A Killing in China Basin Read online

  White cotton rope, what appeared to be clothesline, was pulled tightly around her neck, the knot surrounded by bruising. The rope extended three feet beyond the mattress, and looked as if it was dropped after she was strangled. Orange ties bound her wrists behind her and held her ankles pressed together. From the position of her body, and that she was dressed, he made a guess that he had no right to make yet, that she hadn’t been sexually assaulted. But that didn’t mean this wasn’t someone’s sexual fantasy.

  The medical examiner had commented as they arrived that death was probably within the last two hours, so Jimmy Deschutes was either here when she died or very shortly after. Deschutes’s reward for flagging down the patrol car was that he became their first suspect.

  Drool ran from the victim’s mouth. Where it reached the mattress, the mattress was still wet. He followed the marks on her neck to the purple-colored silk top, the pants, belt, her shoes – the right off her foot and lying on the floor. No coat, no purse, no apparent reason to be here. He saw scuff marks where her shoes had rubbed back and forth on the mattress. He saw struggle. He guessed she was conscious and it looked from how her make-up ran that she had cried. She knew what was happening.

  CSI arrived, lugged in their gear, their baggy cargo pants floating around them. The photographer showed up. La Rosa stayed near the CSI team; that’s what her generation believed in.

  Raveneau walked back outside, walked China Basin Street looking at vehicles, taking down plate numbers in case one of these cars was hers. He studied the handful of spectators, and saw the medical examiner come out and go to his wagon. Raveneau went over to talk to him. In San Francisco the medical examiners were all doctors. This ME would take their victim the distance, doing the autopsy and toxicology.

  ‘Think you can get to her before Monday?’

  ‘I can tell you tomorrow. I don’t know tonight.’

  After CSI had vacuumed and gone, the photographer finished, and the victim was in the thin white bag that the ME had put his seal on, Raveneau and la Rosa spent another forty minutes in the building before driving back to the Hall of Justice. They rode the elevator up and were quiet for the moment. They ate the egg croissants they picked up on the drive back and made coffee, and went downstairs to the morgue and rolled her prints, putting on latex gloves and inking her fingers with the ME looking over them.

  Shortly after nine that morning they ran her prints through the local AFIS system. When they didn’t get a hit, they ran them through both the state and the western states systems. Nothing there either and Raveneau suggested they return to China Basin and start knocking on doors.

  But no one had a female employee who hadn’t showed up this morning, nor had anyone seen anything unusual, though one owner asked, ‘What’s unusual any more?’

  At noon, the bars and clubs began to open their service doors and they questioned the bartenders and owners they could find. No one remembered the shimmering rich purple shirt that they carried in an evidence bag.

  Perhaps, Raveneau suggested to an assistant manager at the next club, one of your bartenders remembers two women, one with a purple silk shirt and high Asiatic cheekbones, black hair cut back from her face, a tiny stud in her left nostril, and her friend at the bar with her. Maybe they met a man or a couple of men and paired off.

  They worked a wider radius and a bartender on Folsom Street, a young guy with spiked hair and a pallid face, saw something familiar in the shirt, but then couldn’t quite find the memory.

  When they returned to Homicide they put together a press release without a photo but with a description of the victim and her clothing. La Rosa walked it over to the PIO, the Public Information Officer, so they wouldn’t miss the news cycle.

  Late in the afternoon Raveneau returned to the building. He might find something. He might not. He didn’t expect to. But it had become his habit to return alone when the scene was quiet. Over the years he had even come to the irrational belief that the spirits of the dead linger a short while.

  He felt sorrow as he walked through the building trying to see why she was here. If she was local and there was family or others who had cared for her, then there was a good chance they’d hear from someone soon. Bringing her killer to justice was the responsibility he and la Rosa carried. For anyone who had loved her, they could do little more. And a murder conviction seldom brought closure. Closure was a well-meaning idea capitalized on by radio self-help hosts and talk-show psychologists promoting books. The only true way to free your heart from a terrible act was forgiveness, and forgiveness was one of the most difficult things for a human being. It got bandied about as if common, but it wasn’t. Forgiveness was a kind of transcendence, beyond justice and maybe beyond most all of us.

