Good to the Last Kiss (15 page)

‘I have no idea,’ Gratelli said. ‘You’re attaching this to the serial killer. What makes you think that?’

‘Oh, I’ve talked with David. What kind of person is this, do you think?’

‘We’ve got a profile from the FBI. Who knows how close it is?’

Maldeaux shrugged, sighed. ‘I was reading the other day about black holes. In space. They’ve just discovered that there are such things as drifting black holes, wandering around the universe. The only way they know they exist is that there is a residue of light still on their hungry mouths.’

‘Your point?’ Gratelli asked.

‘We don’t know so many things. We want things to make sense so we create rules and force them to fit. What if this . . . this attacker doesn’t fit? What if he suddenly lurches in another direction or never does it again, or does something completely different?’

‘I have no idea,’ Gratelli said. ‘That doesn’t take me anywhere, Mr Maldeaux.’

‘Probably an ordinary fellow,’ Maldeaux said, ‘standing next to you at the counter in a department store or,’ Maldeaux smiled, ‘sitting across from you at breakfast.’

‘You’re not an ordinary fellow,’ Gratelli said.

‘No.’ Maldeaux said it almost solemnly. ‘I participate in life. I don’t mean the social club or political kind of participation. I mean participation in life. Feeling a part of it as deeply as possible. I want to take life in through every sense as deeply and as often as possible. That’s why I like to cook, Inspector. See, smell, touch, taste. And if you bite into the peppers, we will hear a little crunch. Sure you don’t want to stay?’

‘No, thank you. But I’m sure it’s time I left you alone.’

‘Actually, Inspector, you have no idea how much time I spend alone.’

‘I see pictures,’ Gratelli said. ‘Pictures of you here and there, always with people. You are alone then, too, you’re saying.’

‘Yes, precisely what I’m saying.’

‘Did you feel as if you were with someone when you were with Julia Bateman?’

‘Right again,’ Maldeaux said. ‘Oh look, there’s Mother now. She was out here all the time.’

Gratelli looked at the woman coming from the far end of the back lawn, a handful of weeds in her gloved hand.

THIRTEEN

M
ickey McClellan was at his desk, still waiting for the people at the Cassidy Group, an advertising agency near Jackson Square, to track ‘the’ Cassidy down. Sammie Cassidy had proved elusive. The office was empty, quiet. He hated this more than anything other than the hours near nightfall; chained to the desk, ear numb from hours on the phone, attempting to track down the fraudulent insurance claims, cases in which Bateman’s statement or testimony might have truly pissed off the claimant. He was also trying to discover the whereabouts of one Darvy McWilliams.

According to Paul Chang, Julia testified against him at a parole hearing for Darvy’s bizarre behavior at Julia Bateman’s laundromat some years before. A long, long shot. He had dismissed the idea when Paul Chang presented it. But there was little else to go on.

All this boring phone work and for what? If Bateman was just one of the chicks who got it from the same guy, this insurance claim stuff didn’t mean a damn thing.

He put the phone in the cradle. He took a deep breath. One of the inspectors was standing on a chair, tacking a Giant’s poster high up on the wall. Next to it was a professionally printed sign. It read:

Great cop motto for a department filled with the over-forty crowd.

The phone book may have been the hard way, but there was no Darvy McWilliams. McClellan was down to the sixth McWilliams.

‘Looking for Darvy,’ he said to the woman who answered. There was a long silence. ‘Darvy McWilliams,’ McClellan said, trying to get a response.

‘I heard you. Who are you?’

‘A friend of a friend.’

‘Mr Whoever You Are, you ain’t never gonna talk to Darvy, you hear what I’m sayin’? The boy is dead.’

‘Darvy A. McWilliams, I got here,’ McClellan said, though he was pretty sure there weren’t that many Darvys in the world.

‘Mmmn,’ she said. It was the sound of disgust.

‘This is the police, ma’am.’

‘Then you oughta know. He was dead in his cell. You hear what I’m sayin’?’

‘I hear,’ he said softly. ‘I hear.’

He put the phone back again, gently. He believed the voice, but he’d check it out anyway. Death was a damn good alibi.

