Rick Mofina: If Angels Fall

Long snapped his pencil in two, closed his briefcase, and left withRust and Ditmire in tow, cursing Sydowski.

The next day, Reed’s story identifying Wallace as the chief suspectin Tanita Marie Donner’s murder, ran on the front page of the Star .Thankfully, Reed didn’t know about the second suspect. The John Doe with thetattoos. The D.A. and the feds decided the case might be salvaged if theydownplayed Reed’s article by saying Wallace was never a suspect, that he waschecked because he knew the victim and because of his old record. It wasroutine and he was cleared long ago, they said. The San Francisco Star was writing fiction, again. Sydowski loathed this tenuous approach, but it wasall they had.

But it didn’t matter. The investigation crumbled. Then it got worse.Wallace’s widow sued the paper, then slapped Reed’s face in front of all thecamera during a news conference. Reed was demoted, or some shit like that.Sydowski grilled him half a dozen times about details of the call, then theylost touch.

Eventually, the number of bodies on the case dwindled. Sydowski sawless of Rust and Ditmire. Everyone knew it was Sydowski’s file. They left himalone. After Wallace’s suicide, he had painstakingly rebuilt pieces of thecase. No one envied him. But they understood.

After his darkest days, he would go home and sit in his aviary,listen to his birds and think. What was he doing wrong? He came to the hall atall hours, worked at the computer, reread files, and went out on interviews.Nothing clicked.

That had been his year since Tanita Marie Donner’s murder, a year inwhich he rarely took a day off. But he had today. And sitting with his old manat the Coliseum watching the A’s and Yankees felt good. For a few hours hetried to give his mind a rest. As he chewed on the last of his hotdog, heconsidered going back for another.

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

He switched off his pager, went to a phone and called the duty crewat the hall.

“Homicide, Jackson.”

“It’s Sydowski.”

“Walt, we got a boy abducted just now by a male stranger.”

“Got a body?”

“Nope.”

“No body. That’s General Works. Why call me?”

“It’s an order. Comes from the brass. Leo wants you in on this withGeneral and the feebees, right from the get-go. The kid was grabbed from hisfather on BART at Balboa.”

Balboa.

“It’s looking bad, Walt.”

Sydowski felt his heartburn flare. “Balboa?”

“They’re setting up at Ingleside Station on John Young.”

“Okay, I’m coming from the Coliseum.”

Sydowski hung up and found a uniformed Oakland police officer. Heshowed him his badge, asked him warmly to make sure his old man got a cab toPacifica, then gave him several crumpled bills for the fare.

“Consider it done,” the cop said.

Sydowski returned to his old man.

“I got to go to work, Pop.” He pointed to the officer. “This guywill get a cab home for you.”

His father turned to him, nodded, and adjusted his ballcap.

“Sure, you go to work. You do a good job.”

Driving across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco, grateful to beat theballgame traffic, Sydowski was struck by one thought. He wondered if Reed everto around to figuring out that short, anonymous call he got nearly a year agohad come from Tanita Marie Donner’s killer.

Tom Reed drove southfrom downtown in a staff car, a Ford Tempo, bearing The San Francisco Star’s red, white, and blue banner and the logo: WE’VE GOT SAN FRANCISCO’S STORY.

Talk about cruel irony. He wanted to do an anniversary piece onTanita Marie Donner’s abduction and murder. To set the record straight. Toredeem himself. Now this happens. In Balboa.

His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. Passing a lumberingmotor home from Utah on 101, he couldn’t shake the Donner story and a millionother questions. If today’s case was real, would the paper leave him on it? Couldhe handle it again? Sure. He had nothing left to lose. He had alreadysacrificed his family to the Donner story.

“We’ve lost each other, Tom,” Ann had said the last time they wereout, weeks after Wallace’s suicide. It was a place in Sausalito, with a view ofSan Francisco’s skyline and a harpist plucking a requiem to their marriage. Annwas right. Something between them had died, a fact he refused to admit. Hefingered a spoon and met her eyes, shining in the candlelight like they did ontheir wedding day.

“Tell me, Ann. Tell me how you’ve lost me.”

“Your drinking’s out of hand. I’ve asked you to stop. You don’t seewhat it’s doing to us, to Zach, to you.”

He rapped the spoon sharply on the table.

“Ann, I’ve been professionally humiliated, I’ve been suspended,dumped into a toilet of political crap, and this is the understanding you showme.”

“Lower your voice!” she whispered.

He downed his wine and refilled his glass.

“Tom, why can’t you realize that you are not infallible?”

“I was not wrong.”

“Something went wrong! I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You brought it up, dear.” He gulped more wine.

“You have no idea what Zach and I went through after seeing you on networkTV slapped by the widow of that poor teacher.”

“That poor teacher killed Tanita Marie Donner, Ann!”

“You don’t know that. The police said he was not-“

“Fuck the police! Wallace was a twisted child-killer.”

“Stop it! Just stop it!” Ann’s hushed voice was breaking.

A few tense moments passed. She touched the corners of her eyes withher napkin. “We need some time apart,” she said. “I’m taking Zach and we’regoing to stay with my mother in Berkley.”

It was like a sledgehammer blow to his stomach.

“I don’t know if I can live with you anymore,” she whispered. “If Ilove you anymore.” She covered her mouth with her hand.

They skipped dessert and went home. A few days later, he helped Annlift suitcases to their van, watching in silence as his wife and son droveaway. He went into the house and drank himself unconscious.

Reed found the scene near Ocean at San Jose. Nearby, a tangle ofpolice cars blocked the entrance to the Balboa BART station, lights flashing,radios crackling.

A working-class neighborhood, Balboa was favored with a degree ofgentrification at its fringes: a smattering of eclectic boutiques, yuppifiedhouses and apartment blocks. A cop directed traffic around the area. Peoplecraned their necks at the yellow crime-scene tape; others watched from windowsand balconies.

“Tom!”

Paul Wong, a Star photographer, trotted after him, two Nikonsdangling from his neck, a camera bag over his shoulder.

“Just pulled in behind you,” Wong said. “Isn’t this the same placewhere they found the little girl, Marie something?”

“Tanita Marie Donner.”

“Yeah.” Wong suddenly remembered everything.

As they headed toward the police tape, they clipped on their presscards. Reed called the paper on his cell phone. Wong banged off a few frames.

“ Star , Molly Wilson.” Police radios were clamoring.

“It’s Reed. Got anything for us?”

“Speak up, I’m in the radio room.”

“What have you got?”

“A genuine stranger abduction. The kid somehow wanders off thetrain. Dad gets a one-second glimpse of his boy with a strange man on theplatform just as the train is pulling out. He hits the emergency brake bar,kicks out an emergency window and runs after them. But they vanished. Happenedthat fast. They’re pulling out all the stops, bringing in K-9, goingdoor-to-door in a grid for a twenty-block radius. Simon’s on his way withanother photographer.