by Miles Corwin
Relovich lived near the end of a cul-de-sac, in a ramshackle pale blue clapboard bungalow with peeling paint and a sagging roof. When I was a kid, this had been a working-class neighborhood, populated mostly by Croatian fishermen. But now, homes with a view of the water were at a premium in Los Angeles and property values had soared. Most of the fisherman had sold to investors, who viewed the modest homes as teardowns, replacing them with mammoth two- and three-story monstrosities, spanning lot line to lot line. Relovich’s house, which was encircled by yellow crime-scene tape, was flanked by two gray and white clapboard Cape Cod-style McMansions that could sell for more than a million dollars.
I pulled out a pair of latex gloves, a few small Baggies, and a flashlight from a wooden box in Duffy’s trunk, stuffed them in my pocket, and walked to Relovich’s front porch, which faced the harbor. Lingering for a moment, I looked out at the inky black water laced with streaks of silver from the three-quarter moon. Lights atop the graceful span of the Vincent Thomas Bridge, which connected San Pedro to Terminal Island, twinkled in the distance. An offshore wind, brisker here than in the central city, blew off the water, carrying the smell of seaweed, brine, and a hint of diesel fuel.
Duffy opened the front door and flipped on the lights. I followed him inside. The house had an air of dereliction. In the living room, newspapers, unopened mail, fast-food wrappers, and empty Dr. Pepper cans were strewn on the nicked hardwood floor. Fingerprint powder streaked the wooden arms of the sofa, the chipped coffee table in front, two chairs beside a picture window, and every other smooth surface. I took a deep breath and nodded. After a year of disorientation, I finally felt at home again. Yes, this is what I’ve missed. Homicide.
I left Duffy in the living room and walked through an archway to the kitchen, where dishes were piled up in the sink. More fingerprint dust stippled the white cabinets and Formica counter. The faint smell of cooked meat and stale cigarette smoke lingered in the house. I walked down a narrow hallway from the kitchen to Relovich’s bedroom. The double bed was unmade, the sheets a dingy white. An old gray blanket covered the window.
Walking across the hallway to the other bedroom, I was surprised because it was neat and the narrow bed—covered with a Little Mermaid bedspread—was made. Taped to the wall above the bed, was a child’s finger painting of a rainbow. A small bookcase on the opposite wall was lined with children’s books, and the bottom shelf was stacked with kids’ videos. I figured he was divorced and had weekend custody of his daughter.
I walked over to a wooden desk next to the bookcase. The top drawer was lined with coloring books and a Crayon box. The bottom drawer was stuffed with cancelled checks, phone bills for the past month, a calculator, and a roll of stamps. I grabbed the envelopes containing the cancelled checks and phone bills and returned to the living room. I found Duffy staring out the window at the harbor lights. He turned around when he heard me and said, “Our killer entered from the—”
I cut him off with a karate chop in the air.
“Okay, okay,” Duffy said. “I’ll leave you alone.”
A few brick-colored smudges glimmering on the hardwood floor in front of the sofa caught my eye. I crouched and studied them. Even now, after so many murders, I am still surprised at the color of dried blood. I still expect it to be bright red; maybe it was all those detective shows I had watched as a kid. As it dries, blood loses much of its vividness and looks more brown than crimson, but it keeps its arresting sheen. Looking at this patch from different angles, I watched it flicker in the dim light.
I flipped on my Maglite and, rising, slowly turned, illuminating the walls. Behind the sofa, about waist high, was what looked like a miniature pointillist portrait: blood spatter.
I walked over to a chair a few feet from the sofa. Sitting down on the ripped upholstery, I extended my arm toward the sofa, lifted my right hand—thumb up, index finger extended—and said softly, “Bang.”
“This was no B and E, no junkie hot prowl,” I said to Duffy. “Relovich knew his killer.”
Duffy raised an eyebrow. “The Harbor Division detectives say otherwise.”
“Look at the blood splatter pattern,” I said impatiently. “Look at the directional tail. Look at the trajectory. It was a straight shot to the sofa. Asshole is sitting on a chair, across from Relovich, who’s lounging on the sofa. So they’re obviously comfortable with each other. They’re probably chatting. And then, before Relovich can move, asshole pulls out his piece and drills him in the melon.”
