“There’s more to the case,” I said, dropping my credit card on the tray. “I’ll tell you about it some other time.”
We walked back to my building, and as we entered the loft, she lifted my leather shoulder holster with the Beretta and the handcuffs tucked in a pouch off the back of a chair. She pulled out the handcuffs, crossed the room, and lightly ran the metal edges across my wrists. “We could have a lot of fun with these.”
“If you’ve seen some of the people I’ve hooked up, you’d have an entirely different image in your mind.”
She slipped her arms around my waist and kissed me lightly on the lips. “By the time I’m done with you, I’ll make sure you have a new image.”
I dipped my knees slightly, grabbed her by the knees, lifted her over my shoulder, and tossed her on the bed. Sitting astride her, I said, “Since they’re my handcuffs, I think I’m the one who’d better do the cuffing.”
“I don’t know if I can handle that,” she said weakly, a rare moment when she seemed to briefly lose her composure.
I pulled the key out of my pocket and clicked open the handcuffs. But before I could slip them on her wrists, my cell phone rang.
“Sorry,” I said, reaching for the phone.
“Can’t you pretend you didn’t hear it.”
I watched her stretch on the bed, her top rising and revealing the edge of her lacy black bra, and seriously considered her suggestion. “Can’t do it,” I said, as I climbed off the bed and answered the phone.
“I asked around about you,” Fringa said.
“Yeah.”
“I’m willing to talk to you.”
“I’ll stop by the mall tomorrow.”
“Make it tonight.”
“Can’t do it tonight.”
“Then you can catch me in two weeks. I’m taking the RV up to Oregon early tomorrow morning. We can talk when I get back.”
“How late you work?”
“Until midnight.”
I looked down at Nicole, splayed on the bed, giving me a half smile, and felt so frustrated, I kicked a chair across the room. “Okay. I’ll be there in a half hour.”
As I slipped off my jeans and T-shirt, tossing them on the bed, and pulled a pair of slacks and button-down shirt out of the closet, Nicole crouched in front of me, licking my stomach. “Can I persuade you to stick around?”
“Wish I could,” I said, my voice catching. “I’ll give you a call when things clear up.”
“The boyfriend’s gone for a few days. Let’s take advantage of our window of opportunity before it closes.”
CHAPTER 24
When I stopped by the mall’s security office, Fringa said, “Let’s take a ride.”
I followed him through the dim, deserted mall, through a side door and into the parking lot. He hopped in a small, electric cart and said, “I gotta take a last patrol before end of watch.”
I climbed into the cart, and he began to cruise around the property. “Let me give you one piece of advice, Levine. Don’t fuck up like me. Or you’ll end up when you’re fifty driving a fucking golf cart at midnight around a mall. Do your twenty-five or thirty and don’t piss anyone off.”
“I’m trying.”
“Like I said, I asked around about you. I still got some friends in the department. Word on you is that you can act like a dickhead sometimes, but when it comes to doing the job, you’re old school. You’ll do whatever it takes to clear the case.”
“I think that’s a compliment,” I said, smiling.
“In my book, it is. Anyway, I’m glad you’re looking into Avery’s death. When you stopped by this afternoon, I wanted to make sure you’d do a righteous investigation. Not some quickie in-and-out LAPD whitewash. Anyway, I never thought it was a suicide.”
“Why’s that?”
“Just not the type.”
“When was the last time you talked to him?”
“A few months ago. Sounded like the same old Avery. We talked a couple of times a year. Whenever he had to come to L.A., we’d get dinner. I was up to Idaho a few years ago. Stayed with Avery for a week. Went fishing.” He pulled the cart over, behind a department store. “Suicide? Naw. Just can’t see it. After I heard the news, I called the sheriff in that one-stoplight town in Idaho. Told him I didn’t think Avery was the suicide type. He said he’d look into it.”
“Where did you meet Mitchell?”
“At Hollenbeck. We were working patrol. We ended up as partners for a few years. Best partner I ever had.”
“Why was that?”
“He was funny as hell. Made those eight hours fly. And you could count on him. He always had your back.”
“Before Mitchell died, was he worried about anything?”
“Avery was kind of a closed-mouth guy, so I don’t know if he’d tell me.”
“Was he concerned about anyone coming after him?”
“Avery could take care of himself.”
“You have any ideas of who might have wanted to kill him?”
“No idea at all.”
“You remember when he transferred to Hollywood Division?”
“He didn’t transfer. He got transferred. Pissed off our captain for arguing with him about some stupid-ass thing. So the captain decided to give him some freeway therapy. Hollenbeck was only about twenty minutes from where Avery was living at the time with his family. Sending him to Hollywood added a lot of miles to his commute.”
“When was this?”
He tapped his finger on the steering wheel. “Thirteen, fourteen years ago.”
“Did you hear about Pete Relovich?”
“What about him?”
“He was killed at his house in Pedro?”
“Jesus.”
“There was an article in the Times.”
“I don’t read the Times. They’re always ripping the department. You think there’s a connection?”
“Do you?”
“I know Pete and Avery were partners for a few years. I had lunch with them once when I had some business up in Hollywood.” He started up the cart and began cruising the mall lot again. “Two partners getting waxed in the same year. That’s too much of a coincidence for me.”
“When they worked together in Hollywood, anything going on with Avery that sticks out in your mind?”
Fringa drove in silence for a minute of two. He stopped and turned toward me. “The homicide is what you’re after, right? You’re not interested in stirring up a lot of shit are you?”
“All I care about is who killed them. Anything else they might have been involved in doesn’t interest me.”
“Okay. When Avery was working Hollywood he came into some money.”
“How much money?”
