[Tom Reed and Walt Sydowski 04.0] No Way Back

by Rick Mofina

  He saw fingers. Slender like a female’s. Then hair as eyes wide in terror met his. Flannagan’s stomach tightened, he stepped back and dry-heaved.

  Navajo County responded first and took control. It was their jurisdiction. The FBI dispatched people from Flagstaff to assist as word rocketed through police circles that the find was linked to the homicide-abduction case in California.

  The FBI’s Evidence Response Team rolled out of Phoenix Division with a full contingent of forensic experts. Others were coming up from Tucson. They worked quickly examining the evidence, photographing, mapping, analyzing, and organizing spiral and grid searches. They interviewed Dexter Pratt, took a statement, impressions of his shoes, his tires, fingerprints to compare them with everything they were collecting from the area.

  The FBI people brought an entomologist, an expert on insects. With certain species of flies, the adult female will leave her eggs on the nostrils, mouth, and eyes of a corpse. The eggs evolve into wormlike larvae that feast on the decomposing flesh before they hatch in a cycle that takes about twenty-four hours, which, after factoring in other conditions, can provide a means of determining the time of death. In the Clear Creek find of a woman’s head and severed hands, it was estimated that the time of death exceeded forty-eight hours. Moreover, it did not occur at the scene.

  As for identification, well, that’s where the case broke wide open.

  The good condition of the hands made it relatively simple for the FBI to obtain fingerprints. They were immediately submitted to the national database, known as AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, and to a number of regional, state, and local programs. In California the prints were accessed by California’s Department of Justice, the SFPD, and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s office. They were checked through the DMV, Cal-ID, and a number of other systems.

  It took less than three minutes before California got a hit. The DMV system confirmed the fingerprints matched those on the driver’s license of:

  Carrie Dawn Addison. DOB 02/05/76 Height: 5 feet 7 inches. Weight: 116. Eye Color: Brown. Hair Color: Brown Address: 707 Short, San Francisco CA.

  31

  As mourners filed out of St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydowski’s cell phone vibrated.

  Within the hour he and Turgeon stood at the front door of the large dark green Victorian in the Upper Market where Carrie Dawn Addison’s apartment was located. Sydowski pressed the buzzer a second time.

  “Let’s try next door.” Turgeon indicated the man polishing a metallic lime green ’57 Vette. “Excuse me, sir. Do you know the people at this building?”

  The man looked to be in his late fifties, salt-and-pepper brush cut of a retired marine. The Stars and Stripes hung from his garage.

  “Who’s asking?”

  “San Francisco police.” Sydowski held out his ID.

  “There a problem?”

  “We’re checking on the welfare of someone listed at the address.”

  “Gosh. Is Ellie all right? I just saw her a little while ago.”

  “Who would that be?”

  “Ellie Brunner, she owns the place. Rents out the rooms upstairs. Mostly young women. College girls, nurses.”

  “Any of them named Carrie?”

  “Yes. There a problem?”

  “What can you tell us about her?”

  “Carrie? Not much. In her twenties. Moved in two years ago, I’d say. Keeps to herself. Quiet. Every now and then I see her working on her laptop on her balcony, catching some sun. I think she’s a student. What’s the problem?”

  A burgundy Chev sedan stopped at the house. A slender white-haired woman with round frameless glasses stepped from it. She was wearing a print dress and carrying a plastic bag, celery stalks sticking from it. On seeing the strangers, a question formed on her face.

  “Mrs. Brunner?” Sydowski said.

  “Yes, can I help you?”

  Turgeon held out her ED.

  “Can we have a quick moment in private?”

  “Police?” Her attention bounced between the inspectors.

  “Can we talk privately, please?” Sydowski said.

  They went inside. Minutes later Brunner led Sydowski and Turgeon up the exterior wrought-iron staircase at the rear to Carrie Addison’s second-floor apartment. As Brunner worked the key into the lock, the detectives tugged on green latex gloves. It was a small, neat one-bedroom.

  “She live alone?” Sydowski said.

  “Yes.”

  “Have many visitors?”

