by Rick Mofina
They were in Texas.
After fleeing the motel, Engler had driven on dirt roads before pulling into a dense pine grove where they’d slept. At dawn they’d entered Texas. For much of the morning they’d meandered as if going in circles while keeping to rural roads. Ann had glimpsed signs indicating the distance to Dallas, Longview, or Tyler. They were somewhere in the eastern part of the state.
It felt like early afternoon. The heat was intense. Before going to the pay phone, Engler had switched off the engine and the air conditioner. Ann surveyed the area. Nothing but forests. She let her head drop to the headrest. Too exhausted and too hot to cry or think, she shut her eyes to pray but couldn’t find the words. She tried to think of Tom, of Zach, her mother, but their faces were eclipsed by Engler.
Blaming Tom for his tragedy. Engler was insane. But what if Tom was to blame? Could she accept that? No. Don’t even think about that. Engler and Tribe were coldblooded killers. Hadn’t she witnessed their work? Hadn’t she felt Tribe’s hands around her neck, all over her, violating her? She swallowed her sobs. She’d never dwelled on the concept of her own death until now. With all she’d suffered and with death so near, she grew calm, almost welcomed it.
No.
Stop thinking this way. Don't give up. Don’t let them do this to you. You're still alive. You still have a chance. Come on. Think.
Ann turned to watch Engler on the pay phone, and the sun hit on something metal deep between the cushions of the seat beside her. A screwdriver. Tossed hastily into the truck last night. It glinted like hope. Ann used her free hand to slide it behind her. Out of sight.
Engler pounded the pay phone’s handset three times against the cradle, then strode to the SUV and got in. The engine roared and he left rubber pulling away.
“Hey!” Tribe moaned awake.
“You’re an asshole, Del! A sorry stupid twisted asshole! I should’ve known better. I should’ve damn well known better.”
Tribe worked himself to a sitting position, holding his cheek.
“Because of you we’re all over the news. Our pictures. Our names. Everything. Angel wants out of the deal.” Engler put his thumb and forefinger together and held them up. “We were this close! This close!” He tightened his grip on the wheel. “I told him we’ve come too far. I swear to you we’re going through with this. No way in hell are we turning back. We’ll speed things up. We’ll head to the meeting place tonight and give him a final chance to keep up his end. I’ve waited too long. I’ve paid too much to let this all die because of you.”
“Me!” Tribe winced, extracting a wet bloodied cotton ball from his mouth. “This whole thing went to hell the minute you flipped out in the jewelry store. Our problem is sitting right between us, brother, and it’s not too late to get rid of it.”
Bang!
Ann jumped, the truck swerved, her seat belt tightened. Tribe steadied himself, cursing, looking around to see who’d shot at them. Engler wrestled with the steering wheel as the truck bucked and vibrated to a stop.
“Blew a goddamned tire,” Engler said. “Get your ass out here and help me change it, Del. Move.”
They’d gone over a piece of rotted board with four six-inch spikes that shredded the steel-belted radial. Tribe and Engler began unloading the rear to get at the jack and full-sized spare, leaving Ann alone.
“Please. It’s so hot, can I have some air, please?” she said.
Engler looked at her. Checked her wrist cuff. Knowing the child safety lock kept her door secure, he dropped her power window before he returned to the rear. He and Tribe cursed each other as they worked.
It was a desolate stretch of back road cutting through a shady dense cottonwood forest. Ann let her head rest, drinking in the breezes that filled the truck and reignited her hope. The networks had their pictures. Their names. It meant the police had to be close. She shut her eyes and bit her bottom lip. God. Please. She prayed for a patrol car, a stranger, anyone to happen by so she could scream for help.
Tools clanged and echoed with the chirping birds. The truck and Ann jerked as the jack ratcheted it up. Her feet slipped. For the first time since Engler had checked her ankle cuff that morning Ann noticed something that took her breath away. The handcuff around her ankle was open.
In his groggy state in the early dawn, after taking Ann to a roadside toilet, Engler had not closed it fully. The flat tire must’ve loosened it open. Hidden under the seat, her foot looked secure.
But it was free.