He wasn’t having much luck with the rest of the list either. No answers. Disconnected. He’d already come to Samuel Baskins. This was another of Paul Chang’s suggestions. McClellan had to admit that it had been stubbornness that kept him from questioning this guy earlier – though the likelihood of some guy living in the Tenderloin going all the way up to Russian River – a guy who was too injured to work or pretending to be – seemed pretty far fetched. If the guy was bilking his company, wouldn’t it be better just to play along? His phone line was busy, which indicated he just might be home.

McClellan ran into Gratelli on first floor between the metal detectors and the elevators.

‘How’d it go?’

‘Wanted to fix me breakfast,’ Gratelli said.

‘Ooh la la,’ McClellan said. ‘What else?’

‘He’s looking for a wife.’

‘Sounds like he’s lookin’ for a husband.’

‘He’s pretty relaxed. Pretty casual. Doesn’t sound like a guy with a tortured libido. Where are you going?’

‘Samuel Baskins.’

Gratelli smiled.

‘Do us a favor,’ McClellan said, handing Gratelli a crumpled scrap of paper. ‘Here, why don’t you take our little woman tycoon? I’d probably just piss her off. She’s got some sort of snooty PR agency down on Jackson Square. She’s only gonna be there until six. We better get her now. She’s one fucking busy broad.’ McClellan turned to go, changed his mind, turned back to Gratelli who was trying to figure out the handwriting on McClellan’s note.

‘We’re down to the dregs, Gratelli,’ McClellan said. ‘If these don’t lead somewhere, I don’t know where in the hell to go next.’

Sammie Cassidy met Gratelli in the waiting room and guided him through a maze of workstations to what appeared to be a media room. A huge wall of electronic gear – monitors, CD players, videotape machines, reel to reel tape recorders. He sat on the leather sofa and Sammie sat opposite him on some extremely modern chair, her black suit-coat and slacks blending with the leather on the chair. She looked more tough than snooty – a bit harsh, maybe even hard, in her cropped black hair. But her smile seemed genuine.

‘What can I do to help?’ she asked.

‘Tell me what you know about her, about her friends, her life,’ Gratelli said.

‘I wouldn’t know where to begin.’

‘You’re friends?’

‘Yes. Mostly work-out buddies,’ Sammie said. ‘We met at the gym, hit it off, so we decided to schedule our time at the gym together when we could. After that we’d go somewhere, sometimes. You know, coffee, a juice bar, sometimes for a drink or something to eat.’

‘No other times. Like maybe double dates?’

Sammie’s face burst into laughter. ‘Double date.’ She laughed some more.

‘I’m sorry. I’m out of touch with this sort of thing. You might even be married for all I know.’

She seemed to sober immediately. ‘No, I’m not married, Inspector. But we didn’t double date or really even see each other socially.’ She looked at him, as if weighing her words carefully, then obviously decided not to say more than, ‘No, just workout buddies.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Just didn’t. I mean. One has friends . . . for different things. This was just the way we knew each other. She was busy. I am very busy.’ Her look suggested that was more than just an answer to Gratelli’s question. It was a hint for him to hurry up and move on.

‘You guys work out a lot together?’

‘I go every day. She went three times a week.’

‘You must be very fit,’ Gratelli said.

‘I try to be.’

She was getting very agitated. Gratelli changed his tack. ‘You ever notice anyone hanging around the gym or maybe outside? Anyone you might think is suspicious especially now that you know what happened?’

She softened again. ‘I’ve thought about that,’ she said. ‘I can’t bring anybody to mind.’

‘She ever talk about anyone or anything that was troubling her.’

‘Not recently.’

‘How about going back a bit?’

‘No. There was some guy in a laundromat she had to testify against. She was a little worried. The guy she used to work for was trouble, I understand.’

‘Trouble?’

‘Hitting on her. Pressuring her. Sexual harassment. But that was a long time ago, now.’

‘What about David Seidman?’

‘What about him?’

‘Your impression of him.’

‘I don’t have one. She said he was a nice guy. I don’t think she was in love with him. Inspector, listen. I’d love to be able to help. We weren’t confidantes. We didn’t double date and we didn’t talk about our sex lives. We worked out, talked about diet, sometimes about our careers, women trying to make it. We weren’t giggling schoolgirls talking about crushes. Fortunately, our conversations weren’t that trivial.’

A young man was outside the glass doors of the office trying to get Sammie Cassidy’s attention. She waved him off. ‘I have to go,’ she said to Gratelli. She stood.

