by Kirk Russell
‘This is what I call authentic,’ she said. ‘I just love Italian food.’
La Rosa looked around the room. She didn’t think it was authentic. She didn’t agree at all, but smiled and said, ‘Yes, it’s wonderful.’
NINE
Raveneau knew the muffled voice might be no more than someone with a grudge against police who was hovering at the edge of a homicide investigation, hoping to screw with them. It happens. But the call had unsettled him and he felt tired and on edge as he drove home. He should have stopped at a grocery store, but didn’t. He rode the service elevator to the second floor and climbed the narrow flight of wooden stairs up to the rooftop apartment.
A clean rain-laden wind blew in off the ocean and he left the slider open as he tried to figure out what to eat. Leftover pasta looked like glue, but there wasn’t much else. He heated a little olive oil in a sauté pan, slid the pasta in, and was adjusting the burner down as the phone rang. Celeste.
‘Hey,’ he said.
‘Hey, yourself, I’m in San Francisco. I did a wine thing today. What are you doing right now?’
Celeste was a wine broker he’d started going out with about a month ago. He was starting to get the picture about how she organized tastings and sold wine, and in truth, he probably knew more about her job than her. But they were easy about all that and it was good to hear her voice tonight.
‘I’m heating up some leftover pasta and it’s going to be terrible. Come on over and I’ll split it with you. Where are you?’
‘On the Embarcadero, but if you just got home you must be exhausted.’
‘No, I’m good.’
She called again as she arrived and Raveneau unlocked the gate so she could park next to his unmarked cruiser. That he lived on top of a warehouse with a coffee house on the floor below in the corner of the building was fun to her, and for Raveneau living up here was fine for the moment. He kept an eye on the building for the owner and liked the big roof and the view from the brick parapet. A three foot wide wooden walkway ran from the stairway door to a redwood deck off the apartment.
Raveneau barbecued on the deck regularly. His cop friends called it the rooftop bar and likened the walkway to something you’d see in the Everglades for viewing alligators, and the tar and gravel roof in the September heat to the La Brea tar pits. He laughed along with them, but he wasn’t looking to buy another house. He sold his house after Chris was killed, and then the market fell and no one really knew where it was all going to end.
And he didn’t know any more where he stood on the homicide detail. He was basically a mostly white older guy on a squad that was trying to become more diverse to better reflect the city. If not for his solve rate he likely would have been bumped out already. A month ago he was approached about partial retirement or early retirement, neither of which he had any interest in, both of which were good reasons not to buy another house.
Celeste was forty-four and never married. She lived with a boyfriend for fifteen years and then the boyfriend left her and married someone else within three months. She drove a Miata with a license plate that read ‘No Kids,’ though when she talked about kids she was wistful and close to sad. She was cheerful tonight though and pulled a bottle of Cristal champagne out of her bag saying, ‘Perks.’
Raveneau popped the cork and poured them each a glass. She was a sweet, graceful, hopeful human being, and when he was with her he forgot his own loneliness even as he was seeing it in her. He was very glad she’d called. He watched her step out on the deck and lean to smell the leaves of the potted lemon trees that ringed it.
‘I’m going to grill cheese sandwiches,’ he said. ‘This pasta isn’t going to work.’
He scraped it into the garbage as Celeste came back inside and checked out the videos near his TV.
‘Are any of these any good?’
‘They’re from crime scenes. I bring them home to watch and try to figure out what I’ve missed.’
‘But not tonight?’
‘Definitely not tonight.’
He refilled her glass but not his own. When the sandwiches were ready they ate, and Raveneau realized what was causing her nervousness after they were sitting near each other on the couch and the sandwich plates were back in the kitchen. She turned toward him as the first rain pattered on to the deck boards and blew against the slider.
‘Rain,’ she said, her mouth just inches from his, and then it just kind of unfolded and he tasted the cold, sweet champagne on her lips and tongue. They moved into the bedroom while in the front room Gillian Welch sang a faraway song about a hickory wind. The feeling of being with a woman again almost overwhelmed him. It’s funny how you think you know something so well and all the while, every day, you’re forgetting what it was.
