A Killing in China Basin

by Kirk Russell

  The file on Erin Quinn totaled one hundred and twenty-eight pages and they had to copy it and take it with them because it was time to hook up with the Public Works people in Los Altos. As they got in the car, la Rosa said, ‘This is amazing. Who is this guy? He’s got a whole story and bio for this Melanie Pace he became online. Listen to this: Melanie Pace actually existed. She was a San Francisco State student killed in a freak car accident when a thunderstorm caused a flash flood that swept her car off the road in New Mexico. He’s got the newspaper article right here.’

  But on page one hundred and fourteen it was a different name that caught them. Raveneau was driving as la Rosa read aloud to him.

  ‘I feel like we should be saying Eureka, not Jurika,’ she said. ‘He worked some pretty small threads back to Jurika. He figured out Quinn shed her identity and Jurika sold it. Ben, he just figured this out, like two weeks ago.’

  ‘And went to Jurika to get answers and ended up killing her.’

  ‘That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what happened.’

  In Los Altos they rendezvoused with the Public Works guys who’d knock on the door of Mrs Stoltz’s house. Raveneau listened to the conversation via the wire the Public Works foreman wore. He watched through binoculars as the foreman turned and pointed at an exterminator van in the street.

  ‘He’s with us, ma’am, and we’ve got an emergency. With your permission we’d like to access our line through a manhole in our easement through your property.’

  When she learned that a large rat infestation had been discovered yesterday in the storm drainage pipes running back into the hills, she gave immediate permission to get on to the property. She knew about the easement and manhole, but now came a trickier part.

  ‘Is anyone living in the other house?’ the foreman asked.

  ‘My son is.’

  ‘Is he home?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Would you mind calling him?’

  ‘No, I don’t mind at all, but his car is there. He must be home but that doesn’t matter. I’m giving you permission to do whatever you need to do on the property.’ She started down the gravel drive to the guest house and then turned on the foreman. ‘Oh, come on now, you know who my son is. You must know. Everyone knows what they’re doing to Cody. You don’t have to pretend with me.’

  ‘I’m not pretending about the rats, ma’am, and I’m just being polite about your son. I don’t want to surprise him.’

  Good line. They watched her knock on Stoltz’s door with the big foreman standing to her side. If Stoltz answered, no question he’d object. Then he’d have to sneak out there and try to retrieve the daypack and they’d videotape that, maybe meet him coming back up the hole. But Stoltz didn’t answer and the foreman and crew went out to the manhole and the SID team dressed as exterminators followed with a Public Works foreman.

  They placed a groundhog camera near the manhole to try to capture Stoltz’s discovery that Public Works had gone down and found the backpack. If he called and claimed it, and slim chance he’d do that, but if he did, they’d refer him to the exterminators. The exterminators would admit that yes, they had found it. They’d ask, is it your pack, sir? If he said yes, they’d get that on tape. They’d tape his explanation and let him know the daypack and laptop were safe and that they’d return them soon, but not that fast. Not until they got every last thing out of its hard drive.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Lafaye had always assumed that her years of emails with sam66942@yahoo.com were an anonymous exchange of information. She didn’t know Stoltz had discovered her identity three years ago and after doing so had made a point of learning everything he could about her. The email he sent her this afternoon read simply, ‘I have information you’ll want. It took work to get and cost me some money. Interested in splitting the costs?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Found where she’s living.’

  ‘Confirmed?’

  ‘Very close to. If you’re in, you’re in for ten grand.’

  ‘Too much for me.’

  ‘OK.’

  She expected him to write more, he always did. But after two hours had passed and he’d left it with the one word, she wrote back, ‘OK.’

  ‘It’s not easy for me to meet. Where are you?’

  ‘San Francisco.’

  Though she didn’t know where he lived, she’d surmised from previous emails that he lived in the Bay Area at least part of the year.

  ‘I am interested; just don’t know about shelling out ten thousand without proof.’

