Erased (12 page)

Sara had an idea growing in the back of her head. She had thought of someone who might be able to help her. The problem was that she’d have to get all the way across town, to the Sea Cliff district. In order to do that, she would need to backtrack past the cops. Sara had two choices: move north and west under the cover of the densely wooded hills, or head east and gradually make her way back into the city.

After a few moments thought, Sara decided the hills were the best choice. The neighborhoods around the lake were probably already crawling with police and she wasn’t ready to give up the cover that the trees and hills afforded her. She crossed the road and entered the golf course by jumping a three-foot chain link fence.

Sara was in a clearing between two small clusters of trees, and she paused to make sure she hadn’t attracted anyone’s attention. From what she could tell, the area was deserted. The hill sloped up in front of her and then fell away in the distance. She jogged up the hillside and swerved to the left, moving along the edge of the golf course.

She was halfway to the safety of the trees when a gut-wrenching shriek shattered the late afternoon still. Sara spun around to see the big black Suburban swerving off the edge of the road. A chill crawled down her spine.

The V8 engine roared as the SUV careened over the shallow embankment and plowed straight through the fence. It roared up the slope, fishtailing as the tires tore through the soft ground, throwing chunks of mud and sod into the air. Sara turned and ran for her life.

Sara’s instincts guided her to the summit. The land fell away sharply in front of her, revealing acres of rolling hills and manicured lawns. Off to her right, half an acre of thick woods rose out of a saddle in the landscape. It was a redwood grove. To her left, much further, the land opened up to a wide view of the highway and the coastal hills. Her only safe path was east, into the forest.

Sara’s momentary pause almost cost her life. A sharp explosion of gunfire sounded behind her, and a bullet instantaneously struck the soft ground off to her left. Dirt sprayed into the air. The projectile whistled as it hit a rock under the turf and ricocheted back into the air. Sara threw a terrified glance over her shoulder. A passenger in the Suburban was hanging out of the side window, his pistol leveled in Sara’s direction. She dove to the ground and rolled.

The driver gunned the engine and the SUV went barreling over the top of the hill so fast that it jumped. Sara saw the shadow passing overhead and heard the drive train screaming. It landed hard, and for a moment the driver lost control. The Suburban bounced twice and then did a full three-sixty as it plummeted down the hillside. Grass and dirt flew out in a wide swath.

Sara regained her footing and scanned the area. It was a hundred yards to the safety of the trees. That was the closest cover. She made a run for it.

She heard grinding noises as the driver got the Suburban back into gear and the engine wound up again. Gunshots rang out behind her. Tufts of grass erupted in tiny explosions all around her. 

At last Sara plunged into the shadows beneath the redwoods. Tree bark exploded over her shoulder as she disappeared. She tore through the dense undergrowth of ferns and ivy, and finally leapt behind the safety of a large tree halfway across the grove. She knelt down with her back against the trunk, inhaling deeply. The scent of earth and must filled her nostrils and she felt damp moss against the back of her neck. Sara could see the golf course at the far end of the woods, and she caught glimpses of the road to the south.

She peered around the tree. The Suburban skidded to a stop at the edge of the woods and the passenger with the gun jumped out.

“Go around!” he shouted. He was tall with a shaved head, and he wore a black leather trench coat. He ran headlong into the woods with his gun in his hand.

Sara could hear the Suburban rumbling off to her left, making its way to the far side of the grove. She knew she only had seconds. The area was too small to provide safe cover for long. A nagging voice in the back of her mind warned her that she didn’t stand a chance. She couldn’t outrun the Suburban, and she sure as hell couldn’t outrun a bullet.

Sara leaned over and grabbed a length of branch from the ground. Sharp nubs poked out along the edges where smaller branches had broken off. It was thick and heavy, and Sara knew she couldn’t wield it for long.

She pressed her back to the tree and tried to control her heavy breathing. Her pursuer’s footsteps were heavy, thudding against the soft forest floor. The man’s coat rustled and scraped against branches as he plowed through the underbrush. She listened closely to the noise, gauging the man’s speed. She waited, counting the footsteps as they got closer. Then, just as the man was upon her, Sara swung the branch out from behind the tree. The man ran straight into it, face-first.

