Good To The Last Kiss: Crimes of the Depraved Mind Series

by Ronald Tierney

  ‘Real rare. It’s happened before. Why isn’t it my business? Like I said, I’m sorry. But the dude got caught, right? It’s all over.’

  ‘The note?’

  ‘No. Nothing on it worth keeping. No return address, if that’s what you mean. Typed.’

  Gratelli shook his head.

  ‘Wait a minute, trash hasn’t gone out this week. Could have the box and the note.’

  The box did reveal the messenger service. The note was printed by a laser printer. He took them both. Fingerprints? He doubted it. The messenger service wasn’t much help. Earl Falwell’s get-out-of-jail-free donor had left the box and a note with more than enough money to handle the delivery. They were left on the counter of the service. Whoever left the package and instructions had managed to come and go unseen.

  ‘What?’ Gratelli said. Most of the calls to Earl Falwell in the past thirty days came from public telephones. The selection was random. The sites were scattered about the Bay area, mostly around North Beach and Chinatown. One was from the Hall of Justice on Bryant. McClellan’s direct line. One was from Tennessee. It hadn’t been identified.

  Gratelli dialed the number.

  ‘Mildred O’Donnell, Valley Farms, how may I help you?’

  ‘I’m not sure you can,’ Gratelli said. ‘I’m trying to get some information on Earl Falwell.’

  ‘Earl?’

  ‘Yes, do you know him?’

  ‘My grandson. Why are you asking about him?’

  ‘I was trying to locate him,’ Gratelli lied. He hadn’t prepared himself to deliver the news of Earl Falwell’s death and the circumstances surrounding it.’

  ‘He’s in San Francisco. Is something wrong?’

  ‘What kind of farm do you have there, ma’am?’

  ‘It’s not really a farm. We sell bulbs, flowering bulbs.’

  ‘Like what kind?’

  ‘Lilies, iris, daffodils.’

  ‘Tulips?’

  ‘Oh yes. Award winners. Our best sellers.’

  ‘And roses?’

  ‘No, no. Roses don’t grow from bulbs, Mister…’

  ‘Gratelli. Sorry to have bothered you.’

  ‘It had to be Earl,’ Paul said to Julia while he fixed coffee. It was his apartment. Paul sat at the small kitchen table. Julia moved into the other room. ‘Had to be,’ Paul repeated. Julia looked out the window. The second floor was high enough to see over the single story buildings across Hayes. She could see the wide expanse of the hills rolling south out of the city and the square stair-stepped houses that dotted them.

  ‘I’ve always liked this view,’ she said.

  ‘You’re not listening,’ Paul said.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘You want this to keep going on? How else could it be? The guy was connected to the killings long before you. He comes back. How else would he know where you live? You want to think that the killer is out there. You want to live that way for the rest of your life?’

  ‘Paul,’ she said, urging him to understand. ‘I can’t help what I feel. You want it to be Earl so that it’s all over.’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Of course, I do. Maybe I don’t. Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I like all this. Who knows?’

  ‘I’m sorry. Explain it to me.’

  ‘I doubt if I can in a way that makes sense. I don’t know that I know the killer. I just believe that I would know him if I were as close to him as I was to Earl-what’s-his-name.’

  ‘I’m still confused.’

  ‘You’re so cute when you’re confused,’ Julia said smiling.

  ‘Being Chinese, I thought I was inscrutable.’

  ‘Cute and inscrutable. Maybe inscrutably cute. Or cutely inscrutable.’

  ‘You’re so calm,’ Paul said.

  ‘Listen, I’ve spent months being a basket case. I’m not sure I have anything to lose.’

  ‘Your life,’ Paul said, ‘if you’re right.’

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I’m not sure I mind so much the idea of dying. I just mind like hell the idea of this sonofabitch making the decision.’

  ‘The top notes are your first experience,’ said Daniel Alexander, a young black man who seemed to enjoy his task – to explain the nature of scent to a San Francisco homicide inspector. ‘The middle note is the second experience, a second scent if you will.’

  ‘So,’ Gratelli said, trying to form a question while seated self-consciously in an ornate chair on the other side of an equally ornate table from Mr Alexander in what appeared to be some sort of parlor. ‘If someone smelled butter…’ Gratelli said, waiting for some sort of confusion to overtake the perfumer’s calm, unlined face.

