A Killing in China Basin - Kirk Russell [100]
The award was to be given at a restaurant Raveneau vaguely remembered reading about as cutting edge with a rising star of a chef, a dinner more likely to draw wealthy donors, the type of people she wouldn’t want to disappoint.
‘What do you think?’ la Rosa asked.
‘I think you’re on to something here.’
At four thirty that afternoon a driver showed up at Lafaye’s house and took her to SFO. They watched her check in and pass through security, and waited until United was ready to board the first class passengers before approaching her. Raveneau pulled his homicide star and made sure the people nearby could read it. Her face reddened with embarrassment and humiliation. One of her aides, a young blonde woman with heavy black glasses, stood dumbfounded nearby. La Rosa turned to her and said, ‘Better board or you might miss your flight. Your boss won’t be coming.’
‘You can’t do this,’ Lafaye said.
‘Step away from the line, Ms Lafaye,’ la Rosa said, and Raveneau just watched her, saw her fumble with her phone and call her lawyer, who demanded to speak to him and then told Raveneau he had two choices, charge her with a crime or let her on the plane.
‘Do you really want us to charge her?’
‘Let me talk to my client.’
He handed the phone back to Lafaye who sat down now, her face pale, her worried aide hovering nearby as the plane boarded.
‘Please don’t do this. You don’t know how important this dinner is.’
She pleaded and Raveneau asked, ‘Do you want to come downtown and tell us what happened? Your lawyer can meet us there.’
The warning about unattended luggage drowned out what she said next. The United Seattle flight finished loading and a gate near them streamed passengers unloading.
‘If we had more information it might look different, but I’m afraid where things stand right now, we’re very close to charging you,’ he said.
‘Do that and you may ruin your career, Inspector.’
‘I don’t need your help to ruin it.’
He came close to saying, you went to Alex Jurika’s apartment and she lied to you, and the next night you killed her. Almost said it, but held back, and she seemed to read his mind.
‘You know very well I didn’t kill her.’
‘We know that you’ve been lying to us. That much we’ve figured out, and that’s what we’re operating off right now, and you’re gambling you can back us down and that you’ve got the juice to keep us from pressuring you. Maybe you’re right, then again, maybe you’re not. This is our offer. Security here at the airport is under SFPD, so if you want we can go to a room and you can tell us the truth, and maybe we can work this out and you still catch a flight. Otherwise, your lawyer can meet us at Bryant. It’s your call.’
She didn’t make that call for a long minute, and after she did they led her to the airport security office, got her a chair, and shut the door. In that room she finally gave it up.
‘I didn’t go to her apartment for a drink the Wednesday before she was killed. I went because she was a thief and a liar and I needed to talk alone with her. And I don’t care that she’s dead. Good riddance, and as to the bitch who sold me her identity, Erin Quinn, she was a friend of Jurika’s and she’s been extorting me with Jurika’s help for too many years.’
‘You’ve paid Erin Quinn money.’
‘You need to carry your notebook more often. I’ve been telling you that Quinn has extorted me. Those payments were made through Jurika. I’ve paid her more money every year since the foundation became more successful. At first it was another twenty thousand. She said she hadn’t been given enough for her identity and then it was more, and so forth.’
‘And why didn’t you go—’
‘To the police and tell them I’d bought someone’s identity and there are places where I travel under a false passport, and that I’ve paid money to keep the woman whose true name is Erin Quinn quiet. The mistake I made was paying anything in the first place, but at the time I thought the alternate identity would have very negative repercussions. Besides, Quinn let me know through Jurika that she considered her identity