The Last Good Place

by Robin Burcell

  He gave her a copy of the map to look over. “Figured we’d leave from here right at seven. Get a feel for the route.”

  She eyed the map, then folded and tucked it into her sweat-shirt pocket. “I don’t suppose you’re open to suggestions…?”

  “You have a better idea?”

  “If I’m not mistaken, the victim and her neighbor left about five minutes apart. We split up. One of us leaves at seven, the other at five after. I know it’s only five minutes, but maybe there’s something like commuter traffic or a bus route or whatever that we pick up on in that difference.”

  “Not bad for a patrol officer.”

  “We have our moments.”

  And so precisely at seven, Casey took off from in front of Marcie’s house. Becca intended to follow five minutes later. Of course, there was a slight disparity in that he was at least a foot taller than Marcie, and so he slowed his pace to what he thought a woman of her stature might run, then tried to concentrate on what was around him, not who was jogging behind him.

  Once he managed to find a good pace, it was easier to concentrate. Most of the run was downhill until the street that led to the overflow lot, where a few cars were parked. There it finally leveled off to the trail that led through the trees to Crissy Field in one direction and to the bridge in the other. When he reached the location of the crime scene, he made note of the time.

  Becca jogged up about five minutes later, arriving right around the time Trudy’s body was discovered by Marcie. “Well?” she asked.

  “Unless those women ran a completely different route from each other, I still don’t get how Marcie arrived after the murder.”

  “Maybe she ran past and doubled back? Or veered off Lincoln into the Presidio.”

  “According to the couple who found Trudy’s body, Marcie came from the same direction as we did. And arrived a few minutes after they discovered the murder. I practically jogtrotted,” he said, checking his watch. “And I still got here five minutes before Marcie found Trudy. But here you are, right around that time.”

  “Marcie took a very different route?”

  “Or someone got their times mixed up.”

  Casey called Al and told him what they’d found.

  “Okay,” Al said. “So what’d you see?”

  “What do you mean, what’d I see? I told you.”

  “No, College Boy, you told me how long it took. Ask yourself what you saw. Sit down, make notes, then analyze what you found and get back to me.”

  Casey bristled at being called College Boy, mostly because Al’s voice carried, and he was certain that Becca had heard every word. He turned slightly, trying to keep his voice from revealing his feelings. “Anything in particular you think I should put in that report?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. How does it compare with the day of the murder? You’re looking for patterns. Anything or anyone you can use to verify or dispute the events as they were told to us. Capisce?”

  “Capisce.”

  Al disconnected, and Casey shoved the phone in his pocket, his frustration apparently evident enough for Becca to notice.

  “Something wrong?” she asked.

  “My partner. Almost makes me wonder if he’s got it in for me for not telling him I took the lieutenant’s test.”

  “Homicide’s sort of the elite detail. Why would you want to promote out so soon?”

  “I was only taking it for experience. But trust me. Homicide’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “You haven’t been in there all that long. How do you know?”

  “I just do.”

  Becca lowered her sunglasses, looking at him over the rims.

  Her eyes looked exceptionally blue today, he realized, then quickly looked away, not wanting to get caught staring. Feeling uncomfortable in the ensuing silence, he said, “Al wants what we found written up in a supplemental. Over coffee?”

  She glanced at her watch. “I have maybe an hour. If you’re buying.”

  The location she’d chosen was a small establishment that catered to a more local clientele as opposed to the morning commuters and tourists. They took a seat at a corner table, where they could keep their back to the wall and still have a bit of privacy to talk. Becca ordered a breakfast smoothie, and Casey followed suit.

  They drank in silence for several minutes, each of them taking notes on their respective pads, Becca’s on the table between them.

  Then, out of the blue, Becca said, “You really think Al’s on your case?”

  “Al? Yeah. I do.”

  “I don’t know. He smiles with his eyes.”

  “Don’t let it fool you. He’s about as old school as they get. Every time I try to approach an investigation from a new angle, he calls me College Boy.”

  “College Boy?”

  “His dig at my overeducation. Especially when comparing my degree to his graduating from the school of hard knocks, aka his time on the streets.”

  “I’m sure he means well.”

  “He has a funny way of showing it,” Casey said then turned back to his notes. He was drawing a blank. Nothing seemed to stand out to him. “I’ve got nothing. What about you?”

  Becca shrugged. “I don’t know. There was that old guy down the street from Marcie’s place. Other than that—”

  “What old guy?”

  “Corner house. Out getting his newspaper. He waved at me. Well, started to. You know, one of those waves that sort of falters when you realize you don’t know someone?”

  And that, he realized, was what Al had been talking about. What they saw, not how long it took. “What’re the chances he was out there the morning Trudy was killed?”

  “You could go talk to him. We could go talk to him.”

  Her smile was infectious.

  Before he had a chance to respond, a tonal alert sounded over the radio, then the dispatcher’s voice. “All units, two-eleven, strong-arm robbery just occurred in the area of Everything Under the Bridge. Suspect is a WMA, late twenties, dark clothing, no further description.”

