Murder on Potrero Hill (13 page)

Blood was pounding furiously in his head and against his rib cage. His hand felt sweaty around the handle, but he was almost clear. Slipping the keys into his pocket, he turned back the way he’d come and tried to appear nonchalant.

“Mr. Ryder?”

Jake came to an abrupt stop and his heart slammed forcefully against his ribs. Slowly he turned on his heel. A short, bald man in a brown uniform stood at the foot of the bank stairs, holding a flashlight in his hand. The beam was directed at Jake.

Jake shivered in terror. Oh, shit. This was it. Think, damn it.

“Mr. Ryder, is that you?”

Jake nodded, but he feared the motion was jerky and strange.

The little man sidled up to him and lowered the flashlight, letting out a bark of strained laughter. “Damn, I’m glad it was you.”

Jake gripped the briefcase tighter. In the street lamps, he could see the man wore a bank security guard uniform. He was in his late sixties, early seventies. His bulbous nose and close set eyes seemed familiar. “Charlie?” he said as recognition dawned in him.

A smile bloomed across Charlie’s face. A strange buzzing noise issued from inside his uniform, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Mr. Ryder, how are you?”

“Good,” said Jake with a laugh that bordered on hysterical. “Well, actually, I’m okay. What the hell are you doing here this time of night?”

Charlie looked back at the bank. “They moved me to night patrol, Mr. Ryder, about a month ago. I sit out here all night, watching the damn bank.”

Jake frowned. “Why? Weren’t you on days?”

“Yeah.” Charlie leaned closer and dropped his voice. “I think they’re trying to force me to quit. I don’t even get to sit inside the bank.” He motioned to the alleyway on the left side of the bank. “I park my pickup down there and that’s where I keep patrol.”

Jake exhaled, feeling some of the tension snake out of him. Another buzz vibrated from Charlie’s jacket and he placed his hand against his pocket as if that would stop it.

“I’m sorry. That sucks,” Jake offered.

Charlie shook his head. “I gave this bank thirty years. No retirement, hardly enough to pay for the mortgage, but I show up every single day. Now they’re trying to force me out.” He suddenly gave Jake a sharp stare. “What are you doing here this time of night, Mr. Ryder?”

Jake held up the briefcase, hoping his shaking wasn’t visible.  “I wanted to pick up a few loan docs, make some calls from home.” When Charlie’s frown deepened, he added, “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d come down and get them when no one else was here. Really don’t want to talk to people.”

“I heard about your wife, Mr. Ryder. I’m real sorry.”

Jake tensed. What else had they told him? Surely they’d told him Jake had been escorted off the premises.

The buzz sounded again. Charlie reached into his pocket and dug out his cell phone. “Stupid thing,” he said, hitting it with the heel of his hand. “It keeps doing that.”

“I think it means you’ve got messages,” Jake told him before realizing he shouldn’t have.

Charlie gave a sad chuckle. “Lot of good it does them to send me messages. I don’t know how to check them. They send those text thingies and I never know how to get them. This damn thing vibrates all day long, driving me crazy. I want to throw it away. Whenever I ask my grandson, he mutters something I can’t hear, punches a bunch of buttons and hands it back. What the hell good does that do me? The bank could fire me through this thing and I wouldn’t even know.”

Jake stared at the phone despite himself. “Well, I better get going. It was good to see you, Charlie.”

“Yeah, you too, Mr. Ryder. You take care of yourself, you hear?”

Jake paused. Such a simple thing to say, but it meant a lot after the week he’d been having. “Same to you, Charlie,” he answered, then walked away.

When he got back to Potrero Hill, he wasn’t sure what to do. It was nearly three in the morning and he didn’t want to climb over the back fence again.

In for a penny, in for a pound, or something like that.

He gripped the briefcase tighter and walked boldly up to his apartment, dashing up the stairs and into the front entrance hall. He raced up the inner stairs and hurriedly unlocked the door, slamming it shut behind him. Then he leaned against it for a long time, panting, letting the sweat dry
on his body. Finally he pushed himself away and settled the briefcase on the coffee table as he went to the window and looked out.

The Crown Victoria was in place, but based on the slumped forms in the front seat, he suspected the two cops were asleep. Breathing a sigh of relief, he went to the couch and dropped onto it, then he reached for the briefcase, snapping it open. His fingers touched on his tablet first, so he turned it on and typed in his password. Then he pulled up a search engine and entered
warfarin
. It was a pharmaceutical given to stroke patients to thin blood. As he read further, he came across the dangers and side effects.
Massive hemorrhaging
. He quickly closed the browser window and sat holding the tablet. How the hell would something so dangerous be in Zoë’s system? The only answer had to lie with the hospital. They had to have given it to her by mistake.

Laying the tablet on the briefcase, he covered his face with his hands and realized he was sober. A headache hammered in his temples. He forced himself into the bathroom and pulled open the medicine cabinet, reaching for the aspirin, but it wasn’t there. He found it on the floor where he’d thrown it in his rage. He picked it up and opened it, shaking two pills into his hand. He put them in his mouth and bent over the sink, taking a drink from the faucet. Turning off the water, he wandered back into the living room and sank onto the couch again. Reaching for his briefcase, he pulled Zoë’s journal out.

For a moment, he simply sat, holding it. He felt such a mixture of dread and happiness whenever he read her words. It kept her close in his memory, but it also made him ache horribly for everything he’d lost. Life without her seemed so empty, so meaningless. He couldn’t seem to get his head around the fact that she was gone and there was no way of getting her back. No way it would ever be okay again. How did you learn to live without the person you loved most? How did you go on without your wife? He leaned back on the couch and opened the cover, leafing to the page where he’d last read.

