by Rick Mofina
“It’s possible they’ve killed her and we just haven’t found her yet.”
“True. Three homicides with special circumstances, they’re facing the death penalty. They’ve got nothing to lose.”
“Maybe they want her as insurance for something later.”
“This thing is out of control,” Sydowski said. Lieutenant Leo Gonzales appeared before him with a slip of paper.
“Walt. Linda. This came through 911. Sounds solid.” Sydowski studied the note.
“Jed Caverly. Address near McLaren Park.”
“Lives in Excelsior. Thinks he rented his garage to the dead driver. Says the guy and his friends left something in there that we should see.”
FORTY-FIVE
Tia Layne offered her most assuring smile and a little cleavage to the manager of the San Francisco Deluxe Jewelry.
“Look, David, we just want to get some pictures to show you’re getting back to business. It’s happy news.”
The manager guarded the front entrance, keeping the door open a crack. Curtains inside the shop’s street windows were drawn. He didn’t return Layne’s smile and was indifferent to her V-neck T-shirt. He eyed Cooter’s hand on his camera. “I’m sorry, no,” the manager said. “It’s been too tragic.” Layne’s gaze through her sunglasses went beyond him to the staff inside arranging jewelry in the new display cases. The people who knew details on the link to the dead clerk. If she could just get to them. Get them talking.
“Everyone’s trying to move on with their lives,” the manager said. “We’re praying Ann Reed is reunited safely with her family.”
“But that’s the kind of stuff we need, David.”
“How about outside?” Cooter offered.
“Outside?”
“Yeah,” Layne said. “You and your staff can tell us how you’re trying to cope and, more important, are praying for everyone else.”
“I don’t know.” He glanced to the spot where Officer August died.
“We could do it with you as a group,” Layne said. “Let the world know that you refuse to let criminals keep you down.”
“I don’t know, it’s very hard. Carrie was an employee. We tried to work it out with her. We had no idea about the degree of her addiction.”
“Hold it,” Layne said. “David, see, you’re already talking about it. It’s a natural thing to want to talk about it. Let’s just do it with the camera on, okay? And you just look at me like we’re just talking.”
“Wait, I think—”
The cell phone clipped to Cooter’s battery belt rang. He grabbed it, saying, “I’m tied up now, can I call you—what’s that?” He set his camera down and jotted notes. “Just now!” Cooter said. “Got it, thanks.” He hung up, then pulled Layne’s upper arm and his camera.
“Cooter!”
“We have to go now. Something’s come up.”
“What’s going on?” Layne said as he rushed her to their SUV.
Cooter squealed from the curb after tossing Layne a folded city map and an address he’d scrawled on his notepaper. “It’s in Excelsior, near McLaren Park. Find us the fastest way there.”
“What is it?”
“Security guard next to our building listens to police scanners. I slipped him a few bucks to keep me posted on the case.”
“Okay.”
“That was him. Says he caught on something related to ‘the Deluxe 187s,’ the SFPD code for murder. Found in a garage at this address.”
“He say what?”
“Doesn’t know. But he said it sounded good. They’re sealing it. Homicide and crime scene are rolling. It’s all happening now!”
“What do you think it is?”
“I dunno. Directions! Directions!”
They arrived within thirty minutes to a tangle of black-and-whites, lights wigwagging in front of a stucco house. Other police cars were in the rear. Yellow crime scene tape bordered the neat double-wide garage. Cooter got his gear.
Kids on bikes did laps in the alley around the police cruisers and the tape while neighbors gathered at the edge of the yards to speculate on what police had found in Jed Caverly’s garage with the canary-yellow door.
A couple of newspaper photographers and more TV camera operators had gathered a few houses away. A small car with the call letters and logo of a Bay Area radio news station was creeping to the scene. Within minutes more than a dozen news-people had collected near the garage. Cooter and Layne stood near them, eavesdropping.
“You guys hear about the takedown in the Mission last night?” a female TV reporter said.
“I heard something about it,” a newspaper reporter said. “One of our producers is married to an SFPD officer. She heard an army went out to grab the dealer who sold to Carrie Addison.”
“The jewelry store clerk they found in the desert?”
“Right.” The reporter dropped her voice, but Layne could hear her say, “They throw down on the car carrying the dealer and his crew and they find a surprise inside.”
“What kind of surprise?”
“Tom Reed.”
“Reed?”
“The way we heard it is, he’s out on his own searching for his wife after he got a lead on the dealer who supplied the gal found in the desert. The dealer freaked and put a gun to Reed’s head.”
“That true?”
“That’s what he told the detectives.”
Layne marched to her truck, cell phone pressed to her ear. She’d punched in Tom Reed’s home number. She wanted an interview with the reporter who was risking his life to find his abducted wife. It was ringing.
Come on, pick up. She had to get this one.
It was worth one hundred thousand dollars.
FORTY-SIX
Jed Caverly held a key in his fist when he greeted Sydowski and Turgeon in front of his house.
“Right this way.” He led them to the back. Two uniformed officers joined them, explaining that no one had set foot in the place.
