Carol Ericson - Brody Law - The Bridge / The District / The Wharf / The Hill

“Not long enough.” Elise slipped past the other teacher and headed down the hallway to her classroom. She had no intention of telling anyone at her school about her terrifying brush with a serial killer.

The students hadn’t filtered in yet. They lined up outside until the bell rang, and the teachers in the lower grades always escorted their pupils into the school.

Elise unlocked the door to her classroom and bumped it open with her hip. She breathed in the smell of crayons, books and stale bread—all hallmarks of a kindergarten classroom.

“Ready for the last week of school?” Lydia Cummings, one of the other kindergarten teachers, poked her head in the room.

“I don’t know.” Elise’s gaze scanned the colorful artwork tacked up on the walls and the fledgling lima bean plants growing in the windows, finally resting on the big, red number four she’d written on the whiteboard to indicate the number of days left in the school year. “I always miss them over the summer until I get the new batch in the fall.”

“Spoken like a true kindergarten teacher.” Lydia gave her a misty smile. “We’re really lucky you came to us this year.”

“I feel exactly the same way.” Elise pulled a new book and a deflated beach ball out of her bag and dropped them on her desk before leaving to collect her students.

She tugged her sweater around her body and held it closed with folded arms as she walked onto the playground shrouded in a gray mist indistinguishable from the blacktop. Kids scurried between the white lines to get in place before the bell rang.

She approached the line for her classroom, which resembled a worm, wriggling this way and that.

Three of her students chanted in unison, “Good morning, Miss Duran.”

“Good morning.” She put on her brightest smile.

A small boy darted from the line and wrapped his arms around her legs in a kindergarten hug.

She patted his back. “Good morning, Eli.”

This is what she’d miss over the summer, this pure, honest affection—no deceit, no subterfuge.

The bell blared over the playground, and the older kids shuffled off to their classes, bumping each other and snickering at private jokes. Elise clapped her hands. “Here we go.”

The line of squiggling children wended its way through the double doors down the hallway to the kindergarten rooms.

The kids sensed their impending freedom in four days. Restlessness bubbled throughout the classroom, and Elise had to raise her voice and rap on her desktop more than once to get her students back on task.

Her gaze wandered to the big clock on the wall several times. The antsy kids were having an effect on her. Finally the bell rang for recess and lunch. Elise escorted her kids to the playground and then headed for the teachers’ lounge to grab some lunch. The kinder teachers rotated lunchtime duty every day, two of them helping the aides and two enjoying the luxury of lunch in the staff room.

Elise popped the lid of a plastic container of Courtney’s leftover pasta and shoved it into the microwave. She turned toward Viola, the other teacher on break. “Are you headed to Alabama right after school ends or later in the summer?”

“Leaving next week.” Viola kicked off her shoes and propped her feet up on the chair across from her. “I’m enjoying the cool weather while I can, although I’m kind of looking forward to getting out of the city.”

“Really?” The microwave beeped and Elise removed her container and carried it to the table next to Viola’s. “You were dreading the thought of heat and humidity and extended family just a few weeks ago.”

Viola wiggled her toes and glanced up from her smartphone. “That’s before we had a killer on the loose.”

Elise’s hand jerked and the steam burned her wrist. She dropped the lid. “Y-you mean that woman found by the bay?”

“She’s not the only one.”

“She’s not?” Elise’s throat tightened. Had there been another murder? Sean hadn’t mentioned anything on the phone last night when she’d called him with her new number. Had they finally tied the woman at the Presidio to this killer?

Viola shook her head. “Not yet, but there was another one that got away.”

“When was that?” Viola must be referring to her attack. The SFPD had been trying to keep Elise’s encounter out of the press, just as they were trying to keep particular aspects of Katie’s murder a secret, despite that reporter’s best efforts. They had to do that. Sean had to keep certain secrets.

“Not sure. Friday night. No details on that one, but the police suspect it was the same guy who murdered the other one.” Viola hunched her shoulders and dropped her phone. “I hate it when stuff like this happens.”

“Me, too.”

The phone on the lunchroom wall rang, and they both jumped. Elise shoved back from the table and grabbed the receiver. “Lunchroom.”

“Elise, is that you?”

“Yep.”

“I got a call in the front office for you. He’s still on the line, so I’m going to transfer him over.”

Elise swallowed. “Okay.”

“Go ahead, sir.”

“Did you change your phone number because of me?”

She heaved out a sigh and rolled her eyes at Viola. “No, Ty. I had to get a new phone and a new number. Why don’t you just go home?”

“I’ve been doing a little investigating of that Detective Brody. You’re not going to like...”

“What I don’t like is you harassing me. For the millionth time, I’m not going home with you—now or ever. Give it up and move on. It’s been over a year. Don’t call me again.” She slammed the receiver home.

“Girl, is that the ex-fiancé?”

“He came all the way here to take me home. What’s he going to do, kidnap me?”

She shook her head. “Men. They don’t want you unless they can’t have you.”

They finished lunch discussing more pleasant topics, such as the end-of-the-school-year party. Elise hadn’t felt like telling Viola that Ty had come here to rescue her from a killer. That she was the one who got away. She didn’t want to be the object of anyone’s pity or amazement or projected fear.

The door to the teachers’ lounge burst open and Mrs. McKinney, the senior kindergarten teacher, charged through clutching Eli’s arm.

Eli turned his round eyes on Elise, his mouth a matching circle.

Elise jumped up. She didn’t like Mrs. McKinney’s disciplinary methods with the kids, and Eli looked scared out of his wits. “What’s going on?”

“This young man was disobeying school rules on the playground.”

“But he told me. He gave me...”

“Silence, young man.”

Elise crossed the room and took Eli’s hand, pulling him away from Mrs. McKinney’s clutches. “What happened, Eli?”

Mrs. McKinney butted in. “I spotted Eli on the far side of the playground on the grass by the gate. He’s not supposed to be outside of the kindergarten play area.”

Elise squeezed Eli’s hand. “You need to stay on our playground, Eli. Miss Ellen and Mrs. Dory can’t watch you way over there.”

“That’s not all, Miss Duran.” Mrs. McKinney thrust out her formidable bosom. “Eli was talking to a stranger at the fence.”

Elise tapped Eli’s brown cheek with her finger. “You’re not supposed to talk to strangers, Eli. Promise Mrs. McKinney you won’t do that again.”

Eli dropped his gaze and scuffed the toe of his Converse sneakers against the linoleum floor, shoving his hand in the front pocket of his jeans. “I promise.”

She smiled. “That’s better. Are you satisfied, Mrs. McKinney? I don’t think Eli needs to go to Principal Yarborough.”

Mrs. McKinney huffed. “I suppose not, but we can’t have these kids wandering around the playground and talking to strangers.”