“No, I never met him. I’d just arrived in town about that time. What happened that night?”
“Nothing. I mean… he gave me a ride home, but you know what the funny thing was? Jorge’s English was just fine. He only pretended not to understand people when they asked him to do things he didn’t want to do. We chatted all the way back to my house and we sat in the driveway and he spilled his whole life story to me. He wasn’t happy working here, but he couldn’t find a decent job without even a high school diploma and he had a girlfriend in town he was crazy about and…”
“Viv! Wait a minute. Didn’t I hear Tim say that he gave you a ride home the other night too?” Ruth asked.
“Yes, it was just a couple of nights ago. I’ve always loved convertibles and my second husband Boris drove a T-Bird a lot like that one. Jason was always so proud of his car, but I never had the chance to go for a ride in it while he was alive. Tim’s such a sweetheart, though; he drove me all the way home from work. It was foggy out where I live, so when we stopped in my driveway he put the top up. He was so proud of how he’d finally figured out how to put the top up all by himself, so I just waited there in the passenger’s seat and watched him while he showed off how to press the buttons and latch the thing. He’s such a dear boy… ”
Ruth didn’t listen to any more of what Viv had to say. She grabbed the phone and called Tim’s apartment on Collingwood Street. It rang until the machine clicked on. If he couldn’t answer the phone it might already be too late. She called Teresa’s number and heard her pick up on the first ring. “Ben, is that you?”
“No, it’s Ruth. What’s going on over there? Have you seen Tim?”
“No, I haven’t seen Tim, but I’m a nervous wreck. Little Sarah is missing! Ben asked me to watch her, ‘cause he was taking Jane to the hospital, but by the time I got out of the tub she was missing. Her crayons are still on my kitchen table. Marcia said some tall guy in a cowboy hat was looking for Tim and she told him Tim was probably over on Hancock Street…”
“I’ll talk to you later, Teresa.” Ruth hung up the phone and grabbed her purse.
“What’s going on?” Artie asked.
“Artie, I’ve got to go!” Ruth ran out the door of the restaurant. Tim had mentioned wanting to get started on sorting through Jason’s old things, so he must be on Hancock Street and the killer would know exactly where the house was because he’d already been there once before when he killed Jason. Ruth headed north on Castro Street as fast as she could go through the pedestrian traffic and never looked back.
Chapter 21
When Nick Musgrove left Tim he was feeling good. The house on Hancock Street brought back some of his favorite memories of when he was a boy and came down to San Francisco to stay with his grandparents. Nick’s grandfather had been gone for years now, but his widow, Nick’s grandmother Amanda, was still sharp as a bee sting and she was still writing. While she had never known great fame, she had loyal readers around the world including many gay friends and fans. There was no drama about Nick being gay except for some bad choices in men that he’d made in the past. At least he’d been spared the ordeals of so many who were ostracized from their families.
Now the house on Hancock Street belonged to Tim Snow, this new man in his life. Nick whistled as he walked past a florist stand on 18th Street. He stopped and considered buying Tim a big bouquet of flowers, but that seemed downright foolish when he owned a nursery and might have grown some of these flowers himself. He eyed the prices anyway and saw no reason to buy them back for twice what he’d sold them for.
Nick was a practical man. This new thing with Tim Snow wasn’t going to change that about him. He wouldn’t let it. It was really good, though; he had to admit. The sex was great, but it wasn’t just that. Tim had a silly streak that balanced Nick’s serious nature and Tim was smart, too. He was playful, enjoying sex as much as Nick did and they could still carry on a conversation afterward, beforehand and sometimes even during.
Nick crossed Castro at 18th Street and turned left. He didn’t know what to buy for dinner and became distracted by the merchandise in the windows along the way. He thought about picking up a new toy for Tim, but decided it would be more fun to shop for one together… later. The Chinese take-out place had a crowd in the doorway, so Nick ruled that out. All his favorite Chinese places had disappeared in the past few years, most of them turning into Thai restaurants. The neighborhood had sure been through a lot of changes since he was a kid.
