Good To The Last Kiss: Crimes of the Depraved Mind Series

by Ronald Tierney

  Good To The Last Kiss: Crimes of the Depraved Mind Series

  Ronald Tierney

  An Inspector Vincent Gratelli mystery – San Francisco Inspector Vincent Gratelli is charged with finding the killer of young women – all murdered in the same way, all left with an intimate mark. The most recent victim was beaten and raped in her weekend cabin. There appears to be only one difference – she is still alive. Which leaves Gratelli with two questions: how can these murders be stopped… and how does the killer feel about unfinished business?

  Ronald Tierney

  Good To The Last Kiss: Crimes of the Depraved Mind Series

  Copyright © 2011 by Ronald Tierney.

  To John Fleener

  With Appreciation

  Though the entire work is fictional and no character, including the inspectors in the book, are based on anyone other than the author’s imagination, James W. Bergstrom and Anthony J. Camilleri Jr., inspectors for the San Francisco Police Department at the time of my research, were instrumental in rendering police activities as realistic as fiction – and a heavy dose of artistic license – allowed.

  Thanks also to Kirsten Jones, John Fleener, Karen Watt, David Anderson and brothers Richard, Robbin and Ryan for their reflections (though not necessarily approval) on the following pages. A special thanks to my good friend Mark Stevenson for helping me recreate the area in and around Iowa City.

  T he kid knew it would be tonight. He could feel it taking over, wrestling with his numb soul – a force out of nowhere, taking him to a place he didn’t want to go. Not a whole lot he could do about it. He knew that too. He had tried to fight it before. But this was the feeling. The beginning. He knew it. And it would only get worse.

  She had already flipped most of the contents of a childproof bottle of Tylenol into the toilet during the act of getting it open. Before that she discovered the dry cleaners had failed to replace an essential clasp on her black evening dress.

  Julia Bateman took a couple of deep breaths and – having convinced herself that she had brought on a period of calm – looked around her studio apartment for a couple of stray aspirins. Nothing. Calm, she went back into the bathroom. Once her feet touched the wet tile, they struck out on their own and her body slapped against the floor. She got up slowly, checking to make sure everything was still working.

  Everything worked. ‘See,’ she said with a phony brightness. ‘Every fucking thing is just delightful, isn’t it?’

  She couldn’t find her face in the mirror. The old apartment building had no bathroom exhausts. Steam still coated her reflection. When she took off her towel to clean the mirror it snapped the bottle of Chanel No.19, shattering it in the tub, exploding like radiation waves from the detonation of an atom bomb and sending a cloying scent into her bathroom.

  She cut a finger trying to pick up the little granules of glass from the porcelain. As soon as she was convinced the visible pieces of glass were retrieved, she ran the water forcefully to draw the rest of the glass and the dregs of Chanel down the drain. Afraid the smell would hang in her small studio, she ran to the windows to open them, again to discover a small movement in the drapery across the alley.

  What was it? Had there been someone there?

  She decided not to care. She went back to the bathroom, pulled out a tube of Ben Gay and applied it to the bristles of her toothbrush.

  Inspector Vincente Gratelli was off duty, shoes off, a glass of Chianti in his hand, watching television.

  He was not a pretty sight, even when he wasn’t exhausted. He looked older than his fifty-five years and no one would mistake him for a retired fashion model even if his tie were tied and his shirt buttoned, and his hair combed.

  This was the only TV he allowed himself – that and 60 Minutes . The news. The national news ended. It was the local news now. The stylish mayor was talking about the murders. Gratelli switched off the set, went to the window. Darkness was overtaking the light. There was a pinkness down on the busy street. The color of the sunset, the influence of the neon. He heard a siren. It was beginning. He felt a little guilty. He should be doing something about the murders. When you know it’s going to happen again, it seemed like you ought to just keep working – all day, all night. But there was nothing to go on. Absolutely nothing. So he finally gave up. Finally took a night. He’d eat. Go to bed early. Try to get some sleep. Get some energy so he could pile back in with a fresh mind and at least a mildly cooperating body.

