If Angels Fall (52 page)

“Mr. Reed?” the officer asked.

“Yes.”

“Officer Pender, Jim Pender, Berkeley PD. We’ve
already got a description of your son out to radio cars. I’d like to talk to
you.”

“Certainly.”

“Alone, please, sir.”

Pender was a tall, black officer, at least six-four.
He had a cropped goatee and exuded calm capability. His utility belt and
holster gave leathery squeaks when he stood, his polished badge over his heart
gleamed. The shoulder mike of his radio crackled, and Pender turned it down as
the two men talked in the living room.

“Tell me what you think happened, sir.” Pender said
softly.

Reed told him everything. The officer’s eyebrows shot
up when he told him he was the reporter behind the Tanita Marie Donner
controversy and had been fired that morning. When Reed finished, Pender said,
“Okay, there’s stress in your household. Zach overhears his parents arguing and
decides to head out on his own. To his friends in San Francisco, you figure?”

Reed nodded. “Or my place in San Francisco.”

“Okay, we’ll add this new info to the alert we’ve
already got out on your son. We’ll notify SFPD and campus police.” Pender
checked his notes as they returned to the kitchen where Ann sat, face buried in
her hands.

“Mrs. Reed, we’ll do everything we can to find Zach,”
Pender said. “I’ll ask you both again to try and put yourself in his shoes. Is
there any material thing he wanted, a type of toy or something? Or any place he
wanted to go, an arcade, a certain movie? Or any individual he would turn to?
Give it some thought that way.”

The Reeds agreed.

“Most kids who run away mad at Mom and Dad turn up
within a few hours, especially the young ones,” Pender said.

Ann tried to smile, but swallowed it. “At least the
police shot the kidnapper yesterday in San Francisco,” she said.

Pender nodded, but Reed caught something in his face.

“If the family is going to look for Zach, please keep
someone here in case he returns or more information surfaces. I’m going to call
this in. Then I’d like to search the house. Sometimes kids will crawl into a
hiding spot to cool off for a while.”

“Thank you, officer.”

“Ann.” Reed took his wife’s hand. “I’m going to search
the area between here and the BART station. I’ll call you every few minutes.”

“Yes.” Her voice was barely audible.

“We’ll find him, Ann, I swear. ” Reed hugged her, then
caught up with Pender outside. He was in his cruiser entering his notes into
his mobile computer terminal.

“What’s up, officer?”

“How do you mean?”

“Your face registered something a moment ago when my
wife mentioned SFPD shooting the kidnapper.”

Pender contemplated whether to tell Reed whatever it
was he knew.

“You’re a police reporter, right?”

“That’s right.”

Pender scratched his goatee. The police radio blurted
coded dispatches. “You reported on the big abduction cases of Danny Becker and
Gabrielle Nunn across the Bay, right?”

“That’s what got my ass fired, officer. Please.”

Pender tapped his pen on his notebook, thinking.
“Okay, I’m going to show you something. Get in.”

Reed slipped into the passenger side, watching
Pender’s big hands dwarf the computer’s tiny keyboard as he typed in commands.
“SFPD and the FBI put out a new alert on the case. It’s hot. I got it just
before I got this complaint. Here you go. Says the task force now has a number
one suspect in the Nunn-Becker cases and they’re hunting him. Ever heard of a
guy named Keller? Edward Keller?”

Reed was stunned. “Edward Keller -- yes, I, Christ -- ”

“Nobody knows I showed you this.” Pender pivoted the
terminal to Reed, who devoured the short bulletin.

Edward Keller of no fixed address was wanted on a
warrant for the kidnappings of Daniel Raphael Becker and Gabrielle Nunn.

“I was fucking right all along!”

“You know this guy?”

“I met him recently and thought he was weird, so I did
some digging into his past.” Reed shook his head in disbelief.

“Mr. Reed, do you think there’s any link to your son’s
running away and Mr. Keller?”

Reed’s heart stopped. No. There couldn’t be. “No, I
think it is a coincidence. Zach ran off because he heard us arguing about our
problems. We had reconciled and we were on the brink of getting back together.
Zach wanted that with all of his heart. But it fell apart this morning.”

“I see. You said you started digging into Mr. Keller’s
past. Is there anything about him that you know that may be useful to the task
force across the Bay? Anything we should pass on?”

“No. He’s a lunatic, a Bible thumper. I met him on a
story about university research on parents of dead children. He lost three a
long time ago and babbled about resurrecting them with God’s help. He was nuts.
I tried to find him again, but I couldn’t.”

“Why did you want to find him again?”

“I had a gut feeling. But I wanted to find out what I
could about him on my own before going to the task force, having been stung
badly the last time I followed a hunch.”

“Did you go to the task force?”

Reed shook his head. “And I was fired because my paper
thought, given my track record, I was dangerous with my theories. It’s
complicated. Look, officer, I’m going to find my son. I have some ideas where
he might have gone. Any other day, I’d be calling my paper, tipping them with
that alert.” Reed nodded to the computer terminal. “But fuck them. I was right.
They were wrong and I don’t work for them anymore. I’ve got more important
things on my mind.”

Reed moved to leave.

“Hold on there.” Pender was friendly.

Reed waited. Pender stared at him. A streetwise cop
with impeccable instincts, he was not going to let Reed leave him.

