“Damn!” Tim said out loud. He could just make it back if he drove slowly. Then he or someone else would be able to deal with Arturo’s flat tire later. There was a parking place opening up on Castro right in front of Arts. If he was lucky he could get it. He made an illegal U-turn and slipped Arturo’s car into the spot.
Tim carried the steaks and strawberries to the kitchen and headed back through the crowded room when the front door of the restaurant burst open again. Teresa was arriving, dressed in pink with her blonde hair piled in a knot on top of her head. Seven muscular Cher impersonators she didn’t even know followed right behind her as if they were part of her entourage. Someone inside shrieked as the Chers made their entrance and found their way toward Artie’s end of the bar to order drinks.
By the time Tim got the limes and handed them over the front corner of the bar to his Aunt Ruth it was getting hard to move. If the fire marshal saw the place this crowded, he would close them down. Tim thought this was as good a time as any to go out and change the flat tire so that Arturo wouldn’t need to worry about it after work. He also thought he’d have an easier time not getting too emotional about Jason if he kept busy.
Tim bent to put the key in the trunk and smelled… something… something terrible. The trunk opened. Tim caught his breath. Jorge was no longer missing. Rather, he was found, found naked in the trunk of Arturo’s car amid dozens of rotting strawberries in a pool of blood.
Tim jumped back as the bile rose in his throat and he tried not to vomit. He looked around to make sure no one else was close enough to see what he saw. Then he closed the trunk again. The seven muscle-bound Cher impersonators were gathering on the sidewalk to have a group picture taken in front of the restaurant for the B.A.R. There was nothing Tim could do for Jorge now and he saw no reason to disrupt Jason’s memorial gathering.
A police car double parked near the bus shelter in front of the Bank of America. There was nothing Tim could do for either Jason or Jorge besides tell the authorities, so he headed toward the corner of 18th and Castro with Arturo’s car keys still in the palm of his hand.
Chapter 7
A young woman was fumbling in her purse at the front gate as Ruth was about to venture down the steps and out onto Collingwood Street. “Hello,” Ruth said. “May I help you?”
“Oh, hello. I’m looking for my keys. I just bought this big new purse and I can’t remember which compartment they’re in. Wait a minute… who the hell are you?” She glanced up at Ruth with a startled look.
“I’m Ruth Taylor. I’m Tim Snow’s aunt, visiting from Minnesota.” Ruth wasn’t used to hearing someone swear at her first thing in the morning, but she didn’t want to make an enemy out of a stranger, either. She must have frightened the girl, and Ruth was the outsider, after all. “Come on in. I’ll open the gate from the inside. If you’re looking for your key, you must belong here. I was sure that Tim told me about everyone who lives in the building, but you’re certainly not old enough to have a five year old child.”
“You must mean Jane Larson. She and Ben are little Sarah’s parents. I’m Marcia. I’m staying at Malcolm’s place next door to them. I’m his… um… sister. I’m… ah… taking care of his apartment while he’s away. Here are my keys. They fell all the way to the bottom. You know how it is with a new purse, huh? Thanks for letting me in.” She held up a key chain and showed it to Ruth as if to prove who she was and that she belonged there. Then she did a little curtsy, spun around and disappeared up the stairs.
What a strange time to be coming in, Ruth thought. If I wasn’t on Minnesota time I’d still be sleeping. Then her mind turned back to worrying about Tim as she descended Collingwood and turned left onto 19th Street. She walked past the Harvey Milk Elementary School. This must be the place Tim mentioned where Teresa teaches. Well, it couldn’t be any more convenient for her to get to work, could it?
There were few sounds so early on a Monday morning but birdsongs and distant car doors slamming. Ruth walked and pondered the events since her arrival. She couldn’t help but dwell on the fact that two murder victims had been found in only three days and that her nephew Tim had discovered both of them. She hoped the police didn’t think Tim had anything to do with murder. Nonsense! Besides, he’s hardly been out of my sight except when he went to the store.
