THE BRIDGE

by Carol Ericson

  “Good idea. Follow me to the station, and you can park in the lot there.”

  He sat in his idling car until Elise’s garage door opened and her little hybrid rolled down the driveway. He kept an eye on his rearview mirror, stopping at every yellow light.

  He sure as hell hoped the killer’s fascination with Elise came to an end soon. He could bring it to an end sooner rather than later if he caught this guy. Then he could find out why he was sending him personal messages.

  He cruised into the station’s parking garage with Elise close on his tail. The morning shift had already gone out, depleting the ranks of patrol cars waiting in their slots.

  Sean swung into an empty space at the end of the row, and Elise parked next to him.

  “We’re really in the bowels of the police station here, aren’t we?”

  “Shh, don’t tell anyone we have all this parking down here.” He led her to the elevator, and after a short ride, the doors opened onto a corridor bustling with both cops in and out of uniform and civilians.

  He nodded at a few people on his way to homicide, trying not to read suspicion in their eyes. He’d have to lose this paranoia if he hoped to catch this guy and help Elise. Because he did want to help Elise.

  He pulled out a chair on the other side of his cluttered desk. “Have a seat. I’m taking your phone to the lab, and I’ll try to round up a sketch artist. We might have to call one in. Coffee? Water?”

  “I’m fine.” She folded her hands in her lap, her wide eyes taking in the activity of the room.

  Yanking a binder from his drawer, he said, “You can pass the time looking at mug shots.”

  He left Elise running her finger across the plastic inserts in the binder. He dropped off the phone with instructions to print, blow up and distribute the picture the killer had sent. He put the word out for a sketch artist, and then he stopped by the coffee machine.

  By the time he returned to his desk, Elise was halfway through the six-packs of mug shots in the binder he’d left with her.

  Flipping a page, she looked up at his approach.

  “Any luck?” He dropped into his chair and loosened his tie.

  “No.” She tapped the book. “Who are these guys, again?”

  “Killers, rapists, batterers.”

  She flinched and jerked her hand back from the page. “Why are they out on the streets?”

  “They did the crime and then did their time.” His hand tightened around his coffee cup. “I rounded up a sketch artist for you. Do you want to give it a try after you finish looking at those mug shots?”

  “Sure, although I don’t know how much help I’m going to be. It was dark, and he wore a disguise—I’m positive about that. I should’ve realized that much facial hair was concealing something.”

  Elise seemed determined to blame herself and her naïveté for the attack. He couldn’t sit back and allow her to browbeat herself.

  He pushed away his coffee, and it sloshed over the edge. “The majority of men who have beards and moustaches are not criminals or trying to hide anything. That’s not a clue that anyone would’ve picked up on.”

  Her face awash in pink, Elise smacked the book of six-packs closed. “None of these guys looks even vaguely familiar to me except one who’s the spitting image of my geometry teacher, and I’m probably just projecting because I hated geometry.”

  A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I doubt your geometry teacher is moonlighting as a criminal in San Francisco from...wherever it is you’re from.”

  “Montana. Is it so obvious I’m not from the city?”

  It was to him. She lacked that brittle edge so many urbanites had. But far be it from him to stoke the image she had of herself as the country bumpkin in the big, bad city.

  He shrugged. “Not at all. I think you mentioned living here for just a year.”

  Nodding, she relaxed her shoulders and slumped against the back of the chair.

  Sean picked up the receiver of his phone and punched the button for one of the interrogation rooms. Tony Davros, the sketch artist, picked up. “You’re already there. You must be ready for the witness.”

  Sean pushed back his chair as he stood up, dropping the receiver back in the cradle. “Let’s see what you can give us on this guy.”

  Elise followed him to the interrogation room, her head cranking from side to side as they waded through ringing phones, shouts across the room and people crisscrossing the space with papers or files clutched in their hands.

  She wrinkled her nose. “It’s noisier than a kindergarten classroom in here.”

  “Probably about the same level of maturity, too.” He pushed open the door to the interrogation room and ushered her inside.

  Davros stood up and extended his hand. “I’m Tony Davros, Ms. Duran. Wish we were meeting under happier circumstances.”

  Sean raised one eyebrow in Davros’s direction. That’s the most words he’d heard from the artist’s mouth in almost two years. Davros had even pulled out a chair for Elise.

  First Jacoby and now the sketch artist. He got it. Elise’s fresh-faced, angelic appearance spurred men on to chivalrous deeds, prompting them to pull out chairs and hand over jackets. Even the typically surly Davros wasn’t immune.

  “Me, too.” She shook Davros’s hand and dropped onto the wooden chair. “I’m afraid the man was wearing a disguise—beard, wig, glasses, even a phony accent.”

  “That’s not uncommon.” Davros swept his palm across a piece of sketch paper and caressed his pencil. “We’ll start with the shape of his face—what you could see of it.”

  The two of them went back and forth for several minutes, the artist coaxing and praising as his pencil moved swiftly across the page in front of him.

