by Philip Cox
‘The freeways will be fine,’ disagreed Leroy as he pulled away again. ‘I’ll see you there. Don’t be too long.’
*****
Quinn was leaning on his hood when Leroy finally made it to the station on Butler and Iowa. Leroy was talking as he parked so Quinn waited patiently until Leroy had finished his call.
‘So the freeways were quicker?’ Quinn teased as Leroy got out.
‘The 10 was snarled,’ Leroy muttered. ‘If I didn’t have my own car, I could have bubbled it.’ He pressed the key fob to lock his car. ‘You drive.’
‘Did you want to go inside to check for any messages?’
Leroy shook his head and opened Quinn’s city car passenger seat.
‘Let’s get down there now, get this done. We’ll check in when we get back.’ He paused as Quinn reversed out of the space and turned into Butler Avenue. ‘You can decide the route.’
Quinn turned onto Santa Monica Boulevard, took it under the 405 overpass, then made a sharp left to get onto the freeway. It was busy, but the traffic was moving steadily.
‘That call you were on when you arrived,’ said Quinn once they had gotten onto the freeway. ‘Was it about this case?’
Leroy slid down his window and rested his elbow on the ledge.
‘No, it wasn’t.’
‘Okay.’ End of conversation.
‘It was about an old case I had, years ago. Before we were partnered.’
‘And?’
‘If I said Washington, would that mean anything to you?’
‘Capital city? State north of here, other side of Oregon?’
‘Nothing like that, It was a murder case. A kid called Jordan Washington. It was four, five years ago.’
‘Then I must have been around, Sam.’
‘Yeah, maybe you were on vacation, or on some training. I was on my own. You remember Khan and Jones?’
‘Khan and Jones? I think so. Two old guys?’
‘That’s them. They were on DROP even then.’ DROP is an acronym for Deferred Retirement Option Plan, a scheme available to the city’s police and fire departments. It was created to assist the departments to retain experienced veterans. Once reaching fifty years of age, and having accumulated at least twenty-five years’ service, an officer can choose to keep working for the next five years and receive their salary; or can retire with a pension of ninety percent of their salary; or continue to work for the next five years on the DROP scheme, and receive both pension and salary. ‘They must have retired now. Anyway, they weren’t making much headway, so I think Perez asked me to help out.’
‘So Jordan Washington was the vic?’
‘He was a vic, yes. But maybe not the vic.’
‘I don’t follow you, Sam.’
‘Jordan Washington was an eight year old boy. Lived in Culver City. He left school one afternoon, never got home.’
‘Where did they find him?’
‘That’s the point, they never did. But they had a suspect, a guy called Robert Trejo. He was a real piece of work, this guy. When the boy went missing, Trejo had already been picked up for another case; well, two other cases in fact. One was a kid - another boy - who had been abducted on the way home from school, the same school as Jordan Washington. Trejo had taken him to his house, a shack really, about five blocks away. Kept him there, raped him repeatedly until the kid managed to escape. When Khan and Jones picked him up, they dug up his back yard and found the body of another boy. He must have just buried him, as there was very little decomposition. He’d also been raped multiple times, and had been strangled.’
‘Jesus.’
‘This boy also came from the same school. When the one who survived was well enough to speak to us, and this is where I came in, he said that Trejo had pulled up as he walked home, asked him directions, asked if he wanted to see his puppy, and snatched him.’
‘In broad daylight? And aren’t kids told not to talk to strangers?’
‘That was what I thought. The captain did send a couple of uniforms to the school to talk to all the kids there, give them the usual warnings.’
‘So Trejo copped a plea for the Washington boy?’
‘He was a real sicko. He denied the abductions and the murder; denied everything. He had one Adam Henry of a lawyer, kept pleading the fifth, admitted nothing, even though we’d dug up a victim in his back yard. It went to trial and he got life. Should have fried him.’
‘So how does the other boy fit in?’