Ann’s mind raced. The screwdriver. It was behind her back. Reaching for it with her free left hand, Ann glanced at the handgrip. She knew from an auto upholstery job she’d had years ago that most grips and armrests were screwed to the door. The screw head was capped with a plastic plug.
Her body shook as the SUV jolted up. Naturally her free hand went to the grip. She pried off the screw cap in seconds. The screwdriver was a flat-head, the screw head was a star-point. Damn! She’d have to angle it in.
Engler and Tribe were working fast, finger-twisting the lug nuts off the raised damaged wheel, not watching Ann. Her hand was sweating. She was right-handed. It was difficult gripping the hard yellow plastic handle of the tool. She had it locked on the screw head but couldn’t get enough torque. It would not budge. She drew on strength she didn’t have. It wouldn’t budge. She kept trying. Her hand ached. Come on. Sweat dripped from her arm. Her hand was slipping. She rubbed her palm on her shirt Keep trying. The truck shook. They’d slammed the spare on. Come on. Ann gritted her teeth, angled the screwdriver in again. It locked. She clenched her jaw, thought of Zach, Tom, her mother. Pictured them helping her twist. Come on. Her hand, then her entire arm began shaking. Turn. Damn it! Turn. Ann felt it give.
Oh God!
Engler and Tribe were finger-tightening the lug nuts on the raised wheel. Ann ran her sweating hand on her shirt and twisted the loosened screw, turning, the driver missing, she kept twisting, her wrist was on fire with pain, her hand was slipping, the screw coming out seeming like the longest screw in the world, the truck shifting, the screw bobbling; then it was out. The jack whirred as the truck dropped so they could use the wrench. Ann pulled on the loosened end of the handgrip, pushed the metal cuff against the interior upholstery, wedging it, pushing it, working it, working it. Please, dear God, help me! The cuff slid away. She grabbed it so it wouldn’t make a sound, then bent over and freed her ankle. She slipped out the open window, vanishing down the steep hill that dropped off the highway into the forest.
“Jesus Christ!” Engler came after her, tossing his keys to Tribe. “Del, take the truck to that side road. She can’t get far!”
Please, God, help me. Someone help me.
Ann’s heart thundered in her rib cage, tree branches snagged and scraped at her, her ears pounded as she slid and tumbled down the slope until she hit flat ground running, widening the distance, running faster. Don’t look back. Run. Run. God. Please. She couldn’t feel her tears, the splinters, the cuts tearing at her arms, her face. She was between life and death and she was running. Something whip-snapped through the leaves near her head.
The first pop of gunfire.
Ahead, Ann saw the river and the jagged banks with a drop that was nearly straight down. She jumped, sliding, rolling down the slope, then crashed into the water. The rocky bottom was mossy, slippery. It was up to her chest, about fifty yards wide. Using her arms it took a combination of running and breaststrokes to get to the other side where a rock chip hit her leg from the second gunshot.
Downstream Ann saw a small wooden bridge and Tribe driving the SUV across it. He was close. She ran in the opposite direction. Searching for a highway, a farmhouse, a farmer. Anything. Please.
She cried out.
Through a stand of trees fifty yards away, she saw a mobile home park and ran toward it as if it were salvation. She saw the eviscerated junked pickup trucks, saw the white sheets, T-shirts, pants, flapping on the clothes-lines, the satellite dishes, children’s bicycles.
A dog barked. A falling-down picket fence bordered the park. Ann ran to the nearest home screaming.
“Help, call the police! I’m Ann Reed! I’ve been kidnapped!”
No sign of life. Ann ran to the side porch and banged on the door.
“Help me! Call the police! Somebody! They’re coming after me!”
Ann ran across the lane to the next unit. A white double-wide with U.S. flags. She flew to the side door, banging on it, screaming. “Help me! Please. My name is Ann Reed. I’ve been kidnapped. Please!” She pulled at the door. It opened. She ran inside. A TV was on. A pot was boiling on the stove. “Help me! Help me!” Her eyes went round the place for the phone but stopped on the white woman in her late twenties standing in the hallway. She looked six months pregnant. Her brown hair tied in a ponytail, she was gripping a baseball bat with both hands. She was wearing a Dallas Cowboys T-shirt and shorts. Fear filled her face.
“Get the hell out of my house!”
