Kind of Blue (11 page)

“Coffee?” I asked, standing up.

“This is bullshit! I didn’t know about that rock in my pocket.”

I motioned toward a chair. We both sat down.

The teenager leaned across the table and said earnestly, “My girlfriend must have been wearing my pants earlier today.”

“Those pants might be a little big for your girlfriend,” I said.

“That
pinche puta’s
fat.”

“So what do you have for me.”

“What do you have for
me
, ese?”

“If you’ve got information that helps me solve the murder, I can talk to the DA before the sentencing. I can write a letter to the presiding judge. It all depends on your information.”

“Check it out. My information’s good. You can take that to the bank and cash it, ’cause it won’t bounce.”

“You hear about that murder on the hill Thursday night?”

“The white cop?”

“Ex-cop.”

“Yeah. I got a line on who shot him. I heard it was a guy from the Wilmington Insanes. Guy named Spanky. I normally wouldn’t drop a dime on a
vato
, but Spanky’s a buster, a total fool.” He stared at me for a moment. “Hey, you Mexican? Or half-Mexican? You look a little Mexican.”

I shook my head. “Who do you claim?”

“I don’t claim.”

I flashed him a skeptical look and pointed to the RBZ tattooed on his forearms.

“Don’t mean shit,” he said without much conviction.

“But you live in the Rancho Boyz’s ’hood,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“And they’re warring with the Wilmington Insanes?”

“So?”

“So you might have a reason to want Spanky off the streets. Anyway, is Spanky usually strapped?”

“Yeah.”

“What does he carry?”

“A three fifty-seven.”

I knew Relovich was shot with a forty, so I hustled the kid out of the interview room. The jailer led him down the hallway and returned with a skinny, jittery, black man in his forties wearing shorts, a Clippers T-shirt, and house slippers. He collapsed into a chair.

“For the last few hours I been thinkin’ on it,” he said. “I need help. I’m a dope fiend. I want rehab, but every time I get picked up they give me county time. Now, I know I’m facing
hard
time in the joint. They got me red-handed.”

“What were you holding.”

The man extended both his arms. “I had me a motherfucking smorgasbord. I had rocks to get my head up and some tar to get
down
. Gonna make me a speedball. Even had some chronic in my back pocket. So you can see why I’m ready to deal.”

“You hear about that murder Thursday night?”

“I heard about it. And I was out that night. I saw sumpin’.”

“About what time?”

“Midnight.”

“What you see?”

The man chewed on his thumbnail. “’Pends.”

“Depends on what.”

“’Pends on how you help me.”

“If you’ve got solid information, I’ll try to work it out so you can get treatment at Norco instead of doing prison time. I’ll talk to the DA on your case and I’ll talk to your probation officer.”

“Awright, then,” he said, chewing the cuticle. “I didn’t think much about what I saw that night until the next day when I hear this white cop been shot up on the hill. I needed a taste that night, you feel me? I don’t live but three blocks from that corner. I walk down, get me my taste, and woo, woo, woo. You know how it is. And I’m walkin’ back when I see these two mens makin’ for their car parked at the bottom of the hill.
But they didn’t heavy through the ’hood. They kinda light-stepped it to their car, lookin’ around.”

“Can you tell me where their car was parked?”

He described the spot where the bloodhound’s trail ended.

“What did they look like?”

“The dude walkin’ toward the passenger side of the car was skinny and kinda tall. He looked Mez-can. The guy by the driver’s side was shorter and stout. Couldn’t get a good look at his grille, though.”

“Was he Mexican, black, or white?”

“Couldn’t tell. It was too dark.”

“Could you ID either of them if I showed you a picture?”

“Doubt it. Got only a glancing look at the Mez-can and no look at the other guy.”

Abazeda had dark enough skin to pass for Mexican. But, according to the DMV printout, he was five foot nine and weighed one hundred ninety pounds. He could hardly be considered skinny. Maybe he was the driver.

“Let’s give it a try,” I said, sliding the six-pack across the table.

The junkie squinted at each picture, before finally saying, “Can’t pick him out. Sorry.”

I pressed him, but he couldn’t provide more detailed descriptions. He did, however, recall that both were wearing dark stocking caps.

