A Killing in China Basin

EIGHTEEN


After the ride Stoltz drank a beer with the two patent attorneys he regularly cycled with. They’d pushed it this afternoon. It was good ride, just under two hours. The bikes were loaded and they’d taken over one of the picnic tables outside Guthrie’s, a local haunt where they always parked before riding the loop. Not that he saw these guys that often, maybe once a month. Usually, he rode alone. It felt good now though to lose the helmet and kick back together in the last sunlight with a beer.

Both Jonathan and Steve were in tight physical shape, same as he was, middle-aged guys but eating up much younger riders and having fun with that. But among the three of them, Stoltz easily dominated. He was just stronger.

Stoltz saw their expressions change as he said, ‘I’ve never talked about this with you guys because I’ve wanted to bury it and forget it ever happened to me, but now I’m going to ask your advice.’

Neither responded, wariness entering as he f*cked everything up by bringing personal problems to the after-ride beer. Stoltz started with Steve who at least looked curious and was also the softest so easiest to get to.

‘You guys know I went to prison. Obviously, you know that. I had this good friend named John Reinert, a software engineer, a great one. You both would have liked him. He married a woman named Erin he’d only known for about three months.’

‘Bad news,’ Jonathan said.

‘You got that right, and I was best man at the wedding. She moved into his apartment in San Francisco and the three of us hung out a lot together. Then sometime in the spring she fell in love with me, only I didn’t really know it. I mean, I knew she was attracted, but hey, all women are attracted to me.’

Jonathan and Steve chuckled.

‘The night John got killed we’d gone back to their apartment, and I don’t know how well you guys know San Francisco—’

‘I read about it,’ Jonathan said. ‘We both googled you before we started riding with you.’

‘Right, you didn’t want to f*ck up your careers, but now that I’m back there’s a pretty good chance I’m going to come up with some stuff that makes you some money. So you talked it over with your wives. Yeah, I’ve got you guys figured out.’

This time they giggled like little girls. Stoltz smiled.

‘Want me to shut up?’

‘No, keep going,’ Jonathan said.

‘OK, well, everything you read was wrong, or almost all of it, and I had a real hard time dealing with that. It took me a long time to get my head on straight.’

‘But you took a plea bargain,’ Steve said.

‘I did, but the way they set it up you don’t really have much choice. The DA’s office isn’t there for justice. They’re just about putting points on the board. Anyway, back to that night. I’d just broken off a long relationship and wasn’t seeing anybody, and that was probably part of the problem with Erin the night John got killed. She thought I was available.’

‘But she was married,’ Steve said, and got a little prim look on his face.

‘Young man, it happens even when they’re married.’

Jonathan laughed hard at that and Steve looked away. But Stoltz needed both of them.

‘She was awesome,’ Stoltz said, ‘but she was married to my best friend so I avoided ever being alone with her. That night we went back to their apartment after dinner. Erin had some great tequila she’d bought in Mexico and some good dope.’

As soon as he said dope, he knew he’d made a slight miscalculation. He saw a little twitch under Jonathan’s right eye and remembered Jonathan had a problem with marijuana.

‘She and John liked to get high, but I don’t do any drugs, so I went down to my car to get something after they lit up. I had a BMW in those days, an M5—’

‘What color?’

With the car he had Jonathan back, nodding at him, ready to cut in with his own car story.

‘Dark blue.’

‘I bet you thought you were some hot shit.’

‘I did, and I wasn’t.’

‘I had one of those too.’

‘Did you?’

‘Same car.’

‘No wonder we’re riding together. Anyway, I was a geek with new money.’

They both smiled. They saw a lot of guys get self-important when they hit it big.

‘If I hadn’t gone to my car, none of it would have happened.’ He stopped there and took a drink of beer. ‘That night we were talking about going up the coast in two cars. John had a Porsche and the weather for the weekend coming up was supposed to be good, so we thought we’d race each other up to Mendocino. I went down to get a map.’

‘Hold on,’ Jonathan said, ‘I’m getting lost here.’

‘The night it happened I was at their apartment. We’d gone to dinner and then come back to their apartment. I went down to the parking lot to get a map out of my car.’

‘How far down?’

‘One flight. The cars were in this tiny lot in back, and I don’t know what it’s like there now, but then it was pretty quiet except that you had this kind of slopover from the Haight-Ashbury area. Some drug dealing went on close by and that night I’d done something stupid. I’d left my car unlocked after getting the map and had a gun in my car because John and I had been going out to a range and learning how to target shoot. There’d been a couple of carjackings in recent months in the area where I was living, so I’d bought a gun and was learning how to use it.’