  None of them were easy. The homicides. These were particularly nasty. Some strange twists. The girls were young, too. The way they were left – that too was strange and sad and smarmy. Wasn’t messy. Not bloody or anything. It was something more indefinable. Something less visceral, more unsettling in its sickness.

  The kid knew it would be tonight. He could feel it taking over, wrestling his numb soul out of nowhere and taking it to a place he didn’t want to be. Not a whole lot he could do about it. He knew that too. This was the feeling. The beginning. He knew it. And it would only get worse.

  ONE

  Julia Bateman couldn’t help herself. She stole another glance. The object of her curiosity was Thaddeus Maldeaux. He sat across the table from her, down one seat. He was more striking in person than he was in the photographs published by the newspapers and magazines. She was not usually awed by celebrity or overwhelmed by the presence of another human being. It was a feeling that – at the moment – caused her discomfort.

  David Seidman sat on her left chatting with matriarch Helen Maldeaux. Helen, most people in San Francisco knew, controlled the family who controlled large chunks of the nation’s banks and investment institutions and media, not to mention a few powerful politicians, many of whom had already passed by the table and engaged her in flattering conversation.

  It was impossible not to know about the Maldeaux family. Thaddeus – Teddy to his friends – was son of Helen. Someone less rich and less charming, who behaved as he did, would not have been allowed too near polite society. At thirty-eight, he’d been married four times – each to an innocent, young heiress or social celebrity. His extra-marital affairs were, however, the most tantalizing. The women were media savvy and rarely innocent. You would find Teddy’s name in all the trendy magazines, often in Vanity Fair and Interview and Tatler . Occasionally in Time and Newsweek . Teddy’s cast off girl friends often ended up as shooting stars themselves – bright and brief luminescences in the night sky – for all of the media mentions.

  A few kissed and told.

  ‘The frightening thing about Thad,’ one said, ‘is that he appears both masculine and intelligent.’ She also said that he had perfected the ‘dress-down’ look – the slightly frayed cuffs on his slightly over-sized shirts and the slightly wrinkled fabric of his shirts. One would have easily recognized the names of those who designed his clothing, but these were not off the rack and you wouldn’t see anything just like them on anyone else. ‘He spends a great deal to look like a handsome peasant,’ she told the magazine. ‘A handsome stylish peasant of course.’

  Julia already knew that Thaddeus and David Seidman were friends, though Julia had not met him before this evening. Julia sensed that David wanted to protect her from him – perhaps wisely so. David and Thaddeus graduated from Stanford and received law degrees from Harvard in the same years. They were fiercely competitive, though there was no real contest. Teddy outperformed David in sports, spending, womanizing and intellect. David was from a wealthy family as well, though one would never know it. Few knew that the Seidmans possessed even more wealth, perhaps because they wielded their power and influence less publicly
and with considerably less flourish.

  While neither of them had to work, David chose public service whereas Teddy seemed to choose public spectacles.

  Julia wasn’t comfortable. She wasn’t comfortable last night at the opera and she wasn’t comfortable here in the grand hotel. Sitting in its heavily chandeliered ballroom, a huge space filled with huge people – San Francisco’s finest, oldest and most unreachable families – she felt as if she were Daisy Mae on a polo pony.

  What brought them all together was the 2000 Maldeaux Dinner, a HIV/AIDS benefit. The others joining Julia, David, Thaddeus and Helen, were a famous cosmetic surgeon and his wife, a notorious designer and his friend, a San Francisco Chronicle columnist and the columnist’s bored husband. Also at the table were a small intelligent looking man from Zurich and a novelist.

  Robin Williams had just made an unsurprising guest-appearance and had gone. Pavarotti had spoken. Eloquently and humorously.

  Julia used the passing of speakers to excuse herself. She felt suffocated. The new speaker, another one of the famous San Francisco names, a member of an immensely rich oil family not usually known for generosity, climbed upon the dais to discuss the importance of contributing to an organization trying to create housing for those with HIV and reminding the audience that recent medical advances shouldn’t mislead people into thinking there was nothing left to do.

