A Killing in China Basin (11 page)

‘What did she do for work here? Tell us about her.’

‘I don’t know what she did for work. She wouldn’t tell me.’ After a pause she added, ‘Alex never finished high school.’

‘We’ve got some email addresses we’d like you to look at. These are out of her computer, people we haven’t contacted yet, but maybe you’ll recognize somebody. We’ve also run her name through some of our systems and haven’t come up with any criminal record. Do you know of any criminal arrests in her past?’

‘There was one before she left home. That was about drug dealing but it was pretty minor, though in our family we’ve never known how she earns her money.’

‘She’s had various jobs.’

‘We know about the jobs but they don’t explain her clothes and jewelry. What would you think if you had a sister like that?’

He’d think what Gloria was thinking and reluctant to say, that the money came from somewhere. They had run Alex Jurika through the local, state, and national systems, and hadn’t come up with anything more than a minor possession of marijuana charge eleven years ago at eighteen, which was likely the arrest Gloria referred to.

He listened as Gloria continued to criticize her sister. It made him think of parents flying into San Francisco to reclaim the body of a runaway child. Sometimes, initially, they displayed anger toward the child, or spoke as though the child had gotten what they deserved. They had already imagined all the worst things. They had expected something bad to happen. But that’s still not the same as having it actually happen. He thought Gloria was in that space right now.

They showed her the emails and watched her sift through and then touch an email address. ‘That’s her cousin, another thief.’ Her voice broke. ‘My sister was a thief.’ She covered her eyes. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t just say it a half hour ago. I’m sorry.’

‘You don’t need to be sorry. What kind of thief?’

‘Credit cards.’

‘And this cousin is an accomplice?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did she tell you that?’

She shook her head.

‘But you figured it out?’

‘Yes.’

The cousin’s name was Julie Candiff. Gloria gave them a Phoenix address and phone number for her, and then the phone number of Julie’s parents, Gloria’s aunt and uncle, in case Julie had moved or didn’t respond.

‘Her parents will know how to get a hold of her and she’s afraid of her dad, so if she lies to you or won’t talk to you, mention him. She and Alex were terrible influences on each other when they were younger. They were the same age and my parents flew Julie out when she was twelve so they could get to know each other, because we have a very strong extended family. But the first thing they did together was start shoplifting. It was like Bonnie meeting Clyde.’

A tear leaked from her left eye and she swatted at her face as though a mosquito had landed there.

‘I’m sorry to be like this, I’m really sorry. I guess I’m just really angry she got herself killed. She was so sweet when she was a little girl and then everything went wrong.’

Raveneau opened one of the photo albums they pulled from Jurika’s apartment. Gloria flipped through them with a pained expression, and then slid them away, unable to find a photo of the cousin, Julie Candiff. She wasn’t one of Alex’s Facebook friends either.

They took her down to see her sister’s body and unlike those who need to touch the cold skin to know it’s really final she just stared and then stepped back. She said nothing about the marks on her sister’s neck, wrists, and ankles, and stared blankly when la Rosa asked if she wanted to ride with them to her sister’s apartment. She finally shook her head and said, ‘I’ll drive myself.’

In the apartment she walked quietly through, touching nothing but pointing to a white horse carved out of ivory.

‘I gave that to her when she was eight.’

‘And she kept it right there where she could see it every day,’ la Rosa said. ‘Do you want to claim the things here?’

‘No.’

‘At some point the apartment manager will clean out everything.’

‘I don’t want anything.’

‘She had a cat,’ Raveneau said. ‘Do you know anybody who’d like her cat? I’ve got it, right now.’

‘I don’t know anybody.’

After Gloria left and they were still in the apartment, la Rosa summed up her opinion.

‘That’s one cold fish.’

But Raveneau didn’t see her that way at all. He thought she was deeply sad and close to breaking down.

‘Why don’t I call the cousin before we leave here,’ la Rosa said. ‘I’ll make a run at her woman to woman. I think I’ve gotten a feel of her from the emails.’

‘Sure, but from the way Gloria was talking I wouldn’t count on the cousin knowing she’s dead. It’s not clear to me that Gloria has told her own parents yet.’

