A Killing in China Basin

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.