Ezra Blackburn lived on Sanchez, a few blocks south of Market. The white framed house hinted at Victorian, but it had been dressed plainly, and treated without affection. A dozen rail-less steps led up from the sidewalk to the white door.
A dark-haired man with exaggerated facial features sat in a wheelchair. He was halfway visible in the narrow opening. He was a big man – all fat.
‘Don’t want any.’
‘Don’t have any,’ McClellan said. ‘Ezra Blackburn?’
‘Mother made only one.’
‘My name’s McClellan, Inspector McClellan.’
‘What do you inspect, Mr McClellan?’ Blackburn asked, widening the gap between door and doorframe and giving the inspector a whiff of stale air. ‘Is it termites, building permits, spoiled food?’
‘Murder,’ McClellan said, flashing his badge.
‘In that case, come in,’ Blackburn said, rolling back to allow the large police detective entry. ‘Inspect all you want. I’ve removed all the asbestos, radon and rotting corpses.’
The small entranceway and the two rooms immediately visible from it were cluttered with mail, magazines, newspapers, plates, glasses and various wrappers. McClellan followed Blackburn into a room that had a sofa and TV, virtual islands among the stacks in a surprisingly large room. The pathways, most of them, were wide enough for a wheelchair. Some of the stacks, farther back toward the walls, got narrow. There was no filth, merely stacks in an order that could only have made sense to Blackburn.
‘My cleaning lady has called in sick for couple of years. If you can find a place to sit, by all means sit.’
‘I’ll stand.’ McClellan noticed a giant bag of potato chips, half empty.
‘You’re here about a murder?’
‘Julia Bateman.’
‘The bitch is dead?’ he blurted.
‘Not quite.’
‘Really?’ It seemed as if it were just now sinking in.
‘Really. I guess she’s not in your will.’
‘I gave her a start, helped her get established. I run into a little trouble and while I am sorting it all out, she runs away with my business.’
‘That’s reason enough to kill the bitch. Hey man, I’m on your side.’
‘Hey, hey, hey.’
‘Hey yourself.’
‘I’m not a killing kind of guy, you know?’
‘Could have fooled me. Checked your files, fella. You kind of like pushing women around.’
‘C’mon, that’s domestic. Wife shit. Different altogether. What happened to Julia?’
‘It’s different because you got a marriage license. That it?’ McClellan didn’t like the guy. ‘Somebody beat the living holy hell out of her.’
‘When?’
‘You don’t know?’ McClellan said.
‘Stop it.’
‘So how did that happen?’ McClellan asked, gesturing toward the wheelchair. ‘Fall through a skylight or something?’
‘Got hit by a bus.’
‘When?’
‘Year ago.’
‘You suing them, Blackburn?’
‘Trying to get a little compensation. Out of work, you know. Pain. Medical bills.’
‘Well you sure as hell know the insurance business. Know what buttons to push. What works, what doesn’t. Right?’
‘Life’s full of irony,’ Blackburn said. ‘Is Julia all right?’
McClellan walked down one of the narrow aisles. He noticed a copy of a girlie magazine next to the wall. He retrieved it, opened it. He glanced at the air brushed ‘Babes of Toyland.’
‘She all right?’ Blackburn asked impatiently.
‘The bitch will live, Blackburn.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ Blackburn said. ‘I don’t mean to call her that. Just comes out. I’m sorry about it. I liked her. I was gone for five years. There was no business for me to come back to. But she could have offered to help. Is she all right?’
‘Don’t know,’ McClellan said, flipping through a few more pages. Then he closed the magazine and looked at the cover. ‘Better stop before I get some bad ideas. Current issue, huh? You’re a bit of a magician getting down an aisle like that in your wheelchair.’
Blackburn laughed nervously. ‘Yeah the phone rang and I just tossed it. I didn’t realize I’d have to move all this shit to get back to it.’ He held out his hand for McClellan to give him the magazine.
