“No.”
“Ask them. If they can’t be sure, get the company toshow you records. I know they computerize tag numbers of all cars. Check theFord and the partial tag with them, too. May be a common factor there.”
Sydowski slapped Murphy on the back and handed him thefile. “I’d kick Barrons loose, go home, and get some sleep.”
Murphy nodded. He was a good cop. The boys in Vice didjump Barrons too soon. Sydowski thought, starting a fresh pot of coffee in thecoffee room. He stared at the fading poster above the counter. A.38 Smith amp; Wesson with a steel lock through the action-“Keep it locked at home.”They may have blown it with Barrons. Damn. Too many divorced, heart-broken copsthinking like fathers instead of detectives here.
Notice of a case status meeting was scrawled on theblackboard: 8:30 A.M. Sydowski eyed the fax machine. Nothing from Canada. Hesipped coffee and flipped through a basket of the most recent tips and leadsthat had been checked, or dismissed. He went through the E-mail printouts. Lotsof advice on how to conduct an investigation. Cyber advice from around theworld pointing them to suspicious websites and kiddie porn stuff. Most of thetips came from crazies. Most of it was plain useless stuff. Sightings acrossthe Bay Area of a man fitting the general description. “Suspect spotted on BARTlast year, caller can’t remember when.” Impossible to check. Psychics andanonymous kooks such as: “Caller says she was instructed to inform police bythe Lord.” Sydowski shook his head.
One dismissed report came with a cassette recording.Sydowski rummaged through his desk for his machine, inserted the tape, rewoundit to the beginning, put on a headset, and pressed the play button.
“We’ve been in love for more than a year…”
The words hung in the air like a bizarre smell. It wasdifficult to determine the speaker’s gender.
“Danny is with me now. It’s better this way. He lovesme. He’s always loved me. Our first meeting was so beautiful, so innocent. Ithink it was preordained. Shall I tell you about it?”
Sydowski checked the accompanying report. The callerhad phoned in on the task force line, which was wired to record calls.
“I was walking through the park when we saw eachother. Our eyes met, he smiled. Have you seen his eyes? So expressive, I’mlooking at them now. He is so captivating. I won’t tell you how we madecontact, that’s my little secret, but I will say he communicated his love to meintuitively. A pure, virtuous, absolute love…” The voice wept, rambling forfive minutes until the line went dead.
Sydowski removed his headset, went over the accompanyingreport. The caller was Chris Lorenzo Hollis, a forty-year-old psychiatricpatient who called from his hospital room. The staff said he’d been mesmerizedwith the Becker kidnapping, and fantasized about being Danny Becker’s mother.He watched TV news reports, read the newspaper stories faithfully. He hadn’tleft the hospital in sixty days.
Sydowski went to another cleared report, opening thethin legal-size file folder containing a single sheet of paper sealed in clearplastic and a two-page assessment. The piece of paper was left that night onthe counter of the SFPD station in Balboa Park. Nothing on the person whodelivered it. It was in a blank, white letter-size envelope. No markings.Sydowski read the document.
Re: Kidnapping of Danny Becker and Gabrielle Nunn.
Dear Sirs: This material was channeled spiritually so it is open tointerpretation. The kidnapper is Elwood X. Suratz, born Jan. 18, 1954. He is apedophile who was in the city recently for counseling. He cancelled hisappointment when he became overwhelmed by his urges. While in a semi-psychoticstate, he went XXXXXX hunting for prey on the subway where he abducted DannyBecker…
The letter graphically described assaults on Danny,then detailed biographical material on Suratz. The accompanying two-page reportdismissed the tip as bogus. No such person existed. Every claim in the letterhas been double-checked. Not one item could be verified. The letter was typedon the same portable Olympia manual that was used for ten other similar letterssent to the police on ten different high-profile cases. Police suspect theletters came from somebody who thought they had psychic abilities. They didn’t.
Sydowski gulped his coffee just as the fax machinebegan humming. The first of twenty-six pages, via the FBI liaison in Ottawa, onthe Canadian police, prison, and psych records of Virgil Lee Shook werearriving, including copies of the most recent mugs of Shook. He was aforty-eight-year-old Caucasian, six feet tall, one hundred eighty pounds. Hehad light-colored hair. Put a beard on him and he fit the description in theBecker-Nunn cases. His tattoos matched those of the hooded man in the Polaroidswith Tanita Marie Donner.
Sydowski felt his gut tighten and popped a Tums.
Shook was born in Dallas and drifted to Canada afterhe was under suspicion for assaulting a four-year-old boy near La Grange,Texas. In Canada, he achieved a staggering record of assault on children. Inone instance, he claimed to be a relative and lured a seven-year-old boy and hisfive-year-old sister from their parents at a large park near Montreal. Shookkept the children captive for five days in a suburban motel room, where he tiedthem to the room’s beds, donned a hood, and repeatedly assaulted them. He tookpictures of the children and kept a journal detailing how he satisfied hisfantasies before abandoning them alive.
Shook was arrested two years later in Toronto afterthree university students caught him molesting a five-year-old boy in asecluded wooded area. Shook had abducted the boy from his inattentivegrandfather hours earlier off the Toronto subway. In court, Shook detailed hisattacks on scores of children over the years. His actions were born out of hisown misery. He said he was sexually abused when he was a nine-year-old altarboy by his parish priest. Shook was ten when his father died. His motherremarried and he was beaten by his stepfather. Shook grew up envying andloathing “normal” children. He would never overcome his need to exact a toll,“inflict damage” on them. After earning parole three years ago, he vanished.
A wolf among the lambs.
Sydowski sat down and reread the entire file.
Trauma as a child. Religious overtones. Need tore-offend. Fantasy fulfillment. A pattern of crime that fit with the Donner-Becker-Nunncases. Shook was lighting up the FBI profile like a Christmas tree. Sydowskireached for his phone and punched the number for Turgeon’s cell. They wouldbring the task force up to speed on Shook at the eight-thirty meeting.
“Turgeon.”
“It’s Walt, Linda.”
“You’re up early.”
“Get down here to 450 as soon as possible. We’ve gotShook’s file.”
“Is it him, Walt?”
“It’s him, Linda, and guess who his hero is?”
“I couldn’t begin.”
“The Zodiac.”
FORTY-SIX
At dawn, awhite van squeaked to a stop at Gabrielle Nunn’s home and four sober-facedmembers of the San Francisco Police Department’s IDENT detail got out. Dressedin dark coveralls, they talked softly, yawning, finishing off coffee, andtossing their cups into the truck. A second van arrived with six more officers.They went to homes on either side of the Nunn’s, waking owners, showing themsearch warrants. Yellow plastic tape was stretched the length of seven houses,sealing front and backyards with the message: POLICE LINE — DO NOT CROSS. TheNunn home was the middle house. Before the day’s end, every inch in thesectioned-off area would be sifted, searched, and prodded for anythingconnected to the case.
It was no ordinary Sunday morning here. Something hadbeen defiled in the inner Sunset, where less than twenty-four hours earlierGabrielle had skipped off to Joannie Tyson’s birthday party, radiant in her newdress.
Her neighbors knew the nightmare.
They had seen the news crews, gasped for reporters,watched TV, and read the papers. This morning, they stared from their doors andwindows, shaking their heads, hushing their children, drawing their curtains.“I hope they find her. Her poor parents.” Something had been violated,something terrifying had left its mark, now manifest in yellow policetape-America’s flag of tragedy and death.