Good to the Last Kiss (12 page)

‘Why don’t you move to Ohio or something?’ Gratelli said.

‘I ain’t being run out,’ McClellan said. ‘Bunch of fuckin’ weirdoes have taken over the city.’

‘The city was founded by prostitutes, gamblers and con men, remember?’

‘Well they were whores, gamblers and con men who learned the fuckin’ English language. Now we got Salvadorans, Mexicans, Colombians, Chinese, Cambodian, Vietnamese. What was it Bateman said? The guy who did her had brown eyes?’

‘She said she thought he might have had brown eyes. It was dark, remember, and she wasn’t sure why she thought that. Hell, I have brown eyes.’ He shook his head. He didn’t know why he was being so short tempered. Maybe he didn’t like being second guessed by a task force either. It was like he and McClellan were being sawed off – no longer part of the department. No doubt it was because they didn’t want McClellan’s big mouth open when the press was around. ‘You believe all this crap you spout?’

McClellan put down his sandwich. He shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Gratelli. Everything’s so fuckin’ outta control. There’s gotta be some reason for it.’

All the other times Gratelli called him on his litany of hate, McClellan would respond, ‘You bet your sweet ass I do.’ Now he saw his partner quiet, sad. McClellan took a bite of his burger but seemed to have trouble swallowing it.

‘Are we gonna make this fuckin’ meeting?’ McClellan asked.

Gratelli looked at his watch. ‘We got time. Finish your burger.’

‘Live life, love and be happy,’ was what Paul Chang wanted to tell her as he sat on the edge of her bed, his fingers gently and affectionately trailing up her forearm. This was an expression they shared often, especially when times were rough. But seeing Julia’s bruised face, her lost and frightened eyes staring at her hands, this was clearly not the time.

He did not know what to say. They knew each other well enough to be comfortable during long silences, but words were all he could offer by way of support and he didn’t have any.

Julia’s father and her doctor were engaged in conversation near the door and not out of Julia and Paul’s earshot.

‘I don’t advise it, not for a few days.’

‘There are fine doctors in Iowa City,’ Mr Bateman said.

‘I don’t doubt that there are, not for a minute. And I’m sure that being in warm and familiar surroundings will encourage recovery. My concern at the moment is the time between here and there. She’s very steady and she’s doing well, but I’d like to have her here for a few more days anyway. Then we can talk about it.’

Paul got up and went to Julia’s father as the doctor retreated into the hall. ‘Mr Bateman, I’m going to be able to watch over her.’

Royal Bateman turned as if he’d been struck. ‘I want Julia out of this loony bin. For good!’ He seemed to recognize his overreaction. ‘Paul, I’m sorry. I’m so thankful you called. But this isn’t the place for her. You’re a young man, you’re tough, looking for the excitement this kind of city can offer. I understand that. But it’s not for Julia.’

‘Julia’s tough,’ Paul said, then realized how bizarre that sounded while the woman remained in shock, a physical and emotional wreck. ‘She’ll come around.’

He believed he knew her and he believed this to be true. More to the point, he didn’t want her to leave – to be hauled back like a prisoner to a place she had once escaped.

‘She’ll come around. At home. Where she belongs.’ The voice was calm, firm and seemed to make Julia’s trip back to Iowa not only certain, but permanent. ‘I know,’ Bateman continued, ‘that leaves your job up in the air . . .’

‘I don’t give a damn about the job, Julia lives here.’

‘I don’t think you could call this much of a life.’

Paul Chang turned toward Julia. If she had heard a word of the conversation, it didn’t show.

The news conference was over. The mayor had announced the task force as Gratelli had guessed he would. The mayor gave the media background on the members of the team, emphasizing the level of professional expertise. ‘Whatever is necessary,’ the mayor told the media. The task force was meeting now, the mayor said sternly, looking out at the cameras, eyes unwavering, unblinking.

Gratelli and McClellan were definitely the odd men out in the meeting called by Police Lieutenant James Lee Thompson. Not only were they the only members not on the larger task force and not introduced to the others until now, but they were older than all the others except Lieutenant Thompson.