‘Funny, isn’t it?’ McClellan said. ‘Irony or something, right? So how much money are you going to get before you make a miraculous recovery?’
‘I don’t need this kind of accusation. Check with the doctor.’
‘I will. Let’s talk about some dates and times, and where you were and who you were with, OK?’ He tossed the magazine on the farthest stack back.
TWELVE
The next day, McClellan jockeyed the desk and tried to connect with Julia Bateman’s friend, Sammie Cassidy, while Gratelli visited Maldeaux. There was no need to rankle anyone in the Maldeaux family. No one wants to piss off a media empire.
It was early. Thaddeus Maldeaux was half dressed. He was barefoot, wearing slacks and a summer t-shirt. His hair was still wet from the shower and slicked back, making him look like a forties movie star.
‘Glad to meet you,’ he said to Gratelli at the front door. Gratelli had expected a butler or at least a maid, but got the superstar himself. ‘I appreciate your coming over here. It’s a little early in the morning to face bureaucracy. Or maybe I should say reality.’ Maldeaux smiled his charming smile and nodded for the investigator to come in. ‘Listen, I’m getting some breakfast together. Let me fix you something.’
‘Thanks,’ Gratelli said. ‘I’ve eaten.’
‘I’m so hungry. Do you mind hanging around the kitchen while we talk?’
‘No, that’s fine.’ On one hand the home was less than he would have imagined. There seemed to be a lack of gold and crystal. The decor was restrained. Worn. The oils he passed as they went through the dining room to the kitchen, were dark, brooding scenes of wars fought by soldiers armed with swords, their naked bodies draped with transparent swaths of cloth. Not a lot of protection in those days, he thought.
‘Coffee at least,’ Maldeaux said. He put water on to boil, found bowls, pans and utensils with the ease of someone who had done it many, many times before.
‘Sure,’ Gratelli said. ‘How well did you know Julia Bateman?’
‘Not well enough,’ Maldeaux said. ‘Listen, it’s just as easy to cook for two as it is for one.’
‘No thanks. What do you mean “Not well enough?”’
‘I liked her.’
‘She’s not really in your circle of friends, is she?’
‘I don’t have a circle of friends, Inspector. I have friends.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Yes, but you don’t know what I mean,’ he said without hostility. ‘Aside from the old friends and the usual circle of opportunists that forms around a silver-spooned enfant terrible like me, are people who are impressed with celebrity or money or power or something or the spectacle of it all. Julia didn’t care about that stuff. She didn’t even want to like me.’
Maldeaux was working on a large onion. He talked as he brought the large knife down in a chopping motion, getting the pieces smaller and smaller.
‘Did she?’
‘Like me? I think so.’ Maldeaux put coffee beans in the grinder, pushed a button. Over the harsh whir of blades cutting through the hard beans, Maldeaux shouted, ‘Inspector, I do wonderful things with artichokes and peppers and eggs and stuff.’
‘I’m sure you do.’ Gratelli shouted, then waited for the grinding to stop. ‘You liked Julia because she wasn’t easily impressed? According to the stories, you are attracted to the beautiful people, people in the limelight, people who want to be in the limelight. She’s not like that.’
‘No, she’s not like that. She’s not even beautiful.’
‘You are attracted to her; but in your e
yes she’s not beautiful?’
‘Not in the conventional sense. She’s not beautiful in the way the others are beautiful.’
‘No. A different beautiful.’
‘Exactly a different beautiful. One that exists without make up. A beauty that doesn’t vanish with age. One that doesn’t depend on the right lighting. From the inside. My mother,’ he added in what seemed to be an afterthought, ‘is not a beautiful woman in a conventional sense. Yet she is most beautiful by what she is – and I don’t mean a wealthy dowager. I mean because of her principles, I suppose. Because she cares and protects, sometimes incredibly innocently.’
‘You and Ms Bateman have a lot to talk about?’
‘You want to know if this is the first time I found a commoner attractive?’ He laughed. ‘What were my intentions? When was the last time I saw her? Did I see anything suspicious?’
