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

‘Watch your mouth,’ McClellan said. ‘There are children here. Gratelli’s only fourteen.’

‘Yeah, he looks fourteen.’

‘Drinks a lot. Women, you know.’

Gratelli said nothing to the lieutenant. ‘Leave your car here,’ he told McClellan. ‘We’ll pick it up on the way back in.’

The medical examiner had sent an investigator. They had their own uniform, one that looked halfway between Navy officer and doorman. He was heading toward the body, when McClellan and Gratelli broke from the crowd.

‘Fresh kill, they better get something this time,’ McClellan said. ‘But a smart guy wouldn’t lay down any bets.’

McClellan was silent all the way down to San Gregorio. Gratelli played his opera and Mickey didn’t utter one nasty remark about opera fairies or make some remark about how it might make much more sense if it were in English.

The smell of death is sweet, but not pleasant. Fortunately there is often something unreal about the sight of a corpse. When whatever it is that gives life – a soul, an electrical impulse, a chord of celestial music – is gone, the corpse seems less human. Perhaps not human at all. Seeing murder victims usually pissed off McClellan, made him especially ugly and difficult. Something about this body for McClellan was different. The body had been ravaged. The face hadn’t. The face held something much too human and much too innocent to look at. McClellan didn’t get angry this time.

His lower lip quivered. He shook his head. ‘Oh shit,’ he said, low and quiet.

‘What?’ Gratelli asked.

‘I used to see her in the streets. We talked.’

McClellan walked up the side of the gully. The tall grasses bent under the wind. He stared out at the ocean. He didn’t move again until they were ready to leave.

The neck had been broken and the body had been placed, not thrown in a ditch. It was probably at night, probably very late at night or early in the morning, when the back roads were unlikely to have many travelers.

Coming back to the city, McClellan was quiet. Sullen. Finally as the skyline appeared before them, he broke: ‘So, we gonna have a whole season of baseball this year or are we all gonna switch to football?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Don’t know why I ask you. Damn Italians. All you guys ever do is sing. Not one of you could ever swing a stick.’

‘DiMaggio,’ Gratelli said.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Sells coffee pots, marries Monroe. Somebody told me he played baseball.’ Gratelli turned to look out of the window.

‘Up yours!’

After a long period of silence, McClellan started again.

‘What kind of guy would break a girl’s neck, get her naked and dump her in a ditch? Nothing else, not even rape as far as we can tell.’

McClellan had worked himself up. He was breathing heavily, irregularly.

‘In a zoo,’ he continued, ‘you can tell what the animals are and what they’re likely to do. Here, no way. We got guys blowin’ off their kids for the insurance money. Somebody else dumping body parts in dumpsters in an alley. This guy decides to pick up chicks, break their necks and leave ’em around the city, seems about par for the fucking course.’

McClellan dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief as the afternoon sun pounded his side of the car.

Julia had relieved Paul at noon and Paul returned the favor at five, allowing Julia to meet Sammie at the gym. For the most part, they were just gym buddies. Their worlds didn’t overlap much – save an occasional dinner after the workout. But for Julia, Sammie was great at the gym. She encouraged and challenged Julia to put her heart into the routines, not letting her give up or glide through the three-times-a-week workout. And, perhaps sadly, Julia thought, aside from Paul, Sammie was her only other friend.

‘How did you know where I live?’ Julia asked Thaddeus Maldeaux. She wanted to be indignant. She wanted to be angry. Instead it was difficult to hide a smile. But she did.

He stood just behind the driver’s door of the two-year-old black Toyota Camry parked at the curb. The unpretentious auto was blocking a lane of one-way evening rush hour traffic heading west on Hayes Street. And Thaddeus himself was in danger of being side swiped by drivers anxious to get home.

‘You’re in the phone book. Page one of the private detective’s primer.’ He smiled. ‘But you know all about that, being a detective and all.’

‘An insurance investigator. Though I like the sound of detective. It makes me more interesting.’

He noticed her staring at the car. ‘My mother’s. I don’t own one.’ He smiled again. ‘What’s a spoiled rich boy doing driving such a mundane car?’

‘I didn’t…’

‘My mother’s truly rich, Julia. And whether you believe it or not, this was an extravagance. I think she really wanted a Chevy Cavalier. She was going to splurge and get the four-door. She used to try to beat the paperboy out of a week’s delivery. The truly rich are truly tight.’

Julia found herself grinning. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

‘She wouldn’t really cheat the paperboy. I made that up. She is frugal, but she’s a wonderful woman. A wonderful mother. And I don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve you either, but I’ve come to take you to dinner.’

‘I have plans.’

‘You do?’

‘Don’t I?’

‘David is tied up tonight.’

‘Oh. He sent you in as a replacement.’

‘I’m the understudy. When he’s unable to fulfill his obligations, I get my big chance.’

‘Not a chance.’

‘Now, now. It won’t be bad. I promise. We can go across the street. Caffe Delle Stelle. Delle Stelle,’ he said relishing the sound. ‘Love it.’

‘Thanks, but…’

‘You don’t have plans. You have to eat. I’ll park, check out the galleries and ring your buzzer about seven thirty, then we’ll eat. I’ll walk you back. I won’t come up. I’ll be very, very good.’

‘Why are you doing this?’

‘I feel it’s my moral obligation to eliminate prejudice when I can.’

‘Prejudice?’

‘I know. You think you don’t have any. But you do. Toward the deprivation deprived you have deep-seated animosity.’

‘I see,’ Julia said. In addition to money and looks, he also had a sense of humor.

‘You will. You will.’

‘ W hat are the disadvantages of extreme wealth?’ Julia asked Thaddeus Maldeaux inside the bright little Italian restaurant on Gough Street.

‘We get kidnapped a lot.’

She smiled. ‘Patty Hearst.’

‘Yes. The Getty kid, remember. The kidnappers sent back the boy’s ear. These were my peers. Nearly. There were others who didn’t make the papers.’

‘OK, being rich is dangerous.’

‘People are always hitting us up for money – and if we don’t cough it up then we’re selfish. People are starving all over and we don’t care.’

‘Bad press.’

‘And speaking of press, no privacy,’ he said.

‘The evidence is mounting up. You have terrible lives.’

‘But most of all we don’t know if people who seem to love us, or even profess to like us, actually do. They may be interested in what we can do for them. Money, fame…’

‘And power.’

‘And power.’

‘And glamour.’

‘And glamour sometimes. That’s why I like you.’

‘Because I don’t like you.’

‘There’s not a chance you could put that in the past tense?’

‘Maybe.’

‘I thought my charming…’

‘And humble,’ she said.

‘… and humble nature would have…’

‘This is delicious,’ she said.

‘The food, you mean.’

‘Yes. The food.’ It was more than the food, more than the candle-lit decor, more than the smells of garlic and olive oil and the scent of the handsome waiter. No question it was Thaddeus. He was irresistible. What it was about him remained a puzzle. The waiter was as handsome as Thaddeus. The garlic and olive oil that permeated the air was more appealing than any cologne. She looked back into the eyes of Thaddeus. Not sad. Not bright or deep. No sign that behind his eyes, there was extraordinary wisdom or unique understanding. Not the eyes of a saint. What was it? Chemical? Energy maybe from a being…