Julia saw the two men come in. She didn’t recognize either of them until Gratelli spoke.
‘Ms Bateman, I’m Inspector Gratelli, San Francisco police.’
Her father got up from the edge of the bed.
‘I’m Royal Bateman.’
‘Her father?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘This is Inspector McClellan.’
‘Nice to meet you both. Is there any news?’
‘No,’ Gratelli said. ‘Too early. We need to get some information from your daughter. You might want to grab a cup of coffee or something, stretch your legs. We might be a while.’
‘I’d like to stay.’
Royal Bateman said it in a way that wasn’t a request.
Gratelli looked at Julia. She nodded.
‘All right. As long as you understand we might be getting pretty graphic here.’
The senior Bateman stepped aside, moving toward the window as Gratelli pulled a chair beside Julia’s bed. McClellan hung back by the door.
‘Ms Bateman, I’m going to try to ask questions in such a way that you can answer yes or no. Don’t try to speak, OK?’
She nodded.
‘Did you know your assailant?’
She shook her head no.
Early in the questioning, Julia Bateman didn’t feel the strain. Perhaps, she thought, she had vented everything crying in her father’s arms. She felt little emotion. The events seemed so distant, so unconnected to her, she felt as if she were remembering some movie she had seen or book she had read.
But eventually the darkness seemed to be creeping back. As she nodded to one question and shook her head at another, her thoughts became more vivid.
‘Were his hands coarse, rough?’
She shook her head ‘no,’ but could feel them now, wet, slippery hands. Julia could smell him.
‘Did he say anything…?’
She shook her head ‘no.’ But she could hear him breathing as if he were next to her. Now.
She could no longer understand the questions.
‘Ms Bateman?’ It was the gravelly voice.
She put her hands over her eyes, but it did no good. What she saw was inside her head. There was a sweaty body over her.
‘You got any ideas about lunch?’ McClellan asked as the red Taurus pulled out of the hospital parking lot.
‘I’m not hungry.’ Gratelli was exhausted and his stomach churned like he’d just gulped down a cup or two of sulfuric acid.
‘You’ll be hungry. You need to eat.’
‘Why is it I always need to eat when you’re hungry?’
McClellan laughed. ‘You’re skinny.’
‘I’m healthy.’
‘You look dead.’
Gratelli knew he did. He looked like his father, dark hair, pale skin, bony features. Couldn’t gain weight if he tried. His brother Marcello got the mother’s genes. Those were the fat genes. Marcello looked more alive than Vincente for the entire forty-eight years of his life, before he died of a heart attack.
‘My brother looked very healthy when he died,’ Gratelli said. ‘Better just to look dead than be dead.’
‘I’m not so sure about that,’ McClellan said. ‘You upset about what we talked about earlier?’
‘What?’
‘About messin’ ’round in the back seat of your Uncle Frank’s Buick?’
‘Mickey, listen…’
‘Shut your fuckin’ trap a minute, will ya? I’m trying’ to tell you something. Kids do it. Curiosity. OK?’ McClellan took a deep breath, let it out. What he was about to say wasn’t easy. ‘Once. I was fuckin’ twelve years old, ragin’ hormones, and all that, you know,’ McClellan said, gritting his teeth and staring straight ahead. ‘We went skinny dippin’ and were just laying there dryin’ out and hell the sun and the hormones and talking about things… hell we were just showing each other what we had, you know, and how big it could get. And well things got outta hand.’
‘You played with his…’
‘Don’t make a federal case out of it, all right? I just figured to set the record straight. We’re even now. You messed around. I messed around. Once. End of story.’
‘I never messed around,’ Gratelli said.
‘What do you mean?’ McClellan blurted, turning toward Gratelli.
‘I mean I never messed around.’
‘No, no, no. You and what’s his name with the magazines in the back seat of the Buick, right?’
‘Joey. My cousin. We didn’t mess around.’
