“That’s why he kept the key in his office,” Ortiz said. “He knew that Internal Affairs always tries to take a dirty cop by surprise and searches his house first.” He motioned to the waitress for more coffee. “Why’d Patowski try to torch the storage unit?”
“He’d probably been going in and out of there, helping Wegland for years. He probably figured he’d left so many prints, fibers, and hairs in there, he’d never be able to clean the place up. He might have just emptied it when he saw me roll up. Or he might have even staked the place out, expecting me. Then when I showed, he put together a crude Molotov cocktail, which couldn’t have taken long to make, and figured he’d eliminate two problems at once-the storage unit and me.”
As I limped to the parking lot, I said, “Drop me back at Martinez’s place. I want to pick up my car.”
“I’ll take you home. I’ll have a uniform bring your car back downtown later tonight.” Ortiz jiggled his keys. “Is Martinez going to be okay?”
“She’s pretty spooked. She’s spending a few days at her sister’s place in Orange County.”
Ortiz opened my car door. “I’m worried about you, brother. Everyone’s trying to take a bite out of your ass. You’re not going to pull any more of that Lone Ranger shit tonight?”
I shook my head.
“And if you do anything else on this case, you’ll call me to back you up, right?
“Right.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
CHAPTER 33
The Vicodin knocked me out for a few hours, but early the next morning I awoke with a shout, covered in sweat. Now that I didn’t have the Relovich case to distract me, I had my first nightmare about Latisha in weeks. I sat up and massaged my temples for a few minutes. Jumping out of bed, I padded to the bathroom, shook out three Tylenol, filled my palm with water, and swallowed them.
I’d wanted to get back to the investigation for almost a year. When Duffy brought me back, he’d warned me to stay away, that South Bureau Homicide was handling it, that it was no longer a Felony Special case. I figured I would settle in, clear Relovich, earn some points, and then surreptitiously reopen the murder book. Well, as an old NFL coach once said: “The future is now.”
This case was personal for me, more personal than anyone at the LAPD could imagine. I had a responsibility to protect her. I failed. If Latisha’s killer was never found, I knew that this would haunt me until the day I died. I would always feel that I’d failed. Failed Latisha. Failed as a detective.
I still wanted to find Relovich’s partner-if he had a partner. And I was pretty sure he did. Although Conrad Patowski was dirty, I didn’t think he was with Wegland on the night of the Relovich homicide. Wegland, I was certain, drove the car. Both the junkie at the Harbor Division station and Theresa Martinez had described the passenger as dark-skinned, probably Mexican. Patowski was a pasty-faced white boy.
Finding the partner could wait. By nailing Wegland, I had bought myself some time. Duffy wouldn’t return from San Diego until Monday. I had the weekend to freelance-free from his scrutiny. When he returned, I would figure out a way to buy a few more days. At South Bureau, when things were hopping, all I had was a few days to work a homicide, until my next fresh blood case. So I should be able to make some progress. Now was the time to search for Latisha’s killer.
I was back in the squad room at eight o’clock, searching my computer for the cell phone number of Tommy Pardo, the South Bureau detective who was the primary on the murder of Bae Soo Sung-the Korean market owner- before it was transferred to Felony Special. He was an old-timer who had spent more than twenty years as a homicide dick. When I was working South Bureau, he was at Wilshire Homicide, and I got to know him on a few cases. We were never friends, but we were friendly. I had always considered him a solid detective and a stand-up guy. A few years after I left for Felony Special, he transferred to South Bureau Homicide.
When I took over the Sung homicide, he had a very different attitude than the Pacific Division cops who gave me a hard time after they lost the Relovich case. I had apologized to Pardo for big-footing him, but he just smiled, handed me the murder book, and said, “No problem, Ash. There’s enough damn murders in South Central for all of us.”
After Latisha’s murder and the debacle that followed, the Sung investigation had been transferred back to Pardo. He was also handling Latisha’s case. Before I quit, I had briefed him and returned the murder book. I was grateful that he was so decent to me, telling me that he’d lost witnesses before, that it was an occupational hazard of South Central homicide detectives, and not to blame myself.
I punched in Pardo’s number, and he answered on the first ring. I apologized for calling him on a Saturday morning.
“You’re back on the job less than a month and you’ve already tossed a commander out the window and fired on his adjutant,” he said, chuckling.
“Word travels fast.”
“It’s the blue grapevine, bubba.”
“I was wondering if I could come by your house and talk to you about Latisha.”
“I was coming into town anyway. Caught one two nights ago. The autopsy’s this afternoon. Meet me at the station.”
I asked if I could talk to him away from the station, because I didn’t want it getting back to Duffy that I was asking about his case. He agreed to bring the murder book and meet me at “the motel.”
The motel was a lot behind a boarded up market on South Hoover. We called it “the motel” when I was at the South Bureau because during a slow p.m. shift, when we needed to coop, we’d park there and grab a quick nap.
I drove behind the market and parked beside the weed-strewn lot. A few minutes later Pardo pulled up, climbed out of his unmarked Buick, carrying two Styrofoam cups of coffee. Wiry and bowlegged, he slowly made his way across the lot looking like a cowboy who’d just hopped off his horse. Handing me a cup, he gripped my shoulder and said, “Glad you’re back on the job, Ash.”
We leaned against my Impala, tore holes in the plastic lids and sipped the coffee, looking out at a soot- darkened landscape of rundown apartment complexes, check cashing shops, and crumbling storefront churches.
“Good work on Relovich.” He flashed me a thumbs up. “I knew Pete and I knew his old man-they were both damn good cops. I’m glad they put a pro like you on the case.”
“So what’s up with the Patton and Sung homicides? Any progress?”
“Hey, you’re the big thinking Felony Special guy,” he said with a smile. “I’m just a lowly ghetto cop.”
“Now that we got that out of the way, tell me what’s going on.”
A cockroach scuttled past us, and Pardo ground his heel on it, crunching it into the dirt. “When the two cases got kicked back to us, me and my partner didn’t have much to work with. And when Latisha was dumped down here, people figured out real fast that talking to us on this case was hazardous to their health. No one would open their doors to us; people wouldn’t even-”
He stopped in mid-sentence and gave me a worried look. “You know I’m not blaming you for this. There’re some careless-ass detectives out there. I know you’re not one of ’em. I’d work with you again. Any time. Any case.”
“I appreciate that, Tommy.”
“After a few weeks of the silent treatment, we picked up another homicide. Then another. Then another. Then another. You know how it is, Ash. You worked this division. More than a hundred murders a year and only four teams. After those first few weeks, to be honest with you, we didn’t have a lot of time on this case.” He made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. “That’s where we’re at right now.”
“I wished they would have kept it at Felony Special.”
“Probably should have. But when Latisha’s family filed that lawsuit and their shyster lawyer started blasting Felony Special on the five o’clock news, the department figured they’d better get the case out of there, ship it back
