A Killing in China Basin - By Kirk Russell Page 0,62
He wanted the mileage on the car as it left the lot. He got that, 39,334.
After thanking the salesman and hanging up he used Google Maps to get the distance from the dealership to Stoltz’s mother’s house. Stoltz was a mile short of there when he was taken down. Now he called the Department of Motor Vehicles and got a list of other vehicles, cars and boats in the name of Steven Pullman. He sat back, thought about it, and then made another call and got the answer he expected.
‘If he’s paying his bills as Steven Pullman no judge is going to hold him on an illegal social security number and an alias on a credit card. In this state, if we started locking up people with illegal social security numbers we’d have to build a jail every fifteen minutes.’
As he hung up, he thought more about Heilbron and the case they were building against him, and then what was already starting to click suddenly made even more sense. It fit. It was too much to be coincidence. If Lafaye was telling the truth about buying Erin Quinn’s identity from Alex Jurika, and they had that clear link to Stoltz’s past, what if the Steven Pullman identity was also bought through Jurika?
By late afternoon he had a full record of everywhere the Pullman Visa had ever been used. He wrote up a request for a search warrant for Stoltz’s residence and vehicles. As he finished la Rosa walked back in.
‘You’re not going there without me,’ she said.
‘I wouldn’t want to. Let’s see those stitches.’ He wrapped an arm around her after looking at them, then said, ‘OK, partner, let’s go see the judge.’
Los Altos police assisted and taped the road off as Raveneau drank coffee and ate a tuna sandwich. Then he and la Rosa walked down the gravel drive toward the guest house. A string of low landscape lights marked the way. He looked at the dark hills beyond and the pool and tennis courts and the lawyer waiting for them in the light of the open front door. Raveneau introduced himself and la Rosa to the lawyer. She had a direct look and seemed to have a genuine interest in protecting her client. She read the warrant carefully as Raveneau shook open a pair of latex gloves and put them on slowly.
FORTY-FIVE
Last time Raveneau was in Phoenix was to interview a witness on a July afternoon when the temperature tagged one hundred and fifteen degrees and he made the mistake of leaving a printout of a photo on the passenger seat of the rental car. The photo curled and faded in the baking heat inside. Left in there long enough it probably would have caught fire. But this was November and the morning was clear and cool. A light wind blew off the desert. He’d slept on the plane and felt rested.
The search yesterday of Stoltz’s house yielded a few papers and documents la Rosa would follow up on today from the office. But he doubted anything would come of what they had found. Stoltz was ready for a search. He’d anticipated it. That was Raveneau’s take-away.
He called la Rosa and let her know he’d landed and was pulling into the shopping mall where Julie Candiff worked as an assistant manager in a boutique clothing store. He found Candiff soon after walking in and asked her, ‘Do you have someone who can cover for you for a couple of hours?’
‘I’ll get fired if I leave the store.’
‘The police are going to let us use an interview room at a precinct near here. You can ride with me or drive yourself. That’s up to you.’
She stood up to him now. She looked little like her cousin, blonde hair to her shoulders, a small turned up nose and carefully made-up eyes.
‘You really don’t care about what happens with my job, do you?’
‘Maybe I’ll care more when I get to know you better.’
She disappeared for several minutes, and then was in a hurry to get out of the store so others didn’t find out who he was or where she was going. At the Squaw Peak Precinct she said, ‘All I ever did was rent the apartment. I never handled any money or any credit cards, or opened any of the mail that came there.’
‘The problem is we have hundreds of emails and text messages between you and Alex. In fifty of them you’re talking about the things you bought.’