If Angels Fall

FIFTY-SEVEN

Sydowski kept his promise.

Angela Donner cradled twelve white sweetheart roses inher arms, as if carrying a baby. Sydowski pushed her father, John, in hissqueaking wheelchair along the pebbled paths of the cemetery to Tanita Marie’sheadstone. Sydowski had vowed to make a pilgrimage to Tania’s grave with hermother and grandfather once her murder had been solved. It had. Her death hadbeen avenged. Her killer killed.

When they stopped at Tanita’s marker, the earlymorning sun was hitting the polished granite. It was emblazoned in the light.The grounds were silent but for the distant traffic, and John’s soft moans.Sydowski patted his shoulder.

Angela knelt, setting the flowers at the foot of thestone, kissing it as a breeze rolled through the oaks sheltering Tanita’s plot.Tears streaked her face as she caressed the epitaph tracing the sun-warmedletters of her daughter’s name. “You know, Inspector, I’ve been part of theuniversity’s bereavement group.”

“I know.”

“I have come to accept that my baby was a lambsacrificed for the sins of this world.”

Sydowski nodded. Angela continued.

“I see her everywhere in the faces of children. I achewhen I see mothers hug their daughters. I know my baby is with God. Probablymaking Him laugh. I have to carry that in my heart to survive.”

“I understand.”

“Thank you for working so hard. I know you reallycared. I just hope with all my heart you find the other children. Alive.”

Sydowski swallowed hard and closed his eyes. Wouldthere be two more deaths? Two more funerals with little coffins? He needed alead. Something. Anything. Sydowski’s pager bleated.

Clamping his teeth on his unlit cigar, Lieutenant LeoGonzales grunted angrily, seating himself with the detectives at the table inRoom 400 at the hall. By the grave way he was rearranging the fresh pages inhis hands. It was a safe bet something was fucked. Badly. This was the firststatus meeting of the Yellow Ribbon Task Force since Virgil Lee Shook waspronounced dead at San Francisco General sixteen hours ago. Papers and reportswent round the table. The cork and chalk boards bearing maps, notes, and photosof Tanita, Danny, and Gabrielle, Shook, the suspect’s composite, and a blurrystill of him from the home video, were again wheeled to one end of the room.

“Listen up. It’s just like we figured. No way is thisover. We’ve got the serology tests. From the saliva on the envelopes of theintercepted letters to the families, we got an O-positive blood type. From thesemen in Tanita Donner’s homicide, we got an O-positive. Shook is O-positive.And we got one of Shook’s latent’s on the knife used in Donner. We put the labstuff, along Shook’s identification through his tattoos, the Polaroids, histaped confession, and we’ve got him for Donner, with Franklin Wallace asaccomplice. DNA will nail it.”

“What’s the problem?” Lonnie Ditmire wondered.

Gonzales halted the question with his hand. “Let mefinish.” He shuffled his papers. “The blood-typing tests on Gabrielle Nunn’ssevered braids found in the Sunset were redone. We just got the results.Gabrielle is A-positive. Shook, O-positive. The problem is, the blood on herhair is B-positive, a male Caucasian.”

“Just like we feared, we’ve still got another playerout there,” Turgeon said.

“Exactly.” Gonzales dropped the pages, as the impactsank in.

“Could we have some kind of pedophile ring goinghere?” asked Bill Kennedy, Deputy Chief of Investigations.

“Could be,” Gonzales said.

“What about Shook’s friend, Perry William Kindhart?”Nick Roselli, Chief of Inspectors, asked. “Have we leaned on him, Walt?”

“We’ve leaned hard. He’s got a lawyer now. We’ve gotnothing on him. No leverage. He’s under surveillance.”

“What about the taped confessions, Florence Schaferand the priest, people at the shelter, Shook’s past?” Roselli said.

“Nothing substantial beyond what we’ve already got.”

“What about Shook’s place in the Tenderloin?” Gonzalessaid.

Sydowski, Turgeon, Ditmire, Rust, and several othersfrom the task force had scoured Shook’s room overnight and into the earlymorning hours.

“More pictures of Shook with Tanita,” Rust said. “Adiary detailing his desires. He mentions Wallace, taunting the police withconfessions, and he wrote that whoever took Becker and Nunn was making it hardfor him to ‘go hunting’. At this point, it looks like Donner and the recentabductions are unrelated.”

“What about Kindhart?” Roselli Said. “Is hementioned?”

“In passing,” Sydowski said. “Other than the cameralink to Donner, we got nothing that puts him with any of the cases.”

