by Rick Mofina
The steel point of a knife was pressed solidly below her eye.
She heard shouting, but did not scream.
“Mama! Mama!” Carla, her three-year-old daughter, ran to her. Someone pushed her back. Dolores pulled weakly at the arm around her throat. And she prayed because she knew she was going to die.
Please, Holy Mother, watch over my children.
Sydowski pulled his Glock from his hip holster. Turgeon had her Smith & Wesson trained on Shook’s head.
“Drop the knife, now!” Sydowski was ten feet away. Turgeon moved to Shook’s side. Shook glanced at her and said nothing.
“Everybody on the floor!” Sydowski locked eyes with Shook. “Don’t be stupid! Release the woman! We want to talk!”
Two uniformed officers entered the doorway, guns drawn. Sydowski noticed the eye of a TV news camera peeking through one of the basement windows. His fingers were sweating on the trigger of his gun. He hated this. Christ, did he hate this. Shook was encircled, four guns aimed at him. Sydowski ordered the officers into a pattern to avert crossfire.
“You can leave here dead, or you can leave here alive. But you are not leaving with the woman. Drop the knife now and release her.”
“Let me out of here or she dies and it’s on you!”
Shook cut Dolores with the knife, blood spurted down her cheek. Her children screamed.
“Officer!” Sydowski was talking to the uniform fifteen feet from Shook’s right shoulder. “Do you have a clear head shot?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Don’t try it, pig! You’ll hit her! Let me outta here. I ain’t going back in the hole.”
“We just want to talk, Virgil.”
“I ain’t going back!”
Dolores’s face was a half mask of blood. Shook twisted the knife.
Sydowski holstered his gun, raised his open hands, and eased forward. “We want to talk, Virgil. Please, let her go.”
When Shook relaxed his arm to reposition it across Dolores throat, she bit into his bicep and stomped on his foot. Shook winced, and she broke away grabbing Sydowski’s outstretched hand, flinching when she heard two shots.
They were deafening. The first bullet hit Shook in the lower neck shredding his internal and external jugulars, exiting into the ceiling. The next destroyed his trachea and spleen before lodging in his stomach. The knife went flying. He dropped to the floor.
The uniformed officer was frozen, his gun still extended. There were screams, sirens, and the smell of gun powder. Police radios crackled. Turgeon called for an ambulance. Dolores Lopez embraced her children.
Shook was on his back, making gurgling noises, blood and vomit oozing from his mouth. His white T-shirt was glistening crimson. Sydowski was on his knees, trying to obtain a dying declaration. Turgeon was there with him, listening.
“What is your name?” Sydowski said.
Shook made unintelligible noises.
“Where are the children, Virgil?”
Shook’s mouth moved. Sydowski placed an ear over it. Nothing.
“Did you take Danny Becker and Gabrielle Nunn?”
Nothing.
Sydowski touched his fingers to Shook’s neck. Was there a pulse?
Gonzales rushed in. “How bad is it?”
Turgeon shook her head. Sydowski bent over Shook’s mouth again.
Special FBI Agents Rust and Ditmire arrived.
“Oh, this is beautiful,” Ditmire said. “Just beautiful.”
Shook was still making noises when paramedics began working on him. “It’s bad. We’re losing him,” one of them said.
Sydowski stood, and ran his hand over his face. Walking away, he grabbed a chair, smashing it against the wall under the quotation:
IT IS IN DYING THAT WE ARE BORN TO ETERNAL LIFE.
FIFTY-FIVE
The new note taped to Reed’s door was scrawled in unforgiving block letters: “WHERE IS RENT? NO RENT, NO ROOM. L. Onescu.”
Reed had broken too many promises to Lila. His key didn’t work. She had changed the lock. He set down the paper bag containing his supper: two bottles of Jack Daniels and potato chips. He searched his wallet. Thirty-five bucks. His checkbook was in the room. Damn.
He walked the two blocks uphill to Lila’s building, entered the lobby, and leaned on the buzzer to her condo. No answer.
