If Angels Fall (42 page)

If he could just find Keller. Talk to him. Size up his
place. He grabbed his cell phone and punched Molly Wilson’s extension in the
newsroom. He got her voice mail. He left a message.

They had to find Keller. And they didn’t have much
time. Reed traced the gravesite roses to a Philo flower shop where Keller paid
for them. He was pulling up to Jack’s on Main Street in Half Moon Bay when his
phone rang. It was Wilson.

“Tommy, where the hell are you?”

“Half Moon Bay.” Trying to find a guy who may know
Keller. You have any luck locating Keller?”

“Zero. You’d better get back soon—something’s up on
the case.”

“What?”

“Nobody knows. It’s just the buzz going ‘round.”

“Okay. Listen, I’ve got a small lead on Keller. He
bought flowers a few weeks ago for his family plot in Philo. He bought them
through Elegant Florists in San Francisco. See if you can get an address for
him from the shop. Do it now, we’ve got to find him.”

“Sure, Tom. But you’d better get back here at warp
speed. The boss is wondering what you’re up to and I don’t think I can cover
for you much longer.”

“I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

Gloria’s was a postcard-perfect seaside diner.
Red-checked gingham covered the tables; the aroma of home cooking filled the
air. Only a handful of customers: two women, real estate agents judging from
their blazers, examined listings over coffee at one table; and a young couple
ate hamburgers at another. Reed took the rumpled old salt, reading a newspaper
alone at a window table, to be Reimer.

“Excuse me.” He stood before the man, keeping his
voice low. “I’m looking for a gentleman named Reimer, who runs charter.”

“You found him.” Reimer had a friendly face. Reed
handed him his card, and explained that he needed help with an old drowning
case. He showed the old clippings to Reimer just as the waitress set a
mushroom-smothered steak sandwich and fries before him. After reading the
articles, Reimer removed his grease-stained cap and ran a hand through his
wispy white hair. “I’m listening, lad.” Reimer cut into his dinner.

Reed sat and was careful not to mention the
abductions, telling Reimer how he met Keller for the bereavement group piece,
and that it was vital he find him again for another story he was researching.

“’Fraid I can’t help you.”

“You don’t know this case?”

“Oh, I know it.” Reimer chewed. “Was here when it
happened. Terrible thing. They never found the children’s bodies and old Ed
Keller never got over it. Wife killed herself, you know.”

“How do you know that he never got over it?”

“Well”—Reimer chewed some more—“he comes here and
hires me couple times a year to run him to the Farallons, the spot where they
drowned.”

“When’s the last time you saw him?”

Reimer thought. “Couple months ago.”

“He say anything to you?”

“Never speaks.”

“Got any credit card receipts from him?”

“Always pays cash.”

“How long he been doing this?”

“Ever since it happened.”

“You know where he lives?”

Reimer shook his head.

“What does he do out there, when you get to the spot?”

“He drops a wreath of flowers and mutters to himself,
things like how he’s going to bring them back. It’s sad.”

“What do you make of it all?”

Reimer scratched his salt-and-pepper stubble, his
leathery, weather-weary face creased. “Tom, I’ve run charter in the Pacific all
my life and I’ve seen a lot of strange things. But I never seen anything like
Ed. Can’t let go of the past, can’t accept that what’s done is done and ain’t
nothing he can do. But you know something?”

“What’s that?”

“He thinks otherwise. Thinks he can change history. I
think he’s got some kind of plan percolating in his mind.”

“What makes you believe that?” Reed’s cellular phone
trilled. “Excuse me.” He fished it from his pocket.

“Tom, hustle your ass back here!”

“Molly, did you get Keller’s address?”

“He bought the flowers with a check through a Fargo
bank. I’m outside the branch across from the paper. I went in, said I was his
daughter, making a fifty-dollar deposit into his account for his birthday. They
took the money. I asked if their records showed his ‘new’ address. Teller said
the address they had was a P.O. box.”

“Nice try.”

“Wait, the teller said I should check Keller’s branch,
which is near Wintergreen Heights. At least we can put him there. But it might
not matter now.”

“Why?”

“Rumors are flying that the task force has a suspect.”

“Is it our guy, Molly?”

“Damned if I know. No one has a name or anything. Just
get back here! Something’s going to break on this, I can just feel it!”

“Okay. I’m on my way.”

“One more thing, your wife called from Chicago. She and
Zach are arriving earlier then she planned. She wants you to pick them up.
American, ten A.M., tomorrow.”

Reed thanked Reimer as he slipped the phone into his
pocket and stood to leave. Then he remembered something. He reached into his
breast pocket for two small stills of the blurry home video of suspect in
Gabrielle Nunn’s abduction.

“You recognize that guy?”

“These are from those kidnappings in the city. Seen
‘em on TV.”

“Look like anybody you know?”

Reimer studied the pictures, shaking his head.

“Does it look like Keller?”

“Could be anybody.”

Reed nodded and took the pictures back. “I’m sorry,
you mentioned something about Keller having a plan.”

“Right, well, Ed is drowning in his grief and guilt.
It’s obvious. Well, when we return from the charter, he told me the time had
come to buy his own boat.”