Raveneau overheard Julie Candiff answer the phone and after la Rosa explained, the words, ‘Oh, no, oh, no.’

La Rosa was on the phone with her forty minutes or more, finally pulling something out of Julie that sent her to the bedroom closet. With the phone still in her left hand she reached up on a shelf and pulled down three empty purses they’d previously checked. In a burgundy-colored leather purse she followed Julie’s directions and found a seam near the bottom bound by Velcro. When she pulled the Velcro apart it exposed a pocket sewed behind the lining. In it were six driver’s licenses, all with Alex’s face but none with her name or true driver’s license number. For each license there was a credit card. When she hung up with the cousin she looked at Raveneau and said, ‘Looks like Gloria was right about credit fraud. So is that what got her killed?’

TWENTY-FOUR

N
ot long after Stoltz started his five year prison sentence, his new cellmate, a pug-faced guy who went by the name of Chulie, suggested with a good-natured grin that since they were trapped with each other and without women, they should service each other sexually. When Stoltz declined, Chulie turned sullen.

Then came the night Stoltz was lying on his back trying to go to sleep, trying not to obsess about what had happened, and breathing the rank prison air while listening to the animal howls of some crazy asshole down the cell block, when something inside him snapped. The lights, noise, loss of reputation, the narrowing of his existence down to this locked building full of losers caused a tightening in his chest that felt like a hand crushing his heart. He could barely breathe and croaked Chulie’s name.

But Chulie thought he was calling for a different reason and when he’d realized it was medical help he’d wanted, decided to watch rather than yell for a guard. In seconds Stoltz became drenched in sweat and overwhelmed by fear. Four hours later a disdainful prison doctor told him his heart was fine and that his head was the problem. An anxiety attack was not uncommon for those just starting their sentence.

‘Let me give you some advice,’ he said. ‘Your life has changed irrevocably. Nothing will ever be the same. People will never accept you in the same way, and those who tell you later that the fact you went to prison doesn’t matter to them will all be liars. You’ll be an ex-con for the rest of your life and that means you’ll always be a lesser human being. It does mean you’ll never again have the life you had before. Accept that and acknowledge you took another man’s life, and then you can move on. There’s a price for what you’ve done. Fight it and it’s going to eat you from the inside out. The claw marks in your chest today came from your head. Think about that.’

He didn’t take that advice and got through five years of prison by vowing to get his old life back. Now, he almost had it. Not quite, but almost. In prison he had part-time access to a computer and gave away his best ideas to those that could help him get back on his feet later. Some of that paid off. He was ready to fight and win again, and a hatred of Raveneau was growing in him. The hatred he nurtured for Whitacre and Bates was for all of them now, but he needed to keep that in balance. Still, he was sure Raveneau would be back. Raveneau would be the one. Raveneau was the locus, the center, the eye, the one to watch.

TWENTY-FIVE

‘
L
et’s play a little basketball,’ la Rosa said as they got back from Jurika’s apartment near dusk. ‘I keep thinking about Heilbron and need to clean the smell of him out of my pores.’

‘You and me, one on one?’

‘Sure, why not, unless I’m too intimidating.’

‘You’re not.’

‘You sure?’

‘Where would we play?’

‘I belong to a club. They’ve got pretty good indoor courts and there’s usually one open. It’s in South San Francisco but you could go down Third and avoid the traffic.’ She touched his arm. ‘But honestly, not if it scares you, and it’s only fair to tell you I played point guard at San Jose State for two years. Most of that was on the bench, but I’m sure I can still embarrass an old man. Come out and play with me.’

‘I haven’t played in years.’

‘I believe you but you’re all that’s available and we can keep talking about the case on the court.’

At his last physical Raveneau’s doctor told him, ‘Buy a blood pressure monitor. Go to Longs or Walgreens, plenty of places sell them, and start taking your blood pressure in the first hour after waking in the morning because that’s when it’s highest. Keep a log. You’re borderline and I want to see if we can bring it down with exercise before we get into a prescription.’