‘OK,’ Gratelli said. ‘Add an alibi to that and we will have covered a lot of ground.’
‘OK. Orange juice. Can I talk you into orange juice?’
‘No.’
‘In the event you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty vain. I’m also getting older. I’d like a child. Or two. But only in a real marriage. Long term. Grow old together. Be grandparents. I want someone who is bright and interesting, a challenge in those areas, but not someone who wants to be on the pages of Vanity Fair. I don’t want someone who wants to have a fling for a few years, then divorce me so she can have enough money to live well and buy her own boytoys while my sperm dries up.’
Maldeaux smiled. Nodded. Waited for Gratelli to give some indication he understood, perhaps sympathized. Getting none, he continued. ‘I saw Julia as someone who could have been the kind of wife I wanted. Bright, tough. To put it less than romantically – a different, more hardy stock. We had dinner. That was about it. Nothing torrid or unseemly. A first step. She was pretty hesitant about step two. Then that happened.’
‘You know about that?’
‘Of course. David Seidman and I are friends.’
‘Interesting. She was seeing him, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘You weren’t being very loyal to Mr Seidman. Your intentions weren’t, as they say, honorable, were they?’
‘David didn’t . . . doesn’t have a chance. For David, Julia is the kind of girl who would tell him how much he reminded her of her brother. Oddly enough, an affair between Julia and me would have been the best thing to have happened to David. He might have realized he needed to move on, get on with his life.’
‘He doesn’t understand what you understand about living?’
‘Yes, I think he does. I apologize for my lack of humility. Otherwise, I suppose I might be flawless.’ He grinned.
‘Go on.’
‘I didn’t see or talk to her after that evening. We had dinner, coffee. I left her at the apartment house door. I didn’t go up. I saw nothing suspicious. She didn’t say anything about being stalked or being afraid of anything. She said she was going up to her cabin, somewhere up near Santa Rosa. She looked forward to it. She anticipated and wanted to be alone. At least that’s my take.’
‘All right.’
‘Let’s have our coffee out here,’ Maldeaux said, pouring two cups from the glass pot that held the recently plunged coffee. They headed for a rear door that opened to a balcony garden.
On the short trek from kitchen to surprisingly sun-drenched foliage, Gratelli asked him where he had been that night.
‘Wow, what a day,’ Maldeaux said. ‘Isn’t it beautiful.’
When Gratelli arrived and entered through the front door, the sky had been gray and the air filled with a light mist. Outside it might have been in La Jolla, or Santa Barbara rather than Pacific Heights. Gratelli wondered if the sun always shined on the rich and handsome.
They sat at one of three marble-topped tables on a large balcony that was six or seven feet above the ground and overlooked a park-like, meticulously kept lawn. The balustrade was only partially visible because it was lined with sensuous color, dripping with exotic, flowering plants.
‘My alibi is feeble. I was here. In this house. You’d be surprised how many nights I spend alone, in my room, reading a book.’
‘And how do you know what day I was referring to?’
‘I know it clearly. David called. Frantic. I thought about it. Wondered if only she had accepted my invitation or perhaps invited me to go with her.’
Maldeaux shook his head. His eyes were sad. ‘You know, you’re so close. One small, seemingly insignificant decision can change your whole life.’ He looked at Gratelli. ‘It can kill you. In some ways, existence is so fragile. Was the man seated there in the restaurant where we ate that night the one? Was he stalking her then? Making up his mind. You wonder how often you’ve stood next to a murderer on the elevator or passed him on the street. I’m rambling. I’m sorry.’
‘And who might be able to say where you were that night besides you?’
‘My mother,’ Maldeaux said. He smiled. ‘I know, I know. It should strike you as funny that I’m still living with my mother. I’m really a big baby.’
‘I wasn’t laughing.’
