of here one day before we started locking the cabinets.”
He used a key to unlock one padlock and pulled two boxes from a file. He locked the cabinet again, and we followed him back into the library. He motioned for me to take a seat at the microfilm reader and handed me the June spool. I began loading it onto the reader.
“What’s in these files?” Cassidy asked, gesturing to the cabinets.
“Clippings from the more recent years,” Brandon said. “Filed by subject.”
“You don’t have them on computer?”
“Not yet. By the end of the year, reporters will be able to retrieve files that way.”
As they talked, I used the fast-forward control on the reader, stopping here and there to scan dates, until I finally came to June 18. I had bypassed the front page and had to back up on the slower speed.
“A Monday,” I said, wondering how much of the paper I would need to read before something jumped out at me. For a panicked moment I wondered if there was any point at all in being in Bakersfield that afternoon. Perhaps this was a wild-goose chase, perhaps Hocus had only wanted me to leave the house, to be out of town for a number of hours….
But then the first page rolled slowly into view, and I knew I was looking at the story I was supposed to see. I knew it from the moment I saw the photograph beneath the headline:
FATHER’S DAY TRAGEDY:
TWO BAKERSFIELD MEN SLAIN WHILE SONS WATCH
It was the kind of photograph every photojournalist dreams of taking. Two women, their faces tearstained, mouths contorted in grief, arms outstretched, crouched slightly as they hurried toward two young boys. The boys’ faces were scraped and bruised but without expression, their eyes empty — too empty for their nine or ten years. One boy cradled his right arm, which was in a splint, as he leaned his head on a uniformed policeman’s shoulder. The other boy held on to the policeman with both arms. The policeman knelt on one knee, his arms around the boys, looking up at the women with anguished eyes.
I knew the officer’s name before I read the caption.
Some years after the photo was taken, I married him.
12
EVA RYAN AND FRANCINE NEUKIRK, whose husbands were found murdered Sunday, are reunited with their sons, who police believe were made to witness the slayings. Officer Frank Harriman of the Bakersfield Police Department holds the boys, Samuel Ryan and Bret Neukirk.’ ”
I took a deep breath and began reading the story itself:
A father-son fishing trip ended in tragedy this weekend, when two Bakersfield men were brutally slain while their nine-year-old sons were forced to look on in helpless horror. Police say Dr. Gene Ryan and Julian Neukirk, both 35, died in the basement of an abandoned warehouse, their throats slashed by an unknown assailant. Both men also suffered multiple stab wounds and bore marks indicating they had struggled with their assailant. No motive has been established for the killings.
Acting on an anonymous tip about a warehouse break-in, Officer Frank Harriman arrived at the scene to find the two boys, Samuel Ryan and Bret Neukirk, chained to a wall in a basement storage area, approximately seven feet from their fathers’ bodies. The Ryan boy suffered a fractured right arm; both boys received other minor injuries. Blood spatter patterns indicated the boys were in the room when their fathers were attacked. Police say the boys are severely traumatized and thus far have been unable to provide any information about the crime.
Ryan, an emergency room physician, had been looking forward to a week-long fishing trip with the boys and Neukirk, who owns a trucking business. Both men grew up in the area and have been friends since childhood.
“They loved one another like brothers,” said one family friend, who asked not to be identified. “Bret and Sam are just as close to one another as their fathers were.”
The article went on to say that the police were asking any members of the public who might have information about the case to please contact them immediately.
“On the phone this morning, remember?” I said, looking up at Cassidy. “ ‘He’s our hero.’ Which one do you think I talked to, Samuel Ryan or Bret Neukirk?”
“I’ll run a check on those names,” Cassidy said. “Mind if we make a couple of copies of this, Mr. North?”
“Not at all,” Brandon said.
“I can just print them out from here,” I said.
“I vaguely remember this case,” Brandon said. “I may even have some photos of the boys on file. I think one of the photographers won an award for that photo.”
While Cassidy made a call asking for research on Neukirk and Ryan, I focused the machine as sharply as I could, made two copies of the article, then moved the microfilm to a related story.
The long front-page article included four portraits, the fathers and sons: SILENT WITNESSES: FRIENDS MOURN FATHERS, EXPRESS CONCERN FOR SONS. I skimmed the article, which talked about Gene and Julian’s long friendship and how deeply they were mourned.
It also claimed neither of the two boys had spoken a single word to anyone since their rescue. According to the reporter — for this story, a man — the boys seemed extremely frightened of male strangers. With the killer or killers still at large, and the motive for the killings unknown, police were guarding the two households closely. So far, the boys had allowed only one officer anywhere near them — Frank Harriman.
There was a sidebar to the articles. Police were now looking for a brown Volkswagen van that had been seen by several witnesses in the warehouse parking lot over the weekend.
I printed this set of stories, then rolled the film forward to the next issue. Cassidy was looking over my shoulder again. A banner headline jumped out at us: BODY OF RYAN-NEUKIRK KILLER FOUND.
“Hmm. That didn’t take long,” Cassidy said, moving closer.
“What does it say?” Brandon asked, his view blocked by Cassidy’s large frame.
“ ‘An alert highway patrol officer discovered the body of Christopher Powell, twenty-eight, a man who is now believed to have murdered Dr. Gene Ryan and Julian Neukirk,’ ” I read aloud. “ ‘Early Monday, while patrolling Highway 178 between Bakersfield and Lake Isabella, Officer Cecilia Parker….’ ”
