the boat and on shore and in the prison and wherever we went afterward.
When Jonathan picked me up, he gave me an approving look right down to my loafers. I would have looked even better if I’d had Marsha do my hair, but I ironed it myself and it looked pretty sleek, I thought.
He told me last night had been busy at the ER.
“Like most every Saturday night, I imagine,” I said. “I’m fortunate I came through with only minor injuries. So just another typical Saturday night in the ER.”
“That’s right. Gunshot wounds, overdoses, car crashes, you name it, we’ve got it.”
“But no society women poisoned by their husbands.”
“Not that I noticed,” he said with one of his dazzling smiles as if I’d been joking. I was, but only partly.
“One of the nurses told me you specialize in sports medicine.”
“I did a rotation in sports medicine. It was interesting. Saw a lot of tendonitis, arthritis, bursitis and some fractures. But to me the ER is more exciting.”
“All those gunshot wounds.”
“And accidents like yours. You never told me how you landed in a tree that night the woman in the silver shoes brought you in. Or is that none of my business?”
“It’s a long story. Maybe later,” I said. Or maybe never. I just didn’t want to talk about it now. I wanted to hop on a boat and set sail for an island. Which we did. We stood at the railing and the wind whipped my sleek shiny hair around, but I didn’t care. I was on a date with a gorgeous doctor far from the society scene where everyone knew more than they wanted to about everyone else. I should never have gone to Marsha to have my hair done. I needed to break away from the Dolce crowd. Like today.
“I took a tai chi class today,” I said. “Have you ever done it?”
“No, but I’ve read the literature, and I hear from patients that it helps with chronic pain and stress reduction. I’m interested in all kinds of alternative medicine. Acupuncture, herbs, meditation, I’m open to anything that works.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that. Although I can’t complain about the traditional medicine you treated me with. I feel fine.”
“You look fine too,” he said with an appreciative gleam in his blue eyes.
I felt a flutter in the pit of my stomach. It could have been a twinge of seasickness, but it was more likely the proximity of the gorgeous and brilliant doctor I was with. Who would have thought a few weeks ago I’d be on a boat in the Bay admiring a spectacular view of the city with a man who was not only a skillful, highly trained ER physician, but also a sexy straight guy with fashion sense. I sighed happily as the white buildings in the city receded in the distance and we approached the island. All my worries about Dolce, the shop and the murder faded along with the city we’d left behind.
Our group was met at the landing by a guide who gave us a brief history of Alcatraz. He told us the island had a grim past but a bright future. He instructed us to “imagine yourself on a cold and windy morning. You are a prisoner headed for your final destination, Alcatraz, where no one has knowingly ever escaped from.” He paused to be sure he had our attention. He had mine, that was for sure. “It is a cold and foggy morning. Heavy steel shackles bind your ankles and wrists. You are shivering from the cold and the fear of incarceration.” I wasn’t a prisoner, but I was shivering anyway. “Your fellow prisoners on the “Rock,” as it’s called, are the most hardened criminals in the American prison system. Their crimes range from kidnapping to espionage, bank robbery and murder.” He paused and switched gears to a more pleasant subject—the history of the island. “It was used as a fort during the Civil War times to protect the San Francisco Bay and Harbor. After that it was a prison known as “the Rock” that housed some of the high-profile criminals of the day like Machine Gun Kelly, Al Capone and the Birdman of Alcatraz.
He listed the various escape attempts and said it wasn’t surprising that no one succeeded given the cold water, the waves and the high level of security.
“What about the sharks?” someone asked.
“No man-eating sharks in this water,” the guide answered.
“The water isn’t that cold,” Jonathan told me as we walked up the path to the prison gate. “Jack LaLanne swam it, and some triathletes make it every year, but the prisoners weren’t in very good shape.”
“A terrible diet and no exercise. Was that the problem?”
