‘ C an’t you stay out of trouble?’ asked the now familiar voice on the telephone.
‘How did you know?’
‘Know what?’
‘The cops were here.’
‘They were there? Just now?’
‘Yes. You knew that. You knew just when to call,’ Earl’s voice was full of accusation.
‘The truth is I wanted to hear the words “thank you” from your very own lips.’
Earl recognized the sarcasm in the voice. It was how a lot of people talked to him – amusing themselves at his expense.
‘You got me out?’
‘Yes. You don’t believe me, but I’ve been looking out after you. I’m the only friend you have.’ Earl thought of Grandma O. Didn’t say anything. ‘Now, there’s something I need you to do and it will help both of us,’ the voice continued.
‘What?’
‘The witness.’
‘You want me to…’
‘That’s right. The way you did the others.’
‘I don’t…’
‘Listen Earl, you said yourself the cops were there. They’re closing in. We don’t have much time. I can’t keep calling. The next step is for them to bug your phone. Then if the witness makes a positive I.D. of you and your car… Earl… that’s the end. That’s the end of you. You can’t help me. I can’t help you.’
‘I don’t know…’
‘Earl? She’s a pretty woman. Alone. In a cabin, out in the woods at night. Earl, what are you waiting for?’
‘I don’t do that.’ There was silence on the other end. ‘I don’t do that,’ Earl repeated.
‘I know,’ the voice said. ‘I’m sorry. You’d have rather not have killed them, I know. That was the only way.’
‘Yes.’
‘Earl?’
‘What?
‘This is the only way. They will put you away. There will be a horrible trial and you will be humiliated. And people will make fun of you. You’ll be sitting right there in the middle of it all. The people who don’t hate you will laugh at you. No one understands you. I do. But who else? You can do it.’
‘When?’
‘Tonight. It has to be. Earl, are you with me?’
The caller’s logic and Earl’s distrust argued for dominance in Earl’s brain. He still felt the humiliation of the Polaroids. What a freak they must think he is. Nobody’d understand.
‘Earl. Are you with me?’
No answer.
‘Take a deep breath,’ the caller said. ‘Please. Take a deep breath and relax. You’re in control. You know what you’re doing. Look how long you’ve fooled them. The best in the business. San Francisco’s finest. Hell, the FBI. Psychiatrists. Criminologists. You’ve done it. You know what to do. There’s just this one little slip. The witness. And you can take care of her. They don’t know you know about her.’
‘It’s a trick,’ Earl said finally. ‘Everything. Getting me out on bail. Cops showing up, leaving. You calling. It’s a trick. Like I said before I don’t even know what you’re talking about.’
Highway One. Beyond Mill Valley, and then up the winding road. Julia Bateman’s cobalt blue Miata caught flashes of sun and flashed them back in her eyes. The ocean on her left crashed against the rocks, but she could not hear the surf above the wind and the drone of the engine. However, the smell of the salt water was ominously familiar. Point Reyes. Tamales Point. Past Bodega Bay. Inland toward Monte Rio.
Escaping the sea. Rolling hills. Then the pines and the eucalyptus. New scents and intensified memories.
She would not turn back.
Perhaps she was foolish. But it was the only way she could face life with some modicum of control.
She made the cabin before dusk. Even so, it was dark and stale inside. The windows were closed. The heavy draperies she rarely ever closed were pulled tightly, even over the broad window beside the front door. The skylight had been boarded up. That was all that had been done since that night. But aside from the staleness of the air, the place was relatively clean and neat.
She checked the refrigerator and cabinets. She would have to get in some things. Julia was eager to leave while the breeze swept through the place. She would go into Gurneville to pick up some coffee, some fruit and yogurt.
While she was there, she added a bottle of dry sherry to the list.
It was dark by the time she got back. She was nervous again. She found the.32 in the desk drawer. Julia carried it with her as she checked the rooms, the closets, under the bed. Nothing had been disturbed.
