If Angels Fall

FOUR

Tom Reed drove southfrom downtown in a staff car, a Ford Tempo, bearing The San Francisco Star’sred, white, and blue banner and the logo: WE’VE GOT SAN FRANCISCO’S STORY.

Talk about cruel irony. He wanted to do an anniversary piece onTanita Marie Donner’s abduction and murder. To set the record straight. Toredeem himself. Now this happens. In Balboa.

His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. Passing a lumberingmotor home from Utah on 101, he couldn’t shake the Donner story and a millionother questions. If today’s case was real, would the paper leave him on it? Couldhe handle it again? Sure. He had nothing left to lose. He had alreadysacrificed his family to the Donner story.

“We’ve lost each other, Tom,” Ann had said the last time they wereout, weeks after Wallace’s suicide. It was a place in Sausalito, with a view ofSan Francisco’s skyline and a harpist plucking a requiem to their marriage. Annwas right. Something between them had died, a fact he refused to admit. Hefingered a spoon and met her eyes, shining in the candlelight like they did ontheir wedding day.

“Tell me, Ann. Tell me how you’ve lost me.”

“Your drinking’s out of hand. I’ve asked you to stop. You don’t seewhat it’s doing to us, to Zach, to you.”

He rapped the spoon sharply on the table.

“Ann, I’ve been professionally humiliated, I’ve been suspended,dumped into a toilet of political crap, and this is the understanding you showme.”

“Lower your voice!” she whispered.

He downed his wine and refilled his glass.

“Tom, why can’t you realize that you are not infallible?”

“I was not wrong.”

“Something went wrong! I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You brought it up, dear.” He gulped more wine.

“You have no idea what Zach and I went through after seeing you on networkTV slapped by the widow of that poor teacher.”

“That poor teacher killed Tanita Marie Donner, Ann!”

“You don’t know that. The police said he was not-“

“Fuck the police! Wallace was a twisted child-killer.”

“Stop it! Just stop it!” Ann’s hushed voice was breaking.

A few tense moments passed. She touched the corners of her eyes withher napkin. “We need some time apart,” she said. “I’m taking Zach and we’regoing to stay with my mother in Berkley.”

It was like a sledgehammer blow to his stomach.

“I don’t know if I can live with you anymore,” she whispered. “If Ilove you anymore.” She covered her mouth with her hand.

They skipped dessert and went home. A few days later, he helped Annlift suitcases to their van, watching in silence as his wife and son droveaway. He went into the house and drank himself unconscious.

Reed found the scene near Ocean at San Jose. Nearby, a tangle ofpolice cars blocked the entrance to the Balboa BART station, lights flashing,radios crackling.

A working-class neighborhood, Balboa was favored with a degree ofgentrification at its fringes: a smattering of eclectic boutiques, yuppifiedhouses and apartment blocks. A cop directed traffic around the area. Peoplecraned their necks at the yellow crime-scene tape; others watched from windowsand balconies.

“Tom!”

Paul Wong, a Star photographer, trotted after him, two Nikonsdangling from his neck, a camera bag over his shoulder.

“Just pulled in behind you,” Wong said. “Isn’t this the same placewhere they found the little girl, Marie something?”

“Tanita Marie Donner.”

“Yeah.” Wong suddenly remembered everything.

As they headed toward the police tape, they clipped on their presscards. Reed called the paper on his cell phone. Wong banged off a few frames.

“Star, Molly Wilson.” Police radios were clamoring.

“It’s Reed. Got anything for us?”

“Speak up, I’m in the radio room.”

“What have you got?”

“A genuine stranger abduction. The kid somehow wanders off thetrain. Dad gets a one-second glimpse of his boy with a strange man on theplatform just as the train is pulling out. He hits the emergency brake bar,kicks out an emergency window and runs after them. But they vanished. Happenedthat fast. They’re pulling out all the stops, bringing in K-9, goingdoor-to-door in a grid for a twenty-block radius. Simon’s on his way withanother photographer.

“Get a name on the kid and his dad?”

“Father is Nathan Becker, son is Danny. Unlisted. Library’s goingthrough driving and property records. Beck is still around, being questionedsomewhere. They haven’t taken him to Ingleside Station yet. Mom is home alone.They’ve sent people to tell her and set up for a possible ransom call. Noaddress over the air, but I gather it’s near the University of San Francisco,Jordan Park maybe.”

“FBI?”

“On their way. Tom, do you think it’s connected to Donner?”

“Wallace is dead, Molly.”

“Copycat, maybe?”

“Who knows? Call you later.”

Reed and Wong shouldered their way to the tape, where a cop liftedit, directing them to a police an in the distance where reporters wereclustered around an officer. On the way there, Reed nudged Wong. Across thestreet, a pony-tailed woman in her thirties, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt,stepped out of Roman’s Tub amp; Shower Boutique. An ID card was clipped to herwaist, and she was instructing an officer, pointing somewhere, as they hurriedaway together.

“Let’s go in there,” Reed said.

“What for?”

“A hunch.”

