Ready to Die (Sam Leroy Book 5)

by Philip Cox

  Once in the terminal building, Leroy strode past the meeters and greeters in the arrivals hall towards the Hertz car rental desk. When he booked his flights, he also arranged four days’ car hire, and once his details had been validated, he walked round to the lot where his grey Ford Focus was waiting.

  He had left Los Angeles at eight forty-five. The flight was just under five hours in duration; with the three hour time difference, it was now just after five here. Great, he thought: he had arrived in New York just in time for the evening rush hour on the Friday before a Holiday weekend.

  Leroy’s mother, Margaret or Maggie, still lived in the family home, where Sam and his younger sister Justine were raised, on 181st Street in Queens. Sam had long since moved out, followed by his sister who now resided in Tuckahoe with her husband Richard Fletcher, who worked for the New York State Department of Civil Service. They had two children, Sam’s niece and nephew, Maggie and Dean, who were nine and six years old respectively. Sam and Justine’s father, Steve Leroy, had also been an officer with the NYPD: it was he who encouraged his son to do likewise, to ‘do his civic duty’. It was going to be either the NYPD or the Fire Department. Leroy chose the same as his father. Steve Leroy worked for the Police Department for thirty years until a heart attack forced him to take long term sick leave. He was a week away from returning to work, albeit behind a desk, when a second heart attack proved fatal. Margaret used to say that every day he left for work she worried that she would get a phone call or a visit to say he had been killed in the line of duty, but at the end of the day he died of natural causes, only fifty-five, still way too young.

  The drive to the house from Newark Airport would normally take around an hour, taking the I-95 Expressway north-east, then east through the Bronx, merging into the 295 south into the Borough of Queens. This time it took ninety minutes, arriving at the house shortly after six forty. He had already called his mother before he left the airport. She had prepared a pot roast - his favourite - but he said to eat now, and he would have his when he got there.

  He pulled onto the driveway, parking in front of the white garage doors. His mother was standing in the doorway, waiting.

  Margaret Leroy was short, with smart grey hair. He suspected she had had it ‘done’ especially for his visit. She wore a blue turtleneck jumper and black pants. It was the first time he had seen her in the flesh for a while and he was surprised at her appearance. She was eighty-three years old now: previously she had always looked ten years younger, but now she looked every one of those years.

  ‘You made it,’ she exclaimed with delight, reaching up and embracing him. ‘The traffic was bad?’

  ‘Hi, Mom,’ he replied. ‘It wasn’t too bad. Could’ve been worse. How are you? You look tired.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ she replied, as they went indoors.

  ‘You have eaten?’

  ‘No, I thought I’d wait for you. You go freshen up, and I’ll get dinner ready. You must be famished. I’ve prepared a pot roast: probably the first proper meal you’ve had since you were here last.’

  He laughed.

  ‘Not quite, but I am hungry.’

  ‘Everything’s up in your room. I’ve put clean sheets on your bed. Dinner’s in ten minutes.’

  That’s what she used to say when he was growing up here, he thought. Dinner was always in ten minutes, even if it was ready in five, or twenty. It was always ready in ten. The smell of the roast was wafting through the house, and he had to admit it did smell good.

  He dropped his gym bag on the bed and sat down next to it, looking around the room. It had been years since he had lived here, but some things were the same. The furniture was the same, as were the decorations. On the four-drawer dresser were two photographs in stands: one of his school football team going back more years than he cared to remember, and a professional portrait of Sam and Justine, when they were teenagers. There was even an old poster on the wall – one he remembered putting up: a reproduction of the poster for the movie The Godfather.

  As he sat on the edge of his bed and looked around the room, the decorations, the furnishings, his old bathrobe hanging on the door, he could smell the pot roast, he could hear his mother pottering around in the kitchen, he could hear her chatting with his father, he could hear his sister in her bedroom chatting with her friends or listening to a CD.

