he?”
She leaned over and shut off the tape recorder. “Just a stupid fucking cop who doesn’t know when to back away from a cleared case.”
When I reached toward my pocket, she shouted, “Hands to your side!”
The guy gripping the. 38 looked like he was nervous enough to pull the trigger. But I hoped he might be reluctant to shoot me if I was talking to Saucedo. “I’ve figured out a few things about you and Wally,” I said. “Before he made commander, he was a captain in Hollywood. You were working patrol there. He probably looked out for you. Helped you make detective. Got you on with I.A. And all this time the two of you were running your games and raking in the cash. Conrad was staying behind as the errand boy while Wally and you were out there ripping off houses. And all this led to the hit on Relovich.” I glanced at the guy with the gun and back at Saucedo. “What the hell happened to you?”
“How do you think I could afford this house?” she said, an angry, defiant expression clouding her features. “Around here, just the lots are selling for a million.”
“I think a jury would call it justifiable homicide because the L.A. real estate market made you do it. But why did Wally do it?”
The man with the. 38 called out, “Because he was pussy whipped.” He pointed the pistol at me and said, “This fucking guy’s a tongue jockey. He’ll talk all night if we let him. Let me shut this fool up.”
Crossing the room and opening a closet door, she removed a sweatshirt and a gun from a holster hanging on a hook. She wrapped the sweatshirt around the barrel of the gun, walked over, and knelt beside me. Then she whirled around and shot the man in the chest, the gunshot muffled by the sweatshirt.
He crumpled to the ground, his mouth open, his eyes bulging with astonishment, as the. 38 clattered on the hardwood floor.
She walked over to the man and kicked the pistol to the side of the room.
I knew Saucedo was going to shoot me with his gun, making sure to leave no prints. Then she was going to put her gun, which was probably a throw-down, in my hands.
“Why’d you go after Relovich?” I asked.
“You’re the Felony Special hotshot. You figure it out.”
I knew she let me talk because she was pumping me for information. She wanted to figure out how to play it with the LAPD after she disposed of me.
“When Relovich called I.A. a few weeks ago, you managed to take his call,” I said. “That call made you paranoid. You were afraid Relovich would rat you out because you were in on Wally’s scams from the get go. You went with him and his snitch Freitas to rip off Silver. And when Freitas started arguing about the split in the middle of the job, you blasted him.”
“If you know so much, why didn’t you come after me sooner?”
“I was still putting my case together. It was apparent early on that Wally took care of Avery Mitchell in Idaho, because he was afraid he’d talk. You might have done it yourself, but you’d be a bit conspicuous out there. Wally was just another middle-aged white guy in Idaho. After that, when he went after me, he had a little experience.”
“Obviously, he didn’t have enough,” she said with contempt. “He couldn’t even do that right.”
“It’s pretty clear that you killed Relovich, not Wegland.”
“I see Wally was pretty fucking talkative before he took that swan dive. That was Wally. All he wanted to do was talk, talk, talk. He thought he could persuade Relovich to keep his mouth shut about the shooting at Silver’s and the payoff.”
“But you knew there was only one way to make sure that-”
“No more stupid fucking questions.” She jabbed the gun at me and said, “On your stomach. Now!”
I dropped to my knees.
“ Stomach, I said! Wally should have cancelled you out when he had the chance.”
We both froze when we heard a metallic click-clack sound. I turned around and saw the silhouette of a man in the dim kitchen racking a Remington 870 police-issue 12-gauge shotgun.
“Drop the gun, Saucedo!” the man shouted.
Saucedo took a step toward me and raised her pistol.
I heard a deafening blast and saw Saucedo fly across the room, bounce off a wall, and topple to the floor.
CHAPTER 43
Shuffling through the squad room, I poured a cup of coffee, returned to my desk, and fell into my chair. I spotted my phone light blinking. Nicole had left a short message: “Call me.” I was so exhausted I closed my eyes, but jerked them open when Duffy sat on the edge of my desk.
“You saved my ass,” I said.
“Least I could do.”
“So how’d you figure out where I was?”
“After all the shit that’s gone down, I’ve been worried as hell about you working alone. Didn’t want a dead detective on my watch. I wanted to talk to you, tell you that I was willing to free up Ortiz for the next few months so you could partner up with him. Anyway, a captain I know, a buddy of mine, left a message for me on my cell. Told me he heard you’d been snooping around for the home address of a cop. He knew you’d been involved in a lot of shit lately with dirty cops. So he gave me the name and address of the cop. Thought I should know.
“When I finally got the message, I rushed right over to Saucedo’s house. I got there and saw your car parked down the street. I grabbed the shotgun-just in case-and saw her pointing a gun in your face.”
“Who was that clown at her place?”
“Just some part-time squeeze who keeps a. 38 in his trunk.”
“I thought she was Wegland’s girlfriend.”
Duffy grinned. “I guess poor old Wally was getting two-timed.”
“Well, I’m glad you put it together and showed up when you did.”
Duffy reached over and slipped an arm around my shoulders. “Ash, for the past year I’ve been really torn up about everything. I’m still torn up about it-about the way you found out, about what you had to go through, and what I did. I’m a weak bastard-”
“Well,” I said, pausing, not knowing what to say.
“Did I at least partially redeem myself last night?”
“Considering what would have happened if you hadn’t showed up-yes. Partially.”
Duffy squeezed my arm and smiled. “Patowski flipped. He didn’t lawyer up, after all. He’s spilling it right now. He thinks we’ve got Saucedo in another interview room and she’s laying it all on him.”
“Maybe Conrad explained something I’m still struggling with,” I said. “Li’l Eight’s a Back Hood Blood. He killed my witness. Flash forward a year. Wegland framed Fuqua for the Relovich hit. Fuqua just happens to be a Back Hood Blood, too. What’s the deal?”
“I picked up some of what Patowski’s been telling the DA,” Duffy said. “When Wegland found out from Grazzo that the department was bringing you back to investigate Relovich, he calls Saucedo. They both panic. They thought the overloaded Harbor Division dicks were going to handle the investigation-and get nowhere with it. If it was an active cop, Felony Special would take over the case, but we don’t handle hits on retired cops. Usually it’s just some domestic beef. Or in the case of Relovich, it appeared to be a low-rent B and E. Yeah, when he was a rookie, he saved his partner’s life. But there’s thousands of brave, retired cops out there, sitting on their asses, hitting the bottle. And Pete was just another one of them. What Wegland and Saucedo didn’t count on was the chief’s friendship with Relovich’s old man a thousand years ago. They didn’t count on him getting involved and sending the case to us. They knew we had the resources to push it hard, and I think they got spooked when they heard you were taking over the investigation.”
Duffy loosened his tie. “Your reputation, my boy, apparently still counts for something. Anyway, Wegland knew about Relovich’s history with Fuqua, how he’d kicked his ass, how he’d sent him to Folsom. And Saucedo had