‘You said…’
‘I said the two of us were in the back seat of my Uncle Frank’s black Buick looking through some magazines. You didn’t let me finish. He was telling me about looking in the window of this apartment house and seeing two guys going at it. That’s all. First I knew about that sort of thing.’
‘You never…’
‘Not me,’ Gratelli said. ‘I don’t mind you like guys, though.’
‘That was thirty fuckin’ years ago!’
‘All right, I don’t mind that you used to like guys. Listen, this is San Francisco. We got gays on the force.’
‘Cut it out, Gratelli.’
‘You’re right. It’s none of my business. But you brought it up, remember. And I think that’s great, healthy, you know. Developing a little sensitivity.’
NINE
T he best part of having McClellan as a partner was that Gratelli wasn’t obligated to be the cop’s friend off-duty. Gratelli had never met his partner’s wife and McClellan had never set foot in Gratelli’s apartment. Both of them, unlike most police officers, clocked off the force and off each other at the end of their shift.
No bowling, no shared drinks before heading home, no weekend barbecues. Gratelli had no idea how McClellan spent his off hours except for the rumors that he was a boozer. For all Gratelli knew, McClellan made birdhouses on Saturday mornings or coached little league. He did know that McClellan had a wife and a couple of kids who had to have some expensive dental work and now were going the college route; and he knew now that the marriage was in trouble.
The lack of a deep, personal friendship didn’t seem to bother either one of them.
The worst part of the partnership was lunch. McClellan’s palate was accustomed to Denny’s. Even preferred it. Or maybe one of the tasteless noodle joints in Chinatown. McClellan liked his food cheap and filling.
Food for Gratelli was, like opera, one of life’s few celebrations. He could wear cheap suits, get by with a barber rather than a hair stylist, could even endure an inexpensive but decent Chianti; but he was willing to lay out real money for his opera seats, a fine old LP recording and a really good meal. Food for McClellan wasn’t a celebration, it was like pulling up to a gas station and pushing the hose in the hole and pumping it in until the tank couldn’t take any more.
Even so, he’d given up the lunch fight years ago. He’d rather chew on a cheap hamburger than listen to McClellan complain for three hours that he’d spent seven dollars for lunch. Of course, Gratelli knew McClellan would complain about something anyway. That way Gratelli wouldn’t have to bear the guilt.
McClellan made one exception – once a week at Original Joe’s. The neighborhood wasn’t great, but the restaurant was. But that was only once a week. Fridays, usually. The stew was the best. Both Gratelli and McClellan said it was just like the stew their mothers made. Gratelli’s mother was Italian. McClellan’s Irish. Stew had somehow crossed ethnic lines.
This time, they sat in the McDonald’s at the end of Haight Street on Stanyan across from the entrance to Golden Gate Park. Gratelli had managed to get through his fish sandwich and about half his fries. McClellan was on his second Big Mac.
‘You remember the fight they had trying to get a McDonald’s in here?’
Gratelli nodded. The neighbors fought it. He was sorry they’d lost. He hated seeing the chains invade his city.
‘You remember what this neighborhood was at the time, practically burnt out? Still ai
n’t much. Shit,’ McClellan said. ‘City’s out of fuckin’ control. The Castro was an Irish neighborhood, Gratelli. Now the queers own it. Look at your neighborhood, for Chrissakes. Hell, you Italians used to run this city. Now look at you. The Chinese are runnin’ you out. The Japs and Chinks have all the money. The queers run City Hall.’
‘Why don’t you move to Ohio or something?’ Gratelli said.
‘I ain’t being run out,’ McClellan said. ‘Bunch of fuckin’ weirdoes have taken over the city.’
‘The city was founded by prostitutes, gamblers and con men, remember?’
‘Well they were whores, gamblers and con men who learned the fuckin’ English language. Now we got Salvadorans, Mexicans, Colombians, Chinese, Cambodian, Vietnamese. What was it Bateman said? The guy who did her had brown eyes?’
