Counterfeit Road dbr-2

by Kirk Russell

‘What Larry discovered during our marriage was that he liked being out of town and a long way away in a hotel in Asia where he would have a clean uncomplicated room to come back to and a time zone reason for not being able to call me, not to mention an expense account for dinner and drinking. It was perfect for him.’

  ‘Who was he working for then?’

  ‘He was a kind of accountant for our Revenue Service, looking for corporate fraud, that sort of thing. That’s probably in your files.’

  Oddly, it wasn’t. She handed him the plate of scones and he handed her the CD.

  ‘What were you doing for work?’

  ‘Something very similar but more numbers oriented, and trust me working for Canada’s Revenue Service can’t be any more fun than working for the IRS.’

  Raveneau broke off a piece of scone. He took another drink of coffee. She hadn’t asked the question he wondered about so much, why whoever sent this video held on to it for so many years. But she was going to say something more about Govich and Goya. He could feel that coming. Then it did.

  ‘Your Inspector Govich had a hunch about us that was free-floating. Like the man who is always suspicious of his wife. Now maybe that makes a good investigator, allowing that amorphous feeling to exist without a fact to attach to. When all he could find was the restaurant discrepancy, he let it attach there and Goya went along.’

  ‘When you found Alan Krueger’s body did you touch it?’

  ‘Larry did. He wanted to make sure he was dead.’

  ‘How close did you get?’

  ‘I had to turn away it was so awful.’

  ‘Do you remember the position of the body?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you see what Larry was doing?’

  ‘Only when he first leaned over.’

  ‘Did he remove anything from the body?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘A wallet to see who the victim was.’

  ‘Don’t you think we would have said?’

  ‘Did he remove the wallet?’

  ‘Goodness.’

  ‘I’m thinking it would be natural to make sure the man was dead, and possibly look for ID.’

  ‘Most people would wait for the police, don’t you think?’

  ‘Most would, but perhaps your ex-husband didn’t and there wasn’t a wallet found on the body.’

  ‘I don’t remember anyone asking us about a wallet.’

  ‘Inspector Goya told me they asked you. There are notes in the file saying they did.’

  ‘Oh, well, I don’t remember.’ She added, ‘How well would you remember twenty-two years later?’

  ‘It would depend on how much of a mark it made on me.’ He gave her a moment. ‘I think the murder affected you.’

  ‘Oh, absolutely, it made a wonderful honeymoon. Almost as good as the marriage.’

  Raveneau studied her. ‘I can’t picture you forgetting the position of the body?’

  ‘Does it really make a whit of difference now?’

  ‘It could. A man called in a few days after the murder and left a message saying he heard shots and that he’d looked at his watch afterward to remember what time he heard them. He called us after you and Larry flew home and left a message saying he put it together after reading about the shooting in the newspaper. He didn’t leave a phone number or contact us again, but he did leave the time he heard the shots. He sounded credible to the inspectors. The time was very close to when you said you found the body, so close that Inspector Govich thought you either saw or heard the shooting.’

  ‘Do you suppose he believes his wife when she tells him things or is she always a suspect?’

  ‘That’s one of the reasons Inspector Govich flew to Canada.’

  ‘He flew to Canada because he got an anonymous call? That’s great.’

  ‘The time he gave was 3:42. Larry told the inspectors you found the body at 3:45.’

  ‘I can walk a long way in four minutes, Inspector, and watches didn’t always match. I’m sure you remember that. Nothing like the precious cell phones we have now that let us all keep exactly the same time together. Are you going to ask if he was dead when we got there?’

  ‘I know he was dead, but I’m still wondering about his body position.’

  ‘You’re back to that.’

  ‘I haven’t left it.’

  ‘I’ve tried to block all of it out. It was a horrible thing to see.’

  ‘I’m sure it was.’

  ‘His brains…’

  Raveneau nodded and she looked down at the floor. She moved her right hand over on top of her left.

  ‘He was lying on his back with his legs apart.’

