Free Counterfeit Road by Kirk Russell Page B

but hadn’t gone into the house. He’d gotten out of his car and was in the truck and the engine was on. Raveneau asked if they could have an officer follow him and call if he got on the freeway and let him know what direction he was headed.
    He had to apologize to the woman at the storage company for the interruption, but she was fine with it and he asked, ‘When was Jim Frank employed?’
    ‘1978 to 1995. He retired in 1995.’
    ‘I’m looking for contact information. Do your records show any supervisors or people he worked with?’
    ‘I don’t have any of that but there might be a way I could get it for you. To do that you’ll need to fill out a form we use with law enforcement and the IRS. I can fax it to you. You want to mark it urgent. There’s a box on the form that you need to check.’
    ‘If there’s a box, doesn’t everybody mark urgent?’
    ‘You’d be surprised.’
    She laughed and he filled out the form, sent it back to her. He was still in the office when the call came to verify he worked as a homicide inspector for SFPD. That she was able to find a Jim Frank made him hopeful. He was on the phone when Cynthia buzzed from the front desk to tell him a San Leandro police officer was holding.
    Raveneau picked up and the officer said, ‘He just got on the freeway headed north in the truck.’

FIFTEEN
    L a Rosa rode with him to the Branson Trucking Company yard in Martinez. She was rested and relaxed and looked a lot better than she sounded after the meeting with the elderly woman in Santa Rosa. Marsha Fairchild had rocked back and forth with her eyes closed and arms wrapped around her chest as sobs racked her. When it was over, La Rosa left feeling that she had done nothing for the woman other than to destroy her hope.
    But now, la Rosa seemed to be rebounding, taking it on herself to determine whether he was helping Celeste enough.
    ‘What are you doing to help her get it open?’
    ‘The floor out in the bar is reclaimed wood that got refinished. That’s done and we’re moving chairs and tables around tonight. She finally passed inspection with the Health Department. That’s the one she’s been sweating.’
    ‘What about the thing with the flue? Weren’t you going to do something?’
    ‘No, with the flue she was forced to use the landlord’s contractor. He ripped her off but it got done.’
    ‘So she’s going to make it.’
    ‘There’s still a lot to happen, but it’s looking better.’
    ‘I’m sure she needs your help.’ When Raveneau didn’t answer that, she moved on. ‘So what about this Drury? Tell me again what he delivered.’
    ‘Forty-two pieces of finish-grade larch plywood.’
    ‘Larch?’
    ‘Type of tree.’
    The delivery time was on the receipt. The receipt was in the second drawer down on the left side of Khan’s desk, though now it was in the Homicide office.
    ‘We know when he got there,’ Raveneau said. ‘We know when he left. Today we want details about the rest of his day. We want to know about his other deliveries. We want everything about what he did yesterday.’
    They dropped off the freeway, the offramp dipping down to Highway 4. They were probably fifteen minutes from Branson’s yard. Raveneau turned to her.
    ‘He’s going to recognize me. He’s going to realize he was right last night in the bar. That’s going to unsettle him.’
    ‘OK, but let’s do the time frame once more. He delivered the plywood at 1:07 and the delivery receipt is signed at 1:15. He called his boss at 1:19 as he was leaving.’
    ‘That’s right, and we want to know about the rest of his day.’
    ‘And David Khan left the meeting where he was measuring kitchen cabinets at 1:21, give or take a few minutes, and that’s been verified by both the owner and the designer.’
    ‘Yeah, that’s what Ortega’s team says.’
    ‘We’re not part of the team?’
    ‘Other than with Drury he doesn’t want any help, and Drury only because I’ve already stuck my nose