squeezed his car so tight in between two unmarkeds we had to sidle out and jump back as a patrol car and then a van raced in before we made it to the base of the high-rise.
In another year it would change the skyline, stab the sky higher than many thought safe in a city that lives under the threat of the next big one. Now only the bottom floors had been walled in. Above, it was a skeleton of structural support beams and crossing supports.
“Fifth floor—first open floor?”
“Looks like it.”
“Like construction in hell,” I said mostly to myself. Flashing red lights dueled, coating the cement in almost constant crimson. Sirens from vehicles trying to slice through the traffic jam and radio squelches fought with shouts from all directions. I kept expecting John to bark at me to get back in the car or away from the scene, but it was almost as if he’d forgotten who I was—or wasn’t. Moving between clumps of uniforms and cops in street clothes, he strode purposefully, as if this was his case. I followed as if I was a part of it, too, into the cage of a freight elevator.
“Look,” a uniformed guy pointed to the front ceiling corner as the door rolled shut. “Bird’s nest? Here?”
“Elevator probably wasn’t moving yet when the mama bird made it,” a tech said.
“Spiffy address.”
“Nah, it’s just the freight elevator. They’ll be blue collar birds.”
“Hey, was that a head? I thought I saw a head in the nest.”
“Birds have ’em. Makes flying easier.”
A couple of guys chuckled. “But how’d they last here?” the uniform insisted. “You’d think the construction outfit would’ve—”
“Endangered species?”
“You better check with—”
The cage eased to a stop. “Fifth floor!” a guy in the rear called out. “Ladies dresses, coats, and intimate apparel!”
A ripple of forced-sounding laughter pushed us out the door.
“How many parking levels are there?” I asked. John shot me a look but said nothing.
Someone answered, “Eight, at least. You can afford to live 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—
