A Killing in China Basin (16 page)

The judge was exasperated.

‘I know all of this. You can’t re-churn the same stuff you got the last warrant with.’

‘We need to get in front of him before he acts again. We need to get back in his house and in his van and be more thorough.’

The judge jumped on that. ‘The law doesn’t protect you from lack of thoroughness.’

‘We need another chance to search, your honor.’

‘I’m sorry. I just can’t sign it with what you’ve got. Get me something concrete.’

‘What if I rewrite it?’

The judge shook his head. Raveneau took a sip of the coffee, and then set it down near the kitchen sink. At the door before leaving he said, ‘I’ve been at this more than twenty years and I’ve never really seen a guy quite like this one.’

‘There’s always somebody worse.’

Raveneau nodded. He shut the judge’s front door and went down the steps to his car.

THIRTY-SIX

R
aveneau drove through the Tenderloin before going into work. The morning sky was particularly clear and the sunlight bright, high on the buildings ahead. He cruised slowly down Eddy Street, looking for Deschutes, knowing he used to hang here. He was close to giving up when he spotted him sitting on a bench in the park outside City Hall. Deschutes picked up on him as soon as he slowed. He started to leave, then stayed on the bench and watched as Raveneau approached.

‘Man nearly killed the brother of a police officer last night.’

And that’s how Raveneau came to it. Deschutes heard it in a restaurant on Van Ness Street where he’d gone in to get warm and use a bathroom. They had a TV there. He had watched a report of the shooting but fumbled for the name he’d heard. ‘Backer, Beckurt, like that.’

‘Becker?’

‘That’s the one. His brother got shot.’

Raveneau didn’t believe it, but didn’t disbelieve it either. He pulled a five dollar bill from his wallet.

‘Get yourself some breakfast, Jimmy. Where can I find you later?’

‘I’m around.’

‘Where are you going to be?’

‘I’m not going far.’

Outside the gray-faced Hall of Justice five lanes of Bryant Street ran one-way. Many commuters treated the street as a freeway on-ramp, hammering through the yellow lights as they accelerated toward the Bay Bridge ramp a block away. When the light changed, pedestrians jaywalking across the five lanes on their way to the Hall entrance steps sometimes had to run for it. But not today.

Today they wouldn’t have any problem because the TV vans were two lanes deep, blocking traffic as well as access to the alley and the entrances to the bail bond shops and other businesses opposite the Hall. Rubberneckers slowed traffic to a crawl and Raveneau avoided his usual parking spot. He parked six blocks away and walked in.

La Rosa was in conversation with a deputy-chief out in the corridor when Raveneau got off at the fifth floor. From the way they stopped talking as he neared he guessed the deputy-chief was la Rosa’s angel in the brass. Inside Homicide a meeting was underway at the conference table outside the captain’s office.

Becker’s brother, Alan Becker, an attorney in Walnut Creek, was shot and badly wounded by an unidentified assailant as he unloaded groceries last night at his suburban Walnut Creek home. Those were the bare facts and Raveneau gathered not much more was known yet. Possibly it was an attempted carjacking, or an interrupted burglary, but the probability that some connection existed between Whitacre, Jacie Bates, and this could not be ignored. What had seemed improbable now seemed possible.

Raveneau took in the scene and then walked to his desk. That didn’t buy him much time, but he did get more details on the Becker shooting before Captain Ramirez came to get him.

Now he was at the conference table, and they were telling him a task force was forming and that he and la Rosa were expected to participate. Raveneau nodded, though in his view task forces were largely for people who enjoyed meetings. He hoped that whoever headed this one didn’t need a phone call every four hours.

At noon a general meeting of all homicide inspectors was called and more brass sat in. One of the inspectors, Sanchez, interrupted Ramirez and asked, ‘Where’s this Cody Stoltz and why is he walking around without us knowing where he is?’

Ramirez turned to Raveneau, asked, ‘Do you want to take that?’

‘Sure.’ He glanced at Sanchez who almost certainly already knew the answer, and then addressed the room. ‘An SID team was on him but he took a trip to Los Angeles with his mother and LAPD picked him up. With his mother he was staying at the Beverly Hilton. Then it appeared he was continuing on to Mexico, to Cabo with her, but she went and he didn’t. Basically, he went to the airport with her, checked in, went through security, and then didn’t board the plane.’

