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 almost 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 nodded.
“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.
“White, black, Hispanic, Asian?”
“White. But his skin was sun tanned.”
“Do you know the difference between a rifle and a pistol?”
“A pistol is what my dad carried when he was a policeman. A rifle is what grandpa uses when he goes hunting.”
“That’s right. Did this man have a rifle or a pistol.”
“A pistol.”
I spent the next twenty minutes talking to Lindsey and her mother, but was unable to glean anything else about the man with the gun. As I drove back toward the city, I realized that although I’d just ruled out one suspect, I’d gained another.
It was late afternoon by the time I reached Jane Granger’s apartment in Redondo Beach. She had to be making good money in the escort business because she lived in a luxury complex only a block from the beach. The property was lushly landscaped with banana plants and giant birds of paradise bordering the front and magenta bougainvillea spilling over the railings.
I rang the bell, and a few seconds later someone checked me out through the peephole and said, “The sign in lobby says: No Solicitors.”
“I held up my badge. “I’m an LAPD homicide detective.”
She opened the door and said, “Is this about Pete?”
“How’d you know?”
“There was short story in the Times. A friend of mine saw it and called me. Ann Licata also called. Told me to cooperate with you. Come on in.”
The living room was tidy and spare, with just a white canvas sofa, a gleaming glass and brass coffee table in front, and, on the opposite wall, a white brick fireplace with an empty mantel. In the corner was a sad-looking ficus tree with withered leaves. The room had the featureless, generic quality of a motel.
Granger was a tall redhead with tired eyes and too much makeup. She was dressed as if she was about to leave for a date with a client: black Spandex miniskirt, high heels, and pink Angora V-neck sweater revealing the lacy edge of a black push-up bra that showed a lot of cleavage. In her twenties she had probably been beautiful. Now in her mid-thirties, she was still shapely, but the life she’d led was starting to take its toll.
We sat on opposite ends of the sofa and I asked, “How’d you meet Pete?”
She reached into her purse, lit a cigarette, crossed her legs, and leaned back. When she caught me checking out her legs, she smiled slyly. “I don’t want to say anything that might get me into trouble. You understand what I’m saying, detective?”
I gave her the same spiel I gave Licata, assuring her I was not interested in prostitution, only homicide.
“Pete was a good guy. I’ve been real torn up about this.”
I studied her for a moment, watching her take languorous drags of her cigarette. She didn’t seem particularly upset.
“So how’d you meet Pete?”
“I’m just about to make a stupid mistake,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to be honest with a cop.” She took another long, slow drag of her cigarette and fanned away the smoke. “My girlfriend and I were having drinks one night at a restaurant on the water in San Pedro. Pete was at the bar, drinking a beer. We talked. I found out he was really hurting for money. Said he had to come up with some cash in a few days for his child support. Pete was a big boy. Seemed street smart, like he knew how to handle himself. I told him I needed a driver because my regular driver just moved to Houston, that he could make a few hundred bucks for a couple of hours work. He agreed.” She uncrossed her legs. “I didn’t find out until later that he was an ex-cop.”
“What, exactly, did he do?”
“He took me to the date, walked me to the door, checked out the place, made sure it seemed safe. We each had our cells. I’d text him with codes. We had a code for: the call was cancelled; I was in danger; I suspected the client was a cop; the date was over; call the office; send over another girl. All kinds of things.”
“Wasn’t he worried about getting busted?”
“Well, he wasn’t doing anything illegal. He just dropped me off, picked me up, and drove me around. He made it a point never to handle any money or negotiate with clients.”
“How long did he drive for you?”
“Started about a year ago. Stopped driving a few months ago.”
“Why’d he stop?”
“He never felt right about it, him being an ex-cop and all. So when he caught up on his child support, he bailed.”
“Did he drive for anyone else?”
“No. Just me and Adriana.” She flashed me a coy look. “I only do doubles.”
“You’ll have to explain. This isn’t my area of expertise.”
“That’s two girls and one client. We start with a show. Me and Adriana get it on. Then, when the client’s ready to roll, I retreat to the bathroom and Adriana finishes him off.” She pulled back her shoulders and smoothed her skirt. “I’m not a prostitute. I don’t have sex with clients.”
I decided not to engage her in a philosophical discussion on what qualified as prostitution. “Was your relationship with Pete strictly business?”
“It was at first. But we started dating just about the time he stopped driving for me.”
“Can you think of anyone he might have encountered when he was driving who might have a reason to kill him?”
She shook her head. “Like I said, he had nothing at all to do with the clients.”
“Did you ever see anyone threaten Pete?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“Let me describe a scene to you. It’s a Saturday night. You and Pete are cooking dinner at his house. Pete’s daughter is there. A man comes to the door. He pulls out a gun. He threatens Pete. Does that refresh your memory?”
