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

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.

T he 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 eyes 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?’