"Patrick Calvin," I read from our list as Conklin and I got into the squad car. "Convicted sex offender, recently released on probation after serving time for the sexual abuse of his own daughter. She was six when it happened."
Conklin started the car. "There's no understanding that kind of garbage. You know what? I don't want to understand it."
Calvin lived in a twenty-unit, U-shaped stucco apartment building at Palm and Euclid on the fringe of Jordan Park, about a mile and a half from where Madison Tyler lived and played. A blue Toyota Corolla registered to Calvin was parked on the street.
I smelled bacon cooking as we crossed the open patio area at the front entrance, climbed the outside stairs, knocked on Calvin's aggressively red-painted door.
The door opened, and a tousle-haired white male no more than five foot three stood in the doorway, wearing plaid pajamas and white socks.
He looked about fifteen years old, making me want to ask, "Is your father home?" But the faint gray shadow on his jowls and the prison tats on his knuckles gave Pat Calvin away as a former inmate of our prison system.
"Patrick Calvin?" I said, showing him my badge.
"What do you want?"
"I'm Sergeant Boxer. This is Inspector Conklin," I said. "We have a few questions. Mind if we come in?"
"Yes, I mind. What do you want?"
Conklin has an easy way about him, a trait I frankly envy. I'd seen him interrogate murdering psychos with a kind of sweetness, good cop to the max. He'd also taken care of that poor cat at the Alonzo murder scene.
"Sorry, Mr. Calvin," Conklin said now. "I know it's early on a Sunday morning, but a child is missing and we don't have a lot of time."
"What's that got to do with me?"
"Get used to this, Mr. Calvin," I said. "You're on parole -"
"You want to search my house, is that it?" Calvin shouted. "This is a goddamned free country, isn't it? You don't have a warrant," Calvin spat. "You have shit."
"You're getting awful steamed up for an innocent man," Conklin said. "Makes me wonder, you know?"
I stood by as Conklin explained that we could call Calvin's parole officer, who would have no problem letting us in. "Or we could get a warrant," Conklin said. "Have a couple of cruisers come screaming up to the curb, show your neighbors what kind of guy you are."
"So… mind if we come in?" I asked.
Calvin countered my scowl with a dark look of his own. "I've got nothing to hide," he said.
And he stepped aside.
Chapter 43
CALVIN'S PLACE WAS SPARSELY DECORATED in early Ikea: lightweight blond wood. There was a shelf of dolls over the TV – big ones, little ones, baby dolls, and dolls in fancy dresses.
"I bought them for my daughter," Calvin snarled, dropping into a chair. "In case she can ever visit me."
"What is she now? Sixteen?" Conklin asked.
"Shut up," Calvin said. "Okay? Just shut up."
"Watch your mouth," Conklin said before he disappeared into Calvin's bedroom. I took a seat on the sofa and whipped out my notebook.
I shook off the image of a young girl, now a teen, who'd had the terrible misfortune to have this shit as a father, and asked Calvin if he'd ever seen Madison Tyler.
"I saw her on the news last night. She's very cute. You could even say edible. But I don't know her."
"Okay, then," I said, gritting my teeth, feeling a sharp pang of fear for Madison. "Where were you yesterday morning at nine a.m.?"
"I was watching TV. I like to stay on top of the current cartoon shows so I can talk to little girls on their level, you know what I mean?"
At five ten, I'm a head taller than Calvin and in better shape, too. Violent fantasies were roiling in my mind, just as they had when I'd arrested Alfred Brinkley. I was stressing too much, too much…
"Can anyone vouch for your whereabouts?"
"Sure. Ask Mr. Happy," Pat Calvin said, patting the fly of his pajama bottoms, grabbing himself there. "He'll tell you anything you want to know."
I snapped. I grabbed Calvin's collar, bunching up the flannel tight around his neck. His hands flew out as I lifted him off his chair, thumped him against the wall.
Dolls scattered.
Conklin came out of the bedroom as I was about to thump Calvin again. My partner pretended that he didn't see anything crazy in my face and leaned casually against the door frame.
I was alarmed at how close I was to the edge. What I didn't need now was a complaint for police brutality. I released Calvin's pajamas.
"Nice photo collection you have, Mr. Calvin," Conklin said conversationally. "Pictures of little kids playing in Alta Plaza Park."
I shot a look at Conklin. Madison and Paola were snatched from the street just outside that park.
"Did you see my camera?" Calvin said defiantly. "Seven million megapixels and a 12x zoom. I shot those pictures from a block away. I know the rules. And I didn't break any of them."
"Sergeant," Conklin said to me, "there's a little girl in one of those pictures, could be Madison Tyler."
I got Jacobi on the phone, told him that Patrick Calvin had photos we should look at more closely.
"We need two patrolmen to sit on Calvin while Conklin and I come in to write up a warrant," I said.
"No problem, Boxer. I'll send a car. But I'll have Chi take care of the warrant and bring Calvin in."
"We can handle it, Jacobi," I said.
"You could," Jacobi said, "but a child matching Madison Tyler's description was just called in from Transbay security."
"She's been seen?"
"She's there right now."
Chapter 44
THE TRANSBAY TERMINAL on First and Mission is an open-air, rusty-roofed, concrete-block shed. Inside the cinder-block shell, half-dead fluorescent lights sputter overhead, throwing faint shadows on the homeless souls who camp out in this oppressive place so that they can use the scant facilities.
Even in daytime this terminal is creepy. I felt an urgent need to find Madison Tyler and get her the hell out of here.
Conklin and I jogged down the stairs to the terminal's lower level, a dark, dingy space dominated by a short wall of ticket booths and a security area.
Two black women wearing navy-blue pants and shirts with PRIVATE SECURITY SERVICES patches sewn to their pockets sat behind the desk.
We flashed our badges and were buzzed in.
The security office was glassed in on two sides, painted grimy beige on the other two, and furnished with two desks, unmatched file cabinets, three exit doors with keypad access, and two vending machines.
And there, sitting beside the stationmaster's desk, was a little girl with silky yellow hair falling over her collar.
Her blue coat was unbuttoned. She had on a red sweater over blue pants. And she wore shiny red shoes.
My heart did a little dance. We'd found her.
Oh, my God, Madison was safe!
The stationmaster, a big man, fortysomething with gray hair and matching mustache, stood up to introduce himself.
"I'm Fred Zimmer," he said, shaking our hands. "And we found this little lady wandering all by herself about fifteen minutes ago, weren't you, honey? I couldn't get her to talk to me."
I put my hands on my knees and looked into the little girl's face. She'd been crying, and I couldn't get her to look me in the eyes.
Her cheeks were dirt streaked and her nose was running. Her lower lip was swollen and she had a scrape along the side of her left cheek. I threw Richie a look. My relief at seeing Madison alive was swamped by a new concern for what had been done to her.
She looked so traumatized that I was having a hard time matching up her face to the image of the little dazzler I'd seen playing the piano on videotape.