A Killing in China Basin

SIXTY-THREE


In the mid afternoon la Rosa called him over to her computer.

‘This Lafaye’s foundation website – look at this. She’s supposed to be in Seattle tonight at a dinner honoring the most significant donors to her foundation. They’re giving her an award at the dinner.’ La Rosa threw him a wicked smile. ‘Think she’d pass up an award?’

The award was to be given at a restaurant Raveneau vaguely remembered reading about as cutting edge with a rising star of a chef, a dinner more likely to draw wealthy donors, the type of people she wouldn’t want to disappoint.

‘What do you think?’ la Rosa asked.

‘I think you’re on to something here.’

At four thirty that afternoon a driver showed up at Lafaye’s house and took her to SFO. They watched her check in and pass through security, and waited until United was ready to board the first class passengers before approaching her. Raveneau pulled his homicide star and made sure the people nearby could read it. Her face reddened with embarrassment and humiliation. One of her aides, a young blonde woman with heavy black glasses, stood dumbfounded nearby. La Rosa turned to her and said, ‘Better board or you might miss your flight. Your boss won’t be coming.’

‘You can’t do this,’ Lafaye said.

‘Step away from the line, Ms Lafaye,’ la Rosa said, and Raveneau just watched her, saw her fumble with her phone and call her lawyer, who demanded to speak to him and then told Raveneau he had two choices, charge her with a crime or let her on the plane.

‘Do you really want us to charge her?’

‘Let me talk to my client.’

He handed the phone back to Lafaye who sat down now, her face pale, her worried aide hovering nearby as the plane boarded.

‘Please don’t do this. You don’t know how important this dinner is.’

She pleaded and Raveneau asked, ‘Do you want to come downtown and tell us what happened? Your lawyer can meet us there.’

The warning about unattended luggage drowned out what she said next. The United Seattle flight finished loading and a gate near them streamed passengers unloading.

‘If we had more information it might look different, but I’m afraid where things stand right now, we’re very close to charging you,’ he said.

‘Do that and you may ruin your career, Inspector.’

‘I don’t need your help to ruin it.’

He came close to saying, you went to Alex Jurika’s apartment and she lied to you, and the next night you killed her. Almost said it, but held back, and she seemed to read his mind.

‘You know very well I didn’t kill her.’

‘We know that you’ve been lying to us. That much we’ve figured out, and that’s what we’re operating off right now, and you’re gambling you can back us down and that you’ve got the juice to keep us from pressuring you. Maybe you’re right, then again, maybe you’re not. This is our offer. Security here at the airport is under SFPD, so if you want we can go to a room and you can tell us the truth, and maybe we can work this out and you still catch a flight. Otherwise, your lawyer can meet us at Bryant. It’s your call.’

She didn’t make that call for a long minute, and after she did they led her to the airport security office, got her a chair, and shut the door. In that room she finally gave it up.

‘I didn’t go to her apartment for a drink the Wednesday before she was killed. I went because she was a thief and a liar and I needed to talk alone with her. And I don’t care that she’s dead. Good riddance, and as to the bitch who sold me her identity, Erin Quinn, she was a friend of Jurika’s and she’s been extorting me with Jurika’s help for too many years.’

‘You’ve paid Erin Quinn money.’

‘You need to carry your notebook more often. I’ve been telling you that Quinn has extorted me. Those payments were made through Jurika. I’ve paid her more money every year since the foundation became more successful. At first it was another twenty thousand. She said she hadn’t been given enough for her identity and then it was more, and so forth.’

‘And why didn’t you go—’

‘To the police and tell them I’d bought someone’s identity and there are places where I travel under a false passport, and that I’ve paid money to keep the woman whose true name is Erin Quinn quiet. The mistake I made was paying anything in the first place, but at the time I thought the alternate identity would have very negative repercussions. Besides, Quinn let me know through Jurika that she considered her identity stolen and that’s what she was going to go out with. Jurika, of course, would deny having ever sold it to me. How do you think my board of directors would react to that in this age we live in, where no one has the patience any more to wait for the truth?’

