Free A Killing in China Basin by Kirk Russell

cabin next door to your old partner, Kidd.
    ‘Every morning the two of you can chop wood together in the bitter cold before the sun comes up, and then warm up in the town café eating eggs, bacon, and a stack of pancakes, eating your way to a heart attack before you spend your afternoon on a little boat on some wind-fucking-driven mountain lake with your war stories and your fishing poles. I hear it gets to fifty below where Kidd is, so you’ll have ice fishing to look forward to as well. And you’ll have your satellite dish. You’ve got to have that.
    ‘They’re pushing hard from above. They’re pushing so hard I don’t know if it wasn’t someone in the brass who called the press today, and I can guarantee this: If the solve rate doesn’t go up around here, a sea change is coming and seniority isn’t going to mean—’
    They never finished their conversation and that was fine with Raveneau, and for that matter he was glad he got under Bryce’s skin. La Rosa waved him over. She was on the phone to the crime lab and covered the mouthpiece.
    ‘They’ve got a copy for us of the video off the camcorder in Heilbron’s van. They think there’s footage shot in China Basin. Do we want to pick it up this afternoon?’
    Raveneau nodded. ‘Tell them we’ll come get it right now.’

EIGHTEEN
    A fter the ride Stoltz drank a beer with the two patent attorneys he regularly cycled with. They’d pushed it this afternoon. It was good ride, just under two hours. The bikes were loaded and they’d taken over one of the picnic tables outside Guthrie’s, a local haunt where they always parked before riding the loop. Not that he saw these guys that often, maybe once a month. Usually, he rode alone. It felt good now though to lose the helmet and kick back together in the last sunlight with a beer.
    Both Jonathan and Steve were in tight physical shape, same as he was, middle-aged guys but eating up much younger riders and having fun with that. But among the three of them, Stoltz easily dominated. He was just stronger.
    Stoltz saw their expressions change as he said, ‘I’ve never talked about this with you guys because I’ve wanted to bury it and forget it ever happened to me, but now I’m going to ask your advice.’
    Neither responded, wariness entering as he fucked everything up by bringing personal problems to the after-ride beer. Stoltz started with Steve who at least looked curious and was also the softest so easiest to get to.
    ‘You guys know I went to prison. Obviously, you know that. I had this good friend named John Reinert, a software engineer, a great one. You both would have liked him. He married a woman named Erin he’d only known for about three months.’
    ‘Bad news,’ Jonathan said.
    ‘You got that right, and I was best man at the wedding. She moved into his apartment in San Francisco and the three of us hung out a lot together. Then sometime in the spring she fell in love with me, only I didn’t really know it. I mean, I knew she was attracted, but hey, all women are attracted to me.’
    Jonathan and Steve chuckled.
    ‘The night John got killed we’d gone back to their apartment, and I don’t know how well you guys know San Francisco—’
    ‘I read about it,’ Jonathan said. ‘We both googled you before we started riding with you.’
    ‘Right, you didn’t want to fuck up your careers, but now that I’m back there’s a pretty good chance I’m going to come up with some stuff that makes you some money. So you talked it over with your wives. Yeah, I’ve got you guys figured out.’
    This time they giggled like little girls. Stoltz smiled.
    ‘Want me to shut up?’
    ‘No, keep going,’ Jonathan said.
    ‘OK, well, everything you read was wrong, or almost all of it, and I had a real hard time dealing with that. It took me a long time to get my head on straight.’
    ‘But you took a plea bargain,’ Steve said.
    ‘I did, but the way they set it up you don’t really have much choice. The