A Killing in China Basin Read online

  But he did sign a confession and they booked him into jail. Raveneau figured they’d hold him all weekend and maybe as long as Tuesday afternoon, depending on what happened after San Jose detectives questioned him. Before they left him, Heilbron turned to la Rosa. ‘I read that article about you moving to Homicide.’

  Raveneau knew there’d been some puff piece when la Rosa moved over from Vice. La Rosa didn’t acknowledge the comment. They left Heilbron with the jailers and upstairs learned that the San Jose police tracked him through one fingerprint left on the rim of a wheel. They were ready eighteen months ago to charge him with the rape of a woman who got a flat returning from a party late at night. He’d stopped and offered to help, assuring the woman that he worked in an auto shop, and then raped her in the back of the vehicle.

  All they needed were DNA results from the victim’s swab, but somewhere along the way the swab samples taken the night of the rape got lost, and without DNA the district attorney’s office didn’t want any part of it, so the case went into limbo. A San Jose detective told la Rosa that the victim would no longer take their calls.

  When la Rosa got off the phone with San Jose they drove down to meet the divers. Raveneau took his laptop. He filled out the search warrant application for Heilbron’s house as they waited and also called the Southern precinct to try to reach the responding officers, Garcia and Taylor, to question them about what spectators they might have talked to. He reached the younger officer, the tow-headed blond, Taylor, who after some coaxing admitted he’d talked to a couple of spectators. Said it was his first murder and he was sorry.

  Then, as they were still waiting and walked down the street to get coffee, la Rosa turned and said, ‘I have to tell you something about me that happened right at the end of my senior year in high school. I try not to let it, but sometimes it still affects me. It was in late May at the start of the Memorial Day weekend. The weather had turned warm and we had finals ahead of us, but we knew we were done, so the parties were getting a little wild. I had just turned eighteen and there was this guy I’d always had a crush on. I was drunk, so was he, but I wasn’t ready to have sex with him. He held me down and raped me. Until you know that feeling of powerlessness and violation, you can’t know what rape is.

  ‘The next day I went by his house and when he opened the door I broke his nose with a piece of pipe. I heard he made up a story about falling off his mountain bike and he was such a dipshit he probably forgot about it all by the end of the summer. But me, I’m still angry. If he crossed the street in front of me, I’d run him over.’

  ‘Maybe you should talk to somebody.’

  ‘Yeah, I tried that. I’d rather kill him.’

  ‘Great.’

  In China Basin, less than half a mile from the building, Rescue One divers set up to search a grid pattern. Four divers went into the water, their lights glowing from fifteen feet down where they found a black plastic purse that long ago had filled with bay mud. They searched for an hour and a half and didn’t find any of the things Heilbron described.

  The on-call judge barely looked at the search warrant before signing it. They drove from his house to Heilbron’s. They pulled on latex gloves and Raveneau unlocked the front door with the key Heilbron had given them. He turned on a light. Before they stepped over the threshold, la Rosa asked, ‘Why did he tell us about the rape?’

  ‘Because it proves he could do the China Basin killing, that he’s got the stuff. Or maybe he’s testing himself and wants to see what it feels like to take ownership for a killing. I think he knows we’ll dead-end and he’ll walk.’

  ‘But, why do it? He’s going to lose his job. You know they’ll fire him. What’s he going to do next?’

  ‘That may be something to worry about. He may have built up to this point and he’s ready to move forward.’

  ‘That’s what I’m worried about, too.’

  Raveneau pointed at the TV. ‘Let’s turn it on and see if they included our victim on the evening news. I didn’t see anything last night. I’ll check the refrigerator to see if there’s any beer.’

  ‘You don’t mean that, do you?’

  No, he didn’t mean it about the beer, and they’d go methodically room to room. But he was serious about the TV. He found the remote and turned it on.

  SEVEN

  Raveneau surfed through the local news stations and then left the TV on Channel 4. Near an armchair facing the TV, six porno magazines were stacked under a copy of Sports Illustrated. Three of the magazines featured women on women.