“Maybe them dudes were sailors, wearing lids like that,” he said.

“Were they carrying anything?”

“Mez-can guy wasn’t. Driver had something under his arm, like a box or sumpin’.”

“You see where they went after they got in the car?”

“Whipped around and busted a right. They gone.”

“Can you describe the car?”

“Dark car. Dark night. Couldn’t really tell.”

“You think of anything else, call me. Here’s my card. Memorize the number and rip it up. I don’t think you’d be too popular in here if someone saw that in your pocket.”

“That how you get yourself a righteous ass whuppin’. Or shankin’.”

I walked out of the jail and through the station to Walker’s desk. I told him about the two men the junkie described.

“You believe that junkie?” Walker asked.

“He may be holding something back. They usually do. But I think what he told me is on the level. Do these two guys fit the MO of any teams you know about?”

“No. But I’ll ask around.”

“You tired of interviewing crackhounds?”

“You got any more for me?”

“One. Young Mexican gal. Doesn’t fit the mold. Works as a secretary at a Torrance engineering firm and goes to community college at night. She’s not really sure she wants to deal. Kind of on the fence. I’ll bring her in. You’ll have to convince her to talk.”

I returned to the interview room and a few seconds later the jailer brought in the woman, who was in her early twenties and looked too clean to be a crackhead. She was dressed like a preppy and wore khaki slacks with a sharp crease, suede loafers, and a pale green V-neck Polo sweater. She had large, liquid brown eyes and wore her hair in a long ponytail.

Looking frightened she said, “I’ve never been arrested before. I’ve never even been in a police station before.”

“Why’re you here now?”

“This guy. I only dated him twice. He sent me down to the corner to buy some rock. We were going to party tonight.” She blinked hard, fighting tears. “I’m such a dang idiot.”

“I might be able to help you.”

She looked at me hopefully. “Any way you can keep this off my record?”

“Maybe. If you tell me something that’ll help me.”

“About what?”

“I’m a homicide detective. I’m investigating a murder. I want to ask you a few questions about what you saw on the streets before you bought that dope.”

She looked terrified. “I don’t want some drug dealer or some killer coming after me. If I tell you what I saw, can you protect me?”

As she leaned across the table, fixing me with a hopeful, trusting expression, my throat went dry.

I thought about that call last year from the 77th watch commander who told me that someone stuck a pistol in Latisha Patton’s ear and blew the side of her head off. I remembered standing on the corner of
54th and Figueroa, looking down at her, her head encircled by a viscous puddle of blood, knowing that it had been my job to protect her, and that I had failed. She had provided information about a case. And it cost her her life. If I couldn’t protect her, how could I protect the young woman in the interview room? Could I endure the murder of another young woman on my conscience?

I pulled a handkerchief out of my back pocket and dabbed at my brow. “I don’t know if I can protect you. But I promise you that I’ll try.”

I saw that the woman sensed my unsteadiness. She chewed on her lower lip and nervously squeezed her thumb. “To tell you the truth, detective, I didn’t see much of anything.”

I left the Harbor Division at dawn, wondering how I was going to survive as a homicide detective. If I couldn’t get it together and learn to lean on witnesses again, to promise them—with conviction—a measure of security and safety, I’d be no good on the street. I might as well get a job with a PI firm with a lot of other washed out ex-cops and start taking surreptitious photos of workman comp cheats.

I drove back downtown and was thinking of stopping for breakfast, but after the interview with the young woman, and the echoes of the Patton case, I didn’t have much of an appetite. I parked in the LAPD structure on Main Street, and walked to the Police Administration Building, which everyone called PAB. When I spotted the gleaming, L-shaped glass and limestone structure, I felt a pang of nostalgia for Parker Center, which had been the police headquarters for most of my career, until it was considered obsolete and we moved here. Every morning, I’d walk through Parker Center’s back entrance, stroll through the basement, past Dr. Dave the shoeshine man, his transistor radio blaring, past the evidence room, the air thick with the pungent smell of marijuana, up on the rickety elevator to the third floor squad room, and make my way down the scuffed linoleum tile floor to my battered metal desk, beneath a stuffed elk head, bagged by one of the hunters in the unit. The new headquarters is modern, spacious, energy-efficient, and bland. I still missed Parker Center.

