Cold Serial Murder

by Abramson, Mark

  “No. Not yet. Did you know Jason, Nick?”

  “Not well… I think I might have met him once through the Freewheelers, you know the gay car club? I knew Karl better than Jason. When I was a kid we used to come into the city a lot to visit my grandparents when Karl’s folks lived downstairs. My grandmother and Karl’s mother were the best of friends until she died. Karl was quite a bit older than Jason and me… nice guy! You know The Freewheelers?”

  “I’ve heard of them, I guess.” Tim said.

  “My grandpa had a ’57 Desoto. It was his pride and joy and he took excellent care of it. When he died, my grandmother gave it to me. I hated to part with it, but I couldn’t afford to keep it in shape. I finally sold it and bought this truck when I started my business. The truck is a lot more practical, I guess, but I’ve always had an eye for old cars. They’re like works of art.” Nick walked around the red T-bird, admiring its lines and chrome. “They don’t make ‘em like this anymore. Have you had her out for a ride, yet?”

  “Not yet,” Tim said. He was more interested in the line of Nick’s jaw, the curves of his biceps and calves, and the way his cut-off Levi’s fit his legs and ass. “You wanna come with me for a test drive?”

  Nick grinned. “I’ll move my truck out of your driveway first. You pull out, okay Tim? Then I’ll pull back in all the way and then let’s go!”

  “Sounds great.” Tim thought it sounded even better than great, but he didn’t want to say too much for fear of getting tongue-tied. “I’ll go in and get the car keys.”

  Chapter 15

  Tim climbed in behind the wheel for the first time and they were soon driving down Castro Street past the restaurant. Tim hoped he’d see someone he knew… or vice versa. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to show off the fact that he was driving Jason’s Thunderbird, which a lot of people would recognize, or Nick, the sexy guy in the passenger’s seat.

  Tim glanced over at him and smiled. He figured Nick must be at least a few years older than him and he had long blonde hair, something you didn’t see every day. Tim always said he wasn’t interested in blondes, since they were a dime a dozen in Minnesota, but he might make an exception in this case. And the pony tail… that sure set him apart from most guys. Nick smiled back and said, “This old car sure is a beauty. It runs pretty good too, but it sounds like it needs a new muffler soon.”

  Tim blurted out, “There’s one on the way,” and cringed.

  Here he was, about to start blathering again. Why couldn’t he keep his mouth shut? Tim didn’t want to turn off this handsome guy he’d just met with crazy talk about his weird dreams and precognition. Shut UP Tim, he told himself. He couldn’t wait to tell someone about everything that happened, but who? Jake? Artie? Arturo? It wouldn’t be Patrick. Patrick would put the make on Nick if he had the chance. Patrick, with his perfect teeth and perfect pecs and perfect hair and his perfect political correctness, wasn’t someone Tim could trust enough to feel close to. They’d had one adventure together when they brought down a closeted homophobic preacher, but “Perfect Patrick” had been acting weird lately. Nick seemed perfect too, but in a different way.

  The light turned green and it was just Tim’s lousy luck that there was no one he knew at 18th and Castro or on the sidewalks on either side of the street in the next block. The light was red when they pulled up in front of the Twin Peaks bar. He and Nick turned at the sound of the streetcar’s bell as it swung onto Market Street, starting its long trek toward Fisherman’s Wharf. Nick’s bare knees bounced to the music from the open window of another car beside them.

  “You ordered a new muffler already?”

  Tim let his glance slide up from Nick’s bouncing legs to his chest until Nick turned and grinned at him. He has such beautiful blue eyes… Nah, if I tell Nick I just had a dream about Jason a few minutes before we met… and Jason told me he had a new muffler on order… and that I need to stop the killer before he kills again… Nick will think I’m nuts!

  “I just meant… Jason always took such good care of his car that I’m sure he probably thought of that and has a new muffler ordered already…” Tim took a left on Fell Street so they could drive through Golden Gate Park.

  He’d tell his Aunt Ruth about the dream. She might understand. She was the only one who knew about his past. She could put on her Nancy Drew cap and she might even have some ideas about what the dream meant and how it would help them catch Jason’s killer.

