Civil Twilight. Susan Dunlap
here, then you got more than one ride. Look at the space markers. They’re not for compacts.”
Level five was an open slab; maybe the walls would be added tomorrow, but tonight there was nothing to keep a determined driver from flying off the edge.
The elevator was in the middle of the square. The southwest quadrant was cordoned. I’d heard John say the biggest cause of trampling a crime scene was off-duty cops rubbernecking. But no one was muddying the scene now. The normal night lighting hadn’t arrived and inadequate lanterns formed two lines as if beckoning all to walk between them into the abyss. Too-bright flashes revealed the slab, empty but for the group inside the lantern lines. Crime lab techs were still putting down markers, snapping shots, moving lights, shooting the same thing from a different angle. Everyone else stood in the dark outside of the yellow tape.
“What’ve you got, Larry?” John asked a guy in a suit.
“Fall. No witnesses, least not yet.”
“Just wait. Everyone’s got camera phones now. They’re all on the horn to TV stations trying for big bucks. You’ve alerted the stations to that, right?”
“Yeah,” he snapped. “But no-one’s going to have a shot of the take-off. Fall took what—a couple of seconds? No time to get the phone flipped open. And before she fell, there was no reason for a picture.”
“Unless there was,” I said. “Unless she was leaning over the edge, fighting someone off.”
“We’re alert to that, too.” He took me in, top to bottom. “I didn’t catch your name and department.”
“Fell onto the freeway?” John demanded.
“Yeah.” Larry’s attention snapped back. A slight catch in his voice said he knew better than to offend him. “See that pile-up down there.” He walked toward the edge of the slab, stopping with a good thirty inches to spare. John and I looked down—almost straight down—onto the freeway. I’d watched this building going up, so close to the roadway that if I’d been a kid I’d’ve been scheming how to get up here to spit on cars. When it was finished, would they allow windows to open, I’d wondered.
“Only three cars in the pile,” Larry was saying. “Miracle it wasn’t lots worse. I-80’s what—the most jammed road in the nation? We’re lucky it’s not a fifty engine smash-up. Body flying out of the sky! Some poor slob’s lucky she didn’t come through his windshield.”
Larry was watching John, who shrugged.
He was my age, maybe younger, and although he could have been in charge here, he just didn’t have that top dog look. “Well, anyway, I haven’t been down there—I’ve been too busy up here keeping the scene clean—but word is she hit the roadway—I mean, what’re the chances of finding a patch of bare road? But she did, smacked down in lane two. Truck ran over her, then a car, then there’s brakes squealing, cars slamming all the hell over. Not much left to identify. A couple of drivers are already in SF General.”
“They say anything, the drivers?”
“What do you think? Body falls out of the sky in front of you? Truck driver just kept crossing himself. They’re lucky to be alive, all of them. We were lucky they didn’t think of that before we got in a few questions. She could’ve killed them. Sheesh, if you’re going to jump, give a little thought to the people below, you know?”
How about a little thought for a woman lying dead on the freeway! “If you were in that good shape, you wouldn’t need to jump, would you?” I controlled myself before that came out, but still Larry was glaring, and John moved himself in between us.
I stepped away, closer to the edge. The wind was stronger, flapping my sweatshirt and jeans the way Karen’s blue linen pants had when she set out across Washington Square Park. I looked down at the freeway, the six empty lanes of this elevated road. I’d driven it a thousand times, easy; every San Franciscan had. I’d sped across the Bay Bridge from Berkeley in the left lane, waiting till the last moment before the Fifth Street off-ramp tunneled down from that lane to cut right. I’d slipped into the middle lane in this area, whipping past slowing drivers eyeing the Civic Center exit, and headed for the Fell Street arm that would shoot me through Golden Gate Park to Mom’s. Everybody’s got their strategy on I-80. They . . .
Stop avoiding! Focus! The flashers swirled red like traffic lights in the fog-blurred night. They glowed against the black of squad cars. Nothing moved down there. For a moment I imagined I saw Karen’s body between them, her bare arms and blue-clad legs stretched out like she was making snow angels, her blonde hair awry. I didn’t—couldn’t—let myself think about what had happened when she hit, of what was left of her. Couldn’t think about her, not yet, not here.
I was looking away. Again I forced myself to stare down at the freeway. It was almost directly below—almost, but not quite. A single lane in the parking area cut between the building and the freeway. I stepped forward. If she—
“Hey, get away from the edge! What’re you, crazy?”
I was the least likely person here to fall, but I wasn’t going to fight about that. I moved back. “Looks like there’s about eight or nine feet between the building and the freeway.”
“Yeah, so?” Larry said.
“Do suicides usually take a running leap?”
“There’s wind.”
“Not enough for that short a drop. If she stepped off the edge, she’d’ve landed next to the building.”
“You forensics?” He eyed me, then John.
“I’m talking the mechanics of falling. To leap that far, you need a running start.”
“Look—”
“No, you look. Look at where the road is. If you wanted to jump would you believe you could jump that far?”
“We’re not talking about me. We’re—”
“A jump like that, it’s Crouching Dragon. If you had to leap that far between buildings you’d be dead. You’d need to run, to get up speed.” You’d need a ramp, a catcher, a dummy, and a damned good editor back in the studio.
“Or you’d need to be pushed,” John said. “Anyone working on that?”
“I don’t know. You’d have to ask the detective.”
“Who is . . . ?”
“Broder.”
Bad, very bad. Bad enough John’s car caused the mess outside of his woman’s house. Broder’d been after John already, but now he’d have live ammunition, too, for his hunt. When he found out John’s brother was the victim’s attorney, that his sister had spent the afternoon with her, and that she’d been able to steal John’s car because he’d left the keys in it, John would be not merely toast, he’d be charred crumbs. As for me, I’d be sitting in an interview booth till sunrise. And Gary, who’d set this whole thing in motion, I didn’t want to think about him. Whatever his reason, I was sure it was no prank. When he learned how Karen died he’d be devastated. He’d need time, before the police caught up with him, to stop feeling guilty and start thinking like a lawyer again.
When Broder asked, John would have to have answers; he’d have to be straight with him. Which meant, we needed to get out of here. Now.
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