Cold Serial Murder

by Abramson, Mark

  On Wednesday morning, Ruth’s last day in San Francisco for a while, she and Tim were sitting at the glass-topped table on his patio. “Should I make another pot of coffee?”

  “Not on my account,” Ruth said, “unless you want some more.”

  “No! No more coffee ever!” Tim feigned outrage. “I’ve never drunk so much coffee in my life as I have during this visit of yours the last few weeks. From now on I’m going to start out with a pitcher of Bloody Marys for breakfast seven days a week, just like Teresa.”

  “Oh, she’s not that bad,” Ruth laughed. Everything that blossomed was in full bloom now. Ruth inhaled a deep breath of the fragrant jasmine that vined up the wall above her head. “It’s so lovely here that I hate to leave, but I have to go back and decide what to do about the house. I’d love to sell it, but not with the economy in the tank. Maybe once Barack Obama gets all settled into the White House he’ll be able to turn things around.”

  “You’re more hopeful than I am, but any change has to be an improvement, I guess. I don’t know why anyone would want to be President. What a horrible job to take on these days with war and recession and global warming…”

  “Let’s not focus on the negatives, Tim.”

  “You’re right. Let’s look at the future. Next time you come to San Francisco this place will be your apartment. I’ll be all moved in over on Hancock Street with Ben and Jane and the kids living downstairs, instead of above me.”

  “Did she have her baby?” Ruth stood and pressed a fingertip into the soil of a clay pot. “With so much happening, I forgot to ask… this begonia needs watering, dear.”

  “I’ll give them all a good soaking when I get back from driving you to the airport. Yes, his name is Samuel Timothy Larson. Samuel after Jane’s father and Timothy after me.”

  “Another magic child for you to spoil.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Tim hefted Ruth’s suitcases into the back seat of the Thunderbird outside his apartment on Collingwood Street. He would miss this place, he knew, but it was time to move on. The neighbors in this building that Art and Artie owned were like family, like the family he never felt in his own home growing up. The only thing that consoled him about moving out was knowing that his Aunt Ruth would be moving in, taking his place.

  Just think, Aunt Ruth, when you come back we’ll only be a few blocks apart instead of 2,000 miles.”

  “I’ll be close enough to keep an eye on you, young man.”

  “As if I needed keeping an eye on.” Tim drove down Castro Street so that Ruth could wave one last goodbye to Arts, even though the place wasn’t even open yet. Then he turned left on 18th Street in front of Harvey’s and kept on going west on upper Market Street. They were soon climbing into an area of houses crowded onto narrow roads, modern apartment buildings jutting out between painted-lady Victorians.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Take a wild guess,” Tim said as he glanced at his watch. “Don’t worry. We have plenty of time. You won’t miss your flight.”

  “I have no idea where we’re going.”

  “You should have been the one to inherit your mother’s so-called gift instead of me, Aunt Ruth. You were her daughter. It almost never works for me except in my dreams and then I don’t know what they’re supposed to mean until it’s too late.”

  “I should have figured out your dream a lot sooner. That monster could have killed you! I’m just so glad that you’re safe and well.”

  “You got there just in time.”

  “Sometimes a little team work is called for. Let’s not talk about the past any more, shall we? Let’s think about the future.”

  “Yes, when you come back we’ll be co-workers at Arts and we’ll both be making a fortune in tips.”

  “I wouldn’t mind filling in from time to time. It’s not the money that concerns me. It’s just nice to be somewhere I feel needed. What do you call this neighborhood?”

  “Twin Peaks. It’s the highest place in the city. Speaking of which, I wish I’d brought a joint. The last time I was here I was with Jason and we were both so high! It was one night shortly after we met. We could only see a sprinkling of lights through the fog, but it was moving fast, so the view kept changing. I also remember that he had the top down and I thought I would freeze to death.”

  “I’m sure you’ll miss Jason, dear, but you know he must have cared for you more than you thought or he wouldn’t have remembered you so generously in his will. In a way he’s still watching out for you. Try to think of him that way if you can.”

