Rick Mofina - If Angels Fall

“You guys want a coffee, just made a fresh batch?” Radpushed back his glasses and burrowed into the file.

“No thanks,” Turgeon said.

“I’m fine, Rad,” Sydowski said.

“Super! Let’s get going!” Rad plopped himself before aterminal and entered Beth’s calculations. He then sipped coffee from agargantuan mug, darted to another computer, fed each of Beth’s composites intoit, then entered various commands. The fans to cool the computers whirred. Radturned and smiled.

“Be ready in a few moments.”

One of the computers beeped. Rad turned, telling hisguests to pull up chairs beside him.

“Super! Now, here’s what I’m doing. I’ve entered Beth’sphysical description of our target, with tolerances, into the CaliforniaDepartment of Motor Vehicles drivers’ and registration records data bank. I’venarrowed the search to the greater Bay Area, eliminating race, sex, age, etc.That being said, I would estimate a potential suspect pool of two hundredthousand. Now if we had a suspect vehicle, it would narrow the searchconsiderably.”

“What we’ll do is call in volunteer criminologystudents and cadets from the academy to help us sift through the pool. Here,I’ll show you what we’ll do. I start with our first guy here.”

Rad pulled up on a large video screen the driver’slicense picture of an Oakland man whose age and physical description fit Beth’scomposite. Rad punched a command and Beth’s composite of the suspect appearedin matching scale and perspective beside the Oakland man. Rad then superimposedthe suspect’s photo over the Oakland man.

“Not even close,” Turgeon said.

“Before we get started in this needle-in-a-haystackgrunt work-do we have fingerprints?” Rad asked.

“No, just the tattoo fragment,” Sydowski said. “But wecould be dealing with two separate suspects.”

“Yes, I remember. We’ll do what we did last year, runeverything through NCIC and VICAP. We struck out then. Now, we have a physicaldescription to possibly tie it to. And, for what it’s worth, we’ll sift throughthe dreaded California sex crimes registry again. And I’ll rattle the Bay Areadata banks.”

“Anything you can do, Rad.”

He ran the description through the state and federalprison systems, and the Western States Information Network. Last year, early inthe Donner, Rad had Virginia’s prison records checked for the time FranklinWallace was an inmate to see if any of his old prison buddies were with him atthe time of the baby’s murder. “Let’s try it again now that Beth’s done aDorian Gray for us.”

“Dorian Gray?” Turgeon whispered to Sydowski.

“Computer aged the picture,” He answered.

Rad’s fingers danced over his keyboard as he enteredthe data bank for the federal prison system in Virginia for the years FranklinWallace served his time for sex crimes against children. The screen showed alist of 621 male inmates Wallace could have met there. The list included socialsecurity numbers, birthdates, and file numbers from the National CrimeInformation Center’s computers. Rad sensed Sydowski’s skepticism.

“Walter, please bear in mind that data are fluid and alot of new information has likely been entered since we last did this.”

Sydowski bore it in mind.

“Although it is tempting to go with descriptions,let’s go with circumstance first in narrowing our search,” Rad said.

“Molesters tend to stick together on the inside.”Turgeon said.

“That’s right. So how many of our first number weredoing time for sex crimes against children?” Rad worked the keyboard.

The list was reduced to fifty-four.

“Remove the number who were in jail when Tanita MarieDonner was taken.” Sydowski said.

The list shrank to eighteen.

“How many were alive at the time of the Donner case?”Sydowski asked. Rad nodded and worked the keyboard.

The list was reduced to fourteen.

“Let’s go to identifiers now,” Rad said. “I’ll narrowthat list to Caucasians.”

The computer beeped and the number now was eleven.

“How many at that time had tattoos on their rightarm?” Sydowski said.

Rad prompted the computer and it answered nine.

Four tattoos had the names of women, three men hadHarleys on their biceps, one had a screaming eagle, and one had a death’s head.Not one had flames on their forearms.

“Shit,” Sydowski muttered.

“Tattoos can be removed Inspector,” Turgeon said.

“It’s only our first run, Walter, and it was quick anddefinitely unscientific.” Rad was reaching to switch the computer off.

“Wait!” Turgeon said, startling the two men. A fewclerks nearby looked up. “We forgot another aspect.”

“There are thousands of possible equations to try,”Rad said.

“I know. But we went through this looking for somebodyto fit our suspect’s description. My reading of the file is that two peoplewere involved in Tanita Marie Donner’s kidnapping and murder.”

“Right. We used that last year without a description,”Rad said.

“Many of these cases are partner crimes,” Sydowskisaid.

“We know someone took the pictures in the Donner casemaybe there were other, peripheral partners?” Turgeon said. “Try this: how manyof our suspects who were Virginia skinners with Franklin Wallace were living inthe Bay Area at the time of the Donner abduction and murder?”

“Sure.” Rad pounded in the command.

Turgeon bit her bottom lip and waited.

The computer beeped. Zero.

“Damn,” she whispered.

Sydowski grunted, and checked his watch. Maybe theyshould pass Beth’s composites to Rust and Ditmire and let the FBI play withthem.

“Wait, one more thing.” Turgeon had not given up. “Howmany of the Virginia cons are now living in the Bay Area?”

“We got zilch when we tried that last year.” Radshrugged.

“But a lot of new information has likely been enteredsince the last time you did this,” she said.

“True,” Rad said, catching Sydowski’s subtle nod.

The computer bleeped and answered one.

Turgeon’s heart quickened.

Rad bolted upright. “Amazing!”

“Call him up,” Sydowski said.

PERRY WILLIAM KINDHART.

His name and file appeared on the screen. Caucasian,thirty-nine, five feet, eleven inches tall, medium build, red hair, blue eyes.Death’s head tattoo on left shoulder. Convicted molester. Mugs were recent. Noresemblance to Beth’s composites.

“Last known address?” Sydowski said.

“I’m getting it,” Rad typed. The computer beeped.“SoMa. He lives South of Market. I’ll print out the address. Looks current.”

“Record?” Sydowski said.

Rad prompted the computer, complimenting Turgeon forher hunch.

“I don’t know how we missed this guy last year,” hesaid.

Kindhart’s criminal history appeared on the screen. Hehad served time in the same Virginia prison as Franklin Wallace when Wallacewas there. They could have met. Kindhart was convicted in Richmond ofphotographing children in lewd poses, and served one year. His federal sheethad charges and acquittals in half a dozen Midwestern states over the lastdecade. He seemed to be making his way west. His last known beef was in SanFrancisco. The full details of his case were only recently entered into thesystem, according to the data date, explaining how he was missed the firsttime.

“I don’t believe this.” Turgeon read the screenquickly.

Right about the time Tanita Marie Donner was kidnappedand murdered, Kindhard was up on charges of exciting the lust of a child in SanFrancisco. He supposedly took obscene pictures of two five-year-old girls heenticed into his apartment in the Mission. Evidence was shaky so the judge gaveKindhart two years probation with terms that he stay away from children, notown any type of camera, and not possess any type of pornographic material.