Jonathan nodded, and I vowed to reset my exercise program. Not that I was afraid of being incarcerated. I just wished the police would catch MarySue’s murderer before he struck again. Whoever he or she was, they wouldn’t be housed at Alcatraz. It was closed as a prison in the sixties. Whoever killed MarySue would have it easy compared to those times. “Nowadays prisoners can take classes,” the guide told us, “and work on-site jobs where they can earn money and play sports to keep in shape.”
They were probably in better shape than I was, I thought. I was determined to get serious about exercising. Tai chi was too tame, kung fu too strenuous. I turned for one last look at the city in the distance. Our tour boat was on its way back to pick up another group. What if they didn’t make it back for some reason? An earthquake, a tidal wave, or the boat ran out of gas? We’d be stuck on the island. For how long? What would we do? It would get cold at night and we had no food. At least the prisoners had shelter even if they were in solitary confinement.
Jonathan saw me shiver, and he put his jacket over my shoulders. I gave him a grateful smile.
“When we get a chance to look around the prison, we can actually go into the little dark cells in the place they call ‘the hole,’ ” he said.
“The hole?” I repeated. Now I was shivering despite the warmth of his jacket. I almost wished we hadn’t come here. There were so many other interesting places to visit on a Sunday afternoon, like the Palace of Fine Arts, that relic from the Pan Pacific Exposition of 1915 or the zoo or . . . I didn’t think this prison tour would freak me out if I weren’t up to my knees in the MarySue murder case. I knew prisons weren’t like Alcatraz anymore, but I still didn’t want to go to one for any length of time.
But determined to be a good sport with a positive attitude, I said, “How cool. I can hardly wait.”
A guide in a green uniform stepped forward to take over from the one who came on the boat with us. “Welcome home. Welcome to Alcatraz,” she said with a smile. “That’s the way the prisoners were greeted. We try to keep things as authentic for you as possible.”
“Excuse me.” A woman in the back of the crowd had raised her hand when the guide stopped. “Have there been any vampires incarcerated here?”
There was a smattering of light laughter, and the guide said not as far as she knew. I turned to see who’d asked the question, and there was Nick’s aunt, Meera, in her usual black outfit with black boots and a shawl over her shoulders.
I turned quickly, hoping she hadn’t seen me. That’s all I needed was for Meera to say hello and for Jonathan to think I hung out with vampire wannabes. Fortunately, at that moment we were all given earphones for the audio tour, which featured actual guards and prisoners speaking about their experiences. Now was the time we could proceed at our own pace, and hopefully I could avoid running into Meera.
The narration was so good I got caught up listening to the voices of real people and was startled when Jonathan nudged me. I took off my earpiece.
“Have you noticed, there’s a woman who keeps staring at you,” he said.
“Oh no,” I muttered. But he was right. Meera in her flowing black dress had her gaze fixed on me. She smiled and waved to me, and I had to say hello, though I hoped Jonathan would resume the tour without me. Imagine trying to explain the presence of a one-hundred-twenty-seven-year-old vampire to your doctor.
“It’s good to see you again,” she said. “So we are both history buffs. Who is your handsome friend?” she asked, standing on tiptoe for a glimpse of Jonathan, who’d stopped to read an account of the Native American occupation of the island in the sixties.
I could just imagine her telling Nick that I had been seen with a man at Alcatraz. Would he care? Probably not. He was meeting plenty of admiring women at his gym, along with their au pairs. Even though I appreciated his friendship and the soup he brought me, I wasn’t ready to settle down with anyone.
I should have known someday there would be a clash of at least two of my several lives, and it happened there at the prison. Jonathan came up to tell me he’d found Al Capone’s cell, and I had to introduce him to Meera. I could tell she was just dying to meet him by the way she was staring at him and batting her extra-long eyelashes. If only she didn’t say anything about being a you-know-what.
We chatted briefly about the prison and the prisoners, and I was just about to break away when Meera mentioned her old friend Al Capone. “I’m the one who picked him up when he was released from prison in 1939.
