A Killing in China Basin - Kirk Russell [16]
‘Can we verify that with your riding friends?’
‘No, because that’s my personal life and you guys don’t get to fuck that up twice. What’s the old saying, first time shame on you, second time shame on me. You don’t get to mess with my life twice. I don’t want my friends looking at me sideways because some half-ass homicide inspector can’t even figure out how one of their own was killed.’
‘What time did you get to Carmel?’
‘Don’t remember. Check with the hotel on that. I went there first.’
‘Did you stop anywhere on the way down?’
‘Not that comes to mind right now.’
Raveneau scrutinized the receipt showing Stoltz’s hotel checkout time this morning. 7:00.
‘On the way back, did you stop anywhere?’
‘I bought gas but there’s no receipt for it. I paid cash.’
‘Where did you buy gas?’
‘At a Shell station or maybe it was a Chevron. I don’t remember.’
‘Where?’
‘Monterey or Sand City, someplace along the way.’
‘In the Lexus out front?’
‘Yes, and it was a Chevron. We’re almost done here, Inspector.’
‘Did your hotel room have a view looking out over the ocean?’
‘Come, again?’
‘I’ve stayed there before. I’m asking if you had an ocean view.’
‘You know what, I didn’t pay any attention and I probably drank too much at dinner.’
Inspector Raveneau made a show of pulling a piece of paper out of his coat now. He handed it over and asked, ‘Do you recognize these license plate numbers?’
Stoltz stared at the numbers before saying, ‘Those are mine.’
Stoltz felt his face flush. The inspector was an inch or two taller than him but looked at him almost eye to eye. This guy was much different than Bates or Whitacre.
Gravel crunched as a car drove up.
‘My guests are arriving,’ Stoltz said, and waved to his friends getting out of their cars now. ‘Wait here, Inspector, I’ve got something for you.’
He found his wallet and then the card, and brought it out to Raveneau. ‘If you have any more questions call this number.’ The card read Crofton, Jacobs, & Peters LLC. ‘Ask for Lindsay Crofton. She’s my lawyer. But by all means call me personally if Bates also dies unexpectedly. I’d like to hear that first hand.’ He added, ‘Can’t say I’m sorry about Whitacre. The opposite, actually. See you later, Raveneau.’
TWELVE
Raveneau called Becker and asked for approval to make a trip to Carmel. After Becker gave him the nod, he called la Rosa.
‘This is an out and back to Carmel. I won’t be gone long, but if you catch a homicide while I’m in Carmel, Inspector Adler will go out with you.’
‘When are you coming back?’
‘Should be late tonight.’
‘You’re driving all the way down there and back and checking out his alibi at the same time?’
‘Hotel, restaurant, and where he got gas.’
‘And I’m supposed to go out with Adler if there’s a call?’
She seemed uncomfortable with that which surprised him.
‘We’ve got fifteen tips off the TV report,’ she said.
‘Yeah, I know, I’ve got the list with me.’
He split the list with her and made a series of calls as he drove south on 101. Then he just drove, and looking west at the foothills remembered a summer afternoon twenty-five years ago when he picked up his ex-wife Angie at the San Francisco apartment in the Marina that she shared with two friends. That day they drove from summer bay fog into the heat of the Central Valley and in the dry foothills swam in Rollins Lake before continuing on to Lake Tahoe. He remembered the feel of the cold clean water of Tahoe, sitting on a granite slab at the water’s edge talking and laughing as they dried in the mountain sunlight. He saw the blade-like blue of Tahoe and the radiance of Angie’s face as if it were yesterday.
In Carmel he met with the hotel manager of the La Playa first and read the young man as wanting to assist and help the police. Raveneau showed him his gold homicide star and learned that Stoltz had reserved at the La Playa two and a half weeks ago. So it wasn’t an impulse trip. He stayed in room twenty-one, checked in at six fifteen p.m., and more importantly, checked out the next morning at seven.
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