A Killing in China Basin Read online

  Further Titles from Kirk Russell

  The John Marquez series

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  A KILLING IN CHINA BASIN*

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  A KILLING IN CHINA BASIN

  A Ben Raveneau Thriller

  Kirk Russell

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First world edition published 2011

  in Great Britain and in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  Copyright © 2011 by Kirk Russell.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Russell, Kirk, 1954–

  A killing in China Basin.

  1. Detectives – California – San Francisco – Fiction.

  2. Serial murder investigation – California – San

  Francisco – Fiction. 3. Detective and mystery stories.

  I. Title

  813.6-dc22

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-082-1 (ePub)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8054-3 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-358-8 (trade paper)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  For Philip Spitzer

  Acknowledgements

  Without the help, guidance, and generosity of spirit of two San Francisco homicide inspectors, Holly Pera and Joe Toomey, this novel would never have happened. In San Francisco it takes thirteen to fifteen years from the time you first apply to join the homicide detail to when your name comes up on the waiting list. Homicide Inspector Joe Toomey’s career spans thirty-nine years from Patrol Officer at the Southern Police Station to the last fifteen as a Homicide Inspector. Inspector Sergeant Holly Pera has thirty-one years with SFPD and was the first woman to join the homicide detail. She and Joe worked together as partners. In 2007 they were chosen to form San Francisco’s first Cold Case Unit. Joe has since retired but still works twenty hours a week in what’s called a 9-60 position that allows the talents of retired officers to be tapped. Both work cold cases. Neither Raveneau nor la Rosa, the fictional inspectors in this novel, resemble or are drawn from either, but I surely drew inspiration.

  ONE

  Whitacre’s salt-faded Buick faced the Golden Gate Bridge from a corner of the Marina Green lot, a blue handicap placard hanging from the rear-view mirror. Whitacre brushed the placard aside as he reached to open the passenger door for Raveneau.

  ‘That door doesn’t shut easily, pull it hard.’

  As Raveneau did, Whitacre said, ‘I’m sorry it’s so hot in here. The chemo drugs mess with my body temperature. I’m always cold now, but I am winning this fight, Ben. Last scan, the tumors had shrunk by fifty percent. I’ve got another this morning and if it’s as good as the last one I think they’re going to tell me I can go back to work next month.’

  ‘Everybody in the office is waiting to hear that.’

  But Raveneau saw that far from gaining weight, Whitacre was losing it. He watched him struggle to unfold a piece of paper and looked out at the bay, dark blue and windswept this morning, the bridge bright orange, whitecaps running toward Alcatraz.

  ‘He drives a late model white Lexus SUV. These are his plates.’

  Whitacre handed him the piece of paper. He could have sent a text, email, or called it in yesterday. He was on medical leave but was still very much a San Francisco homicide inspector, same as Ben Raveneau, and could easily have picked up the phone and had the license plates run. He also had much closer friends among the inspectors than Raveneau, any of which would be glad to help him.

  After a liver cancer diagnosis late last spring Whitacre used up his sick time, comp time, and vacation pay, then applied to the Catastrophic Illness Program. The program allowed San Francisco Police Department officers to donate time to each other and Raveneau donated half of this year’s vacation time. Maybe that figured into Whitacre calling him.

  Raveneau glanced at Cody Stoltz’s plate numbers. Stoltz was out of prison, had been for several years, and possibly he held a grudge against the homicide inspectors who took him down, Ted Whitacre and Charles Bates, but usually once out of prison they moved on.

  ‘What’s your old partner think?’

  Whitacre tried to smile, didn’t get far with it and said, ‘You know how Charles is.’

  Raveneau wasn’t sure he did and waited.

  ‘Charles thinks the cancer drugs are affecting my mind. My seeing Stoltz is a hallucination or something like that. He doesn’t believe any of this, but I’m telling you, Ben, it was definitely Stoltz who followed me last Saturday.’

  Whitacre coughed, cleared his throat, and said, ‘That’s not completely fair. Charles did watch him last week. Stoltz lives in a guest house on his mother’s property in Los Altos. He’s working again. He’s still a Silicon Valley whiz-kid. Charles sat on the house, followed him, and said all Stoltz did was go between work and home.’

  Whitacre paused. He turned and stared.

  ‘Stoltz wrote us all those letters. Do you remember?’

  Not really, but he’d pulled the case files after Whitacre’s call yesterday. In the files he found letters to Whitacre but none to his long-time partner, Charles Bates. He looked over at Whitacre and confirmed, ‘Bates told you he sat on Stoltz for two days?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Bates was retired. He had his pension but was also doing work for the Alameda County DA. If he’d taken time off to put Stoltz under surveillance, he would have checked out Stoltz other ways as well.

  ‘Other than me, you’re the only one left who knows how to knock on a door, Ben. All the rest are modern guys. They’ll file a report.’

  ‘Did Bates knock on his door?’

  ‘Charles thinks it’s got to come from an active inspector to have any weight.’

