
“Why didn’t you call, or Gutteres?”
“We just got word from San Bernardino.”
“It’s too late now, so go to hell.”
“No, Tom, that reporter Layne, she came to us for comment after what she did to you. I went to your house. We missed you.”
“Doesn’t change a goddamned thing, Walt.”
“Tom, all she had was a crime scene summary.”
“So?”
“It’s not Ann.”
“What?”
“The victim was not your wife. I swear to you. I’ve got the San Bernardino coroner’s completed autopsy report in my hand. I just spoke with the coroner, Gutteres, McDaniel. The results are conclusive.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The woman murdered in the desert isn’t Ann Reed.”
TWENTY-FIVE
After talking with Reed, Sydowski started on a Tums. Maybe they should charge that tabloid TV reporter. Christ, what she did to Reed was unforgivable. But Sydowski couldn’t let the mess distract him. Push it aside. Let San Bernardino handle it. A press statement was coming to summarize the facts. It would contradict any fabrications that woman dared to put out.
Turgeon was at her desk, talking on her phone. “Ten minutes till the conference call, Walt.”
He acknowledged her over his bifocals. He munched on his Tums and went o
ver the fresh pages spread across his desk. Updates from the FBI, ATF, Sacramento, and the county.
Who was the victim in the desert?
They had confirmed that the clothing and items found with her belonged to Ann Reed, but the remains were not those of Ann. Blood typing confirmed it. Ann was A-positive. The victim was O-negative. The victim was a white female in her mid-twenties. Based on what they had of her, the coroner estimated she was five feet eight inches, 115 pounds. Ann Reed was five feet four inches, about 105 pounds. The victim had the lungs of a longtime smoker. Ann detested smoking.
So who was the Jane Doe? Sydowski swallowed his Tums as Gonzales came out of his office.
“Let’s go.”
They took the conference call in an empty meeting room down the hall from the homicide detail.
“Okay.” Gonzales led it. “We’ve got SFPD, San Bernardino, Sacramento Justice, FBI, Los Angeles, ATF. Everybody acknowledge.”
They did.
“It’s critical we ID our Jane Doe,” Gonzales said. “We’re counting on it to give us a lead on our suspects.”
“It’s going to take time,” Gutteres in San Bernardino said. “Given her condition, no dental records, no fingerprints. Coroner said she has some surgical scarring, that she’s undergone an appendectomy.”
“We saw that, Marv,” McDaniel said. “We’ve put out an alert to medical networks, associations, and societies to urgently consult records that fit her description. And every major U.S. police agency, including Interpol and the RCMP, is going to their missing-person files. Vice and drug units are putting out the word far and wide in case she was a known hooker, user, or both.”
Gutteres offered an update on the work done in the desert. “The tire impressions not carried off by the wind at the scene indicate a larger vehicle, possibly an SUV, was used by the suspects to leave. We’re working with highway patrol, everybody near us. Walt, what’s up at your end?”
“We’re still awaiting our lab people at Hunters Point to clean up the tapes of the wheelman’s last words and police radio,” Sydowski said. “They’re imaging all the shell casings into the database working with ATF.”
“How you doing on your dead guy, his associates and kin, Walt?”
“Nothing to get excited about so far. He kept a low profile. We’re going through everything.”
“Still working our way through the jewelry store’s client and employee lists,” Gonzales added. “Let’s throw this open, brainstorm here for a bit before we get back to work.”
“The thing is, why?” Turgeon said. “Why go out of your way to make it look like Ann Reed’s murder?”
“To prevent identification,” Gutteres said.
“Why leave another victim?” Sydowski said.
“Could it be something ritualistic, a serial or cult thing?” Gutteres said.
“Not with a robbery,” Sydowski said. “What do you think, Dean?”
Dean Roth was the FBI’s profiler for the region.
“I think you’re most likely right, Walt. The homicides at the San Francisco heist scene are logical, robbery related, if you will. Even the abduction of Ann Reed, the need for a means of escape, fits. But it’s the behavior we see later that takes it to another level.”
“How, aside from the brutality?” Gutteres said.
“That the fugitives would risk driving across the state with a victim in a high-profile case is brazen to us but might be regarded as normal for the team, an exhibition of its power. Now, look at their subsequent behavior. The disguising of the Jane Doe victim, that’s key.”
“How so?” Turgeon said.
“It suggests that they could be linked to her, a friend, an associate, a witness to the crime, so yes, to prevent identification is right.”
“We got that?”
“But it goes beyond a witness,” Roth said. “I believe she was somehow instrumental, or a player in the crime. Hence the need to annihilate her and ensure you have a difficult time identifying her. That’s one level.”
“But what about Ann Reed?” Sydowski said. “Why take her in the first place? Why not kill her?”
Roth thought about it. “That’s where we run into something different. With this case you may have come upon something more than a robbery.”
“What?”
“I think something was decided—triggered might be the better word—triggered in the heat of the moment at the heist when August rolled up on the getaway van.”