  “That’s just up the road,” Becca said, grabbing her radio. “You coming?”

  “Right behind you.”

  SIXTEEN

  Casey followed Becca to the scene, both vehicles using their emergency lights to get through the thick traffic. He pulled up behind her patrol car and left his rear ambers flashing as a warning to any ruthless parking attendants that he was there on official business.

  Not that that always stopped them, he thought as he grabbed his portable from the passenger seat, hearing Becca call in their arrival.

  A dark-skinned man in his fifties stepped out of a shop called Everything Under the Bridge, and Casey, his star hanging from a chain around his neck, pulled it from his jacket, saying, “Police.”

  “In here,” the man said, waving them over, holding the glass door open for them.

  The place was filled with knickknacks, souvenirs, and postcards printed with iconic San Francisco sights and landmarks.

  “She’s in the back,” the man said. “The storeroom.”

  Casey heard someone crying. He and Becca rushed back into the crowded space filled with shelves of cardboard boxes, some stacked to the ceiling. A woman in her twenties sat in a chair next to a small table covered with pink and yellow invoices. She looked up as they entered, the left side of her face red and smudged with dirt and looking pale beneath the fluorescent lighting. Her disheveled, shoulder-length brown hair was held back by an elastic band that looked ready to fall with the slightest movement.

  Becca looked around the room quickly, undoubtedly ascertaining the safety of the situation, then stood in front of the woman. Like Casey, she’d also worn her star on a chain around her neck and had it tucked beneath her sweat shirt. She held it out for the woman to see. “Are you okay? Do you need an ambulanc
e?”

  “No,” the woman said, shaking her head. “I’m fine.”

  “What happened?”

  And then she started crying again.

  Casey drew the employee from the back to the front of the store, giving Becca a chance to talk to the victim in private, and he heard Becca ask, “What’s your name?”

  “Cynthia Wyland.”

  “Cynthia. We’re here to help.”

  The employee glanced toward the storeroom as Casey asked, “What’s your name, sir?”

  “Joe Patel.”

  “Mr. Patel. Thanks for calling. What happened?”

  “The girl ran up to my back door, pounding on it, screaming. I looked out the peephole and recognized her. She works in one of the shops a few doors down. So I let her in. She said someone attacked her. She thought he was trying to steal her computer or something.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  “Just her. I did hear footsteps, like maybe someone was back there besides her, but I didn’t wait around to find out. Just pulled her in and locked the door.”

  Casey glanced toward the storeroom. “So I can get out that way? Have a look around?”

  “Sure.”

  Casey figured with the delay between the call and their arrival, chances of finding anyone was slim. He took a quick walk through the back alley set between a row of shops on one side, with their unmarked back doors, and a dank-looking warehouse on the other. Several Dumpsters were lined up along one wall, probably shared by the shop owners and the warehouse. Unremarkable in every respect. The only time the alley was bound to see any traffic was on trash day and when shop employees came and went from work via the back doors. In other words, a good place to lie in wait.

  Casey continued on through, then around to the front. By this time Roberts, the primary uniformed officer, was there taking a statement from the girl. “What happened next?” Roberts asked.

  “He grabbed my hair from behind. My ponytail. And then he put his arm around my neck and tried to drag me toward him.” She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, glancing over at Becca, who smiled in encouragement.

  “Go on,” Becca said.

  “That’s when I swung around and hit him with my laptop bag. I—I think the weight of it sort of knocked us both off-balance. When he grabbed it, I took off running.”

  Officer Roberts looked up from his note pad. “You think he was after the computer?”

  “At first, but…”

  “But what?”

  “When I got away, he ran after me, saying, ‘Your bag! Don’t you want your bag?’ Like I was ever going to go back and get it.”

  Casey heard dispatch on the radio advising that Robbery was en route to handle the call. Roberts replied, “Ten-four.” Then, to the victim, “Before the attack. Did he happen to say anything else?”

  “Just talking to himself.” She looked down at the wadded tissue, turning it over and over in her fingers, then stopped, eyed him, and said, “Something about playing tag? I don’t know. I couldn’t really hear. He was just…weird.”

  “When was this?”

  “Right after I passed him. I mean, he wasn’t even looking at me when I turned into the alley, so I didn’t really think about that, you know, he didn’t belong there. But when I heard him sort of muttering, I remember getting a weird feeling. And then—Oh my God. My bag. It’s got all my information in it. My computer, my address, my schoolbooks. My house keys. He knows where to find me.”

  “Hey,” Becca said, reaching out, touching her arm lightly. “We’re going to find this guy, okay?”

  “What if you don’t?” She broke down again. Nothing Becca or Officer Roberts said seemed to calm her.

  Casey could well imagine the vulnerability the young girl must be experiencing. “Miss Wyland,” he said, stepping forward, figuring what they needed right now was a good distraction. “Maybe you can show Officer Roberts where this happened?”

