Death of a Bad Apple
Page 24
“Great. Exactly the professional look I was going for.” I pushed the hood back and gave my sticky hair a shake to fluff it up before the frosting set like concrete. I’d been too busy finishing up final touches for the wedding to wash my hair since the Potter party. Luckily a hat was part of my costume for the mayor’s event.
I checked my watch: five fifteen p.m. Since Alcatraz was a national park, my crew and I couldn’t set up until the place closed. Before I knew it, it would be eight p.m. and the first guests would be arriving. As the ferry docked, I hustled my coworkers down the gangplank, all arms loaded with boxes of party crap. Most of the big stuff had already been delivered and was waiting for us in the cellblock. Glancing up at the ominous cement building at the top of the hill, I shuddered, hoping the ghosts of Alcatraz would be in a partying mood tonight. Remembering a docent’s spiel I’d heard on a school trip to Alcatraz, I recalled some stats about the island’s fascinating and fearsome history. For nearly thirty years, the grim maximum-security federal penitentiary had housed around fifteen hundred prisoners. Thirty-six had tried to escape from the Rock. Seven were shot and killed, two drowned, five were unaccounted for, and the rest were captured. Two prisoners made it to shore but were later captured and returned, and three more escaped the island, but not the water surrounding it—presumed drowned. That was it, unless you counted the twenty-eight who escaped by dying—fifteen of natural causes, eight murdered, and five suicides.
If I didn’t pull this thing off, I’d be the first to commit career suicide.
My iPhone—a luxury I refused to give up—chirped, jolting me out of my thoughts of danger, detention, and death. Missed call, the screen read.
“Service is really spotty here,” Delicia said, checking her pink rhinestone-enhanced cell phone.
I nodded, then thumbed to the voice mail screen and found three messages waiting for me. The first was from my mother: “Pres, please call me! It’s urgent!” Even though she was safely in a care facility, to my mother, every call these days was “urgent.”
The second was from Chloe Webster, the mayor’s admin. “Presley? We have a serious situation. Call me ASAP.” And with Chloe, there was always a “serious situation.” I felt for her. She was seriously overworked and no doubt underpaid, but she seemed to thrive in her status as assistant to the mayor. She’d been instrumental in getting me hired for this gig.
I saved the messages, mentally promising to return the calls—if I could find a pocket of service—as soon as I finished the more pressing matter of decorating the cellblock.
I went on to the third message.
“Presley Parker? This is Detective Luke Melvin from the San Francisco Police Department, Homicide. Would you please return my call at your earliest convenience?”
A homicide detective?
Holy shit.
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