A Killing in China Basin (13 page)

‘Washington. Do you want the names of the senators I met with?’

He thought about that a moment. ‘Sure.’ He wrote down their names.

‘Why wouldn’t you rehire her?’

‘I’d rather not discuss that.’

‘Then let me say this, we believe she may have been involved in a credit card theft ring.’

Lafaye shook her head. She looked dismayed. She looked past him.

‘When she left us the foundation received complaints regarding credit card charges. Obviously, if it had tied to Alex I wouldn’t have been drinking wine with her a week ago, but it was a factor in not talking her out of resigning. A private investigator suspected her. I decided to keep the friendship but never mix it with business again.’

La Rosa walked up now, took her sunglasses off, introduced herself and handed Lafaye a card. Lafaye looked surprised, even nervous that a second inspector had showed up.

‘I’m pleased to meet you,’ Lafaye said to la Rosa, ‘but I’m afraid I’m out of time. I wish I knew more about Alex’s life. I’m truly sick at heart that she was killed and I’d like to do anything I can to help you catch her murderer, but I have no idea how to help. But please call me if you think I can.’

‘Before you go I want to say I’m a great admirer of your foundation,’ la Rosa said. ‘You’ve really made a difference.’

‘I hope to continue to. I appreciate you saying that.’

She stood and picked up her purse but left la Rosa’s card on the table. The inspectors stood as well and Raveneau said, ‘I need to take a couple of notes.’ He opened his notebook with la Rosa alongside him now as a witness. ‘Did you say it was a week ago Wednesday that you were with Alex Jurika in her apartment?’

‘I believe it was Wednesday but it may have been Tuesday. You can double-check my memory of it being Wednesday by finding the tenant in her apartment complex that just had back surgery. I rode up the elevator with him and we chatted about his surgery. You might try him.’

‘Did you call her before coming by?’

‘We had set it up a month or so before. She was in touch with my secretary. I can ask him. What am I missing here, Inspector? Why does it matter how we organized a glass of wine?’

‘So far you’re the only person we know of who was in communication with her just before she was murdered.’

‘And, again, I’ll do everything I can to help, but please reassure me you aren’t even vaguely imagining that I know something about her murder.’

‘I thought we had covered that.’

‘Well, it’s the way you’re asking things, and this business of opening your notebook as we’re getting ready to say goodbye.’

‘I’m a great admirer,’ la Rosa said. ‘Honestly, I just wanted to meet you.’

Lafaye’s cell rang and as she retrieved it she said, ‘You’ve heard my phone ring while we’ve been here. Hasn’t it rung at least ten times?’

It probably had.

‘That’s what my life is like,’ she said as she looked at the screen but didn’t answer.

‘You must be so organized,’ la Rosa said.

‘No, I’m the opposite but I have people around me who are very efficient.’ She turned her attention back to Raveneau. ‘It was Wednesday because Thursday I was on a plane to London. If I had to guess, I’d say I left her apartment at around seven thirty. I’ll try to remember more before we speak again.’

This time as her phone rang she answered it and waved goodbye as she walked off.

‘Now what?’ la Rosa asked.

‘We go back and regroup. She’s hiding something.’

They went back to the homicide office and Raveneau got a call from Lieutenant Becker.

‘There are a couple of Oakland detectives who’d like to talk to you today,’ Becker said. ‘Are you available?’

‘Are they named Hendricks and Stalos?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell them to come to the office. I’m here with Elizabeth following up on a new lead on the China Basin killing.’

‘Stay there. I’ll be coming in too. The Oakland detectives have new questions about Bates. They want your opinion. They’re wondering why he doubled the life insurance payout on his wife three months ago.’

‘Is that right?’

‘That’s what they claim.’

Forty minutes later Becker arrived. The Oakland inspectors were right behind him. They were all charged up and it was written large on their faces. They had it all figured out.

TWENTY-EIGHT

‘
W
e understand Ted Whitacre asked you for help. Is that correct?’

Raveneau nodded.

‘When you met with him what did he ask you to do?’

‘Knock on Stoltz’s door and let him know we knew he was following Ted.’