Raveneau bought the blood pressure monitor and used it twice before rolling the rubber hose tightly around the cuff and putting it in a drawer. The readings he had gotten weren’t great but they weren’t terrible and he already had enough other things to worry about. He did buy a new pair of running shoes and started aiming for three to four runs a week. He averaged one or two.

He met la Rosa outside the club and she insisted on paying his guest fee. It was a nice club, clean, a lot of modern weight and aerobic equipment, a spin room, rows of racquetball courts, a whole world of people living a way he didn’t have much connection with but probably ought to. He followed her on to the court and shot a dozen baskets before she said, ‘OK, let’s do this.’

La Rosa went around him and scored as soon as she got the ball. She took the first game of one on one without working hard at all and he learned that she had a pretty good jump shot, but that she favored the left side of the key, which was also her go-to side for lay-ups. She had a third shot, a fall-away hook that she bounced off the iron twice, and made only one of three of in the first game.

No one was going to be shooting any free throw fouls and she bumped hard as she worked in, pushing him back with her ass and shoulder, telling him something more about her and her style. She wasn’t shy with her elbows either and rode a hand on him, pushing back whenever he dribbled across the key and in. He spun, came up, and bounced one off the glass and the rim as she pushed him and he landed hard.

‘Is that how they played in your league?’ he asked, and got a grim smile as she dribbled at the top of the key and broke around him again.

‘There need to be more women on the homicide detail,’ she said as her shot dropped, and then added, ‘Three isn’t enough. The change is too slow. It needs to happen faster.’

‘That would mean a bigger department and they’re not hiring right now. They’re talking but not hiring.’

‘Maybe some people need to retire.’

‘Yeah, who do you have in mind?’

‘It’s about old boy networks and prejudices. It’s time to change.’

‘I don’t know about any network.’

‘It’s men looking out for men. Time for change.’

Raveneau was one of these guys who once he got warmed up, stayed that way. He’d always been like that and was down about ten pounds since the blood pressure scare with the doctor. He wasn’t carrying much fat but he wasn’t fit the way he should be either. A crease of sweat formed center of his chest, then his back, and she didn’t shy away from his sweat-soaked back either. Her hand was right there, pushing hard against him, tips of her fingers digging in and nothing sexual in it; la Rosa fighting him as he worked his way in and got two points.

She checked the ball. He shot from the top of the key and swished it. She checked the ball back to him and he scored twice, before she picked up a rebound and he got to meet the real Elizabeth la Rosa.

She didn’t back into him this time. She dropped a shoulder and drove past on his left, and when he fouled her as she went up and said, ‘Sorry,’ because he’d caught her pretty good and hadn’t meant to, she said, ‘My ball,’ took it to the top of the key and started in, faked the same move, spun, went around him, her knees grazing his belly as she put it in.

When they started out they said, five games, and when she won four in a row and lost the last one, she wouldn’t quit until they’d played another. His T-shirt was sweat-soaked and her cheeks and forehead were shiny, and sweat ran down from the damp hair at her temples. She wasn’t big or tall, five nine, maybe one forty-five, but she was agile and quick and graceful, until fatigue caught her in the last game.

Raveneau dropped four shots in a row and took an early lead. That just made her angry. She got angry and he got faster. She wanted the last game, wanted to show him up, show him what basketball training and an eighteen year advantage in age was worth, but if Raveneau was anything he was tough when it mattered and now he wanted the game. Maybe his hair was salt and pepper, but he wasn’t an old man and he wasn’t moving out or away just at the age when he was finally getting good at his job.

He fell behind. For five games in a row she ran the same move and now finally he smoked the ball out of her hands as she went up. Next play he got the ball back and she was in his face saying, ‘Nice play, but now you’re going to have to get around me and score, or take another chance with that goofy-foot jumper of yours.’

Raveneau didn’t answer, knew she was just waiting for a chance to steal the ball back, and she slapped at it now and almost knocked it loose, and then he was on the move. When she cut off the inside lane he tried a hook shot, some throwback to an era before la Rosa had been born. It hit the backboard and went in.