runs and tracked down the people I was looking for.”
I slipped her my card and said, “If you think of something that might be helpful, please give me a call.”
She studied the card and said, “Your name sounds familiar.”
My stomach clenched.
“Didn’t you catch some serial killer?”
I nodded, relieved.
“I think I read about you in the paper.” She glanced at the card again. “Levine,” she muttered to herself. “That ends in a vowel. You
I
-talian?”
I shook my head.
She turned her head and studied me out of one eye. “You look
I
-talian.”
“When I was a young patrolman, Italian suspects would call me
paisano
. Once I was investigating a Greek loan shark, who dropped some of his mother’s baklava off at the station for me. He thought I was a landsman, so I’d cut him some slack.”
“Yeah, you could get lost anywhere in that part of the world.” She took a deep drag off her cigarette, exhaled, and fanned away the smoke. “Pete looked a little like you—when he was younger and thinner.” She dropped her cigarette, ground it into the dirt with her big heel and stared off at the onion fields, tears sluicing down her face. When I put my hand on her back, she began to sob, her chest heaving. She looked up at me and said, “Pete was a good guy. He just had his problems, like everyone else.” She kicked at the dirt with the toe of her boot. “Shit. I want you to find that son of a bitch.”
I nodded and said, “I will.”
I drove back to the freeway at dusk as the sun curled over the Tehachapis, the ridges lit a burnished gold in the dying light. The lastlight lingered on the western horizon, streaking the sky charcoal and crimson. Overhead, the first stars glinted and the moon shone like a chunk of ice in the crystalline desert sky.
Speeding back down the San Gabriels, I pulled a small, digital, voice-activated recorder out of my briefcase, which was rigged with a microphone in the corner. All the way home I listened to the interviews of Relovich’s ex-wife and uncle.
CHAPTER 4
I drove through the desolate downtown streets early the next morning, past crackheads dozing under bus benches and winos sleeping in cardboard boxes, and parked in Chinatown, which was bustling with families arriving for dim sum breakfasts. After picking up a cup of jasmine tea and a bag of
bao
—fluffy steamed buns brushed with syrup and stuffed with mushrooms and ginger—from a Chinese bakery, I headed back to César Chávez Avenue and crossed the bridge over the Los Angeles River, a thin stream of brackish water purling down the graffiti-scarred cement banks. I headed to the coroner’s office, a bland, two-story tan building off a dreary East Los Angeles street lined with fast-foot restaurants.
I parked and munched on the
bao
and sipped the tea. When I finished, I cut through the back entrance, pulled powder blue scrubs over my clothes and booties over my shoes, and then slipped on my breathing-filter mask. I walked down a hallway, which was the same color as the scrubs, past the fluorescent lights that zapped the insects drawn to the corpses, and entered the autopsy room. I grimaced as I was assaulted by the distinctive amalgam of formaldehyde, decaying flesh, and disinfectant. A dozen bodies were lined up on shiny steel gurneys, and pathologists and technicians were bent over the corpses, probing, peering, cutting, snipping, dissecting, and slicing. Metal troughs and chrome counters gleamed under the bright overhead lights. The brown tile floor was stained with blood and stippled with tissue.
“Busy weekend?” I asked Dr. Ramesh Gupta, who was examining Pete Relovich’s waxy, gray body.
“Quite hectic, Ash,” Gupta said, in a lilting, melodious East Indian accent. “Eleven homicides last night, plus three suicides. One was a jumper.” He frowned and shook his head. “From a freeway overpass. At rush hour. Very messy. Anyway, glad you’re back. God knows, the LAPD can’t afford to lose a
I slipped her my card and said, “If you think of something that might be helpful, please give me a call.”
She studied the card and said, “Your name sounds familiar.”
My stomach clenched.
“Didn’t you catch some serial killer?”
I nodded, relieved.
“I think I read about you in the paper.” She glanced at the card again. “Levine,” she muttered to herself. “That ends in a vowel. You
I
-talian?”
I shook my head.
She turned her head and studied me out of one eye. “You look
I
-talian.”
“When I was a young patrolman, Italian suspects would call me
paisano
. Once I was investigating a Greek loan shark, who dropped some of his mother’s baklava off at the station for me. He thought I was a landsman, so I’d cut him some slack.”
“Yeah, you could get lost anywhere in that part of the world.” She took a deep drag off her cigarette, exhaled, and fanned away the smoke. “Pete looked a little like you—when he was younger and thinner.” She dropped her cigarette, ground it into the dirt with her big heel and stared off at the onion fields, tears sluicing down her face. When I put my hand on her back, she began to sob, her chest heaving. She looked up at me and said, “Pete was a good guy. He just had his problems, like everyone else.” She kicked at the dirt with the toe of her boot. “Shit. I want you to find that son of a bitch.”
I nodded and said, “I will.”
I drove back to the freeway at dusk as the sun curled over the Tehachapis, the ridges lit a burnished gold in the dying light. The lastlight lingered on the western horizon, streaking the sky charcoal and crimson. Overhead, the first stars glinted and the moon shone like a chunk of ice in the crystalline desert sky.
Speeding back down the San Gabriels, I pulled a small, digital, voice-activated recorder out of my briefcase, which was rigged with a microphone in the corner. All the way home I listened to the interviews of Relovich’s ex-wife and uncle.
CHAPTER 4
I drove through the desolate downtown streets early the next morning, past crackheads dozing under bus benches and winos sleeping in cardboard boxes, and parked in Chinatown, which was bustling with families arriving for dim sum breakfasts. After picking up a cup of jasmine tea and a bag of
bao
—fluffy steamed buns brushed with syrup and stuffed with mushrooms and ginger—from a Chinese bakery, I headed back to César Chávez Avenue and crossed the bridge over the Los Angeles River, a thin stream of brackish water purling down the graffiti-scarred cement banks. I headed to the coroner’s office, a bland, two-story tan building off a dreary East Los Angeles street lined with fast-foot restaurants.
I parked and munched on the
bao
and sipped the tea. When I finished, I cut through the back entrance, pulled powder blue scrubs over my clothes and booties over my shoes, and then slipped on my breathing-filter mask. I walked down a hallway, which was the same color as the scrubs, past the fluorescent lights that zapped the insects drawn to the corpses, and entered the autopsy room. I grimaced as I was assaulted by the distinctive amalgam of formaldehyde, decaying flesh, and disinfectant. A dozen bodies were lined up on shiny steel gurneys, and pathologists and technicians were bent over the corpses, probing, peering, cutting, snipping, dissecting, and slicing. Metal troughs and chrome counters gleamed under the bright overhead lights. The brown tile floor was stained with blood and stippled with tissue.
“Busy weekend?” I asked Dr. Ramesh Gupta, who was examining Pete Relovich’s waxy, gray body.
“Quite hectic, Ash,” Gupta said, in a lilting, melodious East Indian accent. “Eleven homicides last night, plus three suicides. One was a jumper.” He frowned and shook his head. “From a freeway overpass. At rush hour. Very messy. Anyway, glad you’re back. God knows, the LAPD can’t afford to lose a
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