Rick Mofina - If Angels Fall

Nancy Nunn wept. For her, it was a perverse ballet-thehorses, the rocker, the chariots carrying laughing children, safe children.

Nancy’s husband, Paul, and her friend Wendy Sloanewatched with her. Sharon Cook and Brenda Grayson, the two teens who sawGabrielle talking to a stranger, were also there. Watching beside them wasJanice Mason, a lip reader from Gold Bay Institute for the Hearing Impaired.Next to her, Beth Ferguson, the sketch artist, was making notes and outlines.Turgeon, Rust, Ditmire, Gonzales, Mikelson from General Works, Kennedy fromInvestigations, Chief of Inspectors Roselli, and a guy from the districtattorney’s office were among the group, hoping for a break.

Give us a lead, something. Anything.

Kreuger and his camera were at the opposite side ofthe carousel from Gabrielle and the stranger. It was difficult to see anythingexcept the strobe-like glimpses of swimming, formless color.

“Wait! I see her!” Gabrielle’s mother pinpointed thespot on the screen. The officer operating the VCR halted the tape, reversed itin freeze-frame mode, one frame at a time. Thirty seconds went by. Nothing butblurry people. Two grandmothers. Then strobe-style nothingness.Dark-light-dark-light-dark-light.

“I don’t see anything,” one detective said.

“I saw her! She’s there!” Nancy said just as GabrielleNunn appeared on the screen.

“Freeze it, Tucker!” Kennedy sat upright.

Nancy gasped, choking on her tears, pressing herfingers to the screen. It was not a clear frame, it did not betray details ofher face, mouth, or eyes, but it was Gabrielle. No question. A grainy, static-filledjerky frame of the soon-to-be six-year-old standing alone in the dress hermother had made for her birthday.

Sydowski studied the color Polaroids of Gabrielletaken at the party. Paul Nunn helped Nancy sit down and the tape continued inslow motion. Gabrielle vanished. The camera’s angle changed, and caught heragain, but she disappeared. Dark-light-dark-light-dark-light. She reappearedcompletely in focus as a shadow fell over her. A man. It was a man’s back. Theimage was jittery. A profile appeared, snowy, out of focus, void of details,but for a beard, ball cap, sunglasses.

“That’s him!” Sharon Cook, one of the teens, pointedat the TV.

“Definitely!” Brenda Grayson said.

The Nunns could not identify the man trapped byKreuger’s video camera for one second of real time. The stranger had somethingin his right hand and was showing it to Gabrielle before he was cut out of theframe. A postcard, or picture. Miraculously Gabrielle’s face focused as shetilted her head, accepted the picture, and spoke.

“Jackson! Where is he?” Janice Mason from theinstitute read Gabrielle’s lips, just as the tape ended.

Sydowski saw the veins in Paul Nunn’s reddened neckpulsing. He exploded. “He stole the dog for this! Planned it! Sonofabitch! I’llkill him!” Nunn buried his face in his large hands.

Earlier, Paul Nunn told the detectives he suspectedGabrielle’s pup was stolen from their backyard a month ago because he found thegate open and bits of raw hamburger in the pen. Now, more evidence mocked themfrom the big screen. They were hustling an IDENT unit to comb the Nunn’s yard.Sydowski thought as Officer Tucker cued up the best frame of the kidnapper forBeth Ferguson to sketch. Sydowski caught her attention. She gave her head asubtle negative shake that told him she had few attributes from the footage forcomposite. Sydowski knew it. So did the others. A fuzzy rear to near profile ofa baseball cap, dark glasses, and a beard wasn’t much to work with. But it wassomething, and if anyone could extract more physical detail about the guy fromthe teens, Beth could.

Sydowski turned to his copy of the telex from theRoyal Canadian Mounted Police, apologizing for the delay getting a file andphoto of the one possible suspect from the Canadian prison system. His name wasVirgil Shook, which fit with the “Verge” reference from Kindhart. Shook had theright kind of tattoos in the right spots. But they didn’t have his file, sheet,or pictures yet. They had absolutely nothing on Shook. It was a nationalholiday in Canada and the Mounties were having computer problems. Rust wasurged to use the FBI and State Department’s pull and call the U.S. Embassy inOttawa for action.

Sydowski studied the grainy contours of Gabrielle’sabductor on the TV screen, weighing and measuring every dancing photoelectron composinghis image. His heartburn flared; fear and anger raged in the pit of hisstomach. Was he now closer to the thing he had been hunting, the thing that hadscarred him? The tape clicked and whirred. The stranger with Gabrielle was justa man. Flesh and blood. Fallible. Conquerable. The suspect’s ghostly image onthe video was a solid break, but it came at a high price. He looked uponGabrielle Nunn’s mother and father being escorted away with the teens to helpBeth with a composite.

“We’ve got a shitload of work to do and no time to doit.” Leo Gonzales told the detectives at the table. Alerts had gone outstatewide, a grid-search of the playground at Golden Gate was underway, andexhaustive background checks with the Nunns, Beckers, and Angela Donner to finda common thread, anything that might link the families. And they’d go back tothem on Vigil Shook, once they had his damn file. Until then, absolutelynothing was to be made public about Shook. Not yet. He might run. But theywould find him. The FBI would dissect his crimes and compare them with the SanFrancisco cases. They would find his friends, climb his family tree, lean hardon Kindhart. Phone taps, mail monitoring, and surveillance for the Nunn home,canvass their Sunset neighborhood-they knew the drill. They would hold a newsconference, release the blurry footage, details of the kidnapping, and make apublic appeal for help.

“You all know what’s at stake here. Do whatever ittakes,” Gonzales vowed to the group.

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

Nancy Nunn was overwhelmed. Where was Gabrielle? Whatwas he doing to her? Oh God. Please watch over her.

All my fault. It’s all my fault. Why wasn’t Iwatching her? What was he going to do to her? OhGod, would she ever see her again? Golden Gate Park. That’s where they foundthe baby girl last year. Murdered. Oh God. The accusing eyes of the carouselhorses.

I’m okay Mom, I’m just waiting at the door.

The man was a Caucasian, late forties to mid-fifties.He had a full beard, bushy blondish hair, medium build, about 170–190 pounds,six feet to six feet, two inches tall. Beth Ferguson estimated as she worked ina nose, ears, and mouth that might match those of the man the teens had seen.He wore a long-sleeve shirt; the girls couldn’t see any tattoos. They keptrepeating, reciting details. Nancy and Paul sat with them, studying the sketch,struggling to remember if they had ever encountered the man who took Gabrielle.Nancy prayed.

God please help me. Please don’t harm her. She’s justa little girl, an innocent little girl. We should be looking for her. My childhas been abducted. Why didn’t the world stand still? Why wasn’t everyonelooking for her? I have to find her-

Nancy bolted to the hall, where she was stopped by thethrong of detectives leaving the conference room, running square into one ofthem. He was calm, compassionate. She felt his large, strong hands steady hershoulders gently. He smelled of a trace of Old Spice. Nancy’s father wore OldSpice. The hall fell silent except for Nancy’s sobbing as she looked up at thedetective, her voice breaking.

“Bring her home to me. Please bring her home to me.”

Sydowski’s blue eyes watered with understanding. Heknew her suffering-he would carry it with him as a crusader carries an amulet.It was his solemn promise. She read it in his face, the face of a good man. Heembodied her hope. Her only hope.