A Killing in China Basin - Kirk Russell [59]
‘So, corrupt as well.’
‘I guess so.’
‘What else?’
‘He’s into property and now that there are so many foreclosures and short sales he often travels to look at property.’
Or that’s what he tells her, Raveneau thought. Fame didn’t know much more. He left them six ways to get hold of him and asked who he should call about his GPS. Raveneau handed him a card.
‘Call me.’
In the late afternoon the Oakland detectives stopped by.
‘It’s confirmed that the pickup that burned was the vehicle that struck her,’ Stalos said. ‘And we’ve interviewed the girlfriend again and she told us Bates said his marriage was over. He promised they’d be together in about a year. He’d ask for a divorce soon and she just had to ride it out.’
They glanced at each other and predictably it was Hendricks who stepped in to ask the harder question.
‘We interviewed you and then he came to see you. Did you call him when you left us?’
‘No. He was there when I got home, but if you know he came to see me you must have had a tail on him, so you already knew that.’
‘Why did he visit you?’
‘Because he knew you two had been to our office. He put it together.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘Nothing that compromises what you’re doing.’
They went back and forth like this and the whole thing left a bad taste. At some point la Rosa tapped him on the shoulder and he stepped out to talk to her.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I’m beat. Deborah Lafaye trips me out. Walnut Creek is about ready to charge a kid with the Becker shooting that the media insists Stoltz did, and these Oakland detectives are trying to lean on us. I’ve got to clear my head; I’m going to go take a run.’
When la Rosa got home she changed into running clothes and walked downstairs and out into the cool twilight. She debated going to her gym but that meant driving and traffic, and the air was so nice tonight it didn’t seem worth being inside. Better to run out toward Golden Gate Park than pound away on a gym treadmill.
She started jogging. She was tired, distracted, and her mind on the Bates conversation and this new connection with Erin Quinn and Deborah Lafaye. She toyed with the idea of Lafaye wanting Jurika dead because of what she knew about her past.
She picked up her pace a little as she came through the intersection at Lincoln and then was into Golden Gate Park, running on a path dark now in the dusk. She left the path and ran down a street barricaded to vehicle traffic. When she didn’t work out she tended to pick up weight on her upper thighs and rear, and now she thought she could feel fat breaking up as the muscles stretched. She wanted to get into her best shape. Not only did she like the way it felt, but her thinking was also clearest when she was fit. She had more stamina, needed less sleep, and didn’t crave sweets the same way.
As she left the park she cut west of the panhandle and on to Haight Street, figured she’d bear right and do some hills before walking home. She crossed Haight-Ashbury thinking of Raveneau and his stories about the city during the Sixties, and talking about how the department had changed in the years he’d been there; the little bar with the American flag behind it that used to open at five in the afternoon each day, and that the chiefs would sometimes stop by. She couldn’t picture Grainer doing that or any of the brass she’d met, but Raveneau also said it was better now. She thought of Grainer’s last advice.
‘There’s a danger in working too long in any one aspect of the department. We’ve all seen the sergeant who’s been sitting too long at a desk. Alliances get made, favors done, and a status quo settles in. In Inspector Raveneau’s case, and this is not for outside this room, he’s used to doing things his way. But, unfortunately, the city has changed. That’s why his solve rate is down. That’s why you two are together, his broad experience and knowledge