Ignoring the honks of angry drivers, Tommy St. James swerved around slower traffic, navigating the easiest path across the Washington Street Bridge. The bridge spanned the Mississippi River, connecting downtown to northeast Minneapolis and today was apparently clogged with sightseers or Sunday drivers who didn’t realize it was now Monday.
The wind whipped her strawberry blond hair into her eyes. She leaned forward, trying to decipher the squawking coming out of the police scanner bolted to her dash. The volume was cranked as high as it would go, but Tommy strained to hear the excited chatter. The dispatcher’s voice crackled in and out, but Tommy swore she’d heard three things clearly: 911 call. Body. Mississippi River.
She didn’t have time to head to a crime scene. She was already late for her meeting with Belinda. Wasn’t her fault she was late. How was she to know a crane would topple in downtown Minneapolis and that the editor would order her out to take pictures?
She sighed. It was how her life went. Hot date? Not when there’s a big fire at the mall. Birthday dinner plans? Ha. Not if it’s the same night as the election. Want to go to bed early? Jokes on you. There’s a ten-car wreck on Interstate I-35W.
Tommy loved her job as a photographer for the Twin Cities News, but it really did get in the way of her actually having a real life.
She’d been foolish enough to actually make personal plans today smack dab in the middle of her work day: Meeting an old high school friend at lunch. She glanced at the clock. She was only ten minutes late. Belinda would probably still be there. If only Tommy had a number to call she could ask her friend to wait. But Belinda had called on a blocked number. Tommy nearly hadn’t answered it.
The scanner buzzed again when Tommy was almost off the bridge—something else about water patrol being unable to locate a body. She heard it clearly this time. There was nothing suspicious on the bridge—no open-mouthed pedestrians peering over the side, no red and blue strobes from police cars or boats. Nothing out of the ordinary. Body? Probably a log someone saw floating and called 911.
As the river thawed in the spring every year, it inevitably dislodged debris that had been trapped frozen in the river over the winter. The detritus usually ended up in a messy pile by the locks just south of the bridge.
Tommy doubted there was a dead body. If there was, of course she’d have to change her plans and head to the scene. As a photojournalist for the Twin Cities News. It was her job. But she hoped not. She was looking forward to seeing her high school friend.
The crane incident had already made her late. She’d just finished shooting pictures of a new rooftop restaurant that had just opened downtown. A few seconds after she stepped onto the sidewalk, she was surrounded by screaming people dashing past her, the massive end of a crane headed her way. She was able to capture a shot that had screaming faces in the foreground and the crane about twenty feet in the air in the background behind them. Then she got shots of the crane where it came to rest, mangling a line of parked cars.
Three people had been taken to the hospital. The Associated Press had already picked up all her photos. A reporter was still out at the scene working the story, but Tommy had taken every conceivable shot of the accident before she left.
Hopefully Belinda would wait, remembering that Tommy was the type of friend who always did what she said she was going to do, always showed up where she was supposed to be.
It had been ten years since she last saw her high school friend.
At the end of the bridge, she impatiently tapped her steering wheel, waiting for the stoplight to turn green. If this poky driver in front of her scooted over a few feet, Tommy could make her right-hand turn onto Main Street, but no. That would be too much to ask. Tommy looked up at the floaty clouds in the blue sky. Once, a few years ago, early on a Sunday morning she had seen a Bald Eagle soaring above the bridge. A good omen for sure. Today, only breezy clouds. It was one of the first warm spring days after a gray, dreary Minnesota winter, so Tommy planned to ask her friend if they could catch up over a glass of wine at a sidewalk café.
Belinda has asked if they could meet on the Stone Arch Bridge. Several great restaurants were nearby on Main Street, where Tommy would park to access the foot bridge.
Remembering her friend’s phone call the night before, a small tingle of apprehension ran through Tommy. There had been something in Belinda’s voice. Maybe this wasn’t just a social call.
A cloud swept over the sun just then and Tommy shivered.