  “I know you’re right.” Tim pulled the Thunderbird to a stop at the edge of the parking lot and set the brake. They both got out to get a better look.

  “Tim, this view is incredible!”

  “I know. I’ll bet we can see Minnesota from here.”

  “I’ve never seen the city from this angle before. Now I know what they say about something that takes your breath away. The beauty of it makes me gasp!”

  “It’s really something, isn’t it? A lot of times it’s too foggy to see anything, but today is perfect. Hey, this reminds me of that day we went to the top of Telegraph Hill. Remember when we ran into Roy and Viv parked in the Cadillac up there and they were making out like a couple of teenagers?”

  “Of course I do. Why do you ask?”

  “I was talking to Artie yesterday. He said the police came by again to see him and Arturo and filled them in on some more of Roy’s story. Remember when Viv told us they’d been shopping that day for new bathroom rugs and shower curtains? He was painting her pink bathroom a different color, remember?”

  “Yes?”

  “When they found the French boy, the kid who was delivering pizzas, he was wrapped in pink plastic… It turned out to be Viv’s old shower curtains. Roy was using them as a drop cloth to cover the roses when he painted the outside of her house.”

  Ruth took Tim’s arm and gasped again, but this time it had nothing to do with the view. “That poor boy!”

  She stepped back to the car and Tim asked, “Do you want to leave already? We just got here.”

  “No, I don’t ever want to leave. I’m getting my opera glasses out of my bag. I want to find Arts and the apartment building where I’m going to be living when I come back. And I want to see your new house on Hancock Street.”

  “I think there’s a tree in the way. See where Dolores Park is from here?” Tim pointed.

  “Yes, I see.” She raised the opera glasses to her eyes. “Oh look how beautiful the big rainbow flag is unfurled in the breeze and there’s the Castro Theatre. It must be spectacular up here at night. Now where’s Arts?”

  “I can tell without the binoculars that all you’re gonna be able to see is the roof of the building.” Tim pointed. “See where the B of A is on the corner? That’s 18th and Castro, so it’s just about half way up the block from there on the same side. Oh, those roofs all look the same anyway. Let me see those glasses.”

  “What else did the police tell Arturo and Artie?”

  “These binoculars are really strong. There’s Teresa, naked in her living room window. Geez, put some clothes on, Teresa!”

  “She is not!”

  “Kidding! What else? Oh, Artie said they dug up the roses beside Viv’s house and found a PG&E repairman who had been missing since right after Roy moved in. And they got Roy’s former address in Portland and dug up two more bodies there. One was his former wife and the other was a man, still unidentified. Maybe she was having an affair. Or maybe Roy was just imagining that one, too. But get this! Arturo says the police went over the whole case with them, to try to fill in more of the pieces and they even showed him and Artie a picture of Roy’s first wife, the one he buried outside the house in Portland. She looked just like you!”

  Ruth felt a chill. “That must be why he was staring at me so intently that night we first met in the restaurant.” She opened the passenger door of the Thunderbird and climbed in. “I feel a little sorr
y for Vivian, you know? We killed her husband and the whole time she had no idea he was a murderer.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about Viv, Aunt Ruth. She’ll bounce right back and find another husband. She always does. Walter, the one before Roy, was a chef. That must have been where all the knives came from. She wouldn’t notice them missing. I don’t think she’s ever so much as boiled an egg.”

  “She did say that she ate dinner at Arts every night she worked and Roy was awfully thin.”

  “Viv is taking a leave of absence from the restaurant. She told Arturo and Artie she was going back to Paris where she spent her first honeymoon. She said she wanted to brush up on her French. Jake figures she can probably get a job there pretty easy. He said there must be a little bistro on the left bank that needs someone who looks like an old drag queen and can torture them with show tunes on the piano!”

  “Jake never liked her, did he?”

  “She wasn’t easy to like when you had to work with her all the time.”

  Ruth laughed and looked at her watch. “As much as I hate to leave all this, I think now we’d better get me to the airport or I’ll miss my flight.”

  Tim drove down from Twin Peaks on a circuitous route that had Ruth completely turned around. “Where are you taking me now?” she asked.

