Good to the Last Kiss (17 page)

There was mention of Donnie Patton ever more frequently. His eyes. His voice. The long talks. About the future. About dreams without stunting compromises with reality. Then suddenly Donnie Patton appeared no more. She had put him and the event by the Cedar River back and out of her mind. Nothing else appeared either. The remaining half of the diary was blank.

That evening, at dinner, Royal let it slip that she had received more calls. From Paul, mostly. But there were a few from David Seidman and one from a fellow with a strange name he couldn’t recall. Royal had told them Julia was not yet ready to talk, to be reminded of what happened.

‘I was here. How did I miss the calls?’

‘I had them transferred to the store – automatically. The phone company calls it something . . .’

‘Call forwarding.’

‘I didn’t want you thinking about it all,’ Royal said, not apologetically, nor even sympathetically. His voice had the hard, cold ring of authority. Absolute authority.

Not since leaving home had Julia ever permitted such control over her life. Now, she was quiet. Inert, really. She wondered why she hadn’t thought much about Paul and David. Especially Paul, who had been such a close and understanding friend. She would call them. Later.

‘You best let these things go,’ Royal said as if he knew what she was thinking. ‘You’re here now, where you belong.’

At first, staying in her old room was comforting. The house, which hadn’t changed, gave her a sense of security even when Royal left for work as he did invariably at six forty-five every morning of the week except Sundays.

Julia prepared dinner and more than once Royal remarked she was as good a cook as her mother. She was sure he didn’t mean it, but was pleased that she could be helpful. A few times she mentioned she ought to get a job.

Usually, he wasn’t encouraging. However the last time, over Sunday afternoon dinner at Aunt Harriet’s, it was apparent he had given it some thought.

‘In a little while, Julia,’ Royal said. ‘If you like. Maybe you could work for me. Maybe help us modernize the business a bit. Get us a computer or something. You know about those things, I imagine.’

Julia hadn’t been to the nursery since she got back. But it was another familiar place, another place to reconnect her to the past rather than the future. She could almost smell the Spruce and Hemlock, the flowering crab apple trees, the lilacs.

‘I meant something kind of temporary,’ Julia said, ‘while I try to figure out my future. I still have a business there.’ Strange how ‘there’ was a distance now measured in time as well as miles. As the familiarity of home invaded her senses, San Francisco seemed to recede. It wasn’t as real. On one hand she understood that it provided insulation from the horror. On the other, it frightened her. A strange fear. It was as if she were losing who she was.

Royal’s face went hard. He looked at Harriet. Her solemn face didn’t betray a thought or feeling.

‘Paul called last week.’ She could sense her father tensing as she spoke. ‘We’re just talking right now. He’s kept everything up. He’s very good.’

Harriet got up and put on the coffee.

‘You don’t take oak trees or maples and put them in the desert, Julia. And you don’t take palm trees and plant them in Ottumwa.’ She had heard this before. Royal believed that people, like plants, did their best in the geography of their origin. ‘That city is no place for you. I should think that would be quite obvious by now.’

The remainder of the evening was quiet. Royal didn’t finish his plate and resisted the blackberry pie. Harriet packed the pie, along with some other items from her garden, into the cardboard box Julia put into the backseat of the Ford Victoria.

‘Why don’t you come into town for dinner one night this week,’ Julia asked Harriet.

‘I’m not much for coming into the city, anymore,’ Harriet said. ‘Iowa City is a little too busy for me. I get into Kalona once a week. That’s enough for me.’

‘Cheese,’ Julia remembered. Kolona was small by any standards. The clearest memory Julia had of the Amish town was of the black horse-drawn wagons backed up to the old brick building where they made cheese. She remembered the smell of horses and milk.

FIFTEEN

T
he neighborhoods around the Bateman’s Church Street home in Iowa City suggest the pleasant perils of the 1950s families – the Cleavers, the Nelsons – missing cookies, lessons about telling small lies and other minor misunderstandings. Nice, modest, well-kept homes, kept but not manicured lawns, splashes of garden color. Quiet. Safe.