  “None. She’s quiet. Moved in over two years ago. You said it was urgent police business to check on her welfare but—”

  “It is, Mrs. Brunner.” Turgeon took stock of the furnishings, the mail on the table.

  “Do you know where she’s employed?” Sydowski said.

  “Not exactly. I think she’s got several part-time jobs.”

  “Can you tell us about any of them?”

  “Addictions counselor. She told me she helped people with substance-abuse problems.”

  “You know where?” Turgeon said.

  “In the Mission, I think. Officers, I really feel uncomfortable and you’re worrying me. Was there an accident?”

  “Something like that,” Sydowski said. “Again, when’s the last time you saw or spoke with Carrie?”

  “A few weeks ago.”

  “What do you remember? Her demeanor? Any details?”

  “She was leaving town for a few days to visit a friend. She seemed happy. Before that she told me that she might be leaving the country for some sort of job in South America. That she’d let me know soon.”

  “When was that again?” Sydowski gazed at the mail.

  “About two weeks ago.”

  “Have you spoken to her on the phone since you last saw her?”

  “No.”

  “You remember what she was wearing that day?”

  “Goodness. Faded jeans, maybe. A yellow top. Short-sleeved. I’m not sure. She was carrying two travel bags.”

  “Walt?” Turgeon nodded to some travel books on the Caribbean and Central and South America lying on an end table near the sofa.

  “Ma’am, is her phone wired through your line, or is it separate?” Sydowski said, examining the telephone answering machine.

  “Separate.”

  “Do you know if she received many packages, or deliveries?”

  “None that I know of.”

  “She have trouble paying the rent?”

  “No, never.”

  “She have any male visitors?”

  “None that I saw. Please, you’re worrying me.”

  “I think we better get a warrant.”

  Brunner sat down at the small kitchen table. “Please tell me what’s happening.”

  Turgeon pulled out a chair and sat across from her. As a seasoned homicide detective she knew how to keep a professional distance without being cold. Ellie Brunner seemed to be a good-hearted woman, but this was not the time to tell her that the head and hands of her tenant had been found inside a designer bag in a roadside trash bin near Winslow, Arizona.

  “Mrs. Brunner. Ellie, we have reason to believe Carrie may have been harmed. We’re trying to sort things out. We don’t know everything yet. Once we do, we’ll tell you.”

  Sydowski’s cell phone trilled.

  It was Terry Witherspoon, one of the SFPD robbery inspectors chasing the victim’s ID. He was calling from San Francisco Deluxe Jewelry.

  “Walt, we’re down at the store with the manager going through the employee list again.”

  “And?”

  “Carrie Dawn Addison is on it.”

  “Bingo.”

  32

  At home alone in his study, Reed slapped the police tape into his machine, pushed the button. The reels rotated counterclockwise.

  Sydowski had said the enhanced tape would be released to the press later. The lab had set it up to play the segment continuously. The tape hissed; then Ann’s pleas exploded from his bo
okshelf speakers, the clarity of her breathing, her gasps put her in the room with him.

  “Oh God, please let me go!”

  “Shut up! I told you to shut up! Where’s your car?”

  “Please. Don’t. Please!”

  “Are you sure you got him?”

  “Christ, it’s all going to hell!”

  “Keep moving! Come on!”

  That was it. Three seconds passed; then it played again. Then again. Reed had to stop it a few times, forcing himself to ignore Ann’s voice to concentrate on the male voices. It seemed futile.

  After nearly an hour, Reed ran his hand through his hair. As the tape rewound, he switched on his small television, muting it to the local coverage of the police officer’s funeral. There was the SFPD honor guard. August’s coffin, the police chief, the mayor, the attorney general, an ocean of blue. The tape resumed.

  “Oh God, please let me go!”

  “Shut up! I told you to shut up! Where’s your car?” Strange. Out of nowhere, for an intense half second, he thought maybe, he’d recognized a cadence, a certain tone, an inflection?

  “I told you to shut up!”

  Reed had heard that voice somewhere. Hadn’t he?

  “I told you to shut...”

  Hadn’t he?

