Kind of Blue

by Miles Corwin

  I decided to first focus on the interview summaries, including the ones conducted by the Harbor Division detectives. But when I finished reading them, I hadn’t found an obvious weak link. The interview with Relovich’s ex-wife, Sandy, however, troubled me. She insisted she had no idea that Relovich had hidden almost $5,000 under his floor tile. But I recalled that she seemed hinky when I told her about the cash. My instincts during interviews had been wrong in the past, but not often. I decided to pay her another visit.

  • • •

  I drove north out of the city on a cool, gray morning. As I climbed the San Gabriel Mountains, the fog thinned, and by the time I reached the summit at 3,300 feet, I could discern two distinct climate patterns: ash gray and overcast in the vast Los Angeles basin; turquoise skies and shimmering heat waves in the scorching Mojave Desert. In L.A., summer weather was still a month away. But here, in the high desert, the sun was unforgiving, parching the hillsides and withering the spring flowers.

  When Sandy answered the door, she was holding a can of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She stared at me for a moment, her eyes rheumy, her expression perplexed. When she recognized me, she set her beer on the floor and hugged me, the smoke from the cigarette swirling around and burning my eyes.

  “I never got around to calling you, but I wanted to say that I’m grateful,” she said. “Thank you for everything you’ve done.”

  I followed her into the kitchen, where she poured me a glass of iced tea.

  “It’s finally over. You finally got him,” she said, grabbing another beer from the refrigerator and joining me at a round wooden table. “As you can see, I’m drinking again too early in the day. Maybe now that you’ve put the case to rest, I’ll get it together.”

  I had worked with enough drunks to know Sandy was lying to herself. But I just nodded sympathetically.

  “You’ve really helped me and my little girl, and I’m grateful to you for that,” she said. “She believed that the bad man who killed her father was going to come after me and kill me, too. She’s had a lot of trouble sleeping. But after you made the arrest, well, it helped a lot.”

  Sandy took a deep drag of her cigarette and said while exhaling, “What brings you all the way out to our shit-kicking little burg?”

  “I wanted to ask you a few follow-up questions.”

  “Okay. Ask.”

  “Remember I mentioned that stash of cash that I found under a tile in Pete’s kitchen?”

  She angrily stubbed out her cigarette. “Remember I told you I didn’t know anything about it?”

  “Yes I do. But it’s something I have to pursue.”

  “Why? I thought the case was solved. You already arrested that gangster who killed Pete.”

  “There might be more to the homicide than I originally thought.”

  “Detective Levine, this is the fourth time you’ve been out here. I’m sick of this shit.”

  Telling her about the questions I had about the case would be pointless. She’d probably just get angry. But if I mentioned the partner, it might provide enough of a scare so she’d open up to me. I leaned toward her and said, “I locked up one suspect, but witnesses have told me that he had a partner. I need to find that partner. That’s the only way I can be sure this case is solved. And it’s the only way I can be one hundred percent sure that you and your daughter are safe.”

  She gripped the edge of the table. “Do you think this partner could come after us?” she asked, voice quavering.

  “No. But it’ll be better for everyone if I find out who he is and get him into custody.”

  She wiped her eyes with a fist.

  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 ro
ster—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 were covered with bands of swirling tattoos.

  When I identified myself and said I wanted to talk about Avery Mitchell Senior, I was surprised at the son’s gracious manner. “Come on inside,” he said. “I’m going to make some coffee. I’ll bring you a cup.”

  I looked around the small living room. The overstuffed gingham sofa was flanked by bone-colored end tables with pale pink lamps atop doilies. Opposite the sofa were a crochet throw rug with a floral pattern and a powder blue leatherette easy chair. An amateurish oil painting of an ocean sunset hung on a wall. The décor, I thought, seemed more appropriate for one of my elderly aunts than a tattooed, pierced Hollywood hipster.

  When Mitchell returned with two cups of coffee, he noticed me checking out the room. “I rented it furnished.”

  “I didn’t think it was your style.”

  Mitchell handed me a cup and we sat on the sofa.

  “Sorry for waking you,” I said.

  “I usually don’t sleep this late. I’m a prop boy on That Thing of Ours. It’s a new cable show. We’re filming on the street at night now. Got to be back out there later this afternoon. Ever see the show?”

  “I don’t have much time for TV.”

  “It’s a crime family dramedy. Kind of a cross between The Sopranos and The Brady Bunch. I got my dad to watch it once.”

  “What did he think of it?”

  Mitchell nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll quote him for you: ‘Biggest pile of horseshit I’ve ever seen. Never in all my years on the street have I seen anything resembling the crap you’re showing.’ Right then I knew the show would be a monster hit.”