  ‘Butter yes,’ he said, smiling. ‘Absolutely. Not at all odd. Was there another scent? Leather perhaps?’

  Gratelli was stunned. ‘Yes. Leather.’

  Mr Alexander nodded. He rose from his seat, went to a large, wall cabinet and brought out some bottles and dabs of cotton. ‘Here,’ he said, letting the cotton absorb a tiny bit of clear liquid. ‘Smell.’

  ‘Something citrus,’ Gratelli said.

  ‘Take the scent in more slowly, for a longer duration. Do you smell butter, perhaps leather? It’s subtle, but you can pick it up if you try to distinguish different qualities of the scent, allow yourself to discriminate. Maybe we can call it the levels.’

  ‘Yes, butter.’ Gratelli kept breathing it in. ‘Yes, leather, for Christ sake.’ Gratelli was amazed.

  ‘Hmmm hmmmn,’ Daniel Alexander said. ‘It’s quite like wine. If you pay attention, there’s much more than just one level of taste.’ He smiled at Gratelli’s amazement. ‘In scents, you see, there’s a top note, a middle note and most probably a bass note, which lingers for quite some time. Even though scent is altered by the human pheromones through perspiration, there are characteristics of some colognes and perfumes that remain pretty consistent.’

  ‘So is this the only cologne that has this leather and butter combination?’

  ‘No. In fact this pairing of scents used to be quite common, but it is rare enough today. It is also quite costly.’

  ‘Really?’ Gratelli said.

  ‘What you are picking up is ambre gris. It’s only found in tropical seas. All of it is a bit morbid in a way. The sperm whale eats octopus, you see. The whale, however, is unable to digest the beaky matter of the octopus and therefore that particular matter results in intestinal calculi that is eventually ejected by the whale. It’s found floating in the sea. It is soluble in alcohol and the essence is employed in the blend with other perfumes to give the scent a lasting property.’

  ‘How lasting?’

  ‘Centuries.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Depending on the amount and the way it’s blended. It clings to woven fabrics. It’s been detected in material more than three hundred years old.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘No. Of course, the wearer adds his or her own special, very individual touch. Essentially perspiration. The very thing that people try their best to disguise. If George Washington had worn it, I suppose a good bloodhound could still determine which beds he really slept in.’

  ‘What about washing? Can it be detected after the stuff has been washed or dry cleaned.’

  ‘That’s what they say. I haven’t run any tests myself. It’s part of the lore, though. I suspect it’s true.’

  ‘Which perfumes use this… substance?’

  ‘Many of the expensive, fine scents.’

  ‘Perfumes I can find at Macy’s, Nordstrom?’

  ‘A few. Certainly the custom-made perfumes and colognes.’

  ‘Custom made?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Like suits?’

  ‘Yes. Custom scents. Designed for the desire or the need or the whatever of the individual. That’s what I do. One gets tailored clothing, handmade shoes, and made to order perfumes. Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know why not,’ Gratelli said.

  ‘No way,’ Li
eutenant Thompson said. His gray eyes refused to meet Gratelli’s.

  ‘I can’t do my job,’ Gratelli said.

  ‘Too weird. You have to have more than that.’

  ‘If I had enough to convict, I wouldn’t need a search warrant right now. I can’t be sure without it.’

  ‘He’s the next D.A. for Christsakes,’ Thompson said.

  Gratelli knew what he was asking. And he knew who he was asking, a cop who was successful by avoiding any and every controversy and staying out of the way of those with political power – any kind of power.

  ‘I need it.’

  ‘What have you got, Gratelli?’

  ‘What I said. Motive? Julia Bateman frustrated him. They dated. He wanted more. She gave him nothing. He wanted something. She gave him nothing. Does he have the means? He’s fit enough. Knew enough about the case to make it look like the others. Knew how to work the system. Who else knew that?’

  ‘You’re assuming there was another murderer. And even if that’s true, that others did know the details. Knew about the rose tattoo.’

  ‘But it wasn’t a rose after all. It was a tulip. Only Julia’s thigh had a rose and that’s because her attacker got it wrong. A copy cat who copied it wrong.’

