If Angels Fall by Rick Mofina Page A

which
confirmed Wallace’s record for child molesting. Reed confirmed from neighbors
that Wallace lived near Tanita and had her in his toddlers’ Bible classes. Then
he called me for confirmation that Wallace was our suspect. He got nothing, I
assure you.” Sydowski stared at Ditmire. “then Reed went immediately to
Wallace’s home, confronted him with what he had. Wallace never knew we had the
pictures, the diaper, his prints, his records, until Reed told him. He denied
to Reed that he was involved, then blew his brains out with a shotgun when Reed
left. We never got to question Wallace hard about the diaper, the pictures, his
partner.”
    “We fucked up there,” Rust jumped in. We are going to
surveil Wallace, wire his phone, watch his mail, hoping it would lead us to the
masked man. Tom Fucking Reed got in the way.”
    “What about Reed’s tip? Did he tape it?” Paley asked.
    “No. It was cold, out of the blue,” Sydowski said.
    “Reed’s tip had to be Wallace’s partner,” Sydowski
said. “I think it was the killer. I think he panicked when he saw us discover
his trophies and, fearing Wallace would finger him, tried to set him up.
Something like that. Wallace’s widow told us Wallace got a call about an hour
before Reed arrived. The call scared him, but he refused to tell her who it
was, She thought it was Reed saying he was coming over, but Reed told us he
never made an advanced call. Wallace and the other likely plotted to grab
Donner for a day or two with the aim of returning her. It’s been done before.
But it goes wrong and she ends up in a garbage can with her throat cut. Our
tattooed guy is likely a hard-core skinner who manipulated Wallace, then trips
up the case.”
    “We never publicly said Wallace was a suspect?” Paley
said.
    “No Wallace was dead,” Gonzales said. “We want to
leave his partner in the dark. So we publicity doubt Reed’s story. It may not
be nice, but we’re chasing a child-killer.” He paused. “Merle, Lonnie, you got
anything?”
    Ditmire leafed through his notes.
    “Nathan Becker is a computer systems engineer with
Nor-Tec in Mountain View, head of a project for the U.S. military. The CIA told
us this morning that it would not rule out a terrorist act as one plausible
scenario here.”
    “But we have no demands,” Sydowski said. “And doesn’t
tradition show that responsibility for acts of terrorism is usually claimed
within twenty-four hours?”
    “Not in every instance, Walt,” Rust said.
    Ditmire continued with the results of a VICAP check.
“Two recent child abduction-murder cases around Dallas-Fort Worth in the last
three years. And for the same period, there has been one in Denver, Seattle,
Detroit, Memphis, and Salt Lake City. We’re getting files on them. We’ve got
agents posing as kids and agents posing as pervs, baiting whatever is out
there. That’s it for now.”
    Gonzales nodded. “Claire, any hint of cult, our human
sacrifice?”
    Inspector Claire Ward an expert on cults, had been
taking notes.
    “Too soon to say, Lieutenant, I’d like to look at the
evidence from the Donner case again.”
    “Walt will help you there,” Gonzales said. “All right.
We are going to chew up every shred we’ve got on this, understand?
Every-fucking-thing. The heat on this one is intense.” Gonzales stood up,
looked at his watch, then ended the meeting. “You’ve got your assignments. You
all know the words to the song. This is a green light. All overtime is
approved. We go hard into the backgrounds. We re-create the day. We check and
recheck every tip.” He tucked his unlit cigar in his inside breast pocket.
“Questions?”
    None.
    “Turgeon, please see me in my office,” Gonzales said.
    Papers and reports were collected as the investigators
filed out of the room. Turgeon followed Gonzales to his office several doors
away, where he fished through a top desk drawer, then placed her new
identification in her hand.
    “Sorry, Linda. I should’ve