by Kirk Russell
TWELVE
La Rosa was in her car on her way to Santa Rosa to sit next to an elderly woman and take her cold arthritic hand with its misshapen and swollen knuckles into her warm hands. Then she would tell her bones found during a construction excavation seven months ago were a positive DNA match for her daughter who had disappeared forty-two years ago. The daughter was a fifteen year old runaway in 1969 and though the rest of the world forgot about the girl long ago, her mother couldn’t.
The last time la Rosa saw her she revealed the fantasy world she had constructed. Her daughter had fallen in love with an Australian and lived in an unnamed remote area of the Outback without a phone. Marsha Fairchild had an answer for all the reasons why her daughter had never contacted her.
From a distance it was an inability to face the probable truth, but for all her toughness, la Rosa dreaded this meeting. She was in her car north of the Bay Area driving through hills south of Santa Rosa where the cell reception was poor. Her focus was on what she was going to say to convince the woman when Raveneau called.
‘Govich was right. There’s something there.’
‘Did you get anything we can use?’
‘Not yet. Hold on, I’ve got a call coming in from the lieutenant.’
Raveneau knew immediately from the lieutenant’s tone that something had happened.
‘Inspector, where are you?’
‘Vallejo.’
‘I need you here.’
Traffic was lightening. He was moving at fifty miles per hour and it was picking up.
‘There’s been a shooting at a cabinet shop on Sixteenth Street, three dead and one dying. I need you and la Rosa to help secure the scene.’
‘Where’s the one who is still alive?’
‘With paramedics on his way to the hospital, but you go straight to Sixteenth. Where’s your partner?’
‘On her way to Santa Rosa.’
‘Oh, that’s right.’
‘Tell her to come to Sixteenth when she’s done there. I’m going to tell Inspector Ortega you’re on your way.’
Ortega and Hagen were on-call, so caught the case. Raveneau still checked the board. He kept track of who was on-call and who was backup, but he and la Rosa no longer were. Unless something like this happened, they stayed on the cold cases.
Becker hung up. Raveneau told la Rosa.
‘Disgruntled employee?’ she asked.
‘Becker doesn’t know.’
A few minutes later he was talking to Bruce Ortega.
‘The saws were still running when we got here. The owner of the shop returned from measuring a kitchen cabinet job, found one of his employees lying in a pool of blood and called 911. That call came in at 1:47. He had left to go to his appointment for the kitchen project at 12:15 and according to him all four employees were here and working when he left. The employees agreed to come in early today and not break for lunch until two, and then work until seven tonight because they were late on a delivery. He says measuring for a new project was his only appointment today. Otherwise he was there to help finish this one. Are you with me so far?’
‘Sure. He left at 12:15 and called 911 at 1:47.’
‘That’s right, and the window is even narrower because there was a plywood delivery signed for by one of the victims at 1:07. The delivery time is on the receipt. We haven’t verified anything yet, but it appears the victims were shot between 1:07 and when the owner got back, so call it a twenty-five minute window.’
‘What’s the owner’s name?’
‘David Khan. Khan’s Cabinets. We’ve got him here.’
‘What about the one that went to the hospital?’
‘He was dead when he left here. It looks as if the shooter walked through from one end of the building to the other. It’s a mess. How far away are you?’
‘Half an hour.’
‘See you here.’
When Raveneau arrived he was the fifth homicide inspector on the scene and Ortega didn’t need him. He walked the building. It was long, rectangular, an old wood frame resting on a concrete slab foundation. Two rolling doors opened on to trucking bays on Sixteenth Street. The truck that delivered the plywood backed into one of these bays just after one o’clock this afternoon. They needed to find the driver of the delivery truck.
One victim, possibly the first, was a young man who looked like he was shot while cutting a piece of plywood on a table saw. Two CSI teams were here but they hadn’t gotten to him yet. Raveneau saw the spray of blood along the length of plywood. His body lay on the gray concrete near the metal table legs of the saw. A pool of blood darkened near his head. The pool had spread and mixed with sawdust. He wore a black long-sleeved T-shirt with the sleeves slid up to the elbows. On his inside left forearm was a tattoo of a martini glass. His black hair was on the long side and tied. He wore jeans as did the next victim.
That victim was older, forty to forty-five, short hair, thick neck, thick shoulders, and looked like he’d worked with his hands all his life. The entry wounds at the back of his skull were close together. Raveneau guessed the shooter came right up behind him, and like the previous victim he was shot in the chest, then in the head, and probably in the chest first, Raveneau thought, one in the heart, one in the head. He had pitched forward on to the cabinet he was working on then slid down. A cordless drill lay nearby.
Raveneau checked out the space again, a long rectangle with rooms divided according to the work being done. At one end was the owner’s office. In the bay nearest it finished cabinets were stacked ready to deliver. Adjacent to that was the bay where this victim was. His name was Dan Oliver. He was the one who had signed for delivery of the finish-grade plywood. That meant he used the forklift to unload the plywood and then drove it down to the far end of the building where materials were stored and where the forklift was parked now. After parking the forklift he made it back to here and started work on the cabinet. All that must have taken several minutes and Raveneau turned to Ortega.
