The Night Bird

30

Frost found Herb painting on his hands and knees on a sidewalk at the base of Coit Tower. Twenty people crowded behind him, watching his three-dimensional portrait take shape. A grizzly bear with wet, matted fur rose out of the flat ground. The animal, its mouth open and teeth bared, stood at the top of a surging waterfall as Herb put the final touches on a spawning salmon that was about to become the bear’s lunch.

His friend rocked back on his knees. The beads in his long gray hair knocked together like an abacus. He flipped up the magnifying lenses he wore and reached for his coffee urn. As he drank, he spotted Frost among the crowd.

“Taking a little break here, folks,” Herb announced. “Don’t get too close to the bear. He’s hungry.”

He emptied the top hat where he kept his tips and shoved the money into the pockets of his blue-jean coveralls, which were smeared with a rainbow of paint. He limped over to Frost, who held Shack in the crook of one arm. The two men walked around the perimeter of the parking lot, with the city and the bay spread out in the valley. They stopped in the shadow of the tower, across from a statue of Christopher Columbus.

“I got your message,” Herb said. “You said a girl is missing? Another one of Dr. Stein’s patients?”

“There’s a connection, yes.”

Herb took Shack from Frost’s arms. He dangled a rope of his gray hair, and Shack swiped at it. “I was disturbed to hear that someone is abducting and brainwashing these women.”

“He calls himself the Night Bird,” Frost said.

“Do you have any idea what that means?”

“Not yet.”

“If it’s someone with a grudge against Dr. Stein, then he’s part of a long list,” Herb said.

“I know that.”

“What about the girl? How long has she been gone?”

“Since last night. Jess and I interviewed the neighbors. One of them heard a scream but didn’t report it.”

“Do you have any leads?” Herb asked.

“Nothing that will help us find her. Lucy’s phone is off, so we can’t get any pings. No one saw a car in the alley where she was taken.”

“What about the person who’s doing this?”

Frost showed Herb the photograph of the mask he’d found online. “I talked to a homeless man who hangs out near Lucy’s building. Someone wearing a mask like this gave him fifty bucks to clear out for the day. The same thing happened the previous week. I think that’s when this guy took Lucy’s roommate.”

“Didn’t the man think this was odd? Money from some stranger in a mask?”

“For fifty bucks, I don’t think he asked a lot of questions. He couldn’t give us any kind of useful description. Tall. Lean. That’s it.” Frost added, “What about you, Herb? Have you spotted anyone hanging around in a mask like this among your crowds?”

“No, but why would I?”

“Because of me,” Frost said. “He knows I’m the one investigating the case, and he seems to be making it personal.”

Herb put Shack on the ground, and the cat sprawled on the sidewalk between them. “How can I help?”

Frost took his phone out of his pocket and clicked over to his photos. “This is a photo of Lucy,” he said, showing the picture to Herb. “This guy had to get her from her apartment to wherever he’s hiding. Maybe someone saw them.”

“You want me to put the word out to my network?” Herb asked.

“Exactly.”

Herb had fingers in nearly every corner of San Francisco, thanks to his years on the city council. Five years earlier, he’d also pioneered a nonprofit initiative to get donated smartphones in the hands of every homeless person in San Francisco. The phones had become a lifeline for jobs, housing opportunities, food, and city services — and they’d also become ground zero for a social media network that could get news around the Bay Area almost instantaneously. Among Herb’s twenty-seven thousand Twitter followers were more than five thousand homeless people who were 24-7 eyewitnesses to city life. They didn’t always trust the police, but they trusted Herb.

“What would you like me to tell them?”

“I’ll text you Lucy’s photo,” Frost said. “I’ll send photos of the other three women, too. I’m hoping someone spotted them going in or out of this guy’s hiding place.”

“Consider it done. I’ll get something out immediately.”

“There’s one other thing. A song. ‘Nightingale’ by Carole King. Do you know it?”

“Of course,” Herb said. “Carole cowrote it with David Palmer. He was lead singer for a few of the songs on Steely Dan’s first album. That’s your music trivia for the day.”

Frost smiled. There was very little trivia from the ’60s and ’70s that Herb didn’t know. He’d grown up in San Francisco during the days of flower power and the Summer of Love.

“‘Nightingale’ was used as a trigger with the women who died. This isn’t a Taylor Swift song that gets played thousands of times a day. If anybody heard that song recently, I’d like to know where.”

“I’ll put out the word, but once I do, the press is likely to get hold of the story. They follow whatever I post on Twitter, and I get calls. Is that okay?”

“That’s fine. Jess wants to make it all public. The Night Bird. The song. If anybody calls, send them my way.”

“The song’s an odd choice, isn’t it?”

“It is, which makes me think ‘Nightingale’ has some kind of special meaning for him. If we get the news out there about it, maybe someone will make a connection.” Frost bent down and scooped Shack off the ground. “I have to go.”

“If I hear anything, I’ll be in touch,” Herb said. “What does Dr. Stein say about all this?”

“She’s not saying much. I think she’s hiding something.”

“What’s your take on her? You know I’m not much of a fan after the Darren Newman episode.”

Frost hesitated. “She’s a tough one to read. She’s smart, obviously. And attractive in a keep-your-distance sort of way. She comes across as a loner, like me.”

“Well, be careful with her,” Herb told him.

“Why is that?”

His friend smiled. “You know what they say about psychiatrists, Frost. They only go into the business to find someone crazier than they are.”