I fought back the impulse to speak. Sometimes silence was more effective in gleaning information than the most penetrating question.
Slowly lifting her head, she lit another cigarette, smoking half of it in silence. Finally, she said, “Maybe what I’m going to tell you will help you find out whatever you’re trying to find out. Probably not. But I’d never forgive myself if I had some little piece of information that could help you find this partner and I didn’t tell you.” She stubbed out her cigarette and stared into the ashtray for a moment. “About eleven years ago, Pete was working patrol in Hollywood. He’d only been a cop for a few years. Something happened. I don’t know exactly what. Pete never talked about his work. He didn’t want to bring the streets home with him. But something big must have gone down. We weren’t married yet, just living together in a small apartment in Torrance, trying to save up for a down payment so we could get our own place. Pete was just a young patrolman. So it was slow going. Then one Saturday he sits me down and tells me he’s got $60,000 for a down payment. Those were the days when you could still buy a nice house in Pedro for $300,000. He made me promise not to ask him where he got the money. I agreed. So he bought the house a month or two later. We got married and moved in.”
She downed her beer in two gulps and lit another cigarette.
“Where’d he get the money?”
“I didn’t want to know then. I don’t want to know now.”
“Who was his partner at the time?”
“No idea. He had lots of partners over the years.”
“Do you remember what month he bought the house?”
“February. I remember it was around Valentine’s Day.”
“Did you know about the cash under the tile?”
“No. He said the $60,000 was the whole jackpot. I guess he kept a little extra for himself.”
“You think this is what he was going to tell Internal Affairs?”
“I sure as hell hope not. It was too late to do anything about the money. He’d spent it. He should have been smart enough to keep his mouth shut.”
“Any idea what his appointment with Internal Affairs was about?”
“No idea.”
“Last time I was here, I showed you those little Japanese figures. You said you didn’t know anything about them. Are you sure that-”
“I still don’t know anything about them.”
“You said he got the cash about eleven years ago. You sure it was eleven years?”
“Yes. Because I remember it was the time of my mom’s sixtieth birthday.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about all this before?”
She stared into the ashtray. “Two reasons. I don’t want the IRS on my ass, seizing the place for Pete’s back taxes. And I want Lindsay to remember her father as a good cop. If you start digging into the source of that cash, I’m afraid of what you’ll come up with.”
“I appreciate you leveling with me,” I said. “I’ll keep the IRS out of the investigation. And whatever I find out, I’ll keep it as private as I can.”
She sniffled and then blew her nose on a napkin. “I got a final question for you?”
“Yeah.”
“What happens to the five thousand?”
“It’s in evidence now. I don’t think Pete left a will, so it’ll probably go to your daughter.”
I walked to the door. Sandy waved feebly, without standing up, then dropped her head and covered her eyes with her palms.
• • •
The first thing I wanted to do was determine who Relovich’s partner was eleven years ago at Hollywood Division. A girlfriend or wife may not know a cop’s deepest secrets, but there was a good chance his partner had some insight.
When I returned to the squad room in the afternoon, I called Records and Identification and gave the clerk Relovich’s serial number, and requested all of his arrest reports from the year he bought the house and, just to be safe, the previous year as well.
“ Every one?” the clerk asked wearily.
“Every one for those two years,” I said.
She found eighty-seven reports-all chronicled on microfiche-which I spent the next few hours studying. Fortunately, it appeared that Relovich had only one partner during that time-Avery Mitchell, a patrolman about ten years older than Relovich. Scanning the pages of the LAPD’s Alpha roster-the list of active duty personnel-I could not find Mitchell, so I knew he had retired.
I then called Regina Williamson, a Department of Pensions clerk who owed me a favor. “Regina, I need an address and phone number for a retired cop by the name of Avery Mitchell.”
“You know, I’d do anything for you, Ash, but they’re really tightening up on us here. So as much as I’d like to give you the info right now, you’ve got to follow LAPD regulations. The request’s got to be in writing, on LAPD letterhead, and signed by your commanding officer.”
“If I do that, I won’t get the address for a week. I don’t want to waste a week.”
“But they don’t want us to make any exceptions,” she said in a plaintive tone.
“I did some rule bending for you.” Her teenage son had been busted driving a stolen car, and I called the arresting officer and the deputy DA, who agreed not to push too hard on the case. The judge gave her son probation.
“I know, I know,” she said. “I truly appreciate what you did. But this new regime is a bitch and they want us-”
“Regina,” I interrupted, “I gotta have that information today. I wouldn’t press you if it wasn’t important.”
After about ten seconds of silence, she whispered, “Mitchell, common spelling?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll get back to you.”
Ten minutes later she called back with the information I needed. Avery Mitchell had retired a decade ago to a small town in Idaho. I called him immediately.
A man with a raspy voice and a cigarette cough answered.
“Avery Mitchell?” I said.
“Don’t live here anymore.”
“Any idea where he lives?”
“Don’t live anywhere. Man’s dead,” he said in a monotone. “I just rent his house.”
“When did he die?”
“And who’re you?”
“Detective Ash Levine with the LAPD. I wanted to talk to him about some old cases.”
“He died about two months ago.”
“How?”
“Maybe heart attack. Probably had one when he found out you were looking for him,” the man said sarcastically.
“Who do you rent the house from now?”
“Mitchell’s son.”
The man gave me the address where he sent the rent check.
Avery Mitchell Jr. lived in one of the last bungalow courts in Hollywood, a 1920s-style complex with a dozen small cottages encircling an oval of grass. A palm swayed in the center, the top of the trunk swathed in dead, desiccated fronds that looked like the tawny matted mane of a lion.
As I walked to the door, I felt weary and disheartened by the investigation.
I rang the bell several times and banged on the door, but Mitchell didn’t answer, which accentuated my melancholy mood.
I returned early the next morning. Mitchell answered the door wearing a pair of tattered boxer shorts and wiping the sleep out of his eyes. He had a lip ring and an eyebrow was pierced with a slender silver rod. Both biceps