I took the elevator up to the fifth floor and entered the Robbery-Homicide Division squad room, a massive expanse of cubicles and carpeting, fluorescent lights glaring overhead. The room had all the
personality of a credit union. Felony Special is one of a number of specialized RHD units with citywide jurisdiction that handles difficult or high-profile cases, including Rape Special, Robbery Special, and Homicide Special. Felony Special investigates all the cases that are a priority of the police chief and half of the murders deemed too complex for the divisions. The other half are investigated by Homicide Special, which is on call alternate weeks with Felony Special.

The dozen Felony Special detectives were assigned to cubicles on the south end of the fifth floor. After being away for a year, I felt jittery as I made my way to my old desk that was, surprisingly, empty. My coffee cup was still on a shelf. I sat down, opened my briefcase and pulled a small picture of Latisha Patton out of a folder and slipped it under the clear plastic sheeting on my blotter. I quickly covered it with a steno pad, so Duffy wouldn’t see it when he passed by. Hearing a loud, gravelly voice, I turned around and spotted Mike Graupmann. I groaned. Graupmann and a few other new detectives had been brought in since I left. When I was a young slick-sleeved cop in the 77th Division, a boot fresh out of the academy, I had clashed with him a number of times. Graupmann rode me constantly when he discovered I was Jewish.

“Hey, if it isn’t the Semitic Sherlock, the Hebrew Holmes,” Graupmann called out in a Texas twang, his eyes gleaming with malice when he saw me walk through the door. He stood up and crossed the squad room.

Graupmann was about the same height as me, but much broader, with a thick weightlifter’s neck that tapered to a narrow head. His eyes were slits, and a web of broken blood vessels streaked his nose. He looked like a mean drunk.

“Aren’t you happy to see me?”

I ignored him.

“I’m as happy as a fag in a submarine to see you.”

“I see that it’s not just the cream that rises to the top, but the scum too,” I said.

“Isn’t it sweet,” Graupmann said. “Once again, we’re working in the same unit.”

“Fortunately that’s the only thing we have in common.”

“Other than my grandparents throwing your grandparents into
cattle cars,” said Graupmann, whose father, I recalled, married a German woman when he was a GI stationed in Frankfurt. He was about to slap me on the back with phony bonhomie.

“You put a hand on me and I’ll knock you on your ass,” I said.

“I thought Jews only knew that one kind of self-defense—I-Su-U,” he said in a mock Asian accent.

I saw Duffy storm out of his office. “Okay, guys, break it up. I see you two know each other.”

Graupmann smiled broadly. “Oh yeah. We’re old friends from the Seventy-seventh.”

“I remember,” Duffy said dourly, grabbing my elbow and leading me into his office.

I sat down and said, “How the hell did a moron like Graupmann get to Felony Special?”

Duffy leaned back in his chair and pointed to the ceiling, toward the tenth floor—the offices of the LAPD brass. “He’s got a buddy up there. Wasn’t my decision. He was foisted on me.”

I shook my head with disgust. “Any luck with the reward?”

“We’re going to the City Council today and see what we can get.” Duffy crossed his legs. “What do you got?”

After I told him about the trail the bloodhound followed and the broken glass leading to the backyard, I described my interviews with Relovich’s daughter, Ann Licata, Jane Granger, and briefed him on Abazeda.

“When’s he get back into town?” Duffy asked.

“Tomorrow night.”

“You think it’s worth chasing him down in Arizona today?”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to get in his face right away. I’d rather low-key him.”

“Fine. Sounds like you’ve made some real progress,” Duffy said, looking pleased. “That’s why I brought you back. But is Graupmann going to be a major problem for you?”

“Naw. I can handle it.”

“Don’t forget to take care of that administrative crap today. I made you a ten o’clock appointment tomorrow morning with a shrink—one of your landsmen, Dr. Blau.” Duffy slipped off his glasses and set them on his desk. “This homicide of yours is going to be a pain in the ass. In
addition to the chief, Commander Wegland’s interested in the case. He wants to be kept up to date.”

“Isn’t Wegland in charge of Missing Persons and some of those other sixth floor units?”

Duffy nodded.

“He’s got nothing to do with Felony Special. Why does he need to know about this investigation?”