A Killing in China Basin

TWENTY-THREE


The first words of the older sister of the victim, Gloria Jurika, were, ‘I’m not surprised.’

But she was surprised and shocked and had trouble talking. She declined Raveneau’s offer to pick her up at the airport and didn’t call his cell until she reached the Hall of Justice. He found her downstairs standing alone twenty feet from the elevators, the black hair, wide forehead and thin nose unmistakably similar to her sister’s. People walked past her and around her; she seemed in a space all her own until he touched her shoulder.

‘Gloria, I’m Inspector Raveneau.’

‘Will you take me to see her?’

‘Let’s go upstairs first.’

In the office Gloria Jurika said the last communication from her sister was an email asking to borrow fifty thousand dollars. A moment later she added, ‘Fifty thousand is all of my savings. The last time I loaned her money she didn’t pay it back. Do you think she was killed over money?’

‘We don’t have any idea yet. We’re hoping you can help us.’

‘She also tried to borrow from mom. She flew down, went to the nursing home, and got mom to sign a check. One of the employees at the nursing home called me and I put a stop on it. That was about a week and a half ago. Before that, Alex hadn’t visited mom in two and a half years.’

‘What did she do for work here? Tell us about her.’

‘I don’t know what she did for work. She wouldn’t tell me.’ After a pause she added, ‘Alex never finished high school.’

‘We’ve got some email addresses we’d like you to look at. These are out of her computer, people we haven’t contacted yet, but maybe you’ll recognize somebody. We’ve also run her name through some of our systems and haven’t come up with any criminal record. Do you know of any criminal arrests in her past?’

‘There was one before she left home. That was about drug dealing but it was pretty minor, though in our family we’ve never known how she earns her money.’

‘She’s had various jobs.’

‘We know about the jobs but they don’t explain her clothes and jewelry. What would you think if you had a sister like that?’

He’d think what Gloria was thinking and reluctant to say, that the money came from somewhere. They had run Alex Jurika through the local, state, and national systems, and hadn’t come up with anything more than a minor possession of marijuana charge eleven years ago at eighteen, which was likely the arrest Gloria referred to.

He listened as Gloria continued to criticize her sister. It made him think of parents flying into San Francisco to reclaim the body of a runaway child. Sometimes, initially, they displayed anger toward the child, or spoke as though the child had gotten what they deserved. They had already imagined all the worst things. They had expected something bad to happen. But that’s still not the same as having it actually happen. He thought Gloria was in that space right now.

They showed her the emails and watched her sift through and then touch an email address. ‘That’s her cousin, another thief.’ Her voice broke. ‘My sister was a thief.’ She covered her eyes. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t just say it a half hour ago. I’m sorry.’

‘You don’t need to be sorry. What kind of thief?’

‘Credit cards.’

‘And this cousin is an accomplice?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did she tell you that?’

She shook her head.

‘But you figured it out?’

‘Yes.’

The cousin’s name was Julie Candiff. Gloria gave them a Phoenix address and phone number for her, and then the phone number of Julie’s parents, Gloria’s aunt and uncle, in case Julie had moved or didn’t respond.

‘Her parents will know how to get a hold of her and she’s afraid of her dad, so if she lies to you or won’t talk to you, mention him. She and Alex were terrible influences on each other when they were younger. They were the same age and my parents flew Julie out when she was twelve so they could get to know each other, because we have a very strong extended family. But the first thing they did together was start shoplifting. It was like Bonnie meeting Clyde.’

A tear leaked from her left eye and she swatted at her face as though a mosquito had landed there.

‘I’m sorry to be like this, I’m really sorry. I guess I’m just really angry she got herself killed. She was so sweet when she was a little girl and then everything went wrong.’

Raveneau opened one of the photo albums they pulled from Jurika’s apartment. Gloria flipped through them with a pained expression, and then slid them away, unable to find a photo of the cousin, Julie Candiff. She wasn’t one of Alex’s Facebook friends either.

They took her down to see her sister’s body and unlike those who need to touch the cold skin to know it’s really final she just stared and then stepped back. She said nothing about the marks on her sister’s neck, wrists, and ankles, and stared blankly when la Rosa asked if she wanted to ride with them to her sister’s apartment. She finally shook her head and said, ‘I’ll drive myself.’

In the apartment she walked quietly through, touching nothing but pointing to a white horse carved out of ivory.

‘I gave that to her when she was eight.’

‘And she kept it right there where she could see it every day,’ la Rosa said. ‘Do you want to claim the things here?’

‘No.’

‘At some point the apartment manager will clean out everything.’

‘I don’t want anything.’

‘She had a cat,’ Raveneau said. ‘Do you know anybody who’d like her cat? I’ve got it, right now.’

‘I don’t know anybody.’

After Gloria left and they were still in the apartment, la Rosa summed up her opinion.

‘That’s one cold fish.’

But Raveneau didn’t see her that way at all. He thought she was deeply sad and close to breaking down.

‘Why don’t I call the cousin before we leave here,’ la Rosa said. ‘I’ll make a run at her woman to woman. I think I’ve gotten a feel of her from the emails.’

‘Sure, but from the way Gloria was talking I wouldn’t count on the cousin knowing she’s dead. It’s not clear to me that Gloria has told her own parents yet.’

Raveneau overheard Julie Candiff answer the phone and after la Rosa explained, the words, ‘Oh, no, oh, no.’

La Rosa was on the phone with her forty minutes or more, finally pulling something out of Julie that sent her to the bedroom closet. With the phone still in her left hand she reached up on a shelf and pulled down three empty purses they’d previously checked. In a burgundy-colored leather purse she followed Julie’s directions and found a seam near the bottom bound by Velcro. When she pulled the Velcro apart it exposed a pocket sewed behind the lining. In it were six driver’s licenses, all with Alex’s face but none with her name or true driver’s license number. For each license there was a credit card. When she hung up with the cousin she looked at Raveneau and said, ‘Looks like Gloria was right about credit fraud. So is that what got her killed?’