Tom Reed Thriller Series

by Rick Mofina

  THIRTY

  Sydowski lived just north of Stern Grove in a modest two-story house in Parkside where he and his wife had raised their daughters. The girls were grown, married, had children of their own and lived in the East. They flew out to visit him and his old man on holidays. He wished it were more often.

  Sydowski’s grandchildren loved his backyard with its plush lawn, stone walks, shrubs, flowers and the little aviary he built with its curtained flower-box windows, tucked like a fairy-tale cottage in one corner under an oak tree.

  He ducked his head, entering the doorway of the aviary to the cooing of several dozen birds, the ribbons, and trophies won at bird shows on the paneled walls, the rocker the girls got him one Father’s Day. His new-bred Budgerigars he picked up last year were coming along since he fortified their seed mix with calcium. He loved their opaline and cinnamon wing markings.

  Checking the food and water supply of his birds, he remembered how he began raising them. Years ago, a friend gave one to his wife as a gift. He was enchanted by its song and how it soothed him, especially when he was grappling with his darkest cases. He inspected a nest of two fledgling fancies, ten days old. He got them from Louise after they met at last year’s Seattle bird fair. His old man was right. He had to sort out things with her soon.

  To work now.

  Sydowski sat in his rocker, closing his eyes, the cooing transporting him into his homicide.

  Iris Wood’s killer seethed with rage and wanted the world to know, to know that somehow she was to blame. That’s why she was displayed. That was his signature here. It was almost artful, surpassing just about anything Sydowski had experienced.

  You’re smart but you couldn’t overcome the unforeseen. The city was doing some roadwork on Crestlake where you grabbed her. You missed it in the dark, the fog.

  After Sydowski put Crime Scene on it, one of the senior techs had called him, to confidentially alert him that maybe, just maybe, they had something.

  “Walt, this guy was extremely careful. Actually he’s probably the cleanest I’ve ever seen. What you noticed out there got by everybody. This could be the break we need but we’re going to need time for more tests, maybe send stuff out. You know, Walt, in the literature, this is the most commonly missed piece of evidence.”

  Sydowski’s phone extension in the aviary rang.

  “Hi, it’s Louise.”

  “Hi there.”

  “I’m glad I caught you at home. Are you going to be there much longer?”

  “A little while.”

  “Have you eaten dinner yet?”

  “I was just going to make something.”

  “Don’t. I’ll be right over.”

  A short time later, Louise stood on his doorstep. Smiling in her lavender slacks, matching sweater, purse over her shoulder, hands gripping the handles of two large shopping bags laden with hot take-out food.

  “Hope you’re hungry, buddy.”

  “What’s this?”

  “Caesar’s salad, sirloin, baked potatoes, steamed vegetables, fresh bread. I’m in town for a while making a series of national commercials for an over-the-counter aid. I am a busy restaurant owner with a bladder-control problem.”

  They set the table with plates and utensils.

  “The restaurant where we’re shooting is making a killing. They went overboard cooking for the crew. We just knocked off and I thought of you.”

  “This is terrific.” Sydowski helped her set out the food. “But I’m expecting a call and may have to rush off.”

  “That’s okay, Walter.”

  During dinner, they talked about her commercial, his visit to his old man, birds, and the case.

  “Have you worked things out over your old partner, Reggie, with that detective you were telling me about, Wyatt?”

  “I told him to keep out of the way because he’s not a real cop.”

  “Don’t you think you were unduly harsh?”

  “No. What are you getting at?”

  “Maybe seeing your old partner on the street, picking through trash, underscored your guilt over losing touch with him?”

  “Why are you defending Wyatt? He’s the reason Reggie’s like he is.”

  “No, it’s not like that.”

  “Sounds like it to me.”

  “You told me that you felt bad for losing touch with Reggie. Then to have Wyatt assigned to your case probably worsens those feelings.”

  “Damn right.”

  “When what you really want to do is help Reggie. Beating up Wyatt doesn’t help Reggie.”

