A Killing in China Basin - By Kirk Russell Page 0,56
forward sooner.
‘He made a couple of stops for gas and food and then stopped at a state park. I’ve got a map; I’ll show you where he stopped.’
He unfolded the map and tapped on the park’s location.
‘I thought maybe he had something hidden there.’
‘In the park?’
‘Sure, he walked up a trail. Tell me why he’d be doing that on a drive north from LA? He’d disappeared so I got under his vehicle and attached a GPS unit. He must have seen me. He stopped at a shopping mall, detached it, and put it on a CHP cruiser. I didn’t figure that out until I started tailing the highway patrol officer. He was out on Highway Five jumping up to speeds of one hundred and then down to zero when he pulled somebody over. It took me twenty miles to figure out what was going on. By then I’d lost Stoltz.’
No one laughed this time, but Raveneau asked, ‘Why didn’t you ask for the GPS when you were right there?’
‘He would have been suspicious and I would have lost more time. I got the car number.’
‘Show us the park,’ Raveneau said, ‘and where you last saw him.’
Raveneau looked at the park location on the map and then asked him the name of the shopping center. La Rosa googled Valley Meadows Center and then its distance from the park, 29.7 miles, about one hour from Walnut Creek.
‘Look, I may sound like an idiot for what happened with the GPS, but he didn’t get past me when he left LAX and I heard on the news LAPD lost him. I’m just here to tell you that I know he came north in a Nissan he rented at Hertz. I’ve got the plates.’
He gave them those and la Rosa left the interview box. Captain Ramirez stood as well but didn’t leave the room.
‘Let’s go back to Mrs Stoltz. What else did she tell you about her son?’
‘That he owns a dozen or more vehicles, though I can’t find them and she doesn’t know where he stores them. That he has money, he’s not dependent on her. He has an inheritance from his father and got some sort of signing bonus where he’s working right now. She said he’s afraid of you. He thinks you’re lazy and incompetent and will frame him.’
‘So, corrupt as well.’
‘I guess so.’
‘What else?’
‘He’s into property and now that there are so many foreclosures and short sales he often travels to look at property.’
Or that’s what he tells her, Raveneau thought. Fame didn’t know much more. He left them six ways to get hold of him and asked who he should call about his GPS. Raveneau handed him a card.
‘Call me.’
In the late afternoon the Oakland detectives stopped by.
‘It’s confirmed that the pickup that burned was the vehicle that struck her,’ Stalos said. ‘And we’ve interviewed the girlfriend again and she told us Bates said his marriage was over. He promised they’d be together in about a year. He’d ask for a divorce soon and she just had to ride it out.’
They glanced at each other and predictably it was Hendricks who stepped in to ask the harder question.
‘We interviewed you and then he came to see you. Did you call him when you left us?’
‘No. He was there when I got home, but if you know he came to see me you must have had a tail on him, so you already knew that.’
‘Why did he visit you?’
‘Because he knew you two had been to our office. He put it together.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘Nothing that compromises what you’re doing.’
They went back and forth like this and the whole thing left a bad taste. At some point la Rosa tapped him on the shoulder and he stepped out to talk to her.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I’m beat. Deborah Lafaye trips me out. Walnut Creek is about ready to charge a kid with the Becker shooting that the media insists Stoltz did, and these Oakland detectives are trying to lean on us. I’ve got to clear my head; I’m going to go take a run.’
When la Rosa got home she changed into running clothes and walked downstairs and out into the cool twilight. She debated going to her gym but that meant driving and traffic, and the air was so nice tonight it didn’t seem worth being inside. Better to run out toward Golden Gate Park than pound away on a gym treadmill.