  We both laughed.

  “You have a card?” Mitchell asked.

  I handed the card to him and Mitchell studied it for a moment. “So why’s the LAPD interested in my father? Especially the downtown boys from Felony Special. My dad left the department a long time ago.”

  “Just some old cases I’m checking out that your dad might have investigated.”

  He lightly touched his lip ring and eyebrow rod, and stuck out his tongue, revealing a silver stud. “Even though I walk the walk and look the look, I got nothing against cops. Believe it or not, I was even an Explorer Scout at the Hollywood station when I was in high school.”

  “You’ve taken a different career path.”

  “Yeah. My dad walked out on my mom, my sister, and me when I was in high school. Moved in with his girlfriend. So I guess I did a one-eighty on him.”

  “Where’s your mom live?”

  He sipped his coffee. “She died two years ago. Breast cancer.”

  “How’d your dad die?”

  “Suicide.”

  I jerked my head back. I had been trained to stay poker faced during interviews, but I was so surprised I reacted without thinking. Embarrassed, I took a quick sip of coffee. “The guy who rents his house in Idaho said he thought it was a heart attack.”

  “He was probably pulling your chain. They don’t like cops up there snooping around.”

  “How’d he do it?”

  Mitchell swallowed hard. “The tried and true cop way. He ate his gun.”

  “Had he been depressed?”

  “It was impossible to tell with him. He was always kind of sour and cynical. Typical retired cop, right?”

  I shrugged. “Were you close?”

  “Not really.”

  “How often did you talk?”

  “He called me every month or so. And whenever he was forced to come down to L.A. to take care of some business, he’d take me to breakfast.” He smiled sadly at the memory. “He always threatened to yank out my studs and rings with a pair of pliers.”

  “How often did he visit?”

  “As rarely as possible—a couple times a year.”

  “Why’d he retire?”

  “‘Cause he hated L.A. He called it the cesspool of California. He loved the mountains. Fished every day.”

  “Any close friends or girlfriends up there?”

  “Not really. That cunt he dumped my mom for eventually dumped him. Had some drinking partners at the local tavern. But I don’t think they knew him too well. Nobody knew him too well.”

  “When he was still a cop, do you remember him, at any time, coming into a lot of money?”

  Mitchell canted his head and studied me with a dubious expression. “Hey, what’s this all about?”

  “Your dad’s gone, so you’ve got nothing to worry about. It’s like I said: I’m tracking down some old cases and I thought you might be able to help out.”

  “If we’d been closer, maybe I could.”

  “Do you have his personal items, things from the house?”

  He walked across the room and opened a closet. Inside were two fishing poles, a shotgun, a Finnish deer hunting rifle with a satin-walnut stock, and a Plexiglas shadow box with his father’s first service revolver—a .38-caliber, six-shot, Smith & Wesson—his badge, and a few unit patches. “This is what I
kept. My sister’s got the rest.”

  “Your sister nearby?”

  “Yeah. Mid-Wilshire.”

  “What does she do?”

  “She teaches third grade.”

  At the door, we shook hands. “You can be proud of your dad; people always told me he was a good cop,” I said, although I had never heard of Avery Mitchell until a few hours ago.

  “Thanks for saying it, but let’s get real. He wasn’t a good father. He wasn’t a good husband. And I doubt if he was a good cop. But I know one thing he was good at.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He was an awesome fisherman.”

  I returned to the squad room and immediately called the sheriff from the rural, sparsely populated county where Mitchell had lived. He agreed to fax the autopsy report.

  “I’d also like to talk to the coroner,” I said.

  The sheriff laughed. “Don’t have no coroner up here. This isn’t Los Angle-ese,” he said, a hint of derision in his voice.

  “So who conducted the autopsy?”

  “Our local surgeon. If he thinks the death is suspicious, he sends the body over to the medical center in the next county where they got a full-time pathologist.”

  “Did he think this was suspicious?”

  “This was a straight suicide. It was as clear as day.”

  “When was your last murder?” I asked.

  “Three years ago.”

  “I’d like to talk to the surgeon.”

  “He’s on a pig hunting trip. You can catch him next week when he gets back.”

  “Did Mitchell leave a note?”

  “No note. But the gun was right next to him.”

  “Did you print the gun?”

  “Of course we printed the gun,” the sheriff said. “We may be in the mountains, but this is the mountains of Idaho, not Afghanistan. Mitchell’s prints—and no one else’s—were all over the gun, you suspicious son of a gun.”

  “Did you test his hands for gunshot residue?”

  “No need to,” the sheriff said defensively. “The suicide was obvious. And just out of curiosity, why you so interested in this guy?”