  It was if he had never left.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Back at West LA Station, Quinn hung up after his conversation with Leroy. He logged into the system, and leafed through the manual notes he and Leroy had made of their interviews the previous days, prior to digitizing them. As he began, out of the corner of his eye he saw Lieutenant Perez approach.

  ‘Shit,’ he muttered under his breath.

  ‘Ray,’ said the lieutenant, by way of introduction as he sidled up to Quinn.

  ‘Lieutenant,’ Quinn replied.

  ‘So Sam’s off to New York,’ Perez said.

  ‘Yeah. I just got off the phone with him.’

  ‘He called me earlier, left a message on my voicemail. I didn’t call back; he’ll have his cell switched off by now. So what’s the plan for today?’

  Quinn sat back.

  ‘These are the notes from the interviews Sam and I did yesterday: I’m uploading them to the case folder then I plan on going to take another look at the crime scene.’

  ‘Looking for inspiration?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. There were so many people milling around the other day. It’ll be quiet up there now.’

  ‘Give you a chance to think the case through? Not knowing what you’re looking for, but a case of you’ll know it when you see it?’

  ‘That’s the kind of thing Sam does.’

  ‘I know. I taught him that. You want to fill me in on what you have so far?’

  Quinn gave Perez a summary on how far they had gotten. Perez listened, nodding. When Quinn has finished, Perez said, ‘You guys might want to turn to the widow. Cases such as this, nine times out of ten, somebody close to the vic is behind it. Where is the scene, by the way?’

  ‘Off Mulholland. A kind of overlook.’

  Perez nodded. He had one of those expressions which indicated he was in thought about something. He turned to leave, then paused and turned round.

  ‘Who are you taking with you? You’re having back-up, aren’t you?’

  ‘Sam said to take some,’ Quinn replied.

  ‘Yes, I would,’ said Perez.

  ‘He wouldn’t have.’

  ‘Probably not, but as he’s said to get back-up, you’ll have to do it. Talk to Double-R - I’m sure he can get a black and white to meet you there.’

  ‘You got it, Lieutenant. By the way, are those guys from IA still here?’

  ‘They’re done, I think.’ Perez quickly glanced around, as he always did if he thought he was going to be indiscrete. ‘Somebody in the station had made a sexual harassment complaint. Not about you or me or Sam, but they’ve concluded there was no case to answer, so that wraps that up. I don’t know who made the allegation, or who it was about; only that it wasn’t one of the female officers who made it.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Quinn.

  ‘Did they get to speak with Sam?’

  ‘He said he had a call-back request, but hasn’t called back.’

  ‘There’s a surprise. When you speak to him, tell him he’s off the hook. I’m guessing you’ll be speaking later.’

  ‘Tonight.’

  Perez shook his head.

  ‘He’s supposed to be taking a break. He’ll never change.’ At that point, the lieutenant’s phone rang. ‘I need to get this.’ With that, he walked back to his office as he answered the call.

  Quinn sighed, wheeled his chair closer to his desk, and began updating the case folder with his and Leroy’s notes. He reread the notes as he uploaded them: in every case, nobody saw anything untoward. Even Lew Bridger from whom Leroy was hoping to get at least something. Maybe the lieutenant was right: maybe they sho
uld turn their focus to Mrs Wheat. Maybe both Mrs Wheats. Even though Sam had not said so, Quinn knew that he was concerned about their lack of progress. Statistically, if a murder case was not solved within the first forty-eight hours, it would remain unsolved. So there was this unspoken sense of urgency now.

  Once he had finished with the case folder, Quinn walked round to Rosenberg’s office to arrange some back-up. Fortunately, Rosenberg was still on duty, and said a car could meet Quinn at the scene at noon. That was good, Quinn thought. It would give him time to get up to that part of Mulholland Drive and pick up something to eat on the way. He knew where he would stop off: as he left the station parking lot it occurred to him that before he was partnered with Leroy, he would take in a prepacked homemade healthy lunch, carefully prepared by Holly, most days; over their years together, he had acquired Sam’s extensive knowledge of LA street food vendors.