  “What the hell are you getting at? Wyatt’s a goddamn liability.”

  “You’re not listening, Walter.”

  Sydowski’s cell phone began trilling.

  “You’ve never met Wyatt. He’s a coward, a waste of skin. He’s the walking, talking reason Reggie’s got a bullet in his spine.”

  The phone kept ringing.

  “Listen to me, Walter, I’ve talked to some lawyer friends about Reggie’s case.”

  “You did what?”

  Sydowski’s house phone was now ringing.

  “Louise, what do you think gives you the right --”

  “We can help your friend. You said you wished there was a way to help him and there might be.”

  “So you just started telling lawyers about Reggie?”

  Sydowski shook his head. The phones kept ringing.

  “Walter, please just listen to me. The lawyers made some calls to friends at the city’s legal department. It seems Reggie may have grounds for a civil claim --”

  He was glaring at her for crossing a line.

  “Walter are you going to --” Louise grabbed the phone. “Hello!”

  Stunned silence at the caller’s end, then a request.

  “He’s right here. It’s Linda.” Louise thrust the phone at him.

  He took the call, watching Louise collect her things.

  “Hello, Walt?” Turgeon said. “What are you up to there?”

  “Louise, wait!”

  The door opened.

  Turgeon sensed a problem at his end. “Walter? What did you do?”

  “Just a minute.” He hurried to the door, to watch her Chrysler pull away. “Damn it.” He went back to the phone.

  “So, Walt, you used your free time to fight with your girl?”

  “You ready to work on the case?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll meet you at the Hall.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  At the detail, Sydowski launched a pre-emptive strike at the question on Turgeon’s lips.

  “I’m not going to talk about Louise. Don’t waste your words, or our time. Let’s get to work.”

  “Fine, Walt. But there’s not much here.”

  Sydowski removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. As twilight brushed over the city, they worked alone in the darkened homicide detail under the sixty-watt halos of gooseneck lamps. Turgeon was in jeans and an old academy T-shirt, her hair clamped in a small bun, wearing her new glasses, which reflected the pages as she studied her portion of traffic-unit patrol logs, statements, reports on the insurance company’s policyholders, employees, Iris Wood’s neighbors.

  Sydowski sat across from her, his tired eyes peering sadly through his bifocals, as he wet his forefinger and worked through the summaries of all unsolved ritualistic California homicides that might be related to this one. Some decapitations, some limb and finger removal out of L.A., but all were suspected to be gang or drug related. The other detectives in San Francisco’s homicide detail were kicking his case around. Most of the city’s murders were shootings, stabbings, beatings, arson murders, very few with ritualistic overtones like this case. It was frustrating.

  The only sounds in the room were Turgeon’s annoying pen tapping and Sydowski’s crunching of a Tums to sooth his heartburn from his dinner and flare-up with Louise.

  “Walt, are you ever going to make a full submission to VICAP?”

  “Maybe. Go hom
e if you’re bored.”

  “Walt. I’ve talked with Dee, the FBI VICAP coordinator at Golden Gate. She’s urging us to make a full submission to Quantico. Have you read the latest item on VICAP in the Law Enforcement Bulletin?”

  Sydowski ignored her. Turgeon rummaged around for the article, determined to bring him into this century. She skimmed it again, reading parts aloud to Sydowski.

  The Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, known as VICAP, is the FBI’s national computerized database which analyzes, collates, and searches for links in murders and serious violent offences of cases submitted to it. The brainchild of Pierce Brooks, an LAPD detective who, in the 1950s, had a case of a killer who was placing ads in Los Angeles-area newspapers seeking women to model. The killer would take their pictures, rape them, then hang them. Brooks suspected his murders were linked to others beyond his jurisdiction so he went to the public library to search for similar murders in out-of-town newspapers. Sure enough, he found other cases with enough links and evidence to track and arrest the killer. The FBI picked up on his idea and worked with him over the years to develop a central computerized data system for police to quickly share information on mobile suspects.

