If Angels Fall (45 page)

An engine revved rudely.

The sun pried Reed’s eyes open.

It took a moment before he realized where he was and
why.

His head was shooting with lightning strikes of pain
and the stench in his mouth was overpowering. The bottle was half gone, the
other untouched. He saw the greasy, half-eaten bag of potato chips, and nearly
puked. He had to piss.

He needed a shower, a shave, a new life.

Reed spotted a kid walking by, delivering the
Examiner.

“Bobby, can you spare a paper?”

The lanky teen stopped, taken aback by someone in
Reed’s shape crawling out of a car in Sea Park.

“I have exactly enough for my route.”

Reed fumbled with his wallet.

“Here’s five bucks, just give me one, and buy another
one.”

The kid eyed the bill, then gave him a crisply folded
copy.

Reed sat on the hood of his car, letting the sun warm
him, and unfolded the paper. His mind reeled, the headline screamed:

KIDNAPPING SUSPECT SHOT BY COPS IN CHURCH.

It stretched six columns over a huge color photo of a
man bleeding on a stretcher. There was an inset mug of him, file photos of
Tanita Donner, Danny Becker, and Gabrielle Nunn. The guy was shot in a hostage
taking yesterday at a soup kitchen in an Upper Market church. He was pegged as
the man behind Tanita’s murder and the two abductions.

Virgil Shook? Who the hell was Virgil Shook?

Reed devoured the story and the sidebars. Never heard
of Virgil Shook. The
Examiner
had nothing on Edward Keller. They got
this guy in a church in the Upper Market? Didn’t he get a call from a woman
connected to a church there, a woman claiming she heard the killer confess?
Yes, and he had written her off as a nut.

Reed went inside, upstairs to the bathroom down the
hall from his locked room. He remembered old Jake on the third floor subscribed
to the
Star
. Reed flushed, then took the stairs two at a time, and
banged on the door until Jake said, “Go away.”

“Jake, it’s Tom, Tom Reed from downstairs. It’s
important.”

Jake didn’t answer.

“Jake did you get
The San Francisco Star
today?
I just want to look at it, please! It’s important!”

Reed heard shuffling, the locks turned. Jake was
wearing over-sized boxers, a T-shirt dotted with coffee stains, and a frown. He
practically threw a wrinkled copy of
The Star
at Reed.

“Have it! Criminals are ruining this great lady of a
city.”

Reed hurried to his room with Jake calling after him”
“Why don’t you guys accentuate the positive of San Francisco!”

Out of habit, Reed had his key in the door to his room
before remembering it wouldn’t work. Damn. His phone rang. Once, twice, three
times. The machine clicked on.

“Reed, this is Benson. Your employment with
The San
Francisco Star
is terminated today. You disobeyed my instructions.
Yesterday’s hostage taking proved that your story about Edward Keller was
erroneous. It was a virtual fabrication that would have left us open to a
lawsuit. Personnel will mail your severance papers and payment. No letter of
recommendation will be provided.”

Reed slammed his back to the door, slid to the floor,
burying his face in his hands.

He couldn’t think. He was free falling. He was fired!
Terminated! Blown away.

His phone rang again, but the caller hung up.

What was happening to him?

The other bottle was in the car. Untouched. Reed wiped
his mouth with the back of his hand, feeling his stubble, realizing he still
had
The Star
in his hand. He read the articles about the hostage taking
with Virgil Shook, the pedophile ex-con from Canada. Molly wrote most of them.
Zero about Edward Keller.

The phone rang three times. The machine clicked.

“Where the hell are you?” Molly said. “I need your
help here, Reed. Haven’t you heard, all hell’s broken loose. It’s not Edward
Keller, it’s some pervert from Canada. Call me! They’ve started looking for the
bodies! Get your ass in here!”

Yeah, right.

Reed sat there, his eyes closed. He was drowning.
Floundering in the awful truth.

He heard his phone ringing again. The machine got it.

“Tom, what happened?” His wife was angry. “We waited
at the airport for an hour.”

Airport? He was supposed to pick up Ann and Zack this
morning.

“We’re at Mom’s. Call me.” The temperature of her
voice dropped. “If you have the time.”

The new white
minivan parked in the shade of a eucalyptus grove on Fulton in
Berkeley near the university was a rental from San Jose. For two days now it
had been an innocuous fixture across the street, three doors down from Doris
Crane’s home. Her two-story house was framed perfectly in the van’s rearview
and driver’s side mirrors.

Edward Keller watched it with the vigilance of a
statue.

Occasionally he would study his reflection. He hardly
recognized himself—clean shaven, his pale skin was tanning. The dye he had
selected worked well, darkening his short, neat hair. He no longer saw himself.
He had been transformed. He had been ordained, enlightened to show the world
the wonder of God’s Love.

