Invasion of Privacy (41 page)

"What happened?"

"She was the first," Ralph mumbled. "Terry wanted to come and film me and her that night. Who knows why? She had her reasons, I guess. She got to the trail first and went and hid behind a rock. Tam was waiting when I got there, and I knew Terry was somewhere around. We got high and then Tam wanted to leave.

"She wouldn’t let me fondle her jacket. She made fun of me. We were down the trail in the dark where nobody came. She called me crazy. I’m not crazy! I could be fixed. I had Terry’s rifle in the truck—Terry said I could take it hunting
_—
and I ran back and got it. I tried to make her pay up. Boom, boom, she got in the way and she fell down. I was scared. I called Terry but she didn’t come. She said later she left before any of that."

"It was an accident," Nina said. She had loosened one hand, but couldn’t quite work it free.

"I didn’t touch her after. That would be perverted. I pushed her into the little cave because the ground was frozen and wiped my hands in the snow. I kept her soft little rabbit fur," Ralph said, spinning the word fur out as though it gave him pleasure just to hear it, almost rolling the r. "It’s mine now. I keep it down in the toy bin."

"What else is down there, Ralph?" Nina said, trying to keep her teeth from chattering, trying to keep up the soft, interested, little-girl voice.

"The other girls. Alice, and Dee, and whatshername. I forget. Goddamn, he stuck me good. I’m still bleeding. Shit."

"The ... other girls?"

"Oh. Yeah. They all wore furs. One of ’em had a mink collar, so beautiful, stiff on the tips and velvety, feathery soft farther in. It’s down there now. I was nice to them, but they’d all get disgusted with me sooner or later. "

"And you’d have to keep them quiet."

"Yeah. I was merciful. I gave ’em lots of pills, some decent booze, and they just went to sleep and never woke up. I came up here by myself after Tarn and started the toy house. Always meant to move her up here, but didn’t get around to it somehow. But I got me three more. Girls are always passing through this town alone, at the casinos, walking to the beach, hiking, at the rallies. One of ’em, Dee, she’d seen me at a rally ...

"And now I have to put my toys away for good." Ralph sighed deeply. "No job. No toy bin. No nuthin’. Because of you."

"What did Terry say? About what you did to Tamara?"

"She said ’Good riddance.’ " Ralph grunted, or maybe it was a laugh. "And she said I’d get away with it. A long time after, she told me she got away with it too. She killed someone with a pillow."

"Her baby," Nina said in a choked voice. The darkness and the stench were suffocating her. She gave up on her left hand and went to work on her right.

"Really?" Ralph said. "Terry was cruel. She was very cruel to me sometimes, but she had the coat, so I had to do what she said. Not sex stuff. She just didn’t care about it. It was like her sex drive got turned into something else."

"Did you know Terry made a film about Tamara?" Try to keep him talking, because she didn’t know what else to do. Bob was breathing, but he wasn’t conscious.

"Not till I saw it in court. My dad told me there was a film, but I didn’t know what was in it. All that fur. Tam’s coat there, and the trail. Terry shouldn’t have hinted about me. I couldn’t believe she kept the video from that night with Tamara all these years. She told me once, she was gonna make a film about me, but I thought she meant Ralph the driver of Satan’s Hoof, not Ralph the—" He stopped, as if unable to describe the other Ralph. "Nobody got it, so I thought it would be okay. But then at the court recess today, I saw your doodle."

"What?"

"You know, the picture you drew. The rabbit and the cat with the long fur. I was watching you anyway. You were mean to my dad. And now he’s suspicious. Now he keeps asking me questions. Why couldn’t you just leave us alone? You stuck your nose in my private business. I never did nothing to you."

"I’m sorry. I’m sorry I caused you so much trouble. Did you ... did you see what happened to Terry, Ralph?"

"No! I know it wasn’t me like you made out, though! I was asleep, just like my dad said! I had took some heavy downers and I never heard a friggin’ thing! How do ya like them apples!" His rasping chuckle filled the shed. "Only thing I did was sneak over and get the coat when the cops left the next day. It was layin’ on the bed in the bedroom like always. She wouldn’t have wanted me to have it. She always said I was a low-class boy and her coat was too friggin’ good for me!" He laughed and moaned, and Bobby never moved, and Nina thought, we’re going to die soon, and she felt like Terry must have when she saw the angel of death....