TEN
It rained steadily during the night and left the asphalt roofing and wooden deck dark-colored, and the leaves of the lemons clean, shiny, and wet in the dawn. Celeste was asleep when Raveneau made coffee and stood at the brick parapet looking out at the city, thinking about where he and la Rosa were at with the China Basin killing.
As the sun rose he made more coffee and read back through the case notes, then heard Celeste moving around. When she walked out she was dressed and already late to a Saturday appointment at a winery in Santa Cruz.
She had just driven away when Lieutenant Becker called, his voice weighed by the message.
‘Ted Whitacre is dead. A caretaker found him this morning. The Burlingame police are there and want to call it suicide. I need you to go there, Ben, and represent us. Tell them this is a joint investigation. Make that clear to the detective in charge. His name is Ed Choy. I’ll text you his number. Call him on your way down. I’m doing the same with the chief there in Burlingame.’
‘Have you called Charles Bates?’
‘He’s on his way.’
When Raveneau arrived, Whitacre’s body was already gone and the Burlingame detective, Ed Choy, was sitting at Whitacre’s kitchen table, typing on a laptop. As Choy started to explain, Raveneau realized Burlingame must have waited several hours before calling them.
‘The caretaker found him lying on his back in bed with a gunshot wound to the head. She didn’t touch anything and called us from her cell phone. We found a gun registered to him lying on the bed and recovered a bullet buried in the headboard. We’ll see if we get a match. Were you aware he was terminally ill with cancer?’
Raveneau stared at Choy. He should have called them as soon as he knew Whitacre was on the SF homicide detail. Raveneau looked back at the headboard spattered with blood and fragments of brain. Bed was stripped, sheets taken as evidence.
‘His doctor gave him very bad news Wednesday.’
‘Did you call the doctor before you called us?’
This time Choy was the one who didn’t answer and Raveneau walked outside. He walked the house exterior looking for signs of forced entry and didn’t see any. Choy made an assumption about suicide early on after interviewing the caretaker and talking to Whitacre’s doctor, so didn’t dust anything in the room before removing the body. Basically, he decided it was a suicide, took some photos, and cleaned up.
‘It’s not my first suicide,’ Choy said.
‘I’m sure it’s not. You have photos, right?’
‘I’ll show you.’
In the kitchen Choy pulled down the shades then projected photos on to Whitacre’s white-painted kitchen wall. Whitacre was on his back, mouth open, and gun close to his left hand.
‘I think he reached into the nightstand drawer with his left hand, pulled out the gun, and then put it in his mouth,’ Choy said, and then conducted a PowerPoint slideshow.
‘Autopsy is next week, Tuesday or Wednesday. What do you see?’
‘Did you find a suicide note?’
‘No note, and I understand he was your colleague, but Inspector Whitacre killed himself. His hope was gone. He saw no other choices.’ Choy gestured toward the hallway and bedroom. ‘He had no one to stop him.
’
‘I’d like to get on his computer. I want to see if he put his things in order, paid his bills, or whether he left that for his younger sister in Florida.’
Which was something Whitacre wouldn’t do. He was very protective of her.
It took an hour to go through the computer files and Bates arrived as Raveneau turned from the screen. Bates was in tears, unashamed to show what he felt. Raveneau walked out to Whitacre’s car with him.
‘I’m going to give the detective here what I have on Cody Stoltz and we’re going to approach this as a joint investigation. But this Choy already settled on suicide. He’s seen other suicides. He’s a suicide expert.’
Bates didn’t seem to hear. He exhaled hard and said, ‘God help me if it was Stoltz. I blew off everything Ted said about him. Tell me he just killed himself because he knew it was over. Tell me that.’
It took Raveneau a moment to get what Bates was saying.
‘You didn’t watch Stoltz those two days?’
Bates shook his head.
‘So you lied to Ted, and to me?’
Bates nodded and then turned away.
