A Killing in China Basin - By Kirk Russell Page 0,82

la Rosa’s eyes.

‘With Cody and me it built up to a boiling point, and then one afternoon we just tore each other’s clothes off, and then there was no going back. After that everything either of us said to John was a lie. We were lying as routinely as breathing and I made excuses so John and I didn’t sleep together any more. I kept myself chaste by avoiding sleeping with my husband. How’s that for classy?’

‘It happens,’ la Rosa said. ‘You’re not alone there and we understand.’

‘I only wanted to be with Cody but I didn’t have the courage to leave John.’

Her right hand came up now, touched her forehead in an odd gesture and then returned to her lap. She shook her head.

‘I didn’t see Alex much after I got married. It seemed like it was Cody, John, and I hanging out together all the time. Everybody liked Alex but it was as though some part of right and wrong was never taught to her. I remember once she used the phone in our apartment to call a friend in London. They talked for two hours and she never told me. I tracked it down through the phone company and the guy in London said he’d been on the phone to Alex. She was like that. She’d apologize and offer to pay but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t do it again tomorrow. Have you ever known anyone like that?’

‘Those are the only people we know,’ Raveneau said. ‘That’s who we hang out with every day.’

That got the faintest smile.

‘Alex had this charisma, this kind of crazy impulsive streak and she’d get you to do things you wouldn’t otherwise. I was jealous of her because guys gravitated toward her. I’m trying to think of an example . . . OK, here’s one. We go to a hotel up on Nob Hill, one of the stuffy ones, you know, boring, and as we’re leaving some woman is dropping her Mercedes with the valet. I remember she had this perfect blonde hair and the Mercedes was this gold-colored two-seater. The doorman was helping somebody else and when this woman got out of her car she wanted the valet to carry a package in. Her car was sitting there with the driver’s door open and the engine still running and Alex turned to me and said, “We don’t need a cab after all. We’ll just borrow this. Get in.”

‘We drove it to within a couple of blocks of another bar on Union Street and then left it with the keys in it and walked away.’

Her chest heaved as she sighed and said, ‘Now comes the part that’s not in your police files on John’s murder. You know we went to dinner and then went back to the apartment. We’d all done lines of coke. We drank more and John fell asleep. The inspectors asked if we’d done any drugs and I said only John had. If they’d tested me or Cody we would have come back positive. But those inspectors wanted to believe me.’

‘Inspectors Whitacre and Bates.’

‘Yes. We’d been talking about a weekend trip that we’d planned to take together to Mendocino; or rather Cody and I were talking. We were holding each other in the kitchen because we thought John was asleep and then he walked in and caught us. When he did, Cody pretended it was nothing, but John wigged out. The marriage ended when he walked in. Everything ended. Then Cody said he was leaving and John asked if he wanted to kiss me goodbye first. He should have left right then, but he didn’t. He kissed me long and hard and then walked out the door. That’s Cody, and of course John went crazy and followed him down. Cody wanted the confrontation. He knew John would follow and he knew the guns were in the cars. I was supposed to back up his story about the mugger, but I couldn’t do it.’

Raveneau saw it now. He knew what she’d say next. ‘So you came up with your own.’

‘That’s right; I came up with my own version. How did you know that?’

‘Tell us what happened.’

‘I don’t know what was said in the parking lot, but Cody was ready. Earlier in the night he told me he was going to be ready if something happened later. Somehow he made it happen and I know he must have shot John. I heard the shots, and when I went downstairs Cody was