Cold Serial Murder

by Abramson, Mark

  “Oh yes, he’s gone for good,” Marcia did another little curtsey just like she had the time Ruth saw her running up the stairs. “I’ve done away with Malcolm once and for all. He won’t be coming back any more this time, thank God!”

  Ruth blanched at Marcia’s wide grin. She stepped back, into Tim. And she did the only reasonable thing a sensible lady could do when confronted with a boastful murderer. She fainted.

  Chapter 14

  When Aunt Ruth came to she was surrounded by a crowd of people bending over her. One of a passing pair of lipstick lesbians offered Ruth her bottle of water and the other one announced that she was a doctor. Arturo and Tim had caught her and carefully lowered her to the sidewalk out of the way of pedestrian traffic at the south end of the MUNI bus shelter.

  “I think she’ll be all right,” Tim said. “She just fainted.”

  “Where am I? What’s going on? What happened?” Ruth blinked a couple of times at the young woman hovering over her with a plastic water bottle and wondered why Tim was holding her hand with such a serious expression on his face.

  “You fainted.”

  “But… but Marcia… the killer.” Ruth rubbed at her brow. “She said she did away with her brother.”

  Tim helped his aunt back to her feet.

  “No, Marcia didn’t kill Malcolm. Marcia is Malcolm… or was. Malcolm became Marcia, don’t you see? I’m not sure if she’s finished with all the surgery, but he won’t be… She won’t be appearing as Malcolm anymore. That’s all she was trying to say.” Tim stumbled over the explanation. How can you ever really explain to a breeder from the suburbs all about gender-reassignment.

  “I still don’t trust her,” Ruth said. “Remember when Teresa was telling us about gay people changing their names and making things difficult for everyone around them? Lenny became Leonardo and now Malcolm wants to be Marcia? Well, this just takes the cake.”

  “That wasn’t what Teresa was talking about. A sex-change is different.” Tim knew that his Aunt Ruth was a loving and open-minded person, but getting used to life in the Castro wouldn’t happen overnight.

  Marcia and Artie finally came toward Ruth to see what all the fuss was about. Artie was so excited to see Marcia that he’d pulled the two of them toward the bank and out of the line of foot traffic and they missed Ruth’s fainting spell entirely.

  “You told me you were his sister,” Ruth said. “Why did you lie to me? Why did you let everyone think I was the only one who ever saw you? They must have thought I was crazy! Why did you let them? I’m not a mean person. I could have kept your secret, if that’s what you wanted.”

  “I’m sorry I lied to you, Ruth,” Marcia said. “I didn’t even know who you were that day we met and I told you that.”

  “I said I was Tim’s Aunt Ruth, I’m sure I did.”

  “You said you were just visiting. How did I know you’d be sticking around? It seemed easier at the time to just say the first thing that popped into my head, rather than to go into a lengthy explanation for a stranger I would never see again.”

  “I’m no stranger here. I’m Tim’s Aunt Ruth from Minnesota where we don’t play nasty tricks on people,” she said. “I’m staying in the same building where Malcolm lives, for heaven’s sake… or lived. Tim said Malcolm was one of his neighbors on the second floor and you said you were house-sitting. Oh, I’m so confused…”

  “Let’s get you out of the sun, Aunt Ruth,” Tim said as he put his arm around her. “Maybe we should go home now and you can lie down for a while.”

  Ruth turned to face Artie. “And you knew who she was all along?”

  “I can keep a secret too,” Artie said in his own defense. “I didn’t even tell Arturo.”

  “See you later?” Marcia said. “I’m sorry, Ruth.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Artie said as Tim and Ruth walked away and he turned back to admire Marcia’s outfit. “You are such a doll! I remember when I was your size, but that’s ancient history. You can really wear clothes, just the way I used to do when I was your age. And those colors are perfect with your complexion. I haven’t dared to wear bold patterns and bright prints since I was in my forties!”