“She’s not home, Reed,” a man’s voice echoed through the intercom. “Hey, I’m surprised you’re not at work tonight.”
Reed looked into the security camera.
“Long story. I’d rather not talk about it now, Mickey.”
“Sure.”
“Where’s Lila? She leave a key for me? I have money for her.”
“Gone to visit a nephew in Tahoe. No key. Sorry, pal.”
Reed walked back, got his supper, sat in his car in front of Lila’s Edwardian rooming house, overlooking the Marina District, the Golden Gate, and the Pacific. It was night. He thought of bunking with the other tenants, or driving to a motel. He was exhausted. Maybe he would call some of the guys at the paper, ask for a couch. He took a hard hit from the bottle. Staring at San Francisco’s blinking lights, he searched for the answer to one question: “How the hell did he get here?”
He was seething. It kept him awake, made him thirsty. What had happened? He was a professional, married to an exceptional woman, blessed with a fine son. They had a good life. They were fighting to save it. They owned a good house in a good neighborhood. He had never intended to hurt anyone in this world. He worked hard. He worked honestly. Didn’t that count for anything? Didn’t it? It had to. If it counted for something then why was he in the street, swilling whiskey in the back seat of a 1977 Comet, watching the thread holding his job and sanity slowly unravel?
Wallowing in alcoholic self-pity, he looked at his situation for what it was: circumstances. Benson had thrown a fit, Reed forgot to pay his rent, and was too drunk now to go somewhere for the night. No one was to blame. He chose the car. Quit sucking on the bottle. Call it a bad day and go to sleep. Deal with it in the morning.
An engine revved rudely.
The sun pried Reed’s eyes open.
It took a moment before he realized where he was and why.
His head was shooting with lightning strikes of pain and the stench in his mouth was overpowering. The bottle was half gone, the other untouched. He saw the greasy, half-eaten bag of potato chips, and nearly puked. He needed a bathroom.
He needed a shower, a shave, a new life.
Reed spotted a kid walking by, delivering the Examiner.
“Bobby, can you spare a paper?”
The lanky teen stopped, taken aback by someone in Reed’s shape crawling out of a car in Sea Park.
“I have exactly enough for my route.”
Reed fumbled with his wallet.
“Here’s five bucks, just give me one, and buy another one.”
The kid eyed the bill, then gave him a crisply folded copy.
Reed sat on the hood of his car, letting the sun warm him, and unfolded the paper. His mind reeled, the headline screamed:
KIDNAPPING SUSPECT SHOT BY COPS IN CHURCH.
It stretched six columns over a huge color photo of a man bleeding on a stretcher. There was an inset mug of him, file photos of Tanita Donner, Danny Becker, and Gabrielle Nunn. The guy was shot in a hostage taking yesterday at a soup kitchen in an Upper Market church. He was pegged as the man behind Tanita’s murder and the two abductions.
Virgil Shook? Who was Virgil Shook?
Reed devoured the story and the sidebars. Never heard of Virgil Shook. The Examiner had nothing on Edward Keller. They got this guy in a church in the Upper Market? Didn’t he get a call from a woman connected to a church there, a woman claiming she heard the killer confess? Yes, and he had written her off as a nut.
Reed went inside, upstairs to the bathroom down the hall from his locked room. He remembered that old Jake on the third floor subscribed to the Star. Reed flushed, then took the stairs two at a tim
e, and banged on the door until Jake said, “Go away.”
“Jake, it’s Tom, Tom Reed from downstairs. It’s important.”
Jake didn’t answer.
“Jake did you get The San Francisco Star today? I just want to look at it, please! It’s important!”
Reed heard shuffling, the locks turned. Jake was wearing over-sized boxers, a T-shirt dotted with coffee stains, and a frown. He practically threw a wrinkled copy of The Star at Reed.
“Have it! Criminals are ruining this great lady of a city.”
Reed hurried to his room with Jake calling after him: “Why don’t you guys accentuate the positive of San Francisco!”