  ‘I thought women always traveled in pairs,’ Thaddeus said, intercepting Julia’s journey.

  She couldn’t help but stare back at the green eyes. His presence was nearly hypnotic. He moved close. His breath was on hers. ‘David speaks of you often,’ Thaddeus continued, ‘but I’m guessing you give him only a little more than the time of day.’

  Even in the dim light, she could see his eyes dance. His words weren’t said to chastise, but meant as a spirited assault designed to both engage Julia and test her spirit.

  ‘Then he’s gotten a little more than you will,’ Julia said without breaking stride.

  The low-growling Camaro with the smoked windows cruised Taylor, Jones, Turk and Eddy streets.

  The driver knew he was doing something wrong. Very wrong. If he’d believed his mother – what she’d said during those religion-infused moments between alcoholic binges – he was not just wrong. He was not just bad. He was evil. He was ‘evil’ before he’d done anything. And so maybe she was right. He didn’t think about things that way. But if she was right and she didn’t know the half of it, he was the devil incarnate. And there was absolutely nothing he could do about it now.

  The pink lights of the gay strip joint’s marquis and those of the liquor store reflected on the car’s new wax job. The car slowed, pulled to the curb. A girl, who was making her own corridor through a teetering crowd of winos stopped, went to the passenger window of the Camaro. She shook her head ‘no,’ started to back away, but changed her mind and moved again to the window. She giggled. Her casual indecision was an obvious act. She looked in the window one more time, then got in the car.

  Brushing him off had little effect on Thaddeus who kept glancing Julia’s way, grinning.

  ‘I think he’s flirting with you,’ David said.

  ‘He’s your friend,’ Julia said. ‘Can’t you do something with him?’ She thought she’d be more impressed with the guests than she was. On the other hand, in spite of herself, she was very taken with Thaddeus.

  ‘Not Thaddeus. No one except Helen can do anything with him. And that’s because her fingers are curled around a fountain pen which in turn is poised above the signature line of her will.’

  ‘Constantly poised,’ Julia said.

  ‘Eternally poised, I suspect. Much to Teddy’s chagrin.’

  ‘Are you saying he wants her dead?’

  ‘Julia!’ Seidman said in mock shock. ‘Oh, I don’t know. He says he does, but I think he’s just trying to be fashionably cynical and dark. She gives him whatever he wants, but he must ask each and every time. He’s on a very short chain.’

  ‘I have trouble imagining you two being friends.’

  David smiled. ‘Oh yes, I know. The dashing, swashbuckling Thaddeus Maldeaux and the old stick-in-the-mud David Seidman. Am I going to have to do something daring to win my lady’s affections?’

  ‘Maybe you already have. Looks as if you’ve just slain a fish of some sort,’ Julia said, nodding toward a plate carrying a bug-eyed, fan-tailed fish gently, almost surreptitiously landing in front of David.

  ‘Not exactly a dragon,’ David said.

  ‘We have to walk before we can run,’ Julia said.

  ‘He’s not really as arrogant as he appears.’

  ‘The fish?’

  ‘Amusing. Teddy isn’t really arrogant.’

  ‘What would you call it, then?’

  ‘Maybe an excess of confidence?’ David said, smiling.

  ‘I like that.’

  ‘My charms are more subtle than Teddy’s.’

  She had been thinking the same thing, but also wondering if, at times, David’s charms weren’t a bit too subtle. ‘Teddy is a childish name.’ She glanced over the table. Thaddeus Maldeaux was looking at her. She couldn’t make out the expression. She wondered if he could hear. Surely not.

  ‘He is childish.’ David produced a phony smile and nodded toward Thaddeus.

  ‘Do we have to talk about him?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ David said. ‘The less the better. I’d rather talk about us.’ He put his hand on hers, kissed her ear.

