Good to the Last Kiss (6 page)

Seidman smiled through the perspiration. He had stopped to talk to someone in the hall that led to the locker room. Maldeaux had showered and was nearly dressed when David came in still wearing a smile.

‘Good work,’ Maldeaux said.

‘Thanks Teddy,’ David said. ‘Why don’t you grab a drink and I’ll catch up with you in the lounge. Don’t order me one, though. I’ve got an appearance at three.’

‘Fine,’ Thaddeus said, giving his friend a friendly punch to the shoulder before heading for the door.

‘Oh Teddy!’ Seidman said.

‘What?’

‘I’m out of toothpaste.’

Teddy came back, opened his locker. ‘Take what you need.’

‘So how serious are you? About Julia, I mean?’ Maldeaux asked his friend at the bar.

‘She’s not your type Teddy. Simple. Sometimes a little goofy.’

‘Goofy?’ Maldeaux smiled.

‘Yes. I’m not saying she’s dumb. Sometimes a little scattered. She’s smart, runs her own business . . . but . . .’ Seidman was flustered, having trouble finding the words. ‘Very independent, not the type who is content to hang on the arm of a man.’

‘We’ve gotten off the track here. I just asked if you were serious?’

‘Right.’

‘You’re not saying?’

‘No. It’s none of your business.’

‘You’re serious. She’s not.’

‘Dammit, Teddy!’ He looked around. He’d said it too loud. But the crowd was too courteous to stare. ‘I love her. It’s just not going to happen.’

‘Then why hang on?’

The table was ready. Once seated, the lunches arrived. A salad for Maldeaux. A steak for Seidman.

‘We’re just friends now,’ Seidman said. He was still nervous. The bright energy he exuded after the win was now a dark, brooding silence. After several moments, he blurted: ‘Go for it!’

‘I sort of . . . have,’ Thaddeus said. ‘I mean I don’t know where it’s going. What I find attractive . . .’

‘I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear about your sexual Olympics. It’s disgusting.’

‘No, no. The attraction is not sexual. That’s what I’m trying to say. You say she’s bright. She’s truly bright. Her mind is like a blossom, ready to bloom.’

‘Her mind, you say?’ Seidman said with disgust.

‘I know. Maybe I’m changing a little . . .’

‘Let’s talk about something else.’

‘What?’

‘You didn’t have any toothpaste.’

Maldeaux laughed. ‘I’m deeply sorry. Actually, I do. It’s in a tin. Powder.’

‘You’re so fucking weird,’ Seidman said. ‘Who has tooth powder these days?’

‘I was somewhere in Europe when I ran out.’

‘And that bottle of cologne. That was cologne wasn’t it, the one with the handwritten number?’

‘I had it made.’

‘You don’t do anything the usual way, do you. You have to try everything that comes along. You can’t leave anything untouched.’

‘David, I’m sorry. Next time I’ll leave a bottle of Old Spice in there in case you need it.’

‘I used some of it. I smell terrible.’ Maldeaux leaned over to smell. Seidman pulled back. ‘Stop it. What will people think?’

‘Two young people in love.’

‘Stop it.’ Seidman laughed. ‘You always get the better of me.’

‘Not today, my friend. You whipped my ass. And so far, I haven’t gotten anywhere with your charming Julia.’

FOUR

S
he heard voices. Perhaps a radio somewhere. Why would someone be playing a radio in a graveyard? Where was it? She tried to look. She could not turn her head. In front of her was a large, rose-faced, granite tombstone.

All the dates were there, but tall grass obliterated some of the numbers. The voices were closer, clearer. There was conversation. She heard her name. Then again.

‘Ms Bateman?’

Why would someone be using her name on the radio?

‘Can you hear me, Ms Bateman?’

The tombstone was bathed in a soft and eerie luminescence. The light became more intense. The stone, the name, the dates – all disappeared in bright light much like an over-exposed photograph.

There was only one voice now. And it was near. In the same room. What room?

‘Ms Bateman, there are some people here who would like to ask you some questions.’

Julia Bateman heard that. For a moment she was able to distinguish between the two worlds. She tried to open her eyes. It hurt.

‘Ms Bateman?’