‘She said she thought he might have had brown eyes. It was dark, remember, and she wasn’t sure why she thought that. Hell, I have brown eyes.’ He shook his head. He didn’t know why he was being so short tempered. Maybe he didn’t like being second guessed by a task force either. It was like he and McClellan were being sawed off – no longer part of the department. No doubt it was because they didn’t want McClellan’s big mouth open when the press was around. ‘You believe all this crap you spout?’
McClellan put down his sandwich. He shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Gratelli. Everything’s so fuckin’ outta control. There’s gotta be some reason for it.’
All the other times Gratelli called him on his litany of hate, McClellan would respond, ‘You bet your sweet ass I do.’ Now he saw his partner quiet, sad. McClellan took a bite of his burger but seemed to have trouble swallowing it.
‘Are we gonna make this fuckin’ meeting?’ McClellan asked.
Gratelli looked at his watch. ‘We got time. Finish your burger.’
‘Live life, love and be happy,’ was what Paul Chang wanted to tell her as he sat on the edge of her bed, his fingers gently and affectionately trailing up her forearm. This was an expression they shared often, especially when times were rough. But seeing Julia’s bruised face, her lost and frightened eyes staring at her hands, this was clearly not the time.
He did not know what to say. They knew each other well enough to be comfortable during long silences, but words were all he could offer by way of support and he didn’t have any.
Julia’s father and her doctor were engaged in conversation near the door and not out of Julia and Paul’s earshot.
‘I don’t advise it, not for a few days.’
‘There are fine doctors in Iowa City,’ Mr Bateman said.
‘I don’t doubt that there are, not for a minute. And I’m sure that being in warm and familiar surroundings will encourage recovery. My concern at the moment is the time between here and there. She’s very steady and she’s doing well, but I’d like to have her here for a few more days anyway. Then we can talk about it.’
Paul got up and went to Julia’s father as the doctor retreated into the hall. ‘Mr Bateman, I’m going to be able to watch over her.’
Royal Bateman turned as if he’d been struck. ‘I want Julia out of this loony bin. For good!’ He seemed to recognize his overreaction. ‘Paul, I’m sorry. I’m so thankful you called. But this isn’t the place for her. You’re a young man, you’re tough, looking for the excitement this kind of city can offer. I understand that. But it’s not for Julia.’
‘Julia’s tough,’ Paul said, then realized how bizarre that sounded while the woman remained in shock, a physical and emotional wreck. ‘She’ll come around.’
He believed he knew her and he believed this to be true. More to the point, he didn’t want her to leave – to be hauled back like a prisoner to a place she had once escaped.
‘She’ll come around. At home. Where she belongs.’ The voice was calm, firm and seemed to make Julia’s trip back to Iowa not only certain, but permanent. ‘I know,’ Bateman continued, ‘that leaves your job up in the air…’
‘I don’t give a damn about the job, Julia lives here.’
‘I don’t think you could call this much of a life.’
Paul Chang turned toward Julia. If she had heard a word of the conversation, it didn’t show.
The news conference was over. The mayor had announced the task force as Gratelli had guessed he would. The mayor gave the media background on the members of the team, emphasizing the level of professional expertise. ‘Whatever is necessary,’ the mayor told the media. The task force was meeting now, the mayor said sternly, looking out at the cameras, eyes unwavering, unblinking.
Gratelli and McClellan were definitely the odd men out in the meeting called by Police Lieutenant James Lee Thompson. Not only were they the only members not on the larger task force and not introduced to the others until now, but they were older than all the others except Lieutenant Thompson.
It was also evident these were the ‘new’ police officers. The room wasn’t smoke-filled. The pre-meeting conversation was polite and professional. Everybody seemed freshly scrubbed and crisply and conservatively dressed. If Gratelli and McClellan didn’t know who they were, they would have guessed the group had just popped over from their high-rise offices on Montgomery in the financial district. Among the fifteen or so new police, there were two women, two blacks and one Asian.