  FOUR

  Toward dusk, as Raveneau returned to the homicide office, Cody Stoltz joked with the staff at a Starbucks in Palo Alto as he waited for his macchiato. Then on his way to a table he stopped briefly to check in with a middle-aged woman who’d been laid off and was looking for a job. He met her last time he was here. Same as today, she’d had her laptop open and was working on her resume. She seemed grateful that he took the time to say hello.

  When he sat down it was at a corner table. He pulled out his laptop and used Google Earth to find Whitacre’s house. He wasn’t necessarily ever going to go anywhere with it, but it gave him pleasure to see Whitacre’s dumpy little stucco box with its faux Spanish look. Whitacre’s neighborhood wasn’t far from the freeway, so maybe the exhaust had caused Whitacre’s cancer. He hoped so. The lawn was dry, shrubs ratty, the pine tree sickly and out of place. Whitacre’s old American relic of a car sat in the driveway.

  Past the car was a fence. On a long bike ride he once checked out the fence and gate. The fence was redwood, silver-gray with age. A couple of flagstones led from the white concrete of the driveway to the gate. Through the gate was a door to the kitchen. It was a nowhere house on a nowhere block in the bleak life Whitacre lived. But none of that changed what Whitacre had done.

  FIVE

  When the homicide detail moved from Room 450 on the fourth floor to Room 561 on the fifth floor, the difference was more than just moving up a floor in the gray monolith of the Hall of Justice. In the old office, the window behind Raveneau’s desk looked northeast over the roof of the morgue, past the county jail, better known as the glass palace, and into the city. Tall cabinets holding case files and nicknamed ‘the towers’ had loomed over the cramped quarters, but up here the homicide inspectors had a large open room and a row of windows looking southeast toward China Basin. They had a row of computers and new high-tech equipment.

  Raveneau’s desk backed up to la Rosa’s. Nearby was a coat stand, a concept that would have been comic in the closed quarters of the former office. From his desk he watched the dark water of the bay lighten with dawn and the outline of the hills across the bay haloed in crimson light as the sun rose. The door to the homicide office opened and Lieutenant Becker waved at him. Raveneau stood to go talk to him before Becker got too busy.

  ‘Do you remember a shoot-out between two yuppies in the parking lot of an apartment complex out near Golden Gate Park in 2000?’

  Raveneau paused to give Becker a chance to remember the case before continuing.

  ‘They were friends, Cody Stoltz and John Reinert. The shooting was after an argument about John Reinert’s wife, Erin. Stoltz had an affair with her that Reinert found out about. That led to a confrontation in a parking lot below the Reinerts’ apartment and then a shooting that Erin Reinert witnessed from the apartment’s kitchen window. She disappeared; moved away somewhere after Stoltz took a plea deal. He did five for voluntary manslaughter.’

  ‘The letter writer?’

  Raveneau nodded.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Ted Whitacre thinks Stoltz is following him and after revenge. I saw him yesterday morning. He asked me to knock on Stoltz’s door and let him know we know he’s been tailing Whitacre.’

  ‘That�
��s not how we do it.’

  ‘Maybe not, but I’m going to let him know Whitacre saw him.’

  Becker said nothing but shook his head.

  ‘What do you remember about the Reinert killing? I’m looking for what’s not in the file.’

  Raveneau knew Becker wouldn’t really have any problem with him visiting Stoltz. He wasn’t going to endorse it, but underneath he was still one of them. Becker knew what a gentle reminder a homicide inspector’s knock on the door could be for a guy who’d already done time for murder. Cloud computing or whatever it was he was working on now would look a lot better to Stoltz after a conversation.

  Becker answered, ‘I was there when Bates and Whitacre brought Stoltz in. Stoltz was so shocked at what he’d done that in his head I think he tried to turn it into an accidental shooting. He came up with a story of how he wasn’t the shooter at all. He needed to transfer it to someone else and created a fictional mugger.’