‘One more thing?’ Gratelli asked, rising to face her.

‘Sure.’

‘Where were you on that night.’

‘What? The night she . . . ?’

‘Yes.’

‘For heaven’s sake,’ she shook her head. ‘What on earth . . . ?’

‘I’m asking everyone.’

‘I worked here until ten.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I had a late bite at Beetlenut’s. Went home.’

‘Alone?’

She was silent for a moment, brown eyes glaring. ‘Yes. Alone.’

‘That’s me. Now, how about you?’ the man behind the door asked.

McClellan was out of breath. He’d climbed three floors of the tenement-styled apartment house to be confronted by a terrier of a man who wore some sort of back and neck brace.

‘McClellan, Mr Baskins. I’m with the police.’

‘What’s your business, officer?’ Baskins was as prissy as he was curt.

‘Seems like I’ve got a Mother Theresa complex today and I’m visiting the sick, crippled and the dying.’

Baskins looked puzzled for a moment, then shrugged. ‘I give, officer. This is what I need, another surreal day. One that makes no sense at all. There has been a succession of these, lately. And you are quite effective.’

‘What?’ McClellan asked.

‘Never mind. Just tell me why are you here. I don’t have an automobile. I don’t play my music loud. I don’t have any pets. I’m in bed by nine. What could I have possibly done?’

‘Do you know a guy named Ezra Blackburn?’ McClellan asked, head shaking ‘no’ in disbelief at one more nut case.

‘Never heard of him.’

‘You two guys would really hit it off.’

Baskins sighed deeply, folded his arms and stared at McClellan as if daring him to continue in this absurd conversation.

‘How about a Julia Bateman? You know a Julia Bateman?’

‘No. Am I supposed to know these people?’

‘Bateman was a gal who parked out front here waiting to get a good look at you, thinking maybe she might catch you jumping rope, bench pressing five hundred pounds or carrying a refrigerator back from K-Mart.’

‘I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.’

‘Well I think that’s probably the case, Mr Baskins. Been nice talkin’ with you.’

Out on the streets, McClellan saw a guy he used to arrest regularly when he was in burglary.

‘Hey, Barnaby. How they hangin’?’

‘Low as they go, Governor.’ Barnaby looked up. ‘Oh, sorry didn’t recognize you. You been eatin’ well.’

‘How about you? You rich yet?’

‘You know me, man. Rich one day, homeless the next.’

‘You gotta home now?’

‘Just got out. Lookin’ for one. You got something for me?’

‘Nah. Take care Barnaby. Get a job.’

On the way back to his car, McClellan passed a few massage parlors. Vietnamese, most of them now. He pushed the button by the door. He heard the buzz. He walked to a small wooden counter surrounded by struggling tropical plants. ‘Cho Cho here?’

The woman nodded.

In the little room, McClellan tried to forget about everything. Just a few minutes of escape, he prayed. A moment or two when nothing mattered. Rest. He felt the healing hands. He hoped he wouldn’t feel guilty afterward. Be quiet, he told himself. Retreat.

FOURTEEN

F
rom the air, Iowa’s farmland looked like a quilt on an unmade bed. The pattern was not composed of the neat, flat squares and rectangles of Kansas, Illinois or Indiana farms. The land in Iowa rolls. Circular and oval patches are not uncommon – showing a tendency toward independence if not creativity, showing a willingness to work with nature not impose itself upon it.

The ride from the airport in Cedar Rapids to a farmhouse just outside Julia’s hometown of Iowa City was full of slow rises and gentle falls. The blacktop curved sometimes over and sometimes around the smooth swells of earth.

It was mostly quiet with Royal Bateman behind the wheel, alert for the slow-moving, horse-drawn Amish carriages. Julia huddled inside a blanket, alone in the back seat. She took reluctant comfort from the land just now beginning to show rows of green sprouts in the rich dirt. The only sounds were the wind whistling in the window gap her father always maintained to keep the air fresh, the steady drone of the engine and the occasional rattle of her wheelchair.

She had ridden in the back seat of a Ford, several of them over the years, looking at the back of the same head many times, so many times. This Ford was fairly new, but blue and large like the others. The familiar head was covered with silver not black hair and there were deep, rut-like wrinkles cross-hatched on the back of his neck.