“Guess you been working pretty hard on the bigkidnapper story, that’s why you missed us at the airport, huh?”
Reed looked into his son’s eyes for a long moment.
“Something like that, Zach.”
“Well, Mom’s pretty pissed at you.”
“She has every right to be.”
Reed saw Ann’s silhouette in the doorway, put his handon his son’s shoulder. As they went inside, Zach saw the white van drive off.
In the house, Zach did as his mother told him and wentupstairs to his room and closed the door. Loud enough for his parents to hear.Then he quietly opened it, lay on the floor and listened.
“Where the hell were you, Tom?”
“Ann, I don’t blame you for-“
“You promised us you would be there.”
“I know, but something came up on the kidnappings, I-“
How many times had he hurt her by starting with “butsomething came up.” Her face reddened under her tousled hair, her brown eyesnarrowed. She had removed her shoes, her silk blouse had come slightly untuckedfrom her skirt. Jesus, she was going to explode on him.
“You look like shit and you reek,” she said.
“It’s complicated. I can expla-“
“Were you with Molly Wilson, a last fling?”
“What? I don’t believe this!”
“You’ve been drinking again.”
“I never told you I quit. I never lied.”
“That’s right. You were always honest about yourpriorities.” Her eyes burned with contempt. She thrust her face into her hands,collapsing on the sofa. “Tom, I can’t take this anymore. I won’t take thisanymore.” Her voice sank to a whisper. “You told me you had changed, but youlied. Nothing’s changed.”
That wasn’t true. He wanted to tell her, but all hecould manage was: “Ann, I love you and Zach with all my heart.”
“Stop it!” She spat, pounding her fists on her knees.“Your words are cheap. They’re for sale any day of the week to anyone withfifty cents! But one thing you can’t do with them is hold a family together!”
Ann stood, grabbing a copy of the morning’s Starfrom the coffee table, the one with Virgil Shook’s shooting splashed on thefront. “It can’t be done see!” She ripped up the paper tearing Shook on thestretcher in half, tossing the pieces aside. “You can’t hold anything togetherwith paper.”
Ann sat again, her face in her hands.
He was stunned.
She had reduced him to nothing.
A zero.
Everything he had struggled to be, the thing by whichhe defined himself was demolished. His eyes went around the room, noticingtheir unpacked bags as he ingested the truth. Ann despised him not so much forhis trespasses, but truly for what he was. He searched in vain for an answer.He wanted to tell her he had been fired, tell her everything. How he washaunted by the accusing eyes of a dead man’s little girl. How he was fallingand needed to hang on to something. Someone. But he didn’t know what to say,how to begin.
“Okay,” he said softly. “Okay. I understand.”
He turned and left.
Watching from his bedroom window, Zach saw his father’scar disappear down the street, the Comet’s grumbling muffler underscoring thatpromises had been broken. Tears rolled down Zach’s face.
FIFTY-NINE
Dust and pebbles pelted acting Calaveras County Sheriff Greg Brader as he watchedthe four helicopters descend one after the other, his shirt flapping angrilyagainst his back.
It was supposed to be his day off. He was painting hisgarage at his home in San Andreas when his wife had called him to the phone. Itwas his dispatcher: The SFPD and FBI were flying out immediately because of apossible county connection to the kidnapping case in the Bay Area. Brader hadless than an hour to prepare.
While some small town cops may have gotten jittery atthe prospect of a profile case popping up in their yard, Brader was cool.Before coming to the county eight years ago, he had put in twelve years withthe LAPD, six of them in Homicide. Without changing his torn jeans and stainedT-shirt, he kissed his wife and got in his marked Suburban. He made calls overthe radio and cellular while driving directly to West Point, a sleepy villageforty minutes away.
Brader and his two deputies cordoned off the balldiamond and its parking lot, turning it into a landing zone for the SanFrancisco FBI’s new MacDonnell Douglas 450-NOTAR and larger Huey, which carriedthe FBI’s SWAT team. Sydowski, Turgeon, and a handful of others from the taskforce landed next in the two CHiPs choppers.
Special Agent Merle Rust and SFPF Inspector WaltSydowski were the contact people, along with FBI SWAT Team Leader LangfordShaw. Brader introduced himself, shouting over the noise of the rotor blades.
“You fellas best ride with me. My guys will bring theothers.” As requested, he had obtained a school bus for the SWAT Team and itsequipment. Other task force members rode with Brader’s deputies as they roaredoff in a convoy of three police cars and the bus.
“We’ll be there in under twenty minutes,” Brader saidafter making a radio call to his deputies at the property. “I’ve had two peoplesitting back on the house since you called.”
“What have you got?” Rust asked.
“As you know, the pickup is currently registered to aWarren Urlich. He’s a sixty-eight-year-old recluse, a pensioner. Makes extracash fixing cars and trucks; sells them, too. Neighbors say he never talks toanybody and he’s got so many vehicles on his property, they never know whenhe’s home.”
“What about the kids?”
“Like I told you when you were flying out, Urlich’snearest neighbor thinks she saw two kids on the place that maybe arrived recently.A little boy and girl. She was only sure they weren’t living there before.”
Rust and Sydowski exchanged glances.
Stands of pine, cedar, and sequoias blurred by theSuburban as it ate up the paved ribbon snaking through the Sierras of CavalerasCounty. This was where prospectors flocked during the gold rush in 1849. It washome to Twain’s celebrated jumping frog, clear lakes, streams, tranquility, andpeople who wanted to be left alone.
Cars and pickups in various stages of disrepair, junk,a yapping dog on a long chain, and ramshackle outbuildings dotted WarrenUrlich’s land, a three-acre hilly site with an abundance of trees.
The FBI SWAT Team set up a perimeter around therickety house, while the county deputies and some task force members formed an outerperimeter. Brader’s Suburban and the bus, which was the command post, werevirtually out of sight about one hundred yards from the house.
From the hood of Brader’s truck, Sydowski glimpsed abroken toilet and a pit bull with a bloodied rabbit carcass in its jaws, as heswept the property with Brader’s binoculars. He chewed a Tums tablet — hissecond since they landed — and steadied himself for the worst. He fearedanother deadly shootout like the one with Shook. He prayed for the children tobe alive, but if they were in this shit hole, they were ninety-nine percent forsure dead.
He passed the binoculars to Turgeon. She rolled thefocus wheel slightly, bit her lip, then handed the glasses to Brader.
Sydowski studied her protectively for a moment.
Inside the bus, SWAT Team Leader Langford Shaw maderadio checks with his people. Everybody was in position. Fred Wheeler, the unit’shostage negotiator, called the house over the FBI’s satellite phone.
Someone answered.
“Mr. Warren Urlich?”
“Yup.”
“Mr. Urlich, this is Fred Wheeler. I’m a special agentwith the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We’d like to talk to you, sir. Wehave heavily armed people positioned around your home and would like you toplease walk slowly out the front door with your hands in the air now.”
Wheeler was answered with silence.
“Mr. Urlich, Warren?”
Nothing.
“Did you hear me, sir?”