ELEVEN
From a second floor window of the guest house Stoltz watched the car sweep beneath the big oaks on the long curved drive in front of his mother’s house. The knock on his door came less than ten minutes later, but by then he’d turned the music on and was out back starting the gas grill. Beer iced in a galvanized tub on the garden terrace. A second knock now and it brought back a lot of bad stuff and made him angry. He didn’t want to deal with this. Before answering the door he pulled sausages from the refrigerator and laid them carefully on the counter.
When he opened the door a San Francisco homicide inspector named Benjamin Raveneau introduced himself and in that cop way, said, ‘I’d like to talk with you.’
Fuck you, Stoltz thought, and said, ‘Sure.’
Raveneau handed him a card and without looking at the card, Stoltz took in the man. Neither tall nor short, but at least six feet and unconcerned about his size, no gym muscles, no weight lifting bullshit, nothing faked, but obviously comfortable and quick. His stance wasn’t confrontational, but there he was, a square-shouldered presence, shoulders that probably had been in his family thousands of years, eyes neither afraid nor flat, but light-hearted and deadly. This guy was the real deal.
‘Thought you were a salesman,’ Stoltz said. ‘You look like a salesman who works in my office and I’m not kidding, you look exactly like him. Do you have a brother in sales?’
‘I’m here to talk with you about two San Francisco homicide inspectors, Ted Whitacre and Charles Bates. Do you remember them?’
‘Remember them? You’re joking, right?’
‘When is the last time you saw either one of them?’
‘When I saw your car I knew you were police and I was wondering why you were here. I couldn’t think of a reason.’
‘I’m asking because Inspector Whitacre was shot and killed last night and we’re going to talk to anyone who has ever threatened him. You’re on that list.’
Stoltz was surprised and said, ‘Let me get this straight. He was killed last night and you’re here to question me today?’
‘Is it OK if I come in?’
‘No, because I’ve got friends coming over to watch the Stanford game and these are people I’ve invited. It’s kind of a party and they’re going to be here soon.’
Stoltz didn’t move to let Raveneau in. He felt flustered.
‘Look, I was very angry when I went to prison, but that’s a long time ago. I got over it. You’ve got to understand I lost a lot of my future to the incompetence of Bates and Whitacre. That was very hard to swallow at the time.’
‘OK, you’ve got friends coming over so let’s make this easy. Where were you last night?’
‘I was in Carmel and I’ve got receipts. Do you want me to prove it?’
‘You do that and I’ll leave.’
‘Wait here and I’ll make copies of the hotel and restaurant bills.’
Stoltz was angry and scared as he went upstairs. He used the printer to make copies of his receipts and handed those to Raveneau.
‘When did you drive to Carmel?’
‘Yesterday afternoon. I took a ride with some cycling friends and then drove down. I think it was around four in the afternoon.’
‘Can we verify that with your riding friends?’
‘No, because that’s my personal life and you guys don’t get to fuck that up twice. What’s the old saying, first time shame on you, second time shame on me. You don’t get to mess with my life twice. I don’t want my friends looking at me sideways because some half-ass homicide inspector can’t even figure out how one of their own was killed.’
‘What time did you get to Carmel?’
‘Don’t remember. Check with the hotel on that. I went there first.’
‘Did you stop anywhere on the way down?’
‘Not that comes to mind right now.’
Raveneau scrutinized the receipt showing Stoltz’s hotel checkout time this morning. 7:00.
‘On the way back, did you stop anywhere?’
‘I bought gas but there’s no receipt for it. I paid cash.’
‘Where did you buy gas?’
‘At a Shell station or maybe it was a Chevron. I don’t remember.’
‘Where?’
‘Monterey or Sand City, someplace along the way.’
‘In the Lexus out front?’
‘Yes, and it was a Chevron. We’re almost done here, Inspector.’
‘Did your hotel room have a view looking out over the ocean?’
‘Come, again?’
‘I’ve stayed there before. I’m asking if you had an ocean view.’
‘You know what, I didn’t pay any attention and I probably drank too much at dinner.’