‘What about the mother, has she been questioned?’ someone asked.

‘Yes. He gave her some last second explanation that he had too much work, too much depended on him. He left her as she was literally walking down the boarding ramp and LAPD missed him leaving the airport. We don’t know where he is now, though he has checked in with the people he works for.’

‘Then they know where he is.’ Sanchez again.

‘They say it’s not unusual for him to hole up with his laptop and work on a problem.’

Raveneau gave more back story on Stoltz and when the conversation moved to Jacie Bates there was no way to avoid the Oakland detectives’ interest in Bates. Everyone agreed more information was needed about the shooting of Becker’s brother and grumbled as the meeting broke up that the brass formed the task force in a knee-jerk response to the media.

A few minutes later la Rosa tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Captain Ramirez and Deputy-chief Grainer want me to go to lunch with them.’

She was gone an hour and a half. When she returned he guessed from her expression that they’d made her some sort of offer.

‘They want me to act as spokesperson for the task force.’

‘Are you good with that?’

‘I said I’d do it. Am I good with it, I don’t know. That’s a lot of cameras across the street. I’m a little scared.’

She downplayed it, though sounding excited, and it was clear she’d been given a career pep talk and the point had gotten made that how she handled herself in the swirl of media attention would count for a lot later. Careers got made in crisis situations. Everything became larger than life. That’s what drew the brass this morning.

Raveneau stayed at his desk that afternoon. He phoned a cop in Concord that he knew had friends on the Walnut Creek force. In 1988 an undercover San Francisco officer was killed in Walnut Creek and some strain remained ever since between the departments. He was hoping his friend in Concord had a route to the detectives assigned the Becker shooting. Turned out his friend didn’t know the detectives personally, but knew someone who did and made the call. He called back an hour later.

‘They’re looking at an ex-boyfriend neighbor of Alan Becker’s daughter because your lieutenant’s brother and the boyfriend got in a shoving match over the daughter two months ago. Alan Becker called the police and threatened the kid with a restraining order. And Sunday night a neighbor saw a man on a bicycle around the time of the attempted murder. Evidently, this kid is an avid cyclist, so they’ve taken his bike and all the associated clothing, shoes, helmets, everything. They also found his recreational drug stash and they’re holding him with that.’

‘They’ve questioned him?’

‘Sure. But he’s watching the same news reports they are about a mysterious killer targeting SF homicide inspectors and their families. He’s keeping his mouth shut. What’s it like where you are?’

‘We’re trying to connect the dots.’

‘Well, hang in there. I’ll call you if I hear anything more.’

THIRTY-SEVEN

T
he Stoltz family owned a small house in wooded hills west of the Napa Valley. The house sat well back from the road hidden from passing cars by a stand of oaks. Stoltz liked the house. He felt comfortable here. For hours he worked at the kitchen table with his laptop in front of him, and gave only occasional thought to the homicide inspectors. He was good at compartmentalizing things.

When he turned the TV on and Raveneau’s partner, Elizabeth la Rosa, was saying they’d just like to talk to him, it was for a moment as if she was speaking about another person, not him. She looked poised in front of the camera. She looked like a natural and spoke as though personally to him, asking that he just come in and talk with them. After that, she took questions, and answered with the usual police evasiveness.

‘Do the San Francisco police believe he should be questioned regarding the Walnut Creek shooting?’ she was asked.

‘We’d like to talk to him about a number of things.’

‘Do you have proof the Walnut Creek shooting is connected to the two murders?’

‘We haven’t connected the murder of Jacie Bates to Inspector Whitacre’s death. We have ongoing investigations and many open questions. We need the public’s help in locating Mr Stoltz and convincing him to talk with us.’

‘Are you aware the Walnut Creek police arrested a suspect an hour ago?’

‘Yes, we’re aware they have a person of interest.’

‘Do you have any comment about that arrest?’

‘No.’

The press conference ended and then his face was on the screen with the announcer saying, ‘Police are looking for help finding this man. Anyone who has seen him is urged to call—’

He left the TV and walked to the window. He looked through the trees to the driveway, wondering if they knew he was here. This wasn’t exactly a secret site. His mother paid property taxes. The house was in her name.