“Help me, please.” Ann dropped to her knees. “Call the police now, my name is Ann Reed, I was kidnapped in San Francisco. Please call the police.”
“That’s enough, Ann.” Engler was at the doorway, holding out his wallet as if it were official ID. His handgun in the other hand. He gasped. “Ma’am, I’m Dean Weller. I work for the county, bail bondsman. This lady here’s a bail jumper. Escaped my custody.” He pointed his gun to the handcuffs dangling from Ann’s wrist. The pregnant woman nodded slightly, thinking.
“No!” Ann said. “He’s a murderer! He and Del kidnapped me. I swear, it’s the truth! They’ve killed a police officer and two other people. They’re on the news.” A game show was on the TV set.
“Ma’am,” Engler said, “don’t listen to her. She escaped custody.”
“No,” Ann screamed. “I’ve got a son. Call the police. Please!”
Confusion masked the pregnant woman’s face. She noticed the puddle of water growing under Ann’s drenched clothes.
“Ma’am,” Engler said, “this lady’s off her medication and missed her psychiatric appointments. I swear to you, she’s a county prisoner and my responsibility. There’s a reward for citizens who cooperate.”
“A reward?” the woman repeated.
“But I have to bring her in. Police involvement cancels the reward.”
“What?” the woman said.
A girl, about three years old, stepped into the room from the sliding patio deck doors. She froze. Her big eyes went to Ann on her knees, the big man at the door with the gun. Her mother with a baseball bat. The little girl’s chin crumpled.
“Misty, come to Mommy, sweetie.”
Ann bolted through the opened patio door, jumping from the deck, screaming down the roadway between the mobile homes. Her handcuffs reflecting the sun.
“My name is Ann Reed! Call the police! Please. Ann Reed! San Francisco!”
An old man in a stained shirt came to his door at one unit. At another, a large woman holding a small dog looked from her window. Ann rounded a parked Mack truck, running smack into Delmar Tribe.
“Darlin’.”
His big arms locked on to her so tightly, her ribs cracked. Engler came up behind her. The men wrestled her into the SUV, making certain this time that the handcuffs were painfully unyielding. Ann screamed hysterically, her cries muffled by the closed windows. The people who trickled out of their homes barely had a chance to see the terror on her face as the SUV disappeared in a dust cloud.
SIXTY-EIGHT
Communications Officer Sareena Sawyer took the first incoming 911 call for police at the Communications Center in Lufkin, Texas. It came from the Big Timber Mobile Home Park, outside of Lufkin just off the Texas Loop.
Two white men had forced a hysterical white woman, blond hair, late thirties, into a sports utility vehicle. A handgun was seen. The woman appeared to have handcuffs locked on one wrist. She identified herself as Ann Reed of San Francisco.
Sawyer’s fingers were a blur on the keyboard of the CAD system. Using the police radio, she dispatched units from the Angelina County Sheriff’s office to Big Timber. Then she called Highway Patrol, alerted DPS, the Texas Department of Public Safety. Within thirty seconds of the first call, she got a second, then a third from the park, lighting up the 911 console.
“...one of the guys had a deformed ear and tattoos like the fella wanted by the FBI in that big murder case in California that was on the news.”
Lufkin updated DPS that it had unconfirmed reports that the incident at the park was connected to the FBI’s California fugitive case and the BOLOs out of Oklahoma. DPS alerted the FBI in Houston and Dallas, who in turn alerted the FBI’s San Francisco division.
Word of the break in the case got out fast. The Associated Press wire service moved a national bulletin from Lufkin, Texas. More reporters began calling Reed at his home. Tia Layne was one of them.
“Tom, please don’t hang up.”
“I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
“Worldwide will fly you to Texas now, pay for the flight and all expenses, if we can accompany you.”
“I don’t want your help. I’m going on my own.” Reed slammed down his phone and resumed trying to get airline flight times while packing between press calls. Reporters from Texas gave Reed the latest news. TV networks called offering to fly him to Texas. He declined.
Reed’s lack of sleep and his emotional state made Sydowski and McDaniel apprehensive. Watching him, as they finalized their own arrangements to join investigators in Texas, McDaniel pulled Sydowski aside.
