If Angels Fall (2 page)

“I know it goes right under the bay.”  Nathan sighed. “Okay.”

Before they went, Nathan left a note on the fridge and, reluctantly,
his BMW in the garage. He and Danny walked to California, hopped a bus, then a
cable car to Embarcadero Station, where an escalator delivered them at a
funeral pace into the subway system winding through the Bay Area.

***

After she heard them leave, Maggie Becker rose from bed, showered,
put on her robe, then made a pot of Earl Grey Tea. She curled up on the sofa in
the living room with the Arts section of the newspaper, savoring an empty
house. Later, she dressed in faded jeans and a Forty-Niners sweater, then
climbed upstairs to her studio. It was a large, bright room with hardwood
floors, and a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking their backyard rose
garden and the treetops, framing her view of a small park where trumpeter swans
glided in a manmade pond.

This was Maggie’s sanctuary.

It was here she had mourned the miscarriage of her first child, lost
after she fell from a step ladder while wallpapering the nursery. Her uterus
was damaged, the doctors said. The chances of her carrying a baby to term were
now three in ten. They suggested adoption. A few months later, Nathan started
leaving her brochures from agencies. Maggie threw them into the trash. She
refused to let a cruel, freak accident rob her of motherhood.

Nathan understood.

So it was here, while watching the swans, Maggie’s prayers were
answered. It was here, when she became pregnant with Danny, she sat with her
hands pressed to her stomach, begging God to let her keep this baby.

God had heard her.

Their healthy baby boy was delivered by caesarian section. They
named him Daniel after Nathan’s father, and Raphael for the Italian painter, whose
work Maggie adored. Danny was her hope, her light, her angel. His birth
reaffirmed the love between her and Nathan and resurrected the artistic dreams
she had buried with the loss of their first baby. Here, in this refurbished
attic, Maggie produced a succession of inspired water colors, which sold
regularly at a gallery down the peninsula.

Maggie pulled off the tarpaulin covering a landscape in progress,
collected her brushes, and inhaled the fragrance of paints and freshly cut
grass wafting into her studio.

Her life was perfect now.

The train came to the next stop. The automatic doors opened. Dank
air rushed into the car as Danny watched the people leaving jostle with those
getting on. Then a short warning chime echoed. “Doors closing,” Danny said. He
had picked up the routine. Three seconds later, the doors closed. The train
jolted forward, gathering speed, pulling them deeper into the tunnel system.

“How many more stops, Dad?”

“Uh-huh,” Nathan said, eyes locked onto his newspaper, oblivious to
the new passengers crowding the car. He had slipped comfortably into his
commuter habit of losing himself in his newspaper.

Danny looked at his dad reading. He was bored, so he stared at his
own hand and counted his fingers. Remembering the hotdog he had at the game, he
licked his lips and wished for another one. He yawned. He looked up across the
car at Tanita Marie Donner’s face, slid off of his seat, and stood next to it,
facing the poster.

“I’m just going right here, Dad.”

“All right,” the newspaper said.

The train wavered. Danny steadied himself, noticing a tiny, silver
chain dangling from the ear of a teenager down the aisle. It glinted
rhythmically with the train’s rocking motion, like a hypnotist’s watch, bidding
Danny closer. He stepped carefully around the outstretched, tanned legs of a
boy studying a motorcycle magazine, head bobbing to music leaking from the
headset of his CD player. Suddenly a skateboard shot at Danny. He tensed before
it was stopped by a scuffed Reebok worn by a girl in an oversized sweatshirt.
Danny moved on, paying no attention to the other passengers until he stood
before the teenager wearing the chain. His face was ravaged by acne. His
jet-black mohawk hair was greased into six-inch spikes frozen in coiffured
explosion. He wore black boots, torn black pants, a black T-shirt with a
death’s head that was partially hidden by his silver-studded black leather
jacket.

Danny pointed at the chain. “What’s that?”

The teenager ceased chewing his bubble gum, left his mouth open, and
giggled as if he had just been tickled. His girlfriend giggled, too. Although
her hair was fuchsia and her chains smaller, her appearance mirrored her
boyfriend’s right down to the gum chewing. They were holding hands. The teen
leaned toward Danny, turned his ear to him, and shook the chain.

“This is my lucky charm.” He grinned. “You should get one.”

The girl playfully grabbed her boyfriend’s groin, pouting and asking
Danny, “And what’s this?”

It was called a
PEE-nus
. Danny knew because his mother
answered the same question for him one night when he was in the tub. He’d
forgotten the word, but he clearly recalled the function.

“Do you have to pee?” Danny asked, triggering the couple’s laughter
as they stood to leave.

The train was slowing. Danny was bumped from behind, nearly knocked
off his feet. He was trapped in a forest of legs. The automated public address
barked the station’s name. Danny tried to return to his dad, but was blocked by
a skateboard, shopping bags, a briefcase, a knapsack. People crushed together,
inching him closer to the doors. He panicked, clenched his tiny hands into
fists, and pounded on arms and legs, but couldn’t break free. The train
stopped. The doors whooshed open. Danny was pushed out of the car with the
crowd, crying out for his father as he tripped, falling hard onto the cold,
grimy, concrete platform. People swirled around him, drowning him. A ghetto
blaster throbbed with a menacing beat. No one could hear Danny crying. Frantic,
he struggled to get to his feet. A cigarette butt stuck to his hand. He
pinballed from one grownup to the next. Disoriented, his only thought was to
get back on the train. He heard the warning chime.