During the few hours she was helping Artie behind the bar she’d been so busy she hadn’t noticed much of anything besides taking care of the customers, but she was almost sure she could vouch for her nephew if it came down to his needing an alibi.
Ruth continued up the gradual slope of 19th Street. It was going to be a gorgeous day. The sky was a deep, clear blue directly overhead and the fog was burning back, but still visible over the hills to the west. She could just see the very top of that red and white tower sticking up like a ship on a windy sea.
She passed a yellow Victorian building and was startled to hear a buzzer. The security gate swung open to deposit a clatter of small children on the sidewalk in front of her. They carried book bags almost as big as they were. Their yawning mother followed them down the winding staircase with one baby in her arms and another in her belly. Ruth smiled and said good morning.
The woman said hello and returned a gentle smile. Tim made it sound as if only gay men lived in the Castro neighborhood, but that must have been exaggeration. Ruth saw toys in apartment windows and strollers inside gates and open garage doors, child safety-seats in the backs of parked cars. There seemed to be fertility in the air on a day like this and Ruth thought this must be a lovely neighborhood to raise children.
In spite of the houses being side by side with no room for the lawns and expansive yards she was used to in Minneapolis - even more so in the wealthy suburb of Edina - each home here in San Francisco seemed to have found a few inches of earth in which to plant something green. Glorious roses and dahlias bloomed everywhere. Spectacular vines that Ruth didn’t recognize covered entire sides of buildings in purple, red or orange. On closer inspection they weren’t really flowers, but looked more like colored leaves. She would have to ask Tim about them.
Near the corner of Eureka and 20th Street was a big blooming vine, all purple, lavender, and white. Some of the white blossoms had turned a little rusty or they wouldn’t have looked real at all. The people who lived there must have been asked about it a million times because they put out a sign under a plastic cover. Ruth stopped to read it. Brunfelsia… floribunda… Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow… also called by the common name: Morning, Noon, and Night… native to the Amazonian rainforest, the roots were once used to treat syphilis in South America.
Ruth flinched at the word “syphilis,” but then she noticed that the blossoms looked strangely familiar. She tried to remember those flowers as she walked. They were exactly the same colors of the artificial flowers she had once seen on an old lady’s black felt hat. It was a subconscious flash of familiarity. Ruth tried to see the woman’s face, but couldn’t picture it. Ruth was sitting in church in the pew behind the hat. She was just a little girl and the old lady was some friend of Ruth’s mother. She could smell her lilac perfume and sensed that her sister Betty – now Tim’s mother - was squirming in the pew beside her. It was a solemn moment – a funeral, maybe – as still as the morning air in the Castro neighborhood. Then Ruth looked up at the street signs – 18th and Eureka – and she was back in the present.
How odd!
Ruth wondered if this was how Tim felt. She didn’t know what to make of the tingling sensation down her spine. If this was how Tim experienced his grandmother’s “gift” then Ruth could understand why he complained. It was downright creepy, but it passed the way a feeling of déjà vu ends as soon as you recognize it. She wanted to ask Tim about it, if only she could find the right time.
Ruth crossed Market Street at Eureka and saw a bright yellow snapdragon growing six inches tall right out of a crack in the sidewalk! It was a wonder that no one stepped on it. At 17th Street she had to make a turn to either the
left or the right. To the left was a long steep hill leading upward into the fog. She’d climbed enough hills lately. To the right was Market Street in the distance and the sounds of traffic. Ruth turned right and in a few moments she came across a homeless man and his shopping cart full of cans and bottles in the middle of the Pink Triangle Park and Memorial. He turned and walked away as Ruth picked up a brochure and read that the fifteen granite pylons, each inlaid with a pink triangle, were placed there in remembrance of the 15,000 gays who were murdered by the Nazi regime.
“15,000!” Ruth said out loud as her footsteps crunched across the pink stones. My word! I never knew about that. I had no idea.
