Tom Reed Thriller Series

by Rick Mofina

  After nearly ninety minutes of checking the usual places, of asking and waiting around, he’d recognized that sinking feeling. He’d struck out. No way was he going to connect with her today. After packing it in and heading back to the car, his cell phone rang.

  “Reed.”

  “Got your message,” Sydowski said. “What do you want? I’m busy and grouchy.”

  “Sounds like two of the dwarves.”

  “Reed.”

  “I’ve got to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “You know what.”

  “By the by, your story pissed me off.”

  “I just want to talk.”

  “I don’t have much time for you, pal.”

  “It might be useful for you to meet me. We can trade things.”

  Sydowski emitted a long, tired sigh.

  “Nick’s. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  FORTY-TWO

  Nick’s Diner was a short walk from the Hall of Justice and a hangout for crime fighters who favored greasy fried food and strong coffee. Tom found Sydowski alone in a corner and ordered a cup for himself.

  “How’s Molly doing?” Tom asked.

  “Think of the circumstances and draw your own conclusions.”

  All right. Sydowski was pissed off.

  “You know, I was planning to come to you with Ray’s interview before we ran it.”

  “But...?”

  “An editor made me go with it as soon as she found out.”

  “Just following orders, huh?”

  “Come on.”

  “Hey, what was it you said at the beginning of this thing? How we could ‘cooperate’ because of the Star’s connection here?” Sydowski grunted, then grabbed a wellread copy from the counter and spun it on their table. “This is you cooperating? You’re the one always asking me to leak you stuff, give you stuff. Turns out it’s a one-way street with you.”

  “My hands were tied.”

  “You couldn’t even do me the courtesy of a call? A heads-up to say you had Ray’s last interview and you were going to publish it? How many times have we tipped you to arrests, breaks, leads?”

  “You said you wouldn’t make any deals on this case.”

  Coffee arrived, diffusing the tension. Sydowski glanced at the street to let his blood pressure simmer. Then he reached for a toothpick.

  “You got anything going, any strong leads?” Tom asked.

  “We’ve got a couple of things going.”

  “Like what?”

  Sydowski raised his eyebrows. “Let me reach into my pocket and give you my case notes.” He shook his head and looked away.

  “What’s the deal with OCC and the internal guys? Is it political or is there something to this?”

  “Jesus Christ, Reed.”

  “Well?”

  “Look, you’re wasting my time. You said you might have something to give me?”

  Tom slid the tape of Beamon’s interview to him. “I made a copy for you.”

  “It’s old news now, pal.”

  “Listen to it all. Ray said there’d been threats.”

  Sydowski put the tape in his pocket. His poker face gave nothing away.

  “We’re looking into Hooper’s old cases,” Tom said.

  “Good for you. I’ve got to go.”

  “Wait, I gave you the tape.”

  “So what? You expect something in return?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  Sydowski pursed his lips and glanced at his watch. He cooled off enough to give Tom a shot at a lead for a story. “Ask me questions,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Ask me questions. You know how we investigate, so hurry up.”

  “You’re looking at everything connected to Hooper and Beamon.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Old cases, threats, vendettas?”

  “Sounds logical.”

  “But since I don’t know all the physical evidence or scene stuff, it looks like there’s a strong link to Molly.”

  “You think?”

  “So you’re going to scour her circles.”

  “There you go. You’re smart. Keep going.”

  “All her boyfriends, they’d be your suspect pool, or people you want to talk to and clear.”

  “Keep going.”

  “Are you concentrating on anyone in particular?”

  “You answer that one.”

  “No. Not yet. You’d cast a wide net and start tossing out those you could rule out immediately. You’re not focusing on anyone. Am I right?”

  Sydowski said nothing as Tom concentrated, then produced his notebook. “You’d start with ex-boyfriends she’s dated for a time over the last little while,” he said.

  “Keep going.”

  “Tying them to physical evidence and whereabouts when the murders were committed.”

  “Hurry up. I’ve got to run.”

  “You’ve developed a list and will reduce it as you rule them out one by one. At the same time you’re looking for the link to any evidence from the scene like a weapon, a print, and checking it against any threats arising from old cases, maybe any ritualistic pattern.”

  “Keep going.”

  “The boyfriends are only one aspect of your investigation. You’d be interested in guys she’s dated for any period, say a month or two, long enough for feelings to develop. Long enough to stir the fires, as it were.”

  “Colorful reasoning. Not bad.”

  “And I’d likely know who most of them would be.”

  “Would you?”

  “Let’s see, Manny Lewis, then there was Fordy, Duane Ford.” Tom began making notes as Sydowski checked his watch. “Rob Glazer, the movie guy, then Park from Golden Gate Avenue. Cecil from ATF. The pilot, what was his name? Murray, Steve, Steve Murdoch, and the marshal. Marshal Marlin, I used to tease her, Pete Marlin. That’s all of them.”

  Sydowski stood. “You missed one.”

  “One? Who?”

  “Frank Yarrow.”

  “Frank Yarrow?”

  “That’s all you get,” Sydowski said. “You want to play detective, be my guest. Just don’t get in my way and be careful with those names. I’ve confirmed nothing.”