  ‘When you found him?’

  Her voice rose slightly. ‘You have photos. I don’t know what you call them, crime scene photos. We saw the photos taken. Look in your files. Haven’t you seen them?’

  ‘Let’s watch the video.’

  She pushed it in and the monitor lit up.

  ELEVEN

  After the homicide inspector left, Barbara Haney felt light-headed and anxious. She picked up the cordless phone in the kitchen and called her house manager from the den, pulse pounding, fingers drumming as she waited for the house manager to answer. The house manager, a thirty-two year old lawyer named Gail Hawkins, ran the house here and the one in Vail, as well as their New York apartment and the island property. She was well-educated, skilled, and discreet. She worked for them with the rationalization the salary of one hundred eighty thousand dollars a year was about the same as she would earn as a lawyer right now. It was also more than they needed to pay, but Barbara’s husband, Doug, was generous that way. He had a hard start at a career himself.

  Gail worked for them but it was understood that the house managing was temporary and even though she might never practice law again, she wasn’t anybody’s servant. She certainly wasn’t. She was much more than an employee. She was her husband’s lover, something she had yet to confront Doug with but was never far from her thoughts and a big contributor to the depression her daughter insisted needed pharmaceuticals. Of course, Cheryl didn’t know anything about the affair.

  Barbara called Gail rather than Doug because one side effect of the guilt from the affair was Gail always took her calls and was extremely solicitous and attentive. Ironically, that over-the-top caring courteousness is what made her suspicious in the first place.

  ‘Gail, I haven’t spoken with Doug yet today and I thought I would check with you first. How’s he feeling?’

  ‘He’s better. He’s much better. I saw him this morning. He said the fever broke in the night. He wants to go ahead with the dinner. I was just working with the cook. Are you going to be here?’

  ‘No, things have changed; it doesn’t look like I will be.’

  Yesterday Doug had a fever or said he did. It was impossible to tell any more, though he did sound sick.

  ‘Was he coughing this morning?’

  ‘Bit of hacking.’

  ‘Did he take anything for it?’

  ‘No, you know him.’

  Maybe she did once, but not any more. Barbara was quiet and then said, ‘I’ll let you get back to the menu.’

  ‘No hurry, I’m fine.’

  New York investment banker types liked to ski in January, so this is when Doug usually entertained the ones he needed. No doubt the two bankers coming to dinner tonight were both wealthy and incredibly boring. No doubt they would talk their cars and their houses. That they even got called bankers was a joke to Barbara. They were more like hustlers in expensive clothes. They worked where the money was. That was their whole secret. All their smug certainty came from that and trained as she was in finance she had learned that few of them really understood numbers.

  Barbara had paused too long and Gail was a little curt asking, ‘Shall I give him a message?’

  ‘No, don’t worry about it. I’ll call him later. When is he due home?’

  ‘At six thirty. Dinner is at seven thirty.’

&nbs
p; ‘Tell him I’m out this afternoon but will call him later tonight.’

  ‘Should I tell him a time?’

  Barbara hesitated. She wanted to leave her guessing. It was her way of making her presence felt, her scream.

  ‘I don’t know what time yet, but it’ll be after his dinner.’

  ‘We’ll miss you here tonight.’

  ‘Are you eating with them?’

  ‘No, of course not, and I didn’t mean to sound as if I was. I may be in the kitchen helping though. Doug said tonight is very important.’

  They are all very important until they don’t matter any more, Barbara thought. She hung up without another word and now felt like she might faint. She didn’t know why she bothered to make the call. She couldn’t believe her marriage had come to this and sat for an hour without moving, without knowing what she should do next.

  Then her thoughts returned to the homicide inspector’s questions. She scrolled through her cell directory to the name Lisa Chou and called it as she rose and walked unsteadily back down the hallway to the great room. It rang four times before he picked up.

  When Larry answered she said, ‘It’s me. A San Francisco homicide inspector visited me this morning. They’re working the case again. He wanted to know if you moved the body or removed a wallet.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘That I wasn’t watching you.’

