Wrong Time to Die (Sam Leroy Book 2)

by Philip Cox

  ‘Near here. Let’s give it until midnight. He’s not an early riser.’

  Leroy looked around again. A small truck passed them by, turning left at the intersection two blocks down. A few cars were parked down this part of the street; Leroy noticed that one of the vehicles, a battered Chrysler, was being propped up by a pile of bricks where one of the front tyres should be. With the exception of a solitary figure shuffling slowly along the other side, the sidewalks were empty.

  ‘Right,’ said West, taking her key out of the ignition. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

  They both got out of the car, and side by side crossed over the street. As they crossed, West moved her right arm across her front, enabling her to rest her hand on her gun. Leroy did the same.

  ‘What are you packing?’ Leroy asked, nodding down to her weapon.

  ‘Glock 22. You?’

  ‘Beretta 92. Used to carry a Glock. A 19, been using this for the past few months. Prefer it; it feels like a proper weapon, not a piece of plastic.’

  The Glock 22 semi-automatic pistol is the first weapon new recruits to the LAPD use. Manufactured in Austria, it offers numerous safety features, including a design feature preventing accidental discharge if it is dropped, and a safety switch built into the trigger. It is largely constructed from a strong nylon-based polymer, which makes it very light. However, some officers in the LAPD, including Leroy, do not like using what they regard as a “plastic gun”, and prefer an all-metal pistol, such as the Beretta 92. The 92 is used by most officers in the LAPD, including Leroy and Quinn. Italian-made, it boasts impressive stopping power. It has a magazine capacity of 15 rounds.

  ‘It’s okay,’ West retorted. ‘I’ve had no problems with it.’

  ‘I prefer something heavier,’ Leroy said, as they stepped onto the sidewalk. ‘Which way now?’

  ‘Down this way.’ West led him along an alley between two light industrial buildings. ‘So, you seeing anyone right now?’ she asked, looking around all the time.

  ‘Yeah, I am.’

  ‘Anyone in the Department?’

  ‘No, no; she’s a teacher.’

  ‘Am I taking you away from her tonight?’

  ‘No, not tonight.’

  ‘You guys don’t live together then?’

  ‘No, she has an apartment quite close to mine.’

  ‘I see. Best of both worlds, right?’

  ‘Something like that. What about you, Darlene?’

  ‘Nobody special right now. Not now you’re taken, of course.’

  ‘Of course. Where are we right now?’

  The alley had opened up onto what Leroy expected to have been 30th Street, but was instead no more than a dirt track, about the same width as a street. Trees and bushes were growing on the sides. Leroy looked around and up and down the track, and noticed indentations along the track, resembling the marks left by railroad ties.

  ‘Is this an old railroad?’ he asked.

  ‘It is, yeah. Lifted way back when, but it was an old freight track going from the yards back at the river westwards to the coast. Think it ends up in Santa Monica. That still your neck of the woods, Sam?’

  ‘Venice, yeah.’

  ‘This way. It should be okay, but keep your hand on your Beretta.’ They began walking along the track, heading west. ‘If he’s here tonight, he’ll be further up.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘His name’s The Wizard.’

  ‘The Wizard?’

  ‘U-huh. No idea what his real name is; he probably doesn’t either. It’s short for Wizard of Oz, which is apparently a reference to Over the Rainbow, which is itself a reference to the range of colours the shit comes in.’

  ‘What is he? A pusher?’

  ‘He claims he’s homeless - certainly looks the part – but he seems to come and go, which suggests to me he has a regular place to sleep. He’s never been found sleeping rough. He just seems to be around. He’s not a pusher - or a user, in fact - but keeps his eyes and ears open. I’ve been using him as a kind of -’

  ‘Informant?’

  ‘Kind of. Not an informant in the terms you’d use, Sam, but if anybody can tell you anything about pills with lighting bolts on it and the Krazy Kats, he can.’

  ‘Won’t any of the gang be here?’

  ‘They don’t tend to, but never say never. That’s why I said you need to be carrying, and you need not to be on your own here.’