“That’s right,” Caverly said at the garage door, watching the homicide inspectors tug on surgical gloves, then shoe covers. “I recognized this Leroy Driscoll guy from the newspaper. He told me his name was Sean Keeler. I never touched a thing. Never entered. I keep nothing in there and clean it before each tenant. Whatever’s in there is his.”
“We’ll go in alone,” Sydowski said.
Dust particles danced in the shafts of sunlight that lit on a 2003 silver four-door Jetta.
“That’s Ann Reed’s car, Walt.”
Sydowski opened the driver’s door. Her key ring dangled from the ignition. Sydowski didn’t get in. Instead, he reached in and switched the key to accessories. He checked the gas level. Full. Noted the odometer reading. Turgeon opened the rear passenger door, making notes on the condition. Sydowski popped the trunk for her.
“Car’s empty. Looks clean, Walt.”
The garage was immaculate with a polished floor. Spotless. Sydowski went to the workbench near the window. On it were several cardboard boxes of various sizes, a stack of folded maps, ropes, duct tape, clips, a cooler, files of notes, notebooks, text-books on alarm systems, gems, catalogues and keys.
Turgeon and Sydowski were careful. They jotted down inventory and sketched maps in their notebooks before taking some snapshots. At the far end of the garage Sydowski found a folded wheelchair leaning against the wall. A second one? They must’ve practiced. Near it was a small wooden table and four chairs. On the table were wigs, boxes of stage makeup, several plastic trash bags, clips for an Ml6, then boxes with holsters, a .357 Taurus revolver, clothes, a number of out-of-state plates, blank registrations and ownership forms, a few Slim Jims, tools, chains, handcuffs, several M69 training grenades. A file folder with neatly typed notes about Deluxe Jewelry.
“They switched here. This is where they parked their getaway vehicle. They drove her car here and switched,” Sydowski said.
“Looks right.”
Sydowski surveyed the place, allowing himself a measure
of satisfaction. This was it. The break they were so desperate for. This was where they’d plotted the robbery. Where they launched it, and, judging from the setup, where they intended to ditch the van and use another vehicle for the long-haul getaway. Sydowski grew anxious for the crime scene guys to get here and get them prints, get them identifications, while he pored through the things they left behind. Now that they had some of the pieces, he could start to put the puzzle together.
“Walt?”
Turgeon had locked her flashlight beam on the floor near the vehicle’s rear.
Sydowski got to his knees to examine the spot.
“Looks like blood,” he said, then turned his head to the garage window at the sound of loud voices outside. “Sounds like Tom Reed’s out there,” Turgeon said.
FORTY-SEVEN
The instant Tom Reed saw Sydowski and Turgeon step from the garage, he knew the meaning of their shoe covers, their gloves, clipboards, sober faces.
“Walt.”
Reed was several yards from him on the other side of the yellow tape, the ever-present line that over the years had separated the two men at countless murders. Reed called it Sydowski’s circle of death. Two uniformed officers stood vigil next to Reed as Sydowski lifted the tape, inviting him to cross the line. But he didn’t move because he couldn’t move. A cloud passed in front of the sun, the emergency lights painted Sydowski’s face red.
“Come on, Tom.”
A big rubber-gloved hand took Reed’s shoulder gently. All of your life you feared a moment like this, a moment when a grim-faced homicide detective lifts the tape and beckons you to step inside. The circle of death.
“Tell me, Walt. Is it Ann?”
Sydowski was conscious of the scores of people watching them.
“Can you just tell me if my wife’s in there? Can you have the decency to—” Reed ran his hand over his face.
“Not here,” Sydowski said. Turgeon took Reed’s other shoulder.
“Tom,” Turgeon said into his ear, “there’s no victim in the garage.”
Reed blinked, trying to comprehend.
“What is it then? Was she there? Did they bring her here?”
“Keep it down,” Turgeon said.
“What the hell for? What’s in there? I have a right to know. No one tells me anything.”
Sydowski saw the TV and newspaper cameras taking pictures of them.
“Take a breath and get ahold of yourself.” Sydowski dropped his tone. “Linda, ask Mr. Caverly if we can take Tom inside his home.” Then to the uniforms he said, “Everyone’s too tight. I want the perimeter of this scene widened by another two houses.”
The uniforms nodded. One began waving back the press, triggering protests, while the second one grabbed the roll of scene tape, making it whiz as he enlarged the restricted access area around the garage.
Inside, Reed thought Caverly’s house smelled like cheese and Old Spice. They pulled out vinyl-covered chrome chairs from a small table set from the 1950s. A stack of mail was piled in the center ready to teeter on the Niagara Falls souvenir salt and pepper shakers.
Turgeon and Sydowski slapped their clipboards on the white tabletop. Facedown. Offended, Reed shook his head, looked through the window at the garage. Police lights strobing red in his eyes as he watched children running around the satellite news trucks and the intense TV lights. Carnival time.
“So what the hell is in there?”
“Evidence,” Sydowski said.
“From Ann?”
“It’s her car.”
“Her car? Is she—what else did you—”
“Just her car, Tom. They drove here, left it, and switched vehicles.”
