Kind of blue al-1

by Miles Corwin

  “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?”

  “He was a buddy of Relovich’s old man. It’s just a courtesy. Tell him what you’ve got and update him every so often. It’s good politics. Felony Special may need his support on something down the line. Paganos told me to give Wegland what he wants.”

  Captain Paganos headed RHD. I wondered why he wasn’t nosing around this case. “Where’s Paganos?”

  “He’s in Greece scoping out some island where he wants to retire. He checked in this morning and I filled him in.”

  “If I was in Greece, I’d have better things to do.”

  “You know Wegland?” Duffy asked.

  “Yeah. When I worked patrol at Pacific, he was a detective. Kind of a plodder. Everything by the book.”

  Duffy motioned toward me with his glasses and said, “After he okayed you, Grazzo, apparently, had some second thoughts. But Wegland had your back. He told Grazzo you were the right detective for the case. That’s another reason to play the game and be nice to him.”

  “I see my desk is empty,” I said.

  Duffy grinned. “I was always lookin’ for an angle to bring you back.”

  I walked back to my desk. Some of the detectives shook my hand and clapped me on the back. But a few did not leave their desks. I could tell by the way they wouldn’t look at me that they were uncertain about why I had returned and not all that happy about it. Everyone knew that Duffy had been my mentor, had recruited me to South Bureau Homicide and then to Felony Special, had often cut me more slack than the others. I knew that kind of favored-son status engendered resentment.

  At crime scenes-sharing insights, tracking trace evidence, plotting strategy-I felt a bond with the other detectives. But I had been unable to overcome the ill will and jealousy in the squad room because I did not have much in common with the detectives, other than the job. Most were married with kids; I lived alone. Most lived far from Los Angeles, in suburbs at the edges of the county, or in distant counties; I lived downtown. Most were Catholics or WASPS; I was a Jew. Most were hunters or fishermen; I surfed. Most rode Harley-Davidsons on weekends; I drove a Saturn. Most ate lunch together and socialized after work and on weekends; I had only one friend-Oscar Ortiz.

  And then there were the dinosaurs like Graupmann. For too long, guys like him survived and thrived in the LAPD, which was one reason the department had been reviled in black and Latino neighborhoods. During the last decade, the LAPD changed dramatically, with an increasing number of women and minorities, but Felony Special was still a holdout, primarily a redoubt for middle-aged white guys, and Graupmann fit right in. An ex-Marine who had been stationed at Pendleton, he was raised in Texas. It was widely known in the 77th that Graupmann was a racist and had been written up a few times for slapping around black and Hispanic suspects and calling them niggers or spics. It was aggravating to see that a cop like Graupmann, whose package was filled with personnel complaints, had been promoted to an elite unit like Felony Special.

  For the rest of the morning, I hunched over my desk, arranging my murder book, summarizing the interview tapes on LAPD statement forms, and putting together my own case chronology. I was interrupted by Detective Robert “Bible Bob” Grigsby, who stopped by my desk and asked if I wanted to grab a cup of coffee. Grigsby was a fundamentalist Christian, a deacon at his church, and a tireless proselytizer. He’d approached me in the past.

  I was wary about joining Grigsby for coffee, but on my first day back I did not want to alienate another detective. I followed him to the break room, he poured us two cups of coffee, and we rode down the elevator in silence. We walked outside and stood at the edge of a patch of grass, across from City Hall.

  Grigsby placed a hand on my shoulder, stared intently at me and asked somberly, “How are you doing, Ash?”

  “Okay.”

  “Not here,” Grigsby said, tapping his head. “But here,” he said, placing his hand over his heart.

  “Okay,” I said warily.

  “I know those difficulties you endured last year were trying. And I know you tried to handle it alone. But there is another way. And if you embrace His way, you’ll never be alone again.”

  Grigsby’s eyes had a feverish sheen. I took a step back and gulped my coffee, hoping to quickly finish the cup and get back to the fifth floor.

  “Have you ever considered accepting Jesus as your personal lord and savior?”

  “Not really.”

  Grigsby jabbed at me with his Styrofoam cup, spilling coffee on his shoes. “Consider it!”

  “Look. I’m a Jew. I’m happy being a Jew. I have no intention of changing religions.”

  Grigsby raised a forefinger and said, “Christ is the only path to salvation. God Almighty does not hear the prayers of the chosen people.”

  “Who says?”

  “The leader of our Southern Baptist Convention told the faithful that some years ago. He was criticized mightily for that heartfelt statement, but I, frankly, agree with him. I stand by his statement.”

  I tossed my coffee cup in the trash and said, “Thanks for the sermon, Ron, but I’ll stick with the religion Jesus was born with.”

  “Jesus loves me and he loves-”

  “ Jesus might love you,” I said. “But everyone else thinks you’re an asshole.”

  When I returned to my desk, Oscar Ortiz strolled through the door, spotted me, stopped theatrically, threw out his hands, and called out, “Ash Levine, my hero. Took the longest vacation in the history of the LAPD-eleven months.”

&nbs
p; He pulled up a chair beside my desk and said softly, “Glad you’re back, homeboy. How’s it going?”

  “It’s going.”

  During the past year, Ortiz was the only detective I’d stayed in touch with. He’d call me occasionally to see how I was doing, and ask me to meet him for a beer. I always found some excuse not to go. Quitting was painful enough; I didn’t want any reminders of what I’d lost.

  I noticed that Ortiz, an aggressively bad dresser who refused to purchase suits at the fashion district wholesalers, had not shopped for clothes during the past year. He wore a short-sleeved plaid shirt, brown corduroy sports coat, and a Yosemite Sam tie. Short and stocky, with a Zapata mustache that was so luxuriant it violated several department guidelines, Ortiz bore such a striking resemblance to the cartoon figure that the other detectives in the unit called him Sam.

  “I just got back from coffee with Grigsby,” I said. “He tried to convert me again.”

  Ortiz laughed. “Bible Bob’s gone after me a few times, too. I think he gets bonus points for converting a Mexican Catholic to a born-again Christian. But you’re the big prize. He gets a double bonus for bagging a Jew. Now if we had a Muslim detective, Grigsby would drop you in a hot minute. That would be his ultimate prize.”

  Ortiz hung up his suit coat and dropped his briefcase at his desk. “So Duffy talked you into coming back.”

  “Something like that.”

  “He’s one persuasive motherfucker. He could have been a hell of a detective. But as long as I’ve known him, he’s been a lieutenant. Didn’t you work with him when he was still a detective?”

  “Yeah. At Pacific. I was a uniform at the time, but I’d help out on some of his cases. He was devious as hell, just like now.”

  “I know he wasn’t a detective long.”

  “Only a few years. He knew that wasn’t his future. He was sharp, but he was drinking too much, staying out late, chasing women, dragging into the squad room every morning with the Irish flu. So he got sloppy.”

  “If you’re sloppy as a lieutenant, you misfile a report,” Ortiz said. “If you’re sloppy on the streets, you can get someone killed.”