Kind of Blue Read online

  After clicking on my computer, accessing an LAPD site, and checking a reverse directory for the address, I discovered that it was a business listing a few miles west of downtown: L.A. Elegant Escorts. A woman by the name of Ann Licata was registered as the owner. I decided to see what she had to say.

  CHAPTER 5

  I cruised down a side street a few blocks north of Olympic lined with small, shabby apartment buildings. The night was damp and columns of mist glowed a sickly yellow under the streetlights. When I double-checked the address, I realized that the establishment with the genteel name of L.A. Elegant Escorts was located in a rundown dingbat—Los Angeles’s grim contribution to urban blight. I was particularly incensed about dingbats because the street where I grew up was once composed of gracious Spanish-style duplexes. But when I was in grammar school, developers began tearing them down—the story of L.A.—and throwing up hastily constructed dingbats: stripped down two-story stucco boxes with rows of parking spaces in front, the exteriors adorned with flimsy metal lamps and cheesy decorative starbursts. Dingbats are the residential analogues of strip malls.

  I walked along the side of the dingbat, up a dank staircase, the steps dotted with specks of stucco that had fallen from the walls, and stood on a landing flanked by two front doors. I rang the bell of apartment number four. I waited about thirty seconds and rang the bell again. I heard rattling in the back of the apartment and then a sleepy voice call out, “Who is it?”

  “LAPD. Open up.”

  “Do you have a search warrant?”

  “I’m not interested in searching your place. I just want to talk to you. I’m investigating a murder.”

  An obese woman with stringy hair, wearing a ratty yellow bathrobe, opened the door a few inches. “ID,” she barked.

  I showed her my badge. “You Ann Licata?”

  “Yeah. But I want you to understand something right off the bat. First of all, any money that changes hands between my girls and the gentlemen who contract for their services is simply for companionship,” she said, as if she was delivering a memorized speech. “Anything that might occur during their time together is a matter of personal choice between two consenting adults over the age of eighteen. There is never, at any time, any written or verbal guarantee involving the exchange of sex for money. Is that clear, officer?”

  “I don’t care if you’re a hooker booker. That’s not why I’m here. I’m investigating a homicide. I don’t plan to inform vice of our conversation. If you’re honest with me now and help me with my case, I promise you I’ll leave you alone to run your business.”

  “All right then,” she said, turning around, taking a few steps, and flopping on a threadbare sofa. I followed her into the small living room and sat across from her. Her robe inched up, revealing two enormous blotchy thighs that enveloped an entire sofa cushion.

  “Do you know Pete Relovich?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Again, let me give you the ground rules. Be honest with me, and I’ll walk out the door and let you run your business. Bullshit me, and I’ll call vice right now, and they’ll shut down your operation and haul you out of here in handcuffs. What’ll it be?”

  She squirmed on the sofa for a moment. “Yeah, yeah,” she said wearily. “I knew Pete. He was a driver for one my girls. What’s going on with him?”

  “He was killed.”

  She pulled her robe tight and muttered, “Jesus.”

  “Which girl did he drive for?”

  “Her name’s Brittany.”

  “What’s her real name?”

  “Jane.”

  “Last name?”

  “Granger.”

  “Address?”

  She reached into an end table, riffled through a spiral notebook, scrawled down the address on a page, ripped it out, and handed it to me.

  “What’s a driver?”

  “He takes the escort to her appointment, checks out the place to see if it seems safe, waits in the car for her to finish her date, and then either drives her home or to her next date.”

  “How long’s he been doing that?”

  “About a year.”

  “How did he end up working for you?”

  “You’ll have to ask Jane. She brought him in.”

  “Is it possible he made some enemies? Maybe crossed the wrong customer?”

  “We call them clients.”

  “Crossed the wrong client?”

  “Again, you’ll have to ask Jane. But I really doubt it. We run a very professional operation.”

  “I looked around the dingy apartment, strewn with empty Coke cans, greasy McDonald’s wrappers, and National Enquirers, and said, “I can see that.” I pulled a card out of my wallet and handed it to her. “If you hear anything that you think I might find useful, give me a call.”

  I walked to the door as Licata struggled to her feet. “A deal’s a deal,” she said. “You’re not calling vice on me, right?”

  “As long as you continue to cooperate with me—no.”

  On Monday morning, I called Pete’s uncle and he agreed to meet me at his boat. I wanted to do a little research on Pete’s driving job before I door-knocked Jane Granger.

  When Goran Relovich saw me walking down the dock, he climbed down below and emerged carrying two cups of coffee. We eased into our deck chairs and I said, “Did you know Pete was driving girls for an escort service?”

  Relovich blew on his coffee. “Yeah, I knew.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “’Cause it’s none of your damn business.”

  “Everything Pete was involved in is my business. How the hell can I find who killed him if the people close to him aren’t honest with me?”

  He set his coffee cup on the deck. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t want the newspapers to get ahold of it. I don’t want that to be the last thing written about my nephew. He wasn’t proud of it.”

