by Philip Cox
‘Okay, but be careful. Call me the minute -’
‘I will. Don’t worry,’ Leroy had said, then hung up. He decided against calling the third name on the list and the hospitals: the guy was probably dead by now, anyway. Maybe Hobson was cutting him up right now.
*****
Leroy adjusted his headgear and carefully stepped over the wire fence. He moved slowly through the trees and undergrowth, moving his head 180 degrees left to right for any signs of movement or sound. After five minutes he reached the pool house. He crouched down beside a low wall adjacent to it. He inclined his head: he could hear voices. He concentrated: the voices were coming from inside the pool house. Slowly he raised his head above the wall. The French windows at the front of the pool house were ajar; thin, white under drapes were blowing out in the warm breeze. Leroy waited for more sounds. He could hear two voices, a man’s and a woman’s. They were laughing and talking: Leroy was unable to hear what they were saying. Suddenly the woman’s voice changed from talking to moaning. Leroy felt relieved: they should be occupied long enough for him to get past the pool house.
Keeping his body low, Leroy sprinted round the pool and across some gardens to the double doors at the rear of the house. In the still night air, the woman’s cries were getting louder. He hoped this would not attract any attention, then reflected that it could be a common occurrence, and might make good cover for him.
He reached the house and pressed himself in one of the dark corners of the double doorway. He noticed that one of the doors was half an inch open. So he wouldn’t need to actually break in: that might make a difference if the shit hit the fan.
He slowly opened the door further. Inside, the lights were off, so he kept on the NV gear. The double doors opened into a kind of utility room: there were two white washing machines against one wall, some closets and shelves on the other. There were what looked like towels folded on the shelves.
He stepped across the room and came to a single door. He gripped the handle and slowly pushed down. The door opened. He waited for a creak but one never came.
The door led to a passage way. It was lit. Leroy removed the Yukon, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the light. With it hanging round his neck, he walked along the corridor. There was another door at the end; he knew he was headed to the centre of the house, so he guessed this door led to the main hall, some stairs maybe. As he crept along, he slid the Glock out of its holster.
He gripped the handle of this door, and cautiously opened it. He had opened it no more than two inches when he heard two voices, one of which he recognised. It was that of Dwight Mason. From the sound of it, Mason was walking upstairs. Leroy strained to hear what Mason was saying, but by the time he felt able to open the door further, Mason and the other person had reached the top of the stairs. Then the other person spoke: again, Leroy was unable to make out what they were saying, but could tell the other person was a man.
Leroy waited a few moments, then opened the door further. Now he was in the main hall. It was lit by five or six small lamps on the walls, but he recognised it from his ‘official’ visit here. Nobody was around, so he stepped into the hall. Now standing at the foot of the wide staircase, he looked around. This floor was deserted.
One hand on the stair rail, and one on his revolver, he slowly climbed the stairs. Half way up, there was a small landing, then the stairs did a ninety, then a dozen steps to the second floor. It was as he expected: as in any large house, a wide corridor with doors either side. Probably five doors either side, with an ornate window at the end.
‘Here goes,’ he whispered again, made for the first door. He paused at the door, his head pressed against the dark oak. If this place was, as he had guessed, a high class whore house, he knew what he could expect to hear, but from this room there was nothing.
He slowly opened the door. The room was in total darkness. Disregarding how ridiculous he must have looked, rather than switching on a light and disturbing anybody sleeping, he looked though his binoculars. The room was set out like a bedroom, and the bed was empty. He put down the Yukon and switched on the light. The bedroom reminded him of a quaint old bed and breakfast he had visited some years back. A high, four poster bed, a round table with a lacy cloth, and two old fashioned armchairs. He switched off the lights, and closed the door behind him, then moved to the next room.
He did the same at the next door: again he could hear nothing from inside. Suddenly, he heard another door open, further down. Instinctively, he grabbed the brass handle, and opened the door. The room was also in darkness. He quickly and silently closed the door and remained up against the door, listening, and praying that whoever had left that room was not headed to this one.
He could hear footsteps pass the door and go downstairs. He took a deep breath, and felt down in front of him for the Yukon so he could check this room for any occupants.