“Why?”

Reimer sucked through his teeth and shrugged. “I
figured it was so he could take himself out there whenever he wanted like I
told him. You know, he’s never driven a boat since that night?”

“That’s it?”

“I guess. ‘Cept he kept muttering about destiny.”

“Destiny?”

“Yup. Said he needed a boat for destiny.”

“That’s all he said?”

Reimer nodded, staring hard at Reed. “You think he
grabbed those kids from the city, don’t you?”

Reed put two five-dollar on the table. “Who knows?
Thanks for your time. I’ve got to get going.”

Reed barely noticed the drive to downtown San
Francisco. The epitaph from the Kellers’ headstone was stuck in his head, like
a nursery rhyme...
If angels fall.

Molly Wilson
stood at
The San Francisco Star
Building’s side entrance,
tapping her notebook against her thigh, watching the parking lot until she
spotted Reed and ran to him.

“Tom! Don’t go upstairs! It’s Benson.”

“What about him?”

“I’ve never seen him like this. He’s pissed at you.”

“Where’s the news in that? The man hates me.”

“He’s white hot like he was last year over Donner.”

Reed stared at her. “What going on up there, Molly?”

“He wants to know what you are working on, where you
are.”

“You didn’t tell him, did you?”

“No. I did the best I could to cover. I told him you
were checking a lead on a suspect in the kidnapping. It seemed to work. He
never asked about you after that. That was yesterday.”

“You didn’t mention Keller?”

“No, I told you.”

“Okay, then what?”

“Today the rumors are flying from the hall that the
task force definitely has a suspect and Benson asked me about it. I didn’t know
anything, nobody at our place knew anything. You know anything?”

Reed knew nothing new. He was busy chasing Edward
Keller.

“When I told Benson we didn’t know about the suspect
rumors, he went ballistic. He was furious that no one knew where you were. He
tried to find you, started calling people. When he got nowhere, it was
straitjacket time. He wants to see you.”

Reed swallowed.

“Tom, I did the best I could. I’m sorry.”

“Where are you going now?”

“He’s kicked me over to the hall to chase the suspect
rumors.”

Wilson removed her keys from her bag, then touched
Reed’s shoulder. “Remember, Tom, he’s not like us. He’s not human. Keep repeating
that to yourself and don’t let him get to you.”

Reed glanced up at the building. “He wants me fired,
Molly.”

Myron Benson gestured sharply at Reed through the
glass walls of his office. He wanted Reed to enter.

“Shut the door.” Benson said.

Reed sat at the round polished table across from
Benson. The table, like Benson’s office, was clutter free. He was studying a
file, his clean-shaven face was like silly putty, and his fine web of vanishing
hair accentuated his huge ears. The edges of his mouth curled into a smirk as
his rodent-like eyes fixed on Reed.

“Your recent personnel file is a horror story. You are
just not the reporter you used to be, Tom.”

Benson’s condescending tone brushed over Reed’s
pent-up animosity, like a hair caressing a detonator.

Benson was bureaucratic ballast who, years ago, walked
into the
Star
off the street and passed himself off as an up-and-coming
reporter to an old editor, who hired him and died two weeks later. Benson had
to ask other reporters how to spell words like “sheep”, “equal”, and “idiot”.
One day he could not find Seattle on a U.S. map and wondered aloud if anyone
knew San Francisco’s area code.

Facts that could never be confirmed began surfacing in
Benson’s copy. When he learned the paper was going to fire him, he stole a tip
called in for another reporter and broke a major story about police corruption,
to which the other reporters were assigned to help. The
Star’s
publisher, Amos Tellwood, congratulated Benson personally on his “fine, fine
work”. Benson parlayed the old man’s favor and was soon a regular guest at the
Tellwood estate in Marine County. He began dating Tellwood’s only child and
heiress, his daughter, Judith. She was an awkward woman, so neglected by her
family that she immediately fell in love with Benson. He acknowledged her
existence and she guaranteed his at the
Star
by marrying him. He had
three children and several promotions by her.

Every newsroom has at least one Myron Benson, an
editor who not only knows little of what is happening on the streets of his
city, but would be lost on them. Benson rarely read his own product; it taxed
his attention. Often, he suggested story ideas that he unconsciously took from
overheard newsroom conversations about pieces the
Star
had already run.
And when he came up with an original story angle, it was a jaw dropper.

Life for Benson was a daily commute in his Mercedes
from his seven-bed home in Marine, across the Golden Gate, to the paper.

The only thing looming over his blissful existence was
the
Star’s
shame over the Tanita Marie Donner-Franklin Wallace story.
That shame was embodied in Tom Reed, but to fire him over Wallace would be
public admission that Benson had mismanaged the matter and that the
Star’s
story was wrong. It would be detrimental to the paper’s credibility. But to
fire Reed for another reason, one solid enough for which he had no grounds for
a wrongful dismissal suit, would eliminate the storm clouds over Benson’s sunny
life and please the old man.

In the few seconds Benson eyed Reed, he realized that
he might finally have him by the balls.

“Where have you been for the last two days, Tom?”

“Researching the Becker-Nunn kidnappings.”

“Have you?”