  She looked at Roberts, who said, “That would really help.”

  “Okay…”

  Casey walked over to the back door, held it open. Roberts and their victim led the way. She directed them to the left a few doors down the alley toward the store where she worked. When they neared her shop, the woman pointed toward the last Dumpster. “That’s my bag!” She ran over, and was about to pull it out when Roberts stopped her. The suspect had thrown it up on top and it was now wedged between the Dumpster and the brick wall.

  “But my computer—”

  “We’ll get it in a sec,” the officer said. “After a few photos. So where’d you first see this guy?”

  Casey and Becca moved away, letting the officer finish his interview. Casey glanced in both directions. What he couldn’t figure out was why the suspect tossed the bag before he fled.

  He thought about yesterday’s 211 at Ghirardelli Square. Shades of the same. “You think this was a robbery?” he asked Becca.

  She looked over at him, then in the direction of the planter. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “The bag. Why leave it behind? There were no witnesses. Not at that hour.”

  “We got here pretty quick,” Becca said. “Maybe he tossed it when he heard the sirens.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. But why try to lure her back? That thing looks like a laptop bag. If I were a thief, and my victim shoved that thing in my hands, the thing I wanted to begin with—”

  “Sexual assault?”

  “More probable, wouldn’t you think?”

  “Especially considering this alley is almost deserted at this hour. Who’s going to hear her scream?”

  A sobering thought. In a city this size with this many people around, there were so many dark corners where someone could end up hurt and alone. Drag her between a couple of these Dumpsters, who would notice?

  After checking with Roberts to see if there was anything further he needed, they cleared the call and were walking out to the main street when Casey’s phone rang.

  It was Al. “Where are you?”

  Casey eyed the sign over the gift shop. A replica of the Golden Gate depicted in red neon lights. “Sidetracked by a report of a robbery at a gift shop called Everything Under the Bridge. We were just down the street. The thing is, I’m just not sure it’s a robbery.”

  He heard the sound of papers shuffling, figured Al was going through a stack of reports, probably only listening with half an ear. “What, then?”

  He briefed Al on the incident, ending with, “If it was a robbery, why try to lure her back? Or why toss her computer away? What if it’s a failed Strangler case? It might not be a specific landmark, but it’s a store filled with souvenirs of them.”

  “You know what I think? You want to catch the Strangler so bad, the liquor store up the street could be robbed, and you’d try to link it.” Casey heard the squeak of Al’s chair, as though he’d suddenly leaned back. “Let Robbery handle it. If they link it to the Strangler, I’ll make sure you get the gold star you’re looking for. In the meantime, you have a dead woman, a dead guy who may or may not be her killer, and a lot of witnesses that still need interviewing.”

  “What if I took the case? I’m already here.”

  “Negative, College Boy. Not if the body’s still breathing. You’ve got evidence to go through on that Presidio case.”

  Al disconnected before Casey could argue the point.

  “Something wrong?” Becca asked.

  “Good ol’ Uncle Al, reminding me I should get back to the office.”

  “Same here. Back on patrol, rather.”

  They continued on to their respective cars, Casey trying to work up the nerve to ask Becca out again. It shouldn’t be that difficult, but he found it far easier to discuss police work with her than anything remotely personal. When they reached her patrol car, she stopped, smiled, waited a beat.

 
His cue, he realized. But all he could say was, “Thanks for your help.”

  “Anytime.”

  And then she was gone.

  Casey watched her drive off, wondering how tacky it would be to ask her out via text.

  Very, he decided as got into his car and drove back to the Hall.

  Al seemed to be watching for him when he returned. “So how’d it go out there? On your run?”

  Casey had a feeling he was talking about the girl, not the investigation. None of Al’s business, he decided, even if the man was instrumental in having her assigned as Casey’s backup. “It’s possible we may have found another witness. An old man who lives down the street from the victim was out picking up his paper at the time Officer Windsor ran past. We were on our way to interview him when the two-eleven happened.”

  “Let’s go talk with him now,” Al said, walking over to the coatrack to get his hat. “The sooner you get everyone interviewed, the sooner we can close out the case.”

  When they were in the car, Al said, “So what’s really bugging you?”

  “What makes you think something’s bugging me?”

  “Because when I talked to you on the phone earlier, you sounded a bit short.”

  “I wasn’t short. I was frustrated.”

  “Same thing, isn’t it? What were you frustrated over?”

  “That you wouldn’t even listen to my theory that maybe it wasn’t a robbery.”

  “Sure I listened. I’m just wondering if you forgot how we do things around here. Dead body, we take the call. Live body, someone else gets it. Hence the terms homicide and robbery.”

  “What if it’s a failed Strangler case? She said he grabbed her around the neck.”

  “Alive theirs, dead ours. That’s how it works.”

  “We should be working together on this. We’re in the same damned office, so what does it matter if some of these cases cross over?”

  “Tell you what. When you make chief, you can change that.” He nodded toward the intersection. “Turn right, take the alley. It’s faster this time of day.”