I headed west on Sunset at dusk and cut north on a canyon road, past hills cloaked in chaparral, studded with yucca and stunted fan palms. Cruising beneath a canopy of live oaks, I pulled onto a narrow, winding street, the homes bordered by oleander with pink and red blossoms, thick stands of bamboo, and cactus gardens, the prickly pears starred with pale orange blooms.
Silver’s house was easy to spot, a dramatic, modern structure, all sharp angles, built of glass and steel, teetering on a hillside. After climbing fifty-one steep steps, I rang the front bell. While I waited for someone to answer, I realized how quiet it was in the hills compared to my loft. The only sounds were the breeze rattling the bamboo and the cars whirring through the canyon.
A man looked through a peephole and shouted, “Who is it?”
“Detective Ash Levine. LAPD.”
“ID?”
I covered the peephole with my badge.
The door opened, revealing a short, skinny man with thinning gray hair and a little ponytail. He wore shorts, sandals, and a short-sleeved yellow silk shirt. “What’s the problem, detective?”
“No real problem. Just checking out some old cases. I wanted to talk to you about that burglar who was killed at your house about ten years ago.”
Silver sighed, absentmindedly fingering his ponytail.
“Can I come inside?” I asked.
“Of course.”
I followed Silver into the living room, which had a sweeping view of the city, sheathed in a film of smog. The room was spare, almost monastic, with hardwood floors and a scattering of black leather and chrome furniture. The white walls were bare.
I joined Silver on the sofa and asked, “When it’s clear, can you see the ocean from here?”
“A few times a year,” Silver said, looking distracted. “So what’s this about? Did you finally find out who killed that thief in my living room?”
“We haven’t.”
“Well, he was no great loss. But that means the shooter is still out there victimizing other home owners.”
“With your cooperation, we might be able to get him behind bars.”
“And recover my property?”
“Maybe.”
“Is that what this is about?”
“Not exactly. I’m working on another homicide case and I’m trying to determine if it’s related to that murder at your house.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“It was,” I said. “But just to cover all my bases, I wanted to ask you a few questions.”
“Shoot.”
“I noticed from the crime report that three hundred thousand dollars worth of jewelry was stolen from your safe.”
“That’s right,” Silver said.
“That’s a lot of jewelry.”
Silver flashed me a forced smile. “My wife has expensive taste.”
“What kind of business are you in?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” he asked, sounding defensive.
“Just background.”
“Okay. I’m in the import-export business.”
“From what country?”
“Japan.”
“What do you import?”
Silver nervously tugged on his ponytail. “Is all this necessary?”
“Got anything to hide?” I said, smiling.
“Of course not. We import Japanese electronic equipment.”
“And what do you export?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“You said your business was import-export.”
“It’s just an expression.”
I sensed Silver’s growing irritation, so I shifted the interview in another direction. “Anything else stolen from your house?”
Silver lightly brushed his forefinger across his lips and said “Just the jewelry. I told the officers that at the time.”
“You sure nothing else was stolen?” I asked.
“I’m sure.”
“How about any art work or art objects?”
He shook his head.
“You sure no small Japanese figurines were stolen, or things like that?”
Silver glowered at me. “You calling me a liar, detective?”
I knew this was a critical juncture in the interview. If I was too belligerent, too combative, Silver might refuse to answer the questions and tell me to pound sand or call his attorney. I had no leverage. I would simply have to walk back down the fifty-one steps and drive off.
I didn’t know if Silver was lying; I didn’t know if the Freitas homicide and the jewelry heist were connected to the Relovich and Mitchell murders. Still, I was suspicious of Silver for reasons I couldn’t articulate. Maybe it was because Silver’s business had a Japanese connection; maybe it was because he was so testy. The murder also bothered me. Why would Freitas’s partner shoot him during the heist? Why attract all that attention? Why not just wait and plug him later?
I inched closer on the sofa to Silver. “Let me break it down for you. If you don’t level with me right now, I’m going to do two things. First, I’m going to obtain your insurance records and examine the jewelry purchases you made and confirm that they were truly worth three hundred thousand. If they weren’t, I’m going to go after you for insurance fraud. The second thing I’m going to do is talk to the supervising detective at Hollywood Homicide and ask him to reopen the Jack Freitas murder case. If he finds you’ve withheld any information, I’m going to request that he prosecute you for conspiracy,” I said, bluffing. “And conspiracy in a murder can get you locked up for a very long time.”
I knew immediately that I had hit pay dirt. Silver blinked hard. The corners of his mouth twitched. “You’ve got no proof,” he said weakly.
“You continue jacking me around, and I’ll make sure I get the proof. But if you level with me right now and tell me everything that happened, I’ll forget about the insurance company. I’ll forget about talking to Hollywood Homicide.”
I checked my watch. “I’ll give you one minute to decide. Then I’m leaving. By tomorrow, you won’t even recognize your life anymore.”
Silver gazed out at the smog, a thousand-yard stare. Dropping his chin to his chest, he said softly, “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“There were some other things stolen.” He sighed wistfully. “I had some very nice works.”
“All Japanese?”
“Yes. A hanging scroll from the sixteen hundreds. An eighteenth-century two-panel screen-ink and color on silk. Some exquisite splashed ink landscapes, and a few erotic woodcut prints-all hundreds of years old.”
“Any netsukes?”
“Yes, yes,” he said, pained. “ Netsukes, iron tea kettles, iron sword guards, ojimes, lacquered boxes.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police or the insurance company about these items? They weren’t listed on the property report.”
Silver reached around and tugged on his ponytail again. “You sure if I tell you the truth, you’re not going to go after me for this?”
“I’m not interested in insurance fraud, art theft, or income tax evasion,” I said in what I hoped was a reassuring tone. “All I care about is the murder I’m working. I just want to see if it’s connected to what happened at your house.”
“Okay,” Silver said softly, more to himself than to me. “I couldn’t talk about these items because I wasn’t supposed to have them.”
“Why not?”
“A few Japanese art dealers were ripped off. Some very old and very valuable items were stolen. It was too risky to fence them in Japan. So the thieves sold them to an American. The Japanese would not be too happy to see these treasures leaving their country. But if the American had an import business, he would know how to slip these items in through customs. Back in the States, he could have kept some of the items and sold some of the others.”
“Just so I’m clear, this person you’re talking about is you?”
“Unfortunately.”
“And it was hard to launder the profits, so you kept a lot of cash in your home safe.”
“How’d you find out?”
Ignoring him, I asked, “How much?”
“About two hundred thousand.”
“So you inflated the amount of your wife’s jewelry-which was never stolen-to, at least, cover your cash loss and some of the art. The rest, you just had to write off.”
“That’s pretty close to it.”
“Why’d you take the chance of displaying this stuff on your walls?”
“I didn’t keep them out here,” he said, pointing to the living room walls. “They were in our bedroom and my home office, where guests aren’t permitted.” He stared out the window again. “What’s the use of risking so much to secure magnificent works of art if you can’t see them?”
“Any idea who ripped you off?”
“I still don’t have a clue.”
“Any idea why Freitas was killed?”
“Whoa,” he said, waving his palms. “I had nothing to do with that. That’s your area of expertise. Certainly not mine.”
It was so dark when I drove back down the canyon-the moon was obscured by high clouds-that I had trouble negotiating the hairpin turns, but I relaxed when I finally hit Sunset and headed east. As I approached downtown, I decided I was too energized to go home, so I pulled into the parking garage, walked to PAB, and took the elevator to the fifth floor. I pulled the tape recorder out of my briefcase with the microphone in the corner, listened to Silver’s interview again, and summarized it on a statement form for my murder book.