Brush With Death

I stared at the ordinary suitcase from across the small room as though it were a poisonous snake. Had a resentful Dr. Gossen spent the afternoon thumbing through his tattered copy of The Anarchist’s Cookbook? Would a tug on the zipper rocket me into the fourth dimension? This’ll teach an artist to mess with an anthropologist, I imagined him cackling as he stuffed fertilizer and diesel fuel into the bag and rigged it with a timer.

This line of thinking failed to reassure me. My father was also a respectable college professor, and some of his colleagues were downright certifiable.

Okay, Annie, calm down. Manny said a woman left the suitcase. It couldn’t have been Mary; Miss Ivy would have recognized her. Maybe Evangeline dropped off a few things for the night in the cemetery. But surely she would have called first to tell me. I pulled my cell phone out of my overalls pocket. Recently I had made a vow to keep the gadget charged and on my person, figuring that as a communications device it might work better that way than when it had a dead battery and was stuffed in my sock drawer.

The only other woman who might associate me with the columbarium was Cindy Tanaka. With a sense of urgency I crossed the room, knelt, and held my breath as I unzipped the suitcase.

No bang, no explosion, no homemade bomb. Only a leather camera bag and a bundle wrapped in a bright orange towel with Garfield the Cat’s grinning face. Inside the camera bag was the dismantled camera Cindy had used the other night along with several murky snapshots of La Fornarina.

Sitting back on my heels, I listened for the sound of anyone lingering outside Manny’s office. All was quiet. Slowly I unwrapped the Garfield bundle. Inside was the metal box from Louis Spencer’s sepulcher. The old lock was in place and looked untouched.

I checked the suitcase’s side pockets for a note or a letter—anything that would provide a hint as to what was going on here. I knew that suicidal people often made a point of tying up loose ends before making their final departure, and Cindy had struck me as the type to get her affairs in order. But why would she leave all this for me? Why hadn’t she turned in the metal box to the cemetery office, as we had agreed? Did she want me to take care of it?

Minutes passed as I debated my next step. I repacked the suitcase, zipped it shut, and eased Manny’s door open. All was quiet, so I pulled the black bag, its plastic wheels clacking loudly, out of the office, along the hallways, and up and down the short flights of stairs to the Chapel of the Madonna. Mary was on the scaffolding, touching up the paint of the blue sky as she grooved to her iPod.

“Swear to God, Annie,” she said, peeved. Evangeline had left a message this morning that Mary was in a rotten mood because she had chickened out of last night’s graveyard slumber party. Tonight they were set to try again. “That Roy dude? Hung out trying to talk to me, like, for-ever. If you leave me alone here one more time, I’m gonna . . .” She glanced down at me. “You okay?”

“Somewhere in the columbarium. I don’t want to be seen leaving with it,” I said, thinking of Russell, the observant cemetery savant. I had no idea why Cindy had left the suitcase for me, but she must have had a reason. The least I could do for her was to find out what it was.

“Do you need to hide the whole thing?” Mary asked, clambering down from the squeaky scaffolding. “Or can we unpack it? It’d be easier to hide smaller objects.”

“Good point.” Ex-drug-user teenage runaways made by far the best assistants when it came to skullduggery. I unzipped the suitcase and removed the camera bag and the towel-shrouded box.

“Sure you don’t want to see what’s inside? I can never wait to open packages. One Christmas my kid sister and I opened all our presents in the middle of the night. It was a real drag on Christmas morning, though.”

“Whatever you say, boss.” Mary shrugged. “It’s so old and cruddy it should fit right in around here. Why don’t we put it in one of the niches?”

“These old locks are tougher than they look,” Mary said, examining the lock. She rattled it, banged on it, and shook her head. “I could probably pick it, but my tools are in the City.”

“I guess most folks are honest. Rich people give us the keys and security codes to their houses all the time so we can do our work. But we don’t steal from them.”

I tried to imagine riffling through Miss Ivy’s desk, and conjured instead a visual of a cop shining his flashlight through the window and catching us red-handed, which I was fairly sure would get us bounced from the columbarium.

What to do, what to do . . . I recalled learning in my sophomore-year evolutionary biology class that humans rarely looked up because our ancient ancestors had almost never been attacked from above. Artists and architects, though, often located the most interesting details up high, out of harm’s way. Craning my neck upward, I scanned the alcove’s curved ceiling. The subtle up-lighting illuminating the room emanated from behind the wide cornice molding.

We unlocked the wheels and dragged the creaky contraption out of the Chapel of the Madonna, down the hall past two alcoves, and into the Chapel of the Lullabies. Locking the scaffolding in place, I climbed up and peered over the edge of the cornice. A thick rope light snaked its way through the space behind the molding, but there was just enough room for the metal box.

