A Killing in China Basin - By Kirk Russell Page 0,20

2009 Ford 150 pickup was torched between warehouses just west of 880. They left the Oakland detectives and drove there. Fire vehicles and two police cruisers sat close to the burned chassis. Heat still radiated off the truck. The air stank of melted plastic, gasoline, and burning rubber, but they saw the crumpled right front fender and they left there with the name of the registered owner, a Thanh Nguyen with a Van Nuys address in southern California.

Later they’d learn that address didn’t exist when Nguyen or someone using that name bought the vehicle. The house address had existed but was demolished for a road expansion project in 2008. What that meant Raveneau didn’t know yet.

SIXTEEN

Before dawn the next day Raveneau drove to Lincoln Park Golf Course, paid the fee, and rented a cart. On the first tee three old boys cut the chill by spiking their coffee with brandy. Cigar smoke mingled with the smells of newly mown grass and alcohol. One gaffer pointed a glowing cigar tip at Raveneau.

‘Tee off,’ he said. ‘Play through us; we’re just marking time until the end.’

Raveneau had brought a handful of his old clubs, a three-wood and some rusted irons, but he wasn’t here to play. A groundskeeper who worked here remained a prime suspect in one of his unsolved cases, one that pre-dated la Rosa. He hoped to find the man, Ray Bryce, cutting grass. Not that he had any new reason to interview Bryce. He was only here to let Bryce know he hadn’t forgotten.

He teed off and as his first shot sliced into the trees the old boys hooted and offered to spike his coffee. The cigar smoker gave him some free advice as he got in the cart to leave.

‘Don’t count the first two shots and slow down.’

Bryce migrated west after serving six years in a Virginia prison for attempted rape. He’d arrived in California fourteen years ago and found work as an electrician’s apprentice. When Raveneau looked at him for the Angela Ruiz murder and started unpeeling his past, he discovered Bryce had been questioned in southern California in 1998 after the disappearance of a thirteen-year-old girl who’d lived down the block from him in El Cajon. Three weeks after the girl’s body was found, Bryce moved north to San Francisco.

Raveneau found Bryce working on the tenth green. When Bryce saw who it was he got off his mower and said, ‘You can’t do this to me.’

‘I’m not doing anything to you. I’ve got an open homicide that happened here and I’m going to work it until I solve it. You can understand me doing my job, can’t you, Ray?’

Bryce’s claim was he’d stopped his mower pre-dawn and gone up into trees between two fairways to urinate. He’d relieved himself no more than five feet from her body and claimed he hadn’t noticed her until after he’d finished.

This morning his black work boots were speckled with wet grass clippings and his knees wet. He smelled like fertilizer and as Raveneau teed up a ball he was unsure for a moment what Bryce would do next. What he did was hop on his mower and drive down the path to the green Raveneau was playing toward. When Raveneau chipped on to the green Bryce stooped and picked the ball up. He put it in his pocket, flipped Raveneau off, and drove away.

With that, Raveneau turned around and took the cart back to the clubhouse. He took a call from la Rosa as he pulled away from Lincoln Park.

‘Two San Jose detectives are with Heilbron right now. How far away are you?’

‘Ten minutes.’

Raveneau missed most of their interview but got there in time to hear them tell Heilbron that the DNA had turned up and this was his last chance for a plea bargain.

‘We’ll have results tomorrow, so you’re at the decision point, bud. Come clean and we’ll go to the DA and make sure he understands you cooperated.’

Raveneau knew this wasn’t going anywhere but he watched Heilbron closely, especially after la Rosa went into the interview box. Heilbron focused on her as she sat down. He answered the San Jose detectives’ questions while looking at her. When she ignored him and left the room his face changed, became completely impassive, his dark eyes unreadable.

At two that afternoon they cut Heilbron loose and the crime lab released his van, though not before showing la Rosa and Raveneau the hole drilled for the camcorder mounted inside at the rear of