  “How did an ex-cop get involved in a sleazy deal like that?”

  “Ever since he left the force he’s been hurting for money. He had a few security jobs early on, but he was drinking so much back then he ended up getting bounced. I put him to work when I could, but most of my favorite spots are fished out, and I’m getting too old to make a lot of long runs. The last year or two, Pete was having trouble making his child support payments. When he missed two months in a row, it hurt him real bad. He vowed it wouldn’t happen again. He loved his little girl, loved her more than anything in the world, knew he hadn’t been a good father. Figured the least he could do was send that check and provide for her.”

  He stared morosely out at sea, rubbing the gray stubble on his chin.

  “So how did Pete get involved with that escort outfit?”

  “He met one of these gals. I don’t know where he met her, or if he was putting the wood to her, or how she got him to drive for her.”

  “You sure there isn’t anything else you haven’t told me, anything else about Pete that might be embarrassing?”

  “That’s it. But you don’t have to spread it around the station house, do you? I’d hate to have everyone at the LAPD know about this.”

  I opened my briefcase and tapped the murder book. “It stays inside here.”

  “You think driving those gals around could have got Pete killed?” he asked.

  “At this point, Mr. Relovich, I have no idea.”

  Walking down the dock toward my car, I checked my watch: it was a few minutes after eleven. If I stopped for lunch, by the time I was through I could head up to the desert. School would be out by then, and I might have a chance to interview Relovich’s daughter. Sandy had refused to let me talk to the girl the last time I was there. But maybe if I ambushed Sandy, I might catch her in a vulnerable moment and persuade her to change her mind. I still hadn’t ruled her out as a suspect; the daughter might know something that could prove useful.

  The first time I interviewed Relovich’s uncle, he had told me Sandy was extremely jealous—it al
most sounded like she’d been stalking him—and Pete had walked out on her. But when I interviewed her, she told me she had left him. Lies always merit a follow-up.

  I walked down the dock to Canetti’s, ate lunch, and flipped through the paper, but there was nothing on the Relovich murder. Then I sped off to Lancaster.

  When I descended into the desert, a harsh wind blew in from the west, kicking up clouds of topsoil, sandblasting my windshield, and bending the cottonwoods that fringed Sandy Relovich’s house. I rang the doorbell and watched the cottonwood bloom swirl down the furrows of the onion fields while I waited on the porch. Finally, Sandy came to the door and I followed her into the kitchen. She grabbed a can of Bud from the refrigerator and a pitcher of iced tea. Her eyes were glazed and her hands trembled—sloshing the iced tea in the pitcher—so I figured this wasn’t her first beer of the day. She opened the can, took a swig, and set the pitcher on the table. She filled a glass and handed it to me.

  My mouth felt dry and gritty from the dust, and I took a few long swigs. “Sorry to barge in on you like this,” I said, pulling up a chair at the kitchen table, “but I need to talk to you about a few more things.”

  “Okay,” she said warily.

  “Did Pete have any problem making his child support payments?”

  She nodded. “A few times he was short, but he made it up within a few weeks. Two or three times, he missed payments altogether and couldn’t get the checks to me for months. That really hurt him. He felt like he was letting his daughter down. Once, about a year and a half ago, he drove out here to tell me he couldn’t come up with the cash. Second time I ever saw him cry. First time was when he told me he was leaving the LAPD.”

  “Why’d he say he was leaving.”

  “Said I wouldn’t understand. We were separated by then, so I couldn’t get much out of him about anything. Anyway, after he missed that payment, he vowed he’d never be late with child support again. And he wasn’t.”

  “Did he have a new source of income?”

  “Don’t know. All I know is that he was working on his uncle’s boat.”

  “You ever hear of him driving for an escort service.”

  “I don’t know where you heard that, but it’s bullshit,” she said angrily. “Pete was a straight arrow. He wouldn’t sink that low.”

  She finished her beer in a long swallow and, reaching under the sink, stuffed the can in a paper bag.

  “Anything else you can think of that might be helpful?”

  “If I do, I have your card and I’ll let you know.”

  “You know, I’m talking to everyone connected to Pete. I really think it would be helpful if I talked to your daughter, too.”

  “I told you last time you were here: no,” she snapped.

  “I wouldn’t press you if I didn’t think it was important,” I said softly. “But you’re a cop’s wife. You know it’s important that I speak to all the family members. When Pete was on the job, he had to interview the children of crime victims. He probably didn’t like doing it, probably thought of his own daughter. But he knew it was important, so he did it. And he did it because he was a good cop and that was part of his job. Well, I’m trying to be a good cop, too. And I’m just trying to do my job.”

  “I don’t know,” she said uncertainly. “You have kids?”

  “No,” I said, embarrassed. There aren’t many bachelor cops my age at the LAPD, and when anyone asks me about kids, I always feel uncomfortable, as if I’m still a boy, unwilling to take on an adult’s responsibility.

  “I have a nephew I’m very close to. I promise, I’ll be as careful with your daughter as I would be with my nephew.”

