“Apparently, I don’t know nothing.” Voorhees shook his head, his face contorted in contempt.
He grabbed for the door, flung it open, and shoved MacNally into the corridor. “Get back to your cell. I’m done with you.”
43
Burden steered the Taurus along the winding, tree-canopied Telegraph Hill Boulevard, negotiating the curves until he came to a full stop behind a long line of cars.
“Shit, I should’ve thought of this,” Friedberg said.
“Tourists,” Burden said, in explanation for Vail. “They jam up the approach to Coit Tower, it’s like a freaking parking lot.” He swung the car around and did a three-point turn on the two-lane road. Following at a close distance was Clay Allman, mirroring Burden’s maneuvers.
Burden led them around and brought them up Filbert, an intensely angled street that tested the Taurus’s anemic horses trapped under the hood.
With the sedan’s engine groaning, Vail said, “Why don’t you let me out? I can probably walk it faster. And it might help you get up the hill.”
Burden ignored her dig and eventually got them to the base of the Filbert Steps, where he parked the car at a ninety-degree angle to the curb.
Vail surmised that on a street of such intense incline, the parking brake and transmission weren’t sufficient locks against a runaway vehicle.
As they unfolded themselves from the Ford, a steady wind blew against them. The air was crisp and the sun was bright, with scattered, yet plump stark white clouds sliding rapidly across the deep blue sky.
Allman got out of his car and began digging around in his trunk for something.
Vail craned her neck as high as she could see. Looming above her was an imposing, sand colored, architecturally modern cylindrical structure. Cypress trees surrounded the base, and an American flag fluttered strongly above a California state flag.
Burden gestured at a green sign twenty feet ahead of them that read, Stairs to Coit Tower. “We’ll walk it. Much faster.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Vail said, taking in the multiple flights of endless stairs staring back at her. An exercise session on an elliptical was one thing, but with her surgically repaired knee only recently beginning to feel fully healed, she didn’t feel like testing it on what surely looked like a million steps.
“C’mon,” Dixon said. “Time to move beyond that wimpy elliptical stuff. This’ll be a good little workout for you. I stair climb at the gym every day.”
“I’m sure you do,” Vail said. “But I don’t.”
Burden and Friedberg had already passed the green sign when Burden swung his head around. “Quit complaining. You’re wasting time.”
Vail and Dixon followed, with Allman bringing up the rear, heading up the staircase that ran along a wall of townhouses on the right, before turning left and crossing Telegraph Hill Boulevard, where the cars were still at a standstill. They continued up additional flights of steps that were fronted by bricks engraved with what appeared to be donor names.
Probably some Save Coit Tower movement, and a fundraiser run by vegans and alternative energy nuts. Vail chuckled. A few months ago, I’d have said that aloud.
They continued along an asphalt-paved, tree-shaded path that led to…more steps.
“I think this qualifies as a week of workouts,” Vail said.
Dixon snorted. “Give me a break. Have you even broken a sweat?”
Vail pulled at her blouse. “Haven’t you?” She instantly realized the answer to her own question. But she could see Burden and Friedberg slowing down, pausing every dozen steps or so before proceeding. “So what is this place?” I don’t really care. But it’ll slow ’em down.
“It’s a tower,” Friedberg called back to her.
“No shit, Inspector Sherlock.”
Friedberg stopped and turned to face her. He took a deep breath and bent over to rest his hands on his knees. “It was built in ’33, a monument funded by a wealthy, eccentric woman named Lillie Coit for the volunteer firemen. They fought fires before the city had a real fire department, which was a big deal back then because all the buildings were made of wood. She actually hopped on their truck and helped put out fires decades before women did that stuff. She’s now the patron saint of the city’s fire department.”
“Really,” Vail said with admiration. “Sounds like my kind of woman.”
“I think she lived around here. She left instructions in her will for the tower to beautify the city. The view from the top of Telegraph Hill, where we’re headed, is-well, you’ll see. You get a panorama of the Bay and the city that’s worth cramming yourself into that tiny elevator.”
“Just so you know,” Vail said, looking up at the massive structure. “Using ‘tiny’ and ‘elevator’ in the same sentence is about as appealing to me as using ‘serial’ and ‘killer’ together. Nothing good comes of it.”
Burden turned and continued up the steps.
Vail opened her mouth to ask another question-to give herself one more moment to breathe-but nothing came to mind. The one time I want him to give me a freaking dissertation and he’s actually brief. Can’t catch a break.
They reached the base of the tower and Burden led the way around the front. To the east, the Bay was stunningly clear, the wind having blown away all fog and clouds, highlighting the expansive Bay Bridge, not unlike the view she had from her hotel room.
A steamboat sat moored in the foreground at a pier, a large sign atop the vessel reading San Francisco Belle. Vail thought of Robby, and how fun it would be to get a room on the ship, then cruise around the harbor. The last trip they’d taken had turned into a disaster. A wave of superstition suddenly enveloped her, as if uttering the word “vacation” would cause things to blow up into a serial killer nightmare.
She stopped and took a deep, cleansing breath of the cool sea air. To her left, the north and west areas of the Bay, a dense bank of fog obscured all that lay before them.
“Nothing quite like it, huh, Agent Vail?” Allman asked.
She had to admit that the panorama before her was exquisite. “Virginia’s pretty special in its own right.”
“I don’t doubt it. But…” Allman gestured with a sweeping motion of his hand. “This is like paradise.
Paradise. I probably wouldn’t use that term while a serial killer ran wild through the city.
Burden led them around a circular path that brought them to the front entrance of Coit Tower. He stopped at the top of a small staircase, then led them down toward a circular parking lot-and the reason for the traffic jam.
“I thought it was typical tourist traffic,” Friedberg said. “Apparently, it was us.”
An SFPD cruiser sat at the lot’s mouth, its lights swirling silently. Two cops were outside the car and standing near a large statue that rested in the center of the paved rotunda.
“Not us,” Vail said. “Him.” She gestured at the front of the statue, where a male body was strapped. Erect. Serene.