‘Warn him off?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you?’

‘Ted died before I got to Stoltz. I was on-call that week. I had planned to go see him as soon as I was off.’

‘Did you tell Charles Bates that you were going to visit Cody Stoltz?’

‘Sure. The day I met with Whitacre I called Charles on my way back to the Hall.’

‘How did he respond?’

‘He was skeptical Whitacre had been followed by Stoltz. He said he was getting regular calls from Ted at night about old cases and guessed it had something to do with the cocktail of cancer drugs, Ted wanting to clean up the unsolved cases before dying. I’m sure you’ve asked Bates – what’s he told you?’

Stalos checked it with his partner before answering. Hendricks gave the faintest nod.

‘Basically, he told us what you just said.’

‘Whitacre was a pretty reliable guy. I took him at his word that he’d seen Stoltz.’

‘After Ted Whitacre’s body was found did you ask Mr Bates to drive with you to Los Altos where Stoltz lives?’

‘No, I went alone.’

‘What was the point?’

‘I wasn’t convinced Ted’s death was suicide.’

‘What do you think now?’

‘I think he was murdered.’

Hendricks spoke for the first time, saying, ‘We agree with you,’ and Stalos added, ‘The Burlingame detective, I can never remember his name—’

‘Choy.’

‘Yeah, Ed Choy said you came in the door calling it a murder.’

‘That’s not quite right, but I was upset at how fast he was moving and I was upset anyway. I’d worked with Ted for twenty years.’

‘We hear you. We understand.’

Stalos leaned forward a little more, setting up to confide. Raveneau had done this many times himself.

‘Detective Choy gave us a look at what he’s got so far. Seems to us he just made an assumption about suicide. I’ve got a copy of his report. Do you want to take a look at it?’

‘Not right now. Why don’t you tell me why you’re here? I understand that Bates doubled the life insurance on his wife three months ago, or you think he did. So start there.’

Hendricks stepped in on that one, saying emphatically, ‘He did double it.’

‘Here’s what we have,’ Stalos said. ‘We’ve got a significant bump in the life insurance coverage on both Charles and Jacie Bates that was done six months ago, not three months. That’s unusual for a man with heart and prostate problems and a police pension to pay for it. It ramped their payments way up. Jacie had her own medical troubles, and then there’s the girlfriend thing. Bates has been seeing a younger woman who works for the Alameda DA. We got a tip about that and it checked out. So now we’re wondering what we’ve got.’

‘Who bumped the insurance coverage?’

‘Jacie Bates did, but it doesn’t mean he didn’t talk her into it.’

‘Go on.’

‘He missed the walk that night and neighbors say he was pretty good about making the walks with her. He didn’t miss many of them.’

‘But he missed some or did you find a neighbor keeping track on a calendar?’

‘We know they mostly walked together.’

‘He was home when the pickup burned. How do you explain that?’

‘He had her hit. Hired somebody to run her down and burn the truck. It has started to look like a different investigation. So we’re here to talk to you. Did he have a girl on the side when he worked the detail here?’

‘Not that I ever heard about.’

‘Did he ever talk about problems with his marriage?’

‘Not to me and I always had the impression that he and Jacie were very close. My wife and I divorced years ago. I used to look at Bates and think he had a really strong, good thing with Jacie.’

‘Do you want to hear the whole wild ass theory?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘OK, Bates killed his former partner so that he could then kill his wife and make it look like Stoltz did it. He knew Whitacre would talk to other people about being followed and he saw an opportunity. Stoltz wouldn’t know where the key was under the flagstone in Whitacre’s backyard, but Bates did. He told us he did. His old partner was starting to have Stoltz sightings, and was dying anyway, so he starts thinking about a way to free Whitacre from his cancer and deal Jacie out of the game so he can be with his girlfriend.’

Hendricks held up his left hand, the fingers long and thin as a pianist’s. ‘How many days has it been since Jacie was killed?’ He counted them off on his fingers. ‘Damn if I can’t almost count them on one hand. He was with the girlfriend last night. What’s that say about his grief?’

He waved his hand as if erasing everything said.

