Hard Fall

by Pascal Scott

“What is it? Just say it, Stone.”

  “I thought I saw her.”

  “You thought you saw…Emily?”

  “Yes. In the Castro. On my birthday. Just from the back, though, and her hair was different. It was red. She had dyed it red and cut it really short, and it was spiked. But it was Emily, I swear to God it was Emily. I recognized her voice.”

  “Oh, Stone.”

  “I know. My therapist thinks I’m crazy. Not crazy, just hallucinating from grief.”

  Zoe reached across the table and touched Stone’s hand. “I told you at the beginning that we were in this together. And we are. I won’t abandon you. And I won’t close this case until I know what happened to Emily. That’s a promise.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Zoe would have preferred talking to Dr. Colin Bryson in person in Hammond, Indiana, but there was that budget detail that she had promised to take care of. Zoe thought about using her own money but decided against it; that would have set a bad precedent. Rich Coppola wouldn’t foot the bill, either, unless Zoe agreed to promise to get her license and join the team. Zoe considered the offer once more but declined. She still wasn’t ready to be a full-time PI. That meant a phone call to Dr. Bryson. After three attempts that ended with his home answering machine—and none of her calls returned—Zoe was about to give up. But on the fourth try, she reached him directly.

  “Dr. Bryson?”

  “Yes, who is this?”

  “My name is Zoe Martinelli. I work for Coppola Investigations in San Francisco. I’m investigating the death of your daughter, Emily. Do you have a few minutes to speak with me?”

  “Emily,” he said. The sorrow in his voice was still there.

  “I’m very sorry about your loss, Dr. Bryson.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Is this a good time to talk?”

  “I’m afraid not. I’ve got surgery scheduled this morning at the hospital. Perhaps we can do this another time?”

  “Any time that would be good for you, sir. When may I call you again?”

  “This evening. Let’s say…9:00 p.m.?”

  “Nine p.m. in Hammond is 7:00 p.m. in San Francisco. That works for me. I’ll call you tonight at 9:00 p.m., your time.”

  “Fine, fine. I need to go now.”

  “Of course. Thank you, Dr. Bryson.”

  ****

  Later that evening, Zoe dialed Dr. Bryson’s number from her houseboat in Sausalito. He picked up on the first ring.

  “Dr. Bryson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Zoe Martinelli here.”

  “Yes, Ms. Martinelli.”

  “Zoe. Please call me Zoe.”

  “Zoe. I should tell you before we begin that I consulted my lawyer earlier today, and he advised me not to speak to you. From what I understand from Detective Murphy, my daughter took her own life last October by leaping from the Golden Gate Bridge. I’m not clear on why a private investigator is looking into my daughter’s suicide now, seven months later. The only possible explanation is that you’ve learned something new about her death. Have you?”

  “No,” Zoe replied. “I haven’t. And you’re right. The San Francisco Police Department originally filed Emily’s case as a missing person’s report and then closed it as a suicide. They didn’t see anything suspicious about the way she died.”

  “So, if you haven’t learned anything more about her death, why are you investigating it now?”

  “We’re trying to understand why Emily might have contemplated suicide,” Zoe replied.

  There was a short silence.

  “I don’t know,” Dr. Bryson said finally. “She was going through a somewhat drawn-out adolescence. Emily was rebellious and stubborn, but I never saw any sign of depression beyond the normal mood swings of girls her age.”

  “I see,” Emily said. “This is a difficult question to ask, but I have to ask it. Was there any trauma in Emily’s past? Any history of abuse?”

  “Absolutely not,” Dr. Bryson retorted. “If you’re implying that there was something untoward going on while she was in my home, you’re absolutely wrong.”

  “No, sir,” Zoe hurried to assure him. “I wasn’t implying that at all. But it’s not uncommon for young women to experience unwanted sexual advances—”

  “Emily knew how to handle herself. She was precocious in that way.”

  “If I may then, Dr. Bryson. I was told that Emily was involved with a much older woman when she was seventeen and that you disapproved.”