I stood up and paced beside the sofa. “A street-wise cop like Relovich would have been on his feet, making for a door if this was some junkie ripping him off. And no junkie would be sitting on a chair chatting. He’d be jumpy, too nervous to sit.”
“Those Harbor detectives had their heads up their asses,” Duffy said.
“No. They’ve just been working the same kinds of murders too long. Too many drive-bys. Too many street corner drug shootings. Some of ’em have never worked an indoor crime scene.”
“Any neighbors hear the shot?” I asked.
“No.”
“Did they do a good canvas?”
“The lieutenant said they talked to everybody on both sides of the street.”
I sat on my heels a few feet in front of the sofa and studied a few tiny ovals of dried blood.
“Did the lieutenant say Relovich was found on the sofa or the floor?”
“Floor,” Duffy said.
“But that’s not where he died.” I stood and turned toward Duffy. “Relovich is on the couch,” I said pointing. “The force of the slug propels him backward. So how does he end up on the floor? It’s contrary to the laws of physics.”
“Somebody moved him.”
“Right,” I said. “But why?”
“I don’t know,” Duffy said.
“Neither do I,” I said. “Let’s ninhydrin the wall behind the sofa. Asshole might have touched the wall for balance before he moved the body.”
I spent another hour in the living room, carefully examining the floor, the walls, and each piece of furniture. In the kitchen, I studied the contents of the refrigerator, which contained only a brown banana, a loaf of bread, a jar of mustard, a half gallon of milk, and a bottle of steak sauce. Typical bachelor cop who eats most of his meals out. Like me, I thought.
I checked the drains in the kitchen sink, the bathroom, and the shower for blood. I dumped out the bathroom wastebasket, sifting through an empty soapbox, rusted razor blade, a balled up Kleenex, two cigarette butts, a few wads of toilet paper, and a section of dental floss. I dropped them into different Baggies and zipped them shut.
“Let’s test it all for DNA and fingerprints,” I said. “Remember that case in Venice where I emptied the trash in that enormous garbage can, bagged it up, and sent it all off to the lab?”
“Yeah,” Duffy said. “There was so much crap to test, they had a fit.”
“The prints on an aspirin bottle led me to a hooker.”
“As I recall, she didn’t kill the john.”
“That’s right. Her pimp did.” I handed the Baggies to Duffy and said, “Why don’t you send these out for testing on Monday morning. Lean on someone to expedite it.”
After I scoured the house but didn’t find an answering machine, I tossed Relovich’s bedroom, examining every piece of clothing in the drawers, peering beneath the bed, running my hand under the mattress, sifting through the closet. Then I walked outside, and while Duffy followed, circled the back of the house and the yard, a ragged square of grass bordered by a six-foot pine fence. I edged my way through a thick hedge and studied the back window, which had a jagged hole punched in the center.
I returned to the front porch and pointed to the scarred wooden railings and said, “I’m going to call SID and have them come back tomorrow and dust the railings. This should have been done.”
I pulled out my cell phone. “I’m going to get a bloodhound out here.”
Duffy fixed me with a skeptical look. “
We’re in the twenty-first century, Ash.”
I had always been frustrated by the LAPD’s inflexibility and suspicion of unorthodox methods. The canine unit always gave me a hard time when I wanted to use one of their dogs for tracking an urban homicide suspect, but I knew a dog handler who volunteered his services for a few Southern California police departments. He was more cooperative. Fortunately, I still had his number programmed in my phone. I called his cell, chatted with him for a few minutes, and said to Duffy, “He’s out on another scene tonight. He’s meeting me here tomorrow at eight.”
“Won’t the scent be cold by then?”
“Those dogs can pick up a scent weeks, even months, later. I want to get an early start tomorrow. Can you have the local detectives who caught this case meet me tomorrow morning at nine at the Harbor Division station? I want them to brief me, and I want to get the murder book from them.”
“They won’t be happy coming in on Saturday morning. But I’ll talk to their lieutenant and make sure he drags their asses in there.”
