A Killing in China Basin - By Kirk Russell Page 0,25
then yesterday or the day before the wife of a former homicide inspector was killed in a hit-and-run. Turns out these are the two inspectors who took me down, so because they don’t have any other suspects they’re hassling me.’
Stoltz held his hand up like he was going to swear on a Bible.
‘No, that’s not quite full disclosure. I wrote letters from prison. I was angry. I didn’t write threatening letters or anything like that. I was just trying to get them to reopen the case.’
‘You seem like you’re doing OK,’ Jonathan said, like he was coaching.
‘I’m doing fine.’ Stoltz broke eye contact with Jonathan, glanced at Steve, and then back at Jonathan. ‘I trust you both. I’m thinking of suing them, like bang, overnight a lawsuit if they harass me in any way. What do you think? Is that a stupid idea or should I give it right back to them?’
‘My advice is not going to be what you want to hear,’ Jonathan said, and for a patent attorney he looked pretty pumped up.
‘Mine either,’ Steve threw in but left it to Jonathan.
‘OK, tell me because I trust you guys.’
‘Forget about suing. It’s long, complicated, and you’d probably lose. It’s the job of the police to talk to everybody who might have a grudge against this dead inspector or the wife. Even though it’s hard, the best thing you can do right now is cooperate.’
‘I’m trying but I feel like I should get a lawyer and hit back.’
‘Are you kidding? Always have a lawyer.’ Jonathan smiled, reached over and patted him. ‘How else are we going to make money? Hang in there, they’re just doing what they do, but by all means have a lawyer present. Right, Steve?’
‘I agree with everything he said.’ Steve stood up and said, ‘What do you say we hit the road?’
They all stood and then clicked across the asphalt in their bike shoes.
‘Sorry to put you guys through that,’ Stoltz said before they broke up. He shook hands with both. He knew they’d find reasons never to ride with him again. They wouldn’t hear from him again either, and when he looked in the rear-view mirror as he drove away they were still standing in the lot talking about him. That was all he needed to know.
NINETEEN
Late Tuesday night, a radio unit responding to a report of a robbery and shooting followed a dark blue ’78 Chevrolet Impala with two male occupants down Broderick Street into the Western Addition. When they hit their lights and the Impala didn’t pull over, they went to siren and the car stopped in the middle of the street. That’s where the officer and witness accounts began to differ.
Inside the Impala the man in the passenger seat shielded his eyes from the police spotlight and raised his right hand with an object in it. He didn’t know it but twenty minutes earlier a German tourist was beaten and robbed by a young black male jumping out of the passenger side of an older American car.
Raveneau read the officer’s account of the shooting on Wednesday morning. The men in the Impala were father and son. The father was stable after taking a bullet in the shoulder. His son died on the scene of injuries sustained by two gunshot wounds. Neither was armed and an angry crowd soon gathered. According to the father, his son used a paint brush to block the glare of the spotlight.
After interviewing the young man who claimed he’d met their China Basin victim at a bar, Raveneau and la Rosa drove to the Western Addition and looked at where the shooting had occurred. Most of the city homicides happened in the Mission, Bayview, Tenderloin, or here. Many of the killings stemmed from drug and gang related violence and those living in the affected areas of San Francisco were increasingly disturbed by the inability of the police to stop them. Worse, many believed the police didn’t care much about the residents in these areas and though one of the officers involved last night was black, race would loom large in the debate over what had happened.
Raveneau talked and continued driving after they left the Western Addition. His hands moved as he described parts of the city, the southwest corner, the Richmond where the Asian populations were higher and homicide investigations tended to be complicated by language and often revolved around gambling, loan sharking, and the influence of gangs, some as far away as Shanghai.