  “That’s true. She was, and I did. That was one of the reasons I encouraged her to apply to colleges out of state. I don’t wish to say more about that, if you don’t mind.”

  “I understand,” Zoe said. “So, uh, college. Emily attended the University of California at Santa Cruz for her undergraduate studies from 1983 through 1987, is that correct?”

  “Yes,” Dr. Bryson confirmed.

  “And then she moved to San Francisco to begin graduate work at San Francisco State University. Is that correct?”

  “As far as I know. We were estranged by that time.”

  “You were estranged? The two of you weren’t speaking?”

  “That’s right. We had a disagreement about the direction of her life, among other things. This happened at her graduation. That would have been June of 1987. I flew in with my new bride. Emily’s mother died of cancer, and I had remarried. Helen tried to be friends with Emily, but it’s difficult for some children to accept a stepmother.

  “After the graduation ceremony, Emily told me she was moving to Mexico to live with some girl she had met in the dormitory. Mexico. I said absolutely not, not if she wanted to continue benefitting from the trust fund I had set up for her. The express purpose of the trust was to see her through college and to get her started on a sensible career. She had already been reckless in her spending, indulging in luxury items that were clearly unnecessary. If she didn’t continue her education, I told her I would have the trustees stop sending her monthly checks. In turn, she said some things I can’t repeat. That was the last time we spoke in person. As far as I knew, she was still planning to move to Mexico with that girl from Cowell Hall. I don’t know why she changed her mind.”

  “She changed her mind?”

  “She did. A few months later, she wrote to give me her new address in San Francisco. She wrote that she had moved to the Bay Area and was enrolling in the women studies program at the State University. I didn’t approve entirely of her choice of college nor of her field of study, but at least she was still in school. So I forwarded her address to the trustees.”

  “Forgive me for probing, Dr. Bryson, but do you feel comfortable sharing the amount you had the trustees send to Elizabeth?”

  “Well, that was perplexing. After her death, when my attorney was handling her estate, I learned that she had opened a Bank of America checking account in San Francisco.”

  “What was perplexing about that?” Zoe asked.

  “That there was so little in it. I believe the amount was something like $106. Which is very peculiar because Emily was used to living well. Her monthly check—to speak directly to your question—was the sum of $3,000. Not an enormous amount of money but more, probably, than most young women are accustomed to receiving.”

  “Emily was getting $36,000 a year from her trust fund? That’s a lot of money.”

  “For some people, yes, it is. I don’t know where she invested it. It didn’t turn up in any of the financial records my attorney could find.”

  His tone saddened.

  “She sounded so different in those later notes. She had changed since she’d left Indiana. I suppose that’s to be expected with young people when they go off to college. I probably should have paid more attention to Emily then, but by that time, there were other complications in my life. Helen entered our marriage with two children of her own. I was suddenly the father of two adolescents and one college graduate. My role had changed. Emily had never even tried to accept the fact that
I might need to find love with someone else after her mother died. She refused to give Helen a chance and insulted us both by not attending our wedding.”

  “When was that wedding?”

  “June of 1986. By the time Emily moved to San Francisco, I had made a new life with Helen. Emily drifted out of it. Occasionally, I’d get a postcard from her.”

  “I see,” Zoe said.

  “I want to go back to something you said earlier,” Dr. Bryson continued. “You said we. You’re representing someone. I’d like to know who that is.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you that, of course, because of client confidentiality. As a doctor, you can appreciate my position.”

  “I can,” he replied. “But this person you’re representing, she doesn’t think Emily’s death was suicide? Is that where you’re going with this line of inquiry?”

  “Honestly, Dr. Bryson, I can’t say more. Except to ask if there is anything else I should know about Emily.”

  “No, I can’t think of anything that might help you. Emily was an amazing girl. This has been heartbreaking for me. For us.”

  “I can’t even imagine your grief, sir. One more thing, Dr. Bryson. Do you have a picture of Emily that you could send me?”