“When’s the autopsy?” I asked.
“Sunday at ten. You want anyone with you for a second set of eyes?”
“Not necessary.”
“Listen, Grazzo brought you back on temporary, but there’s some administrative crap you’ve got to take care of on Monday so you’re fulltime again. You’ve got to take a physical from the city doctor, meet briefly with a background investigator, and write a letter to the chief about why you’re coming back. Typical bullshit. Then you got to see a department shrink next week. I’ll make you an appointment.”
“Christ,” I mumbled.
“You know the department. Gotta jump through the hoops if you want to come back.”
We walked back to Duffy’s car and he drove down a narrow, winding street to the bottom of the hill. He was about to pull onto a shabby thoroughfare that led toward the freeway, but before he could turn left I said, “Cut the engine and lights.”
I scanned the pawnshop, grimy taco stand, shuttered liquor store, and then pointed at a Hispanic teenager on the corner, across the street, wearing a black raincoat, standing under a streetlight, his head swiveling from side to side. Grabbing a pair of binoculars from the glove compartment, I focused on the corner and noticed the kid had a crude spider-web tattoo on his neck.
“Jailhouse tattoo,” I told Duffy. “Probably one of the gangbangers from the projects.”
A few minutes later, a black man driving a dusty Honda pulled over at the corner. The gangbanger reached in the window, nonchalantly grabbed a few bills, and dropped a Baggie onto the passenger seat. After the driver sped off, a Hispanic couple who looked like street people walked up; the man slipped the seller a bill, and stuffed the Baggie down the front of his pants.
“Probably slanging tar heroin,” I said. “Probably selling rock, too. A full-service operation.”
Across the street, a few blocks away, I spotted another sidewalk entrepreneur pacing on a corner. I handed Duffy the binoculars.
“I didn’t see these clowns when we drove up the hill,” Duffy said.
“Probably came out here a while after we arrived,” I said.
“Around the time Relovich was killed,” Duffy said.
“Right. His street’s a dead end. There’s only one way down the hill and out of the neighborhood.” I rapped my knuckles on the dashboard. “And that’s through here.”
“These characters might have seen the knucklehead,” Duffy said.
“Can you get somebody from Harbor vice down at the station tomorrow morning? Maybe the sergeant of the buy team?”
Duffy nodded.
“I’ll meet with him after I talk to the homicide dicks. I’ll make sure he floods this street during the next few days and busts sellers and buyers. These guys are good repeat customers. You never know who saw what. When they’re looking at some time in the joint, they might suddenly become talkative. And let’s see if we can get the City Council to pony up a reward.”
“I’ll talk to Grazzo. He can get it done.”
Duffy circled around to the freeway and then sped north at well over ninety miles an hour—a perquisite of the badge—and reached downtown in less than fifteen minutes. He exited at 4th Street and drove east, then south, through a derelict neighborhood at the outer edge of a district known as the Historic Core. Commercial buildings in various states of disrepair, most constructed in the early twentieth century, flanked the street. Some were shuttered, their ground-floor windows boarded up with plywood.
I rolled down my window and watched a few seedy hotel lobbies roll by, the faint smell of Lysol wafting out the doors. Crackheads and elderly pensioners shuffled about barefoot or in house slippers. The streetlamps cast a sickly yellow light on the sad landscape of check cashing offices, passport photo shops, and small markets that sold single cigarettes and short dogs to the rummies who jammed the corners.
Los Angeles was decades behind most major cities in attracting residents to live downtown. There had been efforts in the past, with scattered buildings that featured lofts, but they generally failed. Most people in L.A. assiduously avoided the area, which they regarded as a forbidding wasteland, a repository for the detritus of the city. During the past decade, however, numerous stately old commercial buildings had been renovated and converted into lofts, drawing renters and buyers. Still, those who chose to live downtown were viewed skeptically by many in Southern California, where a manicured front lawn and a backyard with a barbecue are considered a birthright.