  “I told you to...”

  Come on, hadn’t he?

  “I told you. I told you. I told you.”

  Did he know that voice? The possibility slithered deep into the dark regions of his memory, then vanished. Damn! His mind was playing tricks on him. It was desperation. How many times had he listened to the segment?

  Reed stood, watching the police funeral, feeling the seams of his world coming apart. He was anguished, exhausted, grappling with the fact he was utterly helpless. The tape continued.

  Why had Sydowski insisted he listen? Was there a connection? Why did the suspects go out of their way to make it appear Ann was the one they had buried, tormenting him, making it a game? Why? The camera pulled in on the woman in black, the murdered officer’s ex-wife, holding the hand of her little boy. Thoughts of Ann and Zach pierced Reed. “Oh God, please let me go!”

  The phone rang, jolting him.

  “Tom, it’s Molly.”

  “Molly?”

  “Tom, I’m sorry,” she said. “Did you hear about Arizona?”

  “No. What about Arizona?”

  “You’re going to hear something on this, I wanted to tell you first.”

  “Christ, Molly, what?”

  “A source of mine just called me and said the Navajo County Sheriff’s office and FBI ERT were called out to a find.”

  “What—where?”

  “Near Winslow. It’s happening now!”

  “What? What did they find?”

  “Her bag. Ann’s bag.”

  Reed collapsed in his chair.

  “Tom. I hate this. I’m so sorry. I’m calling you as a friend. When we heard what that reporter from Worldwide did, I just wanted you to know.”

  Reed steadied himself. “Molly, did your source tell you anything more?”

  “They found something in the bag. I don’t know what but it’s connected to the site in Death Valley.”

  Reed’s room began spinning: the police funeral. Ann’s voice.

  “Oh God, please let me go!”

  33

  Ann Reed lay in darkness in the back of the idling SUV.

  She’d learned the names of the men who’d kidnapped her.

  John and Del.

  How many hours—days?—had it been? Ann didn’t know. She existed between the worlds of sleep and fear. She became expert at feeling, sensing and identifying travel movements, sounds, and rhythms. She glimpsed the vehicle and its plate during a late-night bathroom stop.

  They’d driven almost nonstop, constantly monitoring radio news reports. In the rare instances the men talked, they spoke in low tones. She had to strain to hear them.

  But that’s how she got their names.

  John and Del.

  They’d pulled off of the highway and had been parked for several minutes. One had left the truck for about five minutes, then returned.

  She strived to hear, catching words.

  “Cabin...left at the pool...passed the trees...private...number ten…

  The transmission engaged, the truck crept forward, making gentle turns before creaking to a halt. The engine was turned off. The suspension sprang as they stepped out and walked off. She listened. Several moments passed before they returned. A key slid into the truck’s rear lock and the door opened.

  She held her breath.

  Please, God. Help me.

  Someone began tugging at the sleeping bag, jerking its zipper open. She felt warm night air; then a cloth hood—a pillowcase?—was pulled over her head.

  The duct tape around her ankles was cut and torn away, but the bonds around her wrists and tape covering her mouth remained. She was manipulated into a sitting position, her legs moved over the tail and bumper, until she found her footing and was pulled to her feet. She heard the faraway drone of a highway and the chirp of crickets. Shaking with fear, she fought to assemble details, as if she could fashion them into a means of escape.

  Someone gripped her upper arm and forced her forward.

  They moved over a pebbled surface, then soft grass, then ascended one, two, three squeaky wooden steps until she sensed a threshold and they entered a room with soft flooring. Carpet freshener, furniture polish, and the scent of pine were mixed by an air conditioner, its fan rattling and humming.

  The room’s door was shut, locked, bolted and chained. Curtain hooks whizzed in the track. A light switch clicked. There was quiet movement, a bag was dropped nearby on a linoleum floor. Then someone drew near. Close. Body odor and cigarette breath invaded her nostrils.

  Without warning her head twisted and the hood was yanked off. She blinked, adjusting to the dim light that made everything in the room appear tinged with blood.