  “To the airport.”

  “I’m glad you know the way, dear. I’m lost.” They rounded another bend and once again the view of downtown San Francisco spread out before them. “There are so many parts of this beautiful city I have yet to explore, but first I need to go back and tie up loose ends. As much as I hate to leave, I know I must.”

  “Don’t worry, Aunt Ruth, I’ll get you to your flight in plenty of time and before you know it you’ll be back here where we both belong.”

  When Tim got back from the airport he watered the plants on his patio, took the bedding off the couch and did a load of laundry. Then he drove over to Dolores Park, where he’d been headed with his Aunt Ruth on her first day in town. He parked the Thunderbird in the shade of the magnolia trees along 20th Street and found a grassy spot to gaze out at the panorama of downtown and the arches of the Bay Bridge standing tall above the waters of the bay like a distant roller coaster.

  Tim spread an old blanket on the ground, kicked off his shoes and socks, peeled off his T-shirt, and lit a joint. His head was filled with thoughts of Nick, of course, and of his Aunt Ruth’s visit but today more than ever his thoughts turned to Jason. The ice cream vendor’s bells floated across the air and Tim determined that the time had come to do what he had been meaning to do all along.

  He carried his backpack to the statue near the 19th Street footbridge. This was the time, all right, and this was as good a place as any. Red geraniums and blue cosmos poked their heads through the high wrought iron fence surrounding the statue where the plaque read:

  MIGUEL HIDALGO Y COSTILLA

  Father of Mexican Independence

  1753-1811

  Tim did some arithmetic in his head. This statue was built to remember a man who only lived to be… let’s see… fifty-eight years old. That was quite a few years older than Jason and a whole lot older than I am now, but still… Senor Costilla didn’t live to be an old man either.

  Tim unzipped his backpack and lifted out the box containing Jason’s ashes. Some of them caught on the breeze but most settled deep among the flowers, the color of sand filtering down through the red and blue and green into bare black earth below. Jason had always loved this park. He would like this spot just fine, Tim thought as he closed his eyes tight and shook out the last of Jason’s earthly remains.

  On his way back to his blanket Tim bought an ice cream bar from the vendor. He had the munchies now and a peace of mind that had been missing for a long time, since even before Jason’s murder.

  Tim had tonight off. Today was as good a time as any to start packing up his old life on Collingwood Street and get ready to move. He left Dolores Park and stopped by his new home on Hancock Street where he spotted a yellow note stuck to the front door. It was a notice from UPS that they had tried to deliver a package for Jason Oliver from Classic Ford Auto Parts in Los Angeles, California. They would make a second delivery attempt tomorrow between 9 a.m. and 12 noon. Tim would make sure to be home to accept the new muffler for the Thunderbird. It was Tim’s car now.

  A sneak peek

  at

  Mark Abramson’s

  Russian River Rat

  Book 3 of the Beach Reading series

  Chapter 1

  Tim Snow awoke to the smell of bacon and the sound of crisp raindrops bouncing off the skylight over Nick’s bed. It took him a few seconds to remember he was in Monte Rio. The last few days had been perfect, but he had to go back to San Francisco today. His Aunt Ruth was arriving this weekend and he wanted to be there to welcome her. He stretched out his arms and rolled onto the other side of the bed where he could see the backside of Nick. His broad shoulders moved over the stove and he was naked but for an apron and wooly gray socks with red heels, his straight blonde hair tied back in a pony tail.

  Tim plumped up the pillows for a better view and pulled the covers around him. Nick must have heard the bedsprings creak because he turned around and blew Tim a kiss. “Good morning, handsome.”

  Tim smiled and yawned and returned the kiss. “What’s cooking? Mmmm… nice outfit.”

  “Don’t want to get hot grease on the family jewels.” Nick turned off the stove and poured Tim a mug of coffee. “How did you sleep, Snowman? No crazy dreams?”

  “Come back to bed and I’ll tell you all about them.” Tim pulled the covers back far enough for Nick to climb in and position himself half on top and half beside him. “Let that coffee cool off a little while I warm you up.”

