Authors: Alan Jacobson
He walked over to a desk that stood thirty feet from the wall of tellers. The nameplate read G. Yaeger, but Mr. or Mrs. Yaeger was apparently on a break at the moment. Next to a blotter that sported messages and notes along its edges sat a flyer that read, Introducing New Rates for 1958, with the text below urging customers to place their money in a certificate of deposit. At the edge of the blotter in front of him lay a gold Cross ballpoint pen. He picked it up, turned the advertisement over, and scrawled, in nervous caps:
THIS BANK IS BEING ROBBED. I DON’T WANT TO SHOOT ANYONE BUT I WILL IF I HAVE TO. PUT ALL YOUR MONEY IN A BAG. DO IT QUICKLY AND DON’T SAY A WORD.
MacNally looked around again. There—about a hundred feet away, an overweight man with graying hair wearing a uniform and octagonal cap stood near the end of the line of tellers. His head was down, reading what appeared to be a newspaper. From this angle, MacNally couldn’t tell if he had a sidearm.
He turned back to his note and reread it. The threat of shooting them was good. MacNally did not have a gun—he had never even held one—but the woman with the money didn’t know that. Still, to “sell it,” he had to convince her with the look on his face. Anger was the key. He needed to channel the pain he felt most nights as he lay awake in bed picturing his wife lying on the floor of his home, murdered. He closed his eyes and thought of the man who had killed her, who had turned his life upside down.
His heart raced. Perspiration prickled his scalp.
He really did not want to do this. He had never taken anything from anyone that didn’t belong to him. Yet so much had been taken from him, and Henry, what was a little money? Money was replaceable. Doris was not.
But they needed food and shelter, and MacNally had to take care of it. He didn’t see a choice.
He opened his eyes, tightened his lips, tensed his hands.
MacNally scooped up the note and marched over toward the other customers and took his place in line. As he stood there waiting, he realized he didn’t have anything to wrap across his face. Did that matter? He was going to leave town right away. Still... He should’ve thought of this. What if the teller described him to police?
His eyes darted around for something—a hat, a kerchief, anything that would cover all or a portion of his face.
His muffler.
He pulled it off his neck and tossed it over the opposing shoulder, draping it across his nose and mouth. It was cold out, so he wouldn’t look out of place, and although half his features were still visible, it was enough to provide doubt in a witness’s mind.
“Next,” called a smiling woman in her late fifties. She was ten feet away. All he had to do was hand over the note.
MacNally clenched his jaw, put his head down, and walked forward.
Burden pulled his gray Ford Taurus into the parking lot that served the Exploratorium and Palace of Fine Arts entrance. Vail swung her legs out of the car and rose, then craned her head skyward. Ahead of her were groupings of thick, Corinthian columns that stretched more than thirty feet into the sky.
“What is this place?”
“The Palace of Fine Arts. Part of an exposition the city had in 1915.”
Vail knew that voice. She turned and saw a man in a black overcoat sporting a crew cut, a Marlboro dangling from his lips. “Inspector...Friedberg, right?”
The man grinned and approached with his right hand extended.
Vail took it and shook. “My personal historian.”
Burden came around the vehicle. “You two know each other?”
“I was out here a couple of months ago on another case. Friedberg helped out on a cold case of his.”
“More like frozen. And she cleared it for me. Ain’t that a goddamn kick?” He pulled the cigarette out and expelled a wisp of smoke from the side of his mouth. “A dozen years working the case, I got a big goose egg. Then she blows into town and in a week, she solves it.”
“The task force solved it,” Vail said. “I was just part of the team. But let’s hope we clear this one just as fast.”
“Speaking of which,” Burden said, “what’s the deal with the husband? Where is he?”
“Follow me.” Friedberg led the way through the path between the two large stands of columns.
“You said this place was the Palace of...what?”
“Fine Arts,” Friedberg said.
“What’s it for?” Vail asked. “And don’t say ‘fine arts,’ or I’ll have to kick you where it hurts.”
Friedberg glanced at her over his shoulder. “The way you say it, I think you’re capable of doing just that.”
You wouldn’t be the first.