‘Where’s the delivery truck driver? Where are we at on him?’
‘We’re trying to locate him. He did his last delivery before we called his boss.’
‘He would know whether Oliver signed first.’
Ortega didn’t respond, instead asked, ‘What else do you see?’
The third victim was a woman in her early thirties named Amber Diaz. She was about five foot four, one hundred thirty pounds, a masculine look to her, and a bloody trail. After being shot she tried to escape and the shooter had stepped on blood droplets as he moved in. She was also chest shot and Raveneau wondered if she had then ducked her head. She made it halfway across the room and by then was bleeding badly from the trough a bullet plowed through her scalp. When the shooter caught up to her he put one through her skull, and yet it appeared from blood smears that after that she convulsed on the floor. Hers was the most affecting for Raveneau because though wounded she fought to live.
‘He shot all four but didn’t wait for the owner,’ Ortega said. ‘What do you make of that?’
‘I don’t know.’
What struck Raveneau most was the narrow window of time the shooter was operating with and the improbability of the coincidental timing. He talked with Ortega about that as they moved to where the last victim fell and the paramedics worked on him before taking him to the hospital. Pieces of alder trim were scattered. Ortega pointed at the bloody concrete where they worked on him.
‘He was sixteen, a boy. Wrong place, wrong time, should have listened to his mother and stayed in school. She arrived as they were loading him. They don’t live far from here.’
‘Where’s the owner?’
‘In his office down there at the end and his wife and lawyer are on the way.’
‘Let’s get him out of here. Let’s see if we can get him to go in with us right now.’
Raveneau knew Ortega didn’t really want his help. It was Ortega’s to solve with Hagen, Gibbs, and Montoya. With the new way of doing things they would all work
as one team, and Raveneau had a reputation of liking to work alone. No one really believed that he and la Rosa got on as well as they did.
‘Why don’t I go find the plywood delivery guy and bring him in,’ Raveneau offered.
‘We’ve already talked to his employer. We’re working on that.’
‘But we should have heard something more by now.’
Ortega stopped on that. He wanted to say no, but knew it was true, and in the end Ortega probably liked the idea of getting him out of the building.
‘OK, Raveneau, go find him.’
THIRTEEN
Raveneau called the trucking company owner from his car while still parked down the street from the cabinet shop. He heard an edge of exasperation and pictured a man used to giving orders, not answering questions.
‘You are Inspector who?’
‘Raveneau.’
‘Look, Raveneau, I understand it’s a terrible situation, but I talked to another homicide inspector an hour ago. Don’t you people talk to each other? I gave him the name of the driver and his cell number. The driver’s name is John Drury. Tomorrow is his day off, so I’m not sure where he is.’
‘I’ve called the number you gave Inspector Ortega and I get voicemail. Will Drury answer if you call him?’
‘It depends.’
‘Put me on hold and try.’
Drury didn’t answer the call from his boss either, but Raveneau had a home address from the Department of Motor Vehicles. He was still talking to the owner as he started driving toward the Bay Bridge. The owner was explaining his system.
‘I have them report in when they reach a delivery site and as they leave. That way if there are any problems I know about it immediately.’
‘Do you record the time?’
‘It gets recorded automatically.’
‘Will you check and tell me what time he got to the cabinet shop and what time he left? Also, the deliveries that came after, you said he made two more and then he was off. Is that correct?’
‘It is. Hold on, while I get that for you.’
A few minutes later he gave Raveneau 1:19 p.m. as the time the driver left the cabinet shop.
‘So when he makes that call he’s on the road.’
‘Yes, or just starting to the next stop. My rule is don’t call me when you’re about to leave. Call me after you’ve made the delivery and are rolling toward your next one. I don’t care if you’re going one mile per hour, I just want to know you are done with the one behind you, you’ve got a signature for the delivery, and what the problems were, if any.’
‘Where does he usually go when his shift ends?’
‘Their personal lives are their own. Drury has a girlfriend. I’m not sure where she lives. He goes there nowadays, I think. Or he goes home. But when he gets off work it’s his life. I expect them to relax.’
‘Not today.’
‘No, I understand, Inspector, and I’ll keep trying him.’
‘He’s a critical link in our timeline. It’s important that we get to sit and talk with him while the day is still fresh in his memory.’
Raveneau gave the trucking company owner his cell number and thanked him several times before hanging up. By the time he reached the bridge and crawled up the onramp in traffic it was dusk. The bridge was slow and traffic heavier still as he worked his way south on 880. Drury’s address was in San Leandro. It was well after dark when Raveneau stopped down the street from a small stucco house with an asphalt roof and a bare front yard. Six or seven years ago it would have sold for half a million dollars. That seemed unbelievable now.
A window at the front threw yellow light from around the corners of the curtains. The delivery truck sat at the curb tilting slightly toward the gutter, its bed empty, the truck a large presence in the neighborhood. Raveneau watched the front curtains as he called Drury’s cell again. This time a man answered and sounded both suspicious and cautious. After Raveneau identified himself, Drury’s tone changed. He apologized.