  ‘What’s that up there?’ Leroy asked. They were approaching an underpass, in which Leroy could make out several figures standing around. Two trashcans had fires burning in them.

  ‘The railroad went under the streets here,’ West explained. ‘Over there’s the intersection between Trinity and 31st. Folks tend to gather here. Come on. Let me do the talking.’

  Leroy nodded. ‘Sure.’ He followed West under the streets. There was a rumble from above as a truck passed along Trinity Street. The two trashcan bonfires were on one side of the track, each with four or five people gathered round. It was gone midnight, and the air was chilly.

  As they passed the first group, Leroy studied the faces. All were young - in their twenties – and had an unkempt look about them. Two men and two girls. Three of them were smoking something; the fourth was holding a bottle which he would put to his mouth as he spoke. The other man was kissing one of the girls.

  Leroy could hear music; it was a song he recognised: Don’t Speak. He looked over to where the music was coming from. A girl who must have been a minor was sitting on her own the other side of the track, an old-fashioned ghetto blaster at her feet. Leroy paused for a second, letting the music take him back to a time many years before, then returned to the present as he heard West’s voice. They had reached the second trashcan and she was talking to a guy with long curly hair and a long unkempt beard.

  ‘Any of you seen the Wizard tonight?’

  The bearded man took a drag from whatever he was smoking. ‘Who wants to know?’

  West showed him her badge.

  The man sneered. ‘I don’t talk to pigs.’

  ‘What did you say?’ West asked.

  ‘I said I don’t talk to pigs. So fuck off.’

  ‘Pigs?’ West asked him. ‘Did I hear you right? You call me a pig?’

  The man said nothing.

  ‘Where have you been?’ West asked. ‘The 1970s? Nobody calls us pigs any more.’ She turned to one of the other men around the fire. ‘What about you?’

  The second man, thinner with wild curly hair and three days of beard, looked over at the first one. The first muttered, ‘Fuck you,’ and wandered off. The thinner guy turned back to West. ‘The Wizard’s here tonight,’ he mumbled. ‘Under Maple.’

  West turned back to Leroy. ‘Sam, let’s keep walking. He’s under the next bridge. The Intersection with Maple and 32nd.’

  They carried on walking, and after a couple of hundred yards came to an identical underpass. There was one trashcan bonfire, with three men around it. These men looked older - thirties, maybe older – and looked as if they had been on the streets longer. They wore heavy coats and gloves. One wore a woollen balaclava. They looked over at Leroy and West as the two officers approached them.

  ‘Have any of…’ West started to say, but broke off as she noticed another figure sitting on a metal chair at the end of the underpass. ‘Sam,’ she called then started to walk towards the figure.

  Leroy followed, his eyes fixed on the seated figure. African American, bearded, receding hairline, with long black straggly hair. He was wearing an army surplus overcoat.

  West stood in front of the man.

  ‘Sam,’ she said. ‘This is the Wizard.’

  The Wizard looked up.

  TWELVE

  IT WAS A calm day. The green plains of the Serengeti stretched for miles into the distance, as far as the snow-capped mountains far in the distance, blurred by the haze.

  As far as the eyes could see, as the green of the plain met the cloudless sky, the scrublands were littered
with zebra and buffalo and antelope. Some were grazing, some were wandering around, some were just standing still, looking around. Their tails swished to and fro, swatting away the numerous flies and bugs swarming around their rumps.

  In the foreground stood an adult zebra. It stood, its tail flicking, nervously glancing in all directions. A second adult zebra wandered across, standing about twenty feet away, staring.

  The zebra looked down at the shape lying on the ground. It was a small foal, a new-born, still covered by its amniotic sac. The adult leaned down and began to lick at the foal, in doing so helping it out of the sac.

  The picture changed so that the foal was on its own, the remains of the sac hanging off its back. The second adult zebra remained twenty feet away or so, still watching.

  The foal was on all fours now, unsteadily staggering around. A woman’s voice said, ‘Ah, look at it.’

