A Killing in China Basin - By Kirk Russell Page 0,22
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 and said, ‘Across the street they think they’re on to a big story and they may end up feeding the ego of the killer if there is a connection, so I want all of you to be more careful.’
No one made any cracks as he said that. No one wanted to get bit by Ramirez. As the meeting ended he motioned for Raveneau to follow him into his office.
‘What were you doing at Lincoln Park this morning?’
‘Checking on a suspect.’
‘Does that mean you have new evidence, a new lead, or what does it mean? I’m asking because Mr Bryce filed with the Office of Citizen Complaints and then called here to let us know. They’ll want to know why you went by there. He’s claiming you’re harassing him.’
‘Someday I’ll arrest him for murder.’
‘Well, you haven’t arrested anybody for that lately. You inspectors think you’re immune, but I’ll tell you right now, you’re not. You’re out chasing this guy around a golf course and I’m taking the blowback. I don’t like that. We need investigative results, not harassment complaints. You can take that message back out with you.’
‘I’ll let you deliver it, sir; you’re better at it.’
Late in the afternoon Lieutenant Becker took Raveneau aside and asked, ‘What did you say to Ramirez?’
‘That I’ve got a stack of General Orders on my desk and three memos about the next shooting qualification day, and that if we got rid of those we’d have more time for golf.’
Becker looked perturbed, then annoyed.
‘You don’t want to alienate Ramirez. It’s not worth it, and you of all people know that. So I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but if you push too hard right now you’re going to wake up one morning in Idaho, living in a little one-room cabin next door to your old partner, Kidd.
‘Every morning the two of you can chop wood together in the bitter cold before the sun comes up, and then warm up in the town café eating eggs, bacon, and a stack of pancakes, eating your way to a heart attack before you spend your afternoon on a little boat on some wind-fucking-driven mountain lake with your war stories and your fishing poles. I hear it gets to fifty below where Kidd is, so you’ll have ice fishing to look forward to as well. And you’ll have your satellite dish. You’ve got to have that.
‘They’re pushing hard from above. They’re pushing so hard I don’t know if it wasn’t someone in the brass who called the press today, and I can guarantee this: If the solve rate doesn’t go up around here, a sea change is coming and seniority isn’t going to mean—’
They never finished their conversation and that was fine with Raveneau, and for that matter he was glad he got under Bryce’s skin. La Rosa waved him over. She was on the phone to the crime lab and covered the mouthpiece.
‘They’ve got a copy for us of the video off the camcorder in Heilbron’s van. They think there’s footage shot in China Basin. Do we want to