  Tim and Ruth walked up Castro Street past the restaurant and around the corner to his apartment. “Marcia is a transsexual,” Tim tried to explain. “That means she was born into a male body, but never felt comfortable as a man. It’s like if you had been born with male parts, Aunt Ruth. Wouldn’t you do everything you could to make things right?”

  “But what about Artie? Is he going to have surgery too?”

  “No—no—no, not at all. Artie is just a drag queen. He likes being a man. He just likes to play dress-up and let out his feminine side. He would never want to be a woman full-time. It’s all just a fun and creative expression for him. It’s totally different. It’s not even sexual, in his case, although I’ve never asked him about that. I can’t quite imagine Artie as a sexual being in the first place, especially not in drag.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Ee-ew. I don’t even want to think about it. Maybe you can ask Artie to explain it all to you sometime.”

  “Maybe I will,” Ruth said with a touch of indignation. She still had the sense that someone had tried to hurt her feelings on purpose. And she still didn’t care for this Marcia person, whoever she was, or her former brother Malcolm, whom she’d missed out on. Ruth’s head was spinning… Maybe Marcia is stronger than she looks under that dress… in high heels, she could be tall enough to have inflicted those knife wounds…

  “In fact,” Tim said, “I’ve heard the majority of men who like to dress up in women’s clothes are actually heterosexual. Go figure.”

  Ruth patted her chest. “I think I need to lie down right now, dear.”

  Once he got his aunt settled on the living room sofa, Tim took a walk over to Hancock Street to have a look at his new property. It was going to take some time to believe that the house and car he’d admired for so long were now his. Tim had no problem with the idea that he would never see Malcolm again, whom he hardly knew anyway. But it was still hard to believe that Jason wasn’t coming back.

  Tim knelt beside the front steps and found the phony rock in the flower bed. He removed the hidden key and transferred it to his own key chain. He opened the front door and walked down the hall to the back of the house. Tim opened windows along the way to let in the fresh air and finally opened the kitchen door for cross-ventilation. Someone had removed the yellow police tape, but Tim could still see dried blood on the kitchen linoleum. He tried to remember where he’d heard about a service that cleans up the gory scenes of crimes and accidents. He hated to think of some of the sights they had to deal with, no doubt much worse than this one, but he would feel better after a professional did a thorough cleaning in here. He also wanted to get the locks changed right away. If Tim knew where Jason kept an extra key hidden, there was no telling who else might have known and already had one made, although Tim didn’t suspect that the killer would return to the scene of the crime.

  Tim thought of all the good times in this house when he and Jason were together, but there was no way he could envision moving in here after Jason’s murder. He walked back from the kitchen down the hall past the guest room and Jason’s study. There, on the roll-top desk were Jason’s computer and his answering machine. Tim instinctively hit the “Play” button and was startled to hear his own voice from what seemed like a lifetime ago:

  “Jason, it’s Tim. Are you screening your calls? Pick up the phone. Where are you? My Aunt Ruth is here from Minneapolis… the one I told you about. Are we still on for that drive to the beach today? It should be hot…”

  Tim lunged for the button to turn off the machine. Jason might have still been alive when Tim left that recording. Or he might have been struggling with his attacker at that moment. Tim would never know.

  He sat down on the edge of Jason’s bed and looked around. Being here brought a flood of memories. Tim star
ed at the Robert Uyvarri nudes on one wall. They were his now, as well as a framed poster from the San Francisco Eagle signed by the same artist. The sliding doors of the closet were a wall of mirrors. The bedroom was stark compared to Tim’s mess at home where he had photographs and mementos everywhere.

  Jason’s hallway told a richer story, lined with photographs of a full and happy life in San Francisco. Several were of Jason and Karl together. More recent ones showed Jason with Tim; some were copies of the same snapshots Tim had on his refrigerator on Collingwood Street.

  Tim moved on to the living room. He used to tease Jason about being a boy scout because the fireplace was always ready to light, no matter what time of year. Like all San Franciscans, Jason knew how a perfect summer day could turn cold by late afternoon. Today was still warm, but Tim felt a chill in the house and struck a match to Jason’s handiwork. This was the last fire Jason built and Tim wanted to burn it right now, without delay – get it over and done with, a ritual of cleaning and an attempt to make the place his own.