42

A NEW NOTE HAD ENTERED RALPH’S VOICE. "YOU could wear it again," he said, "with nothing under it this time. That’s the best way. Like I say, we’ll do it right, this time, go down in the toy bin so he wouldn’t have to watch. I know you wouldn’t want that. Before I do you and the kid. Looky here, up on the table? I got tequila, ’ludes, grass, even a little coke. It’s more fun that way. If you wear the coat for me, I’ll make sure you two go out real easy, relaxed, smiling even."

Bob groaned.

"Better not mention the plan to her," Ralphie was muttering to himself. She could hear him shifting around in the darkness. "Forget the toy bin. Bad shoulder. Time to go," he said.

Nina could hardly think, she was so scared, and her feet were burning with pain from the bindings, but she managed to gasp, "Ralph ... we can talk about it ... in a minute. But first, let me ask you one little question. Would you ... like to be famous?"

"Now how’m I gonna do that? You ruined me for driving."

"I was just thinking," Nina said. "You could be famous now. The Tahoe serial killer. I could represent you at the trial. You’d be as famous as O.J."

"I did kill four," Ralph said. "Over twelve years. But I don’t want to be famous that way."

"Girls would want to know you. You know how many people proposed to Ted Bundy?"

"He fried though."

"We should talk about this," Nina said. "It won’t hurt you to let me explain for a minute or two, would it? But I can’t think, my hands are tied so tight." She nudged Bobby with her foot. She thought he stirred. Was he injured or had he passed out?

Paul had never driven to Tahoe that fast, or crossed so many double yellow lines passing slow cars. He squealed to a stop around the corner from Terry’s place and approached the dusty drive of the Kettrick place cautiously, not knowing what to expect. He had his gun, taken from a locked case in the van. He moved quickly to the porch, and pounded on the front door.

Hysterical barking. After a minute or two a blinding floodlight came on, and Jerry Kettrick’s voice came through the door, yelling, "Ralphie? Where’s your damn key!"

"Where’s Ralph, Mr. Kettrick?" Paul said through the door.

"What th’? Who’s that?"

"Paul van Wagoner. Nina Reilly’s investigator. Ralphie’s in trouble."

"Go ’way. Come back tomorrow."

"Let me in, Mr. Kettrick."

"Get lost, or I blast you with my rifle."

"Okay," Paul said. "Give me ten minutes to get back to you with a couple of uniforms in tow. Or talk now. It’s about Ralph." He let Kettrick think it over. Slowly and reluctantly, the door swung open, and Terry’s black dog rushed out and ran around in circles, barking.

Jerry Kettrick slept in his briefs. His skinny legs poked out of a pair of slippers, and he held his old rifle on Paul. "Shut the door," he said. "What’s this all about?"

"Ralph isn’t here?" Paul said.

"Answer me."

"If he is, I’ll go away and not bother you anymore," Paul said. "Let’s check the bedroom."

"Not until you tell me what—"

"He’s kidnapped Nina Reilly and her son," Paul said. "He’s holding them somewhere."

"What? How do you know that?" The rifle shook a little.

"Has he ever done anything like this before?" Paul said, and his heart stopped beating, because Kettrick was blushing there in the dim, dirty hall; he could see it and it told him the answer. "He has," Paul said. "He’s got mental problems. I know about them. Are you going to help me with this?"

Kettrick let the rifle fall. "Come on in," he said. "Let’s go see if he’s come in."

They walked together through a sea of newspapers and garbage, the dog following behind, to a small bedroom off the kitchen. Kettrick pushed the door open.

A mattress on the floor, heavy metal and monster truck posters, an old TV set. On the floor, automotive tools, cereal packages, dishes and milk cartons, clothes strewn everywhere. The air smelled sour.

Coat hangers hanging off hooks in the ceiling, a dozen at least, and hanging queerly from the coat hangers, bits and pieces of fur, raccoon tails mostly, some swatches from clothing. They hung low enough to walk through.

No sign of Ralph. "He won’t eat nothing but cereal," Kettrick said as if in apology, ignoring the evidence of stark raving insanity hanging from the ceiling.

Paul turned to Kettrick, took him by the throat and pushed the rifle onto the floor, all at once.

"Where is he?" Paul said in a quiet voice.

"How—how do I know?"

Paul’s grip tightened. "Tell me or I’ll kill you."

"Then you’ll"
_—
Kettrick was choking, and Paul loosened his grip a little—"never find out."

