“Right,” I said into the phone.
“If her temperature goes to a hundred and four, take her straight to the emergency room.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll see you in the morning. Try to get some sleep.”
“Thanks, Doctor,” I said.
No one slept at our house except Martha, and we were at the doctor’s office as soon as the doors opened.
Dr. Gordon weighed Julie, examined her, made notes on her chart. The doctor’s expression was so neutral I couldn’t read it, not even between the lines.
“I wish she’d put on a little more weight,” she said.
“She’s been fussy from the beginning,” I said.
“I’m going to draw some blood. Standard procedure,” said the doctor. “Just to get a baseline.”
Joe held Julie as the stick pricked my daughter’s tiny pink heel. Julie howled, of course, and I just hid my face until it was over.
I asked the doctor to tell us everything. “Don’t hold anything back.”
Finally, Dr. Gordon cracked a smile.
“She’s got a fever, but it’s not abnormal. I’ll call you when I get back her blood work. Meanwhile, you should all get some sleep.”
As soon as I hit the sheets, my cell phone rang. I read the caller ID and then told Brady, “Whatever it is has got to wait. I need four hours of sleep. Just four.”
Brady ignored me.
“Boxer, that streetcar driver on the F line?”
“What? Who?”
“Your professor said a streetcar driver was going to be shot, remember?”
“Oh. No. Don’t tell me.”
“We’ve got a female streetcar driver who took a bullet about an hour ago. Right between the eyes. Just like the professor said.”
Chapter 49
BY THE TIME I dragged myself to the Ferry Building, at the Embarcadero and Market Street, the perimeter was in place and the building was the backdrop for a messy crime scene made worse by the stationary streetcar and the throttled morning rush.
Of the three lanes of traffic running in each direction, four were stopped cold and the other two were stalled. There is a wide median strip adjacent to the streetcar tracks, a strip of plaza between the northbound and southbound lanes. On any other day, this strip would have been busy with buskers, mimes, cyclists, and skateboarders. Now, in place of all the activity, there were black-and-white cruisers, ambulances, the crime scene mobile unit, and traffic cops.
I parked the Explorer at the edge of the pack of law enforcement vehicles and headed toward the evidence tent that had been set up on the median. I picked out Conklin and Morales, who were talking to Clapper and a stocky guy I didn’t know. He had an authoritative air and tiny little eyes.
He had to be our temporary medical examiner.
Conklin introduced me to Dr. Morse, and I said, “Pleased to meet you.” Then I asked Conklin to give me the details.
“That’s the primary crime scene,” he said, pointing to the 1940s-style green-and-cream-colored trolley.
Conklin said, “The victim is still in there. Her name is Janet Rice, thirty-four, African American, married with two children. She’s been working as a driver for sixteen years.”
“She’s black?”