A Killing in China Basin - Kirk Russell [23]
‘Because the rape was probably him, and we aren’t one hundred percent certain yet on China Basin.’
Heilbron’s van backed out suddenly on to Third Street forcing a bus to veer around it. He accelerated away from the auto shop and Raveneau had to jump on the gas just to stay within two stoplights of him. Heilbron drove to the house he leased in South San Francisco and backed into the one-car garage. Inside, he pulled the shades in the bay window that faced the street.
‘Let’s go back to Boyle’s,’ Raveneau said. ‘Let’s find out what happened.’
In Boyle’s Custom Auto Body an employee restoring a yellow Camaro pointed them toward a rear office with this warning: ‘Boyle isn’t here today, but the office manager Katrina is, but she’s worse than the hurricane was so watch out.’
Katrina had a pinched nose, hair dyed a light red, and earrings that looked like car keys hanging from her ears. She took Raveneau’s card and studied it as if she was with Homeland Security. Raveneau watched and then pulled his homicide star.
‘Carl Heilbron just got fired,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t work here any more. Why is he walking around anyway? Why isn’t he in jail? Seems like every time the police talk about a person of interest they’re back on the street the next day. If he said he killed her, does he have to prove it to you before you keep him in jail?’
‘He recanted his confession and we don’t have anything to hold him on.’
‘So hold him anyway. He’s a creep. He delivered a car to the home of one of our customers last summer and the next night was caught looking in the windows of her house. He didn’t get arrested and now she gets free engine care.’
Katrina stared at them as though he and la Rosa had let that happen.
‘Boyle talked the customer out of calling the police.’
‘That’s your boss?’ Raveneau asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Is he around?’
She rolled her eyes and said, ‘Only if it rains.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Simple. When it rains he can’t play golf, and since he doesn’t like to be around his wife he comes to work. Boyle thinks Heilbron is the best auto body man here, so Boyle and the rest of the misogynist pricks look the other way when Heilbron goes into the bathroom for an hour with one of his magazines. He’s disgusting.’
They listened but didn’t learn much and drove back to the homicide office. Raveneau saw the TV vans from three blocks out. He counted five as they picked up coffees at Café Roma, and then watched a reporter warming up, practicing, pulling her voice down lower, getting more baritone into it as she asked, ‘Is a killer targeting San Francisco’s homicide detail?’
‘Shit,’ he said, ‘here we go.’
Upstairs Becker told them to stay completely away from all media. The brass would handle this one. They sorted new tip calls and emails, and Raveneau left messages for several people and made contact with two; the first was an older woman who thought the sketch of the China Basin victim she saw in the Chronicle was her daughter stolen from her stroller in Iowa in 1949. The second was a young man who said he didn’t know her name but recognized her from meeting her in a bar one night.
‘You recognize her from the sketch?’ Raveneau asked.
‘Definitely. She was at Dorati’s. I’m just having trouble with her name. It was something like Alice or Alicia.’
‘What about a last name?’
‘I know, man, I’m trying.’
‘We’ll come see you. How do we find you?’
He got the young man’s name and a phone number and email. La Rosa struck out with her calls, left nine messages and talked with two men and a woman, people they’d go see but didn’t sound like leads.
At three, the door to the homicide detail got locked and a general meeting held. Captain Ramirez asked Raveneau to summarize events from his Thursday morning meeting with Whitacre. He knew the feeling among the inspectors was that Whitacre ate his gun and this meeting was an unnecessary melodrama. He didn’t have anything that would change that belief, but he did recount in detail what he and la Rosa learned in Oakland and what he knew of Whitacre’s death.
When he finished, Captain Ramirez stood