It was also evident these were the ‘new’ police officers. The room wasn’t smoke-filled. The pre-meeting conversation was polite and professional. Everybody seemed freshly scrubbed and crisply and conservatively dressed. If Gratelli and McClellan didn’t know who they were, they would have guessed the group had just popped over from their high-rise offices on Montgomery in the financial district. Among the fifteen or so new police, there were two women, two blacks and one Asian.

If the politically correct preppie cop crowd gave Gratelli a pause for reflection, it made McClellan squeamish. Gratelli noticed his partner’s darting eyes and sour grin. Change didn’t come easily to McClellan. While they’d both seen these folks before – and had worked with some of them – seeing them all together like this was enlightening and frightening for McClellan. Gratelli was amazed. There was McClellan, an old bull moose with scruffy hair and a couple of tips missing from the antlers fighting for his life, a noble fight for plain speech and tradition, and a dumb, ignoble fight against education and tolerance.

To the young professional cops seated on folding chairs in the small room, McClellan – with his potbelly, nicotine-stained fingers, brash mannerisms and insensitive commentary on the world in general – must have been seen as a figure in sepia tones. There were fewer and fewer McClellan types in the department.

And those others with their hearts half in the old guard, didn’t mind cloaking their personalities some when the new breed was around. They talked the talk and would even walk the walk when they had to. McClellan was certainly not a career role model and associating with him wasn’t the wisest of political moves. As insensitive as McClellan appeared to be, he’d no doubt picked up the vibrations. He sat as far removed from the others as the walls would allow.

Lieutenant Thompson, on the other hand, was the quintessential police model. He adapted. He’d stopped smoking several years ago, jogged, kept his suits conservatively current, stayed mentally clear. He was always pleasant but never aligned himself politically, certainly not aligning with or against anyone.

The San Francisco office of the chief of police had become a revolving door. Chiefs were hired and fired much faster than mayors. Thompson took his work seriously enough and was content being a lieutenant rather than the mayor’s chief and primary lightening rod. As far as Gratelli was concerned, Thompson – walking to the front of the room with his short silver hair and gray eyes – was quietly and patiently or perhaps just cautiously ambitious; the kind of guy who was happy to stay out of the newspapers and not be subject to the turbulently political whims of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and a hungry alternative press. He would be happy to retire just short of chiefdom.

Next to the mayor, the chief of police was the most high-profile city job. And right now, with the string of sexual killings, the current chief probably wished the spotlight were shining on someone else too.

‘OK,’ Thompson said, ‘most of you know each other. The other thirty or so officers on the task force will be informed by memorandum of what is discussed here. I just wanted to make sure you know Inspector McClellan and Inspector Gratelli who are working the Bateman angle specifically.’ He looked, as everyone in the room did, at the two interlopers. ‘Since she’s the only live witness we know, what can she tell us?’

McClellan folded his arms across his chest. ‘Not much,’ he said.

‘I don’t know how much you all know, exactly,’ Gratelli said. ‘Miss Bateman is a licensed private investigator who drove from her main residence in San Francisco Friday afternoon to spend the weekend in her cabin near Gurneville. She was subsequently raped and brutally beaten at about eleven that night in her cabin. The perpetrator appears to have entered through the skylight in the hall of the cabin – actually dropping through the glass – striking Miss Bateman with a heavy object that at the moment we believe to be a flashlight. We believe he took her to the bedroom, raped and beat her repeatedly.’

Gratelli took a breath.

‘What do we know about the attacker?’ asked a woman in her late 30s.

‘The intruder wore a ski-mask, gloves, his body was completely covered,’ Gratelli said. ‘We think he is on the young side – that is probably under forty – and relatively fit because of the way he got in. The drop from the roof to the floor through the skylight is probably twelve feet. There is no indication that he was injured in the process.’

Heads nodded.

‘Is there anything she can tell about him?’

‘Brown eyes,’ McClellan volunteered, grinning at Gratelli.

‘Ms Bateman can’t be sure,’ Gratelli said. ‘She’s in shock still. Her mouth is wired shut. Our interview was a series of nods and headshakes and an occasional written answer. Actually, we can’t even be sure it was a he.’