She paused, then added, ‘The day I met Jurika at her apartment she asked for another twenty-five thousand. I stalled and hired a private investigator.’

‘Give us a name and a way to reach this investigator,’ la Rosa said, and Lafaye pulled a card from her purse as Raveneau asked, ‘Why did you lie about what happened on the boat?’

‘I told you the God’s truth.’

‘Stoltz knew when to be at Lake Merced.’

‘I set up a meeting through Jurika. I was to meet Quinn there, pay her the twenty-five thousand, and the private investigator was going to follow her when she left, and then with the help of the authorities we were going to go after her. But I was in the hospital. I didn’t make it to the meeting.’

‘Was the investigator there?’

‘Yes.’

Raveneau studied her a moment and then stepped out of the room with la Rosa.

‘Let’s get her to call the investigator and we’ll go talk to him. She can go on to Seattle with the understanding this isn’t over.’

La Rosa’s answer was, ‘If we do that we may never get the answer.’

‘I’ll try her one more time after she calls this investigator and gives him the go to talk to us.’

Lafaye was very willing to do that as soon as they got in the room. Her aide had already found another flight. There was still time for them to make the dinner. Raveneau sat down next to Lafaye and la Rosa steered the aide away. He spoke quietly.

‘Jurika’s murder is still an open question. That’s where this investigation started and where it’ll finish. So nothing I’m going to say to you now clears you on that.’

‘I would never kill any—’

‘Just listen. In order to go forward I need to know how Stoltz knew to be at Lake Merced. If you told him about the meeting with Quinn, tell me now. If it was on the boat you were under severe duress and maybe you weren’t coherent enough the next day to put it all together.’

‘But if there’s a trial I’ll get called to the stand.’

‘There won’t be a trial. I got a call from a doctor an hour ago. Stoltz’s kidneys and liver are shutting down. He’s not going to make it. It’ll stay with us. But I have to know.’

Lafaye looked down at the carpet. She looked saddened, as if disappointed in herself.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m truly sorry. But, yes, that’s what happened. He frightened it out of me on the boat and I didn’t tell you when I had a chance. Is that what you needed?’

‘Yes.’

‘I really am sorry.’

Raveneau nodded. ‘We’ll still have questions,’ he said. ‘There’ll be plenty of questions about how it worked with Jurika and Quinn and you.’ He stood. ‘We’ll talk when you get back.’

The private investigator had a few things for them, not a lot but a few things that mattered. The Quinn woman – his words – he believed lived in the Bucks Lake area, was only seeing a trickle of the payments made through Jurika. His client, Lafaye, had paid over two hundred thousand dollars in six years, an amount he considered foolish and unnecessary. It was also enough money to give Lafaye motive to kill Jurika and hope that Stoltz killed Quinn at Lake Merced. But that wasn’t the conclusion Raveneau was coming to.

When the private investigator finished, Raveneau left a message for Erin Quinn at the motel on Lombard, and when she didn’t answer a second message they drove over to the motel and the manager opened her door, showed them all her things were still there, so they decided to wait. When Celeste phoned he left la Rosa and stood outside in the cool air talking to her.

‘What are doing tonight?’ she asked.

‘Watching a motel. So far it hasn’t moved.’

‘Will you be around later?’

‘I don’t know, but things are moving. I’ll see you soon.’

At midnight they called in and got a combination of an undercover officer in an unmarked and a radio car to cover until six in the morning, when Raveneau said he’d be back. If she returned during the night a call would go to la Rosa and him. He returned just before six and brought coffees with him for the officers in the radio unit. He told them they could take off. Ten minutes after they did, Quinn showed up. She left her car running and the headlights on as she went into her motel room. She didn’t carry anything out of the room and left the motel room door open as she got back in her car. Later, Raveneau realized that the open motel room door was a signal that he should have seen. But he was finally seeing the Jurika killing. He was too caught up in that.