Out of habit, Reed had his key in the door to his room before remembering it wouldn’t work. Damn. His phone rang. Once, twice, three times. The machine clicked on.
“Reed, this is Benson. Your employment with The San Francisco Star is terminated today. You disobeyed my instructions. Yesterday’s hostage taking proved that your story about Edward Keller was erroneous. It was a virtual fabrication that would have left us open to a lawsuit. Personnel will mail your severance papers and payment. No letter of recommendation will be provided.”
Reed slammed his back to the door, slid to the floor, burying his face in his hands.
He couldn’t think. He was free falling. He was fired! Terminated! Blown away.
His phone rang again, but the caller hung up.
What was happening to him?
The other bottle was in the car. Untouched. Reed wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, feeling his stubble, realizing he still had The Star in his hand. He read the articles about the hostage taking with Virgil Shook, the pedophile ex-con from Canada. Molly wrote most of them. Zero about Edward Keller.
The phone rang three times. The machine clicked.
“Where are you?” Molly said. “I need your help here, Reed. Haven’t you heard, all hell’s broken loose. It’s not Edward Keller, it’s some pervert from Canada. Call me! They’ve started looking for the bodies! Get in here!”
Yeah, right.
Reed sat there, his eyes closed. He was drowning. Floundering in the awful truth.
He heard his phone ringing again. The machine got it.
“Tom, what happened?” His wife was angry. “We waited at the airport for over an hour.”
Airport? He was supposed to pick up Ann and Zach this morning.
“We’re at Mom’s. Call me.” The temperature of her voice dropped. “If you have the time.”
FIFTY-SIX
The new white minivan parked in the shade of a eucalyptus grove on Fulton in Berkeley near the university was a rental from San Jose. For two days now it had been an innocuous fixture across the street, three doors down from Doris Crane’s home. Her two-story house was framed perfectly in the van’s rearview and driver’s side mirrors.
Edward Keller watched it with the vigilance of a statue.
Occasionally he would study his reflection. He hardly recognized himself--clean shaven, his pale skin was tanning. The dye he had selected worked well, darkening his short, neat hair. He no longer saw himself. He had been transformed. He had been ordained, enlightened to show the world the wonder of God’s Love.
I am cleansed in the light of the Lord.
After his divine work in obtaining the address from the hillbilly living in the Angel’s house in San Francisco, Keller went to the public library, and scoured the directories and other registries, learning much about Doris Crane in a short time.
She was widowed in 1966 and lived alone in the house, working part-time as a secretary in Berkeley’s law department. Doris had one daughter, Ann, who had one son. He was nine years old.
Pierce Keller was nine years old.
Ann owned three children’s clothing stores in the Bay Area. Keller suspected her marriage was troubled, because she and the Angel were renting their home and living with Doris Crane. A blessing that had kept her loathsome, arrogant husband out of the way.
Keller had already met him.
Thomas the doubter.
The oaf could not grasp the meaning of his mission: helping the bereaved through the valley of the dark sun. At first, Keller did not know Reed’s role, believing he was sent to destroy his work.
But the truth was revealed.
It was destined that they should meet.
Reed was the signpost to the third Angel. It was revealed to him in Zach Reed’s birth announcement. Keller found it in the public library’s newspaper archives, Zachary Michael Reed.
It was destined. His middle name was Michael. He was Zachary Michael Reed. Zachary, father of John the Baptist, who’s birth was foretold to him by an Angel. John the martyred prophet who baptized Christ.
Michael the Archangel.
Finding Michael was challenging. For the past two days, Keller saw nothing at the house, except for Doris Crane’s comings and goings. Although he tried to remain calm and trust in the Lord, he worried. So last night he took Doris Crane’s garbage. He probed it, finding a copy of a travel company’s itinerary for Ann Reed. She had two round-trip plane tickets to Chicago. The tickets were for A. and Z. Reed. She was attending a conference at the Marriott. They were scheduled to return this morning. Keller checked his watch. The plane had landed in San Francisco two hours ago. He was convinced he would see the third Angel today. For Heaven continued to shower him with protection.