Duffy screeched to a stop in front of one of the old bank buildings, an imposing Beaux Arts structure. Four massive, pale green marble columns border the filigreed brass door. The building was constructed of cream-colored stone and at the top is an ornate, swirling cornice shading a dozen stone griffins, eyes bulging, surveying the skyline.
“I like the building, but your neighborhood’s a shithole. You can’t find an LAPD cop who lives in the city, yet you move downtown,” Duffy said, snorting.
“After Robin left me, this is where I wanted to be,” I said.
“I been divorced three times,” Duffy said. “This your first, right?”
I nodded. “But the divorce hasn’t gone through yet; we’re still separated. I’m waiting for her to file the judgment forms and all the final documents with the court.”
“Is it really over?”
“Yeah. It’s really over.”
“You’ll need this,” he said, handing me the keys to an unmarked LAPD detective car. “You can pick it up tomorrow.”
I flipped the door handle, but before I could climb out, Duffy grabbed my arm.
“I’ve got something for you, Asher,” he said, opening his briefcase. In the center, gleaming from a fresh polishing, was the stainless-steel-and-copper badge that I had turned in eleven months before. “I made sure your number wasn’t reassigned.”
I took the badge from Duffy and nodded. I felt my throat catch. Getting the detective badge had been one of the greatest moments of my life. Handing it in had been one of the worst. Now, feeling the heft of it in my palm and running my fingers along the outline of City Hall, my resentment toward Duffy began to dissipate a bit.
Duffy extended his hand.
I shook it and said softly, “Thanks LT.”
At the front door, I punched my code into the keypad, slipped inside, and took the elevator to the top floor. I unlocked my door and set the badge on a small wooden table. My loft, a spare, cavernous expanse, has exposed brick walls, polished concrete floors, and two gold-trimmed skylights streaked with dust. Suspended from metal hooks near my bed are a mountain bike and a surfboard. One large window faces west, the lights atop the skyscrapers on Bunker Hill twinkling in the distance; a smaller window on the other side of the loft faces east, offering a view of the rooflines of hundred-year-old brick and stone buildings.
I grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, flipped on my CD player, and eased into my leather chair. Studying the lights of the skyscrapers, I li
stened to the Miles Davis cut “So What.” For the past eleven months this had been my melancholic anthem. Night after night, month after month, I sat here, unable to sleep, watching ESPN with the sound off, listening to “So What,” while I stared dully at the obscure sporting events the network showed from midnight until dawn. I was lost; I just didn’t care anymore. As we used to say in the IDF, I was zayin nishbar—my dick was broken. I winced, thinking about one tortured night, about a week after Latisha Patton was killed, when I was on suspension. I was so enraged at the asshole who had shot her, so infuriated that I had been prevented from tracking him down, so incensed at my own impotency, that I vowed I would never feel that kind of agony again. I pulled out my Beretta, slipped the barrel into my mouth and listened to the bittersweet, silky-smooth horns of Miles, Cannonball, and Coltrane, the plaintive piano of Bill Evans, thinking that if I was to pick the last thing I would ever hear on this earth, it might as well be the opening bars to “So What.” I’d first heard “So What” when I was discharged from the Israeli army and had descended into a similar funk. Disillusioned, angry, and confused, I had found that the cut was the only thing that gave me any comfort.
When I was nineteen, I decided to move to Israel and volunteer for the army. I always thought of my relatives who were murdered in the Holocaust—and even my father, who had survived a concentration camp as a boy and had a string of pale blue numbers tattooed on his forearm—as victims. I wanted a different kind of Jewish identity for myself.
For so long, the Holocaust had been the focus of my Jewish identity, the focus of my entire identity. Growing up, my house was a place populated by ghosts and demons. Ghosts—the dozens of murdered relatives. Demons—the Nazis who murdered them. Sometimes, lying in bed, right before falling asleep, when the duplex creaked in a Santa Ana, I could hear the screams and gasps of my relatives; sometimes, when the refrigerator slammed shut, I could hear the clanging door of a gas chamber. Sometimes, walking home from school, I would see a guy wearing a dark coat looking at me and I would panic, convinced he was a Nazi who was going to capture and torture me, and I would run home, out of breath, jump into bed, and cover my head with pillows.