Kind of blue al-1

by Miles Corwin

  “So how’d you get that burst of inspiration?”

  “I got away from the case for an afternoon and cleared my head.”

  “Why don’t you do that now?”

  “Good idea,” I said.

  A cruise down to the harbor and a walk along the water might do me some good. I wanted to talk to Relovich’s uncle anyway, so I called him and arranged to meet him at his boat.

  The sky at the harbor was so overcast that the horizon line was obscured and the sky and ocean melded in a sweep of sidewalk gray. The oil tankers steaming north were just faint one-dimensional silhouettes drifting in and out of the fog.

  I climbed aboard the Anna Marie and sat on a deck chair beside Relovich.

  “Want some coffee?”

  Before I could respond, Relovich bounded below deck and returned with two metal cups, sloshing coffee on the deck.

  “Never got a chance to say thanks for doing right by Pete,” Relovich said. “I read about you arresting that no good son of a bitch.”

  In order to avoid a complicated explanation, I said, “There might have been an accomplice. So I’ve still got some work to do on the case. Would you mind if I asked you a few more questions?”

  Relovich shook his head.

  “I want to ask you about one of Pete’s ex-partners, a guy named Avery Mitchell. What do you know about him?”

  “Met him once. Long time ago. Maybe more than ten years ago. They were down here one afternoon and I took ’em to lunch. I didn’t care for this Mitchell character. He had this thin, greasy little mustache. I don’t trust a man who can’t grow a decent mustache.”

  “Anything else about him you remember?”

  “Not really. Just that he seemed kind of shifty looking. And I don’t think Pete liked him.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Just a feeling I had when I saw the two of them together. Pete seemed to just tolerate the guy.”

  “Did Pete ever talk about Mitchell, ever say anything about him to you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Did Pete have any artwork around his house?”

  Relovich looked confused. “Artwork? What do you mean?”

  “You know, like paintings or pieces of carved wood or ivory. Maybe art objects. Maybe Japanese-type artwork.”

  “You gotta be kidding me. Pete? Not a chance. He wouldn’t know Japanese artwork if he chipped a tooth on it.” Relovich swatted the air. “I was talking to Pete’s ex-wife the other day. She wanted me to ask you something. I’ve been meaning to call you. Since her daughter inherited the house, she wants to know when the LAPD will release it. She wants to rent it out.”

  “Why didn’t she call me herself?”

  “She’s a touchy bitch,” he said. “She’s tired of you going out there and asking her questions. But I understand. You’re just doing your job.”

  “Did Pete seem worried about anything these last few months?”

  Relovich blew on his coffee a few times, before taking a sip. “One thing.”

  “What was that?”

  “He worried that he hadn’t been a good enough father to his little girl. ’Cause of his drinking. During the past few months he tried to change that. But Pete didn’t talk much about it. He was a pretty closed-mouthed guy. These Americans, all they do is gab, gab, gab about their feelings,” he said, as if he found the word distasteful. “Pete was more like his pop and me. More Old Country. Kept things to himself.”

  I questioned the old man for a few more minutes, but learned nothing useful. As I climbed down from the ship, Relovich called out, “Don’t stop until you find that accomplice. He deserves to pay for what he did.”

  I returned to my car, removed the tape recorder from my briefcase, and walked down the dock alongside the channel, dodging bird droppings. When I found a bench on an isolated stretch, I plugged in my earphones and listened again to the interview with Silver.

  As I was finishing the interview, the sun pierced a slit in the fog, streaking the shimmering water with specks of honeyed light. Looking out at sea, I felt disheartened. I had no idea how I would identify the shooter.

  CHAPTER 27

  I drove back downtown in a sour mood. I could feel the case stalling out, heading for unsolved purgatory. I was close to the truth, but I had no idea what to do next, how to take that final step to IDing the shooter. It was Friday evening, I was at a dead end, and I had only a few days left to work on the case. On Monday, Duffy would put me back on call, and I would soon be jammed up with another case, another cluster of characters to interview, another set of priorities and pressures, another mystery to unravel.