  A tall, muscle-bound man stood within a few feet of her. He was unshaven. He had short black hair, a disfigured ear, and sideburns tufting to his jaw in thick forests that thinned into a sea of growth reaching the beginnings of a moustache drooping over the rotting teeth of his sneer. His eyes traveled up and down her body.

  Ann felt the vibrations of her heart.

  The room was large. It looked clean. Two queen-sized beds. Large TV. A coffee table. A desk. A telephone. A lifeline? A sofa and sofa chair from where another big man studied her. He was in blue jeans, white T-shirt. Muscular, tattooed arms. Shaved head. Clean-skinned smooth face. His dark eyes locked onto hers, following them to the telephone.

  “Forget that,” he said. “You’ll do what you’re told. Understand?”

  Ann blinked once. She had it now from their voices. This one, the shaved-headed smooth-skinned one, was John. He seemed to be in charge. The other one with the misshapen ear and bad teeth was Del.

  “We’re going to take the tape off of your mouth, but don’t think about trying anything or making a sound. One: no one will hear you. And two,” John glanced at the man standing before her, “you’ll be punished.”

  The duct tape binding her wrists began clicking from her trembling.

  “Understand?”

  Ann shut her eyes.

  It’s a dream. A bad dream.

  “Do you understand, Ann?”

  She opened her eyes to meet his, then nodded once.

  “Good. All right then.”

  Del fumbled with the duct tape over her mouth, his big clumsy fingers stripping it, the adhesive side resisting, stretching her skin as though he were peeling it from her skull. It stung, but she swallowed her pain, working her sore jaw up and down as he sliced the tape from her wrists.

  “Go take a shower,” Del said.

  Shower? Then what? The beds. The threats. Don’t make a sound. You’ll be punished. Then what?

  Ann didn’t move until the air conditioner rattled to a dead-silent stop, making her flinch.
/>
  “You do what we say,” John said. “Get in there. Shower. Put on fresh clothes from the bag.”

  Ann blinked back her tears, turned to the bathroom. Maybe there was a phone there? A window, door, a vent? Please, something. Del shoved her toward the bathroom.

  Inside, Ann locked the door, then fell against it to study the room. Beige walls and tile. No windows. No doors. No vents. Just a bathroom.

  No way out.

  Think. She had to do something. Anything.

  She started the shower, then turned to the vanity mirror over the sink, seeing herself for the first time since it happened. Shock and anguish had carved dark lines deep into her skin under blotches of dirt, nicks, and scrapes. Her hair was matted, gritted with sand and grime. She covered her mouth with her shaking hands. Her eyes glistened, remembering Zach and Tom—their faces—would she ever see them again? Their voices—would she ever hear them again? Aching to be with them. Hold them. The hot water hissing, her face fading in the steam clouding the mirror, until she was gone.

  Don’t give up.

  In the shower Ann sobbed, releasing her fear and panic. Del with the rotting teeth, deformed ear, and sideburns had whispered to her, “Don’t worry, darlin’. I’m going to get to you. Just like the other one.” Ann tingled with fear. She scrubbed furiously under the needles of hot water. “Do what we say”—as if she could cleanse herself free—“you’ll be punished”—scouring as she gasped for her life—“just like the other one”—feeling the first molten drops of rage burn in her gut against the indignity, against the violation her captors had inflicted.

  Don’t give up. Fight back. For your life. For Zach. For Tom. But there were two of them and they were big men. Strong men. Powerful men.

  Then think. You’re smart. Think. This is your life.

  Drying herself, Ann wrapped a towel around her, then examined the soiled, foul-smelling clothes she had worn. She retrieved Tom’s small gift from the jewelry store. She’d hidden it in her shoe, then her bra. It was her talisman. She squeezed it.

  That first night in the desert they’d yanked off her white silk blouse and tailored mauve suit, replacing them with dirty, torn jeans, a ripped and stained short-sleeved yellow blouse. The stains had dried brown. They had exchanged her clothes for something—someone—in the desert. The other one. Ann swallowed, then went to the bag. A dark green canvas bag. The tag inside said Carrie D. Addison. A San Francisco address.