  ‘I read the interview notes on the mugger. Were you there? Did you listen in?’

  ‘Yeah, I did.’

  ‘Tell me about the mugger.’

  ‘Stoltz claimed that in the middle of his confrontation with Reinert a man with a gun showed up and robbed them. Backed them up at gunpoint and got into Stoltz’s glove compartment where he found Stoltz’s gun. He took their wallets and then shot John Reinert with Stoltz’s gun instead of his own when Reinert tried to prevent him from getting away. Then dropped Stoltz’s gun and ran with Stoltz chasing him.’

  ‘Chased him instead of helping Reinert?’

  The lieutenant stared at him and asked, ‘What are we doing here? You read the file so you know this already.’

  ‘What was he like?’

  ‘Nervous but trying to pull it off. He claimed he chased the mugger because he knew instantly that Reinert was dead.’

  ‘How did he know?’

  Becker shrugged. ‘He just knew. Maybe he sensed it because he’s so bright.’

  ‘You remember that?’

  Becker nodded and Raveneau thought about Reinert dying. It wasn’t instant. It took him ten to fifteen minutes more to die. A patrol unit picked up Stoltz two miles away walking down Divisadero Street.

  ‘What did you think of the case Whitacre and Bates made?’

  ‘It was solid. They got the right man. Where are you on this China Basin murder?’

  ‘Nowhere yet.’

  He left Becker and called the realtor who was trying to lease the building where their China Basin victim died. Yesterday, the realtor was cooperative. This morning he sounded self important as he launched into the city supervisors and the Port Authority, and how he wished he’d never left LA where they knew how to do business. When he finished, Raveneau offered, ‘Maybe you should move back there.’

  ‘Believe me, Inspector, I’m thinking about it. About your other questions, let me talk to my attorney and get back to you on who I’ve showed the building to. I’m not sure it’s ethical to provide a list. Some of these clients aren’t going to like a call from the police, let alone a homicide detective. You have to understand that if a prostitute breaks into the building at night there’s not much we can do. We’ve got a ten foot fence up with razor wire on top and “No Trespassing” signs posted everywhere.’

  Raveneau learned now what he’d suspected last night, that the ‘For Lease’ sign was up only to demonstrate to the Port Authority and the city that the owners were serious about utilizing the property. That it had no power and smelled of rat droppings and human urine, and that the homeless, runaways, and drug users treated it as a hostel, or that prostitutes in the area were familiar with the building but avoided it because it wasn’t clean enough, that didn’t matter. The investors were playing a longer game that required a certain kind of negotiation with the Port Authority.

  Raveneau was still on the phone with the realtor when Lieutenant Becker came to get him.

  ‘You’ve got a walk-in. There’s a man named Carl Heilbron in the second interview room. He says he’s here to see you and la Rosa about your China Basin victim. He claims to have information and knows you and la Rosa are assigned the case.’

  ‘When did he get here?’

  ‘Five minutes ago.’

  Raveneau followed Becker to the interview room where they’d parked the guy. He looked like he was in his early thirties with long pencil-thin sideburns and short hair. Black shirt, canvas pants, lime-green tennis shoes, an ornate red tattoo on his right forearm, dressed like an artist but doing auto body work. A Diet Coke sat on the table in front of him and he stared at his right hand resting on the table near the Coke as if it was a phone and he was waiting for it to ring. Physical energy and nervousness emanated from him. He glanced up at the glass several times and brought the hand on the table down to his knee as his knee jiggled, then looked abruptly up at the glass again and smiled, as if spotting Raveneau and Becker standing there.

  ‘Looks like a nice normal guy,’ Becker said.

  ‘Let’s keep him in there while I find la Rosa.’

  SIX

  Raveneau and la Rosa studied Carl Heilbron through the one-way glass and Raveneau made sure the audio and video feeds were working before they went in. Heilbron focused immediately on la Rosa, showing her a face that was pleasant and attentive as he said, ‘I killed her.’