  ‘Will show you some proof. Meeting would have to be San Francisco at the Marina dock. I have a boat. Five p.m. today. I leave town tomorrow.’

  She wrote back a few minutes later, and he gave her the berth number and where to find a hidden key to the dock gate. Neither of them had ever revealed their true reasons for trying to find Quinn. They’d both gone to websites and chat rooms where credit information is bought, sold, and traded. So that said something mutual was understood, but all they’d traded were leads.

  Shortly before 5:00 p.m. he saw her Audi pull into the lot. She looked nervous and uncomfortable as she walked to the dock gate. She was probably afraid. She’d always tried online to milk him for information, and maybe she knew he’d figured out that she had a lot of information about Erin already. He watched her find the key, get in, wander down to the lower dock, and with his face hidden behind glasses and a cap, he waved to her and untied the boat as she boarded.

  ‘We’ll do a lap around the bay,’ he said.

  ‘Why not here?’

  ‘Because I feel safer out there, and you don’t need to be afraid of me. I wish you wouldn’t act like you are. It makes me nervous.’

  Once he’d gone to hear her talk, just to see what she looked like, and he watched how she changed her posture now, nothing like the lack of confidence she’d showed as she’d looked for the boat.

  ‘Strange to meet after all these years,’ she said. ‘Are you going to show me your face when we get out on the bay?’

  ‘I am, and don’t think I’m crazy for doing it this way. Erin once tried to kill me and for all I knew, you were her.’

  She warmed up to that idea. She’d once had the same fear herself and said, ‘All these years you were afraid you were talking to her online?’

  ‘Yeah, could have been and it’s another reason I wanted to see you walk down the dock.’

  He kept his face turned away as he steered the boat out. He kept the sunglasses and hat on, his coat collar turned up. But she acted like this was all good fun now. She had to be scared but appeared to be enjoying this, asking, ‘If you’ve found her why are you sharing it?’

  ‘Because I owe money and I’ve got to get paid off. I can’t do it alone. Besides, you’re going to get her arrested, right? I can’t do that, so I may as well help you and get help with the costs.’

  She could see his back and that wasn’t going to be enough, no matter how much TV she’d been watching.

  ‘She tried to kill you?’

  ‘Stole all my money and then tried to kill me.’ Stoltz made it up on the spot. ‘She ran off with another guy and all my money, and they thought I was dead but they’d killed the wrong person.’ He let a beat pass and then let her know. ‘I recognize you.’

  ‘That’s what I didn’t want to have happen.’

  ‘I think what you do with your foundation is cool.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  They were well out into the bay now and he turned the wheel slightly before reaching in his pocket and pulling the gun as he turned.

  ‘Nothing is going to happen to you, and this isn’t a rape or a trick.’

  She was much quicker than he would have ever guessed and tried to get out on the deck. He had to drag her down from behind, grabbing her hair, wrenching her head sideways and slamming her down. He spun a roll of duct tape around her mouth as she fought him. He had the handcuffs ready and clicked those on, ran the chain through t
he eye hook and snapped the lock.

  ‘We’re going to talk, and depending on what you say, you’ll be fine. Otherwise we’ll go outside the Gate ten miles and you can swim in.’

  He took the duct tape off her after he got around to the east side of Angel Island and cut the speed to nothing. Without forward speed the boat wallowed, but the bay was calm and would be dark soon enough. As long as he moved occasionally no one would pay that much attention to them. He took her purse into the forward cabin and went through it, found a small gun, what looked like a .25 caliber. He removed the bullets and put them in his coat pocket, then walked out on the forward deck, debated throwing her phone in the water and put that in his pocket also. He didn’t find any money and walked back to the stern cabin.

  ‘You forgot to bring money.’

  ‘After we make a deal, I’ll wire it to you.’

  He looked at her, handcuffed, chained down, and still talking like that.

  ‘You brought a gun.’

  ‘For self defense, but I want the information. I want to make a deal.’

  ‘You’re going to get one chance to.’