‘Jordan Washington and the other boys all went to the same school. All walked home. Some of the parents who collected their kids said they used to see a white van, which was Trejo’s van, parked outside the school afternoons. We figured he’d parked there, watching, picking out a kid - it was always a boy - then following him home.
‘By the time Jordan’s family had put in the call, Trejo had already been charged for the other boys. The other two were straightforward: the testimony of the first, and the body of the second. But there was no evidence linking Trejo to the Washington boy. No more bodies buried in the back yard, we checked the neighbouring properties, dumpsters, you know.’
‘Did you dig anywhere else?’
‘No reason to. It was Trejo’s yard. It was clear there was a shallow grave there, but neighbouring yards: nothing at all. But Khan and Jones were convinced he’d taken and killed the Washington boy. We continued with the investigation, searching, talking to potential witnesses, and asking what they might have seen, but came up with nothing.
‘But by now, Trejo had begun serving a life sentence.’
‘So what was the point?’
‘Apart from finding the boy’s body, you mean?’
‘I mean that, Sam.’
‘I think the department just lost interest. The prime suspect was doing life, his sentence could hardly be increased, could it? The case was never closed. You came back from vacation or wherever you were, there were more murders to investigate, Khan and Jones both retired. Everything got passed to the Open-Unsolved Unit.’
‘And they never found the boy’s body?’
‘Not to this day.’
‘So no closure for the parents?’
‘No, and that’s who I was talking to. The boy’s mother, Jasmine. Jasmine Washington. When I had to relinquish the case, I told her the department would keep searching; I also gave her my cell number and said to call me if she needed anything.’
‘And so she called you. Was that the call you silenced at Wheat’s house?’
‘It was. I called her on my way back to the station.’
‘What does she want?’
‘She told me she’d had a call from the State Prison up in Lancaster. It was the deputy governor, who’d told her Trejo was seriously ill. He was in an intensive care unit in Antelope Valley Hospital, which is the nearest to the prison. The deputy governor said he’d been asking to speak to her as he didn’t have long left.
‘She wasn’t sure what to do – Jordan was an only child, and her husband left her a while back – so she called the pastor at her local church. This pastor gave her a lot of bullshit about Trejo wanting to confess and seek forgiveness from her before he died, so she let the pastor take her to the hospital.’
‘She saw Trejo? He seek absolution?’
‘She saw him apparently, but he was sleeping. She hung about for a couple hours, but couldn’t stay. She doesn’t drive, it’s a long way from Culver City, and the pastor had to get back. So she left. She saw Trejo, but he didn’t see her. But after she’d been home an hour or so, she got a call from the prison governor this time, saying that Trejo had died.’
‘Did that give her any satisfaction?’ Quinn asked. ‘Or I guess not as the location of her son’s body would have died with him.’
Now they were approaching Chatsworth, and Quinn took the exit road down to street level.
‘That’s the thing, Ray. His last words, over and over again, were, “not the boy. Not the boy”.’
‘Meaning not her
boy?’
‘What else could it mean? He had asked to see her before he died: he must’ve wanted to tell her that. So now she believes that Trejo didn’t abduct and kill her son.’
‘So what are you going to do? Inform Open-Unsolveds?’
‘I should, I know. But I promised her if she needed anything, I’d be there for her.’
‘So you’re going to take on her son’s investigation? What about the one we’re on?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it in my own time. It won’t get in the way of what we’re on. Look, it’s over there. Park there, across the street.’
Quinn did a ninety on Lassen. As they pulled up he asked, ‘So what are you going to do? With this old case, I mean.’
Leroy sighed.
‘First port of call is to get the murder book from Open-Unsolveds. I don’t expect any problems there; I’ve never known them to be territorial. I’ll start there: I wasn’t involved in every aspect of the case, so most of it will be new; fresh eyes.’
‘How often would Open-Unsolveds look at it?’
‘They’re supposed to carry out an annual due diligence check, but how much detail they go into is anybody’s guess. And they have so many to look through. I’ll just see what I can find there, if anything. Go through the shake cards. There might be something there.’
