A Killing in China Basin - By Kirk Russell Page 0,48

his coffee. ‘And there’s no DNA evidence.’

‘That’s why he confessed to it, and I’m sure that’s him in the video. I know his look, I know his walk.’

‘That’s not good enough, Inspector. You arrested and held him once already for five or six days, and you’ve already searched his house. I can understand why he worries you and why you’re focused on him, but you haven’t given me enough.’

‘We have reasons to focus on him.’

‘I’m sure you do, but good reasons or not, you don’t have enough for another warrant. This camcorder or videotape arrangement attached to his van is very disturbing, as is the tape he shot, but you’ve got to bring me something closer to probable cause.’

Raveneau picked up the coffee. He didn’t want coffee but he did want to buy time.

‘Let me try again. Maybe I didn’t write it up well. I thought he was off-balanced and possibly thrill-seeking when he first came in and confessed. Now I realize the first confession may be part of some larger plan or fantasy. Whether he was our killer in China Basin or not, I think the killing was a catalyst for him. It happened in an area he considers his own. Possibly it’s a way of killing he had fantasized about. A little over a day later he came in to confess—’

The judge was exasperated.

‘I know all of this. You can’t re-churn the same stuff you got the last warrant with.’

‘We need to get in front of him before he acts again. We need to get back in his house and in his van and be more thorough.’

The judge jumped on that. ‘The law doesn’t protect you from lack of thoroughness.’

‘We need another chance to search, your honor.’

‘I’m sorry. I just can’t sign it with what you’ve got. Get me something concrete.’

‘What if I rewrite it?’

The judge shook his head. Raveneau took a sip of the coffee, and then set it down near the kitchen sink. At the door before leaving he said, ‘I’ve been at this more than twenty years and I’ve never really seen a guy quite like this one.’

‘There’s always somebody worse.’

Raveneau nodded. He shut the judge’s front door and went down the steps to his car.

THIRTY-SIX

Raveneau drove through the Tenderloin before going into work. The morning sky was particularly clear and the sunlight bright, high on the buildings ahead. He cruised slowly down Eddy Street, looking for Deschutes, knowing he used to hang here. He was close to giving up when he spotted him sitting on a bench in the park outside City Hall. Deschutes picked up on him as soon as he slowed. He started to leave, then stayed on the bench and watched as Raveneau approached.

‘Man nearly killed the brother of a police officer last night.’

And that’s how Raveneau came to it. Deschutes heard it in a restaurant on Van Ness Street where he’d gone in to get warm and use a bathroom. They had a TV there. He had watched a report of the shooting but fumbled for the name he’d heard. ‘Backer, Beckurt, like that.’

‘Becker?’

‘That’s the one. His brother got shot.’

Raveneau didn’t believe it, but didn’t disbelieve it either. He pulled a five dollar bill from his wallet.

‘Get yourself some breakfast, Jimmy. Where can I find you later?’

‘I’m around.’

‘Where are you going to be?’

‘I’m not going far.’

Outside the gray-faced Hall of Justice five lanes of Bryant Street ran one-way. Many commuters treated the street as a freeway on-ramp, hammering through the yellow lights as they accelerated toward the Bay Bridge ramp a block away. When the light changed, pedestrians jaywalking across the five lanes on their way to the Hall entrance steps sometimes had to run for it. But not today.

Today they wouldn’t have any problem because the TV vans were two lanes deep, blocking traffic as well as access to the alley and the entrances to the bail bond shops and other businesses opposite the Hall. Rubberneckers slowed traffic to a crawl and Raveneau avoided his usual parking spot. He parked six blocks away and walked in.

La Rosa was in conversation with a deputy-chief out in the corridor when Raveneau got off at the fifth floor. From the way they stopped talking as he neared he guessed the deputy-chief was la Rosa’s angel in the brass. Inside Homicide a meeting was underway at the conference table outside the captain’s office.

Becker’s brother, Alan Becker, an attorney in Walnut Creek, was shot and badly wounded by an unidentified assailant as he unloaded