Counterfeit Road

by Kirk Russell

  ‘Give me some help here, Raveneau.’

  ‘We’re not going to get in his house.’

  ‘Sure, we are.’

  Ortega was intent on trying the on-call judge.

  ‘It’s one thing to get into a truck that was at the crime scene in or around the time of the murders, but a judge isn’t going to give you the house. All we can say is that he delivered plywood.’

  ‘Four dead and Drury was the last guy to see them alive. He’s evading us.’

  ‘That’s legal.’

  But Ortega was juiced. He wanted to try. He finished the search warrant app, emailed it back to the Southern precinct station, and it got faxed to the on-call judge at 4:30 as Raveneau stood outside in the cold wind. He listened to Ortega talk to the judge now. Ortega’s voice got louder when he got nervous and judges made him nervous. Raveneau listened and then his mind drifted to the country and something he had read about birthers going after the President today. What was that really about? It wasn’t about a birth certificate. More like they needed to make Obama an outsider. But why did they need to do that? Why was that so important to them? What scared him about the birthers was the quiet encouragement they got from people who carefully avoided acknowledging the birth issue was false.

  Dark thoughts. He had to shake them off. He heard Ortega still talking too loudly, repeating a phone number back to the judge. He listened and then walked away from the car. He was stiff from crawling under the truck. He was cold and tired and the late night wore on him in a way it didn’t when he was younger.

  When he walked back Ortega was on a call from a New York Times reporter. His door was open and his face had relaxed. Raveneau looked from Ortega to Drury’s house aware that they might be completely spinning their wheels here. He’d known truckers who moved drugs and in truth that’s what he was looking for underneath the vehicle, the storage compartment, the welded-on container. Drury getting out of his house fast after a call from a cop could have as easily been that as anything to do with the murders.

  He was close to telling Ortega to take his interview outside or to his own car, and pictured driving from here to Celeste’s and having breakfast with her. He was hungry. He was tired and agitated to the point of anger. He had disliked listening to Ortega laugh at the reporter’s jokes.

  He could reheat Celeste’s bread soup for breakfast, chicken broth, vegetables, and chunks of bread, olive oil, and good coffee. Good coffee was what he wanted now, and to focus on Krueger or have the room to run with this aspect of the cabinet shop shootings. He didn’t need Ortega’s help. He still didn’t get why Ortega drove down here.

  From behind him, Ortega said, ‘You were right, the judge said no.’

  ‘Well, you tried.’

  ‘Yeah, it was worth it.’

  Was it? Raveneau glanced at Ortega but saw bodies on the cold concrete of the cabinet shop floor. The shooter came up from behind. The shooter liked the feeling of getting close. Raveneau could sense that.

  ‘I’ll ask the locals to drive by every hour or so,’ Raveneau said. ‘Drury will come home. He’s supposed to drop the truck back at the yard tomorrow afternoon.’

  Ortega said nothing and Raveneau knew he’d head back to the Homicide office. It was without question the biggest investigation he’d ever run. Raveneau drove slowly back up a quiet freeway and across the bridge to San Francisco. He didn’t wake until after nine that morning and stood at the roof parapet with his coffee and his phone, looking at the city and the bay, a habit. A cool wind blew this morning and the sky was a pale blue when he drove to the Hall.

  He knew the captain and Lieutenant Becker would sit with Ortega this morning and decide who stayed on the Khan Cabinets murders and who didn’t. And that’s what happened. Ortega came to him and said they would work the Drury angle together, but that the rest of the investigation was covered and he could focus on his cold cases.

  He was on the phone later in the morning with the storage company in Arizona that held United Airlines’ long term corporate records when the San Leandro police called. Drury was home but hadn’t gone into the house. He’d gotten out of his car and was in the truck and the engine was on. Raveneau asked if they could have an officer follow him and call if he got on the freeway and let him know what direction he was headed.

  He had to apologize to the woman at the storage company for the interruption, but she was fine with it and he asked, ‘When was Jim Frank employed?’