  Raveneau nodded. So that’s what this meeting was about.

  ‘Here’s what I can do. I’m on-call this week with my new partner but I’ll go see Stoltz Monday or Tuesday. You’re sure he’s living with his mother?’

  ‘Two-story guest house, painted yellow with a big rose garden behind it, and thank you. I can’t tell you how it affects me to know Stoltz is following me and feel I can’t do much about it.’

  ‘Walk me through again what happened when you saw him.’

  Whitacre seemed agitated by the request but did it anyway. He had spotted Stoltz in a parking lot outside a Belmont hardware store not far from where he lived. Stoltz was watching the front doors and Whitacre came out a side door after buying grape stakes to repair his fence. Stoltz wasn’t watching the side of the building and Whitacre got close enough to confirm it was him and get his plates. After recounting this he didn’t wait for any more questions.

  ‘I’ve got to go. This thing is at the med center in half an hour.�
��

  Raveneau called in the plates on the drive back to the Hall of Justice, and then phoned Bates and asked if Stoltz drove a white Lexus SUV.

  ‘He does.’

  ‘The plates I just ran are registered to a San Jose corporation.’

  ‘I don’t know about that, but I spent two days on him. He went back and forth from work in a white Lexus RX350. I can read you the plate numbers if you want.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  Bates did and then asked, ‘Did Ted tell you he saw Stoltz three or four other times last week, and that one of those times was when I know Stoltz was at work in Palo Alto? Did he tell you that? I’ll bet he didn’t. I saw Stoltz go into the building where he works an hour before Ted called me. I could see his Lexus in the lot as Ted was talking to me.’

  ‘He talked about the hardware store. He’s certain it was Stoltz.’

  Bates sighed.

  ‘Look, lately he’s calling me in the middle of the night. I mean, two, three o’clock in the morning, anxious and panicked, and it isn’t really about Stoltz. It’s about dying. It’s about needing someone to talk to. With me he’s focusing on all the old cases, all the cold ones, and those we screwed up or didn’t solve. He’s trying to tie up the loose ends. But you saw him this morning so you probably already know what I’m going to tell you now, though you keep this to yourself. They’ve given him three months max. The priest at his church is counseling him, but you know Ted, he just won’t accept it. He’s fighting it all the way in.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘At some point, I don’t know.’ They were both quiet. It was easy to imagine how you would face death, another thing to do it. Bates asked, ‘Are you going to knock on Stoltz’s door?’

  ‘I told Ted I would.’

  ‘Give me a call when you’re ready to and I’ll come with you.’

  Raveneau would never make that call. When Stoltz opened the door it would just be him standing there looking back at him, and he would make it very clear to Stoltz. He’d make it so clear Stoltz couldn’t possibly misunderstand.

  TWO

  Raveneau was often restless when he was on-call. He ate a late dinner sitting at the bar of a pizza place close to where he lived, and then drove out Fulton Street to the ocean and up the Great Highway past the Cliff House to the Guadalcanal Memorial in the broad lot at the base of Fort Meyers.

  He came here occasionally, not as much any more, but it did something for him still, and tonight he remembered the fever and fear after 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan when his son, his only child, Chris, eager to get to the front lines of the newly coined War on Terror, became a Marine. Chris had died eight years ago in a firefight in Fallujah, Iraq.

  Raveneau parked and walked out to the shrapnel-scarred bow section of the USS San Francisco and the plaque reading,

  This memorial to Rear Admiral Daniel Judson Callaghan, USN and his officers and men who gave their lives for our country while fighting on board the USS ‘San Francisco’ in the battle of Guadalcanal on the night of 12–13 November 1942 was formed from the bridge of their ship and here mounted on the Great Circle Course to Guadalcanal by the grateful people of San Francisco on 12 November 1950.

  Raveneau’s father, who was also gone, brought him here at age five and had him run his fingers over the names inscribed until they came to rest on Benjamin Tomlinson. Tomlinson, like Raveneau’s father, had also served on the USS San Francisco, but unlike his dad, Tomlinson was killed in the battle at Guadalcanal.

  ‘I gave you his first name because he was the kind of man I want you to be.’

  After the service for Chris, his dad had suggested coming here, and once here, touched the etched granite and said, ‘All I can say to you is that after this war ends and the reasons for going into it and the men who took us there are forgotten, and they will be, remember that Chris went there for us. Never forget that. In his heart he was there for us. Always hold that, son. It will help you.’

  Raveneau touched the cold steel bow. Chill air blew in off a dark ocean. Clouds at horizon left the sky there starless. He listened to waves break against the rocks below and then headed back to his car. As he unlocked the door, his cell phone rang.

  The communications dispatcher’s clear dispassionate voice asked, ‘Inspector Raveneau?’

  ‘This is Raveneau.’

  Raveneau reached for the black leather notebook. He wrote the address of a building in China Basin. The dispatcher would also text it to him, but this was his drill. This was how he started a case. He confirmed now that the responding officers were holding the man who’d flagged down their patrol car on Third Street, and asked what he always did, ‘How do we know it’s a homicide?’