‘But we admit we don’t know much yet and obviously we don’t want our theory to be right.’

‘I can tell how.’

‘No, I mean it, Raveneau. We’d like to be wrong on this. That’s why we’re looking to you. We want you to prove we’ve got our heads up our asses.’

‘Maybe I can help you with that part either way.’

That got a smile from Hendricks.

‘You say he never mentioned this girlfriend to you and you don’t know him as a man with girls on the side.’

‘That’s true.’

‘What do you think about him spending the night with the girlfriend this close to Jacie’s death? We haven’t even released the body.’

‘It surprises me, but I don’t know what he’s feeling and having a girlfriend doesn’t mean he killed his wife.’

He felt both watching him and then it was Hendricks who put the question to him.

‘If we need it, would you be willing to wear a wire?’

‘No.’

‘What if we have solid proof?’

‘If you’ve got that kind of proof, arrest him.’

They didn’t like that and it kind of quietened the room. Raveneau figured they must have been counting on selling the wire idea.

‘We’ve got some questions we want you to ask him. We think you’re the one to talk to him since you’re the one with the Whitacre murder investigation, and you and your partner are looking at this Cody Stoltz. We think Bates will want to know what you learn and monitor your progress.’

Raveneau didn’t answer.

TWENTY-NINE

R
aveneau didn’t inform the Oakland detectives, nor had Becker, but for the past two days an undercover team from San Francisco’s Special Investigation Division, SID, had covered Stoltz. Right now, a black limo was in the driveway with the trunk up. Four pieces of high quality black plastic luggage, neither masculine nor feminine looking, that could belong to either Stoltz or his mother, had just been loaded into the trunk. Somebody was taking a trip.

Yesterday they learned that Stoltz had a route where he came through the garden, alongside the guest house, past the tennis courts and pool, and in through the doors of a sunroom at the rear of mom’s place. Stoltz alternated his daily routes and Mike Malloy, the Special Investigations Division officer watching, wondered as he had several times in the last forty-eight hours whether Stoltz knew he was under surveillance.

They had learned a fair amount about him in the last two days and Malloy was somewhat impressed. Stoltz had a gift and reputation for pattern recognition. Yesterday afternoon they watched him knock out a book of Sudoku puzzles over a latte at a Starbucks. Among his friends, and this guy did have friends – he wasn’t isolated even if he lived on the estate with mom – he was known as ‘The Engineer.’ Ordinary enough nickname and otherwise corny, but not so much since it came from guys who also spent their lives in front of a computer. Stoltz probably could have gone somewhere much bigger with his life if he hadn’t fucked up. He had a few strange habits but nothing too out of the ordinary, and definitely nothing like some of the people they watched.

Outside of what they’d gotten from Homicide, the SID team had questioned a number of people on their own, including a goofball named Chulie who’d been Stoltz’s cellmate. Chulie remembered Stoltz wanting to even the score with SF Homicide, but he also wanted something in return for remembering.

Malloy knew the mother lived with only a housekeeper who served as cook and caretaker. The mother was seventy-five but looked and sounded like a hardened sixty. Cosmetic surgeries had turned her face into a tanned ping-pong ball. Malloy watched her get in the car. Then Stoltz walked out of the house. He strode across the stone porch and down the steps with a light linen sport coat draped over one arm. He got in behind the driver, the whole move over in less than ten seconds.

‘Suspect is in the vehicle and the vehicle is moving.’

SID leapfrogged the limo as it drove to SFO. When it pulled up to the domestic terminal they’d already had two officers stationed inside, who then watched them check into first class at the United counter. Malloy went through special security with another officer and saw them board. He’d bet a beer on Hawaii, based on the way Stoltz was dressed. He’d hoped for Hawaii. If it had been, he’d be getting on the same plane or the one after it.

But it wasn’t Hawaii. It was LA, and LAPD would catch them on the other side, as Malloy and another officer followed on a later plane. The United supervisor they talked to was hesitant before divulging Mrs Stoltz’s itinerary. She showed an Irene and Cody Stoltz flying first class to LAX, and Irene Stoltz continuing on to Cabo San Lucas four days from now.