  ‘1978 to 1995. He retired in 1995.’

  ‘I’m looking for contact information. Do your records show any supervisors or people he worked with?’

  ‘I don’t have any of that but there might be a way I could get it for you. To do that you’ll need to fill out a form we use with law enforcement and the IRS. I can fax it to you. You want to mark it urgent. There’s a box on the form that you need to check.’

  ‘If there’s a box, doesn’t everybody mark urgent?’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  She laughed and he filled out the form, sent it back to her. He was still in the office when the call came to verify he worked as a homicide inspector for SFPD. That she was able to find a Jim Frank made him hopeful. He was on the phone when Cynthia buzzed from the front desk to tell him a San Leandro police officer was holding.

  Raveneau picked up and the officer said, ‘He just got on the freeway headed north in the truck.’

  FIFTEEN

  La Rosa rode with him to the Branson Trucking Company yard in Martinez. She was rested and relaxed and looked a lot better than she sounded after the meeting with the elderly woman in Santa Rosa. Marsha Fairchild had rocked back and forth with her eyes closed and arms wrapped around her chest as sobs racked her. When it was over, La Rosa left feeling that she had done nothing for the woman other than to destroy her hope.

  But now, la Rosa seemed to be rebounding, taking it on herself to determine whether he was helping Celeste enough.

  ‘What are you doing to help her get it open?’

  ‘The floor out in the bar is reclaimed wood that got refinished. That’s done and we’re moving chairs and tables around tonight. She finally passed inspection with the Health Department. That’s the one she’s been sweating.’

  ‘What about the thing with the flue? Weren’t you going to do something?’

  ‘No, with the flue she was forced to use the landlord’s contractor. He ripped her off but it got done.’

  ‘So she’s going to make it.’

  ‘There’s still a lot to happen, but it’s looking better.’

  ‘I’m sure she needs your help.’ When Raveneau didn’t answer that, she moved on. ‘So what about this Drury? Tell me again what he delivered.’

  ‘Forty-two pieces of finish-grade larch plywood.’

  ‘Larch?’

  ‘Type of tree.’

  The delivery time was on the receipt. The receipt was in the second drawer down on the left side of Khan’s desk, though now it was in the Homicide office.

  ‘We know when he got there,’ Raveneau said. ‘We know when he left. Today we want details about the rest of his day. We want to know about his other deliveries. We want everything about what he did yesterday.’

  They dropped off the freeway, the offramp dipping down to Highway 4. They were probably fifteen minutes from Branson’s yard. Raveneau turned to her.

  ‘He’s going to recognize me. He’s going to realize he was right last night in the bar. That’s going to unsettle him.’

  ‘OK, but let’s do the time frame once more. He delivered the plywood at 1:07 and the delivery receipt is signed at 1:15. He called his boss at 1:19 as he was leaving.’

  ‘That’s right, and we want to know about the rest of his day.’

  ‘And David Khan left the meeting where he was measuring kitchen cabinets at 1:21, give or take a few minutes, and that’s been verified by both the owner and the designer.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what Ortega’s team says.’

  ‘We’re not part of
the team?’

  ‘Other than with Drury he doesn’t want any help, and Drury only because I’ve already stuck my nose in.’

  ‘Did you and Ortega have a problem last night?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK, who checked out the route the cabinet shop owner says he took to come back to the shop?’

  ‘Hagen did. He drove it three times and thinks Khan would have gotten back right around 1:40, which fits with Khan’s story. He called 911 at 1:47, so that fits too. But if he got back sooner, say, 1:30 to 1:35, and he didn’t call for another twenty minutes or so, then that’s a little odd.’

  ‘Could Khan be the shooter?’

  ‘The medical examiner doesn’t think so. The paramedics got there within five minutes of the call and blood was already drying.’ Raveneau pointed at the sign ahead as he slowed. ‘Here we are.’ Then turning into the trucking yard he added, ‘This is probably our one interview and then Ortega will take over.’

  ‘Bruce Ortega is a good inspector.’

