by Rick Mofina
Wheeler was answered with silence.
“Mr. Urlich, Warren?”
Nothing.
“Did you hear me, sir?”
“I heard you, I just don’t believe you. This a joke?”
“We’ll sound a police siren now.”
Wheeler nodded to Shaw, who signaled Brader and the Suburban’s siren yelped.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“We’ll discuss everything when you come out.”
As Urlich and Wheeler talked, SWAT team members tightened on the house, peeking inside windows with miniature dental mirrors. A girl of about seven or eight was playing with a doll near the back door. In a heartbeat, an agent grabbed her, clasping his hand over her mouth, removing her to the outer perimeter.
Shaw, listening on his headset radio, nodded, and whispered to Wheeler, “We have a girl removed safely. She says it’s just the man and a boy inside now and the man has lots of guns and bullets.”
On the phone, Urlich--who did not know the girl was gone--had not decided to cooperate with Wheeler.
“You make me kinda nervous,” Urlich said. “Can’t we just talk on the line here? ’Cause if it’s about them kids, I don’t know nothin’. That’s Norm’s business and I ain’t a part of it.”
“It would be much better, Warren, if we could talk face to face.”
Shaw had more information.
“The girl says she and the boy were brought to the property a couple of weeks ago.”
Urlich was getting impatient. “I told you I don’t know nothing about nothing.”
“I didn’t say you did. We just want to talk, maybe you can help us on a serious matter. Maybe this is all a misunderstanding. Please come out now, sir. Help us clear things up, so we can be on our way.”
Several seconds passed before Urlich said, “I’m coming out.”
Wheeler told Shaw, who alerted the unit. Nearly a dozen FBI guns were trained on Urlich’s front door. It cracked open. A long, rifle-like object slowly extended from it. A white dishrag was tied to what turned out to be a broom. A weathered man in his sixties, dressed in stained overalls crept out.
“Please put the object down, Warren.” A loudspeaker ordered.
He obeyed, looking around for the source as his pit bull howled, leaping at his chain toward him in a futile attempt to warn him of the SWAT member who stepped from the front of the house and forced Urlich to his knees, frisking and handcuffing him before escorting him to the command post.
Rust, Sydowski, Ditmire, Turgeon, Brader, and Shaw took Urlich aside. Urlich’s eyes went round the group. He seemed indifferent. Rust and Sydowski began asking questions. Urlich answered them, and before long they realized they were on the right track, but at the wrong address. The children, a five-year-old boy and his seven-year-old sister, were Urlich’s grandchildren, his son Norman’s kids. Norman had lost a custody fight, and last month he had abducted them from his ex-wife in Dayton, Ohio, and brought them here.
“This is what this show is all about, ain’t it?”
Inside the shack, they found two kids’ video-movie membership cards for a store in Dayton and two juvenile library cards for Dayton. Calls made to the store, the library, and Dayton PD were further confirmation of a parental abduction, contrary to a court custody order. The children would be returned immediately to Mom in Ohio.
Meanwhile, two agents who checked every wreck on the grounds approached Rust. “No pickup, sir,” one agent said.
Rust turned to Urlich. “According to California’s Department of Motor Vehicles, you own a 1978 Ford pickup, license ‘B754T3.’ Where is it?”
Rust held an information sheet before Urlich’s face. He leaned forward, hands still cuffed behind his back, squinting at the page.
“I can’t see. My glasses are in my bib here.”
Urlich was uncuffed. He slipped on his glasses, studied the page.
“I sold that thing months ago to some fella from San Francisco. For cash. Got a bill of sale in the house.”
“Why is this truck currently registered to you?” Sydowski said.
“Guess the registration never got changed like it was supposed to.”
“What’s the buyer’s name?” Rust asked.
“I got it in the house, in my office.”
Urlich’s office was a cracked rolltop desk buried under mounds of auto magazines, newspapers, brochures, junk mail, notes, and phone books. Amazingly he reached into the heap and pulled out a slip of paper, smudged with engine grease. The pickup’s bill of sale.