  “Any of this sinking in, Walter? He sought outside help.”

  “I know all about VICAP.” Sydowski’s attention was on his files. “I’d like to do a little more work on my case, please.”

  “We live in a new century, old-timer.”

  Turgeon kept reading.

  VICAP requires detectives to complete some 95 questions detailing every known aspect of the victim, the suspect, the crime scene, including key facts or hold-back evidence. Once a case is submitted, FBI analysts continually compare all submitted files with others searching for matches, signatures, patterns. When they get a hit, detectives are alerted but their hold-back evidence is never revealed.

  While using VICAP was not a legal requirement, the article said more jurisdictions were making VICAP submissions obligatory because more success stories were emerging. The downside, as Turgeon knew, was that many detectives were pathologically opposed to giving up their hold-back evidence to anyone. Sydowski was one of them. It did not matter how many security assurances the FBI offered, Sydowski refused to give up his most important evidence, or details connected to it.

  “So, Walt. Are you ready to give it a try?”

  Sydowski kept his head in his files, making notes to talk to the unit in State Parole on fugitive parolees, or to check if those on the high-risk psychotic list reside near the Grove, or Iris Wood’s apartment. Maybe some had impersonated police officers before. Then there was the Special Services Unit. Could spread the word among their sources.

  “Walt? Are you listening to me? You know they guard your hold-back. Cripes, you won’t even let me go over to the VICAP terminal and let us make our own queries because you think somehow your hold-back will leak out if I query northern California and all unsolved murders of white females involving facial mutilation or stun guns, or anything to give us a lead.”

  “We’ve got a lead.”

  “Not yet. The lab’s still working.”

  “Keep it down, Linda.”

  “I just don’t get you. You refuse to let Wyatt help us. He’s an expert on computers.”

  “That guy is useless.”

  Turgeon grabbed a file. “This old fashioned manual files stuff is useless when we have computer programs designed to do the same damned thing.”

  Sydowski’s eyes burned into Turgeon’s over his bifocals. “You know what Wyatt did when I walked in on him at Iris Wood’s apartment the other day?”

  Turgeon waited for his answer.

  “He pulled his weapon on me.”

  “What?”

  “Pulls his gun on me. Sitting in her apartment alone and draws down on me. This is the guy who freezes so Reggie Pope can take a round in the back, then pulls his gun on me. On me. Walking into a room.” Sydowski jabbed his finger at Turgeon. “And you, of all people, Don’s little girl, should fathom what that says about this man.”

  Turgeon had been ten years old when her dad, SFPD Officer Don Turgeon, was shot and killed on duty.

  “Walt. Where is all this coming from?”

  “I should write him up.”

  “Walt, you’re not thinking about the case.”

  “And you want me to give that walking, talking mistake the most precious pieces of solid, unchallengeable, physical, golden evidence we have, so he can play computer games with it? So he can take off into cyber-land asking if anybody’s got a lead on the killer. Talk about a useless waste of time. He might as well light a candle and make shadow puppets.”

  “Walt, I know he is good.”

  Sydowski yanked off his glasses. “Good? I’ll tell you what happened when he slipped one of his magic computer disks into Iris Wood’s machine. It got fried. Zapped. FBI friend told me Wyatt’s trying to keep it quiet, so he can figure out what went wrong.”

  “Walt, just set your feelings aside about Reggie and give Wyatt a chance. We need him.”

  “I will not use Iris Wood’s murder so that loser can make his life better.” Sydowski stopped and ran a hand across his weary face.

  “Then give up your evidence to VICAP.”

  “No.”

  “It’s the only way we’ll find a comparable case. You said it yourself, he’s likely got a history. Everyone agrees. If he’s done it before let’s talk to people.”

  “Christ, Linda, the case is just unfolding. We have a thread, a thread of evidence. If it leaks out, if the killer gets wind, we’ve lost him forever.”

  “I think I’m going to call it a night.”

  Turgeon left.

  Sydowski stayed for a long time reading everything they had on Iris Wood’s case. It wasn’t much. Eventually he locked it in a secure cabinet.

