A Killing in China Basin

TWENTY-SIX


Raveneau woke to a hollow banging noise that died away within moments. When the sound woke him a second time he came to wakefulness with the memory of a corrupt police officer in Guatemala tip-tapping the barrel of his gun against the driver’s window of a rented car, waiting for Raveneau to roll down the window. He listened to the noise another thirty seconds, realized it was three in the morning and got out of bed quietly and fumbled for his clothes. Once outside he walked across the big roof toward the noise, carrying a flashlight he hadn’t turned on yet. He figured it was someone trying to break into the warehouse underneath him. He looked over the parapet and then clicked on the light.

Almost directly below was a metal access door to his landlord’s business. When his flashlight beam caught the top of a billed cap, the would-be burglar dropped the iron bar he was using to get through the metal door and zigzagged into the darkness. He ran back toward the street and that was fine with Raveneau. Let the guy run. The last thing he wanted to do was deal with him inside the building. But a few seconds later, as he swept the asphalt lot below with the light, he heard the buzz of a bullet passing and the popping of another round going off. He ducked down behind the parapet, swore, and killed the light. Down the street a car with its headlights on accelerated away, and without a make on the car Raveneau walked to his phone. But he was plenty angry the guy had taken a shot at him.

Two officers arrived ten minutes later. They wrote it up as Raveneau limped around on the street. One of the officers looked at him and asked, ‘You twist your ankle when he took a shot at you?’

‘No, I’m just sore because I got a little exercise. I’m not used to it.’

The cops laughed.

‘Anything else you want us to do?’

‘No, I’m good.’

‘Then we’ll take a drive around. And you think it was a Honda?’

‘Oh, hell, I don’t know, I could barely make out the shape. But it looked like a Honda, probably late model.’

After studying the damage to the door, Raveneau wrote a note for the owner. He’d give him a call in the morning. Around the deadbolt the door was badly dented and the lock had been all but hammered off. Han would need to replace it all tomorrow. When he got back up to the apartment it was 4:30 and he was too wired up to go back to sleep. He showered, dressed, made coffee and drove into work.

There, he found a note from CSI. They’d gotten a hit on the second set of prints taken from Jurika’s apartment and came up with a Deborah Lafaye, who’d been pulled over on Green Street three years ago and pled guilty to driving under the influence. Through the DUI arrest they had a Fulton Street address in San Francisco. He stared at her name, repeating it silently to himself because there was something familiar. Then he googled her and got it. He clicked on to the website of her charity foundation. The foundation’s stated mission was to bring modern medical techniques and supplies to the world’s poor. He skimmed that, read her bio, looked at photos, and tried to imagine a reason she’d be in Jurika’s apartment. He couldn’t come up with one and continued to click around on the website as he mulled it over.

Then he called la Rosa and woke her up.

‘It’s Saturday,’ she said. ‘What are you doing in there?’

‘I shot baskets for a couple of hours earlier this morning and then I figured I’d just come in and work.’ Now he told her what happened last night. Then he picked up the CSI note and read it to her. ‘CSI got a hit on the second set of prints, a Deborah Lafaye.’

‘The world health foundation, the woman with the fingernails.’

‘You got it right away. I had to google her.’

‘It must be a mistake.’

‘They double-checked it.’

Now she was quiet as she did what he had done, trying to picture this minor celebrity in Jurika’s kitchen. He remembered the fingernail story. Lafaye had most of her nails ripped out in a torture session and she wore the misshapen result like a badge of honor. He’d seen her on a talk show holding her hands up to the cameras, though none of that was on the website.

La Rosa did what he did, took another angle, asking, ‘When was the DUI?’

‘Three years ago as she was driving away from a restaurant. The note says they ran the prints twice, but I’ll check with them again. Then I’m going to call her.’

‘Call me first.’

The prints still came back as Deborah Lafaye’s and la Rosa came into the office. She watched him cross the room and said, ‘The way you’re walking reminds me of my dog when he got so old he could barely stand in the morning. I finally had to have him put to sleep. He was blind by then and he couldn’t hear either. You have reading glasses, don’t you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Did I hurt you?’

‘Listen, I’ve been reading more about Lafaye. She’s a pretty big deal and she’s got some friends with throw weight.’

‘Throw weight?’

‘Yeah, like a missile. It’s a word out of the Cold War, another event you missed. Check out the web page, you’ll see a picture of her with Clinton. Seems like I remember when she started out and it hasn’t been that many years. She’s brought that foundation a long way.’