‘And tell her if you find anything?’
‘I said I’d call round and see her tonight, and get her aspect on it all.’
Quinn nodded and turned off the engine. He sat silently for a while.
Leroy changed the subject. He wound up the window, grabbed the door handle and pushed the door open. He got out, slammed the door shut, and stood on the corner of Lassen and DeSoto. He put his sunglasses back on, spun on his heels and he and Quinn walked round the corner to the building entrance.
CHAPTER SIX
The address Adrienne Wheat had given them was for a four storey red brick building on the corner of Lassen and DeSoto Streets. Monica’s Golden Hair Salon occupied the first floor, and had its entrance on Lassen; a pair of chrome and glass doors around the corner on DeSoto led to the suites and offices on the upper floors.
A stainless steel board affixed to the wall listed the occupants. Leroy and Quinn checked on which floor Joder Films was located. One suite appeared to be unoccupied, and the other tenants were listed as:
Wanderley – Lawyers
Han Chung – Importers
Clitmeister Film Productions
Moses Booker – Mortgage Brokerage
They laughed as Leroy pointed out the other production company.
‘That’s why they call this the San Pornando Valley,’ he said as he pushed open the doors. It was a small building and each floor comprised two suites. Joder Films shared the third floor with the Mortgage Brokerage. There was a small elevator at the far end of the lobby, but they decided to climb the two flights of steps.
Each of the office doors on the third floor contained a large, frosted glass panel on which was stencilled in large black letters the name of the occupant. Joder Films was on the right of the stairs; as Leroy and Quinn reached the floor the door of the mortgage brokerage opened, and a woman and child exited. The boy was around four or five, and was wearing a tee-shirt on the front of which was the South African flag. The woman’s head wrap was in matching colours. The boy reached up to press the elevator call button, only to be pulled away towards the stairs. Leroy and Quinn stepped to one side to allow them to pass.
Once the woman and child had reached the floor below, Leroy took out the key Mrs Wheat had given him, and unlocked the door.
‘The alarm code is six nine six nine,’ Quinn reminded him quietly.
‘Roger that,’ replied Leroy, looking round for the keypad. ‘I can’t tell if Wheat had a sense of humour, or no imagination.’
The keypad was behind the door. Leroy lifted the plastic cover to reveal the keypad. He looked puzzled.
‘Ray, this hasn’t been set.’
‘That’s why there’s no sound. No beeping, no tone.’
‘Perhaps he didn’t set it last time he was here.’
‘Who’s to say he did?’
‘No.’ Leroy closed the door slowly, and paused, keeping his hand on the handle. ‘Of course it could mean we’re not the first to come here. Since Wheat himself, I mean.’
‘But if anyone else did come in here, they’d have known the alarm code, surely. Whoever it was, Wheat or somebody else, just didn’t set it when they left.’
Leroy nodded.
‘Yeah. Guess so.’
They paused and took in the room. It was dominated by a large oak desk, on which there stood a landline phone and a PC screen and keyboard. The desk complemented the dark oak panelling on the walls. There was an odd contrast between this room and the façade of the building. It looked as if the place had been constructed no more than twenty years earlier, but Wheat’s office seemed to be something from the seventies. In contrast to the wall panelling, a large LCD screen was affixed to the wall opposite the desk. Dotted around the walls were monochrome portraits of young women in various stages of undress, some pouting for the camera. Some portraits appeared to have been autographed. There was a large map of LA on one wall, with coloured pins stuck in at various locations. In one corner was a tall, six-drawer filing cabinet, grey metal, which seemed at odds with the rest of the office.
Against the wall opposite the desk was a black leather chaise-longue. Leroy nodded over to it.
‘I guess that was his casting couch.’
‘Hasn’t MeToo reached this part of the industry yet?’
‘God knows. I wouldn’t touch it, Ray; I can just about make out the stains on it.’ Leroy grinned as Quinn involuntarily took a step back.