  Shoving his hands in his pockets, Sean sauntered to where Davros sat hunched over his sketch pad, the tip of his tongue lodged in the corner of his mouth as he further defined the nose of the suspect.

  Sean squinted at the face. Would someone be able to recognize him without the beard and moustache? Davros’s job entailed drawing another picture without the facial hair and glasses, perhaps with shorter hair.

  “That’s close to what I remember.” Elise tossed her ponytail over her shoulder as she leaned over the drawing.

  A sharp rap at the door interrupted them, and before Sean could even offer an invitation, it swung open and banged against the wall.

  Sergeant Curtis from homicide, his eyes bugging out, thrust his head into the room. “We just got a call from patrol about a dead body, and I think you’re going to want to head out there, Brody.”

  Sean’s heart slammed against his rib cage. “And why is that?”

  “It’s the girl in the picture.”

  Chapter Five

  The blood rushed to Elise’s head and she gripped the edge of the table as the room spun. She had a picture of a dead woman on her phone.

  He’d killed her. He abducted her, took her picture and murdered her. And he sent that picture to her.

  “How do you know it’s the same person?” Detective Brody had straightened up to his full height and his body seemed coiled for action. The waves of his tension reverberated off the walls of the small room.

  The cop who’d delivered the news gripped the doorknob. “As soon as you forwarded the picture to us, we sent it out to patrol. When the unit discovered the body, they checked the picture. It’s a match.”

  “Do you have any details, Curtis? Cause of death?”

  “Not yet, but she didn’t drown even though the fishermen found the body at the edge of the bay.”

  “The bay? Her body was found in the bay?” Detective Brody shot Elise a quick glance.

  “Not in the bay, at the edge. Right over that small incline that borders the parking lot for the Golden Gate
. That’s why we know she didn’t drown unless it was recent.” His eyes shifted between Elise and the sketch artist, and he cleared his throat. “No bloating.”

  Elise covered her mouth and clenched her teeth.

  Detective Brody stepped in front of her as if to shield her from the other detective’s words and the image they’d already created in her head.

  “We’ll discuss the rest of this on the way.”

  Sergeant Curtis dipped his head. “Sorry, Ms. Duran. I’ll ride with you, Brody.”

  “Are you going to be okay?” Detective Brody made a half turn toward her.

  “I’m fine.” Elise held up her hands. “I’m going straight to my friend’s house after this.”

  “How will I reach you? We have to keep your phone.”

  “I should hope so.” She shivered and rubbed her arms. “I’ll pick up another phone today and contact you with the new number.”

  “Make sure you do. And Elise—” he pinned her with his dark gaze “—don’t go back to your house.”

  She drew a cross over her heart. “I promise.”

  And that’s the only thing she’d promise him right now.

  Fifteen minutes later Elise sat in her car, her hands clutching the steering wheel. She could do this. She needed to know more, had a right to know more.

  She rolled out of the parking garage and hung a left. She knew better than to follow Detective Brody’s car. The guy seemed to be on high alert at all times. He’d notice one small hybrid following him to a crime scene.

  Besides, she already knew the way. Hadn’t her life almost ended in the exact same spot?

  When she pulled into the parking lot for the bridge, she didn’t have to worry about standing out. The tourist season was in high gear, and a trip to the Golden Gate Bridge was high on everyone’s list.

  A crowd of people had already formed at the edge of the lot where it led down to the gravel by the water. She stumbled from her car, and a brisk breeze cut her to the bone. She fished a sweater out of her backseat and put it on over her bulky cable knit. You could never have too many layers in San Francisco.

  She scrambled from the car and tugged the sweater around her tighter, unrolling the sleeves so they hung over her hands. She shuffled up to the fringes of the crowd.

  “What happened?” Elise stood on her tiptoes, not knowing what she hoped she would or wouldn’t see.

  A man looked over his shoulder. “There’s a dead body down there.”

  The woman standing to her right clicked her tongue. “Is it a jumper?”

  That’s what the city workers had thought of her. Is that what this killer wanted everyone to believe? No. He wanted to shout his deeds from the rooftops. He wanted the distinction of impressing everyone with his cleverness or he never would’ve left that note for Brody.

  The tall man in front of her snorted. “That’s not a jumper this close to the shore. The current’s too fast out there.”

  Elise ducked and shimmied between two of the curious onlookers. She zeroed in on Detective Brody’s unmistakable form, his arm raised as if directing traffic.

  Someone had covered the body with a sheet, securing the four corners against the wind that snatched at its edges. Frustrated in its efforts to pluck the sheet from the dead body, the wind found another outlet, puffing up the sheet so that it looked like a sail at full speed ahead.

  But that girl wasn’t going anywhere—ever.

  Elise didn’t know what she’d hoped to discover out here, but as soon as the other detective had burst into the interrogation room, she knew she had to see the crime scene for herself.

  Had the killer intended this little patch of desolate shore as her final resting place? She turned her face to the right and gazed at the beach a short distance away where she’d scrambled into the water to save her life.

  Had he killed this woman here or was this just his dumping ground?