  Suddenly the same woman cried, ‘Oh, no,’ as an adult male lion appeared in the frame. The foal began to move away but had no chance. The lion was on top of it in a fraction of a second. There was a brief, high pitched sound; then the lion, carrying the dead foal its mouth, dragged its prey away. The same woman could be heard to utter, ‘Oh, my gosh; oh, my gosh.’

  ‘Man, that was cool.’ As the video came to an end, the man slid his fingers across his screen to select another. He looked up as somebody entered the room.

  ‘Taking in some porn in your break?’

  The man looked up from the chair where he was slumped, adjusting his baseball cap. ‘No.’

  ‘What then?’

  He moved the angle of his iPad slightly as his co-worker was now standing over him. ‘Some nature videos.’

  The other guy snorted and flopped into his own chair. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a rolled up copy of Hustler, and opened it up. He held up the open magazine to show the centrefold.

  ‘Hey, get the cantaloupes on her,’ he laughed.

  The man with the baseball cap and iPad looked over for a second. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Any case, ain’t you due back by now?’

  ‘Guess so.’ He turned off the iPad, pushed himself off the chair and put the device, and his baseball cap, into one of the ten lockers on one side of the wall. He took one look at his co-worker as he left the room, muttering, ‘Asshole.’

  He walked down a short corridor; as he came to the end he heard the ping of a bell. He looked over and saw a suited figure beckoning him over. Two other figures stood in front of the suited man’s desk. The man wore a Hawaiian tee-shirt with beige shorts, the woman a short blue dress. Two suitcases stood by them.

  ‘410,’ the suited figure said.

  The man in the Hawaiian shirt said, ‘Ready when you are,’ pausing to theatrically study the name badge, ‘Kevin.’

  Kevin replied, ‘Of course,’ and picked up their suitcases. ‘This way please, sir, ma’am.’

  Kevin led the couple to the elevator, and then to the 4th floor. Once on the floor, he took them down the corridor to 410. As he walked ahead of them, he could hear them whispering and sniggering. He tried to figure out their relationship: too all over each other to be married, or in a relationship, unless they were newly-weds. Maybe she was his secretary and he was taking her to the coast for a few days to bang the shit out of her. The guy must have had twenty years on her at least. But then, Kevin had seen everything here: husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, bosses and secretaries, men and women, men and men, women and women. Even some guy with an inflatable once. It was a shame the hotel had a no animals policy. But Kevin didn’t really care who stayed and what they did; as long as they were good tippers.

  He let the couple into their room, and waited while they wandered about, looking around. The man checked out the bathroom first, Kevin noticing that he lifted up the toilet seat to check inside. The woman sat on the corner of the bed and bounced a few times. ‘Hey, honey; the bed’s good,’ she called out.

  The man came out of the bathroom. ‘That’ll be all, Kevin,’ he said, slipping a bill into Kevin’s top pocket.

  Kevin left the room and walked back to the elevator. He checked the tip: $5. Tight-assed jerk. He normally got at least a ten.

  As he waited for the elevator, his phone rang. He recognised the number.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, answering.

  ‘You seen the papers today?’ the caller asked.

  ‘Sure have, man. Fame at last.’

  ‘Yeah. Sweet, ain’t it? I bought a copy of every one.’

  ‘I just read a report online.’ The elevator arrived. Kevin stepped aside to let two women out then stepped in. The doors closed. ‘So…how’s things?’ he asked, unsure of why he was getting this call. He was not expecting to hear from the caller until the weekend.

  ‘You around Wednesday evening?’

  ‘After eight I will.’

  ‘Okay, can you get to mine by eight-thirty?’

  ‘That’s do-able. What’s up?’

  ‘I think it’s time we had another night out.’

  THIRTEEN

  SAM LEROY TWISTED and turned in bed. Took a pillow from the other, empty, side of his bed and put it on top of his own. No difference. He could not get comfortable.

  Although it was not lack of comfort which was making the sleep elude him that night: there were so many thoughts, so many ideas, running through his head.

  He picked up his phone and checked the time. 3:06AM.

