Good to the Last Kiss (28 page)

Gratelli had his reasons for believing this. One of them was that the person who attacked Julia had engraved a rose on the inside of her thigh. A rose with a thorn on the stem. The serial killer, quite possibly Earl Falwell, had carved out a tulip. Something everyone had overlooked. In the beginning, someone called it a ‘rose.’ And it became a ‘rose,’ until Earl corrected them. Now, suddenly, the ‘rose’ had a thorn? Had Earl added the detail on his own? Not likely.

Who else had access to the intimate details of the victims who might also have a personal motive? Seidman surely did. A jilted lover.

The call Julia Bateman received while Gratelli was there was from David Seidman. She had blown him off again. If it was to happen it could very well be tonight. Then again, if by some long shot Earl Falwell was the one who attacked Julia Bateman, how would he get back to the scene? His car was still impounded. He knew he was being watched. He had no way of knowing she was returning to the cabin.

Gratelli sat back in the large, overstuffed chair in his apartment, the one situated between the speakers of his stereo. He had already dropped the needle into the first groove of the LP. He wasn’t sure if he was patient enough this evening to wait for the voice of Placido Domingo to transport him to another plane of existence.

It was almost as if someone switched on a light inside Earl Falwell’s head. He was awake. Seriously awake. His body seemed to pulse with electricity. His mind was clear. He knew what he was going to do. It was a little different than before. They all had been, since prison. Since Cobra. A cycle had been broken. Another had begun. He had no idea what path he was on, but even that was somehow exciting.

It wasn’t the sad longing that would lead him to the young street girls. It wasn’t the cold, bitter and immature desire for physical satisfaction that drove him to rape and kill the young man. What he discovered was his own world. The world of the others had always confused him. Their lives. Their needs. Their rules. They were right. He was stupid. Now it didn’t matter.

He would not be caught again. Not in the daily traps set by ordinary people. Not in prison. He would have none of it. He would kill the woman. And once he found him, Earl Falwell would kill the caller.

An irritating ringing intruded upon Domingo’s aria.

‘Yes?’ Gratelli said.

‘Seidman is walking his dog.’ It was Paul Chang.

‘His dog?’

‘A little white terrier of some sort. Doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. Got his slippers on.’

‘I appreciate you doing this for me,’ Gratelli said.

‘Sure, but it’s really for Jules.’

‘I know, call me if things change.’

TWENTY-SEVEN

S
leep came reluctantly and without commitment. Julia’s mind hovered around consciousness in a stark, gray place. The dream was more like a vision because she understood the shadowy hallways and the opaque windows were not real. Neither were the shapes of transparent draperies that danced in an invisible wind.

Julia was cold. She crept back into consciousness long enough to pull the comforter from her feet up, over her body, and over her shoulders. Slipping back into the vision, Julia felt the heavy down comforter. It folded over her like the wings of the dark angel.

Earl Falwell pegged the burgundy Oldsmobile parked down the street, off Stanyan. He knew GM products backward and forward. He knew he could get in and get it started.

Paul Chang called Gratelli, reported that David Seidman had gone to bed. Alone. Or possibly with his terrier. He would hang out a while longer.

The black asphalt drive still held a touch of the day’s heat. Earl could feel it through the soles of his bare feet. His clothes were stacked neatly beside him as he crouched naked a few feet from the glass window.

The night sky held only half a moon. Even so, there were shafts of light spiking through the holes in the scented pine. In the streaks of gold light Earl could see a clear, slight shimmering of the California fog and feel its fine mist on his flesh. There was a sense of the universe pulsing. And gradually Earl felt himself become part of it.

At least for the moment, Earl had shrugged off any sense of himself, that which had a history or a future. This self that was the culmination of all that preceded the moment. Inside, beyond the glass, was not a witness, but prey. Even that wasn’t a thought now, but the beginning of the act.

Suddenly the universe went quiet, empty. All of his muscle and bone and flesh were part of a single, sustained movement. Earl’s body lunged at and through the glass, but not before a moment of recognition. Seeing himself, however faintly in the reflection of the moonlight against the sheet of glass – powerful, naked, crashing into himself.

Julia heard the crash. It seemed to be at a distance. Yet she knew it wasn’t. It was near. Someone had come for her. She could not move. She attempted to scream. It came out a whisper. She felt herself slipping, sinking through the mattress. Something was wrong, dreadfully wrong. She tried to move her hand from beneath her and toward the nightstand. It inched at a horrifically slow pace.

A large white dog was in the hallway, teeth clenched on drapery. The head twisted on its thick muscular neck, ripping, tearing the fabric from the wall.

Julia was caught in her dream, in the hallway, trapped under the drapery, under her comforter, under her wings. There was the smell, but it wasn’t coming from outside, but inside. Inside the mattress. ‘Oh Christ,’ she whispered, murmured. It was to her the smell of death.

Finally, fingertips touched the hard cool steel of the revolver. The gray vision receded, bringing her back into the darkness of her room.

The .32 was in her hand as she slipped off the bed. She could make out a form that was only slightly darker than the darkness in the hallway.

She could hear it breathing. She fired. The hall lit yellow, then white. She could see the golden, naked body with rivers of blood flowing from the face, shoulder and arms, crash against the wall. She waited. She could hear breathing. A heartbeat. The attacker’s or her own? Her eyes scanned the darkness. Though she doubted her perception, an amorphous form seemed to be moving toward her, she fired again. Another flash. The face was one she could almost recollect, but one she was sure wasn’t the one. She wasn’t sure how she knew that, but she knew. She sensed the form closer to her. She wasn’t sure how she knew that either. Perhaps the breathing. She fired again. The light flashed, another single strobe flash that showed a body going down, face up, eyes open, looking toward her. Startled.