He was just about to put the lenses to his eyes when a light came on. Leroy swung round.
Sitting on the bed, wearing a white vest, and black pants with matching socks, and pointing a gun directly at Leroy was Captain Patterson.
‘You!’ Leroy exclaimed. Suddenly, all the missing pieces of the jigsaw fell into place.
Patterson said nothing.
Just fired.
FIFTY-SIX
Leroy felt a stab of intense pain in his left leg as he collapsed to the floor, dropping his weapon. The pain, severe as it was, was coming from the side of the leg; he could not be certain where Paterson was aiming, but it seemed to be a flesh wound. He looked down and could see a small dark patch appearing on his inside leg, just below the thigh.
Depending on the location, gunshot wounds may not always bleed profusely: most of the damage is internal, and inherently more serious than typical wounds. Bullet wounds can be especially damaging as they penetrate deeply, take an unpredictable path through the body and are accompanied by a shock wave. When, as here, a handgun is used, injury will result from direct effects along the track of the bullet. Leroy’s injury appeared to be in a fleshy part of his leg, so not as serious as it could have been. It still hurt like hell.
Leroy had been trained in circumstances like this to apply pressure directly to the wound with the heel of his hand; if he kept this pressure up for at least ten minutes, several blood vessels would have closed by spasm and there would be early blood clot formation. He should have also removed clothing around the wound to check for entry and exit points, but there was not way he was going to do that. Just by feeling the other side of his trouser leg, he could tell the bullet was still in his leg.
Once Leroy had collapsed to the floor, Patterson stepped over and kicked the Glock out of his reach. ‘You won’t need that ridiculous thing any more,’ he said, ripping off Leroy’s night vision apparatus and slinging it onto the bed. He picked up Leroy’s weapon and tipped the shells into the palm of his hand, then tossed them on the bed too, dropping the Glock back onto the floor. He sat back down on the bed, still covering Leroy with his weapon.
‘Just a flesh wound?’ he asked.
Leroy nodded, still applying pressure to his leg. ‘Is that where you were aiming?’
‘Tell you the truth, I wasn’t aiming anywhere in particular. It will all be academic soon. You won’t be leaving here.’
‘If I’m missed, others from the Department will come.’
‘Bullshit,’ spat Patterson. ‘You’re on vacation, my friend. Nobody knows you’re here.’
Leroy was about to say Quinn did, when the door opened. Leroy turned and looked up to see Dwight Mason standing in the doorway.
‘I heard a shot,’ he said. ‘Why, Detective Leroy; you’re back. Very persistent, aren’t you?’
‘Fuck you,’ Leroy replied.
Mason grimaced slightly, then asked Patterson, ‘What are you going to do with him?’
‘Kill him of course; but I just want to talk to him for a while. I shan’t be long; you carry on.’
‘I’ll have to tell GD about him.�
��
‘You go do that then. Then get one of the guys to bring a car round front. Once I’ve done with him here, we need to take a drive.’
Mason frowned. ‘A drive?’
‘To get rid of the body.’
‘Why don’t we do the same as we did the other night?’
‘Mason, you’re an idiot. What better way is there to tell the LAPD that Leroy was right all along?’
Mason nodded. ‘Very well. I’ll call GD then arrange a car.’
‘You go do that.’
Mason looked down at Leroy one more time, then closed the door.
‘Putz,’ Patterson muttered. Then he looked down at Leroy. ‘So, Sam; when did you first guess it was me?’
‘When orders came down the line to close the cases. I smelt a rat then; the evidence was so overwhelming. I take it GD is George Davison: you in bed with him, then?’
‘In bed with him?’ Patterson repeated, laughing. ‘Yes, I guess you could say that. I’ve known George Davison for many years. We met at school.’
‘In Flagstaff?’
‘My, my; you have been doing your homework, haven’t you? Yes, we met at school, became friends there. We kept in touch while he was in Oxford, England, and got together again when he returned to the States.
‘George always was a strange, complex, character, but when he came back here from England, I noticed he was shall we say different from the rest of us.’
