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He knocked the lid from the box and reached in. He drew out a thick folder with dog-eared papers peeking from its edges. Dropping it on the floor, he said, “I’m going to give you half of this.”
“What am I looking for?”
“You’re a detective, aren’t you?” He flipped up the silver fasteners and measured out half the papers with his hand. “Look for references to the occult, examine the pictures of the evidence, read my statements.”
“Okay, I get it.” She nudged his thigh with the toe of her pointed shoe. “If you think your back is going to get any better all hunched over like that, you’re crazy. Grab one of these little step stools. I’m sure there’s one on every row.”
He tucked his sheaf of papers under his arm and rose to his feet. A minute later he returned, wheeling a stool in front of him.
They perused the files, the silence broken by the shuffling of paper, the squeak of the step stools and an occasional sniffle.
Marie greeted people at the cage window, but nobody ventured this far back into the bowels of the evidence lockup.
Christina had done her research on the Phone Book Killer years ago and had even delved into Eric’s kidnapping, but she’d never reviewed the case file on it. Eric hadn’t been rescued. His kidnappers had released him. Joseph Brody’s defenders pegged the kidnapping as a warning to Brody from the Phone Book Killer to back off. The detective’s detractors saw it as a ploy by Brody to divert suspicion from him.
She eyed Eric over the top of her file. No wonder he hadn’t wanted kids of his own if he suspected his own father might have had him kidnapped.
Running her finger down the page, she skipped a sentence and then backtracked. “I didn’t know you were found in Haight-Ashbury.”
“Yep. They dropped me off on a street corner, blindfolded.”
“Had they been holding you there, too?”
“I have no idea. They drugged me before they released me. I came to in a moving car, wearing a blindfold, and they pushed me out of the car and told me to stand there and not remove my blindfold.”
Her hand was trembling when she turned the next page as her heart twisted for the boy Eric had been. She continued scanning the recovery effort, which involved the residents of The Haight coming forward to help the blindfolded boy abandoned on the street corner.
She skimmed the names of the witnesses and froze.
She must’ve made a noise because Eric looked over and said, “What is it? Find something?”
Her eyes met his above the edge of the paper now crumpled in her hand. “One of the people who came to your aid in the street that night...”
He dropped his file. “Yeah?”
“Liz Fielding.”
Chapter Sixteen
Christina had whispered the name but it roared in his ears. The necklace. The necklace Liz was wearing at the time of her murder was the same one he’d seen dangling above him in his captivity.
“It’s her, Christina. Liz Fielding was one of my kidnappers.” He thrust out his hand. “What else does the report have about her? Did the cops look into her background?”
She handed him the paper with the witness list. “I haven’t gotten that far yet. This is just a witness list, and of course her name jumped out at me.”
“Jesus.” He smoothed out the paper on his thigh. “What are the chances that one of my kidnappers was wearing that necklace and Liz Fielding just happens to show up during my rescue from the street corner?”
“Pretty low, I’d say. Nigel already told us Los Brujos de Invierno were involved in your kidnapping. Now it looks like Liz Fielding was directly involved. What about the other victims?”
“Involved in my kidnapping?” He folded the piece of paper and shoved it in his pocket. “The other two women were too young.”
“Do you think your kidnapping has anything to do with this current case?”
“I don’t think so, Christina, except for the connection of Los Brujos.” He tugged on his earlobe. “But it makes me wonder if the Phone Book Killer was a member of the coven. He carried out the murders and his coven members worked the PR angle for him.”
She folded her hands and pinned them between her knees. “If you ever really had any doubts about your father’s innocence, this should blast them to bits. Members of Los Brujos de Invierno kidnapped you to threaten your father. Joseph Brody had nothing to do with your kidnapping and nothing to do with those murders.”
Eric smacked his stack of papers on the floor where they fanned out in perfect symmetry. “Then why did he kill himself? Why did he jump off the Golden Gate Bridge?”