Rust looked at it, cursed, and gave it to Sydowski.
John Smith had bought the truck.
“Says here he also bought a boat and trailer from you.”
“Yes. Northcraft with twin Mercs. Paid nine thousand for the whole shooting match.”
“He said he was from San Francisco?” Sydowski was taking notes.
“Yes.”
“Why come out here to buy a truck and boat?”
Urlich shrugged. “I only advertised the truck.”
“You advertised? In what?”
Urlich reached into the pile again, retrieving an automotive buy-and-sell magazine. “I put all my stock in here.” He licked a finger, casually browsing through the pictures of cars and trucks, each bearing an information caption. “Goes all over Northern California. Here it is.” He tapped the picture.
Rust and Sydowski stared at a profile photo of the Ford pickup truck used in the abduction of Gabrielle Nunn from the Children’s Playground at Golden Gate Park.
“You got a picture of the boat and trailer?” Sydowski said.
Urlich indicated his paper pile. “In there somewheres.”
“You got any of the nine thousand he gave you left?” Rust said.
“Yup, why?”
“Can we see it?”
Urlich fished a jingling key chain from his coveralls and unlocked a drawer, then a metal strong box containing several envelopes filled with cash. “Some is deposits on my stock.” He handed Rust an envelope containing several fifty and hundred-dollar notes. They were fresh-from-the-mint bills with sequential serial numbers. They could yield the suspect’s prints. And the Secret Service and Treasury people might be able to give the task for a point-of-circulation bank.
“Can you remember what this man looked like?” Sydowski said.
Urlich scratched his chin.
“Any distinguishing scars, tattoos, any memorable speech patterns?”
“No,” Urlich said, before giving a vague, useless description.
“He come with anybody?”
Urlich shook his head. “Said he hitchhiked.”
“Hitchhiked?” Sydowski took a note. “Any idea at all where he lived? Worked? His phone number?”
Urlich shook his head. “Nope. I see quite a few people and it was a long time ago.”
“Anything about him that sticks in your mind?” Turgeon said.
Urlich couldn’t recall anything.
“He say what he needed the truck for?” Ditmire said.
“Nope.”
“What about the boat?” Sydowski wondered. “He say anything about it? He came for a truck and leaves with a truck and boat.”
“Now that you mention it, he was something of a holy man about the boat.”
“A holy man?” Ditmire said.
“Yes, he came for the truck and fell in love with the boat. He said it was destiny that he should find such a boat.”
“Destiny?”
“Destiny or fate, as I recall.”
“In what way?” Sydowski said.
“Well, I never advertised the boat. It was just sitting here, not really for sale and he spots it and starts on some Bible mumbo jumbo.”
“You remember any of it?”
“Just that it was about life and death, resurrection.”
“Resurrection?” Sydowski said. “He sees this boat and talks about resurrection?”
“Guess it had something to do with why he n
eeded the boat.”
“He say why he needed that boat?” Rust asked.
“Well...after that he sort of clammed up, it was like he was talking to himself and suddenly remembered I was there.”
“Did he say why he needed the boat?” Sydowski pushed.
Urlich appraised Sydowski, Rust, and the others, chuckling at his memory before sharing it. “Said he needed it to find his children.”
To find his children?
The law men stared at each other, bewildered.
During the return flight to San Francisco, several intense calls were made to the Hall of Justice and Golden Gate Avenue. The entire task force was to meet within ninety minutes.
SIXTY
Zach forced himself to quit bawling like an overgrown baby. Jeff and Gordie would laugh at him, but it hurt. Everything was coming apart. His folks were really splitting. The kids at school were right. When your folks split and move out, they never get back together, no matter what they tell you.
Right after the big blowup with Dad, Mom went to her room, and slammed the door. He heard her crying, wailing like he had never heard before. It scared him. Her sobbing tore at his heart.