  Tim watched the flames take hold and pulled the poker out of its stand, but he didn’t need to use it; the fire was perfect. He set the poker down on the hearth and sat back in Jason’s favorite chair. The colored flames of kindling licked the larger logs until they crackled. The warmth soothed Tim and he could smell Jason again in a combination of wood smoke, good bourbon and the clean sweat that comes of hard work. Tim closed his eyes, took a deep breath and sank into the soft leather chair.

  Sometimes the dreams started out blurred around the edges like the borders of a picture trimmed with pinking shears. A hazy figure in leather stood over Tim, bare-chested except for a chain harness. As his vision came into focus he recognized Jason’s face under his leather cap, a snap-on codpiece, boots and gloves. He held a riding crop in his right hand and was smacking it into the palm of his left.

  “Jason?” Tim was frightened and excited at the same time. “What’s going on? Is that really you?”

  “Of course it’s me. You were expecting Cher, maybe?” Jason took a step closer, still slapping the riding crop into his gloved hand. “I left you the house and everything in it, but it’s not exactly free, you know. There’s a catch.”

  “What do you mean?

  “And I know I shouldn’t have left you the T-bird, but you always loved that car and no one else would appreciate it quite as much. Knowing you, you’ll probably wrap it around a tree within a month! By the way… it’ll need a new muffler soon. I already ordered one from a place in L.A. that handles classic car parts. It’s paid for, so don’t let them try to screw you into paying C.O.D. when it arrives.”

  “Jason… I still can’t believe…”

  “Tim, there’s something you need to do, so just sit tight and listen. We don’t have all day… I’m still going through orientation. Man, it’s a riot to see everybody again and they’re all looking so good and healthy! Even the ones who… well, you’ll see what I mean when your time comes, but that’s a long ways off. They’re keeping me busy, though. I’m on a break right now and I noticed you dozing off, so I thought this would be a good time…”

  “A good time for what, Jason?”

  “Well, you know by now that all of this would have been yours anyway, since I wrote my will quite a while back, but I didn’t think it would happen for a long time. Consider yourself lucky that you’re inheriting this so young that you’ll have years to enjoy it. But I need you to do something for me. Let’s just call it a price you have to pay.”

  “What price?”

  “Somebody has to stop the killer, dummy! And it has to be soon or he’ll keep on killing people. He’s gone way off the deep end, you know. He’s really crazy! There are three victims the police don’t even know about. They might never find some of the bodies…” Jason’s voice faded and Tim’s vision of him began to blur.

  “Who is he? Why is he killing people, Jason? Give me something to go on, here…”

  Jason’s body became transparent and Tim could see through him to the flames of the fireplace. “Jason? Jason… I miss you!”

  When Tim opened his eyes the fire was only a pile of glowing embers. The sun was sinking past the living room window beside the fireplace and Tim was drenched in sweat. He’d never had one of his dreams in the daytime before and he knew one thing for sure; he would never fall asleep again in the same flat where Jason had been murdered.

  This dream was one of the important ones, he was sure of that, but what did it mean? How did it help solve anything? What was he supposed to do? Tim tried to remember what Jason had said and what he could have meant by it. “There’s a catch… a price to pay… off the deep end … C.O.D.… three victims they don’t even know about?”

  Tim had been having these dreams since he was a kid. The more brightly lit they were the more real they seemed and this one was practically in Technicolor. These were the ones he was supposed to figure out, but he never could. If only his grandmother had taught him what to do with this so-called “gift” of his.

  Tim thought about what Jason was wearing and remembered where he kept his leathers—in the bedroom closet. Tim stood up, ran down the hall and opened the sliding mirrored doors. It was all there. He had thought about clearing it out the night he packed up Jason’s porn, but there wasn’t room in the suitcases. The boots were on the floor. There were several pairs, actually, but the ones Jason was wearing a few minutes ago were his favorites and they were right in front. The chain harness was hanging from a hook on the wall. The only thing missing was the riding crop.