Like a true cop, la Rosa read the arrest article first, and he made coffee. Though it was Saturday and the office empty but for one interview underway, la Rosa had dressed in a coffee-colored suit and shoes to match. Maybe that was for an anticipated meeting with Lafaye, but who knew whether Lafaye was even in town. He got the impression from the website and everything else that popped up on Google that Lafaye traveled a lot. Seeing her nice clothes reminded him of a period of several years when he’d worn nice suits every day and told people that it was out of respect for the dead.

But that respect for the dead had also coincided with when he was most full of himself. Looking back now, he figured he’d known a few very good inspectors and some very bad ones and the clothing hadn’t made anyone better or worse. Some of the bad inspectors had dressed immaculately yet couldn’t find a soldier on an army base.

The good ones connected to some pulse running through everyone. One of the very best had taken him aside at a retirement party and walked him out into a warm May night on a patio to tell him, ‘Dump the expensive suits, you don’t need them. I’ve been watching you and you’re the real deal, but you’re missing details because you’re spending too much time trying to keep coffee off your tie.’

At some point after trying to live larger than he was, Raveneau had figured it out. He sipped the coffee now and waited for his new partner to agree. When she did he punched in the first of two numbers they had for Deborah Lafaye and got an answer on the third ring.

‘This is Inspector Ben Raveneau with the San Francisco Police. My partner and I are investigating a homicide – a killing in China Basin a week ago Thursday. Maybe you read about it?’

‘I haven’t.’

‘Or saw the sketch that ran on TV when we went out to the public.’

‘Inspector, I’ve been out of town so I’m not sure how I can help you. Why did you call me?’

‘We believe you knew our victim and we’d like to meet and talk with you about her. Her name was Alex Jurika.’

‘Oh, my God.’

‘Did you know her?’

‘Yes. Yes, oh, really, my God, Alex is dead? She once worked for me. I can’t believe she’s dead. When did this happen? She was murdered? Alex was murdered? That’s terrible news.’

‘Yes, she was and I’m sorry. It sounds like you knew her well.’

Lafaye immediately qualified that.

‘I haven’t seen much of her in the last five years. This makes me so sad. What happened?’

‘We’re investigating. We don’t really know what happened yet. We found her body in a building in China Basin.’

Raveneau paused one beat and said, ‘We’d like to talk with you in person today.’

There was a gap as she debated that, but he knew what the answer would be. His guess was that right now she was spinning different scenarios about how they connected her name to Jurika. She hadn’t volunteered that she’d been in Jurika’s apartment.

‘I’ll have to ask you to give me a few minutes. I don’t even know my own schedule. I need to call my secretary and then I’ll call you back. What number shall I use?’

When she called back she said, ‘A driver is going to take me to a meeting in Napa. Would it inconvenience you, Inspector, if we met in the parking lot at the Larkspur Ferry in Marin? I realize that’s probably not what you had in mind, but there are people I’m supposed to rendezvous with there, and we could meet ahead of that. I can give you my cell number, or if you give me yours I’ll call you as I get there. Will that be OK?’ After a moment, she added, ‘I’m just so shocked.’

Thirty minutes later Raveneau was at the ferry landing and on his cell phone to Lafaye. He watched a big ferry gliding out and then churning a heavy white wake as it turned toward San Francisco, and Lafaye guided him to where she was waiting.

She was a lean woman, silver-haired, blue or almost violet-eyed, taller than average and eye-catching, though she must be his age. He couldn’t help but look at her fingers. The man who’d done it to her had done a very thorough job.

She caught his secret glance and said, ‘Don’t worry about it. Everybody looks at my hands. I knew as soon as you told me she was dead why you’d called me. I just wanted to talk to my lawyer before meeting you. You’re wondering what my fingerprints were doing in Alex’s apartment.’

‘That’s right.’

‘I hope you’re not wondering if I killed her.’

‘Why would we wonder that?’

‘You’re in the suspicion business.’

‘I’ve always thought of it in a different way.’

‘And you wanted to meet face to face.’

‘It’s better that way.’

‘Then why don’t we get coffee and talk?’

Something about her eyes was arresting, the color maybe. ‘Let’s do that,’ he said, and then added, ‘We’re just hoping you can help us.’

She smiled at that and said, ‘I use that line all the time myself when we’re fund raising.’