Raveneau didn’t care whether everybody liked him or not. He had no problem telling Ortega now, ‘I didn’t hear you ask for the public’s help. We don’t need to be talking to the media telling them what we don’t know. We need someone who saw something unusual on Sixteenth Street to come forward.’
‘All right, Ben, but I’ve still got to talk to the press. How did the Drury interview get so screwed up?’
‘I pushed him when I didn’t need to. He wants to be appreciated before anything else and I wasn’t sending that signal. I was asking for details of the day of the delivery and I should have asked him first how he felt and apologized for following him. He’s that kind of guy.’
‘That fits with something the owner said about his acting aspirations,’ said la Rosa, and then recounted what the trucking firm owner had told her.
‘He may not be getting from society what he feels he’s owed.’
Now Cynthia stuck her head in and said, ‘Your friend Ryan Candel is holding for you.’
Raveneau stood. ‘I’ve got to take this.’
As he left and shut the door, Ortega asked, ‘So did Raveneau blow it today?’
Her first reaction was to defend her partner but she caught herself and tried to be objective. Everything mattered. The San Francisco Homicide Detail was basically nowhere on this case with a lot of pressure to solve it.
‘He pushed him,’ she said, ‘but Drury didn’t quit his job today because of Raveneau. He felt betrayed by his boss and said so. He said he was tricked into coming to the yard.’
‘But Raveneau just said he blew it, that he was too aggressive?’
Now she did find herself defending her partner. He had a completely different style than her, and sure, he pushed Drury. But then as he did they saw a part of Drury they wouldn’t have otherwise seen. Where it would go she didn’t know and neither did anyone else in this room, but Raveneau had a way of getting people to reveal themselves and Ortega knew that the same as her. She figured Ortega was still smarting over the press conference comments.
‘You and Ben are done on this one,’ he said. ‘We’ll take over with Drury.’
‘Sure.’
‘After what happened, it makes sense, doesn’t it.’
‘I don’t have any problem with it, it’s your investigation.’
‘Will Raveneau?’
She shook her head. He wouldn’t. Before they walked in here Raveneau told her Ortega will take over Drury today.
‘OK, so we’re in agreement,’ he said, and they were, but that’s not how it worked out.
SEVENTEEN
‘ Hungry?’ Raveneau asked Candel as they sat down at a table on the small deck above the sidewalk.
‘I’m always hungry.’
‘OK, order whatever you want and order me a beer and a burger. I’m buying. I’ve got to return a call but it won’t take long. What made you call me? I didn’t know if I’d hear from you again.’
‘I remembered some other things.’
‘Good. I want to hear about them. I’ll be right back.’
Raveneau called the crime lab and asked for Lim but it was several minutes before Lim picked up. When he did, he said, ‘Some information for you. The first is we got a good fingerprint from one of the photos.’
‘It’s probably mine.’
‘It’s not, I checked. Second is I scanned in that landscape photo and ran an app that compares a photo to a database of hundreds of thousands of photos. It comes up with a percentage probability of a location. The app recognized the terrain. It is the north-west shore of the Kohala coast on the Big Island. Check a map and you’ll see there’s one road that cuts through from above. That’s where the photo was taken from. The last thing is I did more research and I’m sure these photos were taken between 1981 and 1990. I know you want it closer but that’s the best I can do.’
‘Thanks for what you’ve done.’
‘What about the fingerprint? What do you want to do with it?’
‘Put it somewhere safe. I hope to send you prints to compare it to very soon.’
When Raveneau came back out on to the deck he saw Candel had zipped his coat and turned up the collar. The sky was white with winter fog this afternoon and it was chill on the deck, but they could talk easily out here.
‘Sorry I was drunk last time we met,’ Candel said. ‘I rip through cocktails way too fast.’
‘I used to have that problem.’
‘How did you get rid of it?’
‘I started making sure my first drink lasted at least twenty minutes.’
‘Like you just changed overnight?’
‘Took about fifteen years.’
‘Great.’
‘You’ve got to want it.’
‘I’m getting there.’
‘You’ll know when you’re there.’
‘Were you a cop then?’
‘I’ve been one so long I don’t remember what it’s like not to be one. But cops are people, Ryan. Listen, I’ve got a question for you. If your dad turns out to be a good guy, how will you deal with that?’
‘He won’t be.’
‘What if he is?’
‘He and my mom had other problems. He dumped her but she was leaving anyway. He was big-time into political stuff, like seriously over-the-top right wing action, which was a major problem for her. His friends too, same deal with them. They had meetings and planned shit. That’s what I didn’t tell you that night.’
‘In laid back Hawaii?’
‘Yeah, it tripped her out. You should have talked to her about how laid back Dad and his ex-Nam buddies were.’
‘Give me a story she told you?’
The waitress came out before Candel could answer. She brought the beers. When the deck door closed he said, ‘The word they used was interdiction. They liked that word. They did interdictions and there was like a small group of them. She thought they killed two draft dodgers, American dudes who went to Canada. She thinks they killed them after the war was over, as in went up there and found them. She was pretty sure that happened.’
‘This doesn’t sound like your mom the way you’ve described her up until now. She doesn’t sound as in love with Captain Frank.’
‘She was. It’s all true. What I told you was true. She mentioned this other stuff more as I got older.’
‘Your mom loved him, so how bad could he be?’
‘She also said he smuggled things for people in his luggage. I guess they didn’t use to check a pilot’s luggage. A pilot could like walk on a plane carrying his bag.’
‘Any idea what he smuggled?’
‘No clue.’
‘OK, well, thanks for this and I’ll do what I can to check out that Canada story.’
Truth was Raveneau was disappointed. After their earlier phone conversation he thought Candel had something more substantial. He pointed down the street toward the Ferry Building. ‘There used to be a freeway here.’
‘I kind of remember it.’
‘Commuters would park in a lot underneath it. Alan Krueger was shot and killed not far from that lot and between two support pylons for the freeway. Very recently someone sent a videotape addressed to me, probably