  ‘Bed is a like a rat’s nest,’ la Rosa called. ‘Come look at this.’

  When he did, Raveneau saw only the rumpled sheets of a man living alone. The oddest thing was how clean the bathroom was. In his medicine cabinet was a prescription for antidepressants. He took a photo of the prescription label and they worked their way slowly through the bedroom again.

  When a TV station anchor announced a murder in China Basin they moved out to listen.

  ‘Police are seeking help identifying the body of a woman found in China Basin Wednesday night . . .’

  Pretty good coverage, thirty-five, forty seconds, more than he’d hoped for. Raveneau clicked to Channel 5, listened to part of a report of a three-alarm fire underway in the Richmond, and then started in on a hall closet. They didn’t find anything in Heilbron’s house, but his van looked promising. The crime lab would go through it on Monday. La Rosa wrote out a receipt for the address book and computer they bagged to take with them. She left the receipt in the kitchen on an ancient Formica counter trimmed in chrome. On the ride back she seemed frustrated.

  Raveneau pulled in behind her car outside the Hall of Injustice, as his defense lawyer friends were so fond of saying. He got out as she did.

  ‘Where are you going?’ la Rosa asked. ‘I thought you were going home.’

  ‘I’m going upstairs for a few minutes first.’

  ‘Is that so you can be the last to leave?’

  He didn’t pick up on her seriousness and said, ‘Yeah, I’ve always got to be the one to turn the lights out.’

  ‘Not with me.’

  ‘Come, again?’

  ‘I said, not with me. That might have been your style with former partners, but that’s not the way it’s going down with us. You’re not going to paint me as always first out the door.’

  This really sideswiped him and he heard his voice rising as he answered, ‘Look, I’ll leave when I’m ready. I don’t need you to tell me when.’

  He walked away angry, and upstairs in the office tried to push it aside and studied a sketch of the China Basin crime scene CSI had dropped off. La Rosa’s comment surprised him enough to make him lose focus. He was ready to call it a night, ready to leave when water started dripping on to one of the desks nearby. That would be the prisoners on the sixth floor plugging up the toilets.

  He phoned upstairs. He found a wastebasket to catch the water and on the way out he took a seat at one of the computers up front and replayed the last part of the interview with Heilbron. He did one final check of his messages before turning out the lights.

  There was one new message and he thought it might be la Rosa. But it wasn’t. The message began with traffic noise and what sounded like a large truck downshifting on a freeway. A muffled voice, as though speaking with the phone held at a distance, said quietly, ‘So you found her.’

  Raveneau sat at his desk and listened to it half a dozen times. ‘So you found her.’ He listened to it again from his car before driving away from the Hall. He swallowed his pride and called la Rosa, but she didn’t pick up. It went to voice mail.

  EIGHT

  La Rosa was at dinner with Deputy-chief Edith Grainer at an Italian place near Grainer’s house, so she didn’t take Raveneau’s call. Part of her irritation with Raveneau going back up to the office tonight was that she was meeting her mentor and didn’t want to tell him. And she didn’t like keeping secrets, but that’s the way Grainer had steered her from the start, s
aying that if word got out about their friendship, it would give the appearance she was playing favorites. She could call Raveneau back on the way home.

  There’d been a period there when la Rosa had wondered if Grainer was hitting on her, but fortunately nothing like that had happened and Grainer’s career advice had been sound. She also knew Grainer was in the background when her name had come up on a list of women eligible to make the bump to Homicide.

  ‘Would you like a drink, Elizabeth?’ Grainer asked as the waiter returned. Grainer had a vodka martini and preferred not to drink alone. ‘I know your regulation about being on-call, but I think you can have one drink with me tonight.’

  La Rosa knew Grainer would have a single drink before and then one glass of wine with dinner.

  ‘Sure, I’ll have a drink.’