  Nick’s house had been built as a vacation cottage in the 1930s and modernized over the years. He’d added a carport under a new deck that wrapped around two sides and overlooked the Russian River. He’d also modernized the kitchen and installed a more efficient wood stove in one corner of the living room. It still had its original knotty-pine walls that reminded Tim of a cabin where he’d spent a childhood weekend beside a Minnesota lake.

  “I thought I wore you out last night,” Nick nuzzled into Tim’s ear.

  “We nearly wore each other out, but this is my last morning here. I have to go back to the city today.” Tim reached around the back of Nick’s head and pulled him closer, releasing his ponytail at the same time. “I love your hair long and loose like some wild jungle cat.”

  “Gr…Arrr…” Nick growled and shook his hair all around the two of them. “I’m as hungry as a lion. How about you?”

  “Starved!”

  “Don’t move. We can have breakfast in bed. It seems too early for rain, but I love that sound on the skylight.”

  “Me, too. I could get used to this, you know… I could really get used to this.” Tim had grown so used to quickies lately that he sometimes wondered if he’d ever be comfortable spending whole nights with a man again. The only ones he’d really slept with since the end of the Jason affair were Corey and Jean-Yves and they seemed like a lifetime ago. Now he’d spent three whole nights in Nick’s bed and three whole days together with hardly an awkward moment between them and the sex was phenomenal.

  “I could get used to it too, Snowman,” Nick said as he kissed him again and got out of bed to dish up the French toast and bacon.”

  “Hurry back! I’m getting lonesome!”

  “I’m right here.”

  Ruth Taylor drove her Prius hybrid straight through from Denver to San Francisco on the last long leg of her move. She’d intended to get a room in Reno but only stopped for gas and to check on Bartholomew. The cat opened one eye and glared at her from his carrying case on the back seat. “I know you’re mad at me, Bart, but you’ll get over it when you see your new home,” she said without trying to pet him. She stepped inside the mini-mart to pay for the gas and bought another candy bar. It wasn’t even good chocolate,
but it would do.

  The movers had finished unloading her belongings on Collingwood Street several hours before Ruth crossed the Bay Bridge and collapsed on top of the bare mattress. When she awoke a few hours later amid piles of boxes she was proud to think she’d driven two thousand miles from Minnesota all by herself. Her face was all puffy and it took ten minutes to find her toothbrush, but she was finally here in Tim’s old apartment—her new home—and that was all that mattered.

  Ruth’s first impulse was to call her nephew and tell him she made it, but she couldn’t risk waking him. He probably worked at Arts last night and would be a grouch when he first got up. There would be time to catch up later, plenty of time for everything now that she was here. Ruth poured a mug of coffee and sat down at the glass-topped table on the little brick patio. She let her shoulders sag, stretched out her legs and wiggled her fingers and toes. It was time to let go of the tension of the long drive, the stress of her divorce, all the packing and moving. It was time to settle in to the laid-back pace of California and begin her new life.

  A cat’s cry came from behind a stack of boxes in the kitchen and a big furry tabby ambled out the back door to settle between Ruth’s bare feet. She bent to pick him up and he overflowed her lap. “Did you sleep well, baby? I’ll bet you were glad to get out of that nasty old back seat of the car, weren’t you? Welcome to California and don’t get any clever ideas about climbing over that wall. I can see the wheels in your little mind spinning already.”

  The cat jumped down and stretched its claws into the dirt where Tim’s cherry tomatoes had given up the ghost. Ruth was glad to see the rest of the plants thriving and none of the vines looked strong enough to provide Bartholomew an escape route.

  Ruth carried her second cup of coffee to the living room and sat down in her grandmother’s wooden rocker. It wasn’t easy to sort through her sprawling suburban home to pick and choose which of her belongings would fit in a city apartment, but the rocking chair made the cut. She intended to leave it to Tim some day, since it wasn’t the sort of thing her daughter Dianne would like. Dianne’s taste in decorating was downright tacky, but Tim was someone who could appreciate a family heirloom. Ruth sometimes wondered whether all gay men were as refined as Tim or if she was just lucky to have such a sensitive nephew.