August 10
th

Jake and I found this adorable flat in Potrero Hill. It’s near a park and a short distance to the coffee house. Jake can catch Muni about a block from our door.

I can’t wait to decorate it. Of course, Mom wants to insist the landlord refurbish the floors and paint everything fresh, but I want this to be my project. I want to decorate it my way. Jake doesn’t really care as long as I don’t put doilies on everything. And pillows. He doesn’t want a bunch of decorative pillows crowding the couch. He says he doesn’t understand why women love pillows…and shoes. Men.

Dad took me to lunch the other day. He wanted to talk about med school, but I put him off. I told him Jake and I were planning a family, not that we’ve talked about it, but I couldn’t think of anything else to keep him from lecturing me.

Maybe I should have just taken the lecture because now all he’s going to want to know is when he’s getting a grandchild.

Jake closed the journal and pressed it to his chest. He and Zoë had never discussed having a family. It hadn’t bothered him before, but now that he thought about it, shouldn’t they have talked about it at least? Discussed the possibility? Didn’t all couples talk about those things? Why hadn’t they?

*   *   *

Jake studied the sign.
Potrero Hill Community Garden.
Beyond the hand painted sign lay the City, skyscrapers stretching into the sky. He stood on the sidewalk and studied it, enjoying the way the sun glanced off the windows and shimmered as if a magical fairy kingdom lay below them.

“Here,” said Zoë, hitting his arm with a pair of gardening gloves.

Jake looked down at them and gave her a grimace. “Do we have to do this?”

She reached for his hand and slapped the gloves into his palm. “Yes, don’t you w
ant to be part of the community?”

Jake gave her a narrow eyed stare and didn’t answer. She shoved him playfully in the shoulder.

“Of course you do,” she said, pushing him toward the rickety little gate. She opened it and stepped into the garden. Jake followed her reluctantly.

He’d expected a vegetable garden. He’d read a story about urban sustainability, but this was a flower garden. Beyond getting flowers to win Zoë’s attention, he didn’t really see much purpose in them, but Zoë was determined.

“Good morning,” beamed a tall, lanky man in sandals. “Come to help us out?”

“That’s right. We just moved in over there.” Zoë pointed over her shoulder to their building. “I’m Zoë and this is my husband, Jake.” Whenever she said
husband
, she got this goofy smile on her face that made Jake fall in love with her all over again.

A little Jack Russell terrier sidled up to Jake and s
niffed his shoe. Jake bent over to scratch the dog behind the ears. He cocked his black and white head in pleasure and closed his eyes.

“I’m Josiah and that is Killer.” He pointed to the Jack Russell.

Jake shot him a smile and continued scratching the dog’s ears.

“Where would you like us to work?” Zoë asked.

Josiah pointed to a raised bed. “We could use a good weeding over there.”

“Done,” she said, reaching down and tugging on Jake to get him to stand. They went over to the bed and Zoë put on her gloves. Killer came with them and Jake took a seat on the edge of the bed so he could continue petting him.

Zoë hunkered down in the dirt and began pulling out the weeds. “Leave the dog alone, Jake, and help me.”

Jake gave Killer an apologetic look. “Sorry, pal, the wife’s nagging,” he joked.

Zoë laughed and threw a clot of dirt at him. They pulled weeds for a while and Jake could feel the back of his neck burning from the sun. He edged closer to Zoë and bumped her with his hip. “How does this make us part of the community?”

“This is the community garden, and we’re gardening, ergo we’re now part of the community.”

“Can’t we do like your mother and give them money instead?”

Zoë gave him a severe frown. “Absolutely not. Stop whining. We are going to really contribute something of value here, not pay our way out of it.”

Jake shrugged and went back to picking weeds. “I left Nebraska to get away from the land. Didn’t expect to get back to my roots in San Francisco.”

“It builds character,” she said.

“It builds blisters, and that’s something you tell your kids when you’re trying to get out of doing something by forcing them to do it.” He sat up and gave her a mischievous look. “That’s what we should do. Have kids so we can make them become productive members of the community.”

Zoë rolled her eyes skyward. “I already have a big kid. I sure don’t need more.”

“Pizza!” came a call toward the street. “Come and help yourself.”

Jake scooted around and moved toward the edge of the planter bed, but Zoë hooked him by the back of his sweatshirt and pulled him off balance. He fell on his back next to her.

“She said pizza,” he protested, looking up at her.

“You haven’t done anything to earn pizza. Now get to work.”

He lifted up and kissed her quickly on the mouth.

She gave him an annoyed look that was destroyed by the smile hovering on her lips. “You’re impossible.”

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her down on him, rolling her over until she was lying on her back in the planter bed. She was laughing, but he kissed her again, silencing her.  This time it was a long, lingering kiss.

When he lifted his head, she pushed him in the chest. “Oh, go get your pizza and let me weed,” she said with mock severity.

He kissed her nose and jumped up. “I’ll save you a slice,” he called over his shoulder as he hurried toward the road.

*   *   *

Marco pulled the Charger into the space behind the M.E.’s office. “So I took him home. When I called Holmes this morning, he said he didn’t see a sign of him the rest of the night.”

“He probably passed out.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. He looked like shit. I don’t think he’s been sleeping too good.”

“Works for me,” said Peyton, removing her seatbelt and reaching for the door handle.

“Yeah, I really hope Abe has something. I’m sick of this case already, Brooks. I wish we’d gotten Simon and Cho’s dead lawyer.”

They climbed out of the car and walked toward the building. The security guard nodded at them as they showed him their badges. Marco pulled open the door, motioning Peyton through.

“So when you had him in the patrol car, did he say anything?”

“Nope, just stared out the window. I thought he might be asleep for
awhile. That rookie Bartlet damn near pissed his pants the whole time though. That was pretty funny.”