  I pulled into the parking garage, walked to PAB, and took the elevator to the squad room. At my desk, I opened the murder book, but immediately shut it. I felt exhausted and couldn’t concentrate. If I could sleep for a few hours, maybe I would have the energy to return to the squad room and have another go at the case tonight. I locked the murder book up in the bottom drawer and returned to my loft. After undressing, I crawled into bed and closed my eyes. I tried to relax, but the horns, the squealing tires, the hydraulic hiss from the buses, the music blaring from passing cars kept me awake. I grabbed a pair of earplugs from the end table and slipped them in. But disconnected images from the case continued to flash in my mind: Relovich on the autopsy table; the crime scene photos; the blood splatter pattern on the wall; the netsukes and ojimes, their eyes glowing like coals.

  In an attempt to relax, I forced myself to think about surfing, and tried to recreate the magnificent ride I had the morning at Point Dume with Razor. Finally, I dozed off.

  I’m on the flank of a T-formation, searching for land mines and booby traps. My sergeant is in the center. The first thing an Israeli soldier learns is to fill his canteen to the top before going on a patrol because a sloshing sound can give him away. But I forgot. And now every step I take I hear the splash of water against metal. And every step it gets louder and louder and louder, until it sounds like huge waves pounding the shore with a deafening roar. Finally, my sergeant holds up his right hand, silently halting the unit. He grabs my canteen and pours out the water, steam rising from the desert sand. The steam becomes thicker and thicker. It soon envelops the unit. I hear footsteps in the distance, but I can’t see through the thick mist. I hear shouts in Arabic. Then the metallic click of a magazine shoved into an assault rifle. Then rapid-fire shots. Panicked, I run, but I’m blinded by the mist.

  The ringing of my cell phone woke me. I bolted up, covered with sweat. Grabbing the sheet, I wiped my face, brow, and the back of my neck.

  I picked up the phone. It was the vacuum metal deposition tech at the Orange County laboratory.

  “Any luck getting a print off that desk handle?” I asked.

  “It ain’t luck, my man,” the tech said. “We raised a latent for you.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “You don’t sound too excited.”

  “Just a routine check. Probably a patrol officer at the scene.”

  “It usually is. Give me a minute. I’ve got to find the file. Okay. I’ve got it right here.”

  I yawned and wiped the sleep out of my eyes.

  “A cop named Velang.”

  “First name?”

  “Sorry,” the technician said. “I can’t read my own writing. It’s Wegland. Wally Wegland. He’s a commander.”

  So Wegland was at the crime scene. Why didn’t anybody tell me? That’s strange. But maybe it isn’t. He was good friends with Relovich’s father. When the old man retired, he asked Wegland to keep an eye out for his son. It would make sense for Wegland to head over to Relovich’s as soon as he heard about the homicide.

  I remembered scanning the crime scene log, but couldn’t recall seeing Wegland’s name on the list. I decided to scan the names again. Maybe I’d missed Wegland. Maybe it would be worth looking through the log again and checking the other names on the list.

  The murder book, unfortunately, was at my desk. I decided to wal
k over to PAB and read the log again.

  I took a quick shower, shaved and dressed, and headed out the door.

  CHAPTER 28

  I swung open my front door. I was about to jog down the steps.

  But standing a few feet down the hall, dressed in khakis, a polo shirt, and a blue blazer, holding a Heckler amp; Koch. 45 at his hip was Wally Wegland.

  “Let’s head back inside,” he said. “No sudden movements.”

  I glanced at the stairs, calculating how quickly I could avoid the trajectory of his shot. Wegland jammed the HK in my back and said softly, “Move. Now.”

  I slipped my key into the lock. Wegland followed me inside and slammed the door.

  As I moved toward my shoulder holster, which was slung over a chair, Wegland said, “You take one more step, and it’ll be your last.”

  Wegland was aiming at the center of my chest in a perfect Weaver Stance: right arm partially extended, gun supported by his left hand, knees slightly flexed, left foot forward.