  *****

  Quinn arrived at the Mulholland scene a few minutes after noon. The patrol car had not arrived, so he remained in the driver’s seat, kept the door open, and ate the beef torta he had gotten on the way.

  Ten minutes later, he had finished eating and the patrol car had still not arrived. He got out of the car and called the station. The voice on the other end of the line said the car had been delayed as they had been called to a 415 in Brentwood and would be with him as soon as possible.

  Quinn swore and tossed his phone onto his seat. A 415 was a disturbance. If it was a domestic disturbance, that could take hours. He would have to go it alone; there was no way he was going to drive all the way here for nothing. Sam would have gone it alone in these circumstances.

  Before he ventured into the canyon, he decided to cross over the highway and see what was the other side. The other day most of the activity was this side. He retrieved his phone, secured the car and walked to the road. He looked left and right to make sure the road was clear, and crossed. However as he reached the centre line a vehicle came round the bend. Quinn leapt to the side of the road as the car sped past. It went by so fast he could not make out the make of car, let alone the licence plate. It must have been going at least ninety.

  ‘Fuck that,’ he exclaimed. He got up and ran back to his car and put a call in. ‘This is Eight-Lincoln-Twelve. I’m on Mulholland, and there’s a black sedan heading east at ninety at least. Can you get any Shamu in the vicinity to BOLO. Better still, an airship, if one’s around.’ A Shamu was a patrol car, named after the SeaWorld killer whales, referencing their black and white livery. An airship was a police helicopter.

  His call acknowledged, he crossed back over Mulholland. Over the other side he looked down and took in the view. The metropolis lay under the haze in the distance. He could make out the towers of downtown, and to the west, Century City. Somewhere in the middle was Wilshire Boulevard.

  The terrain here was at a forty-five degree angle, probably too steep for anything meaningful to happen, especially at night. Even in the moonlight, any attempt to climb up or down here would have been hazardous.

  About half a mile down this forty-five degree incline were some residential streets, one very winding, with some short dead ends protruding. Quinn took out his phone and called up a map App. With two fingers he zoomed in on where he was now. There was Mulholland Drive; so the road down there had to be Mandeville Canyon Road. That would figure. There were residences down there, on the main thoroughfare and on the side streets. There were also – he turned a one-eighty to validate what was on the map – some residential streets up there, further up the mountainside, although they could not be seen from where he was. It was an outside chance, but somebody in one of those homes might have seen or heard something. Quinn felt that talking to the residents might be more fruitful than wandering around in the canyon. He would head for the houses on the mountainside first then drive down to Mandeville Canyon Road. Access to those streets was from Mulholland, further east, round a few bends.

  He crossed back over the highway, climbed back into his car, pulled back onto the highway, and headed off.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The pot roast was good. It was just as he remembered it, from way back when he was growing up. It was just as she had always made it: beef brisket, red wine, vegetables, onions. Especially onions.

  ‘Good?’ she asked.

  ‘Mmm,’ he mumbled, his mouth full.

  ‘Just as you always liked it: heavy on the onions. More potatoes?’ she asked, piling a large spoonful of creamy mashed potatoes onto his plate. ‘What we don’t eat, I’ll freeze, and take over to your sister Sunday. I usually do that: the kids like it.’

  ‘It’s up to your usual standard, Mom. But this is all I can eat; I’m getting full.’

  Leroy’s mother laughed.

  ‘I don’t have it very often. Well, in fact I do. It can last me three or four days, or I can freeze some, for myself or the others. Take some more green beans.’

  Leroy reluctantly took a few more beans and for the next five minutes he and his mother sat eating in silence. Finally she spoke.

  ‘How are you, Sam?’

  ‘I’m okay. Busy as ever. High case load. Our primary case right now -’

  ‘That’s not what I’m talking about. As you know. I mean you. I worry about you.’

  ‘You worry about me? How old am I?’

  ‘I don’t care how old you are. I’m still your mom. You’re over there on your own, thousands of miles away.’

  ‘Twenty-eight hundred miles away.’