‘Different? What do you mean?’
‘What do I mean? He never wanted to get himself laid, like the rest of us did. He just liked to….to watch.’
‘Oh. Kinky,’ said Leroy through gritted teeth. The pain was worsening, although the bleeding appeared to be lessening.
‘Yeah; he did it a bit at school. Ask one of us to leave the door open slightly while we were entertaining, you know. Wasn’t fussy who he watched: one of our classmates, Mason out there, is homosexual and old George would watch him at it too.
‘Well, when he got back from England, he got more sophisticated. Got one of bedrooms in his place fitted with a two way mirror, and invite guys to make use of it. He’d sit behind the mirror with his box of Kleenex: do I need to draw you a picture, Sam?’
‘But he’s married with a family.’
Patterson sniffed. ‘All show. He always wanted to have a career in politics, but a weird little pervert wasn’t going to get very far. The Davison family and the LaHood family were always very close, and Barbara always had ambitions to be First Lady, so accepted that she would have to put up with his tastes.’
‘What about his kids?’
‘Are they his, you mean? Not sure, to be honest. I’ll wager they’re not. His wife was always known locally as the Trampoline, so who knows? I think both of them just wanted the appearance of conformity and respectability so he could pursue his political ambitions, so accepted each others’ - what’s that phrase? Lifestyle choices.’
‘So, where does this place come in, and those four guys who died the other night?’
Patterson cleared his throat. ‘As he progressed up the career ladder, he found he had the money to indulge his tastes. He bought this place some years back, when Barbara had the idea of him becoming Governor. Wouldn’t listen when he tried to explain that Sacramento is the capital, but that’s by the by. Mason had already gotten him into using the internet to find couples who didn’t mind him watching - nobody realised who he was.
‘So, eventually, he had that website set up. Paid a lot of money to get control of a team of hookers, and got them to work out of the rooms here, while he sat and watched.’
Leroy looked around. ‘Mirrors?’
‘No; he’d moved on by then. Had lots of miniature cameras installed everywhere: under the beds, in the ceilings, in the bathrooms. Had a room fitted out with one of those screens with half a dozen images, and he’d press the one he wanted to see in close up. Got himself hours of it.’
‘I still don’t get it: what about those guys the other night?’
Patterson coughed. ‘There were lots of drugs involved. Mason had known him for years, and Davison hired him as his Counsel. Mason had connections and was able to get all that stuff in large quantities. George never used any; it was just for the guys who saw the hookers.
‘The other night: yeah. Well, six months or so back, George seemed to find that watching wasn’t enough. He wanted to join in. Not bed a hooker, a threesome; nothing like that. He wanted to try dressing up and posing as a hooker. Figured if a guy arranged to come here, he’d be so fuelled up with booze and drugs, they’d not notice the hooker was a United States Secretary of Defence all dressed up, with five o’clock shadow and all.’
‘What? Are you telling me nobody noticed it was him? That’s crap.’
‘Think about it, Sam. It depends on what type of sex the client wants. As long as… get it?’
‘Guess so. Still seems hard to believe.’
‘It all ran smoothly for a few months. The original girl would find out what the john was after, then say something like, “I’ll introduce you to Georgina”.’
‘Georgina? You must be kidding!’
Patterson waved his hand in dismissal. ‘Something like that. I never got involved.’
‘Yeah. You just made sure the LAPD never got involved either.’
‘Yes, that was my contribution. Well, the other night, George was all dressed up, and the guy recognised him. Don’t know how, but did. I think he realised it was a man, and pulled the wig off and recognised him. Then the shit really hit the fan. This guy made such a hullabaloo, it only took five minutes for all the other guys visiting to know what George liked doing.
‘So, George and Mason had to think on the spot. There was no way these johns could leave here knowing what they did: it would be all over the front pages the next day, and Davison could kiss goodbye to - well, everything. They couldn’t use one of these,’ - he held up the handgun - ‘as that would arouse suspicion, so they had the bright idea of mixing up some of the drugs we had here and injecting the guys. So George held them at gunpoint while one of the girls used the needle. Mason told her to inject them between the toes, as the mark might not get discovered. That way, he figured, when the bodies were found, they might be considered death by misadventure. Which it was, until you and Domingo got involved.’