  Raveneau hadn’t even sat down yet. He slid a chair out and asked, ‘Who did you kill?’

  ‘The one in the building in China Basin and I don’t know her name. I never asked her name. I picked her up on Eddy Street. She was there with a couple of other whores. I offered her forty bucks, and after she got in the van I told her we were going to a building I know and that I wanted special sex. But she had a big problem with that. I freaked her out.’

  ‘What’s special sex?’ la Rosa asked softly.

  ‘Come on, Elizabeth, I know you know what I mean.’

  ‘Inspector la Rosa,’ she said, ‘and I don’t know what you mean. I need you to explain to me.’

  It meant binding her wrists and ankles and slipping a piece of wire, not rope, around her neck. He told them he had a key to the padlock at the front gate but evaded telling them how he got the key. Kept answering, ‘It’s just a common Master Lock.’ He claimed he used the building another time with a young girl, a runaway he’d picked up, and gotten drunk before having sex with her. He talked about driving through the city at night. He liked to drive around at night. He talked about his job at Boyle’s Auto Body Shop and then touched the side of his neck and turned to Raveneau.

  ‘Would you mind getting me another Coke?’

  Raveneau got him the Coke. When he returned Heilbron had shifted slightly in his chair so he faced la Rosa more directly. He licked his lower lip. He frowned as he explained.

  ‘I told her I was going to cut off her wind for a little while, then release the wire again, but she didn’t want to be unconscious. She got scared.’

  ‘When you started choking her?’ la Rosa asked, and Raveneau tried to catch her eye, tried to signal, just let him talk.

  ‘Yeah, the wire cut into her neck.’ He touched his neck to show where. ‘She moved around too much and started crying, and I didn’t want her to cry. I didn’t go there with her so she could start crying, so I tried to calm her down. I thought if she was unconscious for a little longer than usual she’d calm down.’

  ‘What do you mean more than usual?’ la Rosa asked, and Heilbron took a drink of Coke. ‘You wanted to relax her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I pulled the wire tight until she stopped moving.’

  ‘When she stopped moving did you loosen it?’

  ‘No, I just kind of watched her.’

  ‘Weren’t you worried you would kill her?’

  ‘Not so much.’

  ‘Did you have sex with her?’

  ‘No, she was dead by then.’

  ‘You knew she was dead?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘D
id you feel for a pulse?’

  ‘No.’

  Heilbron turned to Raveneau.

  ‘I threw everything in the bay.’

  ‘Show us where,’ Raveneau answered.

  But Heilbron had another story to tell them first. He focused on la Rosa again, telling her about a woman he raped in San Jose. Neither Raveneau nor la Rosa revealed that they already knew San Jose detectives had questioned him about a rape two years ago. That came up when they ran his name before walking in to talk to him.

  ‘She had a flat tire. I helped her fix it. That was on a Sunday. She was back in these hills.’

  At some point soon they’d have to read him his rights, Mirandize him, and with that he could request a lawyer. Raveneau liked to get the lawyer question out early so a defense lawyer couldn’t claim later his client hadn’t realized he was entitled to one. He studied Heilbron with a sense that something was off about his story, and Heilbron seemed to pick up on that, taking the conversation back to China Basin, telling them more about the wire around her neck – eye hook on one end of the wire so he could slide the other end through, pull it tight and release it easily.

  They Mirandized him and Heilbron waved off having a lawyer. On the drive to China Basin he said he’d bought both the wire and the eye hook he had soldered on to it at Discount Builders on Mission Street. In China Basin he led them upstairs but to the wrong room. Maybe that was because the mattress wasn’t there any more. He got agitated. He wanted to leave the building and showed them where he had thrown her purse, phone, and ‘other things’ into the water.

  Raveneau pulled a can of spray paint from the trunk of his car and marked a chunk of broken concrete for divers. Calling the divers in was problematic because now they were very skeptical about Heilbron’s account. His description of the victim was off. He dodged details, and on the ride back to the Hall he went dark on them. He went quiet.