By the time she crossed back to Jason’s driveway, her nephew was coming out the front door with two large suitcases. “Tim! I can’t believe you’re stealing things from your friend!”
“Relax, Aunt Ruth. I’m just trying to de-fag the place a little. I had to at least clear out the porn and the sex toys before his family finds them. He would have done the same thing for a friend.”
Ruth looked back at Jason’s beautiful red convertible, still parked in the driveway with the top down. The black upholstery was damp from the fog. “Do you know how to put the top up on this car, Tim? It seems a shame to leave it out here like this.”
“No, I’m sure you have to turn the engine on in order to put the top up. I don’t know where the car keys would be.” Tim had no qualms about removing certain things from Jason’s house, but he didn’t feel right about searching through drawers and pockets for a set of keys to the Thunderbird… not so soon… not tonight.
“That was one thing Jason was pretty good about. When he was drinking, he didn’t drive. At least he lived close enough to walk to all the bars in the neighborhood. God, I still can’t believe…”
“I know, honey, I know…” Ruth tried to comfort her nephew. “Would you like me to carry one of those bags for you? They look heavy.”
“No thanks, I’ve got ‘em. They’re heavy, but at least I’m balanced.”
Across Hartford Street someone else stepped out his front door, walked to a car down the block and got inside. “He probably doesn’t even know about Jason. I guess the neighbors can read all about it in the papers tomorrow. I just want to go home.”
They headed back toward Collingwood Street with their secrets. Ruth’s purse felt heavier with the knife inside. She waited until they locked the door of Tim’s apartment before she dared to tell him what she had found. She considered keeping it to herself until morning, but the police would have to see it sooner or later. Even though he was upset about his friend, Tim would know better than she would what to do. At least she hoped so.
Chapter 3
When Ruth woke and found herself staring at the hands on her travel alarm showing just shy of 5 o’clock, she hoped it was p.m., but no, the apartment had that early morning gloom. Her body had not yet forgotten Minnesota time. She rose from the pillow and felt a bit of a hangover. Tim had insisted they share a bottle of wine when they came home from Hancock Street. How strange, she was starting to feel this city was ‘home’ already.
Tim was as dear to her as if he were her own son. He’d always been a good kid and she was happy to have been there for him in high school when his parents threw him out, even though it had taken a toll on Ruth’s relationship with her sister Betty. Ruth was glad she could be here for him again now, when he must be in shock over the brutal murder of his friend.
And she needed him, too. She was no youngster anymore.
She tip-toed down the hallway past Tim’s room, opened the back door, then took a deep breath of the jasmine vining up the wall. He had a nice, little garden. A dozen or so clay pots, a cherry tomato heavy with fruit was staked up in one corner, flowers were blooming on pedestals, hanging from the fence, even suspended from the wall above her head.
She thought this would be a lovely place to sit and read or sip a cup of coffee, but not right now. The fog was thick. A thermometer mounted in a psychedelic sunflower reminded Ruth of Haight Street. 53 degrees. Brrr… She shut the door and returned to the couch. Flipping through a magazine she’d picked up at the Minneapolis airport left her drowsy, and she fell back to sleep.
“Aunt Ruth, aren’t you up yet? It’s nearly eleven. I’ve got coffee on. Do you want cereal… eggs?” When Tim stuck his head around the corner Ruth could see the strain of the past 24 hours on his face. He was bare-chested, wearing a pair of gray sweat-pants and white athletic socks that were silent and slick on the hardwood floor.
She wiped sleep from her eyes.
“The cops just called. They’re coming by around noon to pick up that knife you found.” He sat down on the couch’s arm. “I already told them it was wiped clean of any blood, if it was the murder weapon. There probably aren’t any prints. God, I can’t believe I’m saying that… ‘murder weapon.’ They want to take it to the lab for tests and they also want statements from both of us.”
She smiled up at him, touched her tousled hair and tugged her nightgown down over her knees. “Then I’d better get dressed and make myself presentable.”
