A Killing in China Basin - By Kirk Russell Page 0,31
nonsense. She nodded as Raveneau showed her a photo.
‘That’s her, and she wasn’t the most honest employee, but she was always fun.’ After a pause she added, ‘She got fired for stealing.’
Fired for stealing credit card numbers, but never arrested and prosecuted according to the former boss they talked to that afternoon. ‘Hiring her was like catching a bad cold on a plane. In the end it didn’t hurt us much, but it was shitty while it lasted.’
They read about her all afternoon and finally got on her Facebook page, then started contacting her Facebook friends, none of whom had contacted the police on their own. Late in the afternoon they went back to the apartment building and made another search for the green Toyota Camry registered to her. At seven that night Raveneau said, ‘Why don’t you come over? I’ll cook dinner and we’ll keep working.’
When la Rosa arrived she spotted the cat exploring the roof.
‘Isn’t that Jurika’s cat?’
‘Yeah, I couldn’t leave it there.’ When the cat ran back over he picked it up and showed her the name tag, Visa. La Rosa smiled, shook her head.
He fired up the barbecue as la Rosa checked out how he lived. At 10:30, just as they called it a night, Raveneau’s landline rang. He saw Celeste’s name on the screen and remembered they were going to try to see each other tonight if it all worked out. With everything happening today he forgot to call her late this afternoon.
‘Celeste, I’m sorry, I saw the message light blinking when I got home, but we caught a break in a case today and I’ve been caught up in that.’
‘Are you still working on it?’
‘Just finishing.’
In the background la Rosa laughed at something the cat did.
‘Who’s that?’
‘My partner. She came over for dinner so we could keep working. We got an ID on that woman in China Basin I told you about. We know who she is now.’
‘I didn’t know you had a woman as a partner.’
La Rosa laughed again and when he looked over the cat was jumping up two to three feet straight up off the deck.
‘She sounds young.’
‘You’ve got a good ear if you can tell that, but you’re right.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Elizabeth.’
‘Pretty name.’
He looked at la Rosa as he answered, knew she was tracking the conversation and said, ‘Yes, it is a pretty name. Too bad her personality doesn’t match it.’
La Rosa smiled and Celeste said, ‘Have fun, I’ll talk to you later.’
A moment later she hung up.
TWENTY-THREE
The first words of the older sister of the victim, Gloria Jurika, were, ‘I’m not surprised.’
But she was surprised and shocked and had trouble talking. She declined Raveneau’s offer to pick her up at the airport and didn’t call his cell until she reached the Hall of Justice. He found her downstairs standing alone twenty feet from the elevators, the black hair, wide forehead and thin nose unmistakably similar to her sister’s. People walked past her and around her; she seemed in a space all her own until he touched her shoulder.
‘Gloria, I’m Inspector Raveneau.’
‘Will you take me to see her?’
‘Let’s go upstairs first.’
In the office Gloria Jurika said the last communication from her sister was an email asking to borrow fifty thousand dollars. A moment later she added, ‘Fifty thousand is all of my savings. The last time I loaned her money she didn’t pay it back. Do you think she was killed over money?’
‘We don’t have any idea yet. We’re hoping you can help us.’
‘She also tried to borrow from mom. She flew down, went to the nursing home, and got mom to sign a check. One of the employees at the nursing home called me and I put a stop on it. That was about a week and a half ago. Before that, Alex hadn’t visited mom in two and a half years.’
‘What did she do for work here? Tell us about her.’
‘I don’t know what she did for work. She wouldn’t tell me.’ After a pause she added, ‘Alex never finished high school.’
‘We’ve got some email addresses we’d like you to look at. These are out of her computer, people we haven’t contacted yet, but maybe you’ll recognize somebody. We’ve also run her name through some of our systems and haven’t come up with any criminal record. Do you know of any criminal arrests in her past?’
‘There was one before she left home. That was about drug dealing but it was pretty minor, though in our family we’ve never known