“That’s my department. We look at any death that’s considered suspicious. Based on what you’re telling me, Brynn’s behavior is way out of character for her, and I’d like to know what caused it.”
“Have you seen anything like this before?” Lucy asked.
Frost hesitated. “Extreme behavior usually makes me think about PCP or certain synthetics. What you’re describing sounds like a severe hallucinogenic reaction.”
“I’m telling you, Brynn never did drugs,” Lucy insisted. “Not even a joint. She was a vegan. ‘My body is a temple.’ That kind of crap.”
“Did she smoke?”
“No.”
“And did you notice anything unusual prior to her breakdown?” Frost asked. “Did anything strange happen while you were stuck on the bridge?”
“No, nothing at all.” Lucy chewed her lower lip, and her eyebrows squeezed together, making crinkled lines on her forehead. She rubbed Shack’s stomach, and the cat stretched luxuriously with its front and back paws. Shack had very clear likes and dislikes among people, and he’d obviously decided that he liked Lucy Hagen.
“Nothing?” Frost asked, watching her face. “Are you sure?”
Lucy glanced at the other cars around them. A trickle of vehicles pushed westward through the one open lane the police had carved out for traffic. “There was the mask thing. That was odd.”
“The mask thing?”
“There was a car stuck on the bridge with us, and the driver was wearing a creepy mask. At least I thought he was. His window opened and closed so fast that maybe I just imagined it. Brynn didn’t see anything.”
“What kind of mask was it?” Frost asked.
“Scary. Bone white. Big, weird, exaggerated smile, red lips. Fly eyes. The hair was fake, too.”
“It doesn’t sound like you imagined it. Do you remember the car?”
“I want to say it was a Cutlass, but I’m not sure. It had smoked windows. Black, I think.”
“Could the car have been following you after you left the party?”
“I guess. I never looked back, so I don’t know. It’s not like the guy did or said anything while we were stuck on the bridge. He just opened the window and stared at me.”
“You’re sure it was a man?” Frost asked.
“I assume so, but I guess I don’t really know for sure.”
“Did this person get out on the bridge deck when Brynn began behaving strangely?”
Lucy shrugged. “If he did, he didn’t have the mask on. I was too freaked out to notice who came out of which cars. By the time I even thought about it again, the car was gone.”
“Okay.”
“Do you think it means anything?” Lucy asked.
“I don’t know. It’s strange, but the whole thing is strange.” Frost added, “You said you’ve never heard of a woman named Monica Farr. Are you sure about that?”
“Pretty sure. The name doesn’t sound familiar.”
“Have you or Brynn ever been to the San Francisco Film Centre at the Presidio?”
“No, I’ve never been there. I don’t think Brynn has, either, at least not since I’ve known her. Why are you asking me these questions? What does this have to do with Brynn?” When Frost didn’t answer, Lucy went on: “You know I’m just going to Google this woman when I get home.”
Frost knew that was true. There were no secrets anymore.
“Okay, the fact is, Brynn’s not the first person to go crazy like this,” he told her. “Two months ago, a woman named Monica Farr had a similar breakdown during a wedding reception at the Film Centre. She died, too.”
3
“Come on, Shack,” Frost said.
He scooped a hand under the small cat’s belly and tramped up the steps of the Russian Hill house where he and Shack lived. It was a two-story brown stucco home on a high dead-end spur of Green Street. Inside, it had a multi-million-dollar view of the bay. The furnishings were dark and baroque, as if the house had been decorated by an eighty-year-old woman with European tastes. Which it had.
Frost blinked with exhaustion. It was four in the morning. He didn’t bother turning on a light, because the city lights through the bay window allowed him to see. He was hungry; he hadn’t eaten anything since a hot dog near the Moscone Center eighteen hours earlier. When he’d left in the morning, the refrigerator had been empty, but he made his way to the kitchen and opened the fridge door anyway. He grinned, seeing four small silver trays topped with aluminum foil.
Care package.
His brother, Duane, who was five years older, was a chef. Nine months ago, Duane had opened a food truck that could usually be found at lunch or dinner in the city’s SoMa district south of Market Street. Duane practically lived in his truck, but two or three times a week, he found time to park leftovers in Frost’s fridge. His brother knew that, left to his own devices, Frost would subsist on Pop-Tarts and Kraft mac and cheese.
Frost peeled back the foil and found Korean kimchi, bulgogi, and two mandu dumplings. He grabbed a fork and took the meal to the massive dining room table in the next room and ate it cold. Shack hopped up on the table and rubbed against his arm until Frost gave him the chance to lick some of the bulgogi sauce from his fork.
Outside, the overnight lights of the city melted down the hill into the blackness of the bay. He’d lived in San Francisco his whole life. He’d only set foot outside California twice, and both times, he couldn’t wait to get home. When you lived in paradise, going anywhere else seemed anticlimactic. It was still hard to believe that his parents had left the state for the heat of Arizona, but he knew that their move was about other things, not the city itself.
The dining room table, which sat ten, doubled as his home office. It was covered in paperwork. He had photos there, too. Family pictures. His parents. Himself and Duane. Their sister, Katie, mugging for the camera at a Giants game. That was the last picture he had of her. It made him remember that Katie’s birthday was coming up soon. He and Duane usually celebrated it together.
The girl on the bridge, Lucy, reminded him a little of his sister. Lucy had the same sweet, fresh-faced look. The same single-in-the-city attitude. Their voices even sounded alike, enough that if he closed his eyes, he could picture Katie in his head. That wasn’t easy to do anymore.
His MacBook Pro was open, and he booted it up as he finished his dinner. The screen glowed white in the semidarkness. He returned to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and drank it as his index finger swirled the touch pad and called up the video file he wanted.
He’d seen the seven-minute video dozens of times. He’d advanced it frame by frame. It made no more sense to him now than it did the first time. Frost turned up the volume.
“Hey, Mike and Evelyn! Can you believe you’re really married?”
The iPhone video showed an uncomfortable arm’s-length close-up of a plus-sized couple with their faces smooshed together as they filmed themselves. Their cheeks were flushed from champagne. He could see up their noses and spot salad between their teeth. In the background, a DJ played a Blake Shelton bro-country stomper. Frost heard the clatter of crystal and silverware and the burble of other guests talking and laughing. He’d watched the video so many times that he’d been able to piece together most of the conversations.
As if someone in the room might have said something to explain what was about to happen.
He knew the names of the couple with the camera, because he’d interviewed them. They were Jeff and Sandy Barclay. Jeff was the groom’s cousin. Neither of them knew the guest named Monica Farr. She wasn’t connected to the happy couple at all; she was the last-minute date of one of the groomsmen. They’d met at a dry cleaner two weeks before the wedding, when Monica was dropping off and he was picking up. The groomsman had broken up with his long-time girlfriend the previous day. It was pure chance that he asked Monica out. That was the only reason that Monica Farr attended the wedding and reception of Michael Sloan and Evelyn Archer-Sloan. She didn’t know anyone there.