  ‘Shit,’ he muttered, collapsing back on the pillow. He had to be up, showered, and leaving for work in four hours, and had not slept in twenty.

  He looked over at the other side of the bed. The side where Julia would have been had she stayed over. Maybe that was what was keeping him awake: he had not seen her since their meal in Off Vine the other night, let alone slept with her. He had kind of arranged to call in and see her the evening before, but his assignment with Darlene West had ended that. He had texted Julia to tell her he had to work that night, and she had replied to the effect that it was okay, and that she had some school work to do anyway, and would see him later in the week, maybe. Right from the start, she said she understood that the demands of his job could and would screw up their social life, so that wasn’t it. Maybe he just missed her, missed having her lying next to him.

  Something began to stir as Leroy thought of Julia. His hand began to wander down his chest and over his stomach. As the tips of his fingers touched the top of his pubic hair, he snatched his hand away. He was not going down that road; he would save his energies for when he did see Julia next.

  ‘Focus, Leroy, Focus,’ he said aloud, looking up at the ceiling. There were so many questions about the Hutchinson case; so many ifs and buts; so many theories: some contradicted each other, others just didn’t fit at all.

  First, there was the Hutchinsons themselves. Outwardly respectable. Retired. He had had a promising military career, which he abruptly terminated, and began working for a charity. Very noble and altruistic. But why was the army being so evasive about his reasons for leaving? Was there something to hide? Or had the records really been lost? Maybe he was reading too much into it: in his experience, if there was a choice between a conspiracy and a screw up, then ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it was a screw up, with maybe a touch of conspiracy to cover up the screw up.

  And how could his work at the charity lead to his house being invaded and he and his wife being subjected to torture - sexual torture - and murdered?

  There were two angles of approach here. The army and the charity. Bill Farmer hadn’t returned his call, so he needed to follow that up in the morning. He and Quinn were off to Catalina in the morning - in a few hours - to speak with the charity about Hutchinson.

  There again, the Hutchinsons’ murder may have nothing to do with Mr Hutchinson; maybe they needed to look into his wife’s background. Logic and experience would suggest that it was more to do with the husband, so when enquiries on him were exhausted, it would be her turn.

  The second
angle was that it was nothing about the Hutchinsons at all: they were just two, unfortunate people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But if that was the case, why had none of the neighbours heard anything, or had the killers try to call on them? Or was it just a case of first time lucky? Leroy and Quinn had noticed the lack of security at the Hutchinsons’ place: maybe the killers had been watching the house and the Hutchinsons themselves for days, even weeks, to learn their routines, their lack of domestic staff, their lack of electronic surveillance. Found themselves an easy target.

  But if it was a case of the Hutchinsons being in the wrong place at the wrong time, what would be the killers’ motive? As far as they could establish, nothing had been stolen; apart from the bedroom, the house had not been touched, not wrecked. The only damage was to the Hutchinsons themselves. They had clearly been tortured, but why shoot them in the genitals? There was no sign of conventional sexual assault - no foreign DNA anywhere. It was not unheard of for a rapist to wear a condom, but that scenario just didn’t fit here. Were they shot just because it seemed the thing to do? If that was the case, then it was likely that drugs were involved. And some drugs were found on the scene.

  Yes, the drugs.

  *****

  It was 3:30AM now, and Leroy had been home since 1:30. Interesting as his visit with Detective West to the 38th Street neighbourhood was, he wasn’t convinced it was that helpful. The Wizard was certainly a colourful character - literally, given the origins of his name - but had he really told Leroy anything?

  After West had introduced the Wizard to Leroy, the figure in the Army Surplus coat looked up at the detectives.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Wizard,’ Leroy had said. ‘How you doing?’

  The Wizard looked directly at West. ‘Who’s this honky?’

  ‘Wizard, please,’ West said softly. ‘This man’s a friend of mine.’

  The Wizard opened his mouth, showing a full set of perfectly formed and dazzling white teeth. He laughed, a deep throaty chuckle. ‘So, you got yourself a honky friend, Darlene? He a cop, too, then?’