Inspector Raveneau made a show of pulling a piece of paper out of his coat now. He handed it over and asked, ‘Do you recognize these license plate numbers?’
Stoltz stared at the numbers before saying, ‘Those are mine.’
Stoltz felt his face flush. The inspector was an inch or two taller than him but looked at him almost eye to eye. This guy was much different than Bates or Whitacre.
Gravel crunched as a car drove up.
‘My guests are arriving,’ Stoltz said, and waved to his friends getting out of their cars now. ‘Wait here, Inspector, I’ve got something for you.’
He found his wallet and then the card, and brought it out to Raveneau. ‘If you have any more questions call this number.’ The card read Crofton, Jacobs, & Peters LLC. ‘Ask for Lindsay Crofton. She’s my lawyer. But by all means call me personally if Bates also dies unexpectedly. I’d like to hear that first hand.’ He added, ‘Can’t say I’m sorry about Whitacre. The opposite, actually. See you later, Raveneau.’
TWELVE
Raveneau called Becker and asked for approval to make a trip to Carmel. After Becker gave him the nod, he called la Rosa.
‘This is an out and back to Carmel. I won’t be gone long, but if you catch a homicide while I’m in Carmel, Inspector Adler will go out with you.’
‘When are you coming back?’
‘Should be late tonight.’
‘You’re driving all the way down there and back and checking out his alibi at the same time?’
‘Hotel, restaurant, and where he got gas.’
‘And I’m supposed to go out with Adler if there’s a call?’
She seemed uncomfortable with that which surprised him.
‘We’ve got fifteen tips off the TV report,’ she said.
‘Yeah, I know, I’ve got the list with me.’
He split the list with her and made a series of calls as he drove south on 101. Then he just drove, and looking west at the foothills remembered a summer afternoon twenty-five years ago when he picked up his ex-wife Angie at the San Francisco apartment in the Marina that she shared with two friends. That day they drove from summer
bay fog into the heat of the Central Valley and in the dry foothills swam in Rollins Lake before continuing on to Lake Tahoe. He remembered the feel of the cold clean water of Tahoe, sitting on a granite slab at the water’s edge talking and laughing as they dried in the mountain sunlight. He saw the blade-like blue of Tahoe and the radiance of Angie’s face as if it were yesterday.
In Carmel he met with the hotel manager of the La Playa first and read the young man as wanting to assist and help the police. Raveneau showed him his gold homicide star and learned that Stoltz had reserved at the La Playa two and a half weeks ago. So it wasn’t an impulse trip. He stayed in room twenty-one, checked in at six fifteen p.m., and more importantly, checked out the next morning at seven.
The one night he was in Carmel Stoltz ate at a French restaurant, Anton & Michel. A waitress had no trouble remembering him.
‘He was weird. He asked if we could make scrambled eggs with truffles and I think he knew we wouldn’t have any truffles right now and that the chef couldn’t just do something off the menu. We were very busy that night. What was weird was he was so insistent. I went back to the chef twice.’
‘What else did he do?’
‘He ordered an expensive bottle of Pinot Noir and gave most of it to staff. He wanted me to sit and have a glass with him. Our management likes us to know all the wines, so I did, but I don’t think he really cared about the wine.’ She smiled a half-smile. ‘Weird but good looking, I mean, he wasn’t a bad guy, but it was like he really wanted to make a point.’
‘What do you think his point was?’
She laughed. ‘You know, I’m not sure. But what’s going on, why are you here?’
‘I want to make sure he was really here.’
‘Oh, he was definitely here.’
Raveneau spent hours watching video at the Chevron in Sand City before spotting Stoltz standing outside his Lexus gassing up. The time on the tape read 7:42. Stoltz had left the station at 7:48 after using the bathroom and paying cash for gas and water just as he’d claimed. It was lucky the video hadn’t already looped over itself, lucky the video system had been recently upgraded to carry more videotape capacity, the manager explaining earlier they had a problem with people gassing up with stolen credit cards.