  ‘David,’ she said softly, almost sadly.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I know too. I don’t feel good about this part of it. I’m just uncertain about things and I really don’t like this feeling that I’m leading you on.’

  ‘You’re not. You’ve let me know where I stand. I’m leading me on. And I’ve been damn good at keeping me dangling. Why do you put up with me?’

  ‘Because I like you. I enjoy being with you. I’m comfortable with you.’

  ‘Mmmn hmmn. Comfortable. Like an old shoe.’

  ‘We’ve had this talk, David.’ Several times, she reminded herself. Was she leading him on? Was she being prudish? No, she didn’t want him as a lover. And at this point in her life, she didn’t want to have sex with someone unless it was a lover. Not out of prudery. She wasn’t a virgin. She just didn’t want to develop empty emotional baggage.

  ‘Yes, we have.’ He smiled, patted her hand and turned toward the conversation, dominated it seemed by the novelist. ‘I know,’ he said grudgingly. ‘You’ve been honest with me. Friends?’

  ‘Friends,’ she said, turning her attention back to the table.

  ‘The fact is if you are not in New York, you will not be taken seriously,’ the novelist said.

  ‘Time will determine who is a master of the craft,’ said the little man from Zurich.

  ‘You see, it’s driven by the Times ,’ the novelist said. ‘I don’t mean the times we live in, but the Times we read. The New York Times . They seat and depose.’

  ‘For now, perhaps. If it is fame you seek, then I understand.’

  The novelist was quiet for a moment. ‘Quite frankly it’s readership. I want to be read.’

  ‘You are published. I’ve heard of you,’ the man from Zurich said.

  ‘If he gets the Times ’ blessing, he will sell more books and make more money and people will grovel at his feet,’ Thaddeus Maldeaux said.

  ‘Ah, groveling,’ the man from Zurich said. ‘That is something different altogether.’

  The novelist tossed his napkin down in disgust and picked up his wineglass, doing what had to be difficult – sneering and drinking simultaneously.

  ‘Used to be just south of Market,’ the designer said. ‘Now, it’s everywhere.’

  ‘What?’ asked the man from Zurich.

  ‘Groveling,’ said the designer. ‘It’s so wonderful. I’m so glad it’s popular again.

  The main lights dimmed. There was a white spot on stage. Someone important had been introduced
. Julia turned. A golden candle flickered strobe-like on Thaddeus Maldeaux’s face. He turned toward her, his eyes catching hers.

  The call came into room 450 of the Thomas J. Cahill Hall of Justice at Seventh and Bryant. A body had been found on San Gregorio Road not far from the General Store off Highway One. That wasn’t SFPD business, but there were strong indications that the death of this girl was linked to the deaths of the others, most of whom had strong links to the city. This would interest inspectors Gratelli and McClellan. But it would wait until morning.

  All but two of the fourteen paired, Formica-topped desks were empty. One of the two on-duty homicide detectives would relay the message.

  The girl had been dead for a few days. The local authorities didn’t know exactly how long. According to the message, the girl was found in a ditch, hidden in the tall grasses. A dog had discovered the corpse.

  Julia was having difficulty shutting out the thoughts stealing uninvited into her brain. Each one was related to Thaddeus Maldeaux. Each one seemed to lend progress to a fantasy that was becoming more vivid, more dangerous.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ David asked as the Wilkes-Bashford-dressed black mayor entered the tenth eloquent minute of his speech.

  ‘Nothing,’ Julia said, suppressing a grin.

  ‘Oh, right,’ David said. He looked over the table to see his friend’s eyes dart away. ‘Are you two flirting?’ he asked Julia.

  ‘What two?’

  ‘You have this rather blissful grin on your face and he is spying on you every chance he gets.’

  ‘He’s a little too full of himself for my taste,’ she said.

  ‘Um hmmn,’ David said.

  Julia had a moment alone outside. David had gotten caught up with friends and Julia had artfully slipped away before introductions could be made and before she’d have to explain what she did for a living and that she lived in a little studio on Hayes Street, though no doubt they would all think that was quaint.