  ‘And a wonderful father and husband.’

  ‘You’re in a bad mood today.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Branson’s yard was on Industrial Parkway, an asphalt road with oil refineries as a backdrop. A fourteen foot high chain-link fence topped with razor wire marked the borders. Raveneau studied the razor wire a moment as they got out of the car. It was as serious as a prison fence.

  The owner, Hap Branson, turned out to be one of those guys whose face looks older than the rest of him by twenty years. He was in his early forties, a former trucker and probably tough on the guys that worked for him. Within ten minutes of meeting he told them his story, the trucking business that went under in the recession, not the Great Recession but the one before it.

  ‘It took me years to get back on my feet. I lost everything, but now I’ve got sixteen drivers.’

  ‘How long has John Drury driven for you?’

  ‘Four years and with no accidents or major incidents, though he’s got a temper. Once or twice he’s got into it with someone we’ve delivered to.’ He pointed out the window. ‘He’s here. Why don’t you come in here and sit down and I’ll talk to John and let him know what’s going to happen.’

  Branson led them into his meeting room. It held an aged oak table with folding chairs and a floor with a chocolate brown carpet that smelled heavily of dogs. The ceiling was acoustic tile, several of which were yellow from leaks, but everything about Branson said he was serious about his business and it didn’t surprise Raveneau that the room was without frills.

  When Drury walked in he was already fuming, no doubt feeling his boss set him up. He directed his anger at Raveneau.

  ‘I don’t care if you’re a homicide inspector or the fucking mayor of San Francisco. Back off. Why were you following me last night? What have I done wrong?’

  ‘I’ve got two questions for you before I answer the rest of that. The first is, why did you lie to me last night, and why do you have a problem helping us figure out why four people were murdered?’

  ‘You can’t put it on me. All I did was deliver fucking plywood. What were you doing following me?’

  ‘You were on the phone lying to me and I wondered where you were going. Right now, your credibility is suspect. You need to change that.’

  Drury snorted and turned to Branson, saying, ‘This is total bullshit and I don’t have to do this.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Raveneau said. ‘You don’t have to say a word to us. You can completely blow us off and after you do that we’ll focus harder on you.’

  Drury looked past Raveneau at the window and rubbed the back of his neck.

  ‘I might be dead too, right. I might be fucking dead if I got there later. That freaked me out last night. I couldn’t deal with a lone cop coming to talk to me. I didn’t even know if you were real.’

  ‘You weren’t sure I was a homicide inspector?’

  La Rosa entered the conversation, her voice soft and without any combativeness.

  ‘We’ve seen homicides where people just missed being in the wrong spot. It can cause a lot of anxiety.’

  Drury ignored her. He pointed a finger at Raveneau.

  ‘Last night I knew you had me in mind and I thought you were going to try to kill me. I had all these kind of weird ideas. You said you were a homicide inspector but I talked to a different inspector earlier, and I was picturing you as the killer coming back to get me. You know, like you just missed me when you killed everyone. That’s what weirded me out in the bar. That’s why I took off.’

  ‘Makes a kind of sense,’ Raveneau said and didn’t believe a word of it. ‘Let’s talk through the time frame of your delivery. We know when you phoned in. We know when the foreman there logged your arrival and signed the delivery receipt. We know when you called in and said you were done and on the road to the next delivery. Did you call anyone else as you drove away?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What I just asked, did you make any other phone calls between your delivery in San Francisco and your next one in San Jose?’

  ‘No, I hauled ass to San Jose. I was late.’

  ‘Do you have more than one phone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do you mean you were late?’

  ‘I was late all day.’ He nodded toward his boss. ‘We can’t go more than forty hours a week. Yesterday was the end of my week.’

  ‘How late were you running?’

  ‘Twenty minutes.’ He gestured toward his boss again. ‘When you call in a delivery he tells you how you’re running.’ After a beat he showed his anger toward Branson, adding, ‘He’s on our ass all the time.’

  ‘So you must have checked the time when you left to see how you were doing.’