Bells jingled as they entered. Roman’s smelled of jasmine and had anexquisite Florentine storefront displaying overpriced towels. A slim, tannedman with bleached hair was sitting at a small table in one corner of the storewith a distraught-looking man. The thin man rose instantly, approaching Reedand Wong.

“I’m sorry, we are closed,” he said, arms shooing them away.

“Door’s open and there’s no sign,” Reed said. He noticed a woman atthe rear of the store on a telephone. She was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt,with a laminated ID clipped to her waist. Reed moved quickly. Approaching thedistraught man at the table. His widened eyes were horror-stricken, his short brownhair messed. He had a long, bloody scrape on one cheek. His clothes werestreaked with black greasy smudges. He was staring at nothing.

“Please, you’ll have to leave,” the thin man said.

“We’re here to speak to Mr. Nathan Becker.”

Bewildered, the distraught man said, “I am Nathan Becker.”

The woman on the phone materialized, and pegging Reed and Wong forpress, inserted herself between them and Becker.

According to her tag, Kim Potter was a volunteer with a victim’scrisis group. “Leave now. This man isn’t giving any press interviews.”

Wong looked at Reed. They didn’t move. Reed looked around Potter.

“Is this true, Mr. Becker? Does this woman speak for you?”

Becker was silent.

“Please leave now!” Potter raised her voice.

“Mr. Becker, we’re with The San Francisco Star. Do you wishto tell us what happened? I can’t imagine what you’re going through, but I willrespect your answer.”

Nathan Becker rubbed his hand over his face, tears streaming downhis cheeks. “We have to find him. We have to find Danny. Maggie will bedestroyed. He’s all we have.”

“Yes. What happened?” Reed stepped closer.

“Go get Inspector Turgeon,” Potter ordered the clerk. She glared atReed, angrily punching numbers into the store phone, shouting into it about “apress problem.”

Reed would have to hurry.

Trapped alone in his nightmare, Becker began.

“They won’t let me search. It was a man, I saw him for less than asecond. Bearded, white, about six feet, medium build, sandy hair, wearing acap. I stopped the train, I ran, it was too late, it happened so fast. I onlylooked away for a few seconds. He wandered to one end of the car and… — …damn it! Why wasn’t I watching him?”

Reed took notes, softly asking questions. Becker was clutching awallet-size snapshot of himself with Danny on his shoulders, laughing asDanny’s mom looked up adoringly. The radiant, white, upper-middle-class,professional family. Police were going to duplicate the photo. Wong took shotsof it, and of Becker holding it.

“Why would somebody want to take Danny, Mr. Becker?” Reed asked.

Becker didn’t know. His face disappeared into his hands. Wong’scamera clicked and the store’s entrance bells pealed.

“That’s enough!”

It was the pony-tailed woman who left earlier. Flanked by twouniformed officers, she faced Reed.

“This interview is over,” she said. The uniforms pulled Reed andWong aside and she copied their names into her leather-bound notebook. She hadhard brown eyes. “Tom Reed,” she said. “Why am I not surprised? Pull this stuntagain and you’ll be charged.”

“Ever hear of the constitution?” Reed shot back. Glimpsing her waistand id. He couldn’t get her name without being rude.

Ignoring Reed, she stepped back to the front.

“Sorry about this, Mr. Becker,” she said.

The bells rang and Sydowski filled the doorway, then walked to thestore’s rear. “Well, well, well, if this isn’t a curse.” He looked at Reed.“Everything in order…Inspector Turgeon, is it?”

“Turgeon, correct. Yes, all in order.”

“You should have taken Mr. Becker here to Ingleside Station.”

“Mikelson in General wanted him near the scene for now.”

“Yeah. I’ve just spoken with Gord. We’ll be moving Mr. Beckershortly. Now, if no one objects, I’ll take care of Mr. Reed.” Sydowski clampedReed’s arm firmly, escorting him out the rear of the shop. The two patrolmenfollowed with Wong.

Alone in the back alley, Sydowski backed Reed against a wall andwinced. His heartburn, the price he paid for eating that dog, was irritatinghim. He jabbed his finger into Reed’s chest.

“Just what the hell are you doing?”

“My job.”

“How’d you find Becker?”

“Instinct. How are you anyway?”

“Delirious. See you’re still getting paid to kill trees?”

“Sure, I’ve been promoted. I am now the patron saint of reporterswho trusted their police sources.”

“Thomas. Thomas, ask me if I give two shits,” Sydowski said.“Listen, voychik, you fucked yourself so beautifully you would’ve made amillion as a freak act. I told you to sit on the stuff you had. Didn’t I? I wasdoing you a favor, remember that.”

“Still raising little birdies, Walt?”

An unmarked car inched its way up the alley. Sydowski raised hishand, stopping it at the rear of the store.

“We’re taking Becker home now. The wife collapsed at the news.”

“What have you got?”

“Beats me.”

“C’mon.”

“A kidnapping.”

“Why did they call you to this? You’re Homicide.”

He blinked several times. “What do you think, Tom?”

“Do you think it’s a copycat?”

Sydowski looked away, and swallowed. His Adam’s apple bounced andhis face saddened. “Who knows?” he said, his eyes burning from the hotdog, theonions. The unknowns. “I have to go.”