A Killing in China Basin (7 page)

FIFTEEN

‘
I
t was a hit-and-run. Bates is at home right now. Some neighbors are with him and his daughter is on her way,’ Becker said. ‘I want you and la Rosa to go to the scene. We can’t ignore the possibility of connection.’

Raveneau stepped out into the street to wave la Rosa down before she drove away and asked, ‘What do we know so far?’

‘White pickup truck, male driver, and that Oakland PD is treating it as a hit-and-run.’

‘We’ll have to tell them why we’re there, and level with them. That may put it out to the media.’

‘I know, but ask them to hold tight.’

Jacie Bates’s body lay on the street under a blanket. Raveneau saw Oakland PD collecting debris and it wasn’t hard to spot the detectives. He and la Rosa introduced themselves to a detective named Hendricks, a tall, thin, taciturn man, and a second detective, Pete Stalos, who questioned them and took notes after Hendricks returned to the gash in the slope.

‘Does this Stoltz drive a pickup?’

‘If he does, we don’t know about it. We know about a white Lexus and we know he’s got other cars registered to the same corporation, but I’ve also got to say we don’t have anything at all on him. This all comes from the inspector who died, Whitacre, believing that he was being tailed by Stoltz.’

‘So you literally have nothing?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Yet you’re here, so I gather you’re not telling me what you do have.’

‘What we have is an improbable series of events.’

‘What is an improbable series of events? What we have here is an apparent hit-and-run and I’m not sure what an improbable series of events is. Your inspector probably ate his gun because he was given a fatal diagnosis and was distraught and in pain. That’s probable, right? What’s improbable? Fill in the gaps for me.’

Raveneau understood where Stalos was coming from, but was unfazed.

‘Nothing connects to anything yet, but it was Whitacre and Bates who took Stoltz down. Stoltz wrote a number of angry letters from prison and Whitacre believed Stoltz was following him in the days before he either shot himself or was murdered. That was last Thursday night. The victim here was the wife of Inspector Charles Bates.’

Stalos looked down the street at his partner and then back at Raveneau.

‘What else?’

‘I’m working on an alibi that Stoltz gave me.’

‘So you believe he followed your inspector?’

‘I’m not one way or the other yet.’

‘You’re here and you want cooperation, and so do we. Where do we find this Stoltz so we can talk to him?’

‘Why don’t you let us help you with that?’

‘Right, except that this is an Oakland investigation and whereas Stoltz may have stalked Whitacre, there’s no proof. Isn’t that what you’re saying? Whitacre believed he was being followed, but it was never determined.’

‘Something like that.’

‘Whereas this, at a minimum, is manslaughter, that is to say, it’s an active investigation and it doesn’t sound like you have one, unless there is more you haven’t told me.’

Raveneau glanced at la Rosa. He was going to leave her with Stalos, guessing she’d have better luck with him.

‘Is it OK if I take a look first and then we can talk about how to work together on this?’

‘Go ahead, but watch out for my partner. He doesn’t like people and he hasn’t had any good inter-departmental experiences.’

Raveneau walked up to the gash in the hillside where she was hit. Under the lights the grasses on the hill were brown and thin, and the road narrow, barely wide enough for two cars to pass, so maybe it was accidental and the driver fled. Driver figures out the road is a dead-end, turns around, and then races back making up for lost time. It could easily have been that. He walked up to the other detective, Hendricks.

‘Can I look at her?’

‘What?’

‘I’d like a look at her body.’

‘Did you know her?’

‘Socially.’

‘You work with her husband?’

‘Yeah, but he stepped off the desk several years ago.’

‘What do you know about the marriage?’

‘They also struck me as close. Married a long time.’

‘Follow me.’

Hendricks lifted the sheet and Raveneau registered that Jacie’s neck was broken and that her right arm and side may have taken the impact. He saw something else he couldn’t make sense of until he asked Hendricks to move the sheet just a little so he could see more. Then he could read the marks on her neck, collarbone, and across her sweatshirt. One of her running shoes was missing. He realized she faced the truck at an angle as it hit her. But that didn’t fit with these other marks. Then he got it.

