Good to the Last Kiss (29 page)

The story continued, reconstructing all previous related killings. It included discussions of the original psychological profile, quotes from medical examiners, family members of the victims and police. Investigators kept the secret of the rose tattoo from print, though the fact that the bodies had been ‘tattooed’ was now mentioned for the first time.

When the
Chronicle
came out the next morning, the media relations people from the police department were already suggesting that it was only a matter of time before Earl Falwell would be linked to all the other murders.

However, the quest for Julia Bateman had begun.

TV and radio ran features on Bateman, though none of them knew anything about her. They couldn’t even come up with a picture. She was already being referred to as the ‘tough P.I.’

‘Thanks for being helpful,’ Bradley said. ‘You hate me?’

‘No,’ Paul said. He thought about adding, ‘because I never really loved you.’ It was true; but there was no point now. ‘I packed your diary . . . your uh . . . chapbook. It’s in with your leathers. And your other art is in the portfolio.’

‘Thanks,’ Bradley said.

There was something else on his mind, Paul thought. He didn’t want to probe. He really wasn’t interested.

‘Have you decided? Are you going to continue modeling or become an artist?’ Paul was escorting Bradley to the door with conversation. It was better than just asking him to leave. It was more like, here are your bags, Bradley, do you have to go? Let me get the door for you.

‘I’ll have to do something when my day in the sun is over.’

‘Yeah,’ Paul said.

TWENTY-EIGHT

B
ack at the office, Gratelli made three phone calls. First, he wanted a list of calls made to Earl Falwell in the last month. Second, he wanted to know who made bail for Falwell. Third, he set up a time with the perfumer the guy at Macy’s recommended.

Number two was the first to yield some results. The bonding company was less than a block away.

‘Cash,’ said Toby Carbondale, the bondsman who handled Earl Falwell’s release.

‘Who from?’

‘Messenger,’ Carbondale said. He sensed Gratelli wouldn’t be happy. ‘A kid comes in with a box. I sign for it. Inside are cash and a note. Note says it’s to free Earl Falwell. No signature. The money’s right. Actually, it’s a little better than right. A tip, I figure.’

‘A messenger service?’

‘Probably, one of those bicycle guys. I didn’t pay any attention. Frankly, I was too busy worrying about whether some disgruntled son of a bitch was sending us a bomb.’

‘You get a receipt?’

‘Just signed a sheet.’

‘You still have the box?’

‘No. I’m sorry. Had no idea this kid was connected. We have no way of knowing.’

‘Isn’t it pretty unusual for someone to send you cash, to operate like this?’

‘Real rare. It’s happened before. Why isn’t it my business? Like I said, I’m sorry. But the dude got caught, right? It’s all over.’

‘The note?’

‘No. Nothing on it worth keeping. No return address, if that’s what you mean. Typed.’

Gratelli shook his head.

‘Wait a minute, trash hasn’t gone out this week. Could have the box and the note.’

The box did reveal the messenger service. The note was printed by a laser printer. He took them both. Fingerprints? He doubted it. The messenger service wasn’t much help. Earl Falwell’s get-out-of-jail-free donor had left the box and a note with more than enough money to handle the delivery. They were left on the counter of the service. Whoever left the package and instructions had managed to come and go unseen.

‘What?’ Gratelli said. Most of the calls to Earl Falwell in the past thirty days came from public telephones. The selection was random. The sites were scattered about the Bay area, mostly around North Beach and Chinatown. One was from the Hall of Justice on Bryant. McClellan’s direct line. One was from Tennessee. It hadn’t been identified.

Gratelli dialed the number.

‘Mildred O’Donnell, Valley Farms, how may I help you?’

‘I’m not sure you can,’ Gratelli said. ‘I’m trying to get some information on Earl Falwell.’

‘Earl?’

‘Yes, do you know him?’

‘My grandson. Why are you asking about him?’

‘I was trying to locate him,’ Gratelli lied. He hadn’t prepared himself to deliver the news of Earl Falwell’s death and the circumstances surrounding it.’

‘He’s in San Francisco. Is something wrong?’

‘What kind of farm do you have there, ma’am?’

‘It’s not really a farm. We sell bulbs, flowering bulbs.’

‘Like what kind?’