  ‘The responding officers reported that her ankles and wrists were bound with plastic ties and that there are ligature marks at her neck. The medical examiner has asked that we call homicide. Will you be responding, Inspector?’

  ‘I will, and I’ll call Inspector la Rosa. You don’t have to call her.’

  He woke la Rosa who was momentarily confused, then aware that after a slow week when she’d taken teasing for being on-call at Homicide for the first time and not catching one, it was happening now. The cop in her adjusted rapidly.

  ‘I can pick you up at the Hall or meet you at the scene,’ Raveneau said, but knew already what her answer would be. Elizabeth la Rosa was ambitious, independent, and intent on making her mark. She had an angel in the brass and didn’t need an aging homicide inspector on what she thought was the tail-end of a career to watch over her. La Rosa wanted to wade into the fray.

  ‘I’ll meet you there,’ she said. ‘I’m out the door.’

  THREE

  At Vice, Elizabeth la Rosa was a rock star. Successes there got her on to the homicide detail at thirty-two, which was young, unless you looked at what she did orchestrating two significant and complex drug stings that slowed a Mexican cartel’s push to establish distribution in the Bay Area. She was taller than average and dark-haired, with a smile that made you want to smile as well. Raveneau liked her, but he was having trouble connecting. She was standing with the responding officers, Taylor and Garcia, when he drove up.

  Nearby, though not close enough to overhear them, was the homeless man, Jimmy Deschutes, who’d flagged down the patrol car. Deschutes was thin and wiry with a piece of rope for a belt. His priors were for vagrancy, loitering, panhandling, trespassing, and urinating in public. The responding officers had searched his daypack, a pink plastic bag with a smiling Mickey Mouse.

  In the pack they found clothes, small rocks, bottle glass smoothed by the ocean, a flashlight with several extra batteries, two rolls of toilet tissue, and dozens of salt, pepper, mustard, and catsup packets. Asked if he’d taken anything off the victim, he said no.

  The building, a two-story white-painted stucco-faced relic, had a rusted link fence surrounding and iron bars protecting the lower windows. A ‘For Lease’ sign hung from the second floor and had for a while. The responding officers called the real estate agency. They left a message then cut the chain that looped through a padlock holding the gate shut.

  They cut it but not before Deschutes showed them how he usually got in, wriggling under a cut flap of chain link along the bay side of the fence. He claimed to sleep in the building regularly and demonstrated how easy it was to jiggle the lock on the door facing the water. Then he led them up to the second floor where her body was and pointed at the mattress, saying, ‘Where I sleep most of the time.’

  The second floor was brightly lit now. Paramedics brought a generator from the Bluxom Street Fire Station. CSI was on the way. So was a photographer. The medical examiner was inside. Raveneau, with la Rosa standing alongside him, questioned Taylor and Garcia, the responding officers. When they finished they walked down the street to talk privately.

  To the northeast, hulking in late night city glow, was the ballpark, home of the baseball team, the Giants. A couple blocks this way was the concrete plant. Businesses in this
area had a decidedly industrial tone and most closed at the end of the working day. Not much traffic through here at night, though neglected buildings had a way of getting discovered.

  ‘Let’s take Deschutes’s tour,’ Raveneau said. ‘He’s not going to contaminate anything. He’s already been in there once with Taylor and Garcia.’

  Deschutes wore pants with a long tear on one leg and fairly new Nike tennis shoes. The shoes might matter. Raveneau felt sure he recognized Deschutes from the Tenderloin, but could be he moved around regularly. The homeless had encampments and territories and usually didn’t wander too far, but some were walkers and Deschutes looked fit enough. Down here the encampment was out along the old railroad tracks, yet Deschutes remained insistent that he often slept here in the building.

  As they looked at the loose flap of chain link where Deschutes said he routinely crawled through, Raveneau said, ‘We should check it out to make sure it works. Go ahead and slide under, partner. I’ll hold the flap.’

  She answered sharply. ‘I don’t need the old school jokes.’

  They moved to the back door and Raveneau was last in, turning to look at the line of moonlight on the bay and the gray rocks before entering. The room was stacked with office furniture. Down a hallway a light shone at the bottom of stairs. He let Deschutes lead. Behind him, la Rosa muttered, ‘He shouldn’t be in here with us.’

  They went upstairs to the second floor and walked past rooms that looked like former offices, though ransacked, some even missing their doors. In the room where the victim was, the lights brought from the fire station not only lit the space, but were also heating it. The warming air smelled of urine, mold, and dust, the floor littered with needles and fast food wrappers. In the doorway, the medical examiner stood to one side writing notes.

  Deschutes described what he’d seen and confirmed again that he didn’t touch her. Raveneau took him back downstairs and la Rosa stayed with the ME. When Raveneau returned he opened his notebook. The victim appeared to be of mixed race, Asian and white, possibly in her early thirties, and was lying on her right side on a mattress on the concrete floor.