A Killing in China Basin - Kirk Russell [3]
‘I will, and I’ll call Inspector la Rosa. You don’t have to call her.’
He woke la Rosa who was momentarily confused, then aware that after a slow week when she’d taken teasing for being on-call at Homicide for the first time and not catching one, it was happening now. The cop in her adjusted rapidly.
‘I can pick you up at the Hall or meet you at the scene,’ Raveneau said, but knew already what her answer would be. Elizabeth la Rosa was ambitious, independent, and intent on making her mark. She had an angel in the brass and didn’t need an aging homicide inspector on what she thought was the tail-end of a career to watch over her. La Rosa wanted to wade into the fray.
‘I’ll meet you there,’ she said. ‘I’m out the door.’
THREE
At Vice, Elizabeth la Rosa was a rock star. Successes there got her on to the homicide detail at thirty-two, which was young, unless you looked at what she did orchestrating two significant and complex drug stings that slowed a Mexican cartel’s push to establish distribution in the Bay Area. She was taller than average and dark-haired, with a smile that made you want to smile as well. Raveneau liked her, but he was having trouble connecting. She was standing with the responding officers, Taylor and Garcia, when he drove up.
Nearby, though not close enough to overhear them, was the homeless man, Jimmy Deschutes, who’d flagged down the patrol car. Deschutes was thin and wiry with a piece of rope for a belt. His priors were for vagrancy, loitering, panhandling, trespassing, and urinating in public. The responding officers had searched his daypack, a pink plastic bag with a smiling Mickey Mouse.
In the pack they found clothes, small rocks, bottle glass smoothed by the ocean, a flashlight with several extra batteries, two rolls of toilet tissue, and dozens of salt, pepper, mustard, and catsup packets. Asked if he’d taken anything off the victim, he said no.
The building, a two-story white-painted stucco-faced relic, had a rusted link fence surrounding and iron bars protecting the lower windows. A ‘For Lease’ sign hung from the second floor and had for a while. The responding officers called the real estate agency. They left a message then cut the chain that looped through a padlock holding the gate shut.
They cut it but not before Deschutes showed them how he usually got in, wriggling under a cut flap of chain link along the bay side of the fence. He claimed to sleep in the building regularly and demonstrated how easy it was to jiggle the lock on the door facing the water. Then he led them up to the second floor where her body was and pointed at the mattress, saying, ‘Where I sleep most of the time.’
The second floor was brightly lit now. Paramedics brought a generator from the Bluxom Street Fire Station. CSI was on the way. So was a photographer. The medical examiner was inside. Raveneau, with la Rosa standing alongside him, questioned Taylor and Garcia, the responding officers. When they finished they walked down the street to talk privately.
To the northeast, hulking in late night city glow, was the ballpark, home of the baseball team, the Giants. A couple blocks this way was the concrete plant. Businesses in this area had a decidedly industrial tone and most closed at the end of the working day. Not much traffic through here at night, though neglected buildings had a way of getting discovered.
‘Let’s take Deschutes’s tour,’ Raveneau said. ‘He’s not going to contaminate anything. He’s already been in there once with Taylor and Garcia.’
Deschutes wore pants with a long tear on one leg and fairly new Nike tennis shoes. The shoes might matter. Raveneau felt sure he recognized Deschutes from the Tenderloin, but could be he moved around regularly. The homeless had encampments and territories and usually didn’t wander too far, but some were walkers and Deschutes looked fit enough. Down here the encampment was out along the old railroad tracks, yet Deschutes remained insistent that he often slept here in the building.
As they looked at the loose flap of chain link where Deschutes said he