  Tim remembered seeing it hanging from a hook inside the back door. It played across his mind like a dream, but he knew he was as wide awake now as he had been that day and he remembered exactly how it happened:

  It was a sunny afternoon. He and Jason were sitting in the kitchen. It might have been the first time that Tim was ever there in the daylight. Jason got up and went to the refrigerator to get them a couple of beers and Tim started laughing. He could hear Jason’s voice again now.

  “What’s so damn funny?

  “That leather thing… that thing that’s hanging on the hook inside the back door.”

  “It’s called a riding crop.”

  “But why is it hanging inside the back door? In Minnesota we’d have a fly swatter hanging there, but that would make an awfully skinny fly swatter. You’d have to have really good aim to hit a fly with a thing like that. Even with screen doors and screens on the windows, the flies get inside sometimes and…” Tim hated when he started blathering on about nothing, but he couldn’t help it, especially when he was unsure of himself.

  Jason handed Tim a beer and set his own down on the table. He reached for the riding crop and put his free hand on the back of Tim’s neck, lifting him up out of the chair and bending him over. They were both laughing now. “I’ll show you what this is good for swatting, smart-ass! It’ll really sting when I get you out of those pants and we’ll see what’s wide enough…”

  The riding crop had been on a hook inside the back door for as long as Tim could remember. He ran to the kitchen and stopped just short of stepping in Jason’s dried blood. It was gone! There was nothing but an empty hook there now. Had Jason’s killer stolen the riding crop as some kind of a sick souvenir?

  Tim heard footsteps coming from the upstairs half of the duplex. He looked out the kitchen window and saw something parked in the driveway behind the T-bird. He hadn’t heard anyone drive up, but they could have arrived while he was dreaming of Jason. Tim stepped out the back door as a muscular pair of hairy legs in cut-offs and dusty brown boots came down the stairs. That’s all Tim could see below the big cardboard box the man carried. “Hello. Do you need any help there?” Tim asked.

  “Just tell me how I’m doing. I lost count. Am I five steps from the bottom or six?”

  “You’re on the fifth step from the bottom.” Tim stepped up and took the weight off the near side of the box. Now that it was lowered, Tim looked into the handsome face and b
right eyes of a man who seemed familiar, but maybe they had only met in one of his dreams. They carried the box down the driveway together and set it down in the bed of the pick-up truck.

  “Hey, thanks a lot.”

  “You’re welcome. I’m Tim Snow. Who are you?”

  “I’m Nick Musgrove, see?” He pointed to the logo on the door of the pick-up truck, a picture of a tree and letters that spelled out: Musgrove Landscape and Gardening Service, Rohnert Park, California. Tim had seen this truck in the driveway before, but he always assumed that it belonged to one of Jason’s tricks.

  “I remember Jason mentioned that some old lady rented the upstairs, but I never saw her around…”

  Nick Musgrove had a blonde pony-tail that hung just past the neck of his sleeveless T-shirt, a dime-sized gold hoop in his left ear, and strong tanned arms speckled with golden hairs. “She does…or… she used to… my grandmother…”

  “I’m sorry. Did she pass away recently?”

  “Oh no, she’s fine. She just got back from a trip. Maybe you’ve heard of her, Amanda Musgrove, the writer. She’s getting up in years, but she still loves to travel. The stairs here were starting to be too much for her, that’s all. My folks retired and bought a house in Alameda with an in-law unit. They like having her nearby and it’s all on one level. She asked me to come by and pick up the last of her things, an old typewriter and some books to take to Goodwill. They’re heavy, as you could tell. Thanks again.”

  “No problem.”

  “She wanted to give Jason notice when she got back from her trip, but then we heard about what happened here and she wasn’t sure who she should give notice to.”

  “That would be me,” Tim said. “I still can’t quite believe it, but Jason left me the house… and the car, too!”

  “The Thunderbird?” Nick asked. “Wow! What a great old car. I’ve always admired it! I’m really sorry about your friend, though. Have they caught the killer yet?”