A Killing in China Basin - By Kirk Russell Page 0,28
as he realized that was why Bates wanted to talk, and he took a step closer to him.
‘Charles, listen to me, you’re hurting but you’re going too far too fast here. I don’t have anything on Stoltz. Yes, there’s a window of time he could have acted in, but that’s it. You’ve been through a terrible thing, but you’ve got to step back.’
Bates couldn’t be convinced. His grief blocked his view of the outside world. He turned from Raveneau and walked to his car. La Rosa was waiting as Raveneau returned.
‘Still want to stop at Heilbron’s?’ she asked.
‘I think so.’
‘What are you hoping to get out of it?’
‘We make our presence felt.’
‘Like the guy who works at the golf course?’
Raveneau was still thinking about Bates but he was listening. La Rosa didn’t want to hitch on to a potential harassment claim and he didn’t see it that way at all. He saw Heilbron as confessing to a rape he almost certainly did and a murder he wished he’d done, and might have.
‘We want to keep the conversation going with him. We want to keep an element of the unexpected in our presence.’
‘OK, but I’m going to throw this out there. I don’t think this is smart. We’ve been to a memorial service. I think we should head back to the Hall and go home.’
Heilbron’s van was out front of the house in South San Francisco. He didn’t open the door until Raveneau knocked a second and a third time. When the door opened Heilbron looked like he’d just awakened.
‘We’ve been looking over the video you took,’ Raveneau said. ‘OK if we come in and talk about it?’
Heilbron didn’t answer and for a moment the only noise was the TV in the background. He wore gray sweat pants, a long-sleeved T-shirt and sandals. His breath was terrible, and it didn’t look like he’d shaved or bathed since they’d released him.
‘We’re not here to take you back in. We looked at what you caught with your camera. You filmed two people outside the building the night of the murder. We’re trying to figure out if our victim was one of the people.’
Heilbron stepped back and waved them in. Raveneau sat down on a couch. La Rosa took a chair, and Heilbron turned off the TV. This time he didn’t turn and stare at la Rosa. He looked at something behind them and said, ‘I hate police.’
Raveneau nodded as if that was normal and asked, ‘Didn’t we treat you fairly? We went down to the building with you. We took you seriously about the San Jose rape and called the detectives who handled the case. If we could have charged you after you confessed to the murder, we would have. We just didn’t have the evidence and then you recanted. You made our job even tougher when you recanted. Now we need your help.’
La Rosa shot him a look of disbelief, but Raveneau was determined to try this.
‘You were there when two people went through the gate.’
‘They were already through.’
‘When you drove up?’
‘No, I was already parked down the street when they got there and I didn’t want to follow them in. One of them was hurt, probably her. She was walking funny and he was helping her.’
‘It was a man helping her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could you tell anything about him?’
‘He was too far away. They were around the corner by the time I got up to the gate.’ He turned toward la Rosa and made eye contact as he added, ‘They moved into the darkness before I reached the gate.’
‘What about a car?’ Raveneau asked.
‘I saw a white Camry or maybe it was a Ford pickup truck with a crushed right front fender.’
Raveneau knew the type of truck that struck Jacie Bates was public knowledge. Heilbron no doubt got it from the TV. He didn’t react, didn’t show Heilbron anything, and neither did la Rosa.
‘You saw a Camry?’
‘Might have been a Honda Civic.’
‘Did you see the man leave the building?’
‘I left after twenty minutes.’
‘Do you feel pretty sure it was around twenty minutes?’
‘Might have been twenty-one and a half or twenty-two minutes. Let me think about it and get back to you.’
Raveneau nodded and said, ‘So twenty-two minutes and you don’t know what kind of car. But here’s the part I don’t understand, you say they were going around the corner when you got up to the gate. Is that right?’
‘Did I say that?’
He smiled at them and Raveneau said, ‘Yes, that’s what you said