“If this goes down, Tom could be a problem, Walt.”
“We should take him with us so we can watch him.”
“No, we should insist he stay here. Put people on him. He’s reckless, he’ll get in the way.”
“We can’t arrest him, Steve. And there’s no way he’ll stay. He will go off on his own. Reporters are feeding him information. I say take him.”
It went against McDaniel’s better judgment, but he knew Sydowski was right. They could control Reed if he was with them.
“I don’t like this. It’s not the way we do things, Walt.”
“I know.”
“I’ll make calls. You’ve got your bag. Tell him we’re leaving now.”
Two hours after the first emergency call from the Big Timber Mobile Home Park, Reed was in the back of Sydowski’s unmarked SFPD Caprice as it raced south on the Bayshore Freeway to San Francisco International Airport. His stomach was clenched with tension. He’d clamped his hands together to stop shaking. Turgeon was driving. Sydowski and McDaniel were each being updated on their cell phones by detectives in Texas interviewing eyewitnesses at the park near Lufkin.
“She was wet. She must’ve gone through a river to escape,” Sydowski said.
Alive. Reed could barely breathe. Ann was alive less than three hours ago. She escaped. She was fighting. Reed gazed at the city rolling by, deaf to the siren, blind to the pulsating red light, until he leaned forward to ask Turgeon to drive faster. That’s when he saw the speedometer vibrating between ninety and ninety-five miles an hour as she knifed through traffic.
The private investigator hired by Cooter and Tia Layne tipped them to the break and the police flight to Texas.
Layne and Cooter paid a taxi to speed from their Tenderloin office directly to departures at the airport. They arrived minutes ahead of Reed but weren’t first. In fact, they were behind. Cooter had been right. The San Francisco press had good sources too. News cameras dotted the cluster of press people who’d beaten them to the airport where the unmarked Caprice screeched to a halt at departures. Half a dozen officers from the SFPD Airport Bureau met Sydowski, McDaniel, and Reed, escorting them through the terminal and a barrage of press questions.
“Did you speak to your wife, Tom?”
“Tom! Please, can you make a statement?”
“What can you tell us, Tom?”
Reed’s face was taut. It was all he could do to keep his composure as the cadre of officers
jostled him through the news pack.
“We’ll put out a statement when we know more,” McDaniel said.
“What about now? Tom, share your thoughts now!” Forgetting he knew most of the faces in the crowd, that many were friends who’d offered prayers and support, Reed waved them off. “I’m sorry, I just can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Excuse us!” Sydowski said, pulling Reed toward a security checkpoint.
Much had been pre-cleared. The FBI had found a travel charter jet filled with a tour group of seniors flying directly from San Francisco to Houston. The bureau arranged seats for McDaniel and Sydowski. It took intense last-minute grumbling before they’d secured a seat for Reed. After undergoing security checks and presenting FBI and SFPD credentials, they were rushed by airport security and police to the Jetway where they hurried aboard the waiting 737.
Inside the terminal, several San Francisco reporters scrambled to ticket counters for the next commercial flight to Houston or Dallas. Tia Layne was near the front of the line, tapping her credit card against her palm, when Cooter joined her, setting his camera down.
“You get Reed?” Layne said.
“Got what everyone else got. We going to get a flight?”
“Yes. Next one leaves for Dallas very soon. We’ll drive a rental to Lufkin from there. Hope your card’s not maxed out.”
“I’m good.”
“She’s alive. Do you believe it, Cooter?”
“Wild, huh?”
“The story’s exploding. I called New York. They’ll buy anything we can get.”
A world away, in row 19 of the crowded plane, Reed let his head drop to the headrest feeling each bump in his heart as the jet crept into position before stopping on the runway to await clearance.
Acknowledging the flight attendant’s request, McDaniel and Sydowski continued with final calls on their phones while Reed thought back to the time he’d first met Ann. The first time he saw her smile and touched her hand.
The turbines whined and the 737 began rolling down the runway, wings springing as it gathered speed, the ground rushing under them as they lifted off, Reed welcoming the thrust that forced him into his seat. Faster. Goddammit. Can’t this thing go any faster? As they climbed, Reed gazed down at the earth dropping below him and was overwhelmed.