  ‘A small thorn? That’s the difference? That’s what you’re basing this on?’

  ‘Opportunity? David Seidman knew where her cabin was. Knew how to get there. And knew she was there. Both times.’

  Thompson rubbed his eyes, let out a breath. Could have been a sigh of defeat. Could have been the punctuation that would end the discussion.

  ‘No.’ He said it with a shrug. ‘I don’t want you talking to him. This is crazy. He didn’t do it. Earl Rogers Falwell did it, dammit. And he’s dead. The case is over, Gratelli. We’ve got other fish to fry. And we’ve got you a new partner. Get a life. Get going!’

  Thompson clapped his hands twice.

  We have closure, Gratelli thought.

  It made sense. Thompson and, perhaps his superiors, believed that Mickey McClellan might have had something to do with it. Now it didn’t matter. Both Mickey and Earl were dead. Nothing could come back and bite them in the butt. The case was closed. The media was going silent. There weren’t any trials to mess everything up again.

  TWENTY-NINE

  ‘ I just want some oversight,’ Gratelli said.

  David Seidman sat on the sofa. It was a cool night. There was a fire in the fireplace. A Jack Russell terrier sat beside David, alert and looking at Gratelli with a friendly gaze.

  ‘The guys from Quantico can help you better than I can. Tell you the truth, Inspector, I’d have had a helluva time prosecuting Earl Falwell with the evidence we have… I mean for all the murders. I’m sure he did them. But the only thing we really have to hang it on is the fact that he came back. That’s pretty good, actually.’

  ‘The mark?’ Gratelli offered.

  ‘The rose?’

  ‘Yes. What do you make of it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not the right person for this kind of thing. I’m flattered that you asked. I’ve not done any serial killers. Usually there’s something. A mark is not uncommon. A trophy is not uncommon, but you haven’t found any, right?’

  ‘Not yet. How much do you know about the cases?’

  ‘Why do I get this feeling you’re not here in search of my prosecutorial wisdom and vast knowledge of the criminal mind?’ He smiled warmly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Gratelli said. ‘You mind if I use the bathroom?’

  ‘One through there,’ Seidman said. ‘Can I fix you a drink, while you’re freshening up?’

  ‘Sure,’ Gratelli said. ‘Any old whiskey will do. Scotch. Irish. Italian.’

  ‘Italian whiskey taste anything like Italian beer?’ Seidman asked. ‘Is there such a thing as Italian whiskey?’

  The bathroom yielded no bottles of anything. This was the guest bathroom. If Seidman had colognes and aftershave, they would be in the upstairs bath or dressing room or bedroom, whatever.

  Seidman’s home was nice. Expensive. Anyone who owned a single family dwelling had to have some money in this city. Having a house slightly larger than modest in a neighborhood slightly more than the usual still meant that the wealthy David Seidman wasn’t showing off his wealth. His clothing was probably off the rack too. Nice stuff. But off the rack. Would he invest in an expensive, custom-made perfume?

  ‘So,’ Seidman said, giving Gratelli a glass a quarter filled with caramel-colored liquid. ‘I’m still a suspect.’ Seidman smiled. ‘Jilted boyfriend? That it?’

  ‘Listen, this isn’t formal…’

  ‘I know, they want this case closed and all the bodies attributed to a crazy dead criminal. Good for the force. And they need this one, don’t they? They have other bodies in embarrassing places.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This is good for you too. City cop, first on the scene. What’s eating you?’

  ‘This one doesn’t fit,’ Gratelli said.

  ‘This is the only one that does fit, Inspector. The others are speculation. I mean we’ve got a classic return to the scene of the crime.’

  ‘You followed this closely?’

  ‘Sure, after the attack on Julia, I sure did.’

  ‘Why did you call it a “rose”?’

  ‘That was what it was, wasn’t it?’

  ‘But why did you call it that? Did you see it?’

  ‘No. Somebody told me.’

  ‘Who?’ Gratelli asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Paul Chang, maybe.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘No, I remember. It was your partner.’

  ‘Mickey?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He told you?’ Gratelli was puzzled. ‘When?’

  ‘I stopped in Homicide. He was at the desk. Why?’