If the politically correct preppie cop crowd gave Gratelli a pause for reflection, it made McClellan squeamish. Gratelli noticed his partner’s darting eyes and sour grin. Change didn’t come easily to McClellan. While they’d both seen these folks before – and had worked with some of them – seeing them all together like this was enlightening and frightening for McClellan. Gratelli was amazed. There was McClellan, an old bull moose with scruffy hair and a couple of tips missing from the antlers fighting for his life, a noble fight for plain speech and tradition, and a dumb, ignoble fight against education and tolerance.
To the young professional cops seated on folding chairs in the small room, McClellan – with his potbelly, nicotine-stained fingers, brash mannerisms and insensitive commentary on the world in general – must have been seen as a figure in sepia tones. There were fewer and fewer McClellan types in the department.
And those others with their hearts half in the old guard, didn’t mind cloaking their personalities some when the new breed was around. They talked the talk and would even walk the walk when they had to. McClellan was certainly not a career role model and associating with him wasn’t the wisest of political moves. As insensitive as McClellan appeared to be, he’d no doubt picked up the vibrations. He sat as far removed from the others as the walls would allow.
Lieutenant Thompson, on the other hand, was the quintessential police model. He adapted. He’d stopped smoking several years ago, jogged, kept his suits conservatively current, stayed mentally clear. He was always pleasant but never aligned himself politically, certainly not aligning with or against anyone.
The San Francisco office of the chief of police had become a revolving door. Chiefs were hired and fired much faster than mayors. Thompson took his work seriously enough and was content being a lieutenant rather than the mayor’s chief and primary lightening rod. As far as Gratelli was concerned, Thompson – walking to the front of the room with his short silver hair and gray eyes – was quietly and patiently or perhaps just cautiously ambitious; the kind of guy who was happy to stay out of the newspapers and not be subject to the turbulently political whims of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and a hungry alternative press. He would be happy to retire just short of chiefdom.
Next to the mayor, the chief of police was the most high-profile city job. And right now, with the string of sexual killings, the current chief probably wished the spotlight were shining on someone else too.
‘OK,’ Thompson said, ‘most of you know each other. The other thirty or so officers on the task force will be informed by memorandum of what is discussed here. I just wanted to make sure you know Inspector McClellan and Inspector Gratelli who are working the Bateman angl
e specifically.’ He looked, as everyone in the room did, at the two interlopers. ‘Since she’s the only live witness we know, what can she tell us?’
McClellan folded his arms across his chest. ‘Not much,’ he said.
‘I don’t know how much you all know, exactly,’ Gratelli said. ‘Miss Bateman is a licensed private investigator who drove from her main residence in San Francisco Friday afternoon to spend the weekend in her cabin near Gurneville. She was subsequently raped and brutally beaten at about eleven that night in her cabin. The perpetrator appears to have entered through the skylight in the hall of the cabin – actually dropping through the glass – striking Miss Bateman with a heavy object that at the moment we believe to be a flashlight. We believe he took her to the bedroom, raped and beat her repeatedly.’
Gratelli took a breath.
‘What do we know about the attacker?’ asked a woman in her late 30s.
‘The intruder wore a ski-mask, gloves, his body was completely covered,’ Gratelli said. ‘We think he is on the young side – that is probably under forty – and relatively fit because of the way he got in. The drop from the roof to the floor through the skylight is probably twelve feet. There is no indication that he was injured in the process.’
Heads nodded.
‘Is there anything she can tell about him?’
‘Brown eyes,’ McClellan volunteered, grinning at Gratelli.
‘Ms Bateman can’t be sure,’ Gratelli said. ‘She’s in shock still. Her mouth is wired shut. Our interview was a series of nods and headshakes and an occasional written answer. Actually, we can’t even be sure it was a he.’
‘Could be a lezzie,’ McClellan said. He grinned, a look that suggested he knew exactly what their opinion was of him and he was rubbing their faces in it.
‘As you do know,’ Thompson said, unfazed, ‘there’s nothing at the scene. Apparently our guy – assuming it was a guy, and I do – cleaned up afterward and was damned efficient in doing so.’
‘That’s right,’ Gratelli said.
Good To The Last Kiss: Crimes of the Depraved Mind Series Page 9