  Them… or him? Jason hadn’t said anything about his Aunt Ruth helping him, but then Jason had never met her.

  What was it that Jason said about the muffler? “Don’t let them try to screw you…”

  After they passed Stanyan Street and were cruising into Golden Gate Park, Nick stood up in the passenger’s seat and pulled the elastic band out of his ponytail. He shook his head, letting his hair fall free, “Woo-hoo!” he shouted. “Great day, nice car, hot guy. What more could a person want out of life?”

  Tim smiled and thought about it. If he considered the rhetorical question seriously, he might have wanted a lot for himself, like having things turn out differently with Jason. He could have wanted his dead ex-boyfriend back and a relationship that was never going to happen. Did he really want to wish for a ghost that might appear in his dreams now and then?

  Something was missing in his life, but Tim wasn’t sure whether Nick had come along to fill that void or if he was just a reminder of that something. There were reminders every now and then, men like Jean-Yves and Corey, he supposed. Or did he just miss having a regular sex-life… normal… naked… lying down… in a bed… complete with touching… with someone who had a name Tim could call him after he yelled “Oh, God…” and before they went to sleep?

  Having his Aunt Ruth in town lately reminded Tim of when he still lived with his parents in Minneapolis, sneaking around with his track coach Dave Anderson until they found out about it and all hell broke loose. Then he moved to Edina to live with his Aunt Ruth and Uncle Dan to finish his senior year where nobody knew him. Tim still felt like he owed her big time. He also thought about the way things were with Jason for their first few weeks together. Jason acted like everything in life was like that old song goes, just one of those things, but it was always more than that to Tim. Now he had the melody stuck in his head and reached over to turn on the radio before it got to the lyric: “too hot not to cool down.” He didn’t want to make the same mistake with Nick before he even knew him.

  Damn, he hated himself when he let his mind go off in this direction. He wasn’t even stoned! Maybe that was the problem. Here he’d just met someone sexy and friendly and fun and he was thinking things to death. As if reading Tim’s mind, Nick reached for his jacket in the back seat and pulled out a small clay pipe. “Smoke a little? It’s from Humboldt County. Some of my clients grew it.”

  Tim tapped the brake and pulled over. ”Great idea.” He was concentrating on avoiding two laughing, bare-chested guys on roller blades, so he let them pass. Then he took the pipe from Nick and inhaled a deep hit.

  They were driving by the Conservatory of Flowers when Nick said, “I’ve always loved this park… especially that building. I’m so glad they saved it. One of my earliest memories as a kid was when my grandmother would take me here on sunny afternoons. We would look at all the flowers and she would read the Latin names on their tags. Sometimes we’d go to Stow Lake and rent a boat. I loved the Arboretum, too. My grandmother sometimes packed a picnic lunch and let me wander around while she scribbled in her little notebook, working on plots for her mysteries.”

  “So you were already a budding horticulturist when you were still in diapers?” Tim asked.

  “I suppose you could say that.”

  “How did you get into the business?”

  “I went to UC Davis,” Nick answered and took another hit off the pipe. “Studied Landscape Architecture and took lots of science courses. I grew up in Santa Rosa and I’ve always liked Northern California. So many amazing things grow here!
There must be lots of worse places to grow up.”

  “I’m sure there are, although I don’t hate Minnesota—just the winters. How long have you been helping your grandmother move out?”

  “A little at a time on my weekends… there wasn’t any rush, since she’s been away. I told you she just got back from a trip, right?”

  Tim nodded. “So you must have met Jason before… aside from that car club?” Nick had just admitted that he’d been there alone several times recently. Jason would never pass up a guy as hot as this one. How many loads in his pick-up truck would it take to move a lifetime of some old lady’s possessions? Did he and Jason know each other better than Nick was letting on? Or could this mean that Nick had a motive in Jason’s murder? Tim didn’t know what to think, but he didn’t want to think that!

  “Not really… I guess he was never around when I was… so you’re from Minnesota, huh? I’ve never been there.” Nick changed the subject. “What kind of work do you do?”