  La Rosa felt tired. She rested her elbows on the blue and white checkered tablecloth and looked around. Total retro as a restaurant and she didn’t really feel like doing this tonight. She wanted to go home, shower, and think about the China Basin case.

  Deputy-chief Grainer’s father had been a small-town cop and when they first met la Rosa had told her about her grandfather, a county deputy in Minnesota. They’d found common ground through the memories of the two men. Both had liked to drink after their shifts and la Rosa thought this cocktail together before dinner was Grainer’s way of incorporating that.

  Grainer kept her brown hair cut short and neat, as though it needed to be that way to avoid interfering with her work. She had a pleasant if unmemorable face and an iron work ethic. She also had a generally empathetic view of the public’s complaints about the police department, a view la Rosa didn’t particularly agree with, though she’d never said so. One of Grainer’s favorite refrains was, we should listen more to what the public is saying, and sometimes she’d cite the example of Chief Gains, the chief of police at the start of her career. Gains had black and white patrol cars repainted blue and renamed ‘Police Services.’ This was stuff that la Rosa found herself nodding in agreement to but not really agreeing with, and that was a part of herself she didn’t like, the same part that showed itself now as she ordered a vodka martini.

  ‘Maybe we should order dinner now,’ Grainer said. ‘I have a very busy schedule tomorrow. I’ll go first to give you a moment.’

  La Rosa glanced at the menu and the phrase ‘old school’ came to mind for the second time in twenty-four hours. She heard Grainer order ‘An iceberg salad with bleu cheese dressing, chicken cacciatore, and garlic bread for the table.’ She looked from the waiter to la Rosa and asked, ‘Elizabeth, should we have a glass of wine each? Or half a glass for you?’

  ‘Half a glass is plenty for me.’

  La Rosa ordered the veal and a salad that she knew would come drenched with dressing. The veal would come with a quart of some rich sauce she didn’t need. But who cares about food? That’s not why they were here. Her drink came and the chef sent complimentary plates with two raviolis each. She ate both though they were cold and doughy. She sipped the vodka and it hit her right away.

  ‘So how is it going with him?’ Grainer asked.

  ‘It’s going fine.’

  ‘Was today productive?’

  No, a lot of it felt like a waste of time, especially wandering through China Basin knocking on doors. It made no sense. She thought of the construction workers along China Basin Street studying her breasts and Raveneau bantering with them. None of that advanced the investigation and she didn’t like it that he’d turned the TV on at Heilbron’s house, or that he’d gone back upstairs tonight. Earlier today she’d watched him text messaging back and forth and when she’d gotten tired of waiting on him, asked who he was messaging so urgently. His answer was he’d learned to text drug dealers: ‘I’m trying to get this one to come in and talk to us about a drive-by murder he witnessed.’

  ‘Elizabeth?’ Grainer asked.

  ‘I’m sorry, chief, it was just a lot today. We caught this case after midnight last night.’

  ‘That’s why it’s important to talk while it’s still fresh. I guess our larger conversation is about the homicide detail, and whether our inspector’s methods are modern enough. What are your first impressions of Inspector Raveneau’s investigative techniques?’

  ‘There are things I have problems with but I don’t know if that’s just my inexperience.’

  ‘You know, this is an important moment because your initial observations are much less likely to be clouded by sentiment and that’s what I’m interested in. Others are too. There’s a lot of concern about the low solve rate, in particular with respect to gang slayings. There’s a feeling that not only does that part of the community not trust us, but that we’re out of touch with the people living there.’

  You’ve got that right, she thought, and then wondered when Grainer had last been around gangbangers. She thought of Raveneau text messaging the dealer, going back and forth with him, Raveneau with his salt and pepper hair, and no real respect for racial differences. What did he say to her today? That he didn’t believe in race, that it didn’t matter any more, especially not on the homicide detail. She considered telling that to Grainer, but didn’t because she knew Grainer would hear it differently than Raveneau meant it. La Rosa became aware now that Grainer was talking.