  He motioned with the gun for me to sit on the couch. “Take it real slow.”

  I sat on the edge. Wegland eased into a chair across from the couch.

  “So I guess you’ve got a contact at the VMD lab,” I said.

  “ Fortunately, they caught me while I was at my desk. Fortunately you’re only a few minutes away. Unfortunately, they called you first.”

  Wegland studied me for a moment and then shook his head sadly. “If you weren’t so damn obsessive, if you could have just left well enough alone, we wouldn’t be here at this painful juncture.”

  He jabbed the gun at me and said, “Why couldn’t you let Fuqua take the fall? Why couldn’t you just follow the obvious leads and let him go directly to jail?”

  My mouth was dry and I swallowed hard. “Because he didn’t kill Relovich.”

  “So what? Who cares about a predator like him?”

  “So you broke into Fuqua’s place in South Central, grabbed a Kleenex out of the trash, and planted it at Relovich’s,” I said softly, more to myself than to Wegland. “You knew he’d been charged with rape, so his DNA would be in the state DOJ database. You also knew that Relovich had arrested him and you heard about how Relovich kicked his ass. So you assumed we’d stumble on the obvious motive.”

  Wegland looked at me and frowned. “It all could have been so easy, but you had to make it so hard. I knew things would get dicey when that cretin Grazzo brought you back for this case.”

  “When he wanted to pull me off the case, why’d you persuade him to keep me on?”

  “I didn’t. But that’s what I told Duffy. Actually, I lobbied hard to get you off the case. But Grazzo wouldn’t budge because the chief was already on board with you. So I tried another tack. I told him all about how you went postal on Graupmann. I convinced him to suspend you. He tried, but you outfoxed him on that one.”

  “So it wasn’t Graupmann who put all that Nazi shit on my desk. It was you. Trying to provoke me. Trying to get me to do something stupid, something that would get me thrown off the case.”

  “Almost worked,” Wegland said.

  I wanted to keep Wegland talking until I could figure out a way to make my move.

  “Then why come after me now? Why not just let things play out and hope I wouldn’t be able to put it all together?”

  “You were getting too close to the bull’s-eye.”

  “I knew the VMD print was from a cop. But I just assumed they were from a patrol officer. I didn’t realize-”

  Wegland waved me off. “I’ll talk my way out of that one; I’ll claim I left the print on a visit months ago. But I knew Duffy had freed you up for a week to take another look at the case. I knew that once that week was up you wouldn’t drop it. You’d keep chewing and chewing on this case until you came up with something else. I didn’t want to see what your next surprise would be.”

  “So Relovich and Mitchell were in cahoots with you on the heist at Silver’s house,” I said.

  “Not initially,” he said pompously.

  Wegland was no different from most scumbags I had interviewed. They talked too much because they couldn’t resist showing how smart they were.

  “Not many people knew about Silver’s collection,” he said. “But when I was a robbery detective in Hollywood, I investigated a theft at his house once. I had to toss the place and itemize what he had for the insurance claim. So I knew what it was worth. I was also aware he had a safe. He told me he kept a lot of cash in there, but the thieves never got it. Of course, I made a mental note of that.”

  “And you,” I said, “had enough on Jack Freitas to have him locked up for a long time. But he was your informant so you were able to keep him on the streets. You took advantage of his B and E expertise and had him do jobs for you, rip shit off for you, like he did at Silver’s. Then things turned sour there.”

  “That’s right. Freitas started arguing about the split, right in the middle of the job.”

  “So you took him out. And you figured no one would care. A crook killed by a crook.”

  “That’s how Hollywood Homicide played it.”

  “So Relovich and Mitchell hear the shots and stumble on the scene,” I said. “That’s for real? They didn’t know this was going down?”

  Wegland snorted loudly. “They had no idea. They got there as I was about to slip out the back door.”

  “You must have done some fast talking.”

  “It wasn’t as hard as you’d think.”

  “Were you really friends with Pete’s old man?”