“Where’s the first place you’re going to look?”

Reed sighed. “Next to us getting back together, Zach
wanted to buy a model of a ship.”

“A hobby store then?”

“Thought I’d start with the nearest one.”

“Buckle up.”

“What?”

“There’s one on University. I’ll take you.”

“Officer, I can take myself.”

Pender started the engine and slipped the transmission
into drive. “I think we should go together, Tom.”

Pender double-parked his cruiser on University at a
sliver of a store front called Dempsey’s Hobby & Crafts. His head came
within inches of the transom when he and Reed entered. The bald, potbellied,
old man who ran the place was on the telephone.

“Yeah, Saturday’s good. Sure -- ” he noticed Pender
and Reed. “I told you, it’s fine with me ... Yes ... listen, Burt, I gotta go ...
Yes, it’s good. Burt, I gotta go now. I’ll call ya later.”

He hung up and spread his hands over the glass
countertop in a bartender’s what’ll-it-be? fashion. He peered over his bifocals
with the unpracticed seriousness of a shopkeeper unaccustomed to adult
visitors, nodding to Pender because the shop was on his beat.

“Hello, Jim. How are things in local law enforcement?”

“George,” Pender said, “I need your help.”

George Dempsey’s eyes shot to Reed, then to Pender.

“This about that gang shooting in Oakland?”

“’Fraid not.” Pender leaned on the counter and into
Dempsey’s personal space. “This is Mr. Tom Reed. He’s looking for his son,
Zachary.” Pender studied Dempsey’s face. “He may have come in here within the
last ninety minutes. Nine years old and how tall, Tom?”

Reed held a hand to his chest.

Pender continued. “That tall, blond hair, new
sneakers, school backpack, and interested in model ships.”

Dempsey tugged thoughtfully at his fluffy sideburns.
“Ships? Sure, was a kid like that in here a while ago.”

“How long!” Reed stepped to the counter. Pender raised
his big hand to warmly caution him.

“How long, George?” Pender repeated, softer.

Dempsey twisted his sideburns before guessing. “Hour?”

“An hour?”

“Yes, then he left with that other cop.”

“What?” Reed said. “They found him!”

“What other cop, George?” Pender took out his
notebook, glancing at his watch. “Think.”

“He was plainclothes, uh, special state investigator,
white guy, six foot.”

“He definitely said special state investigator? You
sure?”

“Absolutely.” Dempsey scratched his chin. “Flashed his
badge, name was Lamer? Lampson? No -- Lamont, Randall Lamont.”

“He left with the boy?”

Dempsey nodded.

“Which way?”

“Well, I didn’t see. Say, what’s this about?”

“Tell me exactly how it happened.”

“Not much to tell. Kid walks in, goes to the shelf
there all doe-eyed over the
Kitty Hawk
, the this Lamont comes in a few
minutes later asking -- yeah just like you -- asking if I’d seen a kid. Then he
goes to him, they have a little chat, then leave together.”

“What was the boy’s demeanor?”

Dempsey blinked and looked at the ceiling. “Scared,
like he just got some bad news.”

Reed felt the first stirrings in his gut. His worry
about Zach’s running off was about to be swallowed by a greater terror.

Pender scanned the shop. “George, you ever do anything
about your shoplifting problem, like I told you?”

“I did. I got security video installed couple months
ago. It works just fine and -- I see what you’re askin’.”

“Let’s run that tape, George.”

Dempsey hoisted a small black-and-white video monitor
to the counter, angling it so Pender and Reed could see.

“I was plagued by little thieves until I got this.”
Dempsey grunted, squatting to operate the video controls from a low shelf
behind the counter. A montage of ball-capped boys coming, going, and buying
things, swam in super-fast motion on the monitor. “Glue, paints, scale model
racing cars, electric motors. One kid stuffed the
Titanic
under his
shirt. It all adds up. There he is!”

Dempsey slowed the tape, Reed watched Zach enter the
store and sit on the floor before a shelf of models. Dempsey advanced the tape
to the entrance of a man in a suit, wearing dark glasses, showing
identification.

“You know this guy?” Reed said to Pender.

He shook his head without removing his gaze from the
monitor. “You?”

“No,” Reed said as the man approached Zach. They
talked, then left together. Reed’s face flushed. His heartbeat quickened. He
couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“George, take it back to when the cop walks in,”
Pender said.

Dempsey reversed the tape.

“You have any audio?” Pender said.

Dempsey nodded. The tinny sound of homemade videos,
with hard noise amplified and monotone voices, hissed from a tiny speaker on
the monitor: “I’m looking for a boy, about ten years old, blond hair, backpack,
sneakers. He was last seen in this area within the last half hour.”

“Could be the fella you want, drooling over the
Kitty
Hawk
there. He just came in. Anything to do with that gang shooting in
Oakland?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss the matter.”

Pender was staring at Reed. A fist covered Reed’s
mouth, the veins of his neck were pulsing.

“You recognize that voice, don’t you, Tom?”

“It’s Edward Keller.”

Where was Keller’s beard and long hair? Reality
stabbed Reed with switchblade suddenness. Keller had Zach. Had his son!

Have you ever lost a child? No. You have children?
A son, Zach. He’s nine. My eldest boy was nine when he died.

Pender seized his portable police radio.

Sirens.