Virgil Shook was the latest miracle. His arrest and shooting had dominated the front pages of this morning’s papers. Shot him dead, some reports said.
In a church. It was preordained.
Sanctus. Sanctus. Sanctus. Keller’s mission was divine.
He was invincible.
Soon police would learn that the repulsive child abuser was not the enlightened one. The incident was divine intervention, designed to shield Keller long enough to complete his work. He was so close to the transfiguration.
Keller’s body tensed.
A cab stopped in front of Doris Crane’s house.
A woman got out of the rear passenger’s side, while the driver unloaded luggage from the trunk. The woman was in her early thirties, attractive, very business-like.
Ann Reed.
She was tired, angry, as she rummaged through her wallet and called into the cab.
“Come on, Zach, wake up, we’re home.”
Keller held his breath.
Michael. The third Angel.
The drowsy boy dragged himself out of the car. He was wearing a Chicago Bulls T-shirt, baggy jeans, new sneakers. As his mother slapped bills into the cabby’s hand, the boy wearily grabbed a canvas travel bag and trudged into the house.
Keller watched.
His heart nearly tore free from his body.
Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus. Dominus Deus sabaoth.
Michael.
Commander of Heaven’s army! Conqueror of Lucifer!
Behold!
A prince in God’s celestial court!
Michael! He had found the true Michael!
Keller had gazed upon Michael the Archangel.
And he shone with the light of one million suns.
He was overwhelmed in the presence of divine majesty. Soon, he would realize his exalted mission.
The transfiguration.
The reunification with his lost children.
It was his destiny.
Keller clasped his hands together tightly, bowed his head, touching his lips to his whitened knuckles.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Sydowski kept his promise.
Angela Donner cradled twelve white sweetheart roses in her arms, as if carrying a baby. Sydowski pushed her father, John, in his squeaking wheelchair along the pebbled paths of the cemetery to Tanita Marie’s headstone. Sydowski had vowed to make a pilgrimage to Tanita’s grave with her mother and grandfather once her murder had been solved. It had. Her death had been avenged. Her killer killed.
When they stopped at Tanita’s marker, the early morning sun was hitting the polish
ed granite. It was emblazoned in 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 the stone, 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-warmed letters of her daughter’s name. “You know, Inspector, I’ve been part of the university’s bereavement group.”
“I know.”
“I have come to accept that my baby was a lamb sacrificed for the sins of this world.”
Sydowski nodded. Angela continued.
“I see her everywhere in the faces of children. I ache when I see mothers hug their daughters. I know my baby is with God. Probably making Him laugh. I have to carry that in my heart to survive.”
“I understand.”
“Thank you for working so hard. I know you really cared. I just hope with all my heart you find the other children. Alive.”
Sydowski swallowed hard and closed his eyes. Would there be two more deaths? Two more funerals with little coffins? He needed a lead. Something. Anything. Sydowski’s pager bleated.
Clamping his teeth on his unlit cigar, Lieutenant Leo Gonzales grunted angrily, seating himself with the detectives at the table in Room 400 at the hall. By the grave way he was rearranging the fresh pages in his hands, it was a safe bet something was screwed up. Badly. This was the first status meeting of the Yellow Ribbon Task Force since Virgil Lee Shook was pronounced dead at San Francisco General sixteen hours ago. Papers and reports went round the table. The cork and chalk boards bearing maps, notes, and photos of Tanita, Danny, and Gabrielle, Shook, the suspect’s composite, and a blurry still 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 this over. We’ve got the serology tests. From the saliva on the envelopes of the intercepted letters to the families, we got an O-positive blood type. From the semen in Tanita Donner’s homicide, we got an O-positive. Shook is O-positive. And we got one of Shook’s latents on the knife used in Donner. We put the lab stuff, along with Shook’s identification through his tattoos, the Polaroids, his taped confession, and we’ve got him for Donner, with Franklin Wallace as accomplice. DNA will nail it.”