“What do you mean?”
“Yes, the Jane Doe knew, or was connected to the heist, so she was removed. And, on one level they used mutilation and Ann Reed’s belongings to disguise identification. But there’s an indication that their plan changed, on the spot. That whatever the fate of the first victim was, Ann Reed made a better victim, if you will. And in some way, they wanted acknowledgment.”
“I don’t know,” Gutteres said.
“There’s a team dynamic,” Roth said. “It goes beyond robbery-for-profit logic. I suspect we’ve got two disturbed personalities that exploded at the robbery and melded into a deadly new entity. It’s possible that one personality will dominate the entity, or the two will battle for control.”
“Cripes.” Gonzales shook his head.
“The suspects’ behavior at the robbery could relate to their pasts, their upbringings, experiences. Could be a combination of things that have been festering. Then the sudden circumstances providing an opportunity to exact vengeance on individuals, or society, for any past grievances,” Roth said.
“Can any of this be directly related to Ann Reed?” Sydowski said.
“She appears to be a random victim,” Roth said, “but rule nothing out. If anything, it appears that abducting her has boosted their drive, like putting gasoline on fire.”
“Will they kill Ann Reed?”
“Not immediately.”
“What do they want to do? Torment her pursuers?” Gonzales said.
“Something like that. They know all bets are off. It’s a death penalty case. That’s a given. They’ve already bet the house. They’ve got nothing to lose. To be blunt, I think they want to play, inflict pain.”
“So this isn’t over?” Sydowski said.
“On the contrary. It’s just beginning.”
TWENTY-SIX
Dexter climbed into his old Dodge pickup, headed south out of Winslow on Route 87 to a secluded spot he knew along Clear Creek.
He loved driving in the high desert with the window down, breezes snapping his T-shirt, radio loud on his favorite Flagstaff country station. He adjusted his straw Stetson as he turned the truck off the road, easing her into the shade of an old oak that sheltered the picnic table. His old man first brought him to this fishing spot on his sixth birthday. Helped him carve his name in the tree before walking out on him and his mom a couple years later.
Dexter killed the big V-8. The engine ticked in the tranquility as he reached into the bed for his rod, tackle, bag with two cold cans of beer and two of Juanita’s big soft tacos, made just the way he loved ’em, extra cheese, stringy lettuce, tomato diced thick, wrapped tight in waxed paper.
Dexter was pretty sure he loved Juanita, he thought, his line whizzing out as he cast, then sat down and started into one of her tacos. Heck, he loved her. No doubt about it, they’d known each other since high school.
Couple days ago after the storm, the whites were hitting pretty good. Dexter cast again, chewing on the fact Juanita had a point. He was a twenty-five-year-old grown man. Time to think about moving out of his mom’s double-wide at the edge of town. He felt a tug. Call him crazy but he liked using a rig, or sometimes a spinner did the trick. Nope, nothing. He cast again, then opened a beer. Thing was, he had never thought about moving out until Juanita started all this talk of quitting the diner, moving to Los Angeles to try acting, telling him he should quit living with his mom in the trailer, quit his mechanic’s job at AJ.’s and go with her to seek adventure.
Was that another tug?
> Why did Juanita have to push so hard, make him feel like he was going to lose her? The line locked. His rod bowed into the letter C. Snagged something. He began reeling it in. The veins in his tanned arms rose, the object pushing a considerable wake. Dexter moved to the bank, glimpsed something brown as he brought it closer, lifting it out, water cascading from it. A boot. A big old work boot.
People will throw anything in the water. He cast again. Maybe he could try Los Angeles. He considered it for another half hour, not reaching any decisions by the time he’d finished his beers, tacos, and fishing for the day. He stood and stretched, put his rod and tackle box in the back of the truck, returned to the picnic table, crumpled his cans, and walked to the trash bin at the roadside.
The first thing Dexter noticed was the buzzing of the flies.
A dark cloud of them dotted with a few bees and wasps orbiting something atop the garbage filling the steel mesh basket. It was a big purse, a nice-looking designer bag, resting atop the greased, stained fast-food bags, drink cups, and beer cans. Looked new, out of place. Its flower pattern bulged a little with whatever was inside. He tried to peer in the top but it was zippered shut. The handles looped invitingly from the garbage.
Dexter looked around. He was alone. What the hell? He waved away the buzzing cloud with his hat, then hefted the bag. Felt like it had seven or eight pounds of something inside, he figured, after taking a few steps, setting it down, reaching for the zipper, sliding it open.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Several hundred miles away, just off a lonesome freeway exit that vanished somewhere into the night, two men sat in the Old Glory Truck Stop, studying laminated menus and their circumstances.
The first man was Del, a six-foot-three-inch, 230-pound ex-con with a muscular build. He’d decided to have steak as he scratched his whiskers. It had been a few days since he’d shaved and he pondered another goatee, like the one he’d had when he was in Folsom where he had met the man sitting across from him.
