Good to the Last Kiss (26 page)

Both went silent as the waiter came, took their order.

‘Police have any leads on this strangler?’ Maldeaux said after the gentleman left and in a tone that indicated he wanted to change the subject.

‘He’s not a strangler,’ Seidman said. ‘He breaks their necks.’

‘The paper says . . .’

‘Homicide doesn’t want to correct the general impression. We’ve gotten a dozen confessions. Only the killer knows how it was really done.’

‘Oh. No leads, though?’

David sighed. He seemed uninterested. ‘No more deaths.’

‘You were saying something about a Jerry Falwell?’

‘No, no. Not Jerry. Earl, I think.’ Seidman shook his head, trying to dispel something from his brain. ‘Doubt it. Boy just came through again. Just like last time, he got in a fight, pounded some guy’s face until it looked like raw meat. Homicide still gets an alert – as do we – when he comes through the system.’

‘Nothing to tie him with . . .’

‘Probably no connection. Listen, I’m sorry for all that whining.’

‘I’m a friend, right? That’s what it’s about.’

‘Of course. When I get hold of something, it’s hard to let go.’

‘I know,’ Maldeaux said. ‘You don’t like to lose. That’s why you do, my all too serious friend.’

The salad came.

‘We’ll talk about something a little lighter, what do you say?’ Seidman said.

‘The fellow across the way won’t be bothering you,’ Paul Chang told Julia Bateman.

‘What? What do you mean?’ There was a stack of old invoices, checks and checking account statements in front of her.

‘I talked to him,’ Paul said, thumbing through an old copy of
Newsweek
magazine.

‘You did? Why? I mean, what a strange thing to do.’

‘Is it?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I guess not.’

‘He’s terrified you’ll report him. He’s had a brush or two with the police.’

‘Then he should stop, shouldn’t he?’

‘He knows it. He’s tried to stop. He’s seen five therapists.’ Paul flicked through a few pages, saw the story on the killings. He checked the date. The magazine was three months old. ‘He can’t help it. Actually, he didn’t know you were home.’

‘He keeps track of that?’ Julia asked sharply.

‘Said he’s careful not to stand by the window when someone can see him.’

‘I thought that was the point.’

‘Not for you to see him. He knew you’d been gone. Didn’t know you were back.’

‘Why does he do it in the window then? He wants someone to see him?’

‘Yes. Apparently Mrs Clark in the apartment right below you not only likes our friend to do it, she does it for our friend. Mutual.’

Julia couldn’t help but laugh. ‘God, why don’t they just do it together?’

‘Spoil everything. Take all the fun out of it. It’s just how life works sometimes. I sort of understand it.’

‘You would,’ she said. ‘You find that all pretty interesting, don’t you?’

‘Yes. The world is willing to talk about everything in their lives. Really, think about it. Go into detail. But not sex. That’s why the twists and perversions. It’s the taboo that forces people to hide their little private fetishes, where they have a chance to fester. No one wants to talk about it.’

‘I’m putting the cabin on the market.’

‘Good.’

‘I figure it’ll take a few days to get it ready, get it listed. All that stuff.’

‘You can have somebody do that, you know?’

‘Not all of it. I have stuff there.’

‘We’ll go up some afternoon,’ Paul said.

‘I’m going up this weekend.’

‘I’ll go with you.’

‘No. Stay here. What have we got that’s active? Anything?’

‘We can still bill for Baskins. I completed the stake out – with a little help from some friends. Apparently his injuries are for real. We’ve got an appointment with Mr Harvey on another injury case. And three autos we’re to locate. I’ve been working on them. Listen, let me come up with you. It’s exciting up at the River this time of year.’ He grinned. ‘And I’m a free man.’

‘Free or not. I want to go up. I want to face it. I need to.’

‘You can stay at a hotel or a bed and breakfast up there.’

‘No, I need to stay there,’ Julia said.

‘One moment you’re Zazu Pitts and the next you’re Sylvester Stallone. What happens if Sylvester becomes Zazu in the middle of the night and you’re up there all by your lonesome?’

‘I don’t know much about these things,’ Gratelli told the clerk at the men’s fragrance counter at Macy’s.

‘What’s there to know?’ said a blond youth cheerfully. ‘Find one you like.’

