7
Judy Carrier stood outside the office building that housed Rosato & Associates on Locust Street, shaking her head in disgust. Erect was such a pill. She knew Judy would never leave Mary in the lurch. What kind of rock climber would leave a friend dangling by a rope? Judy sighed. Score another one for the forces of evil. It probably took that level of ruthlessness to be successful, but Judy wasn't willing to pay the price.
She pulled her ski cap down to her eyebrows against the blowing snow. The sky was an opaque gray that poured snowflakes. The weather report said the snow was falling at ten inches an hour. Judy loved it. Winter was one of the things she liked best about the East, especially a snowstorm this huge. It was Nature after assertiveness training. Reminding everybody that the natural hierarchy was greater than partners, associates, and secretaries.
But Judy had to get somewhere, and fast. She scanned the street. A caterpillar of traffic inched past her. How would she get there? Her car was parked on the street near her apartment and undoubtedly a snowcap by now. It would take too long to dig it out, much less drive it anywhere. Judy didn't have time to wait for a bus and a cab was an impossibility. Erect had taken the rental car, and it was too far to walk. The city was emptying out; soon the cars would be gone. Only the snow would be left, piling up on the street. Light, dry, flaky.
Perfect.
* * *
Judy planted her right pole until she hit asphalt, then skied forward on her left leg, gliding into powder so deep it buried her ski. She torqued her trunk easily and skied forward with her right leg, slipping into the natural swinging rhythm of cross-country skiing. Side to side, skating forward, in a yellow Patagonia parka and snow pants. It was less than an hour later and Judy was on her way, skiing through the inner city. It was fun. Just like Valley Forge, except for the crack vials.
She exhaled in deep lungfuls that puffed in front of her like a toy locomotive. Judy was sweating in no time despite the wind chill and blizzard conditions. It was growing dark and snow muffled the last of the workaday noises. Judy heard only her own panting, the
Judy enjoyed the growing sensation of solitude; it was the way she felt climbing, where it was only her and the rock. She dug her poles in and kept pushing. By the time she reached Grays Ferry, she felt completely relaxed. Her heart pumped happily and her muscles were warm and limber. It wasn't so wacky, skiing to get somewhere. At least no wackier than this assignment.
Going back to the scene of the crime, almost a year later. It made absolutely no sense. If the Commonwealth had found evidence incriminating Steere, it hadn't come from the murder scene. All the conditions had changed. The carjacking happened in late spring, not winter, and at midnight, not in the daytime. The assignment was absurd. Still, Judy popped out of her skis, left them and her poles by the curb, and walked, suddenly light-footed, to the spot under the Twenty-fifth Street Bridge where the carjacking had occurred.
Grays Ferry, the city's old slaughterhouse district, was a neighborhood marred by abandoned homes, deserted warehouses, and racial strife. The Twenty-fifth Street Bridge, which used to carry an elevated railroad through the neighborhood to points west, now cut a rotting swath to nowhere. The massive concrete pillars that buttressed it had eroded, their rusted reinforcement rods protruding like exposed ribs, and the underside of the bridge had crumbled off in chunks. Icicles spiked from wide, jagged cracks rent in its bed, where its joints had expanded and finally split open. The bridge platform made a long roof over Twenty-fifth Street, but it was low. A grimy sign on a pillar read WARNING— MINIMUM CLEARANCE 13 FEET, 2 INCHES.
Dopey assignment. Judy stood in the street directly under the bridge, where the double center line disappeared under a dusting of snow. Two lanes under the bridge ran in opposite directions, and there was almost no traffic because of the blizzard. The bridge sheltered Judy from the snow, but a bracing wind snapped between the pillars and she felt her eyes tear in the frigid air. The carjacking of their client had taken place in the right lane, westbound. Judy's wet gaze fell on the spot.
The first time she'd visited the crime scene, blood had stained the gritty asphalt in a lethal pool. Judy had never seen a crime scene before and had stared at the blood for a long time, trying to appear professional, which was code for emotionless. The police had taped a cliched outline of the body in the street and had set tiny cards, folded and numbered, next to a bloodstain and a bullet casing, like grisly place cards. Now the bloodstain was covered by snow, as any leftover evidence would be. Boy, was this dopey. Creepy and dopey.
Judy's muscles tightened in the cold and she walked stiffly under the bridge to the cross street where the killing occurred. She couldn't imagine what evidence the D.A. could have on Steere. He might have overreacted, but who could question someone in that position? Judy mentally reconstructed the crime. Steere had been driving home after a fund-raising dinner at the University Museum. The businessman had no date, even though he was Philly's most eligible bachelor. He'd been heading to his town house in Society Hill, but he'd drunk a little too much and took a wrong turn from Penn. It could have happened to anybody; Judy had gotten lost in the University Avenue area herself when she first moved to Philadelphia from Palo Alto.
Judy blinked against the snowflakes that strayed under the bridge. To her left was a round concrete pillar, one of the line bordering both sides of the street. The pillars were thick, about four feet in diameter, easily wide enough for a man to hide behind. That was what had happened to Steere. It was past midnight, and he had stopped at the cross street under the bridge for the traffic light to turn red. Steere had been driving with the car radio cranked up. Judy liked that. It was the only thing she liked about Elliot Steere.
There'd been no other traffic that night and no one on the street. It had been warm and muggy, a preview of a typical Philadelphia summer, so Steere had put the top down on his convertible, a pearl-white Mercedes two-seater. The car was new at the time of the carjacking, and when Judy had inspected it in the police impound lot, its pristine enamel was sullied by a spray of dried blood. Judy had to examine the splatter pattern, standing behind Erect and her blood expert. The expert found the pattern consistent with Steere's account. Erect would have fired him if he hadn't.
Judy imagined Steere at the stoplight in the dead of night, sleepy and slightly buzzed behind the wheel of an expensive convertible. Suddenly, a large man jumps from behind a pillar. Steere thinks about hitting the gas, but the man yanks open the convertible door, sticks a knife at Steere's neck, and demands the Mercedes. Steere gets out of the car in fear, intending to surrender. He takes his gun with him just in case. But the carjacker slashes Steere's cheek, and Steere sees his own blood arc into the air, feels its warm rain on his face. He fights for his life. The gun fires while the two men struggle. The carjacker crumples to his knees and becomes the taped outline.
Judy shuddered as she stared at the white snow sprinkled on the street like so much baby powder and imagined the rich, red blood that was spilled. She even knew its composition: tests showed the carjacker's blood was Type O, and Steere's was AB. It had been Judy's job on the Steere case to maintain the trial exhibits, but
