A Killing in China Basin - By Kirk Russell Page 0,91
to the police,’ the guard said. ‘How long would it take me to get into Homicide?’
‘Might take you ten years, maybe a little longer, though my partner got there in less.’
‘Get out of here, man, you’re messing with me. Ten years?’
‘There aren’t many openings and the homicide detail isn’t big.’
‘How long you been there?’
‘Forever.’
‘Did you watch CSI?’
‘At least once.’
‘What do you think?’
‘That if we had those people working for the city we could probably get by with just a couple of inspectors, maybe only one.’
He thanked the guard and left him looking out the hole where the kitchen window had been. When he got back to the Hall the press conference was almost over. He passed by it and went up and opened the Reinert murder file to Quinn’s witness statement. It was as he’d remembered. She’d told Whitacre and Bates where her husband had stood and where Stoltz was, and that hadn’t been possible. Not even if she had stood at the window.
He went to see the computer techs and they couldn’t show him what they’d found without first telling him how they’d broken through. But their pride was earned and understandable and he put his impatience aside. What they’d found on the other side of the last firewall was a list of contact names, such as who he’d bought the stolen pickup from in LA, and where he purchased guns, and a list of all the vehicles and aliases, including passport and driver’s license info. There were two houses, one in the town of Brantley in southern California, where he was taking Quinn, and one in the north. Both houses were owned by the same LLC. The house up here was on the road from Calistoga over to Santa Rosa. He read a San Jose address just as la Rosa walked in ebullient from the press conference.
She asked, ‘When did you get back?’
‘A half hour ago, and you were already winding down so I came up here to see what they found.’
‘Did you hear any of the press conference?’
‘No.’
‘They told me I was live on CNN.’
‘That’s great, take a look at this.’
He showed her an address of a building in San Jose and put his coat on.
‘This must be where the cars and whatever else is stored.’
‘The bat cave you were talking about.’
‘Yeah.’
She looked at the address and at Raveneau adjusting his coat and said, ‘Let me tell Ramirez I can’t go to dinner.’
‘Meet you downstairs.’
SIXTY-ONE
A nondescript building, gray stucco walls, flat roof, unpainted sheet metal caps at the parapets, two steel man doors, no windows, and two heavy gauge metal roll-up doors in an industrial section of South San Jose. The sidewalk was wet from showers and the wind was cold as Raveneau walked over to the locksmith’s truck and tapped on the guy’s window, while la Rosa dealt with the alarm company.
Within fifteen minutes they were inside where it was warm and quiet and clean. Cars, trucks, and SUVs sat on a floor of waxed concrete. La Rosa pointed at a boxy blue Volvo wagon and then took a step back.
‘That it?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘We’ll probably want to impound it tomorrow, not tonight.’
She walked over and moved slowly around it, looking in through the windows, her shoes squeaking on the wax floor. They went from vehicle to vehicle, and then through an apartment and an office. Close to fifteen thousand square feet and many automotive mechanical tools. He didn’t know anyone that worked on their own car any more, but it looked like Stoltz assembled engines. When they found a locked storage room door he wished they’d kept the locksmith here longer.
They used a battering ram instead, punched out the lock and found rows of guns and boxes of ammo. They found maps with notes written on them, lines in different colored ink, and Raveneau took a guess.
‘We’re looking at us, the homicide detail, our patterns of habits. He mapped our lives.’ Raveneau spread some of the maps and looked at the notations. ‘Looks to me like he studied all of us at one point, I mean, look at this, that’s Jacobi’s house and McKinley right there, Stewart, Garcia, I’ll be damned.’
They found a big stainless-faced Sub-Zero refrigerator with beer and some fresh vegetables, and a photo board in the office off the apartment that had seven or eight photos of a well maintained ranch house, and varying shots of the driveway sloping up to it and a carport.
‘That’s Becker’s brother’s house in Walnut Creek,’ he said.