We pushed the scaffolding back to the job site, where I unpacked the camera while Mary snagged a scraping tool and started fiddling with one of the niches. She hooted in triumph when the glass door swung open, and I tucked the camera pieces behind the funeral urn inside. I sent a silent apology to the niche’s resident, Mr. Salvatore DeFazio, hoping he didn’t mind the illegal sublet.

It was always difficult to study paintings thirdhand, through photos, but this much was obvious: the painting in the photo was not the cheap computer reproduction I had seen in the Chapel of the Allegories. The frame was different and the gloss was duller than the highly varnished copy. Whether or not it was a genuine Raphael was impossible to tell from the shadowy snapshot.

I put the photos in a brown paper bag left over from the other night’s takeout, rolled the top closed, and placed it in the red plastic tub of art supplies. Mary and I returned the empty suitcase and camera bag to Manny’s office and settled in to restore the lunettes.

After tonight’s touch-up painting, we would let everything dry for a week before applying a nonyellowing polyurethane sealant. The last step could be completed using a ladder, so tomorrow the maintenance crew would disassemble the cumbersome scaffolding. The week of drying time might also allow me to figure out what the hell was going on with La Fornarina and to decide what to do with the metal box from Louis Spencer’s crypt. I would retrieve the box when we returned to seal the painting.

Quiet reigned, and I lost myself in the sensuous pleasure of touching supple brush to creamy paint, of melding the hues of the wet pigments to create new tones. Oil paints allowed the underpaint to shine through, which was why the work of lazy forgers, who only painted the topmost layers, was so easy to spot.

“I wonder what’s in that box,” Mary mused as we floated clouds in the still-wet azure sky. Last week I had taught her how to feather the whites, grays, and violets into the pliable blue paint so that the clouds appeared ethereal rather than cottony. “I saw a movie once, where this guy? He found a mysterious box that turned out to contain the mummified hand of his lover, complete with diamond engagement ring.”

“I saw this other movie?” Mary continued. “Where a fortune was hidden in a box like that. Only it wasn’t regular money, it was Confederate money, like from the Civil War?”

“No. I mean, I guess collectors want them but I don’t think they’re worth much. But the bad guy didn’t know that, so he killed a lot of people trying to get it.”

By the time midnight rolled around, I was ready to risk a curse from beyond and break into the metal box myself just to put a halt to Mary’s speculation on its contents and endless plot summaries. I ushered my assistant out of the columbarium, wishing her luck facing her fears in the graveyard tonight and instructing her to call if anything went wrong. Then I locked the door and returned to put the finishing touches on the angels’ wings. My arms and shoulders felt the strain of working overhead on the wobbly scaffolding, but I was determined to complete this phase of the restoration.

I resumed painting, my hands busy but my mind free to wander. Why did Cindy leave the suitcase with me? Why hadn’t she turned the box over to the cemetery? Was I supposed to return it to Louis’ crypt? Had she been so absorbed in her own misery that—

Heart pounding, I glanced around. Nothing. The noise had seemed far away, but it was impossible to judge sound accurately in this place. Could it be Michael? Generally I didn’t hear him until he wanted me to.

I set my palette on the scaffolding’s wood planks, dropped my brush in the jar of mineral spirits, and climbed down. Padding softly to the alcove’s arched opening, I stood stock-still and strained to listen.

Probably my imagination running amok. It tended to do that. Still . . . I riffled through my tote bag until I found the travel-sized can of aerosol hair spray that an SFPD homicide investigator—who used to be my friend until the drug trafficking incident last fall—suggested I carry in lieu of mace. It was cheap, she had told me, legal, and effective when sprayed in an attacker’s eyes. Unable to stand the suspense and emboldened by the thought that any miscreant would receive a snootful of Lady Clairol Extra-Firm Hold, I decided to investigate the source of the noise.

I stuck my head out the Gothic arch and peered up and down the hall. I saw only long banks of glass-fronted compartments holding bronze urns and boxes. No lovesick Roy Cogswell, no after-hours cleaning personnel. Nothing out of the ordinary.

My old sneakers were silent as I crept down the main hallway, through the Chapels of Peace and Rest, veering off through the Gardens of Prayer and Supplication and through the Chapels of Mercy and Resignation until I stumbled upon the Chapel of the Allegories, where the Raphael copy hung. La Fornarina seemed to smirk at my overactive imagination. Hussy.

I considered hunkering down and praying that whoever was approaching would walk past, but given the sins of my youth I thought it unwise to rely on the power of prayer alone. The Chapel’s floor was made of stone, the walls were solid metal-and-glass compartments. Unless I was struck by lightning and reduced to a smoking pile of ash I didn’t have a chance of joining the current residents.