I am cleansed in the light of the Lord.

After his divine work in obtaining the address from
the hillbilly living in the Angel’s house in San Francisco, Keller went to the
public library, and scoured the directories and other registries, learning much
about Doris Crane in a short time.

She was widowed in 1966 and lived alone in the house,
working part-time as a secretary in Berkeley’s law department. Doris had one
daughter, Ann, who had one son. He was nine years old.

Pierce Keller was nine years old.

Ann owned three children’s clothing stores in the Bay
Area. Keller suspected her marriage was troubled, because she and the Angel
were renting their home and living with Doris Crane. A blessing that had kept
her loathsome, arrogant husband out of the way.

Keller had already met him.

Thomas the doubter.

The oaf could not grasp the meaning of his mission:
helping the bereaved through the valley of the dark sun. At first, Keller did
not know Reed’s role, believing he was sent to destroy his work.

But the truth was revealed.

It was destined that they should meet.

Reed was the signpost to the third Angel. It was
revealed to him in Zach Reed’s birth announcement. Keller found it in the
public library’s newspaper archives, Zachary Michael Reed.

It was destined. His middle name was Michael. He was
Zachary Michael Reed. Zachary, father of John the Baptist, who’s birth was
foretold to him by an Angel. John the martyred prophet who baptized Christ.

Michael the Archangel.

Finding Michael was challenging. For the past two
days, Keller saw nothing at the house, except for Doris Crane’s comings and
goings. Although he tried to remain calm and trust in the Lord, he worried. So
last night he took Doris Crane’s garbage. He probed it, finding a copy of a
travel company’s itinerary for Ann reed. She had two round-trip plane tickets
to Chicago. The tickets were for A. and Z. Reed. She was attending a conference
at the Marriott. They were scheduled to return this morning. Keller checked his
watch. The plane had landed in San Francisco two hours ago. He was convinced he
would see the third Angel today. For Heaven continued to shower him with
protection.

Virgil Shook was the latest miracle. His arrest and shooting
had dominated the front pages of this morning’s papers. Shot him dead, some
reports said.

In a church. It was preordained.

Sanctus. Sanctus. Sanctus.
Keller’s mission was divine.

He was invincible.

Soon police would learn that the repulsive child abuser
was not the enlightened one. The incident was divine intervention, designed to
shield Keller long enough to complete his work. He was so close to the
transfiguration.

Keller’s body tensed.

A cab stopped in front of Doris Crane’s house.

A woman got out of the rear passenger’s side, while
the driver unloaded luggage from the trunk. The woman was in her early
thirties, attractive, very business-like.

Ann Reed.

She was tired, angry, as she rummaged through her
wallet and called into the cab.

“Come on, Zach, wake up, we’re home.”

Keller held his breath.

Michael.  The third Angel.

The drowsy boy dragged himself out of the car. He was
wearing a Chicago Bulls T-shirt, baggy jeans, new sneakers. As his mother
slapped bills into the cabby’s hand, the boy wearily grabbed a canvas travel
bag and trudged into the house.

Keller watched.

His heart nearly tore free from his body.

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus. Dominus Deus sabaoth.

Michael.

Commander of Heaven’s army! Conqueror of Lucifer!

Behold!

A prince in God’s celestial court!

Keller had gazed upon Michael the Archangel.

And he shone with the light of one million suns.

He was overwhelmed in the presence of divine majesty.
Soon, he would realize his exalted mission.

The transfiguration.

The reunification with his lost children.

It was his destiny.

Keller clasped his hands together tightly, bowed his
head, touching his lips to his whitened knuckles.

Sydowski kept
his promise.

Angela Donner cradled twelve white sweetheart roses in
her arms, as if carrying a baby. Sydowski pushed her father, John, in his
squeaking wheelchair along the pebbled paths of the cemetery to Tanita Marie’s
headstone. Sydowski had vowed to make a pilgrimage to Tania’s grave with her
mother and grandfather once her murder had been solved. It had. Her death had
been avenged. Her killer killed.

When they stopped at Tanita’s marker, the early
morning sun was hitting the polished granite. It was emblazoned in the light.
The grounds were silent but for the distant traffic, and John’s soft moans.
Sydowski patted his shoulder.

Angela knelt, setting the flowers at the foot of the
stone, kissing it as a breeze rolled through the oaks sheltering Tanita’s plot.
Tears streaked her face as she caressed the epitaph tracing the sun-warmed
letters of her daughter’s name. “You know, Inspector, I’ve been part of the
university’s bereavement group.”

“I know.”

“I have come to accept that my baby was a lamb
sacrificed for the sins of this world.”

Sydowski nodded. Angela continued.

“I see her everywhere in the faces of children. I ache
when I see mothers hug their daughters. I know my baby is with God. Probably
making Him laugh. I have to carry that in my heart to survive.”