A Killing in China Basin - Kirk Russell [17]
‘He was weird. He asked if we could make scrambled eggs with truffles and I think he knew we wouldn’t have any truffles right now and that the chef couldn’t just do something off the menu. We were very busy that night. What was weird was he was so insistent. I went back to the chef twice.’
‘What else did he do?’
‘He ordered an expensive bottle of Pinot Noir and gave most of it to staff. He wanted me to sit and have a glass with him. Our management likes us to know all the wines, so I did, but I don’t think he really cared about the wine.’ She smiled a half-smile. ‘Weird but good looking, I mean, he wasn’t a bad guy, but it was like he really wanted to make a point.’
‘What do you think his point was?’
She laughed. ‘You know, I’m not sure. But what’s going on, why are you here?’
‘I want to make sure he was really here.’
‘Oh, he was definitely here.’
Raveneau spent hours watching video at the Chevron in Sand City before spotting Stoltz standing outside his Lexus gassing up. The time on the tape read 7:42. Stoltz had left the station at 7:48 after using the bathroom and paying cash for gas and water just as he’d claimed. It was lucky the video hadn’t already looped over itself, lucky the video system had been recently upgraded to carry more videotape capacity, the manager explaining earlier they had a problem with people gassing up with stolen credit cards.
Raveneau called la Rosa from Salinas as he got back to 101 and turned north. He worked through Stoltz’s chronology on the drive home.
Checked in at La Playa at 6:15 p.m.
Dinner at Anton & Michel 7:30 p.m. reso, paid by Visa, first drink at bar 7:21, bill rung out at 8:50.
Checks out of La Playa at 7:00 a.m. next morning.
Gas at Sand City Chevron 7:42 a.m.
Maid cleans room at La Playa, 11:00 a.m. Remakes bed. Replaces shampoo and soap samples.
Two of the times mattered: when the dinner bill was closed out and when he checked out of La Playa the next morning. The window between was a little under twelve hours, more than enough time to leave the restaurant, drive three hours north, murder Whitacre, and return to the hotel to check out at 7:00 a.m. So the alibi was valid, but not solid and digging deeper would have to wait.
He drove home and didn’t walk in the door until two in the morning. He ate a sandwich and drank a flat half bottle of beer sitting in the refrigerator. He left his notes on a counter in the kitchen. He showered. As he lay down he reached for his phone and sent a text to la Rosa, ‘I’m back.’
THIRTEEN
The next morning Raveneau and la Rosa put on the booties, spacesuits, caps, masks – the whole get-up – before going in to watch their Jane Doe autopsied. The medical examiner quietly catalogued female, five foot four, one hundred twenty-three pounds, of mixed race, likely Asian/Caucasian, black hair, brown eyes, significant large black-colored moles high on the right side of her back, a tattoo of a diamond on the heel of her left foot, two inch scar on her left knee, another small tatt low on her back and one on her scalp inside the hairline. Approximate age: thirty. A tiny stud piercing in her left nostril was removed. Wounds: ligature marks at neck, hemorrhaging at eyes and tongue, scalp wound at right temple, bruising at the back of the neck, another bruise, two inches by one inch, on the right thigh just above the knee. An abrasion on the right elbow that likely occurred shortly before death, possibly from a fall. There was more bruising where ankle and wrist restraints had been removed.
Raveneau listened to the medical examiner’s quiet progress, heard him say ‘no evidence of sexual assault.’ He looked at the gray skin of her face and tried again to guess the reason she was in the China Basin building. There weren’t any needle marks, nothing indicated drug use. Prostitution or a sexual liaison was possible, and his guess was still that she came in through the gate with her assailant. One of them had a key. He and