He stepped back and looked at Hendricks. ‘The driver wanted to make sure or it was personal, or both.’

‘You are good,’ Hendricks said. ‘Yeah, he drove over her again. He crushed her chest. I think he let the truck rest on top of her.’ He added, ‘I’m going to find this guy.’

Hendricks draped the sheet carefully. He didn’t drop it. He watched Raveneau study the flattened grass and tire marks on the slope, then added, ‘We got a decent casting of his tires. He lost control, bounced up on the slope and cut into grass. Those marks there are his tires. What we have so far is we may be looking for a late model white pickup and a male driver, possibly Caucasian. Could this Stoltz do that?’

‘I don’t know. Doesn’t really fit. This guy is from a well-to-do family and a bright light in some computer coding circles.’

‘You said he wrote threatening letters.’

‘Threatening, yeah, but the kind of stuff meant to seem threatening without being overt. Cautious.’

‘Have you been to see him?’

‘I have.’

‘Did you tell my partner that?’

‘Not yet.’

‘You got sent over here. Would you have come anyway?’

‘Probably.’

Raveneau and la Rosa were still there when word came that a 2009 Ford 150 pickup was torched between warehouses just west of 880. They left the Oakland detectives and drove there. Fire vehicles and two police cruisers sat close to the burned chassis. Heat still radiated off the truck. The air stank of melted plastic, gasoline, and burning rubber, but they saw the crumpled right front fender and they left there with the name of the registered owner, a Thanh Nguyen with a Van Nuys address in southern California.

Later they’d learn that address didn’t exist when Nguyen or someone using that name bought the vehicle. The house address had existed but was demolished for a road expansion project in 2008. What that meant Raveneau didn’t know yet.

SIXTEEN

B
efore dawn the next day Raveneau drove to Lincoln Park Golf Course, paid the fee, and rented a cart. On the first tee three old boys cut the chill by spiking their coffee with brandy. Cigar smoke mingled with the smells of newly mown grass and alcohol. One gaffer pointed a glowing cigar tip at Raveneau.

‘Tee off,’ he said. ‘Play through us; we’re just marking time until the end.’

Raveneau had brought a handful of his old clubs, a three-wood and some rusted irons, but he wasn’t here to play. A groundskeeper who worked here remained a prime suspect in one of his unsolved cases, one that pre-dated la Rosa. He hoped to find the man, Ray Bryce, cutting grass. Not that he had any new reason to interview Bryce. He was only here to let Bryce know he hadn’t forgotten.

He teed off and as his first shot sliced into the trees the old boys hooted and offered to spike his coffee. The cigar smoker gave him some free advice as he got in the cart to leave.

‘Don’t count the first two shots and slow down.’

Bryce migrated west after serving six years in a Virginia prison for attempted rape. He’d arrived in California fourteen years ago and found work as an electrician’s apprentice. When Raveneau looked at him for the Angela Ruiz murder and started unpeeling his past, he discovered Bryce had been questioned in southern California in 1998 after the disappearance of a thirteen-year-old girl who’d lived down the block from him in El Cajon. Three weeks after the girl’s body was found, Bryce moved north to San Francisco.

Raveneau found Bryce working on the tenth green. When Bryce saw who it was he got off his mower and said, ‘You can’t do this to me.’

‘I’m not doing anything to you. I’ve got an open homicide that happened here and I’m going to work it until I solve it. You can understand me doing my job, can’t you, Ray?’

Bryce’s claim was he’d stopped his mower pre-dawn and gone up into trees between two fairways to urinate. He’d relieved himself no more than five feet from her body and claimed he hadn’t noticed her until after he’d finished.

This morning his black work boots were speckled with wet grass clippings and his knees wet. He smelled like fertilizer and as Raveneau teed up a ball he was unsure for a moment what Bryce would do next. What he did was hop on his mower and drive down the path to the green Raveneau was playing toward. When Raveneau chipped on to the green Bryce stooped and picked the ball up. He put it in his pocket, flipped Raveneau off, and drove away.

With that, Raveneau turned around and took the cart back to the clubhouse. He took a call from la Rosa as he pulled away from Lincoln Park.

‘Two San Jose detectives are with Heilbron right now. How far away are you?’

