A Killing in China Basin - By Kirk Russell Page 0,51
watching, same as he probably does driving around and filming. And he’s weirdly fixated on that building. I’m back to believing it could be him and he purposely misled us with the wrong room and wire instead of rope. He’s played us.’
They continued the debate on the drive over to Jurika’s apartment. Gloria was out front when they arrived. Her sister’s body was released to her this morning and she had asked to meet at the apartment. Raveneau wasn’t sure what that was about, but once they got inside she confessed, ‘I knew more than I told you last time. The cousin I told you about, Julie, she told me that she and Alex have used other people’s credit cards for years. She bragged about it when I confronted her in Phoenix. She said she didn’t think it was wrong since the cardholder doesn’t get stuck with the bill. She thought it was OK to cheat the credit card company.’
‘You more or less did tell us that,’ Raveneau said, ‘and we figured out the rest.’
‘Last January, Julie showed up in Los Angeles in a new full length leather coat, and I mean a really nice coat, light, high quality leather, a really pretty black – a five thousand dollar coat. I threatened her with all kinds of things and that’s when she told me her part was to keep an apartment rented where the credit card bills came and to pay them online under an account opened in a false name. She also told me the cards all came from older people with money. They had some way of getting them. If you want me to, I’ll call her right now.’
Now she had their attention. Raveneau was quiet waiting for more when la Rosa said, ‘Why don’t I call her? I’ve talked to her already. She knows me.’
She pulled her phone out and sat down on a kitchen chair. Raveneau watched her punch the numbers in, heard a faint ringing and la Rosa asked, ‘Is this Julie? It is, good, because this is Inspector la Rosa in San Francisco.’
La Rosa caught Raveneau’s eye and speaking to Julie Candiff said, ‘You remember me. That’s wonderful. What’s your day like tomorrow, Julie? We need you to fly out here tomorrow unless you want to come here this afternoon. We’re standing here with Gloria and she’s just told us what you told her and that means you lied to me, which really makes me angry. We’re trying to solve the murder of your cousin and you’re obstructing justice. We can contact the Phoenix police and ask them to help us, or you can book a flight and call me back and tell me what time you’re going to get in. What do you want to do?’
Raveneau didn’t have to overhear much conversation to realize Julie wasn’t going for the idea of flying here.
‘OK, then should I ask the Phoenix police to pick you up and hold you for us?’ la Rosa asked. She was still on the phone with her when Raveneau moved into Alex’s bedroom with Gloria, who sat down on the bed and started to cry.
‘I always thought it would be OK in the end. I thought she would eventually come home and somehow she’d turn back into the sweet little sister I used to have. I really don’t understand what happened to her.’
She pulled hair back from her face. She wiped her eyes.
‘There’s something else. I told you she emailed me and asked to borrow money, but I didn’t tell you that she also called me. That was two days before she died. She called me at work and I wouldn’t take her call.’
Now she wept, her face in her hands, and Raveneau sat down on the bed alongside her. For several minutes he didn’t say anything. He just sat with her. Then as she got a hold of herself he spoke.
‘I had an older brother named Donny and we went everywhere together as kids. He was two and a half years older and I was always trying to keep up and compete with him. Donny got drafted and sent to Vietnam when he was nineteen. Before he went to boot camp he was this happy go lucky, handsome young kid the girls fell all over because he could also play the guitar like nothing else and was in a band. When he came back from Nam he was completely changed and had a heroin habit. He’d become an addict,