  He shook his head. “I saw him a few times at the academy shooting range, but we never actually had a conversation.” He fiddled absent-mindedly with a blazer button, as if lost for a moment in a memory. “Pete wasn’t a problem at Silver’s. He’d only been on the job a few years. Mitchell was the senior guy. I figured Pete would follow Mitchell’s lead. Anyway, I knew all about Mitchell. He’d been working Hollywood forever, and I had worked there for a while. He was dirty. Not filthy dirty. But dirty. Some of us knew he was checking department files and selling the info to PIs. So when the two of them see me, I figure I have got a chance to talk my way out of it. Of course when you’ve got two hundred thousand in cash you can be pretty persuasive.”

  He stared through me; his eyes looked unfocused. I wondered if he was steeling himself to pull the trigger. I was about to make a dash for the door when Wegland said, “I told them I was doing some undercover work for the art detail. Then I pointed out Freitas with the bullet hole in his temple. Mitchell had arrested him before; he knew he was scum. I told them I’d heard Freitas was going to pull this caper at Silver’s, and when I’d tried to stop him he pulled a gun on me. So I had to drop him. I convinced Mitchell not to call it in. Said I was doing the undercover work without authorization. Said I’d be in a hell of a fix if I had to deal with all those interviews and shooting boards. When I pulled out the duffel bag with cash, Mitchell was persuaded. I told both of them it was drug money and if we didn’t take it, it would just get turned over to the feds. Pete wasn’t too happy about it, but he was surrounded by two vets, so he went along with the program. They gave me a few minutes to get down the canyon. Then they called the station-and never mentioned anything about me.”

  “So why’d you have to silence Pete after all these years?”

  “He never got over this thing,” Wegland said, dropping the barrel of the Smith for a moment. “I think that’s why he bailed out of the department. Always looking over his shoulder, thinking he was going to get jammed by I.A. for taking the money and covering up what happened at Silver’s.”

  “That why he was drinking so much?”

  “Maybe. Though he eventually did dry out and get it together. But last year Hollywood Homicide got some kind of federal grant to reopen all their unsolved cases from the past fifteen years and take another look. The feds figured that with the automated fingerprint system and DNA available now, the new technology would dig up some suspects and a bunch of th
ese old cases would get cleared. Pete and Avery Mitchell figured it was only a matter of time before they were questioned about the Freitas homicide. It was a misdemeanor murder-just a loser ex-con who nobody cared about. But it was unsolved, so it fit the bill. I heard through a source of mine that Pete talked to one of his pals who used to work I.A. He didn’t tell him the particulars of the case, just presented a hypothetical situation. Talked about making a deal-asked if he could avoid prosecution if he laid out what happened. Next thing I knew, he made an appointment with an investigator.”

  Wegland frowned and shook his head. “That was unacceptable.”

  “Why was Pete so worried?”

  “He figured with the new technology, maybe I’d get IDed. Then maybe if I got cornered, I’d implicate him and Mitchell. Maybe I’d even put the murder on them.”

  “And after you shot him, you strangled him, to make it look personal, to-”

  “Mitchell had a little more savvy than Pete,” Wegland said, ignoring me. “He wasn’t running scared. But about six months ago he calls me out of the blue. Asks for what he called ‘a loan’ to expunge his memory.”

  “Blackmail?”

  “That’s how I interpreted it.”

  “So you gave Relovich and Mitchell the netsukes and ojimes?”

  Wegland whistled softly. “You don’t miss much, do you? I remember when you were a young patrolman in Pacific and I was a detective working robbery. I said to myself, That’s a sharp kid. That’s a kid to watch.”

  “Why did you give ’em to Relovich and Mitchell?”

  “After I’d investigated the robbery at Silver’s, he showed me his whole collection and told me all about them, the history and what they represented.” He cupped a hand, as if holding the imaginary netsukes and ojimes. “I gave each of the cops a matching pair. A Shoki and an Oni. A demon and demon queller. I told them the predators out there-like Freitas-were the demons. And us cops were the demon quellers. I told them not to forget which side they were on.”

  “But you did.”