As Nick stared at a pair of leather handcuffs in the store window, an old Cadillac was going down 19th Street with a little girl in the back seat. Nick thought about buying a T-shirt with the COLT logo on the pocket. He remembered that Tim had a baseball cap with COLT across the front.
Tim’s Aunt Ruth was running down the opposite side of Castro Street while Nick’s mind returned to thoughts of food. He could stop at Arts and pick up two dinners to go, but Tim would probably like something else for a change. He could eat Arturo’s cooking at work anytime. The Sausage Factory was across from where Nick stood now. Pasta might be just the ticket, with salad and French bread on the side. He headed back to the corner and waited in front of Harvey’s for the light to change.
Ruth’s mind was spinning with bits and pieces. As she ran she heard Vivian’s voice replaying in her head, “Honey, I know what you mean. My Roy is the most jealous man I’ve ever married. He told me once that he’d have to kill any man that tried anything with me!”
Ruth was frantic and tried to remember what Tim told her about his dream. Jason said something about more bodies, more victims, but who and where? The only ones she knew about were Jason and Jorge and the French boy trying to pay for school by delivering pizzas. Roy must have killed Jason because he saw that picture of him with the riding crop standing over Vivian. Ruth didn’t know whether Roy thought Jason was actually trying to threaten his wife or if their playfulness was a threat to him.
Then the crazy cowboy killed Jorge after he gave Vivian a ride home in Arturo’s car. He probably watched her flirting with the boy in the driveway and waited and bided his time. It wasn’t until later when he got the chance to follow the poor kid, get him alone and kill him in the corner of the Costco parking lot and then leave Arturo’s car on Castro Street where someone was sure to find the body in the trunk eventually.
The French student’s only mistake was in trying to humor the horny American lady who mangled a few phrases in his native language. He’d probably thought he could get a bigger tip if he played along with her.
And then Tim had given her a ride home and Roy watched from the window as Tim showed Vivian how to put the top up on the convertible. Ruth ran past the Midnight Sun and darted in front of a jeep trying to turn off Hartford Street outside Moby Dick. Her mind raced much faster than her feet could.
Ruth prayed that Nick was there with Tim. As crazy as Roy was, he couldn’t overpower the two of them together, not two grown men… not unless he managed to separate them, somehow… or take one of them by surprise. Roy didn’t even know that Nick was there… or did he? If only Tim were working tonight he’d have been safe at the restaurant. No one would dare to attack him there.
She should have figured it all out sooner, but it wasn’t until she saw Vivian in that yellow lace-up blouse that the pieces began to fit. Ruth barely knew that horrid cowboy, but now she remembered the way he ogled her the first night they met. He looked like a lecherous creep, not a homicidal maniac, but there was no one else it could be. She would never forgive herself if anything happened to Tim.
Nick was in the back room of the Sausage Factory, sipping a glass of beer, waiting for his order and gazing at the songs on the juke box. Yes, he was a practical man and he was falling in love, but there was no way he wouldn’t be practical about this new thing with a guy named Tim Snow from Minnesota. He loved the way Tim smiled up at him in the dim light of the television screen last night when they had a porn movie playing and neither of them were even watching it, but l
ooking at each other.
Ruth ran uphill on Noe Street and was blocked by a moving van as it tried to maneuver around parked cars on the steep corner of Hancock. She thought of crawling under it, but the driver saw her and backed up just enough to let her get by. The taillights and chrome of Vivian’s old Cadillac stuck out of the driveway behind Nick’s truck and the red Thunderbird. The windows of the Cadillac were part-way open. “Hi, Aunt Ruth,” a child’s voice came from inside. Little Sarah was alone in the back seat. “Where’s Uncle Tim? Where’s the big man?”
“Sarah, what are you doing out here, honey?” Ruth tried not to let the panic come through in her voice. The little girl seemed okay for the moment and Ruth didn’t want to frighten her.
“The big man is buying me ice cream! He said we had to stop at Uncle Tim’s new house first and then we’re gonna get ice cream and take a ride in his car to meet a nice lady someplace out by the ocean. Where is my ice cream? Where’s Uncle Tim? I wanna go home!”