‘This place is something out of another era,’ Quinn said.
‘Tell me about it,’ replied Leroy, walking round to the window. ‘I’m half expecting to find Linda Lovelace in one of the drawers.’
There was a shelf of DVDs on one wall. Quinn took a handful and leafed through the titles.
‘Man, there’s some classic stuff here: Cum Get It 3, Four Finger Club, Splashdown.’
‘You looking for something for you and Holly to watch tonight?’
‘I was just looking to see if there were any starring Mrs Wheat.’
‘I would guess he’d have to have taken them off the market. She would have insisted.’ Leroy picked up the five DVD cases which rested on the window ledge. They contained the same title, Riding the Dragon. The image on the cover was of three muscled Asian men, all in tight swimwear. Leroy turned the first case over. ‘Hey, this one’s NC-17.’
‘One for the kids, perhaps.’
Leroy put the cases back on the ledge.
‘Or maybe he was trying to go mainstream.’
The six desk drawers were all locked, so Leroy took out a pocketknife and forced them open. Nothing out of the ordinary in the first three: blank paper, empty disc cases, pens, pencils, and a box of Kleenex. At the back of the top drawer were two packs of condoms and a dispenser of lubricant. The others contained photographs of girls posing: similar style to the ones on the wall, but these were naked. Leroy quickly leafed through them then tossed them over to Quinn.
‘I wonder how old these are?’ Quinn mused. ‘I’m sure they’re not all over eighteen. I’m going to look out back.’
The next drawer contained three scripts. Two were printed on white paper, the third on pink. Leroy recalled reading somewhere that a colour other than white meant that the script had been revised.
The final drawer, the bottom one, contained a half empty bottle of bourbon, two glasses, and…
‘Take a look at this, Ray,’ Leroy called out.
Quinn came back in. Leroy had taken out a couple of sheets from the Kleenex box and lifted out a handgun.
‘Jesus, where was that? What is it?’
‘It was at the back of the drawer, behind a bottle of booze. It looks like a Kimber.’
Quinn took a closer look. ‘Yeah, it’s a Raptor. Has it been fired recently?’
Leroy sniffed the end of the barrel and checked.
‘All the slugs are there.’ He felt inside the drawer again and took out a box of cartridges. ‘What’s not in the box,’ he said, ‘is in here. So no, it hasn’t been fired, recently that is.’ He reached into his back pocket and took out a clear plastic evidence bag. ‘We need to take this out of circulation anyway. Check who it’s registered to, assuming it was Wheat. I’m not sure if it was connected to his murder, not at this time. What was out back?’
‘Not much. A small kitchen, microwave, and sink. Another door leading to the john.’
Leroy sat at Wheat’s desk and reached for the phone. He hit the redial key and listened. After a few seconds, he disconnected.
‘Who’d he last call?’ asked Quinn.
‘I got his home voicemail. So the last call he made, whenever that was, was home. Let’s check for voicemails.’ Leroy pressed the speaker button, then *86. He pressed 1 to get the message.
‘Marty, where the fuck are you? Why the fuck aren’t you picking up? For Fuck’s sake get here, or call me back.’
Leroy looked up at Quinn and keyed 1 for the previous message. It was the same caller, although not so irate.
‘Marty, where the fuck are you? We’re all at the location and we’re ready to begin shooting. And the guy here, the owner, says he wants his money for tomorrow. Call me back, now, or just answer your goddam cell.’
The third and final undeleted message contained nothing: it sounded as if the caller had just dialled, heard the recorded greeting then hung up.
Leroy returned to the original message, listened to it again, and then keyed as instructed to redial. After a couple of rings, it was answered. It was the same person who had left the message.
‘Marty, where the fuck are you? And what the fuck’s going on? Everybody’s just up here sitting on our asses. The owner won’t let us shoot until he’s been paid. You do have his fucking money, don’t you?’
‘Sir, this isn’t Marty. My name is Detective Leroy from the LAPD.’
The line disconnected.