‘Could be a lezzie,’ McClellan said. He grinned, a look that suggested he knew exactly what their opinion was of him and he was rubbing their faces in it.

‘As you do know,’ Thompson said, unfazed, ‘there’s nothing at the scene. Apparently our guy – assuming it was a guy, and I do – cleaned up afterward and was damned efficient in doing so.’

‘That’s right,’ Gratelli said.

‘Was she actually raped?’ asked the woman who had asked the question earlier. ‘I mean, was the guy getting off on it?’

Gratelli remembered she was the civilian psychologist brought into the case with much fanfare after the third victim was found and the incidents linked together.

‘As far as Miss Bateman could tell . . . uh . . . something was inserted. But, according to the medical report, there was no semen.’

‘And we don’t know how big it was,’ McClellan said. The room was quiet. McClellan sought to retrieve his remark by suggesting it had been serious, after all. ‘I mean, I suppose that could be a way to identify him or something.’ McClellan’s face went beet red and he squirmed in his seat.

‘It was difficult talking with her,’ Gratelli said quickly. ‘We need to give her a few days to rest.’

‘With a little rest perhaps her memory will be more vivid,’ Thompson said dryly, looking at McClellan.

Everyone laughed except McClellan – whose embarrassment seemed terminal – and Gratelli.

The FBI criminologist offered a profile.

‘I know we’ve gone over this, but for the benefit of the inspectors on the Bateman end, let me repeat. Because the victims were young and disadvantaged – excluding Bateman for now – we believe the perpetrator to be shy, under twenty-five, anti-social, probably abused as a child. VW bugs used to be the popular vehicle for a serial killer. Don’t ask me why. Now, he is likely to own a van. He may very well stutter or otherwise have a communication problem, not to mention serious problems with sex.’

‘How do you know all that?’ McClellan asked.

‘What he’s done fits the pattern established by other serial killers who have left these kinds of victims.’

‘What color is the van?’ McClellan asked, arms folded. Gratelli wished he would just shut up and listen.

‘Probably black, dark gray or dark blue. Dark in any event. Or at least plain.’

McClellan shook his head.

‘None of this works for Bateman,’ she continued. ‘He’s either changing his target which is possible, or something has changed in his life. Perhaps he has built some confidence. She could have been some sort of accident, a miscalculation on his part. Could be just that the opportunity was so right, he couldn’t resist.’

‘Our perpetrator could have done Bateman. I believe he did,’ McClellan said.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Like I said, a change or insight on his part, a graduation of sorts based on increased confidence, an opportunistic decision. Any of those would explain what amounts to a modest modification of his behavior. She was the most recent victim, right?’

‘Yes,’ Gratelli said. ‘As far as we know.’

‘Since this one was somewhat different, perhaps this signifies a change in pattern.’

‘Any other possibilities?’ Lieutenant Thompson asked.

McClellan and Gratelli were dismissed. The meeting, however, continued.

TEN

‘
W
hat more can I say?’ Paul asked his two visitors, Inspectors Gratelli and McClellan as he handed them an inch-thick manila folder. ‘These are a few of the recent cases, the nastier ones. There’s also a little file on a Darvy McWilliams. She testified against him in a parole hearing. And I’ve put in a little profile of Ezra Blackburn, her former employer who might have a grudge. Might not.’

Gratelli and McClellan had been all but banished from the serial killings. The task force and new homicide detectives were following up on what was becoming increasingly cold leads in deaths of the others – the girls. No new deaths that fit the pattern. No new leads.

Bateman’s case remained on the fringe. Gratelli and McClellan still had it, though it was clear what Gratelli and McClellan were doing was now little more than clerical as it related to Julia’s possible connection. They were to build files to show the police had followed all the leads. ‘Cover your ass’ was the operative philosophy. The task force was divided on the Bateman connection. On one hand, it really didn’t fit. On the other, there was the tiny detail – the rose tattoo. For Gratelli and McClellan, Bateman was the only link to the deaths worth pursuing. So despite the short shrift the department gave the investigation, Gratelli and McClellan continued to pursue it.