  “Yes, I’m sure I can find one that I can part with.”

  Zoe gave him the address of Coppola Investigations.

  ****

  The six-by-nine brown envelope postmarked Hammond, Indiana, arrived two weeks later. Inside Zoe found a note scribbled on a St. Mary’s Hospital yellow Post-It hand-dated June 12, 1990. “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” it read. “This is Emily at graduation, UCSC, June 1987. Best wishes, Dr. Bryson.”

  Two rubber bands had been wrapped around a cardboard sleeve. Slipping them off, Zoe pulled out a glossy color photograph. It was a casual shot of four young women in black caps and gowns, standing with their arms wrapped lazily around one another’s shoulders. All four wore celebratory smiles. There were three blue-eyed blondes in the photograph and one girl with black hair. All had long hair except for the athletic-looking, freckled blonde, whose hair was cut short. Zoe tucked the picture and note into her purse. She would share it with Stone.

  “Yeah, that’s Emily,” Stone said when she saw it.

  They were sitting in a pub in Sausalito, in a corner table with a view of the city. On the weekends, the popular watering hole was packed with tourists, but this was a Thursday night in June, and the place was relatively quiet. Over Pinot Grigio and a Bud, Zoe repeated her conversation with Dr. Bryson before pulling the photograph from her evening purse. She pushed the snapshot across the wooden table. Stone picked it up to examine it more closely. Her eyes teared up. She set the photograph down and looked away, blinking hard.

  “Do you know these other girls?” Zoe asked

  Stone wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “No,” she answered. “She didn’t talk much about college. I know she had friends. I mean, obviously. She lived in the dorm, I remember that. Her father paid for everything, and they fought about it because he didn’t like the way she spent her—well, I guess it was his—money. That was the trust fund money he had set up for her. Long answer. Short answer is no, I don’t know who they are.”

  Zoe held the photograph up and studied it. The black-haired girl was considerably shorter than the other three, with a round face and laughing eyes. Two of the blondes were taller with thinner, Anglo faces. The fourth girl, the short-haired blonde, was in-between in height with a full, freckled face and a muscular neck.

  “She was a beautiful girl, your Emily,” Zoe said.

  “She was,” Stone agreed.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Indiana wasn’t in the budget, but Santa Cruz was. It was only seventy-five miles south of San Francisco. Stone offered to drive her old Dodge truck, a half-ton commercial vehicle painted bright orange that her mother had dubbed the rolling pumpkin. Stone had bought the truck for next to nothing in a government surplus sale in the city. Everyone made fun of it, but she didn’t care. It was dependable and practical, and its size made merging easy. Other drivers got out of the way when they saw the rolling pumpkin pulling onto the highway.

  Zoe insisted on driving her MG Roadster. If Stone drove, the trip would take forever, she said. In her MG, they’d be there in less than an hour. It was a clear, late June Saturday when they headed south on Highway 1, the scenic route along the Pacific coast. Zoe had rolled down the top of the convertible, donned Ray Bans, and wrapped a sea green scarf around her long black hair. She looked like a fifties movie star, Stone thought. Like Sophia Loren or Natalie Wood. Stone lifted her face to the sun overhead. It felt good. She inhaled deeply and smelled the ocean. She could almost lick the salt from her lips. She breathed in the cool air. Ahh…

  “Shit! Zoe!”

  Zoe pulled the Roadster back from the edge of a cliff on their right. She had hit gravel when the wheels left the blacktop, tossing up pebbles and leaving dust in the rearview.

  “Damn it, girlfriend! The way you drive!”

  “I’ve got it, I’ve got it,” Zoe said confidently, steering back onto the highway.

  The little jade green sports car had the advantage of maneuverability, Zoe explained, as she swept in and out of traffic, changing lanes without signaling.

  “Hey, Stone,” she said a moment later. “What do you do for fun?”

  Stone had to ponder the question. It had been a long time since she had thought about having fun. “Nothing” was the first thing that came into her mind.