“But how?”
“It looks like they rented the garage from the homeowner here, and planned things from here.”
“Is there anything inside her car? A note—something?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“I’d like to have a look. I might recognize something.”
“Can’t let you look, right now.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s a crime scene, Tom. We have to preserve and protect it so the techs and the lab can do their jobs properly. You know this. We just did a preliminary inventory.”
Reed stared outside. “So what’s in there?”
“Tom, we can’t tell you just yet, because we aren’t sure exactly what it is and we’re holding back.”
Reed looked around, keeping his hands pressed flat on the table to keep them from shaking.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I can’t notify you on each step we take.”
“Why not?”
“Tom, you’re not an investigator on this case.”
“You’re right. I’d say my stake in this was somewhat larger. So why am I getting my information from tabloid reporters again?”
“That’s who called you?” Turgeon said. “Tia Layne from Worldwide!”'
“Does it really matter? You forgot me again.”
“Tom, it’s dangerous for you to get too close, to get involved.”
“I am involved. This is my wife. My life. I am involved.”
“Look what happened last time,” Sydowski said. “You could get hurt, or hamper the investigation. Tom, please go home.”
“And do what? Wait for calls that never come?”
“Tom—”
“Wait for Ann’s call that never comes?”
“Did you listen to those tapes, the enhanced ones?”
“For hours.”
“Anything register? Ring a bell?”
“Nothing. But you keep asking me about any connection to me. Why? Do you know something?”
“No.”
“Something you’re not telling me?”
“No, Tom. We just want to be certain we’ve looked hard at every possibility.”
“I’ve listened to those tapes over and over and I get nothing. It’s so painful because all I hear is—”
Reed stopped. Swallowed.
“All I hear is her voice.”
“You need to sleep,” Sydowski said. Reed was unshaven. His hair was messed. He had been living in the same clothes for days. He was bleary-eyed. “Go home, Tom.”
“I can’t. It’s the not knowing if she’s hurt, locked away. Dead. Until I know, I can’t stop searching for her.”
His fingers trembled as he covered his face, then looked out at the neighborhood, at the laughing children and the crime scene, feeling each splash of strobing red like waves of the abyss rolling closer to him.
FORTY-EIGHT
In Mayberry, Barney reached for his gun, triggering the laugh track.
Zach and his grandmother sat before the TV, still absorbing the last live news bulletin from the garage in Excelsior. When Reed returned home, they switched off the set and released the full weight of their fear to him. Doris stood, placed her hands on Zach’s shoulders, braced for whatever Reed was going to tell them.
“It’s not her.”
“Thank God,” Doris said.
“They found the Jetta, her car, in the garage.”
“Her car? That’s it?”
Reed explained what the detectives had told him. A moment passed before anyone knew what to say.
“We saw you on TV, Dad. You looked mad.”
Reed put his hand on Zach’s head and attempted a smile for him. “I was just worried about what might’ve been in there.”
“Tom.” Doris waited until Reed’s eyes met hers. “What happened last night? You went out late to meet a man who might’ve known something?”
“Yes, I found him.”
“Did he know anything?”
“Not much. The police are talking to him.”
“Did he work at the jewelry store?”
“No, Doris, he was just someone I had to see.”
“Why? What’s his possible connection?”
“He’s a—” Reed glanced at Zach, then at Doris “—he’s from the stree
t.”
“The street.”
“You know the crime stories I do—”
“Of course I do. That’s why this is happening.”
“What? Doris.”
Reed followed her to the kitchen, where they were alone. “Doris, please talk to me.”
She hurled a copy of the Chronicle at him, then the Star. “Doris. Stop it.”
“It’s all about headlines and stories and everything you do. You love getting close to criminals. Ann tried and tried to get you to quit but you ignored her and now look what’s happened.”
“I know but—are you blaming me for this? Doris, please.”
She covered her face with her hands and turned her back to him. Reed said nothing, allowing her time to decide if she was finished unloading her anger.
“This—” she began, “—this street person you saw, did he help you?”
He put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger. Should he tell her that?
“No. It was just—he didn’t know much, Doris, I’m sorry.”
Reed’s body ached. He went to his study. Two of the FBI agents assigned to the house for any call nodded to him from their equipment table as he walked through the front room. One was working on a laptop, the older one was playing solitaire.
“Hang in there, Tom,” the older one said.
Reed entered his study and closed the door. He went to his computer to search the news wires for updates from Arizona or San Bernardino. He got as far as entering his password before raising his hands to his face, examining the cuts and bruises on them from his encounter with Caesar. Images of Ann’s abduction swirled with the others: the corpse unearthed in the desert, the garage, the gun against his head. He was shaking. Coming apart. He rubbed his dried lips.
One. Just one drink. No. Get a grip. Just one. No.
He took stock of his office. Something had changed. The poster. The ancient San Francisco Star poster promoting his special series on unsolved murders. It had been in Zach’s room. Now it stood in a corner of Reed’s office next to a stack of binders and boxes of his old news clippings, as if someone were looking for something. He didn’t do that, did he?