‘Ten minutes.’

Raveneau missed most of their interview but got there in time to hear them tell Heilbron that the DNA had turned up and this was his last chance for a plea bargain.

‘We’ll have results tomorrow, so you’re at the decision point, bud. Come clean and we’ll go to the DA and make sure he understands you cooperated.’

Raveneau knew this wasn’t going anywhere but he watched Heilbron closely, especially after la Rosa went into the interview box. Heilbron focused on her as she sat down. He answered the San Jose detectives’ questions while looking at her. When she ignored him and left the room his face changed, became completely impassive, his dark eyes unreadable.

At two that afternoon they cut Heilbron loose and the crime lab released his van, though not before showing la Rosa and Raveneau the hole drilled for the camcorder mounted inside at the rear of the van and operated with switches mounted at the dash. Heilbron got in his van and, with Raveneau and la Rosa tailing him, drove straight to China Basin.

SEVENTEEN

H
eilbron slowed as he reached China Basin then continued south to his former employer, Boyle’s Auto Body. He pulled into an open bay, probably to pick up his last check or ask for his job back. Up the street, Raveneau eased the car over to the curb.

‘Who is this guy?’ la Rosa asked, and he understood what she meant. The San Jose detectives brought their file this morning. La Rosa read through it. So had he.

‘Here’s what I think,’ Raveneau answered. ‘When Heilbron walked into the homicide office and tossed out the San Jose rape after confessing to this killing, he was building his credibility. He knew the DNA was missing, probably wouldn’t magically show up, and if it does Heilbron’s probably been advised by a defense attorney that the amount of time it was lost will get it discredited as evidence. The district attorney won’t go anywhere near a chain-of-custody problem.’

‘OK, but he knew the San Jose detectives would come interview him again.’

Raveneau paused. He looked over at her.

‘He wanted that. It was another chance to taunt them and that’s probably what he’s trying to do with us. I’m not seeing the evidence yet that he’s our guy and I doubt we will. He was standing outside talking to the responding officers when we were upstairs. He got what he knows about the inside of the building from them.’

Taylor, the younger officer, had looked at a photo of Heilbron and IDed him.

‘Then why are we following him?’ she asked.

‘Because the rape was probably him, and we aren’t one hundred percent certain yet on China Basin.’

Heilbron’s van backed out suddenly on to Third Street forcing a bus to veer around it. He accelerated away from the auto shop and Raveneau had to jump on the gas just to stay within two stoplights of him. Heilbron drove to the house he leased in South San Francisco and backed into the one-car garage. Inside, he pulled the shades in the bay window that faced the street.

‘Let’s go back to Boyle’s,’ Raveneau said. ‘Let’s find out what happened.’

In Boyle’s Custom Auto Body an employee restoring a yellow Camaro pointed them toward a rear office with this warning: ‘Boyle isn’t here today, but the office manager Katrina is, but she’s worse than the hurricane was so watch out.’

Katrina had a pinched nose, hair dyed a light red, and earrings that looked like car keys hanging from her ears. She took Raveneau’s card and studied it as if she was with Homeland Security. Raveneau watched and then pulled his homicide star.

‘Carl Heilbron just got fired,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t work here any more. Why is he walking around anyway? Why isn’t he in jail? Seems like every time the police talk about a person of interest they’re back on the street the next day. If he said he killed her, does he have to prove it to you before you keep him in jail?’

‘He recanted his confession and we don’t have anything to hold him on.’

‘So hold him anyway. He’s a creep. He delivered a car to the home of one of our customers last summer and the next night was caught looking in the windows of her house. He didn’t get arrested and now she gets free engine care.’

Katrina stared at them as though he and la Rosa had let that happen.

‘Boyle talked the customer out of calling the police.’

‘That’s your boss?’ Raveneau asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Is he around?’

She rolled her eyes and said, ‘Only if it rains.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Simple. When it rains he can’t play golf, and since he doesn’t like to be around his wife he comes to work. Boyle thinks Heilbron is the best auto body man here, so Boyle and the rest of the misogynist pricks look the other way when Heilbron goes into the bathroom for an hour with one of his magazines. He’s disgusting.’