Читать книгу Brody Law: The Bridge / The District / The Wharf / The Hill - Carol Ericson - Страница 12

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 like 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.”

Elise didn’t want to dash the stranger’s hopes, so she sealed her lips. “I hope not. Anyway, thanks for the phone. Enjoy your walk.”

She shoved her hands in the pockets of her sweater and watched the woman cross the parking lot and head toward the bridge’s pedestrian walkway.

Elise had ventured across the bridge a few times since moving to the city. Round-trip was a good three-mile walk, and while she could use the exercise to clear her head, she had a lunch date with Courtney—not that she was looking forward to it.

She dreaded revealing the rest of last night’s details to Courtney, except for meeting Detective Brody. She wanted her friend’s take on the tall, muscular cop and his protective attitude toward her. Was his behavior normal for a homicide detective questioning a witness?

Normal or not, Elise had felt something click between them, or maybe that was just her desperately reaching out for a knight in shining armor. After Ty, she’d begun doubting the existence of those knights.

She dug in her purse for her keys, and then someone touched her shoulder. She spun around, dropping the keys and hugging her purse to her chest.

Sergeant Curtis faced her, his eyes narrowed and his arms across his barrel chest. “What are you doing here, Ms. Duran?”

Her gaze skittered over his shoulder to Detective Brody still clomping around the beach. “I just had to see for myself. That’s not against the law, is it? All these other people are here.”

“Of course not.” He hunched his shoulders until his short neck disappeared completely. “But you’re not like all these other people, are you?”

“I’m a curious looky-loo, just like them.”

“Don’t start doing your own investigating, Ms. Duran.” He shook his stubby finger in her face. “Leave it to us. We’ll tell you what you need to know.”

Bending over, she swiped her keys up from the ground, hoping for a little composure. Sergeant Curtis’s paternalistic tone caused a spiral of anger to shoot through her body. Why did men always think they knew what was best for her?

“Maybe I don’t want to wait for information. That woman was on my phone. I have a right and a need to know what happened to her.”

He took a step back and blinked. “Sorry. Just don’t want you putting yourself in any danger.”

“I get it.” She waved him off and strode to her car, jabbing her thumb on the remote. He’d probably go and tell Detective Brody now.

And what if he did? She didn’t owe Detective Brody anything, either.

As she rounded her car, a white square on her windshield caught her attention. She rolled her eyes. Perfect—a parking ticket.

She snatched the object from beneath her wiper, her eyebrows colliding over her nose. This was no ticket envelope. She unfolded the slip of paper and scanned the words.

The blood thundered in her ears as she crushed the paper in her fist, her gaze shifting wildly around the parking lot. Her dry mouth made forming words almost impossible.

She swallowed. She licked her lips. She tried again. She screamed.

“He’s here. The killer’s here.”