"So you do know. Speak up, Jerry." Kettrick’s eyes bugged out with terror. Paul raised his free hand. Something in his eyes must have made Kettrick decide enough was enough. He nodded. Paul dropped him, kicked the rifle away. Kettrick choked and gasped.

"Goddamn. You don’t have to be so rough. I want to stop him, too, before he goes too far. My poor boy. He gets upset, he can’t take it no more, a storm comes up in his brain and he has an attack. We gotta find him."

"Where is he?"

"He’s got a place up in the mountains, somewhere around Fallen Leaf Lake. Some abandoned old building. He told me about it. He goes there to be alone. I don’t know why. He’s got no friends down here."

"What else did he say?" Paul’s fury had built to the point that he had to smash something. He walked over to the TV, picked it up and threw it into the closet door. The door splintered with a satisfying crack.

"Hey! That was a twenty-inch with remote control!" Seeing the look in Paul’s eye, Kettrick said, "Jus’ let me think. I never paid much attention."

"Yeah. You think. In two minutes I’m going to make it so you can’t think." Paul prowled around the room, knocking everything over, kicking at the comic books. He kneeled down and reached under the bed, pulled out some sex aids. Disgusted, he went to the bureau and threw open the drawers. They were empty, except for more swatches of fur.

"I do remember one time he said he was going up to the lookout," Kettrick said from behind him. "Then he gave me a funny look and told me to forget what he said."

"You got a good Tahoe map?"

"In the kitchen." They tore the map opening it up together. "The Angora Fire Lookout Station. On Angora Ridge," Paul said.

"It’s the right area," Kettrick said. "Hey, wait, lemme get some clothes on. I’m coming too. Ralphie’ll listen to his dad. Don’t call the cops. He’ll think I’m going to put him in the hospital again. He’d rather die, I swear. He’ll do something bad, and he’s very fast.’’

Paul hesitated.

"Please. He always listens to me. I’ll get him to come out peaceably. He’s my boy. He loves me."

Paul nodded and went out to the van. Kettrick jumped in a minute later with the dog and his rifle. They sped down Pioneer Trail toward the Angora Ridge road.

As Ralph talked to Nina and swigged from the bottle of tequila, his voice grew more strange, as if telling her his story told him for the first time how far he’d gone. Progressing beyond her initial terrified paralysis to teeth rattling, she could hardly keep the questions coming. She worked the thick knots in the bindings around her hands, fingers bleeding, nails broken as he talked, her knife so close by, but beyond her reach. Bob was definitely conscious now, but seemed to know enough to stay silent.

"And then I—I could get a ghostwriter, you know, pay somebody, and tell all about myself. Surefire best-seller, but wait a minute, I’d be stuck in jail, I couldn’t get out, with a bunch of criminals and bad food—I heard about that. Worse than the hospital. They might even give me the needle, execute me, even though I’m fixable. I been sick a long time, makes it so hard to think, but first and foremost her and sonny boy seen too much, now I gotta do them—"

Nina said recklessly, "No problem. I’ll get you off. And you could write anything you wanted.

"They won’t let me drive no more. I could still drive for Bad Boy, I’ll go over to Reno and talk to them boys tomorrow ...." He had stopped listening to Nina, seemed to have forgotten she was there.

"Except for them two," he said then in an ugly voice. "Them spyin’ and pryin’. But the little guy ain’t done nothin’, ain’t done nothin’! Sure he ain’t, Ralphie! Nothing but knifed you. You forget that already?"

"Ralphie. Ralph!"

"Shut up," Ralph said. "Party’s over. I’m done listenin’ to you. You’re history." He got up. A rush of fear incapacitated Nina’s vocal cords. She struggled hard. Bob kept silent somehow, but she knew he sensed her fear.

"Think I got some bad gas," Ralph said, chuckling to himself. He opened the lock, went outside. A moment later they heard a sloshing sound, working around the shed.

"Mom," Bobby whispered, "what’s going on?"

Nina didn’t answer. She applied her frenzy to the knots, but it was hopeless.

She knew what that sloshing meant. She could even sniff out the fumes drifting through the fetid air.

Gasoline.