Ruth crossed Market Street and looked up at the enormous rainbow flag flapping in the wind on a pole at the corner. She had seen rainbow flags flying from houses and apartment windows on every block of this neighborhood, but never one so huge! She thought to herself that there was a whole lot of San Francisco that she wanted to explore and she would start in earnest tomorrow. She’d been away for years, ever since her college days at Stanford, and it felt good to be back. In spite of two recent violent murders within blocks of where she stood, she felt safe here. It was a strange realization and she knew that it was partly because she was a woman.
A couple of guys were talking and laughing outside Orphan Andy’s restaurant. It seemed to be the only place open at this hour of the morning. They wore hospital scrubs and had apparently just finished working the night shift. As she continued up Castro Street past the intersection of 18th, Ruth noticed that most of the people she saw at this time of day were either walking their dogs or bustling off to work. Many of them—men and women—returned her open smile and said good morning. They probably hadn’t yet heard about Jorge’s body being found in the trunk of a car yesterday in the same block where she was walking right now. Even Jason’s murder hadn’t made front-page news in the Chronicle.
At the corner of 19th and Castro Streets Ruth heard the clatter of a bicycle cutting through the thick, fragrant air toward Dolores Park. Then she heard the jingle of the collar on a large dog trundling down the sidewalk; his master ran behind, calling, “Booboo! Wait up, Booboo!”
Ruth imagined that every day must be a perfect day for a dog. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before she headed back up the hill toward her nephew’s apartment. She thought of the scent of freshly cut grass on a summer lawn or the ripe smell of gasoline from the lawnmower. She hadn’t seen a single lawn on her walk this morning. How do these people in San Francisco manage to live their summer lives without lawns? Ruth thought she might even like to smell the gasoline of an outboard motor on a fishing boat beside a creaky wooden dock on a cool blue Minnesota lake. Am I getting homesick already? She wondered… If she was, it wasn’t for the bitter winter snows.
Tim was sitting on the front steps to his apartment with a beautiful golden-haired child. “Good morning, Aunt Ruth,” he called. “You’re up early! I wondered if you’d run away from home. I was nearly ready to call the cops and send out a search party.”
“Oh Tim, I had the loveliest walk. It was just what I needed. How are you doing, dear? Did you sleep well? And who is this lovely dear?”
“Aunt Ruth, I’d like you to meet Sarah, the magic child,” Tim said, smiling. “Sarah, this is my Aunt Ruth who came to visit us all the way from Minnesota.”
Ruth crouched down and reached to shake hands, but the little girl jumped up and threw her arms around Ruth’s neck and kissed her on the cheek. “Hi, Aunt Ruth.”
Ruth hugged her gently and set her back down on the sidewalk. “My goodness, it’s nice to meet you too, Sarah.”
Sarah said, “Uncle Tim, why do you always call me ‘magic child?’ Who’s magic?”
Tim reached over to pull the little girl back onto his knee and snuggled his face against her neck. “Because you are a magic child. You always have a smile and a hug for me. You almost never cry. You make me and everyone else happy just to see you. I don’t know anybody else in the whole wide world that can do that. So you must be a magic child.”
Sarah giggled.
“What a delightful little girl you are. Oh, Tim. I met another of your neighbors earlier this morning. Malcolm’s sister, Marcia.”
“His sister? Are you sure that’s what she said?”
“Of course I am. She said she was apartment-sitting for him while he’s away. She was coming in when I was going out. She’d just bought a great big new purse and she was having trouble finding her keys, so I opened the gate for her. It was barely daybreak yet. I guess I’m still on Minnesota time. I don’t know what she was doing coming in at that hour of the morning.”
“That’s odd. I barely know Malcolm but I remember meeting him once up at Artie and Arturo’s apartment shortly after he moved in here. I was kinda stoned. I probably wouldn’t even recognize him if I saw him again.”
“Well, I’m sure I’ll meet him when he gets back in town and you’ll be able to meet his sister Marcia, too.”
“I remember at that party Artie introduced us and we talked for a little while and then Artie got distracted by a phone call or something, but Malcolm and I found at least one thing that we had in common and that was what we talked about.”
“What was that, dear?”
“We talked about what it was like growing up as an only child.”