  ‘Why?’ Gratelli asked.

  ‘I wanted to know. Wouldn’t you? It was Julia. And I promised Paul I’d make sure the case didn’t get lost.’

  ‘Your friend, Paul?’

  ‘I know what I’ve said about him. Sometimes I’m an ass. I know he cares about her and I didn’t want him playing amateur detective in a murder. Anyway, your partner said something about it being a rose. He’d just talked to the medical examiner. He asked me some questions. Wanted to know about her habits. I told him. I think he was checking me out too. Actually, I think the case got to him.’

  ‘He didn’t tell me that. Didn’t write it down.’

  ‘I can’t help you there.’

  ‘Did he tell you how the girls died?’

  ‘Strangled, right?’

  ‘That’s what he told you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t understand why you two met. He didn’t tell me,’ Gratelli said more to himself than to Seidman.

  ‘I don’t know what to tell you about that,’ Seidman said. ‘You’re pretty good at the questions. The girls weren’t strangled, were they? And obliquely, what you’re telling me is that the mark isn’t a rose. Am I right?’ There was a pause. ‘Inspector, I’m not an idiot when it comes to cross-examination. How did they die?’

  ‘Do you happen to have an aspirin, Mr Seidman? This must be Italian whiskey.’

  ‘Sure, I’ve got some upstairs.’

  Gratelli followed him up, but was passed by the terrier. The three went into the bathroom.

  ‘Nice house,’ Gratelli said, watching as Seidman opened the wooden cabinet. There were bottles, but Gratelli – during his brief glance – was unable to confirm anything that looked like a cologne bottle or anything exotic.

  ‘It’s private. It’s quiet. No cars.’

  ‘Keep you in shape, being in the middle of this hill.’

  ‘Yep. I work out a bit too. Otherwise I’d never make it. You see some of these older women up and down these steps every day. At least once. It’s good for them. They’ll live to ripe old ages. Here, some Excedrin. Good for headaches. Advil?’

  ‘Excedrin,’ Gratelli said. The bath was
pretty ordinary as baths go. The upstairs was small. Two bedrooms up. A dressing room wasn’t likely.

  ‘You live pretty modestly, Mr Seidman. A bachelor. I understand you’re wealthy. You’d think you’d have Jacuzzis, walk-in closets, one hundred pair of shoes and one hundred and twenty dollar an ounce cologne.’

  ‘You’ve got me confused with…’

  ‘With who?’

  Seidman smiled. ‘With your caricature of the rich. Then again, nothing innocent comes out of your mouth, does it? You seem interested in my medicine cabinet at the moment. Why don’t you just tell me what you’re looking for, Inspector. It’d be easier.’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask. Cologne, Mr Seidman.’

  ‘Some here,’ Seidman said, opening the cabinet again. ‘Some by the shower.’

  Gratelli investigated.

  ‘I’m not much for scents,’ Seidman continued, bringing a gold and silver container that bore the name Armani. ‘Most of the time I go without. I use this when I feel a little insecure.’ He smiled. ‘It was a gift.’

  Gratelli sniffed. The case held some Farenheit aftershave in a spray bottle. The inspector found nothing similar to butter or leather in either one. Then again, he wasn’t an expert.

  ‘So that’s what they mean when they say the “police are sniffing around”?’

  ‘Yes. But it’s only recently I learned to sniff properly.’

  ‘Listen. Tell me what you’re on to, here, Inspector. I’ll help. Tell me how I can help. If there’s a killer out there, I want him as badly as you do.’

  ‘You knew she went up there when she did, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I did. I wanted to go up with her. I was worried. I practically begged. She took it as my just wanting to mend the relationship. Probably was. What can I say? I loved her. Still do. Why would I kill someone I love?’

  ‘A lot of that going around though, isn’t there?’ Gratelli asked.

  ‘Yes. There is. I keep forgetting I’m talking to a policeman.’

  ‘You haven’t forgotten that for one minute, have you?’

  ‘No,’ David Seidman said. ‘Not for a minute. If you are waiting around for me to confess, it’s not going to happen. I’m serious. Let’s work together. I can put some people on it. You’re probably officially off the case, aren’t you?’