  “I work out,” she said instead. “I swim. I’m in Masters Swimming.”

  That was true and not true. She had let her membership lapse when it had expired in December. And she hadn’t been to the gym in months. Come to think of it, she had lost muscle tone. Her jeans and Dockers didn’t fit as well as they used to, and her waist wasn’t as narrow. And oddly, sometimes she felt a tightness in her chest, like she couldn’t catch her breath. She would have to do something about that.

  “What do you do?” Stone asked in return. “For fun.”

  “Me? I drive fast cars. I drink expensive wine. I date handsome women.”

  Zoe glanced at Stone. “And I shoot. I’m a rare breed in California. I like guns.”

  “Nothing wrong with that,” Stone said.

  “Oh? Not according to a lot of lesbians I know. I like to say that I’m just another gun-toting liberal. But you’d be surprised by the grief I get from the PC crowd.”

  “I can imagine. Emily felt the same way, only her beef was with the WAP group.”

  “WAP?”

  “Women Against Pornography. You know. The lesbian sex wars? When feminists fought each other over sex?”

  “A little. I try to stay out of politics. Tell me about it.”

  Stone settled back in her leather bucket seat. “Well, the WAP crowd, the anti-porn lesbians, waged a war of words against the so-called sex-positive lesbians,” Stone explained. “The anti-porn women thought sex work was degrading to women and that women who did it were victims of internalized misogyny. The sex-positive lesbians said women should be free to choose how they express themselves, including working in the sex trade, if that was what they chose to do. There were other issues, too—erotica, sadomasochism.”

  “Glad I missed it. When was this?”

  “Oh, the late seventies, early eighties. Really? You missed it? There were marches down Castro Street by Take Back the Night. Hundreds of women.”

  “Nope,” Zoe said.

  “Wow. Where were you?”

  “Late seventies, early eighties? I was a teenager in the seventies and a student in the eighties.”

  “I forget how young you are. What are you, like twenty-something?” Stone asked.

  “I’m thirty-three.”

  “Oh. Old lady.”

  Zoe raised an eyebrow. “Hey, Stone.”

  “Hey, Zoe.”

  “You shoot?”

  “Nah.”


  “I could teach you. Tell ya what. I’ll take you up to the vineyards. My dad owns a hundred acres in Sonoma. He built a big house on a hill and set up an outdoor shooting range just for family and friends. We’ll go sometime. What do you say?”

  “Sure,” Stone said.

  “You can meet my folks.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t get nervous. It’s not a big deal. I bring a lot of girls home.”

  “I’ll bet you do.”

  ****

  Fifty-five minutes later, they were cruising onto the UCSC campus. Built in a pine forest with a view of the ocean, the university looked more like a high-priced resort than an institution of higher learning. Rich kids, Stone thought. The University of California was more affordable than the Ivy Leagues, for sure, but it was still out of reach for a lot of middle-class families and nearly impossible for the children of blue-collar parents like Stone’s, unless they went deeply into debt with student loans. That was the way the system worked. It was just the way it was.

  The administrative offices were closed, but that didn’t matter. They wouldn’t have released confidential information about Emily anyway. What Zoe was hoping was that someone at Cowell Residential Hall would remember Emily and the other young women in the graduation photograph. Ten minutes later, Zoe pushed her business card across the slick counter of Cowell’s front desk toward a yawning girl in jeans and a yellow T-shirt whose badge identified her as Rachel Wilson.

  “Rachel,” Zoe said. “I’m a private investigator from San Francisco looking into a case involving a former resident of Cowell Hall. Is there someone I could speak to about this?”

  The girl looked up from Zoe’s card. Without saying a word, she got up from her swivel chair and disappeared into a back office. A full-bosomed, silver-haired woman in a print dress and sensible pumps walked out of her office with an air of determined efficiency. Rachel followed behind.

  “Ms. Martinelli?” the woman asked, looking from Zoe to Stone and back again.

  “Yes,” Zoe replied.