I glanced up. The compartments stopped about twelve inches from the nine-foot arched ceiling, creating a narrow shelf along three sides of the alcove. I might be able to squeeze myself in and hang on long enough for whoever was approaching to leave, as long as they didn’t think to look over their heads.

I scanned the wall for a foothold. The compartment doors were set flush with each other with no toehold between them. A better bet seemed to be the projecting metal prongs that studded the walls to the left of each compartment, a few of which held cone-shaped vases, their flowers drooping. I grasped the prongs of an empty vase holder with my right hand, and reached up to grab another with my left. My right foot stepped gingerly on one about a foot from the floor. I steadied myself, tried not to fall backward, and lifted my left foot, hoping to scale the wall like Spider-Man.

I was about three feet off the floor when the metal hoops began to bend under my weight. My fingers and toes scrambled for purchase, but the pesky law of gravity tugged me backward. I made one last effort, pushing hard against the prongs beneath my feet to boost myself within reach of the next row of vase holders.

The sound of my not-inconsiderable derriere landing with a thud on the hard stone floor reverberated through the alcove. The approaching footsteps halted for a moment, then sped up. Adrenaline shot through me, my butt smarted fiercely, and my breathing was labored. I tried to breathe through my nose, but the snorting was even noisier than the panting. I leapt to my feet and flattened myself against the wall to the left of the arched alcove doorway, the can of hair spray in my right hand. Checking to be sure the can’s nozzle was pointed in the proper direction so that I didn’t inadvertently blind myself, I held my breath and waited.

A figure rushed through the doorway. I screamed, leapt out, and unleashed a barrage of Lady Clairol at a ghoulish green face. The masked figure yelled, and gloved hands flew to its eyes. Adrenaline pumping through me, I lowered my head and drove my shoulder into its solar plexus, ramming the figure against a bank of niches. It yelped as the vase prongs dug into its back. My knee slammed into the ghoul’s groin, and he collapsed on the floor. The ghoul clutched at my legs as I darted toward the doorway, but I kicked out, hard, and shook him off.

Down the hallway I sprinted, past row upon row of alcoves, up the stairs, down another hallway, and up yet another set of stairs. I heard swearing and grunting from somewhere behind me, and the sound of footsteps slapping on the floor as the ghoul took up the chase.

Skittering around a corner into the Chapel of the Beatitudes, I saw a green Halloween mask lying on the floor. It was not the warty one my attacker had been wearing, nor was it the elongated one the grave robber had worn the other night with Cindy. What—was there a costume wholesaler down the street? And was I dealing with one guy with a mask fetish, or could there be a whole club of graveyard lunatics running around in Halloween disguises?

Calm down, Annie. Now was not the time to panic. Cursing my lamentable navigation skills, I crouched behind a winged sculpture in the Garden of Peace to try to get my bearings. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the flash of a tall figure and took off again, darting into the newer mausoleum wing, with its soaring cathedral ceilings and shiny pink marble crypts. Stars winked through the atrium high overhead, but the sound of footsteps spurred me on. I dashed back across the balcony connecting the new addition to the older part of the columbarium, hoping to lose my pursuer in the maze of short hallways and dark alcoves. Skidding to a halt in the Alcove of Repose, I squatted behind a baroque fountain flanked by two white stone benches.

Taking care not to make any noise, I inched Cindy Tanaka’s map out of my bib pocket. From the Alcove of Repose it was a quick jaunt down the hall, past the bathroom, over to the stairs to the Main Cloister and the exit. I memorized the route, shoved the map back into my pocket, and listened for my pursuer.

I crept toward the alcove doorway, looked about, and darted down the hall. I had reached the small bathroom when something hit my back, shoving me violently through the door, where I fell to the hard tile floor. The door slammed behind me, and in the pitch-black I thought I heard the jangle of keys and the sound of metal scraping and clicking. I threw myself against the door, but it was locked from the outside.

On the plus side, I was alive and only slightly worse for wear. My labored breathing echoed in the absolute darkness. I swung my arms blindly in the air until my fingertips found the string pull for the overhead light. I switched it on and, sight restored, spied a window behind the toilet. Climbing onto the toilet seat, I examined the small colored glass window of quatrefoil design that overlooked the Main Cloister at least twenty feet below. Generations of sloppy paint jobs had sealed it shut and I had no tools with which to pry it open. And even if I shattered the beautiful glass, I would break a leg—or more likely my neck—if I jumped to the hard tile floor below.

The window was out. The bathroom’s floor was cement, the walls sturdy plaster. No help there. I always carried my keys in my overall pocket, but the master was of no use on the exterior lock.

