Well, I thought, that’s interesting, but playing tourist isn’t helping me catch up with Lee Gottschalk. Quickly I left the jail and hurried up the iron staircase the first ranger had indicated. At its top, I turned to my left and bumped into a chain link fence that blocked access to the area under renovation. Warning myself to watch where I was going, I went the other way, toward the east tier. The archways there were fenced off with similar chain link so no one could fall, and doors opened off the gallery into what I supposed had been the soldiers’ living quarters. I pushed through the first one and stepped into a small museum.
The room was high-ceilinged, with tall, narrow windows in the outside wall. No ranger or tourists were in sight. I looked toward an interior door that led to the next room and saw a series of mirror images: one door within another leading off into the distance, each diminishing in size until the last seemed very tiny. I had the unpleasant sensation that if I walked along there, I would become progressively smaller and eventually disappear.
From somewhere down there came the sound of voices. I followed it, passing through more museum displays until I came to a room containing an old-fashioned bedstead and footlocker. A ranger, dressed the same as the man downstairs except that he was bearded and wore granny glasses, stood beyond the bedstead lecturing to a man and a woman who were bundled to their chins in bulky sweaters.
“You’ll notice that the fireplaces are very small,” he was saying, motioning to the one on the wall next to the bed, “and you can imagine how cold it could get for the soldiers garrisoned here. They didn’t have a heated employees’ lounge like we do.” Smiling at his own little joke, he glanced at me. “Do you want to join the tour?”
I shook my head and stepped over by the footlocker. “Are you Lee Gottschalk?”
“Yes.” He spoke the word a shade warily.
“I have a few questions I’d like to ask you. How long will the rest of the tour take?”
“At least half an hour. These folks want to see the unrestored rooms on the third floor.”
I didn’t want to wait around that long, so I said, “Could you take a couple of minutes and talk with me now?”
He moved his head so the light from the windows caught his granny glasses and I couldn’t see the expression in his eyes, but his mouth tightened in a way that might have been annoyance. After a moment he said, “Well, the rest of the tour on this floor is pretty much self-guided.” To the tourists, he added, “Why don’t you go on ahead and I’ll catch up after I talk with this lady.”
They nodded agreeably and moved on into the next room. Lee Gottschalk folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the small fireplace. “Now what can I do for you?”
I introduced myself and showed him my license. His mouth twitched briefly in surprise, but he didn’t comment. I said, “At about four yesterday afternoon, a young woman left her car at Vista Point with a suicide note in it. I’m trying to locate a witness who saw her jump.” I took out the photograph I’d been showing to people and handed it to him. By now I had Vanessa DiCesare’s features memorized: high forehead, straight nose, full lips, glossy wings of dark-brown hair curling inward at the jawbone. It was a strong face, not beautiful but striking — and a face I’d recognize anywhere.
Gottschalk studied the photo, then handed it back to me. “I read about her in the morning paper. Why are you trying to find a witness?”
“Her parents have hired me to look into it.”
“The paper said her father is some big politician here in the city.”
I didn’t see any harm in discussing what had already appeared in print. “Yes, Ernest DiCesare — he’s on the Board of Supes and likely to be our next mayor.”
“And she was a law student, engaged to some hotshot lawyer who ran her father’s last political campaign.”
“Right again.”
He shook his head, lips pushing out in bewilderment. “Sounds like she had a lot going for her. Why would she kill herself? Did that note taped inside her car explain it?”
I’d seen the note, but its contents were confidential. “No. Did you happen to see anything unusual yesterday afternoon?”
“No. But if I’d seen anyone jump, I’d have reported it to the Coast Guard station so they could try to recover the body before the current carried it out to sea.”
“What about someone standing by the bridge railing, acting strangely, perhaps?”
“If I’d noticed anyone like that, I’d have reported it to the bridge offices so they could send out a suicide prevention team.” He stared almost combatively at me, as if I’d accused him of some kind of wrongdoing, then he seemed to relent a little. “Come outside,” he said, “and I’ll show you something.”
We went through the door to the gallery, and he guided me to the chain link barrier in the archway and pointed up. “Look at the angle of the bridge, and the distance we are from it. You couldn’t spot anyone standing at the rail from here, at least not well enough to tell if they were acting upset. And a jumper would have to hurl herself way out before she’d be noticeable.”
“And there’s nowhere else in the fort from where a jumper would be clearly visible?”
“Maybe from one of the watchtowers or the extreme west side. But they’re off limits to the public, and we only give them one routine check at closing.”
Satisfied now, I said, “Well, that about does it. I appreciate your taking the time.”
He nodded and we started along the gallery. When we reached the other end, where an enclosed staircase spiraled up and down, I thanked him again and we parted company.
The way the facts looked to me now, Vanessa DiCesare had faked this suicide and just walked away — away from her wealthy old-line Italian family, from her up-and-coming liberal lawyer, from a life that either had become too much or just hadn’t been enough. Vanessa was over twenty-one; she had a legal right to disappear if she wanted to. But her parents and her fiancé loved her, and they also had a right to know she was alive and well. If I could locate her and reassure them without ruining whatever new life she planned to create for herself, I would feel I’d performed the job I’d been hired to do. But right now I was weary, chilled to the bone, and out of leads. I decided to go back to All Souls and consider my next moves in warmth and comfort.
All Souls Legal Cooperative is housed in a ramshackle Victorian on one of the steeply sloping side streets of Bernal Heights, a working-class district in the southern part of the city. The co-op caters mainly to clients who live in the area: people with low to middle incomes who don’t have much extra money for expensive lawyers. The sliding fee scale allows them to obtain quality legal assistance at reasonable prices — a concept that is probably outdated in the self-centered 1980s, but is kept alive by the people who staff All Souls. It’s a place where the lawyers care about their clients, and a good place to work.
I left my MG at the curb and hurried up the front steps through the blowing fog. The warmth inside was almost a shock after the chilliness at Fort Point; I unbuttoned my jacket and went down the long deserted hallway to the big country kitchen at the rear. There I found my boss, Hank Zahn, stirring up a mug of the Navy grog he often concocts on cold November nights like this one.