San Francisco
Thursday Night
Julia was whistling. She was happy, she realized, actually
happy, for the first time in what seemed like forever. The
cops had finally given up, the media had gone on to new,
more titillating stories to keep their ratings up. And the
soulless paparazzi who lurked behind bushes, cars, and
trees, one of them even crouched down behind a garbage can,
trying to catch her—what?—meeting a lover so they could
make a buck selling a photo to the National Enquirer? Or
maybe writing a murder confession on a tree trunk? They’d
moved on after six endless months, focusing their stalking
cameras back on movie stars and entertainers who were a lot
more interesting than she was. Fact was, it was her
husband, Dr. August Ransom, who’d been the magnet for the
media, not she. She’d been only a temporary diversion, just
the black widow who’d probably gotten away with murdering a
very famous man and medium, a man who spoke to dead people.
Free, at last I’m free.
She didn’t know how far she’d walked from her home in
Pacific Heights, but now she found herself strolling down
Pier 39 on the bay, that purest of tourist attractions,
with its shops and clever white-faced mimes and resident
seals, all just spitting distance from Fisherman’s Wharf.
She’d stopped at the to-die-for fudge store, and now stood
by the railing at the western side of Pier 39, chewing
slowly on her precious piece of walnut fudge, watching the
dozens of obese seals stretched out on flat wooden barges
beside the pier. She heard the sounds of people talking
around her, laughing, joking around, arguing, parents
threatening or bribing their kids, all of it sounding so
normal—it felt wonderful. In April, in San Francisco, it
wasn’t the April showers that brought the May flowers, it
was the lovely webby fog that rolled through the Golden
Gate Bridge. The amazing thing was the air even had a
special April fog smell—fresh and new and tangy, with a bit
of a bite.
She wandered to the end of the pier and looked across the
water toward Alcatraz, which was not that far away, really,
but the swim could kill you, either the vicious currents or
the icy water.
She turned and leaned her elbows on the railing, watching
the people hungrily. There weren’t that many who wandered
down to the very end of the pier. She watched the lights
begin to come on. It was cooling down fast, but she didn’t
feel cold in her funky leather jacket. She’d found the
jacket at a garage sale in Boston when she was in college,
and it was her still her favorite. August had looked both
sour and amused when she’d worn that jacket. Because she
didn’t want to hurt his feelings, she never told him that
wearing the jacket made her feel like the young Julia again—
buoyant, in both her heart and spirit. But August wasn’t
here now, and she felt so lighthearted and young in that
moment, it was as if she’d float right off the thick wooden
planks.
She was unaware of just how much time had passed, but
suddenly there was more silence than sound around her, and
all the lights were on. The few tourists who hadn’t
returned to their hotels for the night had entered one of
the half-dozen nearby restaurants for dinner. She looked
down at her watch—nearly seven-thirty. She remembered she
had a dinner date at eight at the Fountain Club with
Wallace Tammerlane, a name she knew he’d made up when he’d
decided to go into the psychic business thirty years
before. He’d been a longtime friend of August’s, had told
her countless times since her husband’s death that August
had been welcomed into The Bliss, that August actually
didn’t know who’d murdered him, nor did he particularly
care. He was now happy, and he would always look out for
her.
Julia had accepted his words. After all, Wallace was
August’s friend, as legitimate as her husband. But she knew
August had scoffed at many of those so-called psychic
mediums, shaken his head in disgust at their antics, even
as he praised their showmanship. What did she believe? Like
many people, Julia wanted to believe there were certain
special people who could speak to the dead. She believed to
her soul that August was one of them, but there were very
few like him. She’d seen and met so many of the fakes
during her years with August. Even though she’d said
nothing, it seemed to her that, according to them, any
loved ones who died, no matter the circumstances of their
passing, were always blissfully happy in the afterlife,
always content and at peace, even reunited with their long-
dead pets. But she couldn’t help but wonder if August was
really happy in The Bliss, wonder if he didn’t want the
person who’d murdered him to pay. Who wouldn’t? She did.
She’d asked his friends and colleagues in the psychic
medium world if they could discover who had killed him, but
evidently none of them was possessed of that special gift.
This lack of vision was unfortunate, especially for Julia,
since the police had fastened their eyes on her and looked
nowhere else, at least as far as she could tell.
She didn’t know if August had been blessed with that
particular gift. TV shows had psychics who could picture
murderers, even feel them, see how they killed and who they
killed, and who could help track them down. And there were
even mediums who, in addition to being psychic, could also
speak with the dead. Were any of these people for real? She
didn’t know.
Who killed you, August, who? And why? That was still the
question always in her mind—why?
There was August’s lawyer, Zion Leftwitz, who’d called her
after her husband’s death. August’s estate, he’d said on
her machine, it was very important, as were her
responsibilities to that estate, an estate she knew now,
that wasn’t all that substantial.
Obligations, she thought, always there, at least eighty per
cent of life.
She really didn’t want to have dinner with Wallace, didn’t
want to hear his comforting words, hear yet again that
August was at peace. Then she’d inevitably hear about
Wallace’s latest triumph, perhaps how he’d contacted the
mayor’s long-dead grandfather. She knew all the way to her
boot heels he’d seriously dent her euphoria. And it also
meant taking a taxi back home. She had to leave this magic
place, she had to hurry.
“Excuse me, ma’am. That’s Alcatraz out there, isn’t it?”
She turned to see a tall, black man, firm-jawed, wearing
glasses, a long belted coat, standing close, smiling down
at her.
She smiled up at him. “Yes, it is.”
“I’m going to visit tomorrow. But tonight—do you know when
the next ferry leaves for Sausalito?”
“No, but it’s never long between runs. The schedule is on
the side of the building over there, not five minutes from
Pier 39--” As she turned slightly to point, he smashed his
fist into her jaw. The force of the blow knocked her back
against the wooden railing. She saw a bright burst of
lights before her eyes, then she saw the flash of something
silver in his hand, something sharp—dear God, a knife. Why?
But words froze in her throat in a thick veil of terror.
All her focus was on that silver knifepoint.
She heard a man shout, then heard, “FBI! Stop now, back
away from her or I’ll shoot!”
The man with the knife froze an instant, then cursed. He
hefted her up and threw her over the railing into the bay.
She splashed into the icy water and rolled over the mess of
black rocks that stabbed her like stiletto blades. She
tried to struggle, but knew in a flicker of consciousness
that she wasn’t going to escape this, that she was going to
fall and fall—was that a seal honking? Was that someone
shouting? It didn’t matter because everything was going
black as her body settled into the jumbled rocks at the
bottom of the bay, the water smoothing over her. Her last
thought, really more an echo, was that she wouldn’t ever
get to be happy again.
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