‘Who killed Domingo and Connor, then?’ Leroy asked. ‘You?’
‘Had no choice.’
‘Give me a break,’ said Leroy. ‘You had a choice.’
‘I had no choice,’ Patterson repeated. ‘We managed to get anyone who mattered to accept the death by misadventure verdict - even the coroner - but when you and Domingo started snooping around, we had to act.
‘I found out where they were at that time - they were following up a rape enquiry - and happened to be there at the time. She wound down her window to talk to me…’
‘And you executed them both, you bastard. I guess I was next?’
Patterson nodded. ‘You were, but I had to tread more carefully. For a start, you’re more experienced than Domingo was, and after her and Connor, I knew you’d be more alert. Maybe I should have taken you out first. My mistake.’
‘Big mistake, Patterson.’
‘All academic really, now.’
‘So, you used a vehicle owned by Davison to get rid of the bodies. Smart move,’ Leroy said sarcastically.
‘Patterson shrugged. ‘They’re both out of their depth.’
Leroy stretched out. The pain was easing, and the wound was starting to clot. ‘One more question. Actually, two more.’
Patterson looked at his watch. ‘Go on, then.’
‘Where does Emma Kennedy fit in?’
‘Emma Kennedy?’
‘Yes, Davison’s half-sister, apparently.’
‘Oh, yes; that’s right. The IT woman. She actually gave details of the website to a couple of her employees. She knew about George’s tastes, but went along with it. That’s right: she tried to stop you checking a hard
drive or something.’
‘When I went to see her the second time, she knew about the cases being closed, and my being on vacation. I guess that came from you?’
The captain shrugged again. ‘I guess so. I told George; he must have told her. Yeah, when the guy died, I guess she was stuck between a rock and a hard place, but stuck by her brother.’ He paused a second. ‘What was the other question? The last question.’
‘Are you the only one from the Department involved? What about Perez?’
‘No, it’s just me. Perez is clean: he just follows orders blindly. Not like you. That’s why he’s the lieutenant, and you’re not.’
‘So, what now?’ Leroy asked.
Patterson replied, ‘First, we need to get rid of you. Leave your body in the desert somewhere, I reckon. Then…well, I guess that’s up to George. He’s the one calling the shots.’ He looked down at his gun and sniggered at his pun. He stood up and stepped over to the window, still covering Leroy. Glancing out of the window, he said, ‘The car should be out there by now.’
In the second it took Patterson to look away, Leroy had grabbed his own pistol and now had it pointed at the captain.
Patterson sneered. ‘What’s that going to do? I emptied the magazine, remember?’ He pointed over to the shells lying on the bed.
‘You did,’ Leroy answered. ‘But you forgot the one in the chamber.’
Patterson did not even have time to react before Leroy fired. A small black hole appeared in Patterson’s forehead before he crashed to the ground. Leroy pulled himself up using a chair and limped over to the window. He switched off the small recording device Quinn had given him earlier, and looked out. In the distance he could see the red flashing lights of three patrol cars as they approached the house.
‘Just in time,’ he whispered, before he passed out over Patterson’s body.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Secretary of Defence George Davison closed the study door behind him. He leaned with his back against the door for a moment, then took a deep breath. He could hear the sound of chatter and laughter coming from the dining room. The dinner party his wife had arranged was in full swing. The sort of event he hated: even since the late seventies, when they were newly married, he and his wife had different circles of friends; they would each go their separate ways, with their own interests, only meeting up when a public appearance was involved. This particular evening was supposed to be a fund raising event for something his wife was involved with. She had told him what, but he had forgotten; he didn’t really care, either. The day after tomorrow there was another dinner, this time at the White House. It was to honour the former Ambassador to Belarus, or somewhere. Barbara would go along to that with him, of course; she lapped up all that bullshit. He, on the other hand, got bored rigid by ‘her’ events. This one was going on so late: it was way past one, for Christ’s sake.