Tim headed for the kitchen. “I told them you were waiting out in front on the driveway the whole time yesterday morning until the ambulance came. The house numbers on that block might as well be invisible.” She heard him open the fridge door. “And I told them you had your cell-phone with you and you used it to call 911. I was glad I didn’t have to climb over Jason to get to the phone inside. I refuse to get a cell phone. I don’t want people to be able to reach me all the time.”
“I hope you know they’re only doing their jobs, dear. The police, I mean. I hope you told them we’ll be happy to help the investigation in any way we can.”
Ruth thought that Tim must still be in a state of shock over the violent death of his friend. She was relieved that he was talking, rather than retreating into a gloomy silence, so she decided to wait until after the police were gone to take a shower and finish unpacking. The blouse and slacks she’d worn yesterday were handy, so she pulled them on and followed Tim into the kitchen.
”Mmmm… That coffee smells so good. How are you feeling this morning? Did you sleep okay?”
“I don’t remember any dreams, if that’s what you mean.” He hefted the coffeepot. “I forget how you like it. Black, isn’t it?”
She nodded. The mugs had Got Harvey Milk? in bold lettering. If Tim ever stopped to catch a breath, she could ask what that meant.
“I also talked to Arturo and Artie and they’re throwing a party for Jason on Sunday afternoon. Oh man, that’s tomorrow already. Nothing heavy, not like a funeral. Gay people have had so many deaths over the years that we’ve got these things down to a science.”
Tim stirred a heaping teaspoon of sugar into his mug. She needn’t wonder where some of his energy came from.
“Come to think of it, nobody I know has died in a long time. If Jason’s relatives want some kind of religious service, they can do that in their town where he came from. That’s funny… I never even knew where he grew up before. He never talked about his family. Anyhow, the gay family will just get together and raise a glass to his memory. A glass or two… or ten or twelve… I guess it’s kind of like what the Irish do, isn’t it?”
“Like an Irish wake?” Ruth asked. The coffee tasted foreign and expensive. She approved.
“Yeah, friends get together and tell stories and bring pictures and stuff… nothing weepy. It’s going to be Sunday at the bar from 2 to 6, from the end of the brunch shift to the early part of dinner. Arturo said they would have waited a week to list it in the B.A.R. first—that’s one of the gay newspapers—but the following Sunday the Gay Men’s Chorus is doing a big concert with Dame Edna at Davies Hall. Even Jason wouldn’t try to compete with that.”
Ruth had a dozen questions come to mind, but she didn’t interrupt.
“He has too many friends in the chorus… or had, I should say. They’ll put the obituary in next Thursday’s paper. Artie said they were already packed last night with people who’d heard what happened. Word gets around fast. Tonight they’ve got reservations like crazy, too. I might need to go in and help out. I told them you and I didn’t have any plans for tonight... Do we?”
“No, that’s fine,” Ruth said. “I’m sure that under the circumstances they’d appreciate your being there. If there’s anything I can do, just let me know.”
“Sure… thanks for being here, Aunt Ruth. I appreciate it.”
Now the back door was standing wide open and sunlight bathed the patio. It sparkled off the marble tabletop illuminating a clear glass bowl with a floating gardenia that Ruth hadn�
�t noticed before. “Tim, could we take our coffee outside?”
“Of course. Good idea. I almost always do when it’s warm enough.” He refilled his cup and joined her.
“I love your little garden, Tim.” She smiled and looked directly into his eyes. She could tell that he was trying hard to be cheerful, in spite of everything. Maybe it was for her sake or maybe he was still in shock. He looked tired, but why wouldn’t he be? “My darling nephew Timothy Snow… how are you holding up, my dear boy?”
“All right… I guess. It was such a shock to see someone you know like that… someone you care about, I mean… someone I thought I cared about once. I felt like I was only a kid when I arrived in San Francisco. You know… there were lots of other guys before Jason, but I thought he and I were going to be different, something special… for a while, anyway.”
“It’s got to be a terrible shock, honey.”
