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.”