  “I grew up in Minneapolis… and one of the suburbs,” Tim answered. “Now I’m working as a waiter on Castro Street. “

  “Right in the thick of things, huh?”

  “I’m so used to it by now that I hardly think about it any more. Hey, do you need to be anywhere?” Tim asked. “I’ve just been driving around.”

  “No. I’ve got plenty of time. The nursery is between Rohnert Park and Sebastopol, but I live in Monte Rio. I was thinking about staying at my folks’ house in Alameda tonight and driving back up north in the morning. I’m always up for getting to know a guy like you better, though,” Nick grinned and Tim started to blush. “That’s one of the best things about owning my own business—I can give myself the day off.”

  Sebastopol, Rohnert Park, Monte Rio—Tim had been to the Russian River and seen those towns’ names on road signs. Jason was from somewhere up north, too, according to Artie. It wasn’t really Sacramento, but some town near there. Was it possible that Jason and Nick didn’t know each other before? No, Tim didn’t want to go there in his head. This Nick guy was too sexy and he seemed really nice. He couldn’t have anything to do with Jason’s murder. Tim had never even been to Sacramento and it was the state capital. That was how little he knew about things. He must be stoned now and he hated when it made him paranoid.

  Tim turned up the Great Highway past the Cliff House and they were soon enveloped in thick fog. “Owning a nursery must be pretty cool. That means you’re naturally butch, I guess. Most guys your age are only interested in talking about when Patti LaBelle was still singing with The Supremes or when they last saw Madonna in concert. I’ve met lots of guys your age that are like that, anyway. Have you ever eaten here at Louis’? They make great waffles!” Tim pointed over his left shoulder toward the ancient café hanging over the cliff above the ruins of the Sutro Baths.

  “Guys my age? How old do you think I am?”

  Tim felt like he’d stepped in something by mistake. “I don’t know… sorry. You must be nearly forty, I guess. I didn’t mean anything by it. I think older guys are hot! Don’t you love that smell of eucalyptus?” Now Tim was trying to change the subject, but not doing a smooth job of it. “It doesn’t grow in Minnesota.”

  “Eucalyptus is great up to a point. Too much of it, though, and it starts to remind me of cat piss.”

  “I never quite thought of it that way. There must be a horticultural term in Latin for that.”

  “I could look it up for you when I get back to my office,” Nick said. “…and it was Diana Ross, by the way.”

  “Huh?”

  “Diana Ross sang with The Supremes,” Nick corrected him. “It wasn’t Patti LaBelle… not that I would know much about it. I’m so butch, you know.”

  Tim cringed and pulled into Lincoln Park. The fog was so thick through the golf course that it condensed on the trees and fell like raindrops. Tim parked beside a bed of huge white and yellow poppies that towered over the car and looked like fried eggs on ten foot stems. “Too bad we can’t see anything. You know that statue of The Thinker by Rodin? It’s right over there in the courtyard beyond those pillars and there’s the most amazing view of the Golden Gate Bridge from up here on a clear day. It’s shaped like this.” Tim drew an imaginary picture on the dashboard with his fingertip.

  “I know what the bridge looks like,” Nick grinned. “I grew up here, remember?”

  “Sorry, I forgot.” Tim lowered his fingertip from the dashboard and placed the palm of his hand flat down on Nick’s knee. “Look. You’ve got goose bumps on your legs.”

  “So I do. It’s so cold I’ll bet the balls on The Thinker over there are shriveled up to the size of raisins.”

  “Mine will be too pretty soon,” Tim said and tried to laugh.

  “Do you want to put the top up?”

  “No, do you?”

  Nick took Tim’s hand and pulled him closer. “No, I’m okay. I have a better idea for something to warm us both up.” Tim closed his eyes as Nick kissed him. They were quiet for a moment, both grinning, and then they attacked each other like hungry cannibals.

  Now Tim really couldn’t wait to tell someone about everything that had happened. He couldn’t talk to his Aunt Ruth about his sex life. Maybe when he got to work he could tell Jake, but he didn’t think so. Nick didn’t have anything pierced besides his ear or Tim would have discovered it by now, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t Jake’s type. Tim thought labels belonged on soup cans, but he could just hear Jake now, saying, “That man has Daddy written all over him!”