She tried to speak. It hurt. Too much. There were forms in the white light now. Dark, shadowy figures around her. For a moment she thought she might be in a casket.

‘I think we’d better wait until tomorrow, Inspector,’ a voice said.

‘Maybe later this evening?’ another voice said, this one deep and gravelly.

‘Tomorrow maybe. Call us first.’

Julia heard the same gravelly voice, now at a distance. ‘Does she have tomorrow?’ She couldn’t hear the answer. Sudden quiet. The light dimmed. There was a moment of darkness, then, as if someone flipped the switch in her brain, the inside of her head lit up.

On the highway now. Highway One. Up the coast from San Francisco. The ocean on her left. Salt smells in the air. Happy. The sun was out, the breeze was cool. She was relaxed, on the highway now, the top down on her cobalt blue Miata. Adrift on the highway.

Outside the door men were talking. She couldn’t hear them above the sound of the wind and the purr of the engine.

‘She might be ready tomorrow, Inspector Gratelli,’ the doctor said, wanting to keep discussions of this kind out of Julia Bateman’s earshot. ‘She may appear unconscious, but the heavy hit of morphine doesn’t necessarily prevent her from hearing the conversation. Do you understand?’

Gratelli nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘She’s strong,’ the doctor continued. ‘You can talk to her tomorrow, I think.’

‘I hope so,’ Gratelli said, a voice so deep yet so strained, it sounded as if it was painful to speak. ‘She’s all we’ve got.’

‘On second thought, make it Monday. Give her the weekend.’

Gratelli wore a black raincoat over a black suit over hunched shoulders. Everything about him seemed carelessly put together. His hair was long, but not stylishly so. He needed a hair cut. His bushy eyebrows were black and there were enough bags under his eyes to check into the St Francis. Wild hairs sprouted from his elephantine ears. His hands, too, were huge and the hair on his wrists curled over his watch.

Gratelli was thinking. He was thinking about the girl, wired, tubed, tied, drugged – and that was part of her recovery. Who would want to do this kind of thing to anyone? You could find just about whatever you want in this world. Problem is that something you don’t want can find you.

‘Number what?’ the doctor asked.

‘What?’

‘How many so far?’

‘Not sure it’s connected. Eight if we count this as one. Two in the last couple of days.’ Gratelli shook his head to acknowledge the futility of keeping it a secret.

Outside, in the morning Inspector Vincente Gratelli appeared to be a gargoyle — escaping from the imposing but not quite Gothic San Francisco General, near Potrero Hill.

Two men approached him. An Asian man in his late twenties, probably, and an athletic-looking, dark-haired executive type pushing forty-five. They looked at Gratelli, expecting an answer to a question they hadn’t yet asked.

‘What do we know about Julia?’ the guy in the suit asked.

‘Nothing,’ Gratelli said, shrugging.

They walked on without further comment. Gratelli headed for his car. The Asian, he didn’t know. The one with the expensive suit was an assistant D.A., David Seidman.

Gratelli was glad there was no press. This one had been quiet, happening up in the woods as it did. Because the details had been withheld, no one had yet publicly connected Julia Bateman to the others.

Gratelli had already talked to the house appraiser who found her. They talked by phone. Apparently, Julia was considering putting the cabin on the market and wanted to know its value. The front door had been left open. After knocking and calling out and not getting a response, the woman ventured in. Without the appointment, Julia would likely be dead.

Julia was taken to the hospital in Santa Rosa, where she lay unconscious for three days, then transferred down in the morning. Gratelli guessed this one had slipped by the dozens of reporters who had been covering the string of victims over the last dozen or so weeks as if it were World War Three. The newspaper folks were probably still feeding on the body on the hill.

It made Gratelli’s life easier if reporters weren’t shadowing him every step of the way. This one was the odd pearl on the strand. For one thing, she was alive. Or nearly so. And she had been beaten. None of the others had. And he damned well didn’t know what to make of it.

There were other differences: Julia Bateman was older. She was found inside. Alive. And beaten. Nothing that the reporters knew would lead them to believe Bateman was another victim. Nothing that would lead the police to connect them either – except for the mark.

The Doc had promised to be quiet. It was bound to leak sooner or later, but later was definitely better than sooner.