“Claire”-Gonzales turned to Inspector Claire Ward, theexpert on cults-“you went to Shook’s place. Anything there to suggest a cultconnection?”

“Other than the fact we maybe have a minimum of threepeople involved in the abductions, absolutely nothing.”

Kennedy loosened his tie. “So what have we got on Mr.B Positive? We’ve got a blurry video of him stalking Gabrielle Nunn in GoldenGate. We have a composite, but it is still too vague. What else we got?”

“We know he stalked Gabrielle and took her dog, whichhe used later to lure her away,” Turgeon said.

“Right, and we’ve got a partial plate on the truck, anold Ford with a California tag beginning with “B” or “8”, something like that.”

“And there’s the meat tray found near the yard.”Ditmire added.

“How’s Rad Zwicker doing in Records with that poolbased on the partial?” Roselli wanted to know. “Anything that ties Shook to thetruck or any vehicle?”

“Nothing yet.” Gonzales flipped through his reports.“We don’t have a specific year on the truck. We do have the first threecharacters on the tag: ‘B75’. That gives us a pool, of what? Something over athousand. They’re being checked individually.”

Sydowski had an idea. “Did we check parking ticketsfor all Ford pickups with the partial at Golden Gate the day Gabrielle wastaken?”

Gonzales nodded. “Zwicker did that, through traffic.Zip, Walt.”

Turgeon thought of something else. “Did we check for ticketsfor all pickups with that partial in and around the Nunn home in the Sunsetprior to her abduction, say for the past six months? Because he was stalkingher, he would have spent time in her neighborhood.”

“I don’t think we did it specifically with thatpartial tag, Linda. Hang on.” Gonzales reached for a phone and punchedZwicker’s extension, and ordered the check done immediately then hung up.“He’ll get back to us,” he said.

Roselli rolled up his sleeves. “We could try runningdown names of all Caucasian males with B-positive blood between thirty andsixty years old in mental institutions and Bay Area hospitals. We could do thesame with recent releases from county, state, and federal jails. Garrett andMalloy, you take that,” Notes were made.

Using the bar code from the meat wrapper, InspectorMarty Baker came up with a list of eighty stores where the meat could have beenpurchased. He narrowed the purchase time line to four days prior to the dogsnatching.

Kennedy liked that lead. “Work up a hot info sheet.We’ll get uniforms and anyone we can spare to canvas the stores and the‘hoods.”

Gonzales turned to Inspectors Gord Mikelson and HalZolm from General Works. After Shook died, they went to the parents of DannyBecker and Gabrielle Nunn to assure them no concrete evidence had surfacedsuggesting Danny and Gabrielle had been harmed, that police suspected Shook wasinvolved in the abductions only because he claimed he was. It was not unusualfor people like Shook to make such claims. The task force was working to verifytheir validity.

“How did it go, Gord?”

“Not good.”

“The parents believe their children are dead and theyblame us for not keeping Shook alive to get information.”

Gonzales nodded. He had no quarrel with the familiesright to be outraged.

The meeting stretched into a two-hour affair.

“We should check every death — criminal, accidental,or natural, involving children of the same age and gender as Danny andGabrielle.” Sydowski said. “Call Sacramento and do it through vitalstatistics.”

“How far back?”

Sydowski did some quick math. “Twenty years ago.”

“Do you know how many you’re talking about for theentire state?” Ditmire said.

“Narrow it to the Bay Area. If he’s taking kids fromhere, the tragedy likely happened here,” Sydowski said.

“Could check with mental hospitals, private clinics,and psychiatric associations for any cases that might fit with what we’ve gothere,” Rust said, tapping his canister of chewing tobacco on his chin.

Kennedy wanted the streets sifted for anything on new kiddie porn operations inthe west. Rust pledged the FBI’s help on that front.

Roselli and Kennedy decided on releasing a short pressstatement saying they believe Virgil Lee Shook was responsible for the murderof Tanita Marie Donner, but they had nothing to confirm he is linked to theBecker/Nunn kidnappings, only that vigorous investigations by the task forceare ongoing. It would go out at three that afternoon.

The meeting was ending when the phone rang forGonzales. Gonzales said nothing, took notes, then slammed the phone down with agrin.

“Son-of-a-bitch! We got a hit on a 1978 Ford pickuptagged for parking near a hydrant three blocks from the Nunn home in theSunset. It was one week before the dog vanished. Brilliant work, Turgeon! Theold Son of Sam parking ticket probe. Son of a fucking bitch!”

Kennedy looked at the address Gonzales had taken forthe pickup. “Let’s move on this now!”