  “Waaa…” came from a crying baby in the back of an SUV that pulled up beside them.

  “Yikes… breeders!” Tim said, pulling away from Nick and adjusting himself. “I think we’d better go back to my apartment before we get arrested out here.”

  “Great idea,” Nick agreed. “Hurry!” He sat back in his own seat but they never completely let go of each other all the way back to the Castro. By the time they crossed Arguello Street the sun was shining again.

  Chapter 16

  Ruth woke up from her nap and was trying to decide whether to extend her stay in San Francisco when she got a call from Artie asking her to come in to work that night. He’d been behind the bar every single shift since Jason’s murder and Ruth could understand how much he needed a night off. “Sure, Artie, I’d be glad to,” she told him as she put the airline receipt back in her purse. “I guess I can handle the bar myself by now.”

  “I’d really appreciate it, Ruth. It won’t be that busy with the kitchen closed. It’s comedy night starting at nine. I’ll get the bar all set up for you. Tell Patrick or Jake to get you a bucket of ice from the ice machine out back whenever you need it and if you have any trouble, the boys can handle it or you can just call me at home and I’ll run right over.”

  Ruth was headed toward the kitchen on Tim’s cordless phone. He still refused to have a cell phone. “Okay, Artie. I haven’t seen Tim since this afternoon, but I can leave him a note. Oh wait… here’s one from him. He’s gone over to Hancock Street to have a look around. Well, he could probably use a night on his own without his old aunt hanging around, anyway. I’ll get dressed and I’ll be there by five for the after-work crowd, okay?”

  “Thanks, Ruthie. You’re a lifesaver! Arturo and I could really use a night at home alone together.”

  Teresa’s ex-husband Leonardo and his current husband Theodore were among Ruth’s first customers, stopping in for drinks on their way to dinner at the Sausage Factory. Ruth imagined each of them could put away a whole pizza. They were drinking beer and paging through a photo album while excitedly telling Ruth about their plans to go back up to the Russian River where they had first met at Lazy Bear Weekend.

  “This will be like another anniversary, “ Theodore explained to Ruth while he turned the page of the album. “Look, there you are in your little pup tent, Leonardo.”

  “We probably should have bought a bigger tent for this trip, but it was so cozy, wasn’t it?” Leonardo said.

>   “Then I’m sure congratulations are in order,” Ruth said. She didn’t know enough about gay relationships to be sure, but she figured these two would never pass up any cause for a celebration.

  “Of course we’ll always acknowledge the day of our actual marriage much more formally than the day we first met,” Theodore added. “Who knew that it would grow into this?”

  “Well, maybe you didn’t think so, but I knew.” Leonardo was clearly upset by this remark. “For me it was love at first sight.”

  Theodore quickly reached over to pat his husband’s beefy hand, “Now, honey. Don’t be upset. I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m just not one to take anything for granted, especially where you’re concerned.”

  Ruth thought it would be a good idea to change the subject before they started squabbling. “I don’t believe I’ve ever been to the Russian River—maybe years ago when I was in college, but I don’t remember. Tim has mentioned that it’s a lovely area. Is it far from here?”

  “It’s about 90 minutes by car,” Theodore said, “mostly north. It’s in Sonoma County, the next one past Marin, which is the county you’re in after you cross over the Golden Gate Bridge.”

  “I see. Where Tiburon is?” Ruth asked. “Tim and I went there the other day on the ferry boat for lunch at a place called Guaymas.”

  “Yes, Guaymas is in Tiburon and there’s Belvedere, Larkspur, Mill Valley… they’re all in Marin. Sonoma County is beyond all of them,” Leonardo answered.

  “Where do people stay when they visit the Russian River?” Ruth asked. “Are there hotels or motels or something?” She imagined she might like to take a trip up there herself sooner or later.

  “Well yes, there are several gay resorts,” Leonardo answered. “Theodore had a room at the Highlands, but we met at a dinner party at the campground where I was staying and that’s where we’re going this weekend. I can’t wait to see if we can find that same tree where we first…”