  She asked no one in particular. “Wh-who found her?”

  The man with the broad shoulders turned sharply, bumping Elise’s arm. “It’s a woman? Who told you it was a woman?”

  Elise grabbed the ponytail that whipped across her face. “Oh! I don’t know. I guess I just assumed...”

  The woman beside her grunted, “It’s a woman. Count on it. Unless it’s some drug hit or something. The cowards always go after the women.”

  The wail of a siren drew closer, causing the clutch of people to shift and sway.

  Would they take her away now? Away from the prying eyes of this nosy group of people?

  Elise felt protective toward the woman, and maybe that protectiveness sprang from guilt. Had this woman taken her place?

  Detective Brody had pointed out that the killer could’ve taken that picture at any time. He was right. Chances are the killer hadn’t found another victim after two in the morning when Elise had escaped.

  Sergeant Curtis crunched across the gravel and faced the crowd. “Did anyone else see anything out here?”

  Elise dropped her head and pulled the sweater up to her chin, not that he’d notice her after their brief encounter in the interrogation room.

  People murmured and mumbled, but nobody stepped forward with any information.

  Undeterred, Sergeant Curtis continued. “If anyone was here earlier, if anyone was taking any pictures, give us a call.”

  A few people began peeling away from the group as the cops continued to scour the ground. A coroner’s van had pulled up on the gravel, but still nobody made a move to retrieve the body.

  They might be here all afternoon.

  Elise spun away from the scene, her stomach rolling. Her presence here had served no purpose except to confirm how close her own brush with death had occurred to an actual death.

  She reached into her purse for her cell phone before she remembered that her phone was in the possession of the SFPD with a picture of the dead woman below on it.

  She meant what she told Brody. She wouldn’t return to her house, not yet, especially with Oscar still out of town.

  She tapped the arm of the woman next to her. “Can I borrow your phone for a minute? It’s a local call.”

  “Sure.” She dipped into the pocket of her sweatpants and pulled out a smartphone.

  Elise tapped in Courtney’s phone number.

  “Hello?” Courtney’s voice, low and seductive, purred over the line.

  “Court? It’s Elise.”

  “Elise?” The dulcet tones turned to a squeak. “Where are you calling from? I thought for sure you were Derrick from last night when I saw the unknown number.”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Are you okay? I texted you earlier but you didn’t respond.”

  Elise took several steps away from the rubbernecking crowd, out of everyone’s hearing. “All hell broke loose when I left you at the club last night.”

  Her friend paused for two beats. “Tell me you’re okay right now before I have a full-fledged panic attack.”

  “I’m okay.”

  Courtney blew out a noisy sigh. “You scared me. What do you mean all hell broke loose? Where are you and whose phone are you using?”

  “After I left the club last night—” Elise closed her eyes and squeezed the phone “—I was attacked.”

  “Attacked? What are you talking about?”

  Her friend’s voice screeched over the phone and Elise pulled it away from her ear.

  “Someone pretended to need help and when I went to help him, he knocked me on the head and stuffed me into his trunk.”

  Courtney’s breath rasped over the phone. “Elise, you’re joking. Tell me you’re joking.”

  “I’m not joking, Courtney. I got away. I’m okay.”

  “How can you be okay after something l
ike that? Where are you?” She sucked in a breath. “Oh, God, you’re not in the hospital, are you?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Not anymore? Where are you? I’m coming to get you.”

  Elise switched the phone to her other hand and wiped her clammy palm against the seat of her jeans. “I was hoping you’d say that. There’s more to the story.”

  A lot more to the story. She caught sight of Detective Brody’s head as he clambered onto a rock, his tie dancing over his shoulder in the breeze.

  “I don’t need a ride, but I was hoping I could crash at your place for a night or two. Your brother’s out of town again, and I don’t feel like staying in the house alone.”

  “Absolutely. Do you have your car?”

  “I do. Are you home now? I’ll drive over.”

  “I’m not home. I’m shopping, and I was going to grab some lunch. Why don’t you meet me for lunch?”

  “I can do that. Where?”

  “I’m at Union Square. How about Chinatown?”

  “I don’t know how I’m ever going to find parking there, but I’ll give it a try. Han Ting’s?”

  “I’ll meet you there at around one o’clock. Is that enough time for you?”

  Elise agreed to the time and ended the call. She held the phone out to the woman. “Thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  “Any progress down there?” Elise stood on her tiptoes, but the scene looked much the same—people searching the ground, heads together conferring, and still the white sheet billowed in the wind.

  “No. I’m going to continue my walk over the bridge. I suppose we’ll be reading about this one in the newspaper.”

  “I hope so.”

  The woman’s brow furrowed and Elise felt her cheeks warming. “I...I mean, I hope the cops keep the public informed about crime. Do they ever underreport this kind of stuff? You know, shove it under the carpet to give people a false sense of security and to keep the tourists coming?”

  “I suppose.” The woman cocked her head. “I read about another murder last month, a young woman. I hope we don’t have some serial killer on the loose.”