A Killing in China Basin - By Kirk Russell Page 0,85
hard to stay with her.’
After seeming to drive with no real direction, she drove out to Ocean Beach, where she parked and walked the sand, her hair blowing sideways in the wind.
‘She’s either killing time or doesn’t know where she’s going to go next. I don’t think she faked being distraught.’
Now she came back to the car and sat there. Finally, the brake lights flashed and then she backed out. She started tracking back through the city and once again it seemed aimless.
La Rosa came back with a driver’s license address for a PO Box at Bucks Lake.
‘Where in the hell is that?’ she asked.
‘North of Tahoe along the Feather River. There are places up there you could hole up.’
Quinn drove toward the southwestern corner of San Francisco and parked in the big lot above Lake Merced. In the late afternoon the lot had a modest amount of cars, not many, and she was up against the railing, looking across the lake at the golf course that rimmed the far side. Down at the end of the gray-green lake was a boathouse. The lake rippled with wind. Raveneau got the feeling she was waiting for somebody and scanned the vehicles in the lot again, working from one to the next with his binoculars. There were only three vehicles he couldn’t see into.
Off to his right an elderly Chinese couple came up the stairs from the path below that ran around Lake Merced. They moved slowly toward their car. Less than a minute later a young woman with black hair almost down to her waist backed a baby stroller up the stairs, working the stroller on two wheels as though it was luggage. She rested at the top, leaned over and talked to the child in the stroller. Quinn didn’t pay any attention to her. Then a dark blue chopped Honda Accord with chrome wheels pulled in and drove toward the railing. She turned and looked at it but the Honda driver didn’t stop. He wheeled around and left.
Another ten minutes passed. Raveneau talked with la Rosa and then picked up on a mountain biker coming in from his left. The rider wore a red helmet, bike gear, wraparound sunglasses, and got Raveneau’s attention as he slowed near Quinn. He checked out the rest of the lot as he got off his bike. Quinn turned and stared at him as he slid a small pack off his back and unzipped it.
Now Quinn started to back up and Raveneau said, ‘It’s the mountain biker. He’s made contact and she’s scared. She backed up as he approached her.’
‘Is it him?’
‘Body is right, it could be, but I need him to turn. He’s standing very close to her. He may have a gun or a knife. I’m going to have to get closer.’
Raveneau’s view was blocked as Quinn and the man moved away from the guard rail, the man standing too close to her as they came alongside a car and then disappeared alongside a new GMC van. When the bike rider came into view again he was alone and Raveneau called out, ‘It’s Stoltz! He’s got her in a van and he’s getting in. I’ll stay behind him but we’re going to need everybody. I think he’s armed and I don’t think she wanted to go with him. We don’t want this to turn into a chase. They’ve got to shut the road down. I’m southbound on Lake Merced Boulevard.’ He looked over at the sign.
‘Just passing Brotherhood Way and accelerating. He’s jumping on it. Get me backup, get them out here fast. He’s on his way somewhere.’
He said the next more to himself than her. ‘We should have seen this,’ he added, and then focused on the road.
FIFTY-NINE
She sat on the floor of the van, knees drawn up, head bowed but refusing to answer him. At the lake she didn’t run or scream. She did exactly what he told her to, as if she’d expected him, as if she always knew it would happen like this, and that both angered him and gave him confidence. He turned to look through the steel mesh. The van’s tall rear doors had no interior handles and were heavy duty and reinforced against theft. The mesh behind his head was sturdy. She really was his now.
‘Erin.’
She said nothing.
‘We’re going to talk,’ he said, and pulled off the road, drove to the corner of a shopping mall lot.