A Killing in China Basin - Kirk Russell [29]
‘Let’s back it up,’ la Rosa said.
The camera pointed once more at the chain link fence where two individuals or what looked like people showed inside the fence. The time was 11:17 p.m., the night of the murder. Raveneau froze the frame. Neither individual fit the profile of Deschutes. The gate was shut. They were away from the front door and heading around to the back. Heilbron’s camcorder had high quality light enhancement features, but even so Raveneau couldn’t tell. Neither could la Rosa. If he had to guess, one was female, possibly the other as well.
‘We’d better turn this over to the lab rats in the morning,’ he said. Computer enhancement might get them there. ‘I’m going to play it once more,’ he said. He hit ‘Play’ and the figures moved away from the reflective face of the building and down the dark south side. In seconds they were gone.
‘What do you get from that?’ la Rosa asked.
‘That they both might be women.’
‘No way.’
Raveneau replayed it again and after a moment of quiet la Rosa allowed, ‘It’s possible. Yeah, you might be right.’
TWENTY
Everyone on the homicide detail attended the service for Whitacre at a Catholic church in Burlingame. When it ended and Raveneau and la Rosa were outside talking in the church lot, Bates approached, wanting to talk alone with Raveneau. Bates’s face was dusty, ashen. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. He’s truly hurting, Raveneau thought, and then walked far enough away to talk alone with him.
‘I lied to you and Ted. I told you I sat on Stoltz and watched him, but I didn’t. I lied and I can’t stop thinking about it. Ted kept calling me. He called almost every night. I just figured he was breaking down, coming apart, and imagining things.’
‘You already told me that and I understand.’
Raveneau said that slowly. He didn’t want to dismiss the apology, but there was also nothing gained in Bates rationalizing it.
‘I caused everything that’s happened. It all could have been prevented. Ted, my sweet Jacie, my God, I got Jacie killed.’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘You don’t know what I’m saying, Raveneau. I got my Jace killed when I lied to Ted and you. Most nights we’d make that walk together. I was supposed to be there. I told her I’d be there and I wasn’t because I was with a friend having a drink. If I’d been there, it wouldn’t have happened. Same way I lied to Ted and you. Came easy and now Jacie is gone.’
Raveneau had known cops with strong marriages but few like the Bateses who seemed to just naturally belong together. Anyone watching them knew they didn’t have to work at it.
‘I don’t know if I can make it without her. I don’t know if I want to, and I’m going to tell you that if Stoltz killed her, I’m going to take him out.’
‘We don’t have anything that ties Stoltz to this, not a single thing.’
‘I heard you came up with a twelve hour window from when he finished dinner to when he checked out of the hotel in Carmel. Tell me if that’s true.’
Raveneau felt shocked as he realized that was why Bates wanted to talk, and he took a step closer to him.
‘Charles, listen to me, you’re hurting but you’re going too far too fast here. I don’t have anything on Stoltz. Yes, there’s a window of time he could have acted in, but that’s it. You’ve been through a terrible thing, but you’ve got to step back.’
Bates couldn’t be convinced. His grief blocked his view of the outside world. He turned from Raveneau and walked to his car. La Rosa was waiting as Raveneau returned.
‘Still want to stop at Heilbron’s?’ she asked.
‘I think so.’
‘What are you hoping to get out of it?’
‘We make our presence felt.’
‘Like the guy who works at the golf course?’
Raveneau was still thinking about Bates but he was listening. La Rosa didn’t want to hitch on to a potential harassment claim and he didn’t see it that way at all. He saw