“Ten of these buildings were built to celebrate the rebirth of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. They weren’t supposed to be up more than a year, so they made ’em out of wood, plaster, and burlap. But people really liked them. I mean, they were freaking gorgeous, right? So they raised money and collected a gazillion signatures, and the city eventually made castings of the original structure. Around 1964, I think, they tore the whole thing down, then rebuilt it in concrete.”
Burden, striding to catch up, shook his head. “I don’t know how he keeps all these facts crammed into that brain of his.”
“Is he like this with everything?” Vail asked.
“
He
is right here,” Friedberg said. “And it’s just Bay Area stuff. For the most part. What can I say, I like history. Shoulda gone into teaching. Instead I carry a gun and badge and try to teach lessons to the scum of San Francisco.”
They had walked through the colonnade and were headed toward a large rotunda. Vail stopped and brought her hand to her forehead to shield her eyes against the bright gray, glaring sky as she looked at the columns. They were conjoined by a walkway of sorts, with what appeared to be female figurines standing with their elbows draped across the top of the portico, as if peering over its uppermost boundary.
“It’s quite beautiful.” She swung her gaze to Friedberg. “But where’s the husband?”
“In here.” Friedberg led them into the rotunda, a large structure that dwarfed the pergola and served as its centerpiece.
“What’s he afraid of,” Burden asked. “That the killer’s going to find him?”
Friedberg stopped walking. “Nope, that’s definitely not a concern of his.”
“Then why meet us here?” Burden asked. “Why not the local Starbucks?”
“I think the answer to that question’ll be evident in a minute.”
Vail peered up and around the vast structure, which she figured stretched over fifty feet into the air. Half a football field ahead, there appeared to be a body of water. “C’mon, Friedberg. You interrupted my morgue visit, and you just gotta know I cherish my time in those places. Where is this guy?”
Behind them, footsteps. Vail turned and saw a man dressed in a county uniform marked CSI. He was carrying a kit. She looked at Friedberg.
Friedberg took a long drag on his Marlboro, then pulled it from his lips and watched the smoke swirl on the breeze. He then tipped his head back and gestured above them with the cigarette. “Agent Vail, meet William Anderson.”
Vail and Burden craned their necks and saw, twenty feet above them, an ashen elderly man. Tied to the base of a massive wine-red column.
“That’s William Anderson?” Vail asked.
Friedberg brought his eyes down to meet Vail’s. “Yes ma’am.”
“But he’s dead.”
“Right again.”
Vail looked away. “Shit.”
MacNally pulled his shoulders back, shoved his right hand in a pocket, then looked up and met the teller’s eyes.
“Good afternoon,” she said with an absent-minded glance down at her watch. Then, with rote skill: “How may I help you?”
The woman’s nameplate read, Mrs. Wilson. MacNally slid the note forward, keeping his gaze locked on the woman’s face. Looking for a gesture toward the security guard, an unfriendly movement of any kind.
Her eyes rotated from her watch to the note, then quickly up to MacNally’s face.
“It’s real easy,” MacNally said, hardening his brow. In a low voice, he said, “Do it. Now. Fast, or I start shooting. You’ll be the first I kill.”
Mrs. Wilson fumbled for her drawer, then pulled it open. Her hands were instantly unstable, trembling as she reached for the neat stacks of bills. “This is a very dangerous thing you’re doing, Mister.”
“I don’t want any kinda commentary. Put it in a bag. Do it real quick. That’s all I want you thinking about.” He moved his arm, as if he was tightening his grip on the phantom weapon in his pocket.
“I don’t have a bag,” she said.
“And I don’t want excuses. Put it in something. Fast.” Fact was, though, he had zero leverage here. If she refused, or called his bluff, he could only run out empty-handed.
It was a moot point because Mrs. Wilson began stacking the bills in front of her. But she was moving slowly, as if stalling for time.
MacNally was trying to look calm, but how could he? He was perspiring from having the wool wrapped across his mouth and nose, and the pressure of the moment was no doubt making things worse. He stole a glance at the guard to his right. The man was folding the newspaper. He tossed it aside and looked up. MacNally swung his head away, back toward Mrs. Wilson.
Jesus Christ, hurry the hell up!
She grabbed a brown bag that was pushed to the side, removed a container, an apple, and a bottle of Coke. She stuffed the money into the sack, which was bulging from being so full, and attempted to roll the top closed.
“That’s good,” MacNally said. Glance at the guard. He was headed toward him. “Give it to me.”