  ‘Barbara, what’s wrong?’

  What’s wrong, everything is wrong, she thought, you, Doug, almost everything I’ve done with my life is wrong.

  ‘He and his partner run the Cold Case Unit for San Francisco. He said they have new information.’

  ‘Good for them.’

  ‘They have a videotape of the killing.’

  ‘They what?’

  ‘They were sent a videotape.’

  There was a very long quiet now and Larry’s voice was the low flat one that used to sometimes scare her when he asked, ‘Well, how could that be?’

  ‘I saw it. He brought a CD with him.’

  ‘When did they get it?’

  ‘Recently, and he wanted to surprise me with it.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Larry wouldn’t ask any more than that about her. He didn’t care at all about her. He probably never had. If she said she was considering killing herself he’d insist she get help, but he wouldn’t feel anything.

  ‘They’ll do a little bit of investigation and then give up,’ he said. ‘It’ll go back to being a dormant file.’

  ‘You figure it out. It’s yours to deal with.’

  ‘I’ll take care of it, but there’s nothing to worry about. There never was. You built all this in your head. I’ll find out what’s going on and the homicide inspector isn’t going to get anywhere. He’s going through the motions. The bottom line is everyone has bigger problems to worry about in 2011 than a dead ex-Secret Service agent

  killed in 1989.’

  Barbara thought about Raveneau. She thought about his eyes. She saw the video in her head. She saw Krueger fall. She couldn’t stop the next words from coming out.

  ‘In all the time we were married you were never once truthful with me. You were always controlling, but you aren’t as good at it as you imagine you are. You say there’s nothing to worry about but this inspector is smarter than you. Do you know why Inspector Govich came to Canada?’

  ‘There was never anything you ever had to worry about. You didn’t do anything wrong. You’ve obsessed on this way too long and it’s not going to go anywhere now. The homicide inspector is just going through the motions.’

  ‘You already said that.’

  ‘I’m saying it again to make sure you hear me.’

  ‘Inspector Govich flew to Calgary because a witness phoned them after we went home. They couldn’t get the witness to come in. He wanted to remain anonymous but said he heard shots. He left them a message with the time of day he heard the shots. He checked his watch. Inspector Govich came to Canada because the time was very close to when we said we found the body. That was the real reason he wanted to re-interview us.’

  ‘What’s this current murder cop’s name?’

  She reached over to the coffee table and picked up his card. ‘Benjamin Raveneau.’

  ‘Spell the last name.’

  She did and her head was floating, Doug lying to her, Doug sleeping with that bitch who had wormed her way into their lives. Doug was happy to get her calls because it told him where she was and meant she wouldn’t bother him for several more hours. He probably got a text from Gail as soon as she hung up. And Larry had always lied to her. Nothing was real. She couldn’t believe anything, not even herself. Her whole life was false. She was just a form of property stored in the house here.

  ‘I could answer some of his questions,’ she said. ‘I could end that part.’

  Larry was quiet for several seconds before answering, ‘It all ended quite awhile ago and it’s very troubling to hear you talk like this. Do you really want to risk the life you have?’

  Yes, she thought, I want to risk it all.

  ‘Don’t take any more calls from the inspector and I’ll look into it. Don’t say anything to anyone until we talk again. Can you do that? I think it’s important that nothing more get said and I’ll ask for help. You don’t need to worry. How’s the skiing?’

  She looked out the window at the skiers in the far distance. She pressed End and cut the call off. She had lived and slept with him. That seemed impossible now.

  TWELVE

  La Rosa was in her car on her way to Santa Rosa to sit next to an elderly woman and take her cold arthritic hand with its misshapen and swollen knuckles into her warm hands. Then she would tell her bones found during a construction excavation seven months ago were a positive DNA match for her daughter who had disappeared forty-two years ago. The daughter was a fifteen year old runaway in 1969 and though the rest of the world forgot about the girl long ago, her mother couldn’t.