She laughed. She sat still, bidding her mind to be still. She took a deep breath. The quiet she first sensed wasn’t quiet at all. Night sounds. Bugs. Crickets mostly. The more she listened, the more it seemed they were turning up the volume.
She closed the sliding door to the back balcony, locked it. Pitch black now. She looked out of the floor length window beside the front door. Pitch black outside.
She poured a half glass of sherry.
All she really had to do was get through the night.
‘Hello,’ Earl said into the phone. He was out of breath from doing sit-ups. He knew who it was. He wouldn’t admit it to the caller, but he welcomed the call.
‘Earl?’
‘Who else?’
‘Earl, this is the only chance you’ve got. It’s now or never.’ There was silence. Earl didn’t know what he should do. He wasn’t going to hang up. Not right away. ‘I can tell you how to get there. I can tell you how to get in. I can tell you where she’ll be.’ Another long pause. ‘Earl?’
‘What?’
‘Do you hear me?’
‘Yeah,’ Earl said. He looked down at his body. Appraising it.
‘Listen, let me tell you. If you hang up, I’ll not call you again. And you can fry. You’ll be a piece of bacon in a skillet.’
That wasn’t the way they killed people in California, Earl thought, but he understood.
‘Tell me.’
‘Tell you what, Earl?’
‘How to get there.’
‘You going to do it?’
‘I don’t know. I gotta think some more. But if you don’t tell me before I hang up, then I can’t, can I?’
Gratelli had called the police up north, asked them to patrol in the winding roads around Julia’s cabin.
Gratelli was sure Julia Bateman was not in any danger from the likes of Earl Falwell. Though not disqualified as the murderer in the other cases, Gratelli was not convinced he was the one to assault Julia, to beat her until she hung on the precipice of death.
Gratelli had his reasons for believing this. One of them was that the person who attacked Julia had engraved a rose on the inside of her thigh. A rose with a thorn on the stem. The serial killer, quite possibly Earl Falwell, had carved out a tulip. Something everyone had overlooked. In the beginning, someone called it a ‘rose.’ And it became a ‘rose,’ until Earl corrected them. Now, suddenly, the ‘rose’ had a thorn? Had Earl added the detail on his own? Not likely.
Who else had access to the intimate details of the victims who might also have a personal motive? Seidman surely did. A jilted lover.
The call Julia Bateman received while Gratelli was there was from David Seidman. She had blown him off again. If it was to happen it could very well be tonight. Then again, if by some long shot Earl Falwell was the one who attacked Julia Bateman, how would he get back to the scene? His car was still impounded. He knew he was being watched. He had no way of knowing she was returning to the cabin.
Gratelli sat back in the large, overstuffed chair in his apartment, the one situated between the speakers of his stereo. He had already dropped the needle into the first groove of the LP. He wasn’t sure if he was patient enough this evening to wait for the voice of Placido Domingo to transport him to another plane of existence.
It was almost as if someone switched on a light inside Earl Falwell’s head. He was awake. Seriously awake. His body seemed to pulse with electricity. His mind was clear. He knew what he was going to do. It was a little different than before. They all had been, since prison. Since Cobra. A cycle had been broken. Another had begun. He had no idea what path he was on, but even that was somehow exciting.
It wasn’t the sad longing that would lead him to the young street girls. It wasn’t the cold, bitter and immature desire for physical satisfaction that drove him to rape and kill the young man. What he discovered was his own world. The world of the others had always confused him. Their lives. Their needs. Their rules. They were right. He was stupid. Now it didn’t matter.
He would not be caught again. Not in the daily traps set by ordinary people. Not in prison. He would have none of it. He would kill the woman. And once he found him, Earl Falwell would kill the caller.
An irritating ringing intruded upon Domingo’s aria.
‘Yes?’ Gratelli said.
‘Seidman is walking his dog.’ It was Paul Chang.
‘His dog?’
‘A little white terrier of some sort. Doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. Got his slippers on.’
‘I appreciate you doing this for me,’ Gratelli said.
‘Sure, but it’s really for Jules.’
‘I know, call me if things change.’