A Killing in China Basin

THIRTY-SIX


Raveneau drove through the Tenderloin before going into work. The morning sky was particularly clear and the sunlight bright, high on the buildings ahead. He cruised slowly down Eddy Street, looking for Deschutes, knowing he used to hang here. He was close to giving up when he spotted him sitting on a bench in the park outside City Hall. Deschutes picked up on him as soon as he slowed. He started to leave, then stayed on the bench and watched as Raveneau approached.

‘Man nearly killed the brother of a police officer last night.’

And that’s how Raveneau came to it. Deschutes heard it in a restaurant on Van Ness Street where he’d gone in to get warm and use a bathroom. They had a TV there. He had watched a report of the shooting but fumbled for the name he’d heard. ‘Backer, Beckurt, like that.’

‘Becker?’

‘That’s the one. His brother got shot.’

Raveneau didn’t believe it, but didn’t disbelieve it either. He pulled a five dollar bill from his wallet.

‘Get yourself some breakfast, Jimmy. Where can I find you later?’

‘I’m around.’

‘Where are you going to be?’

‘I’m not going far.’

Outside the gray-faced Hall of Justice five lanes of Bryant Street ran one-way. Many commuters treated the street as a freeway on-ramp, hammering through the yellow lights as they accelerated toward the Bay Bridge ramp a block away. When the light changed, pedestrians jaywalking across the five lanes on their way to the Hall entrance steps sometimes had to run for it. But not today.

Today they wouldn’t have any problem because the TV vans were two lanes deep, blocking traffic as well as access to the alley and the entrances to the bail bond shops and other businesses opposite the Hall. Rubberneckers slowed traffic to a crawl and Raveneau avoided his usual parking spot. He parked six blocks away and walked in.

La Rosa was in conversation with a deputy-chief out in the corridor when Raveneau got off at the fifth floor. From the way they stopped talking as he neared he guessed the deputy-chief was la Rosa’s angel in the brass. Inside Homicide a meeting was underway at the conference table outside the captain’s office.

Becker’s brother, Alan Becker, an attorney in Walnut Creek, was shot and badly wounded by an unidentified assailant as he unloaded groceries last night at his suburban Walnut Creek home. Those were the bare facts and Raveneau gathered not much more was known yet. Possibly it was an attempted carjacking, or an interrupted burglary, but the probability that some connection existed between Whitacre, Jacie Bates, and this could not be ignored. What had seemed improbable now seemed possible.

Raveneau took in the scene and then walked to his desk. That didn’t buy him much time, but he did get more details on the Becker shooting before Captain Ramirez came to get him.

Now he was at the conference table, and they were telling him a task force was forming and that he and la Rosa were expected to participate. Raveneau nodded, though in his view task forces were largely for people who enjoyed meetings. He hoped that whoever headed this one didn’t need a phone call every four hours.

At noon a general meeting of all homicide inspectors was called and more brass sat in. One of the inspectors, Sanchez, interrupted Ramirez and asked, ‘Where’s this Cody Stoltz and why is he walking around without us knowing where he is?’

Ramirez turned to Raveneau, asked, ‘Do you want to take that?’

‘Sure.’ He glanced at Sanchez who almost certainly already knew the answer, and then addressed the room. ‘An SID team was on him but he took a trip to Los Angeles with his mother and LAPD picked him up. With his mother he was staying at the Beverly Hilton. Then it appeared he was continuing on to Mexico, to Cabo with her, but she went and he didn’t. Basically, he went to the airport with her, checked in, went through security, and then didn’t board the plane.’

‘What about the mother, has she been questioned?’ someone asked.

‘Yes. He gave her some last second explanation that he had too much work, too much depended on him. He left her as she was literally walking down the boarding ramp and LAPD missed him leaving the airport. We don’t know where he is now, though he has checked in with the people he works for.’

‘Then they know where he is.’ Sanchez again.

‘They say it’s not unusual for him to hole up with his laptop and work on a problem.’

Raveneau gave more back story on Stoltz and when the conversation moved to Jacie Bates there was no way to avoid the Oakland detectives’ interest in Bates. Everyone agreed more information was needed about the shooting of Becker’s brother and grumbled as the meeting broke up that the brass formed the task force in a knee-jerk response to the media.

A few minutes later la Rosa tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Captain Ramirez and Deputy-chief Grainer want me to go to lunch with them.’

She was gone an hour and a half. When she returned he guessed from her expression that they’d made her some sort of offer.

‘They want me to act as spokesperson for the task force.’

‘Are you good with that?’

‘I said I’d do it. Am I good with it, I don’t know. That’s a lot of cameras across the street. I’m a little scared.’

She downplayed it, though sounding excited, and it was clear she’d been given a career pep talk and the point had gotten made that how she handled herself in the swirl of media attention would count for a lot later. Careers got made in crisis situations. Everything became larger than life. That’s what drew the brass this morning.

Raveneau stayed at his desk that afternoon. He phoned a cop in Concord that he knew had friends on the Walnut Creek force. In 1988 an undercover San Francisco officer was killed in Walnut Creek and some strain remained ever since between the departments. He was hoping his friend in Concord had a route to the detectives assigned the Becker shooting. Turned out his friend didn’t know the detectives personally, but knew someone who did and made the call. He called back an hour later.

‘They’re looking at an ex-boyfriend neighbor of Alan Becker’s daughter because your lieutenant’s brother and the boyfriend got in a shoving match over the daughter two months ago. Alan Becker called the police and threatened the kid with a restraining order. And Sunday night a neighbor saw a man on a bicycle around the time of the attempted murder. Evidently, this kid is an avid cyclist, so they’ve taken his bike and all the associated clothing, shoes, helmets, everything. They also found his recreational drug stash and they’re holding him with that.’

‘They’ve questioned him?’

‘Sure. But he’s watching the same news reports they are about a mysterious killer targeting SF homicide inspectors and their families. He’s keeping his mouth shut. What’s it like where you are?’

‘We’re trying to connect the dots.’

‘Well, hang in there. I’ll call you if I hear anything more.’