She stubbed out her cigarette. “Yeah.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me when I asked you?”
“Because this whole thing is turning out to be a big fucking mess, and I don’t want to get involved in a murder investigation.”
“You are involved.”
“I can see that.”
“Listen, I understand your concerns. But if you keep things from me, I’ll keep digging and digging. I’ll keep coming back over here. I’ll end up questioning everyone you know. The easiest way for you to do this is to just tell me the truth. Because if you do, I’ll be out of here, I’ll move on to the next step of my investigation, and I won’t come back.”
She slipped an unlit cigarette in her mouth. “His name is Ray Abazeda. He owns the escort service.”
“I thought Ann Licata owned the escort service. The business and the phone number are registered in her name.”
“She’s the front man, the straw man, whatever you call it,” Granger said. “Ray’s the real owner, the one who rakes in the cash. Ann’s just an employee. Ray’s smart. He doesn’t want vice cops or the IRS on his back, so he keeps a low profile and pays other people to take the risk. Fucking camel jockey.”
“Where’s he from?”
“One of those places back in the Middle East. I can’t remember. But he’s been here for decades.”
“Why’d he threaten Pete?”
She sighed theatrically. “I was Ray’s girlfriend. At least one of them. But I got to know Pete pretty well when he was driving me. We started dating. He didn’t want me doing the escort thing anymore. So I left the business. I left Ray. He was jealous, but that wouldn’t have been enough for him to go after Pete. What really pissed him off was he thought that Pete was stealing one of his girls. He thought Pete talked me into leaving Elegant Escorts because he was trying to set up his own escort service-a competing service-and I’d be one of his girls. That really pissed Ray off. Even though I didn’t make it with clients, I was one of his best earners,” she said with a hint of pride. “I really put on a show. I’ve got a lot of repeat clients.”
“Any truth in what Ray was accusing Pete of?”
“No way. But Ray’s a crazy motherfucker. He wouldn’t listen. He was afraid that if someone poached one of his girls and went out on his own, he’d be seen as weak. And this is a tough business. He was afraid that other competitors would start poaching his girls and stealing his clients. So he had to show that he was a hard guy. So that night he confronted Pete with the gun. Told him that if he didn’t stay away from his girls and his business, he’d fucking kill him.”
“What’d Pete do?”
“Pete just marched to the door, smacked the gun out of his hand, shoved him off the porch, and slapped the shit out of him. While Ray was sprawled on the lawn, Pete told him the next time he saw him at his house he’d take his gun and jam it up his ass.”
“Do you think Ray killed Pete?”
“Who knows?”
“Do you know what kind of gun Ray was carrying?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know anything about guns.”
I pulled out my Beretta. “This is a semiautomatic. See, the back is smooth, there’s no hammer to cock. A revolver has a hammer and a round cylinder where the bullets are loaded. Was Ray carrying a semiautomatic or a revolver?”
“I think it was a semiautomatic.”
“Did Ray ever threaten him again?”
“No. Ray’s a bully. When he saw that Pete wasn’t afraid of him or his gun, he slinked off.”
“After Pete stopped driving for you, did he get another job?”
“The only thing I knew he did was work on his uncle’s boat.”
“So Pete talked you into leaving the business.”
“Yeah. I went to cosmetology school years ago. He encouraged me to take it up again. I had some money saved. So I went back to the school.”
“So you’re out of the escort business?”
“I was.”
“Was?”
“After Pete was killed, I guess I’ve been really turned around. I lost some of my motivation. I’m kind of hard up for cash. So I’m back with a service.”
“L.A. Elegant Escorts?”
“That dickhead Ray wouldn’t take me back. He’s a grudge-holding scumbag. He threatened to have me blackballed in the business, spread the word that I was a snitch, just because I’d been dating an ex-cop. I hope you throw his ass in jail, and shut down his sleazy operation. I found work with a new service.” She checked her watch. “We better wrap this up pretty soon. I’ve got an early job today. I’m leaving in a half hour.”
“You find a new driver?”
“Life goes on.” She reached down, ran her fingers along the edge of her right high heel and then fiddled with a thin gold anklet. “If you ever need a little off-duty cash, I can always use a good driver.”
Ignoring the offer, I said, “Where can I find Abazeda?”
She grabbed a pen off the coffee table and scrawled on the back of a matchbook. “Here’s his address. But he’s not in town now. He’s got escort services in Phoenix and Tucson. He spends every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in Arizona, taking care of business. What day is it today?”
“Monday.”
“You can catch him Wednesday night. He always flies in from Arizona on Wednesday night.”
I pulled a card out of my wallet, scrawled down my cell phone number, and handed it to her. “If you think of anything else, give me a call.”
She dropped it on the coffee table.
“You sure Abazeda will be back on Wednesday?” I asked.
“He’s a creature of habit. He’ll be back.”