My cell phone! I was becoming a true convert to technology. For the second time that day I dialed 911 and waited for the operator to answer and send the troops to my rescue.

And waited. I glanced at the readout: No Signal. I moved to another spot and I tried again. Still no go. I held it high, held it low. Cutting-edge cellular technology had been foiled by old-fashioned plaster walls, vast tile floors, and banks of metal compartments.

I pressed an ear against the bathroom door, but heard nothing. Maybe the ghoul had left and I could curl up in the corner and sleep until the cleaning crew showed up in the morning and let me out.

Or maybe the ghoul was summoning reinforcements to draw and quarter me. Did I really want to hang around and find out what a man who liked to wear Halloween masks at night—while running around graveyards and columbaria no less—was capable of?

There must be a way out of here. I looked up. The ceiling was composed of cracked glass tiles, similar in size and shape to acoustic tiles. A dim light illuminated the translucent ceiling from behind, suggesting open space beyond. It seemed a bit dicey, but what other options did I have? On the bright side, if I fell it would be a quick trip to the crematorium.

I stepped onto the toilet seat, took a deep breath, and hoisted myself onto the sturdy porcelain sink. I steadied myself with one hand on the tulip-shaped light fixture over the sink and slowly lifted my right knee onto the old-fashioned towel dispenser, the kind made of steel that housed a cloth towel on an endless loop. Balancing myself gingerly, I brought my left knee up to join the right. The towel dispenser groaned. Good thing I’d held off on that third slice of pizza.

From this precarious perch I was able to reach up to the glass tiles overhead. Pressing the fingertips of one hand against one of the larger tiles, I pushed it up and to the side. I poked my head through the hole and saw a large, open space formed by the columbarium’s roof above and the glass ceilings of the alcoves below. A foot-wide metal beam separated the ceiling tiles of one room from those of its neighbor, and provided access to the overhead lights.

If I weren’t careful, I would crash through the glass ceiling tiles and die on the hard stone floor. Or be shredded by the broken glass, horribly disfigured, and forced to wear a Halloween mask for the rest of my life.

Reaching my arms and shoulders through the opening, I placed my hands, palms down, on the metal beam, lifted my left foot onto the tulip light above the sink, and hoisted myself up. My actions dislodged the glass lamp shade, which shattered loudly on the concrete floor. I slid the glass tile back into place and began to crawl.

The string of lights that illuminated the glass ceilings of the chapels below guided me along the beam. I moved swiftly, exhilarated at my acrobatic escape but uncertain where I was heading. As far as I could tell, I was somewhere in the vicinity of the Chapel of the Allegories when I heard voices. I peered over the edge of the beam and saw two human-sized shapes in the room below. The beautiful pastel-colored glass ceiling tiles obscured their masked faces, and try as I might I could not make out what they were saying. Fearful of attracting attention, I remained frozen, hoping they would soon leave.

Twenty minutes later, they were still there. What are they waiting for? I wondered. My knees started to ache, so I rested my weight on my elbows, my rear in the air.

Aw, geez! The figures below looked about. I pulled the phone from my pocket and threw it as far as I could. The vivid beats of Oakland’s own Mistah F.A.B. bounced off the glass tiles and echoed through the empty space. The figures in the room below ran off in search of the sound.

Rolling onto my stomach, I backed out the window, feet-first, maneuvered my hips over the ledge, and lowered myself as far as I could to close the distance to the rooftop. Taking a deep breath, I let go, landing on the first-story roof. I stumbled a little, but remained upright, feeling absurdly pleased with myself. I was never any good at PE in school, but give me the proper motivation and I was Wonder Woman.

When the adrenaline dissipated, I realized that I might be less than Wondrous. I had escaped the columbarium but was now stuck on a roof with a sizable drop to the alley below. I psyched myself up and tried to ignore a sudden visual of my landing butt-first on the asphalt. Even I didn’t have enough padding in my backside to prevent a broken tailbone. Maybe I should have had that third slice of pizza.

One thing was clear: I couldn’t stay here. I lay down on my stomach, let my legs drop over the edge, and started to inch my hips and rear into space. Easing over the side, I held on to the rim with a death grip and hung by my hands.

Strong arms grabbed my legs from below and tried to pull me the rest of the way off the roof. I thrashed and kicked and, locating my hair spray in my pocket, reached behind me and spewed Lady Clairol for all I was worth.

“Aaargh!” my assailant yelled. He let go of me and we both fell backward, he on the hard concrete, I on top of him. I jumped to my feet, spraying my mace substitute with one hand and flailing with the other, kicking out and trying to land a blow to the groin but instead connecting with his thigh as he rolled into the fetal position at my feet. I couldn’t help but notice that he wore no ghoulish mask.