Ronald Tierney - Good To The Last Kiss - Crimes of the Depraved Mind Series

McClellan went to the window, peeked through the part. In a few moments, he turned back. Shrugged. ‘Come take a look… second floor, to the left.’

Gratelli looked. There was a man lying naked on a bed and a woman dressed in leather doing the deed.

Gratelli looked back. Anthony Jones stared at the floor.

‘So fucking early in the morning,’ McClellan said. ‘And we got ourselves a little peeping Anthony.’

‘Am I under arrest?’

‘Who the fuck knows?’ McClellan said, shaking his head. ‘She could pull the goddamn blinds.’

Gratelli laughed.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Yeah nothing. Hey, Jones, you shouldn’t be looking at that crap.’

‘They look back. They watch me,’ he said defensively.

‘I didn’t want to know that,’ McClellan said.

‘They want me to look,’ Jones pleaded.

‘OK, OK,’ McClellan said. ‘Give it a break. You’re only issued one of those. You wear it out, you go without.’

Gratelli pulled McClellan into the kitchen. ‘Go run our Mr Jones. I’ll ask a few questions.’

Back in the car, heading toward the hospital, they rode in their usual silence. Gratelli was surprised that McClellan hadn’t gotten a little physical with the peeping Tom. He usually liked to push these guys around, scare them and vent some of his own anger. Instead, McClellan went a little soft.

The information on Jones wasn’t much. There had been some previous complaints about him exposing himself in the window of a previous residence, but nothing else. What Gratelli discovered was that the Jones boy had plane ticket stubs that showed he’d been in East Chicago during several of the murders. They’d verify it, of course. They’d put him on the list. It almost wasn’t worth it. But he did have a view of Julia Bateman’s studio apartment, though not much of one. If they put everybody who had some sort of sex kink on their list, they might as well just substitute the San Francisco phone book, the lieutenant told them. Still, who knows what a quiet little guy like the Jones kid would do in the middle of the night?

Just as they pulled into park, McClellan said. ‘You know you never think of homosexual slants you know? I mean, I know there is. I seen ’em. Used to be a place called the Rendezvous downtown some years ago. But it don’t seem natural. None of it seems natural. Gay Vietnamese. Gay Mexicans. Isn’t there one fuckin’ country that don’t have homos? You think there’s gotta be. Yet there’s a whole fuckin’ city full of homos, all sizes, all colors speaking ninety-seven different languages.’ He shook his head. ‘How you suppose it happens? What turns a guy?’

Gratelli shrugged.

‘I mean, fuck, you ever think about that shit?’

‘I don’t know,’ Gratelli said. ‘You being a good Irish Catholic boy, you probably messed around…’

‘You’re ass, Gratelli.’ McClellan pulled into the hospital lot, and pulled into the space in front of the fire hydrant.

‘When I was a kid, maybe thirteen, me and my cousin Joey sat in back of Uncle Frank’s black Buick looking at magazines…’

‘I don’t want to hear it,’ McClellan said.

Gratelli shrugged, repressed a smile that would have been rare in any event and got out of the car and followed McClellan into the big old building.

The humor of McClellan’s sudden priggishness slipped away quickly as he thought about Julia Bateman. Few people besides other cops would understand how he felt about questioning a rape victim – especially one as brutalized as Bateman. He would have rather have spent an afternoon on a bed of nails than cause her the agony of reliving any part of that experience.

Julia saw the two men come in. She didn’t recognize either of them until Gratelli spoke.

‘Ms Bateman, I’m Inspector Gratelli, San Francisco police.’

Her father got up from the edge of the bed.

‘I’m Royal Bateman.’

‘Her father?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘This is Inspector McClellan.’

‘Nice to meet you both. Is there any news?’

‘No,’ Gratelli said. ‘Too early. We need to get some information from your daughter. You might want to grab a cup of coffee or something, stretch your legs. We might be a while.’

‘I’d like to stay.’

Royal Bateman said it in a way that wasn’t a request.

Gratelli looked at Julia. She nodded.

‘All right. As long as you understand we might be getting pretty graphic here.’

The senior Bateman stepped aside, moving toward the window as Gratelli pulled a chair beside Julia’s bed. McClellan hung back by the door.

‘Ms Bateman, I’m going to try to ask questions in such a way that you can answer yes or no. Don’t try to speak, OK?’

She nodded.

‘Did you know your assailant?’

She shook her head no.

Early in the questioning, Julia Bateman didn’t feel the strain. Perhaps, she thought, she had vented everything crying in her father’s arms. She felt little emotion. The events seemed so distant, so unconnected to her, she felt as if she were remembering some movie she had seen or book she had read.

But eventually the darkness seemed to be creeping back. As she nodded to one question and shook her head at another, her thoughts became more vivid.

‘Were his hands coarse, rough?’

She shook her head ‘no,’ but could feel them now, wet, slippery hands. Julia could smell him.

‘Did he say anything…?’

She shook her head ‘no.’ But she could hear him breathing as if he were next to her. Now.

She could no longer understand the questions.

‘Ms Bateman?’ It was the gravelly voice.

She put her hands over her eyes, but it did no good. What she saw was inside her head. There was a sweaty body over her.

‘You got any ideas about lunch?’ McClellan asked as the red Taurus pulled out of the hospital parking lot.

‘I’m not hungry.’ Gratelli was exhausted and his stomach churned like he’d just gulped down a cup or two of sulfuric acid.

‘You’ll be hungry. You need to eat.’

‘Why is it I always need to eat when you’re hungry?’

McClellan laughed. ‘You’re skinny.’

‘I’m healthy.’

‘You look dead.’

Gratelli knew he did. He looked like his father, dark hair, pale skin, bony features. Couldn’t gain weight if he tried. His brother Marcello got the mother’s genes. Those were the fat genes. Marcello looked more alive than Vincente for the entire forty-eight years of his life, before he died of a heart attack.

‘My brother looked very healthy when he died,’ Gratelli said. ‘Better just to look dead than be dead.’

‘I’m not so sure about that,’ McClellan said. ‘You upset about what we talked about earlier?’

‘What?’

‘About messin’ ’round in the back seat of your Uncle Frank’s Buick?’

‘Mickey, listen…’

‘Shut your fuckin’ trap a minute, will ya? I’m trying’ to tell you something. Kids do it. Curiosity. OK?’ McClellan took a deep breath, let it out. What he was about to say wasn’t easy. ‘Once. I was fuckin’ twelve years old, ragin’ hormones, and all that, you know,’ McClellan said, gritting his teeth and staring straight ahead. ‘We went skinny dippin’ and were just laying there dryin’ out and hell the sun and the hormones and talking about things… hell we were just showing each other what we had, you know, and how big it could get. And well things got outta hand.’

‘You played with his…’

‘Don’t make a federal case out of it, all right? I just figured to set the record straight. We’re even now. You messed around. I messed around. Once. End of story.’

‘I never messed around,’ Gratelli said.

‘What do you mean?’ McClellan blurted, turning toward Gratelli.