Kind of Blue (14 page)

“So do I,” I said. “It’s a miracle he survived. It’s a miracle I’m here.” I rocked for a moment, lost in thought. “He was big for his age, strong and athletic. The Nazis figured they could make use of him and some of the other young men and work them to death, instead of just murdering them right off. They were spared the showers, but not many of them survived. My dad was starved, beaten, God knows what else. I think he was eighty-five pounds when the camp was liberated. He rarely talked about it, so I don’t really know everything he went through.”

“Is your mom a survivor, too?” Blau asked.

“Her parents were refugees. From Lithuania. They got out, but her grandparents and a lot of other relatives were murdered.” I reached inside my suit coat, tapped my Beretta, and said, “I’ve shot a Glock and I like it better than what I’m carrying. Smoother trigger-pull. Action is a little quicker. Lighter. No exposed hammer. Overall, a better made weapon. But I won’t pack a Glock because it’s Austrian. And I won’t pack the Heckler & Koch because it’s German. That’s crazy, I know. After all these years.”

“Israel does a lot of business with Germany today. And you know the Beretta is Italian. And they were aligned with Germany.”

“I’m not making a political statement. I just can’t carry a German gun.”

“Or an Austrian gun?” Blau asked.

“My dad always told me that since the war, Austria’s been trying to convince the world that Beethoven was Austrian and Hitler was German. He thought the Austrians were almost as bad as the Germans. He told me that half of all the concentration camp guards were from Austria. I guess I got that mentality from him. But that might be the only thing I got from him. He was kind of a remote guy. Always working overtime. Always tired and grumpy. He spent all day in a hot downtown dress factory, cutting patterns. My mom told me after he died that when he was a kid he dreamed of going to art school. He wanted to be
a commercial artist. But when he arrived in the U.S., he didn’t speak English and he needed work. His uncle got him a job in the
shmatte
business and he never left. He wanted a better life for me. He was angry when I dropped out of college, even more incensed when I joined the army. But when I became a cop, he
really
got pissed. He wouldn’t even come to my academy graduation. When he first saw me in my uniform, he looked me up and down, and walked out of the room.”

I reached inside my suit coat and adjusted my leather shoulder holster strap. “But I’m not here to talk about my father.”

“You can, if you you’d like.”

“Some other time.”

“That’s fine,” Blau said. “I want to get back to something, Ash. Are you angry with the LAPD?”

“Sometimes. But I’m most angry at myself. Because my actions led to her death.”

“How, exactly, did your actions lead to her death?”

I stared into my empty water cup.

After a minute of silence, he said, “It might be helpful to tell me about it.”

“Might be. But right now I just want to get your seal of approval so I can return to work and get back to the Relovich murder.”

“I don’t want to push you, but I really think we should talk some more about this.”

“I’m not ready for that.”

“When things settle down for you, make sure to give me a call. I’ll be glad to see you any time.”

“I appreciate that.”

“You told me that Duffy asked you to come back,” he said. “Why did you?”

I stared out the window and watched the light glisten on a varnished palm frond. “The only thing I know anything about is killing—how to do it; how to investigate it.” I smoothed the end of my tie. “And I feel it’s important. The most important thing I can do. The investigating part.”

“That year away from the LAPD must have been hard for you.”

“It was.”

Blau, his face a blank mask, sat there, without moving, lithic. He
had an uncanny ability to intuit when I wanted to say more, to just wait silently for me to continue.

“These last few months, a lot of stuff has been bothering me, stuff that I’ve managed to put out of my mind for a long, long time. For decades.”

“For example?”