Julia stood in the dark, too scared to move. She understood that she might be in shock. She took a deep breath, moved back toward her room and flicked the hall switch. After the flash of the gun, the hall light seemed dim and muddied. What it revealed was the body of a naked man, sprawled on his belly, one arm reaching out toward her. Julia was surprised how the limp body seemed so relaxed, so much at peace. His youth didn’t escape her notice. The attacker’s body, at least from this angle, was beautiful . . . beautiful in the way wild animals are beautiful. Could be a freshly killed leopard robbed of its soul, leaving only its rich, sleek, elegantly formed body behind.

It was light by the time Gratelli arrived. The call from the local police he had advised earlier was a courtesy. The attack Gratelli suggested to the local police ‘might’ happen, did. Gratelli walked through the cop cars, ambulances, news trucks and the like up to the front porch. The front door was open. The window beside it was shattered. Jagged edges of glass had captured some blood. There was a small swarm of cops and cameras outside.

Inside, more cops and some guys who looked like medics bustled in the living room and the hall. There was no one to administer medicine to. According to the phone call, the intended victim was alive and physically unharmed. The attacker was dead. Julia Bateman was on the sofa near the front door, staring blankly at the broken window. Gratelli was glad she recognized him and had nodded. That meant she was in pretty decent shape. Considering.

‘Everything is the way it was,’ a local cop said. ‘Gratelli?

‘Yeah.’

‘What is this? Second time for the victim. This the strangler?’

Gratelli shrugged.

‘She’s a survivor, isn’t she?’ the cop continued. ‘She got him back, the bastard. That don’t happen often.’

Gratelli went toward the body. He dropped down on his haunches, bones creaking. He lifted one shoulder to get a better look at the face. It couldn’t be; but it was. Earl Falwell. The boy’s face and body was severely lacerated, but it was clearly Earl Falwell. Gratelli shook his head. How wrong could he have been?

‘Crashed through the glass back there,’ said the same cop who had followed Gratelli to the body, ‘like a damned dumb animal or something. You know how those birds crash against the glass thinking it’s sky or something? Weird shit.’ The narrow hallway was crowded and the traffic was irritating to Gratelli, who wished he had his own people there. ‘Car around the bend,’ the cop continued, ‘back in some trees. Stolen.’

‘Thanks,’ Gratelli said. He wanted the guy to go away. He wanted to think. How could he have been so wrong?

‘You were up here before?’

‘Yeah.’ Gratelli answered, hoping the local officer would pick up on the impatience in his voice.

‘Yeah, I thought so. With the other cop. I remember him clearly. Big fellow. Irish. Irish name, anyway.’

‘Right.’

‘How’s he doin’?’

‘Resting,’ Gratelli said. ‘You mind if I ask Ms Bateman some questions?’

‘No, go ahead. This is the guy, right? This is really a better way, you know? Celebrity trial. Go on forever. Cost a fortune. He’s dead. It’s done. Over.’

‘Could be.’ Gratelli said, rising up slowly, his knees hurting, making that sound again. He looked down at the body again, thinking how fit the youth was. Strange who dies, who lives.

‘Whaddya mean, “could be”? You don’t think this guy is the strangler?’

‘Oh, probably,’ Gratelli said.

‘Up here. There’ll be a circus around here for months.’

‘I’ll be out of your way pretty soon.’

‘Take your time, Inspector,’ the cop said. ‘Listen, the guy slipped by us. We had a car up here.’

‘It’s all right. It’s all over now,’ Gratelli said as he moved toward the sofa and its sole, lonely, frightened occupant.

‘You OK?’ Gratelli asked Julia Bateman.

‘I don’t know. I think so.’

‘Did he say anything to you?’

‘No.’

‘You recognize him?’

‘No. There’s just something funny.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know how to explain it,’ she said.

‘Tell me. Doesn’t matter what it is.’

‘It’s silly,’ she said.

‘Silly works for me,’ he said.

‘It’s not who I expected.’

‘Who did you expect?’

‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head, gave Gratelli a feeble, hopeless kind of smile. ‘I just thought I’d know who it was when I saw him.’

‘You think the person who attacked you the first time was someone you knew?’

‘No. I don’t know. I half expected someone to come. I didn’t know who it would be. But I kind of thought I’d know. Somehow, I’d have some form of recognition. I don’t know this man,’ she said emphatically.

‘Funny you should think that,’ Gratelli said. ‘He’s quite a surprise to me, too.’

Paul came in. Gratelli had called Paul when he was halfway to Forestville. They made good time.

Paul knelt in front of Julia. ‘It’s over now,’ Paul said.

‘Thanks for coming,’ Julia said. ‘Can I go back with you?’

‘Of course.’

She walked toward the door. ‘I think I’ll just have the cabin burned.’

The protocol had been worked out. The Gurneville police chief would hold a news conference at nine a.m. in Gurneville. They would talk about that specific incident, not the broader implications. The San Francisco police chief would talk at ten a.m. in San Francisco and would address the serial angle. Julia Bateman would be in seclusion. ‘Understandably, she is in need of a little peace and quiet,’ would be the phrase they would use.

The
San Francisco Examiner
finally got some benefit being an afternoon paper. The headline: Bay Strangler Dead?