The impact jarred the stick out of Sara’s hands. It landed on the soft ground, broken in two. The man dropped next to it, dazed, eyes rolling back in his head. Blood trickled from a gash on his forehead and a number of smaller wounds across his face. Sara knelt down next to him and anxiously checked for a pulse. It was weak. He was alive but he was going to have one hell of a headache when he woke up.

The gun had slipped from the man’s fingers and it lay on the ground next to Sara’s feet. She turned to leave and then thought better of it. She didn’t want the man to wake up and shoot her in the back. She snatched it up and then turned and ran south, back towards the lake.

Sara’s plan to cross the golf course and go west was no good now. She’d be completely exposed in that direction. The only way to lose the Suburban was to make her way back into the city.

As she crossed the road for the second time, Sara could hear the SUV moving back and forth in the distance. She had managed to buy herself a few minutes. She cautiously entered the woods on the south side of the road and made a beeline for the neighborhood at the far corner of the lake. Sara hadn’t wanted to go that way because she knew the cops would be there, looking for her, but now she didn’t have a choice.

Thankfully, it would be dark soon. That at least was something working in her favor. She shoved the gun awkwardly into the back of her pants, under her jacket. It felt heavy and bulky and cold against her skin.

Sara had never even held a gun in her life. She didn’t even know how to use the safety. Part of her wanted to toss the thing into the first trashcan she found. Another part of her was more cautious. The people who were after her were playing for keeps, and she might need to defend herself again. The memory of facing a loaded gun with nothing but a stick was fresh in her mind, and she didn’t want to be in that situation again.

For now, Sara decided she’d keep the gun.

Chapter 20

“The IRA, the Aryan Brotherhood… are you still giving Sara Murphy the benefit of the doubt?” Inspector Lee leaned back in his office chair and kicked his feet up on his desk. His office was a small room on the west side of the building. His desk took up half the room, and it was covered in papers and files. A stack of these trembled dangerously at the edge of the desk as his shoes brushed them.

Brandy stared hard at the file in her hands. Sara’s rap sheet was a mile long, and every infringement was worse than the last. The list was so extensive that Brandy had to shake her head. It was a wonder that one person could get into so much trouble in a single lifetime. And Sara Murphy was only twenty-seven years old. Brandy was almost surprised she hadn’t run into Murphy somewhere already. It was that kind of record.

“What time is it?” she said absently.

“Four.”

Brandy lifted Lee’s phone from the receiver and dialed 411. “Can you connect me to the County Recorder’s office for Marin County please? Thanks.” She fell quiet for a few seconds, and Lee spoke:

“The County Recorder?”

Brandy smiled. She turned her attention back to the phone. “This is Special Agent Brandy Jackson, FBI. I need you to run a property for me. The address is 1711 Terrace, in Mill Valley. I need the last full value deed.”

Brandy kept the receiver to her ear but lowered the phone away from her face so she could speak. “I just want to verify who owns the property,” she said. “If it’s rented, then I’ll concede that Murphy’s really this person.” She held up the printout of Sara’s record. “If not, and if she owns the place- Yes… Yes, thank you very much. Could you please email a copy to John Lee at the SFPD? Thanks.”

Brandy hung up the phone, a huge grin splitting her face. Lee grimaced. “She owns it?”

“Yep, she’s been paying on the property for five years. Sara Murphy and her husband Scott are both on title. The house payment’s about four thousand a month.”

Lee dropped his feet, and leaned forward with his elbows on the desk. “Her husband? Sara Murphy is married?”

“Yeah. I guess we’d better figure out what happened to Scott Murphy.”

Lee let out a long, low whistle. “Well that explains how she could afford a place in Mill Valley. And if her husband is also her partner-in-crime…”

“My next question is: how does somebody with a history like Murphy suddenly forget how to commit a crime? Her record says she’s wanted in connection with assassinations in three countries. But suddenly she’s leaving evidence everywhere she goes?”

“Maybe she wants us to know who did it,” Lee said.