  ‘It’s generally understood that inspectors view themselves as untouchable, and in fact, though they may never rise any higher, they are by and large left alone. But there’s a perfect storm of political pressures building and I don’t know this, but I believe something may happen that hasn’t in a very long time. I’m not the only one who views you as a rising star. You have very modern training and you made a point of getting it on your own. We need more like you and with your initiative. You know enough about trace evidence to walk down the hall and work with CSI or out at Hunter’s Point in that Quonset hut, though neither of those would be a fit for you. Better that you make your mark at Homicide before moving up. Would you say that your new partner respects the advances in science?’

  ‘Yes, but it can take a long time to get DNA results.’

  ‘That sounds like an excuse, Elizabeth.’

  It was more like reality but la Rosa took another sip instead of pointing that out. The vodka was hammering her but she could easily drink another one. She needed a good sleep tonight and hoped the public came through with a tip on their Jane Doe.

  ‘He feels he has to rely on people skills. When we didn’t get a hit off AFIS or the western states system this morning, he said ‘We’re taking the case to the people.’

  ‘Cute.’

  ‘It’s worked for him for a long time.’

  ‘And he was the top inspector for a long time, but the city has changed. It changes every day. It changes underneath us.’

  ‘He talks about the change.’

  ‘What’s he said?’

  ‘That there are twenty-eight ethnicities now but the act of murder hasn’t changed.’

  Grainer shook her head. ‘I don’t know what that means.’

  ‘I don’t either.’

  ‘I’m relieved to hear that.’

  If you weren’t loyal to your partner what were you worth? She held Grainer’s gaze as she thought that.

  ‘What is this China Basin killing?’

  ‘A homeless individual stopped a patrol car and reported the body of a woman in a room in an unoccupied building for sale. One of the problems I have is he brought this homeless individual back inside to view the body with us.’

  ‘I hope you’re joking.’

  She wasn’t and vodka fueled her indignation.

  ‘This means if any DNA of his is found in the area around her body or on her body, other than from a sexual assault, then a good defense attorney will argue it happened when we brought him back in.’

  ‘Not just a good defense attorney, Elizabeth, any defense attorney. How did he justify doing that?’

  ‘The same homeless individual had led the responding officers in earlier.�
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  ‘Had he?’

  ‘Yes, but they didn’t let him re-enter the room with the body.’

  ‘But your new partner did?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s a fairly significant procedural error.’

  ‘I don’t know if it’s an error or not, or whether he sees things I don’t, but it’s an example of where I would treat the trace evidence differently.’

  ‘Would you call him willfully ignorant of the advances in science?’

  The waiter brought the salads and she pictured Raveneau’s face, his eyes as he looked at her.

  ‘He never seems unaware.’

  ‘Then how about careless about procedures and cynical about the investigation’s ultimate results?’

  ‘No, that’s not him at all. He cares quite a lot.’

  ‘Elizabeth, I can’t keep up with you. You’re jumping all over the map. Now you sound like you’re defending him.’

  ‘He loves the work.’ She thought of him going back upstairs tonight and added, ‘It’s his life.’

  ‘Yes, and in his world he’s something of a legend, but he’s also emblematic of a problem that’s grown in recent years.’ She lowered her voice. ‘No one is targeting Inspector Raveneau, and it’s certainly not limited to him, but good questions are being asked about why we’re failing. I, for one, believe we aren’t keeping pace with the shift in sensitivities within the micro-environments in the city. What do you think about that?’

  She thought it was a bunch of fucking gobbledegook, but said, ‘There may be a real truth there, but I’m too new to say.’

  ‘I don’t mean to put you in the position of attacking your partner. If I do that, you stop me. That’s an order. But the homicide detail is seeing a lot of scrutiny and may need a kind of catharsis.’

  La Rosa bit into a piece of garlic bread and nodded. The chief smiled brightly and waved her hand at the room.