  “Can I talk to Molly?”

  “No. Not for a while.”

  “Can you have her call me?”

  “No.” Sydowski slipped on his jacket. “I’m so glad we had this time together. Give my best to Ann. She should get a medal for putting up with you.”

  The gold in Sydowski’s crowns glinted as he placed a couple of dollars on the table and left.

  FORTY-THREE

  Ray Beamon’s funeral service was held at St. Mary’s Cathedral.

  Several hundred mourners attended. Dignitaries, ranking officers, and detectives, all in dress uniforms, their badges bearing a black diagonal stripe. One by one, speakers gripped the sides of the podium as they eulogized him. “ ‘There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men,’ ” the San Francisco police chaplain said, quoting from Ecclesiastes. “Ray and his partner Cliff battled that evil every waking moment of their lives in their unyielding service to this city. Now that evil has taken them, leaving us to ask, ‘Why?’ My friends, it’s futile to ponder an eternal mystery. It’s wiser for us to draw strength from their example. These were fine, fine men.”

  Afterward, the pallbearers carried out their task. Sydowski headed the team, which had been selected from the homicide detail. Across the street behind the crowd-control barriers, dozens of news crews recorded them delivering the casket to the hearse.

  Engines started and then police motorcycles, followed by police cars, led the procession, their lights flashing and chrome gleaming in the bright sun.

  In the limousine behind the family car, Molly Wilson sat between Ann and Della Thompson, who squeezed her hands whenever a sob escaped. Tom Reed was with them in the car’s opposite seat.

  The soft strains of a harp whispered throu
gh the limo’s hidden speakers. Molly’s mind flitted between memories of her times with Cliff and with Ray as she wrestled with the horror that had befallen her. She feared she would scream whenever she remembered the moments when she’d come upon them.

  Who did this? Why? Oh God, why?

  Tom reflected on the toll their business had exacted on all of them, getting so close to stories. They coiled around you, squeezing you, crushing you. They had all paid dearly, he thought as they neared Colma, a place he had visited too many times to report on too many tragedies.

  Located at San Francisco’s southern edge, it had more than ten cemeteries side by side in a mile-wide expanse that stretched two miles. A rolling sea of crosses and headstones. Colma, the little town where the dead outnumbered the living, had earned many other names.

  In his circle of cop and reporter friends, Tom called it Silent City.

  Hundreds of mourners arrived at the cemetery. Sydowski and the pallbearers received the casket. White-gloved uniformed officers of the color guard gave a hand salute until it was placed at the graveside where the officiating priest concluded the burial service. Beamon’s family had agreed to a three-member rifle honor guard. Taps was played. When it ended, the pallbearers folded the flag. Sydowski gave it to the police chief, who presented it to Beamon’s mother.

  Her chin crumpled and her head dropped as she pressed it to her face. Beamon’s father comforted her. News cameras captured the moment for the next day’s front pages while above them, gulls screeched.

  Their cries floated on a gentle wind that rolled over Colma.

  FORTY-FOUR

  A few days after Ray Beamon’s casket was lowered into the ground, national news organizations were hammering hard on the story.

  The New York Times ran a front-page feature that jumped to a quarter page inside. The Washington Post put one of its star color writers on it and USA Today said the case of San Francisco’s murdered homicide detectives was shrouded in a bone-chilling mystery worthy of Hollywood.

  Irene Pepper had left copies of the stories on Tom Reed’s desk. He seized them, went to her office, and knocked on the door.

  “Excuse me,” he said.

  She looked up from the file folder she was studying.

  “Did you read those stories I gave you? The national press is going to take this away from us if we’re not careful,” she said.

  “I read them. They’re regurgitating what we’ve already reported. In fact, they’re quoting the Star.”

  “Your job is to keep us out front on this story.”

  Tom figured it would’ve been futile to point out to her that now would’ve been the time to run the Beamon interview. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to reveal that he’d come up with a list of possible suspects after some major fence-mending with Sydowski. Pepper would destroy his lead before he’d have a chance to develop it.

  “I’ve broken stories on this. We’re in front.”

  Pepper ignored him and chewed on her pen.

  “Do you have any idea where Molly is? Because this would be a good time for a first-person story from her. It would blow everyone away and put us back in the game.”

  “I don’t know where she is. And I don’t think she’s in any position to be writing something like that at this time.”

  “Really? I don’t think you’re in any position to be deciding that for her. Your job is to break exclusives for me and you’re overdue. So get busy.” Pepper returned to her file folder, dismissing him.

  Heading to the kitchen, Tom recalled Hank Kruner’s warning about Pepper. “Watch your back with her.” Well, like so many others at the Star, Tom didn’t trust Irene Pepper. Especially now. The way she’d kept him dancing on a tightrope, she had to be up to something.

  “Hey, Tom.” Simon Lepp was making fresh coffee. “I saw you go into Irene’s office. What’d she have to say?”

  “Who knows? She never makes sense. She thinks the New York Times is going to steal our thunder in our own backyard.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Lepp said. “We’re all over it. Closer to it than anybody.”