‘You got a live one,’ the medical examiner said looking at the photographs laying on his desk.

‘Looks that way for now,’ Inspector Mickey McClellan was always surprised at the old man’s cheery nature. To the paunchy inspector having a constant smile on your face and a lilt in your voice was too weird in light of his job description which, among other things, included the cutting of flesh and the sawing of bone. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think the mark is the same, roughly the same place.’

McClellan looked at the photo again. The lights were brighter there than in his office – sterile, light and bright. He could see the picture more clearly. There was a mark on the inside and upper part of the thigh. A crudely carved rosebud, two, maybe three inches long.

‘A movie fan, you think?’ the examiner said.

‘What?’

‘Rosebud,’ he said.

‘So?’

‘Nothing,’ the examiner said, joke gone unnoticed. ‘That makes it like the others.’

‘Exactly?’

‘The guy’s no artist. They all vary a little; but I’d say it’s the same guy.’

‘The doctor in Santa Rosa said no semen,’ McClellan said.

‘Like the others. You find anything?’

‘Nothing. No pubic hair. No hair, period. No threads. No prints. That’s all we know until we get up there and talk with the locals.’

‘The immaculate deception,’ the examiner said. ‘How old this time?’

‘Mid to late thirties.’

‘Why the hell is that, I wonder.’

‘That’s what Gratelli wants to know. Me, I think our little engraver just wanted a real woman for a change.’

‘Yeah,’ the examiner said more to bring the conversation to a close than to agree.

‘Busy day?’ McClellan asked.

‘They’re all busy.’

The heat, the sun, both went away. Julia felt cool as her little convertible swept inland. Darker, too, was the highway, as the sky was suddenly hidden by giant pines interspersed with equally tall deciduous trees. The scent of the ocean gave way to the scent of eucalyptus.

‘Julia? It’s Paul. David’s here with me too.’

She heard the voices and she tried to form the word ‘Paul,’ but her lips wouldn’t cooperate. She tasted metal. It was the same taste, she remembered, when she was little and wore braces.

God, it was colder. It was darker. Julia couldn’t see the road. Lost.

‘Nurse! Something’s wrong!’

Julia heard that. She thought she recognized the voice. It was Paul’s voice. She remembered Paul, thought she did, thought she should. The sound seemed so far away, far away in the future. The inside of her brain exploded in light. She was eleven. She was in the hallway of a strange house. She called for her mother. The hall went on forever. There were no doors. She turned back. Darkness in front of her, darkness behind her. Was she going in the right direction?

Now there were voices. One voice in particular, one she didn’t recognize.

‘V-fib. Code blue.’

Indistinct voices, scurrying sounds now.

‘Another line of saline. Epi. Now!’

Julia wasn’t sure where she was anymore. There seemed to be some commotion about her in the hollow darkness.

‘Now!’ someone shouted.

Something struck her. Jolted her. The pain. The hallway came back. ‘Oh God, not again,’ she said somewhere inside of her head and now the hallway went away and there were only harsh splashes of light – like lightning – inside her. She wanted it to stop. She would gladly die if it would stop the pain.

‘What happened?’ Paul Chang, the young Asian man asked the doctor.

The doctor didn’t seem to be worried. ‘Ventricular fibrillation. A little shock, epiniphrine. We have her back.’ He seemed distracted for a moment. ‘She’s been through a lot.’

‘A little statement of the obvious,’ David Seidman said, his anger barely contained. ‘Is she going to make it?’

‘I was much surer about that an hour ago,’ the doctor said almost whispering. ‘I don’t know the extent of brain damage if any. Without going into details, her body suffered immense trauma.’

‘I’m going to want the details,’ Chang said to the doctor.

‘No, you’re not, Paul,’ David said, putting his hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘Look, I understand how you feel. I feel the same way. But let the doctors handle it here and let the police handle the rest of it. You guys aren’t equipped for this kind of thing. I’ll have my eyes on the case every step of the way. And I’ll keep you informed. No criminal experience. Don’t mess things up for the professionals.’

Paul glared.

‘Listen, I promise, Paul. They’ll find the bastard, I’ll see to that.’