  He took his sunglasses off now and the hat. He turned the collar down.

  ‘Now, your turn. Recognize me?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Cody Stoltz.’

  She recognized the name. She couldn’t hide that and quickly said, ‘The person the police are framing.’

  He almost smiled.

  ‘You should be scared, but there’s a way out of this for you. I know you’re smart and tough, but nothing will save you if you don’t have what I need.’

  ‘Will you free at least one of my hands? It hurts so much I can’t think.’

  He freed her left hand and then told her, ‘I want to know how you ended up with her identity and why you’re looking for her still.’

  ‘I’m looking because she’s blackmailed me for more money. We are on the same side here and I know the police have been framing you. Everyone knows and—’

  ‘Do not play any games with me. I don’t want any of your bullshit. I want what you know about Erin and if you don’t give it to me I’m going to kill you. That’s why you’re on the boat. But you don’t have to die.’

  ‘Obviously, I don’t know where she is.’

  He thought about her last three responses and asking to have her hand freed. He’d thrown her on the deck, taped her mouth, and handcuffed her, but she didn’t seem scared enough. He leaned over. ‘I’m offering you a chance to live.’

  ‘OK, she’s come back asking for a lot more money. Either that or she’ll make sure it gets known that I’ve traveled under a false passport and credit cards and all the things that have a good explanation but that people wouldn’t understand, particularly my directors. I’d have to step down.’

  ‘She’s contacted you.’

  ‘Yes, through the foundation website. I have a phone number I’m supposed to call no later than midnight tonight. You don’t have to kill me and I don’t care that the police are after you. Police have never done me any favors. We both want her found. We want the same thing, so why can’t we work together on this? I have plenty of money; I can help you.’

  ‘Where’s the number?’

  ‘I need my phone.’

  Stoltz handed her the phone and she asked, ‘Do I say I’ll pay and set up a meeting?’

  He had to think about that. She was bluffing, lying, somehow manipulating him, but he let her call. When no one answered she left a message and he steered the boat under the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge. Twilight came and still no call back, and Stoltz realized that if a call did come from Erin, and Erin agreed to meet, then he was done with this woman here. An hour later he said, ‘I don’t believe that was her number.’

  And then the phone rang and on the screen was the number. He handed her the phone and heard Erin’s voice, scratchy but her.

  ‘I’ll agree to your terms,’ Lafaye said. ‘But I want to meet and know it’s never going to happen again.’

  ‘No meeting,’ he heard Erin say. Definitely her, and it affected him in ways he didn’t know it could. He turned Lafaye’s head with his hand and mouthed, tomorrow. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, he knew she understood but instead she said, ‘I’ll double the offer if we meet. It can be anywhere you want, but if we don’t meet I’m not going through with it. I’ll take my story to the press. I don’t care what happens at that point. If I lose my foundation, I’ll start another one. I’ll point the finger at you.’

  He heard Erin agree and then name the meeting time and place. When Lafaye hung up, he told her, ‘I’m going to let you go now. That’s all I want. It was never you. I don’t want anything from you. Take your clothes off. I want you to leave your clothes.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He aimed the gun at her head. ‘You’re going to swim in.’

  ‘I can’t swim well enough, I’ll drown.’

  ‘I have a way for you. You’ll be fine.’

  ‘No, please, I did what you asked. I got her to call, I set up the meeting, but I can’t swim well.’

  She took her clothes off and he had her throw them over the side. Under a bench seat were life preservers and Stoltz pulled one out.

  ‘Please don’t do this. I don’t care what happens to her. I’ll never say anything.’

  He threw a life vest at her.

  ‘Put it on. It’ll keep you afloat and it’s not that cold. Swim toward those lights. The tide will help you. You just float in the vest and kick.’

  ‘Why can’t you drop me near the shore somewhere?’