  ‘No, man, there’s nothing I can do about traffic. I tried to make up some here and there but I don’t sweat the shit I can’t control. Like that book, don’t sweat the small shit.’

  ‘Let’s start with your first delivery yesterday. Take us through your whole day.’

  He did it but in a sketchy way and Raveneau returned to details of the plywood delivery to Khan’s Cabinets. How long for the forklift to move the plywood? Did he do anything else while he was there? Did he see anybody else in the neighborhood that caught his eye? Did he stop anywhere else as he left for food or coffee or a soda? When he heard about it on the radio what station was he listening to?

  ‘Do you own any guns?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Do you own a gun?’

  ‘I have two and they’re registered.’

  ‘Do you own a nine millimeter?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How are you as a marksman?’

  ‘Decent.’

  ‘Do you have a shooting range you go to?’

  ‘Bailey Gun Range.’

  ‘How often do you practice?’

  ‘Maybe twice a year, but I don’t think that’s any of your business. Do you know what a sovereign citizen is?’

  ‘That’s about all the time we get at the range too,’ la Rosa said, and eased it all down again. She explained that four people were murdered and they had to ask every question of everyone.

  ‘It’s not just you.’ She paused. ‘But other than the killer you’re the last person to see them alive so we’ll have to keep working with you. You’re our nearest link to what happened.’

  She showed a worried look. She turned empathetic.

  ‘I know it’s not fun to be questioned like this.’

  ‘It sucks.’

  ‘We understand, but we have to talk to everybody and we really need your help.’

  ‘You need more than my help. You people suck. Four people got wasted and you’re following me around. If you’re following me you’re incompetent. You know, you should be doing something else, being a meter maid.’

  Raveneau watched his face change.

  ‘I’m the taxpayer. I drive all day. I hustle and what do you do? You get to retire early with your fat
pensions. Fuck this.’ He turned to Branson. ‘And fuck you for setting me up. I’m going to do the lawyer thing. I’m not talking any more. I’m out of here.’

  Raveneau knew they were done but la Rosa tried again.

  ‘We need your help. I can’t say that enough. I can understand you being angry, but four people were murdered and we need your help. The questions might feel accusatory but they actually clear you of suspicion.’

  ‘Why would there be suspicion of me?’

  ‘It’s what I said before, you were the last person to see them and you have to understand that we work from the last known thing. We know you were there. We’re trying to get from when you left there to the killer.’

  ‘You’re just looking for someone to arrest, but it’s not going to be me.’ His face reddened as he said, ‘Have I ever fired a nine millimeter? Go ask old man Bailey who’s a killer shot.’

  ‘I’ll ask him,’ Raveneau said.

  ‘Oh, I know you will.’ He focused on Branson again. ‘I’m giving you notice. I quit as of right now. I’m done with this crap.’

  He reached in his jacket and pulled out a key ring, then dropped it on the table, his focus on his boss now.

  ‘You set me up and I quit and I want my last check right now. Get your fat ass up and get your checkbook.’

  Branson got to his feet but he didn’t look like he was going for his checkbook. He dropped his arms to his sides and balled his fists.

  ‘You’ll get your check when I’m ready and not before.’

  ‘I’ll go to the Labor Board.’

  ‘Then get going. Get off my property before I teach you a lesson.’

  SIXTEEN

  It escalated rapidly and Raveneau knocked his chair over as he stepped away from the table. Branson and Drury were yelling and already out in the front office, Drury trying to get to Branson’s desk.

  ‘Ben, wait.’

  La Rosa reached for his arm and was too late, and if Raveneau heard her, he didn’t give any sign. He followed them out and now Branson was in Drury’s face yelling, spittle flying on to Drury. Drury was the longer bigger man, but he didn’t have Branson’s low thick leverage and she watched as Branson took a boxing stance like someone out of an old black and white movie. His face was solid, fists up, shoulders thick as a bear. He threw a hard punch catching Drury under the right side of his chin with a loud smacking that staggered Drury. He stuttered, stepped back, and almost went down.