“When I was a kid, I was haunted by all these terrible images. I’d think about the horrible things my father endured. I’d think about how hopeless and helpless his father felt, marched with his family to the cattle cars. I’d think about how my grandmother and her children were murdered, naked, coughing, and gasping for breath in the gas chambers. I’d think about the Nazis, pulling the teeth from their corpses for the gold.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Then when I was about ten or eleven, I managed to bury all these thoughts and emotions. And I buried them for decades. But I guess you could say that there was some collateral damage—because I buried
all
my emotions. I wanted to feel nothing because feeling anything was too fucking painful. And that seemed to serve me pretty well as a soldier and as a cop. But during the past few months, it’s been hard for me to stay on an even keel. For the first time in decades I’ve been thinking a lot about all that Holocaust shit again. Just like when I was a kid. And I’ve been losing my temper a lot lately. On Saturday, a detective made some cracks about the Patton case and I went off on him, knocking stuff off his desk and screaming at him. Then this morning I decked Graupmann.”

“I think the murder of your witness really seared you to the core. You felt helpless, terrified, confused, angry. Yes?”

“Something like that.”

“I imagine that’s how you felt as a child when you were dealing with what happened to your father and his family. So since you’re having some of the same emotions now that you had as a child you’re, again, starting to focus on some of those same issues that troubled you as a child. Those kinds of things stay with you forever. They have a way of hiding in a little corner of your mind and emerging when you least expect it.”

“I wish they’d stay in that little corner of my mind.”

“This may sound trite to you, Ash, but this is a great opportunity.”

“Opportunity for what? Admittance to a mental institution?”

Blau smiled. “An opportunity to be a more open person.”

“I think it’s easier to do my job when I’m a closed person.”

“Maybe easier for your job, but not for your life.”

“That’s what Robin used to tell me.”

Blau stood up, stretched, and said, “I can understand that. But you know, I disagree with you on something. The best detectives I’ve talked to—and I count you among them—aren’t always so closed off when they do their job. It’s those strong feelings, that vulnerability that comes from caring so much about a case, that makes them so good at what they do. Yes, sometimes you have to turn it off. But it’s that willingness to lay it all on the line—emotionally, viscerally—that makes you what you are. Witnesses can sense that. That’s why they trust detectives like you. Because you care so much when something happens to them.”

Blau sat down and tugged at his pants, which were bunching up at the thighs. “Ash, I’m going to recommend that the department accept you back. But, like I said, I really think we should talk some more about the death of this witness. Also, I’d like you to keep an eye on your temper. That could be a problem in your profession. And don’t let your work take over every aspect of your life. You have to learn when to let go and leave the job behind. Find something you like to do outside the job. Something you really enjoy. Something that helps you relax. Do it occasionally and enjoy yourself.”

I lifted my sleeve and checked my watch.

“We’ve got a few minutes left on the meter,” Blau said. “Anything you want to talk about?”

I shook my head.

“I read an article recently by an English professor,” Blau said, “and he had an interesting insight. The professor contended that novelists just write the same book over and over, even though they seem, on the surface, to be different. That makes me think of you.”

“Me?” I said, surprised.

“Your cases are all different,” Blau said, uncrossing his legs and inching forward on his chair. “But I think you’re really investigating, over and over, the same crime.”

When I returned to the squad room, Graupmann was gone. A few detectives offered words of support; others ignored me. When Ortiz finished a phone call, he walked over, sat on the edge of my desk, and said softly, “How you doing?”

“I just got back from the bank.” Because the shrinks were based in the Chinatown bank building we all referred to it as “the bank.”

Ortiz rapped on my head with his knuckles. “Did the good doctor find any sign of intelligent life in there?”

Duffy shouted from his office, “Ortiz, quit bullshitting and sit your ass down at a computer. Your sixty-dayer is three weeks overdue. And Ash, the City Council approved a twenty-five thousand dollar reward because Relovich was an ex-cop.”

When Ortiz walked off, Duffy sauntered over and rapped his knuckles on my desk. “Grazzo’s adjutant just called me. The squint says Grazzo wants to see you ASAP.”

“About what.”

“He’s pissed about something, but I don’t know what it is. Just be careful in there.”

Before I could even enter his office, Assistant Chief Grazzo pointed a pencil at a chair across from his desk and shouted, “Sit!” as if he was training a poodle.