Chapter 8
While Tim carried Sarah upstairs to her parents’ apartment, Ruth poured herself a cup of coffee and then stepped out into the back garden. When she heard the apartment door open, she broke the calm with a yell, “I’m out in back, Tim. Come and join me, won’t you? What a darling little girl.”
“Yes, she’s an angel, all right. Should I make another pot of coffee?”
“Only if you want more… this is plenty for me.”
Ruth heard Tim making noises in the kitchen, the coffee grinder, the water in the sink turned on and off a couple of times. She closed her eyes and felt right at home in the presence of the one member of her family who still mattered deeply to her. “Thanks for making the coffee, by the way. I need you to show me how to make it the way you like it.”
“Next time,” he said.
“Come out here and tell me all about the rest of your evening.”
Tim plopped down in the old wicker chair beside her. “What a night!”
“Did you have to stay late at the restaurant, dear?”
“Yes, I thought I’d never get out of there and I was already exhausted by the time Jason’s gathering ended. Then the dinner shift was crazy. The place was packed!”
“Really? I left as soon as the open bar was over. Artie said he wouldn’t need me any more when people started having to pay for their drinks again. You must have been tired…”
“Well… it was bad enough that I had to be the one to find Jorge’s bloody body in the trunk of Arturo’s car. I’ll have nightmares about that for years, I’m sure. Then the police came with all their questions. I didn’t know any of the cops this time. They weren’t gay, that’s for sure, and a few of those muscle boys in the Cher wigs were still hanging out. The policemen didn’t know what to make of them at all. You saw them.”
“They were so funny,” Ruth said.
“Well, yeah, all San Francisco cops have seen drag queens, but I doubt they’re familiar with ones strong enough to snap a man in half. After you went home I stayed and helped out until the wee hours. Artie and Arturo were pretty shaken up about Jorge, of course, and there was still a ton of cleaning to do from the party, even after the dinner shift was all over and done with – dirty glasses and plates and empty hors d’oeuvres trays and tons of garbage to haul out to the dumpster.”
“Arturo must have been especially upset about his nephew.”
“Jorge wasn’t his real nephew, you know. I always thought so too, but Arturo just called him that as a term of affection or as part of their shared heritage or whatever... anyway... I never realized all the work Jorge does… or did… until I got rope
d into some of it. Well, it was my own fault for offering to stay and help out.”
“I’m sure your loyalty is appreciated by both of them, dear. Do the police have any idea who might be responsible for these horrible murders? Their showing up must have been quite an intrusion on Jason’s memorial party!”
“Yeah… but it was time for it to wind down,” Tim said. “No, they don’t know who the killer is yet, but I’m sure they’ll catch him. They already found Jorge’s bloody clothes and the knife in a garbage can in the parking lot at Costco. The killer had stripped off Jorge’s clothes with a knife but had left him his boots.”
“Why would the killer cut off his clothes?”
“I don’t know. Jason’s clothes were cut, too. Weird, huh? And whoever stabbed Jorge had wiped all the blood and fingerprints off the knife, like he did with the one you found at Jason’s. They’ve impounded Arturo’s car to dust it for prints, but if the killer was smart enough to leave the knife clean he was probably smart enough to wear gloves. I’m sure they won’t find any prints on Arturo’s car except for his and mine and Jorge’s and Artie’s.”
“How would they know?” Ruth asked
“That’s another thing—they fingerprinted all of us last night. You can still see the ink on the edge of my thumb. The knife they found in the trash can at Costco was similar to the one you found on Hancock Street, like they must have come from the same set or something.”
“So Jorge went shopping that day after all? And the killer drove Arturo’s car back to Castro Street with Jorge’s body in the trunk? It gives me a chill. How would the killer have known where to leave the car?” Ruth grimaced and stood up. “Do you want some more coffee dear? I think I’m going to have another cup after all, since you made fresh.”
“Sure, you can top mine off.”
“What a lot of nerve to leave that poor boy’s body for Arturo to find it! I’m sorry it had to be you, but in any case it was just plain sick.”
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