"He can’t help it," Jerry Kettrick said, holding on to the oh-shit strap above his head as they careened around a corner. "I always told him how beautiful his mom was. She was twenty-three when she died, and Ralphie was two. While she was pregnant, some dude at Golden Gate Park gave her some pills and told her it was mescaline. Turned out to be some squirrelly mix of speed and PCP, and she almost lost the baby. We didn’t know anything back then about the pills causing a problem. By the time Ralphie was born she was bouncing back and forth between uppers and downers. Ralphie, he bounced too. Then we lost him once when he just started to walk. He stayed overnight in an alley downtown and the cops found him in the morning with rat bites all over him. After that I didn’t leave him alone with her. She was an addict by then. She just couldn’t handle the whole scene."

"How long did you think you could cover up for him?" Paul said, hitting a straightaway and giving it the gas.

"I swear to God, I didn’t know how bad it was. He told me once, a couple of years ago, he took girls up to the lookout. He didn’t tell me no more. It was hard to believe a girl would go with him on her own, but I didn’t ask about it. What the hell could I do? I made him go to the hospital once in a while, ’cause he was in bad shape. The medicine helped, when he took it. I kept after him, I tried to take care of him. Take a left. Sharp left. Yeah. Next right."

"What did he say about Nina Reilly?" Paul said.

"He heard her raggin’ on me in court day before yesterday. He stopped eating, stayed up all night, and then went up to Reno to run a race. Something happened. They fired him, and he came back mumbling about the lawyer lady. Monster trucks was just about the only thing he loved. He locked himself in his room today. I could hear him carryin’ on in there. He was really upset. I was thinking I’d have to take him back to the hospital. "

Paul assumed he was talking about Nina. He didn’t interrupt.

"She made it seem like Ralphie killed Terry—he wouldn’t take kindly to that. Terry was like his guru, I’m not kidding. She had an evil hold on that boy. She treated him like a dog, but he didn’t mind. Ralphie thought Kurt Scott did it, and the lawyer lady was accusing him just to get her client off. A reporter tried to talk to him. He hates attention like that."

"Of course he does!" Paul shouted, losing his temper as they climbed the hill toward the ridge, "He was lying to you! He did kill her!"

"Gah-damn! Ain’t you listening! I told you and that Miss Reilly, he was sound asleep! I was there! As God is my witness! I ain’t goin’ any farther. You can find the goddamn lookout yourself." Kettrick pulled the door handle and the door on the van swung open in the dark, catching against some bushes.

Paul wanted to let him jump out, but he still needed him. He took a firm hold on Kettrick’s arm and said, "Take it easy. You want to help him, stick with me."

Kettrick allowed himself to be drawn back in, muttering, "I oughtta know ... I was there...." Gradually he calmed down and resumed giving directions, at the same time resuming the tale of Ralph’s babyhood. "Anyhow, his mom, Meredith her name was, got out of bed one night and went outside onto Haight Street. She was barefoot, wearing her night-gown, a shawl, so forth. All the girls wore those clothes anyway back then. She didn’t bring any money, but somebody was tryin’ to be nice and gave her some tabs of windowpane. Acid. And a speed chaser."

"Where’s the turnoff? Goddammit, I can’t see it!"

"About two hundred feet farther. There you go. The dirt road there. Her poor little heart gave out. Ralphie, he lost his mother. How I loved that little girl. I wrote a song about her. Made it into the top 100 during May 1972. I buried her in the mink coat I bought her on my last tour with the Dead, and—"

They turned onto Angora Ridge Road. Paul slammed on the brakes as he passed Nina’s Bronco, shadowy off the side of the road. He pulled over in front, and the two men jumped out, Paul praying she was sitting safely in there, waiting.

No such luck. She must have tried to sneak up on Ralph. The Bronco was empty.

"Come on," Paul said, climbing back in and starting up again.

"I came back here to take care of him. I love him," Kettrick said next to him. "Every parent loves his kid, you know? You think I don’t know it’s my fault?"

Ahead, Paul saw a light.

Ralph Kettrick held a flaming torch above his head, his grotesquely twisted features lit from above, a horror show in real life. When he saw the van, Kettrick tossed the flaming torch toward a small shed next to the fire-spotting station.

Jerry Kettrick jumped out of the van, stomping at the fire. Paul joined him, tossing dirt on the flames.

Somehow they managed to stop the fire before the gas ignited. Ralph had run back inside, still holding the can.

Silence. The air itself crackled with ghastly possibilities.

In his years as a homicide detective, Paul had never had to deal with death personally. The bodies were already there, anonymous, cases to close, evidence. He had never known a victim. Sometimes there had been danger, but it was only to himself, and he could handle that.