He didn’t know what to do. But he had to do something, had to grow up and do something.
He opened his school backpack and was shoving stuff in it. He had made a decision. He was going to Gordie’s. He’d stay with his pal. He’d get away.
He stuffed his CD player, Batman comics, Swiss army knife, penlight, Walkman, some underwear, and balled up some pants, socks, shirts, and a jacket into his pack. He dropped to his knees and carefully slid out the envelope he kept hidden under the big dresser in his room. It contained his life savings: $117.14.
Zach hoisted the bag on his back, slipped out of the house, and trotted off, growing angrier and more determined with each step he took along Fulton.
Mom and Dad were breaking a promise.
This is how you measured a person’s worth, by the number of promises they broke.
It just wasn’t fair.
He headed toward Center. He knew the way to BART. He’d take it to San Francisco and then take a cab to Gordie’s house. They could call Jeff and catch up on stuff, talk about old times. Maybe he could move in with Gordie. Maybe there was some way he and Gordie could become brothers. Maybe sign some court papers or something. Gordie’s mother and father never fought. Gordie’s dad was an accountant and was always home.
It was kind of nice being on his own. Before he got on BART, he’d stop at that hobby store along the way and buy that monster-sized model of the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk. He could take it with him to Gordie’s and he could help him put it together. That would be cool!
He was on his own now. They didn’t need him around in Berkeley anymore. Zach sniffed as he waited for the light to change at an intersection. He glanced over his shoulder and noticed a white van a few car lengths away. Funny.
Looks like the same doof that was hangin’ out near his grandma’s place earlier. So what? Zach shrugged off his curiosity.
SIXTY-ONE
One cherry had tumbled into place.
Two more and they had a jackpot.
Sydowski loosened his tie as everyone settled around the conference table in Room 400 at the hall. Most had to stand. Gonzales wheeled a new chalkboard into place, in front of its predecessor bearing the blown-up faces of Tanita Marie Donner, Danny Becker and Gabrielle Nunn, and the map with its color locator pins. The new board had enlarged color photos of the Ford pickup, the boat, and trailer.
They were on the bad guy’s trail.
The next cherry would be his identity.
And the next would be finding him with the kids. Sydowski sipped his coffee, bit into his chicken sandwich. He and the others had returned from Calaveras in time to grab stale food from the cafeteria before the meeting. The pickup truck lead kicked it all into overdrive. More people had been brought in.
“We’ve got new information, so listen up, we’ll be handing out assignments.” Gonzales stood at the new board, examining the new material in his file folder. “The IDENT team left behind in Calaveras just lifted two latents from the new bills left over in the buy of the suspect pickup. They match the single latent we found on the wrapping of the hamburger used to lure Gabrielle Nunn’s dog. We pumped them through the system. Zilch.”
“We are also checking all prints of anyone who has ever been bonded in the state--private investigators, armored car guards, state and federal workers, just to make sure we’ve covered everything.”
Adam McCurdy, chief of Investigations, interjected. “The chief will hold a press conference this afternoon to make a public appeal for information on the pickup and the boat and trailer, reiterating the reward. He will say that we believe Virgil Lee Shook is responsible for the murder of Tanita Marie Donner, but that we have nothing linking him to the abduction of Becker and Nunn. He will state that the suspect in those kidnappings is still at large. We’ll add whatever new information is pertinent.”
Gonzales nodded.
“We’re sending out alerts on the truck and the boat, targeting marinas.” Gonzales flipped through his file. “Treasury’s still working on the serial numbers of the new bills to determine point of circulation. So far they have narrowed it to a San Francisco bank. And, on the hamburger...” Gonzales found another data sheet. “A brick wall. Because the label was damaged, we could only confirm it as a purchase in the city. And, on the boat and trailer: same as the pickup, no change in registration. Still comes up to Urlich.”
