A Killing in China Basin

FORTY-FIVE


Last time Raveneau was in Phoenix was to interview a witness on a July afternoon when the temperature tagged one hundred and fifteen degrees and he made the mistake of leaving a printout of a photo on the passenger seat of the rental car. The photo curled and faded in the baking heat inside. Left in there long enough it probably would have caught fire. But this was November and the morning was clear and cool. A light wind blew off the desert. He’d slept on the plane and felt rested.

The search yesterday of Stoltz’s house yielded a few papers and documents la Rosa would follow up on today from the office. But he doubted anything would come of what they had found. Stoltz was ready for a search. He’d anticipated it. That was Raveneau’s take-away.

He called la Rosa and let her know he’d landed and was pulling into the shopping mall where Julie Candiff worked as an assistant manager in a boutique clothing store. He found Candiff soon after walking in and asked her, ‘Do you have someone who can cover for you for a couple of hours?’

‘I’ll get fired if I leave the store.’

‘The police are going to let us use an interview room at a precinct near here. You can ride with me or drive yourself. That’s up to you.’

She stood up to him now. She looked little like her cousin, blonde hair to her shoulders, a small turned up nose and carefully made-up eyes.

‘You really don’t care about what happens with my job, do you?’

‘Maybe I’ll care more when I get to know you better.’

She disappeared for several minutes, and then was in a hurry to get out of the store so others didn’t find out who he was or where she was going. At the Squaw Peak Precinct she said, ‘All I ever did was rent the apartment. I never handled any money or any credit cards, or opened any of the mail that came there.’

‘The problem is we have hundreds of emails and text messages between you and Alex. In fifty of them you’re talking about the things you bought.’

‘Of course we talked about shopping. We loved to shop together.’

‘There’s a record of everything you charged. We’ve got videotape of you standing at a store counter showing a fake driver’s license as you use a credit card with someone else’s name. That’s credit fraud and it’s a done deal that it was you, so from my point of view you’re being stubborn. Or maybe you didn’t care that much about your cousin.’

‘That’s a mean thing to say. You don’t know how sad I am about Alex.’

‘You’re right, I don’t. You hide it well and I’m getting frustrated. We’re trying to find the person who killed Alex, and it feels like you’re trying to block us. You make promises you don’t keep. You dodge contact and I’m getting the strong impression you don’t care whether her killer is found or not. You keep denying the business you and your cousin had and I feel as though you’d like me to just go away.’

‘It was her business, not mine. I didn’t know what was going on. I never knew.’

‘You and Alex stole a lot of money and ruined the credit of dozens of people along the way. I have zero doubt about that, OK, just so we’re clear. I know you stole credit cards and identities.’

Raveneau paused. When she finally looked up he continued.

‘But what I’m working on is a homicide investigation. I’m not working credit fraud. I’m trying to figure out who murdered Alex Jurika, your cousin, your best friend in crime. I’m looking to you to stand up for her. I think the killing was related to the fraud, or came from it. That same killer may come for you.’

‘But I don’t know anything, Alex ran everything.’

‘Doesn’t matter. They may not know that. So you’ve got to talk to me.’

At some point he left her alone in the room and made calls and picked up messages. When he went back in she said, ‘Alex worked for some company where they cleaned old people’s houses and stuff and she would steal credit cards from them.’

‘Steal from the houses they worked in?’

‘Yes.’

‘GoodHands?’

‘I don’t remember the name, but Alex sometimes traded online the card info she stole, other times she’d use the numbers herself.’

‘What was your role?’

‘Do you promise I won’t go to jail?’

‘No, but what I said before is true. All I’m interested in is finding Alex’s killer.’

‘But this is all recorded.’

‘Yes, it’s all being taped.’

When he flew home late that afternoon Raveneau felt he had a much better idea of how it all evolved. He was pretty sure Candiff’s role was limited.

‘Well?’ la Rosa asked as she picked him up at SFO.

‘It was worth it. She wasn’t going to fly out. She needed the shock of us coming to her and interrupting her life.’

He downloaded what he’d learned.

‘She claims not to know Deborah Lafaye or recognize the name Erin Quinn. She was out of the loop. Alex gave her the job of the apartment because she knew she could keep her happy by buying clothes and jewelry.’

‘Then what was her role?’

‘Jurika gave some of the new credit identities Phoenix addresses. She put a few in Scottsdale and other places in the greater Phoenix area. Four of the names had the same address, a Phoenix apartment where Candiff picked up the mail.’

Raveneau opened his notebook and went through it point by point with la Rosa before asking about Stoltz.

‘He walks tomorrow,’ she said, and that’s what happened. Mid morning the next day Stoltz got cut loose without a bond, because as Stoltz’s lawyer put it, ‘It’s still legal in America to work long hours and take business trips.’

Stoltz also made a public statement wishing the police luck, saying, ‘I am very sorry for the families of the officers and as much as anyone I want this killer caught. I’ve been treated very unfairly by the police in the past, but I apologize for not coming forward sooner.’

Raveneau watched it live and then again on late night news. He couldn’t quite get his head around how easily the identity theft was brushed off. Stoltz had admitted through his lawyer to purchasing online the identity of a Steven Pullman who had died with his parents in an auto accident in 1983. Asked about it by a reporter, he was close to indignant, saying he always paid the bills, and dismissed using the identity of a dead child as inconsequential, saying, ‘It’s just a name.’ And maybe that’s where things were headed, to a world where identity was just another commodity. If so, what would that say about us?