Just to be contrary, I leaned against the door jamb, crossed my arms, and said, “How can I help you?”

“You’re pulling the same old shit that resulted in your departure a year ago.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re back a few days and you act like a whack job, throwing down on Graupmann and scrapping on the squad room floor.”

“How does that compare with what happened last year?”

“In both incidents you comported yourself unprofessionally, displayed unbalanced behavior, and violated LAPD guidelines. Launching an unprovoked attack on a fellow officer is grounds for—”

“The
provocation
was what he spread all over my desk.”

“You have no proof it was Graupmann. I expect LAPD detectives, especially the best and the brightest from Felony Special, to have the discipline to withstand a little provocation. If you can’t deal with the heat in the squad room, how can I trust you to conduct yourself professionally on the street?”

“You’re
not
going to suspend me and yank me off this case. And I’ll tell you why. Because if you do, I’ll file an official complaint against
you
for neglect of duty.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Grazzo said, his face flushing with anger.

“I don’t think so. You know LAPD regulations. If a supervisor hears about any racist or sexist acts in a squad room, he is supposed to conduct a preliminary investigation, interview the victim and witnesses, complete a complaint form, send it up the chain of command and over to Internal Affairs, and get a form number. You knew all about all that shit on my desk. Yet you didn’t conduct an investigation. You didn’t complete a complaint form. You didn’t do
anything
. So I’m well within my rights to file a complaint against
you
for neglect of duty. At the very least, you’d be suspended for that.”

Grazzo tugged on the collar of his uniform, which looked as if it was strangling him. “That was Duffy’s responsibility.”

“You’re the senior officer.”

“I will not sit here and listen to a detective threaten me.” Grazzo was so angry he sprayed spittle across his desk, and the corners of his mouth were flecked with foam.

I sat down and crossed my arms. “If you interfere with my investigation, this is what I’m going to do. After I file the complaint against you, I’m going to the
L.A. Times.
Then I’m going to talk to one influential member of the Police Commission, and I think you know who I’m referring to—Rabbi David Cohen. You can guess who he’ll side with.”

I walked to the door and said, “If I file that complaint, then there’s no way you can suspend me and pull me off the case.”

“That’s bullshit,” Grazzo barked.

I pulled out of my back pocket a folded up sheet of paper. “I brought
this with me in case I needed it. I’m sure you’re familiar with Special Order Number Eight.” I smoothed out the paper on the door and read the first sentence: “Every employee of the Los Angeles Police Department has the right to work in a professional atmosphere and without fear of retaliation that may result from bringing a formal or informal complaint alleging any type of misconduct.”

I folded the paper back up and stuffed it into my pocket and said, “I think pulling me off my case and suspending me could be construed as retaliation for the informal complaint I just filed with you. So let me work my investigation without interference and I’ll forget we ever had this conversation. But if you don’t, I’ll go after you for both neglect of duty and violation of Special Order Number Eight.”

I slammed the door, jogged down the stairwell, and paced on the grass outside PAB, muttering to myself and cursing under my breath. When I calmed down, I returned to the squad room.

Duffy intercepted me. “You must have been pretty persuasive in there.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just got off the phone with Grazzo. He wants you to know that after considering all the variables of the situation, and taking into account the stress you were under after being exposed to that little Teutonic display, he decided that you can carry on. No suspension will be forthcoming.” Duffy grinned. “You must have pictures of Grazzo screwing farm animals.”

When I returned to my desk, I spotted my red message light blinking. It was Relovich’s ex-wife.

“You find out who threatened Pete with the gun?” she asked.

“I’ve got a lead I’m tracking down.”

“Will you let me know when you put the SOB away?”

“Sure.” I heard what sounded like her opening the pop-top of a beer. “How you holding up?”

“Since Pete’s death I’ve been so wasted every day, I haven’t been able to string together two coherent thoughts. I guess I haven’t wanted to. But I’ve got to be there for Lindsey.”

She paused for several seconds. I waited for her to continue.