A Killing in China Basin - By Kirk Russell Page 0,76
he’d found and Raveneau cut off the riff and asked, ‘Can you keep getting us in?’
‘I can get you in no problem, but it’s getting faster at getting me out. I don’t have a clue how it’s learning.’
He got them in forty-two times over the next two and a half hours and they experimented, tried printing out when the screen held letters, but the paper came out blank. The tech called friends of his and they didn’t seem to be able to help, and he mumbled something about needing the government guys.
They drank more coffee, read more, and dawn came. Some of the entries were only a few words and it was hard to make sense of why he even bothered. ‘Tomorrow is go night,’ read one entered the day before Whitacre died. They read ‘He will be the last,’ and Raveneau wondered aloud, ‘Who gets the honor?’
‘You’re the one he missed,’ she said. ‘I think it should be you.’
‘For waking you up tonight?’
‘For that and other reasons.’
‘To take care of that retirement problem.’
‘Yeah, that’s it, and then I’ll catch him and bring him in. From there it’ll be an easy rise to chief.’
‘What if you find out you want to stay on the homicide detail?’
She didn’t answer that. Another entry read, ‘It’s probable she knows something about where she is.’
Was he talking about Jurika? That entry jumped out at him. He copied down each as they read them. More techs arrived and Raveneau and la Rosa broke from the computer and put together a new search warrant app. They expanded it to all vehicles owned by Cody Stoltz and listed computers in both his and his mother’s house, citing the encryption as a reason he might commandeer his mother’s computer without her knowledge. They faxed it to the judge on-call this weekend.
Later that morning, Walnut Creek police got the DNA match they were looking for and charged the ex-boyfriend with Alan Becker’s murder. Raveneau phoned the Walnut Creek detective who’d called SF Homicide with his news.
He asked, ‘How strong is your DNA connection?’
‘It’s not the best but we’ve got him either way.’
‘Did you get a confession?’
‘No, but we will. Becker humiliated him in an argument over the daughter. He admits to that and to taking a swing before Becker decked him.’
‘We have some new information that plays in.’
‘We’ve already got our guy, but whatever you have I’d like to hear it.’
‘You may have the wrong guy. You may want to go slow on it.’
‘I don’t know about that, but I’m all ears.’
‘It won’t be until later today, but I can tell you we found a laptop yesterday and what we’ve seen so far suggests it was Cody Stoltz in Walnut Creek.’
‘Like I said, show me.’
‘What’s a good number to reach you at?’
He copied down the detective’s cell number and then drove over to Lafaye’s office to re-interview her. Her office was one block off Sacramento in an upscale area down the hill and west of Pacific Heights. A gray redwood gate faced the street. On it was a brass plaque listing the businesses inside, and beyond the gate was a shady brick courtyard with a koi pond and a garden of succulent plants. Lafaye’s office was up a flight of stairs in the back. He knew from their lunch together that her office wasn’t in the main foundation building. This office was a perk the foundation directors allowed her and the main foundation headquarters on Mason were considerably more austere. She had talked about the garden here and how it calmed her.
When he saw the splintered door jamb he didn’t bother to knock. He pushed the door open and stepped into a carpeted reception area with a lot of maple paneling and cabinets. Nothing looked out of place and he walked through into a conference room, and then what he guessed was Lafaye’s office, where a computer lay on its side, panel off, hard drive missing. Two file cabinets had been pried open and when he tried calling her house and cell both went to voice mail. Then he called it in as a burglary and took several photos as he talked with la Rosa.
‘I’ve got to wait here for the burglary guys,’ he said. ‘And I called her foundation. No one has talked to her since yesterday afternoon. We need to swing by her house. Why don’t you go by there and then meet me here? Get a patrol unit to back you up.’