  ‘In that apartment of yours, on your own. I know it’s near the beach and like that, but…’

  ‘You liked it when you came to visit.’

  ‘I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it.’

  ‘In any case, I’m moving.’

  ‘Moving? Back home?’

  ‘No, still in LA. I’ve found a house – not an apartment – in Venice.’

  ‘Where you are now?’

  ‘A mile or so away. In the Historic Canal District.’

  ‘A canal?’

  ‘A canal. That’s why the place is called Venice, like Venice, Italy. Look.’

  He took out his phone and showed her some photographs of the locale, and the house, inside and out.

  ‘See?’ he said. ‘There’s a canal right outside the front door.’

  She nodded as he trawled though the images.

  ‘It looks nice.’

  ‘It is. I got a good deal off the seller. They’re in a hurry to leave.’

  ‘Have you told Justine yet?’

  ‘Not yet. We’re going over there Sunday, aren’t we? I was planning on showing them the pictures then.’

  ‘And when do you move in?’

  ‘June fifteen.’

  ‘Not long.’

  ‘That’s not a problem. The mortgage is arranged, I’ve had time off work booked, and I don’t have much stuff to move.’

  ‘And you’re moving into that house on your own?’

  ‘You mean will I be living in that house on my own? Yes, I will. Who else would I be moving in with?’

  ‘I was just asking. You’re still on your own, after all these years.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Don’t you get lonely, Sam? You must do, being on your own for so long. I do. Get lonely, I mean. It’s been a long time since your dad passed.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But I still get lonely at times.’

  He looked up at her.

  ‘Of course you do, Mom. But I’m out all day. I work long hours. And there’s a difference between being alone and being lonely. And you lived here with Dad for what? Thirty-six years?’

  ‘Thirty-eight.’

  ‘Thirty-eight. And for many of those years Justine and I were here also. You’re not used to living on your own: I am.’ He drained his wine glass. ‘Anyway, you’re always welcome to come out west for a visit some more.’

  ‘I know that, but you know I hate flying.’

  Leroy nodded thoughtfully. Neither of th
em spoke for a minute, then Maggie said, ‘I saw that nice Julianne Moore the other day. You must remember her.’

  Julianne Moore was Leroy’s partner when he was with the New York Police Department. After a few months of working together, they grew close and began a relationship. Leroy’s family thought she was the one, but that was not the case. The couple eventually broke up: the break-up was particularly acrimonious, and as a result of events in and out of work, Leroy applied for and was granted a transfer to the LAPD, where shortly after his transfer he joined the Detective Team. More than once since, Leroy had been told by his mother that by moving to Los Angeles, he was running away, and should not have let Julianne go so easily.

  ‘Of course I remember her. How did you come to meet?’ For years, Leroy had suspected that his mother had kept in touch with Julianne.

  ‘I had to make a trip to Manhattan the other day.’

  ‘Oh yes? Why was that?’

  ‘I had arranged to meet Jessie Harris for lunch. She lives in Harlem.’

  ‘I remember her.’

  ‘We had lunch in that nice little place in the Park, by the lake. We said our goodbyes, and I wandered down to Columbus Circle to get some groceries.’

  ‘Groceries in Columbus Circle?’

  ‘Yes. There’s that shopping mall across from the hotel. I went to the Whole Foods downstairs. You know where I mean?’

  ‘Not sure I do, but I get the picture. She was there, then – in the Whole Foods store?’

  ‘Yes, we were at the same checkout.’

  ‘Small world.’

  ‘She asked after you.’

  ‘Oh yes? And what did you say?’

  ‘I said you were fine over on the West Coast. I also said…’ She hesitated.

  ‘You also said what?’

  ‘I, um - I kind of said you mention her now and then.’

  ‘Mom!’

  ‘I’m sorry if I did wrong, but I always hoped you two would, you know…’

  ‘Mom, that ship sailed long ago. Long, long ago.’

  ‘Mm. And how is that young partner of yours?’ she asked, changing the subject.