‘Lilies, iris, daffodils.’

‘Tulips?’

‘Oh yes. Award winners. Our best sellers.’

‘And roses?’

‘No, no. Roses don’t grow from bulbs, Mister . . .’

‘Gratelli. Sorry to have bothered you.’

‘It had to be Earl,’ Paul said to Julia while he fixed coffee. It was his apartment. Paul sat at the small kitchen table. Julia moved into the other room. ‘Had to be,’ Paul repeated. Julia looked out the window. The second floor was high enough to see over the single story buildings across Hayes. She could see the wide expanse of the hills rolling south out of the city and the square stair-stepped houses that dotted them.

‘I’ve always liked this view,’ she said.

‘You’re not listening,’ Paul said.

‘I am.’

‘You want this to keep going on? How else could it be? The guy was connected to the killings long before you. He comes back. How else would he know where you live? You want to think that the killer is out there. You want to live that way for the rest of your life?’

‘Paul,’ she said, urging him to understand. ‘I can’t help what I feel. You want it to be Earl so that it’s all over.’

‘Don’t you?’

‘Of course, I do. Maybe I don’t. Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I like all this. Who knows?’

‘I’m sorry. Explain it to me.’

‘I doubt if I can in a way that makes sense. I don’t know that I know the killer. I just believe that I would know him if I were as close to him as I was to Earl-what’s-his-name.’

‘I’m still confused.’

‘You’re so cute when you’re confused,’ Julia said smiling.

‘Being Chinese, I thought I was inscrutable.’

‘Cute and inscrutable. Maybe inscrutably cute. Or cutely inscrutable.’

‘You’re so calm,’ Paul said.

‘Listen, I’ve spent months being a basket case. I’m not sure I have anything to lose.’

‘Your life,’ Paul said, ‘if you’re right.’

‘You know,’ she said, ‘I’m not sure I mind so much the idea of dying. I just mind like hell the idea of this sonofabitch making the decision.’

‘The top notes are your first experience,’ said Daniel Alexander, a young black man who seemed to enjoy his task – to explain the nature of scent to a San Francisco homicide inspector. ‘The middle note is the second experience, a second scent if you will.’

‘So,’ Gratelli said, trying to form a question while seated self-consciously in an ornate chair on the other side of an equally ornate table from Mr Alexander in what appeared to be some sort of parlor. ‘If someone smelled butter . . .’ Gratelli said, waiting for some sort of confusion to overtake the perfumer’s calm, unlined face.

‘Butter yes,’ he said, smiling. ‘Absolutely. Not at all odd. Was there another scent? Leather perhaps?’

Gratelli was stunned. ‘Yes. Leather.’

Mr Alexander nodded. He rose from his seat, went to a large, wall cabinet and brought out some bottles and dabs of cotton. ‘Here,’ he said, letting the cotton absorb a tiny bit of clear liquid. ‘Smell.’

‘Something citrus,’ Gratelli said.

‘Take the scent in more slowly, for a longer duration. Do you smell butter, perhaps leather? It’s subtle, but you can pick it up if you try to distinguish different qualities of the scent, allow yourself to discriminate. Maybe we can call it the levels.’

‘Yes, butter.’ Gratelli kept breathing it in. ‘Yes, leather, for Christ sake.’ Gratelli was amazed.

‘Hmmm hmmmn,’ Daniel Alexander said. ‘It’s quite like wine. If you pay attention, there’s much more than just one level of taste.’ He smiled at Gratelli’s amazement. ‘In scents, you see, there’s a top note, a middle note and most probably a bass note, which lingers for quite some time. Even though scent is altered by the human pheromones through perspiration, there are characteristics of some colognes and perfumes that remain pretty consistent.’

‘So is this the only cologne that has this leather and butter combination?’

‘No. In fact this pairing of scents used to be quite common, but it is rare enough today. It is also quite costly.’

‘Really?’ Gratelli said.

‘What you are picking up is ambre gris. It’s only found in tropical seas. All of it is a bit morbid in a way. The sperm whale eats octopus, you see. The whale, however, is unable to digest the beaky matter of the octopus and therefore that particular matter results in intestinal calculi that is eventually ejected by the whale. It’s found floating in the sea. It is soluble in alcohol and the essence is employed in the blend with other perfumes to give the scent a lasting property.’