He caught a second reproving nod from Jonathan and without giving any sign of having seen it, held up his hand and said, ‘I had decided no one was going to take my car from me. But it was a stupid idea to keep a gun in the car.’

‘Was it registered?’ Jonathan asked.

‘Of course, and I was learning to shoot at a range.’

They gave him blank stares because a few carjackings doesn’t mean you start packing a gun, unless, of course, something was always wrong with you anyway. Stoltz understood. He got it. He had a plan for that.

‘We’d also gotten into skeet shooting. We’d gone out and bought expensive shotguns. We were pretty competitive.’

‘Why does that not surprise me?’ Jonathan said, suddenly switching back and trying to lighten it up, trying to help him out a little. Stoltz nodded at him. How these two reacted would tell him a lot about how everybody else would react and he needed to know where he stood. Boy Scout Steve still looked suspicious and Stoltz drew a deep breath.

‘Anyway, I got the map out of my car and went back up, and when we started talking about the trip, somehow we got in an argument about which way to go, I mean, a really stupid drunk and high argument. I suggested Erin ride with me because that way she wouldn’t have to sit in a car as long, meaning John was going to get lost.’

‘I thought you were avoiding being alone with her,’ Steve said, ‘and how does anyone get lost driving up the coast?’

‘Hey, I was never alone with her, not once. Look, I knew John was jealous and I was kind of pissed off that night. I didn’t like his paranoia. He had a coke problem. But it’s true, I suggested she ride with me just to piss him off. Anyway, I decided it was time to go. I left and when I got to my car there was some grungy f*ck sitting in it. I didn’t even realize John had followed me down and all of a sudden the guy’s holding my gun and pointing it at us. He told us to lie down on the pavement and that’s when John charged him.’

Stoltz took a deep breath and looked away before speaking again, his voice flat and quieter now.

‘The guy shot him through the head, dropped the gun, and ran. I knew John was dead so I chased him.’

Stoltz bowed his head.

‘In a way it was all my fault. I left the car unlocked. I f*cked up and then worse when I didn’t go back. I didn’t know what to do. I was in shock. Then a cop picked me up. My prints were all over my gun and obviously it fired the bullet that killed him. That’s how I ended up with voluntary manslaughter. I made all the wrong moves. That’s why I’m restarting my career.’

‘Never too late to invent,’ Steve said.

‘Hey, I watched the boom from prison. I watched all my friends get rich, even people that were totally incompetent, but I’m not telling you this so I can bitch about it. Maybe you’ve heard some news about a San Francisco homicide inspector who either shot himself or was murdered, and then yesterday or the day before the wife of a former homicide inspector was killed in a hit-and-run. Turns out these are the two inspectors who took me down, so because they don’t have any other suspects they’re hassling me.’

Stoltz held his hand up like he was going to swear on a Bible.

‘No, that’s not quite full disclosure. I wrote letters from prison. I was angry. I didn’t write threatening letters or anything like that. I was just trying to get them to reopen the case.’

‘You seem like you’re doing OK,’ Jonathan said, like he was coaching.

‘I’m doing fine.’ Stoltz broke eye contact with Jonathan, glanced at Steve, and then back at Jonathan. ‘I trust you both. I’m thinking of suing them, like bang, overnight a lawsuit if they harass me in any way. What do you think? Is that a stupid idea or should I give it right back to them?’

‘My advice is not going to be what you want to hear,’ Jonathan said, and for a patent attorney he looked pretty pumped up.

‘Mine either,’ Steve threw in but left it to Jonathan.

‘OK, tell me because I trust you guys.’

‘Forget about suing. It’s long, complicated, and you’d probably lose. It’s the job of the police to talk to everybody who might have a grudge against this dead inspector or the wife. Even though it’s hard, the best thing you can do right now is cooperate.’

‘I’m trying but I feel like I should get a lawyer and hit back.’

‘Are you kidding? Always have a lawyer.’ Jonathan smiled, reached over and patted him. ‘How else are we going to make money? Hang in there, they’re just doing what they do, but by all means have a lawyer present. Right, Steve?’

‘I agree with everything he said.’ Steve stood up and said, ‘What do you say we hit the road?’

They all stood and then clicked across the asphalt in their bike shoes.

‘Sorry to put you guys through that,’ Stoltz said before they broke up. He shook hands with both. He knew they’d find reasons never to ride with him again. They wouldn’t hear from him again either, and when he looked in the rear-view mirror as he drove away they were still standing in the lot talking about him. That was all he needed to know.