  Tom agreed, then asked: “Where’re you at with your stuff?”

  “I went to Taraval and Mission. Didn’t get much, but one guy seemed to remember an old accusation, or something against Hooper that flared. Something to do with drugs.”

  “Sounds vaguely familiar.”

  “I’m going to try Narcotics again. And there was also a rumor that Beamon had some stink come up out of his days in Robbery.”

  “I don’t remember that but the narcotics thing on Hooper is worth checking out.”

  Della Thompson returned to the newsroom and joined them.

  “I just got off the phone with Turgeon in Homicide. She said Molly wants to go home and they’re considering moving her soon.”

  Back at his desk, Tom opened his notebook to the page with the names of suspects. Or rather, “persons of interest,” as investigators liked to say. He chuckled at all the slippery terminology they used. They’d stress that a person was in no way a “suspect.”

  He might be a “witness” or a “person of interest.” It was all cop code, which when translated said: “We think you could’ve done it. And we’ll keep thinking it until you cooperate and prove otherwise.”

  He doubted Sydowski would soon go public with the names and he didn’t think it wise for the Star to publish them without first doing some intensive digging.

  But it was a hell of a list, he thought, sipping his coffee.

  Pete Marlin, Park Williams, Duane Ford. Cecil Lowe. And Manny Lewis. From the D.A.’s office. Damn. Rob Glazer. Steve Murdoch and Frank Yarrow. Most of these guys were cops. Smart detective types. He’d do some quiet poking around.

  At the very least he could put together a searing piece saying that the suspect pool reached into the D.A.’s office, the FBI, ATF, the U.S. Marshal’s Service. It’d be a rattler of a story.

  His line rang, startling him. “Reed.”

  “Tom, I’m so sorry,” Tammy said from the front desk. “I was watching like you asked. I just stepped away for a moment, so I missed him.”

  “What is it?”

  “Another bunch came for Molly.”

  He hung up and rushed to the newsroom reception. Tammy was holding fresh white roses wrapped in blue pin-striped paper.

  “How long ago?”

  “A minute, tops.”

  He hurried down the stairs to the lobby and the security desk where a white-haired potbellied security guard sat behind a glass booth.

  “What is it there, young Mr. Reed?”

  “Weldon, did you get a look at the guy who just came in with flowers?”

  “I look at everybody. What’s the panic?”

  “Did he sign in for you?”

  Weldon spun the book around for him and pointed to a signature.

  It was indecipherable. Tom cursed.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Riding the elevator back up to the newsroom, Tom was struck with a way to find out who was behind the flowers and the notes for Molly.

  The twelve white roses were still with Tammy at the reception desk. He removed the card affixed to them. It said: Molly, hope you’re now looking toward the future. It was unsigned.

  “Can I borrow your scissors?” he asked.

  Tammy watched him cut a strip of the blue pin-striped wrapping paper. Then he glanced around and lowered his voice.

  “I need you to help me fast and keep it between us.”

  “Sure, anything. I’m so sorry I missed the delivery.”

  “Get on the Web and get me a locator map with names and addresses of all the flower shops nearest us.”

  Tammy’s keyboard began clicking as Tom went to the photocopier and made a duplicate of the card. Then he went to his desk, typed up the eight names on the suspect list, and printed off several copies before grabbing his jacket and heading out.

  “Here you go,” Tammy said. “There are four within a f
ew blocks and three more beyond that.”

  The first on the map was a block away. Somewhere Over the Rainbow Florists. Tom showed the clerk the card and asked for help.

  “All I really need to know is if you think the flowers came from this shop. It would’ve been a few minutes ago.” As the clerk studied the inscription, he glanced over her shoulder at the rolls of wrapping paper. Nothing that looked like blue pinstripes.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Not from us.”

  The second shop was Delights and Dreams. The two owners studied the card and writing, then shook their heads. Tom could see an assortment of wrapping paper at the arrangement table behind them. No blue pinstripes.

  It was the same story at Cloud Nine Floral.

  The next shop was five blocks away. The Pacific Dreams Flower Shop. It was slivered between a leather boutique and a currency exchange. He approached its frosted glass door thinking the key to this case might be on the other side.

  The store’s humid earthy air enveloped him. The shop was intimate. Pumps and fluorescent lights hummed, water gurgled over polished rocks in the fountain and goldfish pond. Palm fronds canopied over terraces of plants, vases, displays of all sorts.

  Tom was the only customer. He browsed by the large glass coolers with colorful arrangements of lilies, carnations, and scores of flowers he couldn’t identify. Most important, there was an abundance of roses, long-stemmed, sweetheart, and in all colors. A good supply of white ones.

  “Can I help you?” said the young woman at the counter. She had an orchid in her hair. Her nameplate said Leeshann.

  “I hope so. My office just received some flowers. Lovely white roses, Oh, like twenty minutes ago.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And, this may sound silly, but we’re trying to find out if they came from here. It’s part of a long running office detective game thing.”

  She smiled. “Like a friendly office joke?”

  “Exactly. Yes. We send gifts to each other, then try to figure out who sent them and from where. The other team’s always beating us. We’re checking all the flower shops around us.”