“Or maybe somebody else does,” said Brandy.

Chapter 21

When Sara emerged from the woods onto 9
^th
Avenue, the sun had set and there was a chill in the air. She had mixed feelings about walking through the city at night. It wasn’t a bad neighborhood, and the darkness would surely make it easier to evade her pursuers, but she also knew what the city could be like at night. She was tempted to take a cab, but Sara knew she didn’t have enough cash, and using her credit cards might be a bad idea. That left one choice.

She walked several blocks down to Geary and then stood in a shadowy corner of a parking lot, next to a run-down bus stop. Sara knew the city’s busses ran twenty-four hours a day, and Geary was one of the City’s busiest streets. It wasn’t long before one of the city’s westbound Muni buses pulled up to the stop.

Like most city buses, route 38 was notoriously tough and dirty, but Sara had no way of knowing that until she was on board. Had she known what waited for her, she might have walked the mile and a half to Sea Cliff. When the bus appeared, she waited in line behind a drunken homeless man with a trash bag full of God-only-knew-what and a prostitute that smelled like pot. The red-haired, freckle-faced driver who was about two hundred pounds overweight frowned when Sara handed him a sopping wet five-dollar bill. All Sara could do was apologize. The driver didn’t give her any change.

The bus stank of urine and the passengers stared at Sara like she had a horn growing out of her forehead. She settled into the first unoccupied seat, which was in the third row, and tried to avoid making eye contact. She kept her eyes on the windows, scanning the streets for squad cars and big black Suburbans. She saw none of the latter -at least none matching the one that had been chasing her- but she did see two separate police cruisers that could have been on the lookout. They were driving slowly and they seemed to be checking out all the alleys. Or maybe it was just her imagination. Sara couldn’t be sure. She was getting paranoid.

A crazy old black man with dreadlocks at the back of the bus starting yelling at the top of his lungs and Sara almost jumped out of her seat. The other passengers shouted at him to shut up, but he kept it up for two blocks, until the prostitute threatened to kill him.

“Shut up, ya old asshole!” she shouted. He flipped her off. She shoved her hand into her purse. “I got a .38 in here, jerk-off! You want me to use it?”

The old guy quieted down. Then he retrieved a hash pipe out of his tattered old duffel bag and lit it up. The bus driver shouted at him to open a window ‘cause it smelled like shit.

It was all Sara could do to keep from crawling out the window.

She shrank into her seat, wishing she could be anywhere else. Sara had never realized how many homeless and mentally ill people there were in the city. It was a world Sara had never been exposed to. She thought about it and realized that this bus was just one out of dozens; one small group of individuals in a city of millions. Even in the midst of this strange ordeal, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. She had to wonder how they had become the way they were. Was it bad parenting? Drugs? Had they been victimized all their lives, so that they didn’t know any other way of living?

In a strange way, Sara almost felt like one of them. She had nowhere to go, no one to turn to. She had never been so alone and helpless, and she imagined that must be what those people lived with every single day. However, at some level deep within her, Sara knew that she’d never end up like that. She’d find another way, no matter what it took. She would get her life back, she’d fight for it, and nothing short of a bullet in the head would stop her.

Sara climbed off the bus near 29
^th
Avenue and stepped out into the night. The fog that had rolled in over the city was a bad omen. It was going to be a cold, damp night. Her clothes were mostly dry now, except for the thick unexposed areas where the moisture couldn’t evaporate as quickly. The sleeves of her jacket were still wet, especially under the armpits and around her collar, and her boots remained damp.

Sara set out in the direction of Sea Cliff but the smell of a diner she passed along the way overwhelmed her. She went inside. It was a small, out of the way greasy spoon called “
Todd’s Diner
.” Sara sat in the corner, out of sight of the windows but with a clear view of the street. She ordered a Number Three: a double cheeseburger, fries, and a coke. Sara couldn’t even remember the last time she’d eaten junk food. She couldn’t believe it tasted so good. It helped that the fries were fresh and hand-made and that the meat was high quality, but mostly it was just that she was famished and she was coming down off an adrenaline high.