Ruth forced a smile to her lips and said, “Honey, we’ll take you home soon, all right?”
“Where’s my ice cream?”
“Just wait right here like a good little girl… No… better yet, go wait in Uncle Tim’s car, the red one. Let’s play hide and seek with Uncle Tim. You hide in the back seat on the floor and you have to be quiet. I’ll make sure Uncle Tim buys you all the ice cream you want, but don’t let him hear you. Make him look for you really hard. Do you understand, Sarah? Be a good girl, now. Go and hide from Uncle Tim!”
What an incredibly stupid woman Viv was, Ruth thought to herself. She’d admitted that she told Roy how she regretted not having children when she was younger.
Ruth tried to remember what else Viv told her. “He said to me, ‘you may be too old to have children, but I’m not. Just look at Larry King! He’s older than I am with two little boys… and what about Willie Brown? He fathered a child well into his sixties.’” Roy hadn’t actually said he would father a child, though; he’d simply meant that he would steal one for her.
Tim had considered it the height of decadence when Jason had cable television installed in the bathroom, but right now he was enjoying a soak in the tub and flipping through channels with the remote. He found a tribute to Larry King where they showed an old interview with Dolly Parton. Tim heard the front door open. “Nick?” he yelled. “I’m in the bathtub!”
Tim thought he might have lost track of time; he couldn’t believe Nick was back with dinner so soon. “What did you do, forget your wallet? Take some money from mine. It’s in my pants on the floor beside the bed. Or I might have left it on the mantle in the living room beside my keys.”
Tim grabbed one of Jason’s enormous bath towels from a neat stack on a chrome rack above the toilet. Larry King asked Dolly Parton what she thought about being on Mr. Blackwell’s worst dressed list and she answered with a laugh, “I told him I’m glad you came out of your closet long enough to have a look into mine!”
Tim laughed too as he stepped out of the bathroom and into the hallway. “Don’t you love Dolly Parton, Nick?”
But it wasn’t Nick. It was Viv’s husband, Roy Rodgers with a “d” coming toward Tim with a large gleaming chef’s knife in his hand. His eyes were wide and furious and he was clearly insane. “You stay away from her!”
“Roy! What the hell are you doing here?”
“What do you think, you son of a bitch? If I have to kill you all, I’ll keep you and everyone else away from my horny wife!”
“I’m gay, you moron! I’m not interested in your stupid wife, you dumb-ass cowboy!”
“Everyone’s after my wife! It’s just like in Portland. They all wanted her and she let them, but this time it’s different. This time I’ll let her live and I’ll keep a closer eye on her. This time I’ll kill everyone who comes near her.”
“You’re a fuckin’ nut case!” Tim stood there naked with only the towel that he’d slid down now from his head to around his shoulders. He tried to look for something else to use as a weapon, but he hardly dared take his eyes off the cowboy. Tim slid the towel down his back as if to wrap it around his waist, but he needed to get it in front of him. The knife could probably cut right through it, but it was better than nothing. Jason always bought the thickest, most expensive bath towels they made and maybe if Tim was lucky…
Larry King Live had cut to a commercial for a noisy police drama. As Ruth reached the front door she heard angry men’s voices over the sound of car crashes and police sirens. She didn’t know how much was real and how much was on television. She spotted the fireplace poker where Tim had left it on the hearth the other day just before he had his dream of Jason. Adrenalin surged through her body as Ruth Taylor grabbed the rusty tool, ran down the hallway and rammed the fireplace poker into the center of the cowboy’s back.
Tim watched a bright red rose of blood spread across the white front of Roy’s shirt while his eyes and mouth opened wide and he dropped the knife. Tim’s fingers snatched at the handle and grabbed it in mid-air as Roy fell forward and slid to the floor. The point of the knife stuck out through Roy’s back below the handle of the fireplace poker that was still inside him. Roy Rodgers with a “d” died only a few yards from the spot where he had killed Jason.
“Tim! Are you all right?” Ruth gasped.
