In our last episode: There's a white Oldsmobile convertible parked alongside the road, just over the hill there." He gestured up the road to the north. "That might explain how the woman got out here."
"Thanks, Will. You need me for anything else now?"
The sergeant flipped his notebook closed and looked around. "No, I don't think so. I called the coroner before I came out here, so he should be showing up pretty soon. I guess I know where to find you if I think of anymore questions."
"Yup, right on good old KDG every week night at six o'clock sharp."
Sergeant Framm gave me another friendly smile. He shook the hand I offered him and went off to talk to the young deputy who was still standing in the middle of the road with a flashlight and trying not to look at any dead women who happened to be in the vicinity. Will Framm also casually examined both front fenders of my Ford as he walked past them. He was not only good, he was thorough.
The white Oldsmobile was right where Framm said it would be. I found a spot wide enough to pull over on my side of the highway and walked back for a look.
The convertible top was down and the brown leather seats were covered with a film of mist. A set of keys dangled from the ignition and the gas gauge needle was pointing to a spot just south of empty. That detail did indeed go a long way toward explaining why the dead woman was afoot.
There was one of those license registration certificate holders wrapped around the steering column. I spun the spark wheel on the old brass trench lighter my dad passed on to me as a souvenir of the Great War and read the registration info by its flickering light. The Oldsmobile belonged to one Gladys Doherty who lived at 2315 Buchanan in San Francisco.
Of course, that address meant I'd been wrong about her being one of the rich folks from Nob Hill. Instead, she was one of the rich folks from Pacific Heights, which was almost as far up the social ladder. There were even those who might argue that the Heights were a rung or two higher.
I thought about someone who, I was pretty sure, had that opinion and reminded myself to ask her if she knew Gladys Doherty. It seemed likely that she did, since they lived on the same street, about a block apart.
For that matter, I only lived about a dozen blocks from Gladys Doherty's home myself. In the social scheme of things, though, those twelve blocks might as well be a million miles because they span the distance between Pacific Heights and the distinctly blue-collar Fillmore District.
THE END
Story and design © Steve Eitzen
Header graphic and HPO logo © HPO Productions
Oldsmobile convertible image modified from art © David Koontz
All rights reserved by copyright owners
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
This post is based on an excerpt from H. P. Oliver's novel, GOODNIGHT, SAN FRANCISCO