  The last time la Rosa saw her she revealed the fantasy world she had constructed. Her daughter had fallen in love with an Australian and lived in an unnamed remote area of the Outback without a phone. Marsha Fairchild had an answer for all the reasons why her daughter had never contacted her.

  From a distance it was an inability to face the probable truth, but for all her toughness, la Rosa dreaded this meeting. She was in her car north of the Bay Area driving through hills south of Santa Rosa where the cell reception was poor. Her focus was on what she was going to say to convince the woman when Raveneau called.

  ‘Govich was right. There’s something there.’

  ‘Did you get anything we can use?’

  ‘Not yet. Hold on, I’ve got a call coming in from the lieutenant.’

  Raveneau knew immediately from the lieutenant’s tone that something had happened.

  ‘Inspector, where are you?’

  ‘Vallejo.’

  ‘I need you here.’

  Traffic was lightening. He was moving at fifty miles per hour and it was picking up.

  ‘There’s been a shooting at a cabinet shop on Sixteenth Street, three dead and one dying. I need you and la Rosa to help secure the scene.’

  ‘Where’s the one who is still alive?’

  ‘With paramedics on his way to the hospital, but you go straight to Sixteenth. Where’s your partner?’

  ‘On her way to Santa Rosa.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right.’

  ‘Tell her to come to Sixteenth when she’s done there. I’m going to tell Inspector Ortega you’re on your way.’

  Ortega and Hagen were on-call, so caught the case. Raveneau still checked the board. He kept track of who was on-call and who was backup, but he and la Rosa no longer were. Unless something like this happened, they stayed on the cold cases.

  Becker hung up. Raveneau told la Rosa.

  ‘Disgruntled employee?’ she asked.

  ‘Becker doesn’t know.’


  A few minutes later he was talking to Bruce Ortega.

  ‘The saws were still running when we got here. The owner of the shop returned from measuring a kitchen cabinet job, found one of his employees lying in a pool of blood and called 911. That call came in at 1:47. He had left to go to his appointment for the kitchen project at 12:15 and according to him all four employees were here and working when he left. The employees agreed to come in early today and not break for lunch until two, and then work until seven tonight because they were late on a delivery. He says measuring for a new project was his only appointment today. Otherwise he was there to help finish this one. Are you with me so far?’

  ‘Sure. He left at 12:15 and called 911 at 1:47.’

  ‘That’s right, and the window is even narrower because there was a plywood delivery signed for by one of the victims at 1:07. The delivery time is on the receipt. We haven’t verified anything yet, but it appears the victims were shot between 1:07 and when the owner got back, so call it a twenty-five minute window.’

  ‘What’s the owner’s name?’

  ‘David Khan. Khan’s Cabinets. We’ve got him here.’

  ‘What about the one that went to the hospital?’

  ‘He was dead when he left here. It looks as if the shooter walked through from one end of the building to the other. It’s a mess. How far away are you?’

  ‘Half an hour.’

  ‘See you here.’

  When Raveneau arrived he was the fifth homicide inspector on the scene and Ortega didn’t need him. He walked the building. It was long, rectangular, an old wood frame resting on a concrete slab foundation. Two rolling doors opened on to trucking bays on Sixteenth Street. The truck that delivered the plywood backed into one of these bays just after one o’clock this afternoon. They needed to find the driver of the delivery truck.

  One victim, possibly the first, was a young man who looked like he was shot while cutting a piece of plywood on a table saw. Two CSI teams were here but they hadn’t gotten to him yet. Raveneau saw the spray of blood along the length of plywood. His body lay on the gray concrete near the metal table legs of the saw. A pool of blood darkened near his head. The pool had spread and mixed with sawdust. He wore a black long-sleeved T-shirt with the sleeves slid up to the elbows. On his inside left forearm was a tattoo of a martini glass. His black hair was on the long side and tied. He wore jeans as did the next victim.