  He stopped listening and watched her cinch the vest tight. Its reflective stripes would be easy to locate. The vest would keep her bobbing on the surface. He shoved her and her leg slapped against the railing as she fell into the water. Right away, she started thrashing and he heard her cry, ‘Help, help, please, help me.’

  Stoltz found her in the water with one of the boat’s lights, then went to the cabin and brought the heavy boat around. He wanted good speed but as he accelerated he saw the vest floating but not her. The boat went over the vest and he swung around again. He risked using the searchlight, found the vest bobbing and began a methodical search. The straps were tight when she went in. It couldn’t slip off her, could it? Where is she?

  His circling and the searchlight attracted another boat and as it came toward him, Stoltz cut the light. He pushed the throttle forward and moved away. He drove back to the marina furious at himself for not having just knocked her out and pushed her in the water. Still, she had to be gone. She’d drowned. By the time he got back to the dock he’d convinced himself.

  FIFTY-THREE

  Raveneau and la Rosa sat in an interview room eating Chinese to-go. It was late. It was good to eat and they did so without talking as the smells of ginger, cooking oil, and steamed rice filled the room. After the initial success of getting through Stoltz’s password and into his emails, the computer techs ran into a second firewall. That’s where things stalled and they were pessimistic about getting through it tonight. One tech wondered aloud if they ever would. When they finished eating, Raveneau checked with them again. Then he and la Rosa cleaned up the little round table in the interview box and left with the understanding that if anything changed they’d be called.

  When the phone rang late in the night, Raveneau was deep in a dream where he was fifteen again and up in Presidio Heights on a night the fog was blowing low over the Julius Kahn playground. His older brother, Donny, was in trees off to the edge of the playground making out with a new girlfriend while he waited for them. He felt like a tag-along and leaned back against the rock wall, listening to sirens that at first were a faraway, hollow, lonely sound and then raw as they got closer.

  He left the rock wall, moved out on to Cherry Street, feeling the sound now along his spine. He looked back for Donny and the new girlfriend, but they didn’t come out. He expected a fire or a car accident and looked up into the fog along the row o
f houses, listening for the snapping of wood burning and the pop of glass exploding and the orange light in the sky, or voices around a car wreck, but heard only a muffled sound of a heavy footfall, and then saw a man running toward him down Cherry Street, and not really running, but chugging along the way heavy guys do.

  Just before a police car rounded the corner the guy slowed to a walk. The cops pulled in fast alongside him but they didn’t jump out and take him down, instead looked like they were asking directions. The man pointed the other way and the cop car did a U-turn. When they were gone the man started down the sidewalk straight at him.

  Raveneau rolled in the bed and reached for the phone, answering even as the other images stayed with him. It was a dream he knew every frame of. The man would follow him back into the park and come within five feet of him. In those days he’d been a tall skinny kid, putting on a leather jacket every day and bell-bottomed jeans with holes at the knees. He had hair down to his shoulders that his dad mocked. The guy would go face to face with him and there would be a moment he’d carry the rest of his life, a moment when everything hung in the balance.

  A motorcycle cop would interrupt that by racing down Cherry Street. The street dead-ended at the playground and the motorcycle’s headlights would cut an arc through the fog as the officer slowed to make a U-turn. When the light touched the man he’d run in the dream as he had in life, as if the light burned his skin. He’d go crashing through the brush down into the Presidio.

  ‘Inspector Raveneau,’ a tech said.

  ‘I’ve got him,’ Raveneau said. ‘I see where he’s going.’

  ‘Inspector?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, OK, this is Raveneau, go ahead, what have you got?’

  Raveneau couldn’t place the voice on the other end. When you first come on as a homicide inspector and you’re learning how to solve a case and the officers out there on the street in the radio units are learning you, you find out that calls can come in the middle of the night from an excited patrol officer, someone you may have talked to weeks or months before and asked to watch for a suspect or witness, and now they’ve found that individual. It could be 3:30 in the morning when they call you, but you’d better be enthused and let them know how much you appreciate it, or else word gets around and your urgent requests start taking a backseat.