Tim still held the towel in front of him with one hand. “I think so, thanks to you.” He wrapped the towel around his waist and looked down at his naked body, splattered with the dead cowboy’s blood. Nick walked in the front door whistling and carrying a large paper bag full of Italian food from the Sausage Factory on Castro Street.
Chapter 22
Nick couldn’t move. He stared at the bloody scene for a matter of seconds that felt as if time had stopped. It was something out of a movie, but it was real. It was Tim, standing there naked and covered in blood! Ruth looked to be holding him up with a stained bath towel and Nick didn’t know who all the blood or the body on the floor belonged to.
If only he hadn’t wasted time gazing into store windows on Castro Street, if only he had insisted on going out for dinner, if only… something—anything—had been different! Nick was overcome with guilt until Tim opened his mouth to speak. “Nick, thank God you’re back. You’re safe.”
“I’m safe? Why wouldn’t I be? You’re the one who’s covered in blood!”
“I thought maybe he’d gotten to you first.”
Nick dropped the paper bag and ran toward Tim. Ruth stepped aside to let the men embrace. She cleared her throat until they remembered she was still there.
“Tim, you’d better get cleaned up,” she said. “You too, Nick—you’ve got blood all over you now—and someone call the police, would you? My cell phone is here in my purse. I’ll go get Sarah out of the Thunderbird.”
“Sarah? What’s she doing—” Tim stroked Nick’s hair.
“It’s a long story. Oh, wait… before I get her, find an old blanket or something to cover up that damned cowboy first. And go wash the blood off yourselves. There’s no reason that little girl needs a sight like this seared into her memory, especially not in the place that’s going to be her new home.”
Sarah must have grown tired of waiting for Tim to find her. She’d also forgotten about the tall stranger’s promise of ice cream. When Ruth carried the little girl inside, she yawned and promptly fell asleep on the living room couch. Tim rinsed off the blood of Roy Rodgers with a “d” and pulled on his jeans while Nick found a clean T-shirt. Now Tim covered the sleeping little girl with the afghan on Jason’s couch. “Aunt Ruth, how did you know to come here when you did? How did you figure out it was Roy? How did you know he would come after me next? Why would he think I was interested in Viv?”
“He was insane! The only reason I figured it out was that Vivian wore her yellow blouse to work today. I’d seen it in that picture from the Halloween party at Arts… the one with Vivian in her Little Bo Peep costume and Jason in all his leather. It finally dawned on me that it was als
o where I’d seen the riding crop you mentioned in your dream. Jason was holding it over her in the photograph. Remember at the memorial when I helped you with those pictures on the bulletin board?”
“What dream?” Nick asked. “What photograph?”
Tim looked up at him and said, “It’s a long story, man. I’ll tell you all about it later, okay?”
“Nevermind.” Nick wrapped his arms around Tim. “All that matters is that we’re all safe and the cowboy will never hurt anyone again.”
The police questioned Tim and Ruth, of course, but their stories added up. Once the body was removed from Hancock Street, the police went over to Arts to break the news to Vivian that she was a widow once again. Their questioning of Viv lasted much longer.
“Vivacious Vivian” always prided herself on being in show business, but she didn’t need to be an actress to give the officers a performance that made them feel sorry for her. “All I knew was that Roy was widowed, same as me. He was such a sensitive soul, but so devoted to me and he was such a tease, you know? He told me a ridiculous story about how he’d caught his ex-wife with another man and killed them both!”
The handsome police detective had to wait for her to sob into her handkerchief and lean into his broad shoulder before she could go on. “He told me he buried their bodies in the back yard before he sold the house in Portland. He said it wasn’t until later on that he realized what a mistake he’d made. He missed her terribly and he made up his mind right then and there not to make the same mistake again.”
The policeman was trying to take notes, but Vivian kept grabbing hold of his big strong uniformed arm for reinforcement whenever she burst into tears. “My Roy was always such a joker! Who would ever believe a wild story like that?” The police nearly had to carry her out of the restaurant in tears. They drove her home, gave her something to help her sleep and finally put her to bed. They arranged to come back the next day with more questions after she’d calmed down and to have a look around in the daylight.
Cold Serial Murder Page 18
