A Killing in China Basin

TWENTY-TWO


As soon as the front door unlocked, Raveneau turned to the apartment manager and said, ‘We’ll take it from here. We’ll bring the key back to you.’

Inside it smelled heavily of used cat litter and a small red cat appeared and meowed as it rubbed against Raveneau’s leg. He leaned over and picked it up. Raveneau found some dry food in a kitchen cabinet and fed the cat, and then got on the phone to CSI as la Rosa went back to the car for latex gloves. Raveneau looked around as he waited. One bedroom, one bath, and a lot nicer interior than the dirty exterior of the building.

On a shelf they found several photo albums. She had a Facebook page and a Twitter account. They’d get on to the Facebook page when they got back to the office and made the call. They read through her Twitter feeds, her emails, and la Rosa called AT&T for phone records. She banked online. Either he or la Rosa would call the bank when they got back to the office.

He walked into the bathroom, looking but touching little as la Rosa was on the phone with AT&T getting Jurika’s voice mail password. He went through her photos on the computer and emailed several of those and her email address book to both his address and la Rosa’s. Then he printed off the emails she’d sent and those received in the last month. As the printer clacked along CSI arrived, and he walked out to lead them in. La Rosa was on the computer when he came back.

‘Did you read these?’ she asked. ‘This must be a friend of hers.’

Raveneau read, ‘u going?’

‘yes. u?’

‘We need all of her friends.’

In an hour they had gone from knowing nothing about Alex Jurika to sorting through information. Raveneau watched la Rosa’s hands move over the keyboard. She was three or four times faster than him. She clicked through emails, pausing on one reading, ‘You’re going to love this.’

CSI pulled prints and latents off counters, the table and door knobs. They had prints from two different people. One was likely Jurika; the other they guessed was also a woman. Nothing Raveneau found suggested Jurika intended to travel; no packed bags, passport, itinerary, plane tickets, or email records of flight confirmations. From the cat pictures and the rest, Raveneau couldn’t see her abandoning her pet, leaving it here to starve. So good chance she was abducted.

AT&T called back and promised to fax a record of her incoming and outgoing phone numbers for the cell and landline. After the CSI pair left and Raveneau couldn’t think of anything more to do here, they locked the door and Raveneau told the manager, ‘We’ll be back later today. We’d like to keep the key, if that’s OK.’ Then he asked, ‘Do you have a way to take care of the cat?’

The manager wrinkled his nose. ‘They’re not even allowed here.’

Now they crossed the Bay Bridge on their way to a print shop in Emeryville, where the woman who had recognized Jurika and called in this morning worked. Her name was Sally Cheung and she turned out to be seasoned, tough, and no nonsense. She nodded as Raveneau showed her a photo.

‘That’s her, and she wasn’t the most honest employee, but she was always fun.’ After a pause she added, ‘She got fired for stealing.’

Fired for stealing credit card numbers, but never arrested and prosecuted according to the former boss they talked to that afternoon. ‘Hiring her was like catching a bad cold on a plane. In the end it didn’t hurt us much, but it was shitty while it lasted.’

They read about her all afternoon and finally got on her Facebook page, then started contacting her Facebook friends, none of whom had contacted the police on their own. Late in the afternoon they went back to the apartment building and made another search for the green Toyota Camry registered to her. At seven that night Raveneau said, ‘Why don’t you come over? I’ll cook dinner and we’ll keep working.’

When la Rosa arrived she spotted the cat exploring the roof.

‘Isn’t that Jurika’s cat?’

‘Yeah, I couldn’t leave it there.’ When the cat ran back over he picked it up and showed her the name tag, Visa. La Rosa smiled, shook her head.

He fired up the barbecue as la Rosa checked out how he lived. At 10:30, just as they called it a night, Raveneau’s landline rang. He saw Celeste’s name on the screen and remembered they were going to try to see each other tonight if it all worked out. With everything happening today he forgot to call her late this afternoon.

‘Celeste, I’m sorry, I saw the message light blinking when I got home, but we caught a break in a case today and I’ve been caught up in that.’

‘Are you still working on it?’

‘Just finishing.’

In the background la Rosa laughed at something the cat did.

‘Who’s that?’

‘My partner. She came over for dinner so we could keep working. We got an ID on that woman in China Basin I told you about. We know who she is now.’

‘I didn’t know you had a woman as a partner.’

La Rosa laughed again and when he looked over the cat was jumping up two to three feet straight up off the deck.

‘She sounds young.’

‘You’ve got a good ear if you can tell that, but you’re right.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Elizabeth.’

‘Pretty name.’

He looked at la Rosa as he answered, knew she was tracking the conversation and said, ‘Yes, it is a pretty name. Too bad her personality doesn’t match it.’

La Rosa smiled and Celeste said, ‘Have fun, I’ll talk to you later.’

A moment later she hung up.