  “It always really got to Pete.”

  I nodded, encouraging her to continue.

  “When a parent was murdered. When he was on the job and we were still together, he’d come home at night and talk to me about it how bad he felt for the kids. Said that was the saddest thing in the world. Now it’s happened to our daughter.

  Her eyes welled up and she began sniffling. She grabbed a Kleenex off the kitchen counter, blew her nose, and threw open the back door.

  “Lindsey,” she shouted. “Come on in.”

  I looked out the kitchen window and saw a girl sitting on a swing hung from the branch of a sycamore. Slowly shambling to the door, she plopped into a chair and stared at her shoes. She was a skinny girl with freckles on her nose and a long blonde braid that reached the middle of her back.

  “This man wants to ask you a few questions about Daddy. You up for that?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Hello Lindsey,” I said. “My name is Ash. I’m a policeman, just like your father was.”

  She continued to stare at her shoes.

  “Did you ever see your father’s badge?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Do you want to see mine?”

  She looked up for the first time. “I guess so.”

  I unclipped my badge from my belt and held it out. I pointed to the top and said, “Can you read this word?”

  Moving her lips she said, “Detective.”

  “Do you know what this tall building is in the center of the badge?”

  She ran her fingers along the outline. “It’s Los Angeles City Hall.”

  “That’s pretty good. How’d you know that?”

  “My school went there on a field trip.”

  “Lindsey, I’m going to ask you a few questions.”

  “Okay.”

  “Did your dad call you at night sometimes.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How often?”

  “Pretty often.”

  I turned to Sandy.

  “A couple times a week,” Sandy said. “Every other night. Something like that.”

  “Lindsey, do you remember the last time your father called you?”

  “On Thursday night.”

  That was the night, I knew, he was killed.

  “How do you remember that it was Thursday night?”

  “Because I had a science test on Friday and he promised to call on Thursday night and explain some things to me.”

  “What time did he call?”

  “Right after dinner.”

  “What time was that?”

  “About seven.”

  I didn’t want to ask Sandy where she was Thursday night. She might realize she was under some suspicion, throw me out, and deny me access to her daughter. So I thought I’d do an end run around her and hope she was too drunk to figure out what I was searching for.

  “Do you remember what you did the rest of the night?”

  “I finished my homework.”

  “Did anyone help you?”

  “My mom.”

  “What time did you go to bed?”

  She smiled. “About ten thirty.”

  “Did your mom put you to bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why so late?”

  “My mom and I stayed up and watched Desperate Housewives. She TiVoed it on Sunday night. She said if I studied hard all week, we could watch it on Thursday night.”

  Looking embarrassed, Sandy said, “She’ll be eleven pretty soon. I think she’s old enough. Don’t you?”

  “I’m sure you know what’s best for your daughter,” I said, feeling a twinge of disappointment. The coroner estimated that Pete was killed on Thursday night. It was a long drive from Lancaster to San Pedro. This ruled out Sandy as a suspect.

  “Did you spend a lot of time at your father’s house in San Pedro?”

  “Every other weekend.”

  “Was that fun?”

  “I liked going there.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Sometimes we’d go out on my great-uncle’s boat. Sometimes we’d go to the aquarium in Long Beach or fish off the jetty. In the summer, we’d go to the beach.”

  “Did you ever meet any of the people your father knew?”

  Biting her lower lip, she looked up at her mother. Sandy nodd
ed.

  “One friend.”

  “Was this a man or woman?”

  “Woman.”

  “Was this his girlfriend?”

  “I guess so.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Jane Granger.” She said it quickly, without a pause, as if it was a single name.

  “Was she nice?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Did you meet any other people your father knew?”

  She reached behind her, twirled her braid for about thirty seconds, and asked, “Is this an important question?”

  “It might be, why?”

  “I don’t want to answer it.”

  Sandy reached over and took her daughter’s hand and patted it. “Why not, honey?”

  “Daddy made me promise not to tell anyone.”

  “Why didn’t he want you to tell anyone?” Sandy asked, looking perplexed.

  “He said that if you found out, you wouldn’t let me visit him anymore.”

  “It’s okay now,” Sandy said. “You can tell us about it.”

  Lindsey clasped her hands tightly, stared at them and, racing to get out the words, said, “On Saturday night and Jane and Daddy were making dinner in the kitchen and someone rang the doorbell. Jane opened it without asking who it was. Daddy said never to do that, and he got mad, and the man at the door yelled at Daddy and waved a gun at him. Daddy pushed him out the door and locked it, and the man went away.”

  Sandy stared at her daughter, stunned, mouth open.

  “How long ago was this?” I asked.

  “About a month or two,” Lindsey said.

  “Did your father or Jane ever mention the man’s name?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did you hear what the man said?”

  “No.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “He had a bald head.”

  “Can you remember if he was tall or short.”

  She shook her head.

  “Fat or thin?”

  “No. I just remember the shiny bald head and the shiny gun.”

  “Do you remember his race?”

  “Race?” she said, confused.