Within walking distance of her home was Hickory Hill Park. There was a cemetery near. Despite having lived there all of her childhood, she could never remember its name. Just as she was about to look up and see the name above the gate and memorize it, the large statue visible ahead always stole her gaze and her thoughts.

For the most part, it was a relatively normal little cemetery – concrete stones embedded in little mounds of green lawn. Around them were narrow avenues that would curve and, eventually, lead visitors back to the tall iron-gated entrance. Fresh cut flowers and patriotic flags were plentiful despite the fact that it wasn’t the Fourth of July or Memorial Day.

Julia found the walk through the cemetery both appealing and profoundly sad. Towering over one black-topped avenue was the Black Angel. Her head down. Her dark, weathered bronze wings folded over her like a large, heavy cape.

The Black Angel frightened her when she was a child. She would have nightmares that heaven was far less desirable than people made it out to be. Now, looking at the face, the posture, the cape-like wings, Julia didn’t feel fear at all.

The expression on the angel’s face wasn’t what she had remembered. She wasn’t sure if she had ever seen the angel’s face before. The angel’s eyes showed not so much sadness as compassion. The angel’s wings spoke of protection. The face of the angel showed determination.

Julia sat on the ground beneath it and began to cry. She knew she wasn’t done yet. It wasn’t over.

The next few days she was drawn back again to the Black Angel, wanted to hide under the shroud-like wings. She looked forward to the walks and to her stay with the angel.

Less appealing were the errands that took her from the solitude of the house. The pharmacy and the food co-op were more civilization than she cared to encounter. Some people in town still knew her. She could see the concerned look on their faces when they noticed her. Though her face and body were nearly healed and her walk almost normal, many had to have known her story – or part of it. Human nature being what it is, Julia imagined that what part of the story they didn’t know, they invented.

Those she knew, who insisted upon engagement, she would engage briefly. She would be polite with them; but she would excuse herself quickly with one alibi or another. The horror came when she came face to face with Wayne in the Co-Op. He had rounded the corner by the wine. They had come face to face. There was no way out – for either of them.

‘Julia? For heaven’s sake,’ Wayne said. ‘I heard you were here. How are you?’

‘Fine.’

‘Good. You look fine,’ he said.

Funny, she thought, how after all these years, she could still detect when he was being insincere. But something had changed.

‘How have you been?’ she asked, looking around, hoping to see something or someone to rescue her. She could be insincere too. Insincerity was important in awkward moments like these.

‘Fine.’ He nodded. There was a kindness in his face she didn’t remember.

‘You staying?’

‘I . . . am visiting . . . visiting my father.’

‘How is he?’ Wayne asked.

‘The same. He doesn’t change.’

‘No,’ Wayne laughed awkwardly. ‘No I’m sure he hasn’t. Well, I’ve seen him, of course. From a distance. I’ve never gotten up the courage since . . . since the divorce.’

Oddly, Wayne, who once dominated her life physically and emotionally, seemed powerless. The look on his face she thought was kindness now seemed more like uneasiness. He seemed as troubled and embarrassed running into her as she was meeting him.

‘Yes. I’m kind of in a hurry, Wayne. I’m glad you’re fine. You’re looking great. Happy even.’ She looked around for a passing life raft.

‘Thanks to Jesus Christ,’ he said. ‘I know, I know. Sounds crazy. I won’t bore you with it. Just wanted to let you know that I’m not that person anymore. I’ve asked for forgiveness from God.’

‘That’s good, Wayne.’

‘I should have asked you too.’ He looked nervous. ‘For forgiveness, I mean.’

‘Long time ago,’ she said. ‘Got to go.’

‘Something to think about,’ Wayne said. ‘The Lord, I mean.’

‘Yes,’ she said, nearly running back into one of the aisles.

When she found the mayonnaise, she headed toward checkout. Wayne and a woman about his age and two little blond boys were gathering the bags. They seemed happy in the world they created.

Julia felt like an impostor. She was only pretending to live here. Only pretending she was one of them.

Iowa City was a wonderful place; but she couldn’t shake the notion that she had come back to ghosts, that she hadn’t come here to live at all, but to die quietly, passively, defeated.

She knew at that moment, she would return to San Francisco. It was only a matter of telling her father. She had to go back in order not to be defeated by the evil that sent her away. She had to go back because that was her home.