“Yeah, it is. I’m old enough to have known death, though. People don’t die from AIDS as often as they used to, but I’ve known some. Even in those days when they were, no one I knew was getting murdered! There were the Andrew Cunanan killings, of course, but that was before I got here and I didn’t know any of his victims. I don’t exactly travel in the same social circles as Versace…”
Ruth was glad she was here for Tim to talk to, but sometimes he seemed to fade away and she tried to bring him back. “We had some friends in Minneapolis who lived in the same building as that young man Cunanan murdered there. Our friends’ bedroom wall backed up to the kitchen of the apartment where they found the body rolled up in a rug.”
Tim shivered and made a face. “They say that no one would have guessed by looking at him. Andrew Cunanan came into Arts one night for dinner. Jake was working and he told me all about waiting on him with a party of four. Cunanan went to the bathroom and stopped by the piano on his way back to make a request and then he stuck a fifty-dollar bill in Viv’s tip jar, but he stiffed Jake.”
“No!”
“Yes! And guess what he asked her to play…’What I did for love’ …can you believe it?”
“From Chorus Line? Oh Tim…” Ruth reached across the table, caressed her nephew’s hand and tried not to laugh.
“Did your friends in Minneapolis hear any noises or anything?”
“No, they were out of town when it happened. Didn’t I tell you about all that?”
“No, you didn’t tell me. But I haven’t told you… listen to this! When I called the restaurant this morning Arturo told me he dug up Jason’s file in the office from back when he first started working there, years ago. It had his Social Security number, date of birth and all that stuff. They found his mother’s phone number and she lives in Sacramento. That’s where he was born. I always thought he was European! I remember he once mentioned going to a private boarding school in Switzerland. Anyway, Artie thought somebody should tell his relatives about this gathering Sunday. Some families would want to be part of it, to at least get to know who he really was, maybe get to talk to some of his friends, right? Guess what his Mother said!”
“I have no idea, dear.”
“She said, ‘I’m not interested in meeting any of Jason’s perverted friends. Just let me know when the police are finished and I can have access to his estate.’”
“What a horrible thing to say about her son’s friends.”
“Can you believe that? What a bitch!”
“Maybe she was still in shock, dear.”
“I should have let her find the damned Jeff Stryker dildoes and the pornography and the vacuum pumps… not to mention a gross of surgical gloves and buckets of lube! He owned every video that Al Parker ever made! Well, it’s all stashed here in the storeroom, now. We could maybe donate some of it to a charity auction.”
“I’m sure he’d approve of that, dear.” Ruth was feebly trying to keep up her end of the conversation and trying to remember why the name of Jeff Stryker sounded familiar.
“I mean, some of those videos I already have on DVD, so I don’t need them,” Tim said. “But it makes me sick that Jason’s mother never had anything to do with him when he was alive and now she’s all excited to inherit a nice chunk of real estate. He never would have had that house or car if Karl hadn’t left him everything. Jason deserved it, too. I know I probably told you Jason was a slut, but that was only in recent years. According to Artie and Arturo, Jason took really good care of Karl when he got sick. Jason and I didn’t really have a future together, as much as I might have fantasized about it…” Tim stepped inside and refilled their coffee cups just before the doorbell rang.
Ruth guessed that this must be the police so she stood up and followed a few steps behind Tim down the hallway toward the living room. She watched him open the door and give a partial embrace to a couple of guys, one at a time. No… one was a man and the other was a woman, but both were in SFPD uniforms. Everyone seemed to know each other in the Castro.
Chapter 4
Business was jumping at Arts that night. Though Tim had taken the whole week off to spend with his aunt, he couldn’t refuse helping out if they needed him. “It’s kind of weird not working on a Saturday night,” he said to his aunt as they walked in the door. “Even weirder not to see Jason behind the bar.”
“Dear, you’re bound to miss your friend.”
They found bar stools near the front door just as Viv sat down at the piano on the little stage at the back of the club. She toyed a moment with the microphone—rarely used, since she didn’t sing herself. Tim knew she would use it as a prop, especially if someone cute had a good enough voice for a solo. She turned it on and announced that her first set was a medley of hits from recent Broadway shows.