Get back on the train! Get back on the train! Get back!

Danny felt a pair of large, strong hands lift him.

Nathan heard the chime, lowered the newspaper, and turned to Danny
beside him. Gone. Damn that little— He threw the paper down, threading his way
from one end of the car to the next looking between seats for Danny. What the
hell--? He can’t be gone.

He can’t be gone!

The driver’s whistle bleated again. Nathan’s pulse quickened. He ran
to the end of the car again, pushing people from his path, searching underneath
every seat.

“Hey, asshole!”

“Christ, pal—“

“M-my son, Danny...I’m looking for my little boy, he’s ...”

The doors closed and the train jerked forward.

“No! Wait!” Nathan yelled for the train to halt.

The train gained momentum.

Where’s my son?

Bile rushed up the back of his throat. Gooseflesh rose on his skin.
Through the window, on the platform, he saw Danny in the arms of a stranger
disappearing into the crowd.

Nathan knocked an old woman out of his way and lunged for the
train’s emergency brake.

“
No! Please! No, No!”

Tanita Marie Donner stared down at Danny’s father.

A skeleton crew
was on
duty in the newsroom of
The San Francisco Star
when Danny Becker was
kidnapped.

Tom Reed, a crime writer, was finishing a short hit on a seventy-two
year old rummy stabbed with a nail file by a fifty-two-year-old whore. Some
dive in the Tenderloin. The whore was watching the A’s game on the tube above
the bar. The rummy wanted her to work her break. She was feeling bitchy, and
wanted to finish her beer and her nails. His fingers went where they shouldn’t
have and he bled to death at her table. Nobody noticed for half an inning.
Turns out the guy had helped build the Golden Gate. He was the seventieth
homicide of the year. Reed summed up his life in two tight graphs, then punched
a command on his computer terminal, sending the story to Al Booth, the
assistant metro editor working in the bullpen.

Reed downed the remainder of his tepid coffee. Three hours into his
shift. Could he stick it out today? Hungover. Again. Rubbing his temples,
surveying the crap pinned to the half wall of his cubicle: Police numbers, a
yellowing article on his winning his second national award four years ago for
investigative reporting, a photograph of his wife, Ann, and Zach, their
nine-year-old son who wants to be a report. Like my dad.

Here was his life, or the illusion of it. Reed’s sources rarely
talked to him these days. His award-winning work was forgotten. It was coming
up on six months since Ann took Zach and moved to her mother’s. His life was
disintegrating, and like an animal gnawing at a wound that refused to heal, he
returned to the clipping file and the story that initiated his disgrace. The
case of Tanita Marie Donner.

Reed had led the
Star’s
coverage of her abduction and murder,
right up until the suicide, the lawsuit, and his suspension. It was nearly a
year since he last wrote about Donner and the man he believed had killed her.
The case was unsolved and the paper, stinging from the scandal and
embarrassment, was now content with superficial coverage of it. But Reed
couldn’t leave it alone, exposing himself to the headlines he had virtually
memorized.

POLICE SEARCH FOR ABDUCTED BABY ... SCHOOL GIRLS FIND
TANITA: MURDERED ... FEW LEADS IN MYSTERY SLAYING ...

Then he came to the grainy news pictures of Franklin Wallace. The
beginning of the fuckup, and it all came back to him. Hard.

He had rushed to Wallace’s home and rung the doorbell. He was
chasing San Francisco’s biggest story. He had found Tanita’s killer.

The door was opened by a pudgy little man with a candle white face,
thinning blond hair, a wispy mustache. Mid-thirties. Five-six.

“Franklin Wallace?” Reed said.

“Yes?” his voice had a southern lilt.

Damn the tip was true, Reed thought.

“Mr. Wallace, I am Tom Reed. I am a report with the
Star
—“

“Reporter?” Wallace’s expression darkened subtly.

“Did you know Tanita Donner? She lived a few blocks away.”

Wallace’s lips did not move. He was measuring Reed, remaining
silent, frozen. Reed repeated the question.

“Yes, I knew Tanita.”

“I understand she attended your Sunday school day care?”

“Once or twice. She was not a regular. What is this about?”

“Mr. Wallace, may I come in? I have some questions, important
questions, I would like to ask you.”

Reed caught it. A twitch in Wallace’s eyelid, an unconscious
reaction so slight he almost missed it.

“What questions?”

“May I come inside?”

“What questions? What is this about?”

Wallace’s hand tightened his grip on the door frame. Reed was losing
him; this might be his only chance. “Mr. Wallace, do you have a record for
child molestation in Virginia?”

“What? A record?”

“I have it confirmed, sir.”

Wallace swallowed, licking his lips. ‘You have it confirmed?”

“Yes, just now. I would like to talk to you about some other
information I have. It is very serious.”

“Why? No. Please. That was long ago. Please, I have a family, a job.
You must not print anything. Please, I don’t know what you’re driving at coming
here with this.”

“I’ve been told your fingerprints have been found on items linked to
Tanita’s murder.”

“What? I can’t believe that!”

What little color Wallace had melted from his face. He was wan, his
eyes, revealing the truth. He was guilty. Guilty of something. Reed knew it. He
was standing inches from a child killer.

Wasn’t he?

At that moment, Wallace’s daughter appeared, clinging to her
father’s leg, a tiny “Leave my-daddy-alone scowl aimed at Reed. Red jam was
smeared on her chin, reminding Reed of blood.