or seven years ago it would have sold for half a million dollars. That seemed unbelievable now.
A window at the front threw yellow light from around the corners of the curtains. The delivery truck sat at the curb tilting slightly toward the gutter, its bed empty, the truck a large presence in the neighborhood. Raveneau watched the front curtains as he called Drury’s cell again. This time a man answered and sounded both suspicious and cautious. After Raveneau identified himself, Drury’s tone changed. He apologized.
‘Sorry, I didn’t have my phone with me. My boss just called and said you’re trying to get a hold of me, but all I did was drop a load of plywood and leave.’
‘Yeah, but we need to sit with you and go through the timeline.’
‘I’m with my girlfriend and on our way to her house in Santa Cruz so it’s going to have to be tomorrow, guy.’
‘It can’t wait.’
‘It’s going to have to. It’s like my one day off and I don’t know anything anyway. I’m not going to be able to tell you anything. I was there and gone, man. It was like one unit of plywood and the older dude there unloaded it. You got the delivery time from my boss, right? He said he gave it to you.’
‘I need to sit and talk with you tonight.’
‘Not going to happen, and besides, whoever wasted them did it after I left.’
‘Where’s the truck you delivered the plywood with?’
‘Parked in front of my house.’
‘Where are the keys to it?’
‘With me, and what’s with the truck? What do you need the truck for?’
‘Where are you in Santa Cruz? I’ll come to you and we can talk and I’ll get the keys to the truck from you then.’
‘This is getting weird. It’s like you’re suspicious of me or something.’
‘Four people were murdered and other than the killer you may have been the last person to see them alive, but you don’t think it’s important for you to let us interview you today. It’s more important that you spend time with your girlfriend.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You’re avoiding us, and yeah, that makes me wonder about you.’
‘You’ve got everything already.’
‘You keep saying that.’
Now the lights went off in the front room of the house and Raveneau watched the front door open. He couldn’t read the face of the man coming out of the house until he passed under a street light. Then he knew it was Drury. Raveneau watched him climb into an old green Honda Accord parked in front of the delivery truck and pull away with his lights off. He didn’t turn his headlights on until he reached the end of the block. But before that he told Raveneau he would come to the Homicide office at noon tomorrow and hung up.
Raveneau followed him to a rundown strip mall across the freeway and north where Drury parked his car away from the light poles and walked across a broken asphalt lot to a bar called Pete’s Corner. He went through the door beneath the red neon sign and Raveneau waited five minutes before following. Inside, he moved to the long dark bar and ordered a beer. It smelled like beer and the cleaner they used to wash the linoleum floor. John Drury was in the back near a pool table talking with two other men. A moment later Raveneau’s phone buzzed.
‘Where are you?’ la Rosa asked.
‘At a place called Pete’s Corner. I’m watching the driver who delivered plywood to the cabinet shop this afternoon. I drove to his house looking for him and he took off while he was on the phone to me.’
‘Should I come there?’
‘No.’
‘Then so what are you going to do?’
‘Not sure yet.’
‘But you’re sure it’s him?’
‘It’s him.’
‘If he’s trying to avoid us, you need me with you.’
‘I’ll call you back. He’s watching me now.’
The bartender was at the far end of the bar talking with a couple of women and Raveneau had taken a table so he could talk to la Rosa. But now he moved back up to the bar. He sipped the beer and texted Ortega as Drury moved in on the two women and the bartender navigated very full cocktails to a safe landing in front of the women. Before turning to his next order the bartender asked Drury, ‘Do you want another?’
‘Only if they buy,’ Drury said, meaning the women and the one nearest him laughed and said she would. They all laughed and Drury said, ‘I’ll be right back. I’m going out for a quick smoke.’
A couple of minutes passed and Raveneau felt like a fool when he saw the headlights come on. By the time he came out the door Drury was already pulling on to the road, and he hustled toward his car keeping an eye on Drury’s tail lights, watching him pass through one light then another, growing smaller as he accelerated away.
FOURTEEN
Ortega listened to Raveneau’s account of getting burned by John Drury and then asked, ‘Where are you now?’
‘I’ve gone back to his house. I’ve got a tow truck on the way and the police here are going to help. The tow driver will get the delivery truck open.’
The San Leandro police sent two units and with Raveneau’s urging kept their lights off and the residue test and subsequent search went down with a low profile and fairly fast. When the steering wheel didn’t have any gunpowder residue Raveneau doubted they would find residue anywhere. He pulled an old coat out of his trunk and put that on before crawling under the delivery truck with a Maglite.
Despite the trucking business owner’s rap about running a tight ship, the truck didn’t look well maintained mechanically. In several places the asphalt and curb were dark with oil. That said Drury parked here regularly. Raveneau couldn’t avoid getting oil on the back of his coat and pants as he worked his way along with the flashlight beam. He snagged and tore the coat as he crawled back out, and there was Ortega standing above him in a suit and long raincoat.
‘You’re getting a full day in, Raveneau.’
‘I’m trying to figure out if there’s another reason he’s avoiding us.’
‘Anything in the cab?’
‘Nothing.’
If anything, the truck was suspiciously clean, the rubber mats scoured, carpet shampooed and vacuumed, as groomed as Drury who at the bar wore a neatly ironed black hoodie. Raveneau carried an image of the lanky pushback from the bar, the casual pulling of his cigarettes from the pocket of the hoodie, wagging them at the women without once glancing at him. Drury worked at it.
But now it was 3:00 a.m. Raveneau and Ortega were in Raveneau’s car, and Ortega was tapping away on his laptop writing a search warrant.
‘Give me some help here, Raveneau.’
‘We’re not going to get in his house.’
‘Sure, we are.’
Ortega was intent on trying the on-call judge.
‘It’s one thing to get into a truck that was at the crime scene in or around the time of the murders, but a judge isn’t going to give you the house. All we can say is that he delivered plywood.’
‘Four dead and Drury was the last guy to see them alive. He’s evading us.’
‘That’s legal.’
But Ortega was juiced. He wanted to try. He finished the search warrant app, emailed it back to the Southern precinct station, and it got faxed to the on-call judge at 4:30 as Raveneau stood outside in the cold wind. He listened to Ortega talk to the judge now. Ortega’s voice got louder when he got nervous and judges made him