‘You have Old Spice?’ Gratelli asked the clerk, whose answer was a ‘you know better than that’ glance. ‘I didn’t think so. Listen, I’m trying to find a cologne or after shave that smells like butter.’

‘Butter?’ the clerk asked.

‘Yeah, butter.’

The clerk looked as if he’d been offered a dish of onion ice cream.

‘No.’

‘Subtle kind of thing,’ Gratelli said.

‘The butter, you mean?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Is it that you want something that smells like butter?’

‘Yeah, I’m trying to get a date with Mrs Butterworth.’

‘OK,’ the clerk said. ‘You’ve smelled it yourself, this scent?’

‘No. Someone described a smell, a scent whatever you call it. And it was something like butter.’

‘And it’s a cologne.’

‘I don’t know,’ Gratelli said.

‘Could be suntan oil, maybe?’

‘Maybe. How much you know about this stuff?’ Gratelli said, waving his arm over the dozens of bottles on the counter top.

‘I know the brands, but I’m not a perfumer.’

‘Oh? I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘You’re pretty serious, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Let me make a call for you.’

Gratelli hadn’t spent much time thinking about Earl Falwell. Neither had the nearly defunct task force. But the system was still in place. They had been notified of Earl’s assault arrest and had forwarded a copy in an envelope to ‘Inspectors McClellan and Gratelli.’

Gratelli, noting how much impact McClellan’s death had upon others, wasn’t all that interested in Falwell; but he thought that maybe it was worth checking some things. Search the apartment again, for example. Maybe because of the suddenness of his arrest and the length of time since he had been a suspect – not to mention the halt in the killings – the apartment might reveal something it hadn’t earlier. Gratelli had no problem getting a new warrant to search Earl Falwell’s apartment. And he coaxed Barnaby Richardson from Narcotics to help him search. Richardson could find a flea in the desert.

Very little, if anything, had changed in Earl Falwell’s apartment in the back of a Victorian home on Stanyan. Gratelli stood there for a moment, having his Xerox copy of the view he had earlier. The other cop was already into the search.

Physically Barnaby Richardson was an unlikely officer of the law. The small physique, elfin face and mental agility, however, made him an excellent undercover agent and his ability to ferret out hiding places had no match.

‘A cave dweller, hmm?’ Richardson said, shortly after entering the dark interior. The narcotics cop went immediately to the shelf holding the CDs. ‘A trophy hunt, is it?’ he asked, referring to the usual practice of a serial killer which was to keep something that belonged to the victim.

‘Whatever,’ Gratelli said. ‘It’s been a long time since the last kill – that we know of. We found no trophies the first time we searched. Maybe you’ll have more luck.’

Richardson didn’t seem to be too interested in which CDs Earl collected. Richardson was more interested in what was inside. Wearing latex gloves, he went through each one, putting each one back, very carefully. When he was done he made sure they were all neatly aligned.

‘You notice anything, Gratelli?’

‘The place is dark. Not much here to reveal what kind of person he is – other than he’s nocturnal.’

‘He’s neat,’ Richardson said. ‘Very neat. Here’s a kid you say isn’t too bright, leaves no clues at the scene.’

‘Maybe it’s neatness, not brightness.’

‘Sure. Also means he’s careful.’

Gratelli covered the more traditional hiding places, checking out walls and floors in the closet, up and underneath the drawers in the bureau, heating ducts, under the carpet. He checked the bathroom tiles. Using Richardson as a model, Gratelli was careful to put each item back where it had been found.

‘Well, what have we here?’ Richardson said from the kitchen.

He emerged with photographs.

Gratelli’s countenance brightened. ‘Photos?’

Richardson’s face held less promise. ‘Interesting, but not what you’d hope. Even so . . .’

Gratelli looked. Polaroids, not of the victims, but of Earl Falwell himself. Oiled and naked. ‘Not a hair on his body,’ Gratelli said, flipping through the photos showing Earl in various poses.

‘I don’t know if that’s being neat or just kinky,’ Richardson said.

‘This puts a whole new light on things,’ Gratelli said, more to himself than to Richardson.

‘That would explain no pubic hair left at the scene,’ Richardson volunteered. ‘But that’s about all.’