He snatched it, then took a breath to relax. He didn’t want to look guilty, but he needed to get the hell out of there before Mrs. Wilson flagged the approaching man.
In five long strides MacNally reached the glass door. He pushed through, then continued to the curb, where Henry was sitting and the Chevy was idling. MacNally got in, Henry pressed the accelerator, and the heavy car swiftly left the curb.
Lacking skill, Henry hung a right faster than he was able to control. The rear of the sluggish vehicle swung wide, but he recovered control and seconds later they were speeding down the side street.
MacNally tore open a seam in the bag. “Whoo-hoo! We did it, son.”
“Did we get enough?”
MacNally flipped through the combination of used and new bills, watching the twenties and hundreds as they fluttered by his eyes. “I...I don’t know. Must be like a thousand. Something like that.”
“A thousand
dollars
?” Henry asked, turning to steal a glimpse of the money in the remaining strains of twilight.
“Hey, hey,” MacNally said, pointing at the road ahead of them. “Keep your eyes where I taught you.” He shoved the bills back in the bag, then leaned back. “Yes, son. Dollars. Lots of dollars.”
Vail shook her head. “Inspector, forgive me if this is a dumb question. But why the hell didn’t you tell us he was dead?”
Friedberg squished his Marlboro against the outsized cement brick that made up the adjacent wall of the rotunda. “You didn’t ask.”
“It’s not you,” Burden said to Vail. “He sometimes gets like this.”
“I forgot. You like puzzles. Guess you and Robert were made for each other.”
“It does help,” Burden said. He followed Friedberg, who was climbing a semicircular set of stairs that led to the column to which Mr. Anderson was fastened.
“Scene’s yours,” said an SFPD officer as he pushed away from the fifteen-foot concrete urn that he was leaning against. “ME’s en route.”
Behind them, the CSI set down his kit, then brought a Nikon DSLR to his face and began fiddling with the lens.
Vail looked up at the body. “COD?”
“Blunt force trauma to the head,” Friedberg said. “Maybe kicked. But as to what actually killed him, there are bruises on his neck. I’d guess asphyxiation.”
“How’d you find him?” Burden asked.
“One of the ice cream vendors saw him. As he got closer, he realized the guy wasn’t moving. And he was, well, he looked kind of awkward just standing there like this.”
Yeah, no shit.
Mr. Anderson’s back was pressed upright against the square face of the column’s base, his shoulders pinned back and his head erect. His right knee was slightly bent, but the left was locked straight.
Burden took a couple steps closer. “Is that—yeah, he’s tied up with fishing line. Significance to that?”
“Too soon to speculate if there’s a psychological component,” Vail said. “Obvious first thought is that he didn’t want anyone to see the bindings. He wanted it to look like the vic was just standing here.”
“And why would that be?”
Vail shrugged. “Don’t know. Maybe he liked the way it looked. Who knows...it could be significant, could mean nothing. If you’re going to tie someone to a pole, or a column, the first thing you reach for is
not
gonna be fishing line. So, yeah, common sense says there might be something behind that. What it is, we don’t know. Yet.” She turned her body and took in the scene from their elevated perch. “Nice view up here.”
“Are you trying to be funny?” Burden asked.
“I’m serious. The view, that could be significant, too. For now, we note it. Could just be that he was posing the vic and this seemed to be an intriguing spot to place him.”
The CSI had taken all his photographs from ground level, and had now joined them near the body. “Did you see the drag marks?” He shifted the camera to his shoulder and shook Vail’s hand. “Jackson. Rex.”
“Vail. Karen. What drag marks?”
“Here, and down there.” He pointed at two streaks in the disturbed loose dirt that lay atop the cement. He then led them to the steps they had climbed. Pointed. “See?”
Vail tilted her head. “Yeah. So he dragged the body.” She walked back over to Mr. Anderson and looked up at it. “How much you think he weighs?”
“He’s an old guy,” Friedberg said. “And only about five-five. I’m guessing he’s 135.”
Burden nodded. “Seems about right. So, fireman’s carry, over the shoulder. Not that big a deal to get him up here. Not the easiest thing in the world. But not impossible.”
“Hold that thought a minute,” Friedberg said. He pointed to something lying behind the column. “Rope.”