A Killing in China Basin - By Kirk Russell Page 0,36
at him and asked, ‘You twist your ankle when he took a shot at you?’
‘No, I’m just sore because I got a little exercise. I’m not used to it.’
The cops laughed.
‘Anything else you want us to do?’
‘No, I’m good.’
‘Then we’ll take a drive around. And you think it was a Honda?’
‘Oh, hell, I don’t know, I could barely make out the shape. But it looked like a Honda, probably late model.’
After studying the damage to the door, Raveneau wrote a note for the owner. He’d give him a call in the morning. Around the deadbolt the door was badly dented and the lock had been all but hammered off. Han would need to replace it all tomorrow. When he got back up to the apartment it was 4:30 and he was too wired up to go back to sleep. He showered, dressed, made coffee and drove into work.
There, he found a note from CSI. They’d gotten a hit on the second set of prints taken from Jurika’s apartment and came up with a Deborah Lafaye, who’d been pulled over on Green Street three years ago and pled guilty to driving under the influence. Through the DUI arrest they had a Fulton Street address in San Francisco. He stared at her name, repeating it silently to himself because there was something familiar. Then he googled her and got it. He clicked on to the website of her charity foundation. The foundation’s stated mission was to bring modern medical techniques and supplies to the world’s poor. He skimmed that, read her bio, looked at photos, and tried to imagine a reason she’d be in Jurika’s apartment. He couldn’t come up with one and continued to click around on the website as he mulled it over.
Then he called la Rosa and woke her up.
‘It’s Saturday,’ she said. ‘What are you doing in there?’
‘I shot baskets for a couple of hours earlier this morning and then I figured I’d just come in and work.’ Now he told her what happened last night. Then he picked up the CSI note and read it to her. ‘CSI got a hit on the second set of prints, a Deborah Lafaye.’
‘The world health foundation, the woman with the fingernails.’
‘You got it right away. I had to google her.’
‘It must be a mistake.’
‘They double-checked it.’
Now she was quiet as she did what he had done, trying to picture this minor celebrity in Jurika’s kitchen. He remembered the fingernail story. Lafaye had most of her nails ripped out in a torture session and she wore the misshapen result like a badge of honor. He’d seen her on a talk show holding her hands up to the cameras, though none of that was on the website.
La Rosa did what he did, took another angle, asking, ‘When was the DUI?’
‘Three years ago as she was driving away from a restaurant. The note says they ran the prints twice, but I’ll check with them again. Then I’m going to call her.’
‘Call me first.’
The prints still came back as Deborah Lafaye’s and la Rosa came into the office. She watched him cross the room and said, ‘The way you’re walking reminds me of my dog when he got so old he could barely stand in the morning. I finally had to have him put to sleep. He was blind by then and he couldn’t hear either. You have reading glasses, don’t you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Did I hurt you?’
‘Listen, I’ve been reading more about Lafaye. She’s a pretty big deal and she’s got some friends with throw weight.’
‘Throw weight?’
‘Yeah, like a missile. It’s a word out of the Cold War, another event you missed. Check out the web page, you’ll see a picture of her with Clinton. Seems like I remember when she started out and it hasn’t been that many years. She’s brought that foundation a long way.’
Like a true cop, la Rosa read the arrest article first, and he made coffee. Though it was Saturday and the office empty but for one interview underway, la Rosa had dressed in a coffee-colored suit and shoes to match. Maybe that was for an anticipated meeting with Lafaye, but who knew whether Lafaye was even in town. He got the impression from the website and everything else that popped up on Google that Lafaye traveled a lot. Seeing her nice clothes reminded him of a period of several years when he’d worn nice suits every day and told people that it was out of respect for the dead.