‘A freshly bathed body, free of body hair, a little oil to keep the body tissue from scaling, a hood over his head . . .’ Gratelli’s voice trailed off into thought. What traces would the killer leave behind?

‘You see a hood?’ Barnaby asked.

The kid not only had a fairly substantial vacuum cleaner for his small, one room apartment, but an abnormally large number of specialized cleaning products for kitchen and bath – items that Gratelli and McClellan had overlooked or at least gave no importance to during the first search.

The bag of the vacuum cleaner had been emptied recently.

Gratelli and Richardson spent hours in the small apartment, but found nothing other than the Polaroids that were incriminating – and those weren’t anything on which to base an arrest. It wasn’t illegal to take a picture of yourself or to shave your body.

However, it did give Gratelli reason to heighten his interest in Falwell. He would interrogate him again tomorrow.

On the drive back to the Hall of Justice, the image of Falwell’s oiled flesh danced back to Julia Bateman’s comments about smelling butter and leather.

He had foolishly not paid attention to the various lotions in Falwell’s bathroom and linen closet. He had seen Johnson’s Baby Oil. There was tanning lotion. Was there butter in the refrigerator? Where would there be a smell of leather?

For a moment, Gratelli’s mind flashed back to the leather chaps in Paul Chang’s apartment. He dismissed it.

Perhaps after the interrogation tomorrow, he would go back to Earl’s apartment and check out these little details himself.

TWENTY-FIVE

‘
H
ow did he get out?’ Gratelli spoke into the telephone. ‘Oh, who bailed him?’ There was a pause. ‘Find out.’

Gratelli wanted to talk with Earl Falwell, wanted to take one more shot. McClellan had done the interview before. He was better than Gratelli at interrogation. But maybe a different approach would mean a few different answers.

He had spent the morning testifying on an unrelated case. It was one McClellan was supposed to handle. McClellan had done the report and most of the work. Gratelli’s testimony was thin, bordering on flaky. He was embarrassed and angry.

He was still thinking about Falwell. He hadn’t gotten out after his first arrest. No one wanted the kid, as Gratelli remembered it. Falwell was stuck in jail for months because he didn’t have the bail and, apparently, anyone willing to post it. What changed in Falwell’s life? Who cared enough about him to bail him out? And bail him out so quickly. Who knew he was in?

Gratelli stood. Falwell’s small, dark apartment wasn’t designed for visitors. In fact there wasn’t much in the way of creature comforts even for the resident creature. If you wanted off your feet, there was the bed. There were two visitors. One was a uniformed policeman, Gratelli commandeered. He wasn’t about to spend a few hours alone with some guy who had a history of beating people to an inch of their lives with his bare fists.

‘You remember me, right?’ Gratelli asked. He held two envelopes in his hand. One large brown one. One smaller white one.

‘Yeah.’ Falwell said. His head was aimed down at the floor, but his eyes were on the inspector. ‘You were with the fat guy at the station.’

‘Earl, you could be in a lot of trouble.’

‘How’s that?’

‘Killing people.’

‘I didn’t kill nobody. Beat up one guy on the highway and beat up this bastard at work. They’re still walking around.’

‘How’d you get out?’

‘Whaddya mean?’

‘Bail. Who got you out?’

‘Magic, man.’ Earl looked up, grinned.

‘You gonna be difficult?’

‘Don’t wanna be. Don’t know.’

‘Don’t know who posted bail?’

‘Nope.’

‘Friends. One of your friends maybe? Your boss? A relative?’

Earl kept shaking his head. ‘No relatives, no friends. My boss fired my ass. Don’t imagine he came through. Call him. Ask him.’

‘I’m asking you.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Nobody you can think of? No one pops into your mind?’

‘Why do you keep asking me the same question?’

‘Because you’re not telling me the truth.’ Gratelli spoke flatly, without intonation. ‘You have a good guess, don’t you?’ There was a long silence. ‘OK,’ Gratelli continued. ‘I have some photos I want you to look at.’

Earl shrugged.

‘Come over here,’ Gratelli said, spreading the contents of the larger envelope on the bed. He fanned out the photos of eight victims. Their faces. The bodies. Close-ups of the engravings.