When he returned to the TV the report was over. They’d moved on to sports. Stoltz sat down and closed his eyes. So he was their prime suspect just as he’d known he would be, and they were trying him in the press because that’s the way the system works. Later, he’d sue them and win, and wasn’t that what he’d wanted? It had to end the way it was supposed to, which had nothing to do with the San Francisco police.

He listened to a branch scraping the roof and tried to think it through. The growing media presence was a factor that he needed to adjust to. If the media stayed with this story she might become aware. She might figure it out. She might know he was coming for her.

THIRTY-EIGHT

T
he next morning a partial toxicology report on Alex Jurika came in. Full screen would take another four to six weeks. Raveneau read through it and then handed the report to la Rosa. Jurika had a common date-rape drug, a horse tranquilizer, Ketamine, in her system. That was the most significant finding.

La Rosa read and stated flatly, ‘Heilbron,’ and Raveneau didn’t respond. Ketamine was in her system but she wasn’t raped. Was a sexual assault interrupted? Did she asphyxiate too soon and Heilbron lost interest in sex as he’d described, or was it a mistake to connect Ketamine to its usual companion, rape?

‘Here’s a different angle,’ Raveneau said. ‘Let’s say there’s no sexual element and the Ketamine was for a different purpose entirely.’

‘For what, then?’

‘To loosen her up and get her to talk about the credit fraud and identity theft businesses. Suppose someone wanted to gain control over her and in a drugged state get her to answer questions. So they brought her there, drugged her, and questioned her before killing her. Money as a motive.’

‘There are all kinds of other places easier than that building.’

‘True, but what if whoever wanted the information also planned to kill her afterwards? Then the building works well, or well enough. A filthy mattress used by junkies and whores puts a different spin on it.’

‘I like Heilbron,’ she answered. ‘I see him masturbating rather than raping her, and not leaving DNA evidence behind. He’s a voyeur. We know that about him already. It’s not hard to picture him getting aroused watching, same as he probably does driving around and filming. And he’s weirdly fixated on that building. I’m back to believing it could be him and he purposely misled us with the wrong room and wire instead of rope. He’s played us.’

They continued the debate on the drive over to Jurika’s apartment. Gloria was out front when they arrived. Her sister’s body was released to her this morning and she had asked to meet at the apartment. Raveneau wasn’t sure what that was about, but once they got inside she confessed, ‘I knew more than I told you last time. The cousin I told you about, Julie, she told me that she and Alex have used other people’s credit cards for years. She bragged about it when I confronted her in Phoenix. She said she didn’t think it was wrong since the cardholder doesn’t get stuck with the bill. She thought it was OK to cheat the credit card company.’

‘You more or less did tell us that,’ Raveneau said, ‘and we figured out the rest.’

‘Last January, Julie showed up in Los Angeles in a new full length leather coat, and I mean a really nice coat, light, high quality leather, a really pretty black – a five thousand dollar coat. I threatened her with all kinds of things and that’s when she told me her part was to keep an apartment rented where the credit card bills came and to pay them online under an account opened in a false name. She also told me the cards all came from older people with money. They had some way of getting them. If you want me to, I’ll call her right now.’

Now she had their attention. Raveneau was quiet waiting for more when la Rosa said, ‘Why don’t I call her? I’ve talked to her already. She knows me.’

She pulled her phone out and sat down on a kitchen chair. Raveneau watched her punch the numbers in, heard a faint ringing and la Rosa asked, ‘Is this Julie? It is, good, because this is Inspector la Rosa in San Francisco.’

La Rosa caught Raveneau’s eye and speaking to Julie Candiff said, ‘You remember me. That’s wonderful. What’s your day like tomorrow, Julie? We need you to fly out here tomorrow unless you want to come here this afternoon. We’re standing here with Gloria and she’s just told us what you told her and that means you lied to me, which really makes me angry. We’re trying to solve the murder of your cousin and you’re obstructing justice. We can contact the Phoenix police and ask them to help us, or you can book a flight and call me back and tell me what time you’re going to get in. What do you want to do?’