Rick Mofina - If Angels Fall

An intense white square burned on the wall, darkeningand streaking as the leader flowed over the lens. A little boy’s face appears,slightly out of focus. The camera pulls back. The boy is sitting on the floorof an elegant home. The Golden Gate bridge is visible through a bay window. Theboy is handsome, dressed in a white shirt, vest, bow tie, and dark pants. Hisface is fervent with expectation. Two older children, a boy and a girl, arenext to him, smiling. The little boy sits before a large gift-wrapped package.The camera tightens on a card that reads “To Josh, Love, Daddy. P.S. Sorry Icouldn’t be home. I’ll make it next time, PROMISE!” The camera retreats. Awoman’s hand comes in to view, motioning to the boy. He stands and excitedlytears away the paper to get at the treasure it holds. A flowing white maneemerges. Then a saddle. The boy’s eyes widen. It’s a white rocking horse. Heleaps upon it and begins rocking. The other children touch it. Tears stingKeller’s eyes.

That day in his home office. Josh toddled in whileKeller was on the phone, closing some long-forgotten deal. Josh, arms open,Daddy, Daddy, I love my daddy. Grabbing at Keller while he was in the middle ofcrucial negotiations. Josh’s arms struggling to hug him. Not now, damn it. I ambusy. Get the hell out of here. Josh’s arms struggling to hold him. Joshcrying, his arms cold from the water. Hang on to Daddy. Josh slipping from hisneck, vanishing into the black water. Get the hell out. You never gaveyourself to them. They only wanted you. And it would have cost you nothing.

But you paid with everything to learn that, didn’tyou?

The camera shakes, the picture blurs. The boy rocksand waves.

Tears stream down Keller’s face. He cannot stop them.

He reduces the projector’s speed to slow motion.

Joshua, his youngest child, smiles at the camera. Heis a good little boy. His hair has been neatly brushed by his mother. He blinksshyly. So vulnerable. Innocent. Frame by frame the camera clicks until Keller’stears blur the picture.

Suddenly Joshua steps from the wall!

Keller’s jaw drops.

A resplendent aura of ever-changing color emanatesfrom his tiny figure as he stands in the brilliant light of the projector. Thefeatures of his face undulate ethereally, and Keller sniffs and squints as hetries to comprehend the apparition.

“Joshua? Oh, Josh. It is you! You have come!”

Keller slips from the rocking chair to his knees.

“Praise Him! Praise Him!”

Tears flow down his face. He opens his arms and inchescloser to the child. It is a sign! A divine sign! His reward!

“Praise God!” Keller’s voice breaks with joy.

The film clicks faster, then slaps wildly in thetake-up reel as the movie ends, trapping the squinting child in the fierceglare of the projector’s light.

“I want to go home,” Danny Becker pleads weakly, hischin wrinkles, and he begins sobbing. “I want my mommy and daddy.”

Keller stretches out his arms and tilts his head toheaven.

“Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus! Praise Him and all theangels!”

The cocker spaniel barks.

Four men with droopy eyes glowered at Sydowski and Turgeon from the computer screen.Each was a Caucasian in his late forties. Dark rumpled hair. They could havebeen brothers.

“Best composites I could get.” Beth Ferguson’sconcentration was glued to the screen.

She was the police artist who helped develop theSFPD’s computerized image-enhancing system for missing children, criminals, andsuspects. She kept her auburn hair in a beehive, popular at the time of herwedding. Partial to Beechnut gum, she snapped it absentmindedly. Turgeon lovedher earrings, tiny silver handcuffs.

Beth’s office was cluttered with computers, monitors,and sketches. She could remove the face-tight masks of some suspectsphotographed by security cameras. Her success rate at producing likenesses waseighty-six percent. Enlarged, facially aged pictures of JFK and Elvis adornedone wall.

“Now, without beards.” Beth tapped her keyboard,making the four men clean shaven. Their heads rotated. Beth swiveled to anothercomputer, hit some commands, and the screen showed each man’s full-bodycomposite, with her estimates of height, weight, body type, hair, and eyecolor.

“I put him a six feet even, 160 to 180 pounds, mediumbuild, dark hair and dark eyes.”

Beth yawned. She had put in several seventeen-hourshifts drafting sketches from witness descriptions until she saw the suspect inher dreams. And, as she had done thousand times over the past year, shereviewed the fuzzy Polaroid of little Tanita Marie Donner, alive and naked,held by a man wearing a black hood and black gloves. It took every degree ofclinical coolness Beth could muster to extract details from the fragment oftattoo visible on the man’s forearm. All she could glean was a bit of flame.She was frustrated by the hood. Too loose fitting. Had the man been wearing atight-fitting ski mask, she could have produced vital facial attributes. Thismorning, when she felt had done all she could, she called Sydowski and Turgeon.

“Before I go any further,” she said, “I’ve got badnews and worse news.”

“Worse news first,” Sydowski said.

“I can’t compare the Donner suspect in the Polaroidwith the suspect in Danny Becker’s kidnapping. I’ve tried everything, Walt.Whether these two creeps are the same guy or not is anybody’s guess.”

“What’s the bad news?” Turgeon said.

“Because of so many different perspectives anddescriptions of Danny Becker’s abductor, my composite is weak. Thirty percentaccuracy tops. Watch. I’ll take the most common characteristics of thesefellows and give you your suspect, or fifty percent of him.”

Beth typed a command, the four faces were instantlyreplaced on the computer screen by one. A saggy-eyed, grim-faced Caucasian witharching eyebrows in his late forties and bearded. He was a man either hauntedby remorse or devoid of it, Sydowski thought.

“Did you also take ten years off of this guy for us?”he said.

Beth sighed. “I did. Wasn’t easy. Took two days. I’drate it at thirty-five to forty percent. Here goes.” Her keyboard clicked.

“Why make the guy ten years younger?” Turgeon asked.

“That’s when Franklin Wallace was doing his time inVirginia.”

Slowly, from top to bottom, the display terminal gavebirth to a new image of the suspect. His face had fewer lines, was less heavyset. His eyes, while droopy, were somewhat more buoyant and his hair wasthicker. Beth split the screen and presented two pictures of the youngersuspect, one showing him bearded, and one showing him clean shaven. The printerhummed, offering crisp, perfect color pictures of both composites. “There yougo.”

The gold in Sydowski’s teeth shined as he gatheredcopies of Beth’s work into a file. “I owe you, Beautiful.”

“Just close these cases, Walt.”

Waiting for the elevator at the Hall of Justice,Turgeon studied Beth’s color computer pictures. “So this is our guy?”

“One of them anyway.”

“Tanita Donner’s killer, or have we got two differentsuspects?”

“Don’t know, Linda.”

“We going to call a press conference? Splash thecomposite?”

“Nope.”

“No?” Turgeon closed the folder.

“Beth only rated it thirty percent. We’d be boggeddown chasing hundreds of useless leads. We’ll try a few other things.”

“You want me to send the younger composite to Virginiaprison authorities?” They stepped on the elevator.

“First, we’ll see Rad.”

Rad Zwicker was a skinny, hyperactive bachelor whoworshiped computers and lived alone with his mother near the Castro. He was notonly sensitive, he was the master analyst of the SFPD’s computerized records.His department at the hall continually droned from the sound of huge, new,powerful data storage banks. Give him a morsel of information and he would stunyou with what he could pull out. Rad annoyed many cops because he rode aperpetual caffeine high and was overeager, but he was lightning fast andbrilliant, virtues the SFPD did not overstock, Sydowski thought, putting Beth’sfresh composites into Rad’s hands.