‘How lasting?’

‘Centuries.’

‘What?’

‘Depending on the amount and the way it’s blended. It clings to woven fabrics. It’s been detected in material more than three hundred years old.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘No. Of course, the wearer adds his or her own special, very individual touch. Essentially perspiration. The very thing that people try their best to disguise. If George Washington had worn it, I suppose a good bloodhound could still determine which beds he really slept in.’

‘What about washing? Can it be detected after the stuff has been washed or dry cleaned.’

‘That’s what they say. I haven’t run any tests myself. It’s part of the lore, though. I suspect it’s true.’

‘Which perfumes use this . . . substance?’

‘Many of the expensive, fine scents.’

‘Perfumes I can find at Macy’s, Nordstrom?’

‘A few. Certainly the custom-made perfumes and colognes.’

‘Custom made?’

‘Of course.’

‘Like suits?’

‘Yes. Custom scents. Designed for the desire or the need or the whatever of the individual. That’s what I do. One gets tailored clothing, handmade shoes, and made to order perfumes. Why not?’

‘I don’t know why not,’ Gratelli said.

‘No way,’ Lieutenant Thompson said. His gray eyes refused to meet Gratelli’s.

‘I can’t do my job,’ Gratelli said.

‘Too weird. You have to have more than that.’

‘If I had enough to convict, I wouldn’t need a search warrant right now. I can’t be sure without it.’

‘He’s the next D.A. for Christsakes,’ Thompson said.

Gratelli knew what he was asking. And he knew who he was asking, a cop who was successful by avoiding any and every controversy and staying out of the way of those with political power – any kind of power.

‘I need it.’

‘What have you got, Gratelli?’

‘What I said. Motive? Julia Bateman frustrated him. They dated. He wanted more. She gave him nothing. He wanted something. She gave him nothing. Does he have the means? He’s fit enough. Knew enough about the case to make it look like the others. Knew how to work the system. Who else knew that?’

‘You’re assuming there was another murderer. And even if that’s true, that others did know the details. Knew about the rose tattoo.’

‘But it wasn’t a rose after all. It was a tulip. Only Julia’s thigh had a rose and that’s because her attacker got it wrong. A copy cat who copied it wrong.’

‘A small thorn? That’s the difference? That’s what you’re basing this on?’

‘Opportunity? David Seidman knew where her cabin was. Knew how to get there. And knew she was there. Both times.’

Thompson rubbed his eyes, let out a breath. Could have been a sigh of defeat. Could have been the punctuation that would end the discussion.

‘No.’ He said it with a shrug. ‘I don’t want you talking to him. This is crazy. He didn’t do it. Earl Rogers Falwell did it, dammit. And he’s dead. The case is over, Gratelli. We’ve got other fish to fry. And we’ve got you a new partner. Get a life. Get going!’

Thompson clapped his hands twice.

We have closure, Gratelli thought.

It made sense. Thompson and, perhaps his superiors, believed that Mickey McClellan might have had something to do with it. Now it didn’t matter. Both Mickey and Earl were dead. Nothing could come back and bite them in the butt. The case was closed. The media was going silent. There weren’t any trials to mess everything up again.

TWENTY-NINE

‘
I
just want some oversight,’ Gratelli said.

David Seidman sat on the sofa. It was a cool night. There was a fire in the fireplace. A Jack Russell terrier sat beside David, alert and looking at Gratelli with a friendly gaze.

‘The guys from Quantico can help you better than I can. Tell you the truth, Inspector, I’d have had a helluva time prosecuting Earl Falwell with the evidence we have . . . I mean for all the murders. I’m sure he did them. But the only thing we really have to hang it on is the fact that he came back. That’s pretty good, actually.’

‘The mark?’ Gratelli offered.

‘The rose?’

‘Yes. What do you make of it?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not the right person for this kind of thing. I’m flattered that you asked. I’ve not done any serial killers. Usually there’s something. A mark is not uncommon. A trophy is not uncommon, but you haven’t found any, right?’

‘Not yet. How much do you know about the cases?’

‘Why do I get this feeling you’re not here in search of my prosecutorial wisdom and vast knowledge of the criminal mind?’ He smiled warmly.