As Gonzales summarized the case, Sydowski finished his sandwich, slipped on his glasses, and made notes, his theories and hunches percolating, extracting the essence of a vital angle he knew he had overlooked. It tried to surface during the chopper flight back from West Point, flailing in his subconscious as the patchwork of vineyards, pasturelands, orchards, towns, and urban sprawl rolled below. It was difficult to converse through the helicopter’s intercom, leaving each person alone with his thoughts as they thundered back to San Francisco. Now, sitting in Room 400, Sydowski replayed them, trying again to catch the key hidden aspect that had been gnawing at him.
It had been so long since he talked with his daughters. He was consumed with the case. It was national news. The girls called him regularly, the red message light blinking at him from his machine almost every night when he got home. “Saw you on TV, Dad, hope you’re taking care of yourself.” Geneva, his firstborn daughter, sounded like her mother.
Then came his second daughter, Irene, forever the baby of the family. “Hey, Pop, I know you’re busy, call us when you get a chance. Oh, Louise wants to leave a message, go ahead, honey.”
“Hi, Grandpa! I saw you on TV, I love you.”
It was always too late for him to call back. He rarely had a free moment to check on his old man. And he was likely going to miss the Seattle bird show.
Sydowski glimpsed Turgeon taking notes intensely. She was wearing a powder-blue pullover sports shirt, navy Dockers, and glasses. Her hair was up in a bun, accentuating her pretty face, her youth. She could pass for a Berkeley grad at a lecture. But she was a veteran cop, a good investigator with good instincts, and although he hadn’t known her very long, he was glad she was his partner. He found a degree of paternal comfort in her presence.
Sydowski chided himself for drifting, the key aspect escaping him stemmed from the Donner file...a common denominator with Donner...Christ, it was at the forefront of his memory, sitting there slightly out of focus. Something Angela Donner had told him.
Gonzales moved the review along. “Now I’ll turn it over to Bob Hill of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia. He flew in this morning, Bob.”
A self-conscious smile of acknowledgement flashed across the long face of the lanky soft-spoken supervisory agent. Hill was in his late forties and had a gently cerebral air about him.
“As you know, I’ve been assisting on the profile in this case since Danny Becker’s abduction, when
the unit was contacted. I’d like to caution you about putting all your eggs in one psychological basket. The profile is only a tool, as you know.” Hill was acutely aware many case-hardened investigators view psychological profiling as some form of voodoo. “But each development helps us to sharpen it. May I use the board, Lieutenant?”
Gonzales helped reposition the board so everyone could see. Then Hill took a finger of chalk, and summarized the profile.
“Based on our reading of everything so far, you have a profoundly wounded Caucasian, late forties, early fifties, traumatized by some horrible life-altering event involving children. He either caused it, witnessed it, or was close enough to it to be affected. We could assume it involved his children. And given his age and the ages of the kidnap victims, it likely happened twenty to twenty-five years ago. He has likely sought some kind of therapy, or help, which failed to ease whatever psychological pain he has suffered.”
A detective had a question. “Could this guy have been sexually abused as a child, and is grabbing the children as a form of payback?”
“Traditionally, that is the case in abduction-sexual-homicides with children. In fact, based on what we know of the Donner-Shook matter, I would say that’s what happened there. Predatory pedophiles usually seize their prey when no one is watching. Tanita Donner was stolen from her home when nobody was around to see. But what you have with Becker and Nunn is rare, bold daylight abductions of young children from their parents in crowded, public places. Your guy is on a mission, he feels protected. He’s so far gone in his fantasy that he thinks nothing can touch him. Andrei Chikatilo, the Russian serial killer who murdered fifty-three boys, girls, and young women between 1978-1980, told police after his arrest that during his killing spree, he felt at times that ‘he was concealed from other people by a black hood.’ Well, I believe our guy here is similar in that he thinks he is on a righteous mission.”
“What kind of mission?” someone asked.
“A religious one.”