  Driving home, he returned to the Stern Grove. Again, he parked his car in the same spot she had halted hers for her killer.

  They had scoured city, county, state, federal, and private security vehicles for the Bay Area, patrol logs, dispatcher records, personnel schedules, motor pool, and maintenance lists.

  Nothing had surfaced.

  Reed’s tipster, the paroled addict thief, was good, he gave them a time and his account fit with the shred of evidence. But Sydowski was convinced the killer was not a cop but a guy who posed as a cop. Dash cherries were easy to obtain.

  Sydowski got out of his car and carefully retraced Iris Wood’s last steps. Nobody at the Hall of Justice knew that he had put in calls to the few homicide detectives across the country he trusted with his life. They were secretly checking his file with similar unsolveds in their yard. Apart from that, he was counting on the lab to come through with more information on the trace they found here and in the bridal shop.

  That’s all I need. Just a little more to give me a little more.

  He stood there in the darkness, Iris Wood’s picture in his breast pocket.

  THIRTY-TWO

  The most powerful lab on earth lies about an hour east of San Francisco, on Interstate 580, in valleys ringed by sunlit hillsides, ranches and vineyards.

  Behind the chain link fences, the armed guard posts, the pan-tilt-zoom cameras, and the motion detectors, the University of California and the U.S. Department of Energy operate the Livermore lab.

  Here, a variety of complexes house an array of top-secret research critical to the planet’s security. Among them: America’s nuclear and laser weapons systems, and the computer programs operating and protecting them.

  Randy Gricks was a computer security director with Livermore’s highest level of security access. The lab’s state-of-the-art security network stored his personal identification code, biometrics data drawn from his voice, face, eyes, and hands. All encrypted.

  On his way out today, his decryption key was activated and he was gradually cleared to leave the facility when he swiped his Livermore badge at successive remote-access panels. His departure and license plate were v
ideo-recorded when he drove his new lime-green VW Beetle from the gate a few miles away to a Taco Bell at an interstate strip mall to meet Inspector Ben Wyatt of the SFPD.

  Gricks was a son of California, born in Mountain View. He had studied at Berkeley, Stanford, and MIT before he was recruited from sophisticated spy satellite research projects into the government’s ultra-secret computer security community to work at Los Alamos and Livermore. At fifty-one he had a bit of a paunch stretching his Raiders T-shirt. With his bushy silver-white beard, long curly hair, tattered jeans, and sandals, Gricks looked bound for a Grateful Dead concert, Wyatt thought as he watched him park his Beetle, then acknowledge him at the patio before going inside to get a soda. Right on time.

  Wyatt was anxious. Security cameras near the bride shop were a washout. No one at the Hall knew he was pulling this little end run for outside help on a homicide. To hell with it. There was too much at stake. Besides, who would care or understand? Certainly not Sydowski. Gricks arrived at the table.

  “We never had this meeting, okay, Randy?”

  Gricks nodded slightly as Wyatt told him about Iris Wood’s case and what had happened with his disk when he tried it on Iris Wood’s system.

  Gricks seemed bored, sucking on his drink as he listened.

  The two men had met a few months earlier at a security seminar at the FBI San Francisco division’s Computer Intrusion Squad in Hayward. Wyatt had saved his card, sincerely promising to take Gricks up on his soft-spoken invitation to “call any time” he needed confidential help.

  Now, after some twenty minutes of listening to Wyatt and the hum of interstate traffic, Gricks sucked up the last of his Taco Bell soda, indicating time was up. Wyatt slid him the small bubble sleeve containing his damaged disk, properties and data from Iris Wood’s computer, some details about the security breach at Forever & Ever, and his business card.

  “Randy, I need to know what the hell happened, who set up such an attack. I need your help. Confidentially, of course.”

  Gricks nodded. Then he stood, scratched his stomach, yawned, and stretched before waving good-bye to Wyatt, his sandals making flopping sounds as he returned to his VW.