‘Your eyes were,’ Maldeaux said. ‘It’s all right. Really. I marvel at it, myself. I have other places, but I live here when I’m in San Francisco. There’s no point at all in my taking up some other space when there’s so much of it here. I’ve seen smaller hotels. So much space. Much more than my dear mother could ever make use of.’
‘Anybody else? Hired help?’
‘Mother has someone here most days. Most of the time she’s out here in the garden pretending she is doing something constructive. Sometimes she goes out to some board meeting to write checks to foundations. A good woman. Too good. Spoiled my father. Spoiled me. The last of the innocents.’
‘That’s it?’
‘The other person, I mentioned. Mrs Havel. She cleans mostly. Helps mother. She really doesn’t do much. And what she does do, she doesn’t do very well. It’s mother’s purchased and, surprisingly, only true friend. Mrs Havel leaves around five. No maids or butlers, Mr Gratelli. Not what you’ve seen in the movies. Only one here, for the most part, is mother.’
‘Probably could spend days in here without running into each other.’
‘True,’ he said making it sound like a confession. ‘What can I say? Ask mom.’
‘A mother’s love . . .’
‘How is Julia doing? Have you heard?’ Maldeaux asked.
‘She’s back home, healing, I think.’
‘I’m glad she made it through,’ Maldeaux said. ‘I understand she’s somewhere in Ohio.’
‘Iowa.’
Maldeaux smiled. ‘I’m not very good when it comes to all those states out in the middle of the country. A lot of vowels.’
‘You’ve not seen her or talked to her since the attack.’
‘I stopped by the hospital. She was unconscious. I didn’t go back.’
‘Why?’
‘I thought better of it. One dinner does not create the kind of intimacy that would entitle me to share that kind of pain. I’m sure she has family and close friends. I’d think that she’d want to be with them, rather than a one-night suitor. I know I would.’
‘Have you given up on your eggs?’
‘Just postponed them for a few minutes. Do you have any idea at all who might have done this to her?’
‘No.’
‘Is it possible that once she is past the shock, she might be able to identify her attacker?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘We’re here such a brief time. Alive, I mean. You’re not guaranteed any time. And the very best you can expect is seventy to eighty years. Then most people go through it like cows. Not doing anything. Most people live lives of – what was it, some poet said – “people living lives of quiet desperation?” I’d say most people live lives of endless routine. The time they have their coffee, the way they get to work, the Sunday afternoon football game.
‘I have no idea,’ Gratelli said. ‘You’re attaching this to the serial killer. What makes you think that?’
‘Oh, I’ve talked with David. What kind of person is this, do you think?’
‘We’ve got a profile from the FBI. Who knows how close it is?’
Maldeaux shrugged, sighed. ‘I was reading the other day about black holes. In space. They’ve just discovered that there are such things as drifting black holes, wandering around the universe. The only way they know they exist is that there is a residue of light still on their hungry mouths.’
‘Your point?’ Gratelli asked.
‘We don’t know so many things. We want things to make sense so we create rules and force them to fit. What if this . . . this attacker doesn’t fit? What if he suddenly lurches in another direction or never does it again, or does something completely different?’
‘I have no idea,’ Gratelli said. ‘That doesn’t take me anywhere, Mr Maldeaux.’
‘Probably an ordinary fellow,’ Maldeaux said, ‘standing next to you at the counter in a department store or,’ Maldeaux smiled, ‘sitting across from you at breakfast.’
‘You’re not an ordinary fellow,’ Gratelli said.
‘No.’ Maldeaux said it almost solemnly. ‘I participate in life. I don’t mean the social club or political kind of participation. I mean participation in life. Feeling a part of it as deeply as possible. I want to take life in through every sense as deeply and as often as possible. That’s why I like to cook, Inspector. See, smell, touch, taste. And if you bite into the peppers, we will hear a little crunch. Sure you don’t want to stay?’
‘No, thank you. But I’m sure it’s time I left you alone.’
‘Actually, Inspector, you have no idea how much time I spend alone.’
Good to the Last Kiss Page 11