‘Sorry, I didn’t have my phone with me. My boss just called and said you’re trying to get a hold of me, but all I did was drop a load of plywood and leave.’
‘Yeah, but we need to sit with you and go through the timeline.’
‘I’m with my girlfriend and on our way to her house in Santa Cruz so it’s going to have to be tomorrow, guy.’
‘It can’t wait.’
‘It’s going to have to. It’s like my one day off and I don’t know anything anyway. I’m not going to be able to tell you anything. I was there and gone, man. It was like one unit of plywood and the older dude there unloaded it. You got the delivery time from my boss, right? He said he gave it to you.’
‘I need to sit and talk with you tonight.’
‘Not going to happen, and besides, whoever wasted them did it after I left.’
‘Where’s the truck you delivered the plywood with?’
‘Parked in front of my house.’
‘Where are the keys to it?’
‘With me, and what’s with the truck? What do you need the truck for?’
‘Where are you in Santa Cruz? I’ll come to you and we can talk and I’ll get the keys to the truck from you then.’
‘This is getting weird. It’s like you’re suspicious of me or something.’
‘Four people were murdered and other than the killer you may have been the last person to see them alive, but you don’t think it’s important for you to let us interview you today. It’s more important that you spend time with your girlfriend.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You’re avoiding us, and yeah, that makes me wonder about you.’
‘You’ve got everything already.’
‘You keep saying that.’
Now the lights went off in the front room of the house and Raveneau watched the front door open. He couldn’t read the face of the man coming out of the house until he passed under a street light. Then he knew it was Drury. Raveneau watched him climb into an old green Honda Accord parked in front of the delivery truck and pull away with his lights off. He didn’t turn his headlights on until he reached the end of the block. But before that he told Raveneau he would come to the Homicide office at noon tomorrow and hung up.
Raveneau followed him to a rundown strip mall across the freeway and north where Drury parked his car away from the light poles and walked across a broken asphalt lot to a bar called Pete’s Corner. He went through the door beneath the red neon sign and Raveneau waited five minutes before following. Inside, he moved to the long dark bar and ordered a beer. It smelled like beer and the cleaner they used to wash the linoleum floor. John Drury was in the back near a pool table talking with two other men. A moment later Raveneau’s phone buzzed.
‘Where are you?’ la Rosa asked.
‘At a place called Pete’s Corner. I’m watching the driver who delivered plywood to the cabinet shop this afternoon. I drove to his house looking for him and he took off while he was on the phone to me.’
‘Should I come there?’
‘No.’
‘Then so what are you going to do?’
‘Not sure yet.’
‘But you’re sure it’s him?’
‘It’s him.’
‘If he’s trying to avoid us, you need me with you.’
‘I’ll call you back. He’s watching me now.’
The bartender was at the far end of the bar talking with a couple of women and Raveneau had taken a table so he could talk to la Rosa. But now he moved back up to the bar. He sipped the beer and texted Ortega as Drury moved in on the two women and the bartender navigated very full cocktails to a safe landing in front of the women. Before turning to his next order the bartender asked Drury, ‘Do you want another?’
‘Only if they buy,’ Drury said, meaning the women and the one nearest him laughed and said she would. They all laughed and Drury said, ‘I’ll be right back. I’m going out for a quick smoke.’
A couple of minutes passed and Rav
eneau felt like a fool when he saw the headlights come on. By the time he came out the door Drury was already pulling on to the road, and he hustled toward his car keeping an eye on Drury’s tail lights, watching him pass through one light then another, growing smaller as he accelerated away.
FOURTEEN
Ortega listened to Raveneau’s account of getting burned by John Drury and then asked, ‘Where are you now?’
‘I’ve gone back to his house. I’ve got a tow truck on the way and the police here are going to help. The tow driver will get the delivery truck open.’
The San Leandro police sent two units and with Raveneau’s urging kept their lights off and the residue test and subsequent search went down with a low profile and fairly fast. When the steering wheel didn’t have any gunpowder residue Raveneau doubted they would find residue anywhere. He pulled an old coat out of his trunk and put that on before crawling under the delivery truck with a Maglite.
Despite the trucking business owner’s rap about running a tight ship, the truck didn’t look well maintained mechanically. In several places the asphalt and curb were dark with oil. That said Drury parked here regularly. Raveneau couldn’t avoid getting oil on the back of his coat and pants as he worked his way along with the flashlight beam. He snagged and tore the coat as he crawled back out, and there was Ortega standing above him in a suit and long raincoat.
‘You’re getting a full day in, Raveneau.’
‘I’m trying to figure out if there’s another reason he’s avoiding us.’
‘Anything in the cab?’
‘Nothing.’
If anything, the truck was suspiciously clean, the rubber mats scoured, carpet shampooed and vacuumed, as groomed as Drury who at the bar wore a neatly ironed black hoodie. Raveneau carried an image of the lanky pushback from the bar, the casual pulling of his cigarettes from the pocket of the hoodie, wagging them at the women without once glancing at him. Drury worked at it.
But now it was 3:00 a.m. Raveneau and Ortega were in Raveneau’s car, and Ortega was tapping away on his laptop writing a search warrant.