SIXTEEN

I
t was a routine call for Gratelli and McClellan. There was no reason to believe that it was related to the others. Just a call. A suspicious death. The grandchild of the owners of an old Edwardian in the Haight found the body. Gratelli and McClellan had the luck of the draw. They were back on other cases now that the trail grew cold on the tattoo artist killings and Julia Bateman was back in the Midwest. The task force was still in place, but only nominally. The media had refocused, without the periodic infusion of fresh kills.

McClellan stood above the remains. Not much there. He stood, staring. Almost transfixed on what was little more than a skeleton. The skin of the face was stretched over the bones like thin, worn leather over wood. But all flesh beneath it was gone. The physical matter of this former being was being slowly absorbed.

Gratelli knelt down. There were leathery patches of flesh on the rest of the body. Enough to identify it as a female. A nude female. And there were marks, indistinguishable now, where a rose might have been etched.

‘She’s one of them,’ Gratelli said.

‘Earth comes. Takes you away,’ McClellan said. ‘Not a bad thing.’

Gratelli looked back at the house. A young boy, maybe two, stood in the doorway, above the steps. Eyes open wide, thumb in his mouth. Face blank. He was the one who found her, Gratelli was pretty sure.

At the foot of the concrete steps stood an old rocking horse.

A lot of time had passed since Earl Falwell had seen the outside. He was entitled to a speedy trial, his lawyer argued and now there was some chance that the guy who pressed charges was losing interest in being a witness for the prosecution.

‘Time was money,’ the guy said. His work was completed in San Francisco and he had something important going on in Boston. Meanwhile, without bond, Earl had done some time for it, hadn’t he, the guy said to the prosecutor over the phone.

Meanwhile, Earl had shared the cell with a succession of goons, crackpots, and losers. He was about to get the most recent – a guy called ‘Cobra’ the guard said as the ferret-like human angled into the room.

‘Shit,’ Earl said, disgustedly.

‘Who was you expectin’?’ Cobra asked. ‘One of the Spice Girls?’

It wasn’t until later when Cobra took off his shirt, baring his scrawny, bony chest that Earl noticed the tattoo. How had he missed it? The guy’s whole right arm was a snake. The head and eyes were on the back of the hand.

‘Why the fuck you do that?’ Earl said.

‘’Cause it fascinates. That’s how them snakes get their kill, you know.’ The guy got up off his bunk, came over to Earl. Cobra raised his arm. ‘Snake moves like this and some little beady-eyed rodent gets hypnotized.’ Cobra kept moving his hand.

Earl had to hand it to him, the work was real good. Maybe it wouldn’t be all that good in a better light. Maybe it was the way Cobra could turn his arm and flex his muscles. The way his fist looked like a snakehead. Whatever it was, it sure did look like a snake. It was fascinating. He could be watching a real snake move. Made him feel weird. It was almost like doing acid or something.

Then Earl felt something smash against his temple, something hard, solid. He felt himself going down. Earl thought he might have been out for a second because he saw the little guy sitting on the edge of the mattress, grinning.

‘If it’d been a snake, it’d a bit cha,’ Cobra said with a toothless laugh.

Not for a moment did Earl think about clocking the guy. Cobra was crazy. Strength had nothing to do with it. Earl could kill the guy, but anything short of that would be worse for Earl. He was already wondering how he’d get to sleep with this guy in the same cell.

‘That’s good,’ Earl said, getting up on his feet. ‘Real good.’ He wobbled for a moment. Dizzy. You had to know the difference between wild and crazy. Wild meant you could take a guy on and take your chances. Crazy meant some old fart like Cobra would cut your nuts off while you slept. Earl would either have to kill him or make friends. ‘That’s damned good,’ Earl said wondering if Cobra knew Earl was sucking up.

Cobra didn’t say anything.

Earl didn’t sleep well that night. A thousand things were on his mind, though it would be difficult to say what they were – except that one of them was crazy Cobra. The one thing, the one surprising thing that wasn’t on his mind was girls, the lonely young women. Not much. He thought more about survival. The thought that maybe he wouldn’t do it anymore had crossed his mind.