Tim snickered and said to his aunt, “Viv is hopelessly out of date. I’ll bet her idea of Broadway hits is the overture to Gypsy. I’m sure she’s never even heard of Avenue Q or Spring Awakening.”
Artie brought Ruth a glass of chardonnay and popped the top off Tim’s beer. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with a bar towel. “I’m sorry you had to wait so long. Everybody’s heard about Jason by now.
“Don’t worry about us,” Ruth said. “We’re not in any hurry.”
“I think they wanted proof.” Artie glanced at the crowd. “If it wasn’t true, he’d be making their drinks, wouldn’t he? I can’t remember when I’ve worked so hard.”
“So much for the night off,” Tim said, but he squeezed one of Artie’s thick forearms to show he didn’t mind.
“And what’s worse, Jorge is missing again and Arturo is furious.”
“Who’s Jorge?” Ruth asked Tim.
“Arturo’s nephew. He started here a few months ago helping out in the kitchen, doing prep work, peeling vegetables and washing dishes. Arturo speaks to him in Spanish and tells him what to do. Sometimes he comes onto the floor to bring a tub of dirty dishes back, but I hardly know him, what with the language barrier and all. At least he was dependable… up until now.”
Ruth said, “You know, Artie, if things get out of control, I could always help out. During the summers when I was at Stanford, I worked as a cocktail waitress. Even learned to tend bar in a little place on the west bank in Minneapolis.
But Artie was already heading back toward the waiter’s station and Ruth didn’t think he’d heard her offer.
“No shit?” Tim asked his aunt.
“When did you start using that kind of language?”
Tim lowered his head for a moment, and then meekly looked into her eyes. “Sorry, but I never heard about you working in a bar. My Aunt Ruth is a woman with a past.”
“Hardly—I was only a girl at the time and there are lots of things you don’t know about my past. That was before you were born or back when you were a tiny baby. I had a lot of fun bartending. I wasn’t even old enough to buy a drink in a bar myself, but they needed someone fast. I got pretty good at it too and the college boys liked me. I even had a fake ID just like everyone else in those days.”
“No shit. I me
an, no fooling? You had a fake ID?”
Ruth took a sip of her wine, leaned close to her nephew’s ear and whispered, “No shit.”
Tim laughed and gestured with his head toward a tall man in a cowboy hat and boots coming out of the men’s room. “Look who’s checking you out… Roy Rodgers.”
“Who’s that?”
“Viv’s newest husband. Number four or five. I don’t think she even keeps count. His name is really Roy Rodgers, with a ‘D’. I heard he has a lot in common with a horse. That might explain why she’s a bit more pleasant lately. They live in the house she inherited from her last husband out in the Sunset District someplace.”
“He’s not bad looking in a rough and tumble sort of way.” Ruth noticed how he stared at her. She looked back down at her glass.
“He must be giving her quite the tumble, all right. He drops her off every night when she works and he picks her up afterward in an old Cadillac, but I’ve never seen him hang around like this before. She’s off Mondays and Tuesdays and she usually quits playing on Sundays by about 10 or 10:30 unless there’s a good crowd. As long as there are tips going into that big brandy snifter on the piano she’ll stay until they turn out the lights.”
“I think the cowboy is obsessed with me,” Ruth said. “He’s still staring.”
“It must be your great-looking legs, Aunt Ruth. You’ve only been in town for less than 48 hours and you’re already getting hit on. I should be so lucky.”
“He’d better not be hitting on me if he’s married to Viv.”
“Aw, it doesn’t hurt to look. He’s kind of weird anyway. The first night he came in to wait for Viv he asked Artie if he could eat at the bar and Artie said sure, that was fine, but Roy wanted to order a bowl of corn flakes!”
“For dinner?”
“Yeah, Artie told him we don’t even serve cereal at brunch. This isn’t some greasy-spoon coffee-shop. He told him to go to Orphan Andy’s. They serve breakfast 24-hours. I actually like Orphan Andy’s.”
Cold Serial Murder Page 3
