Another Way to Die

by Philip Cox

  ‘I was only going to say that at the major intersections, there might be traffic cameras. We might get a look at him on one of those.’

  ‘Possibly. But he probably wouldn’t get that careless. What do you think?’ Leroy asked Johnson.

  ‘Unlikely,’ she replied from the back seat. ‘From what I know about these cases, he’s very controlled, very good at planning. It’s possible that something unexpected happening, something going wrong, might wrongfoot him. But why are you assuming he’d go direct to the airport? Don’t forget, he would have had a body to move from the original vehicle to the pick-up. Where would he do that?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Leroy. ‘Couldn’t hurt to check. But we don’t need to identify the cameras now; let’s talk to Tracey and the neighbours and check the neighbourhood. I want to look around before we lose the daylight.’

  Leroy walked with the others round into Boone Avenue, crossing over to the other side of the road as they reached the 2100 block. He continued walking as they approached Burt Tracey’s house.

  It was a typical dwelling of the area: a modest-sized single-floor property. The front of the house comprised a large window, a screened door, and a double garage. The front yard consisted of a layer of stones surrounding a gigantic cactus.

  Quinn and Johnson had barely reached the door when the screen burst open and large figure filled the doorway.

  He was easily six and a half feet, and must have weighed at least two fifty pounds. He wore a blue Hawaiian-style shirt which had a yellowish stain down the front, a pair of shorts and flip-flops. Under his black baseball cap, his head was shaved, and he had an iron grey handlebar moustache. The cap had the legend Raiders above the peak.

  ‘You the cops?’ he asked.

  ‘We are, sir.’ Quinn and Johnson introduced and identified themselves. ‘Burt Tracey?’ Quinn asked.

  ‘That’s me, son.’ As Tracey replied, he stepped out of the doorway and onto the driveway. He stood outside the closed cream garage doors. ‘You come about my vehicle?’

  ‘We have, sir.’

  ‘You found it yet?’

  ‘It has been found, yes.’

  ‘So where is it?’ He looked up and down the street.

  ‘I’m afraid we can’t release it to you at this time,’ Johnson said.

  Tracey looked at Quinn and jabbed a thumb in Johnson’s direction. ‘She for real? If you found my vehicle, then where is it?’ He pronounced the word vehicle, vee-hic-el.

  ‘Your vehicle has been used in a crime, sir,’ Quinn explained. ‘It’s still being processed for evidence.’

  ‘A crime? What sort of crime?’

  Johnson answered first. ‘The type of crime is irrele -’

  ‘A murder, sir,’ said Quinn, earning a flash of annoyance from Johnson.

  ‘A murder?’ Tracey took off his cap and used it to slap the side of his leg. ‘Son of a bitch. I never.’

  ‘We know you reported it stolen yesterday morning,’ Quinn said. ‘For our benefit, can you just repeat what you told the police when you called it in?’

  Tracey shrugged. ‘Not much to repeat. I got up around five thirty yesterday morning, needed to whiz, didn’t notice anything, went back to bed. I got up again at around quarter after seven – it was just gettin’ light; and I noticed she had gone.’

  ‘You’re saying the car was there at five thirty?’ Johnson asked.

  ‘I didn’t say that. I just said I didn’t notice either way.’

  Noticing that Johnson was getting rattled, Quinn asked, ‘What time did you go to bed, sir?’

  ‘I guess around one, one thirty. I was up late watching the game?’

  ‘The game?’

  Tracey pointed to the logo on his cap. ‘The Raiders.’

  ‘Right,’ nodded Quinn. ‘You an Oakland man?’

  ‘Oakland?’ said Tracey with a pained expression on his face. ‘No, LA Raiders.’

  ‘Football?’

  ‘What else?’ Tracey asked.

  ‘But…’ said Quinn cautiously. ‘Correct me if I’m mistaken, but the LA Raiders haven’t played here for years?’

  Tracey laughed. ‘No, son; you’re misunderstanding me. You’re correct: the LA Raiders haven’t played for years; in fact, their last match was Christmas Eve back in ’94. Just before they moved to Oakland, just like you said. I was watching an old game on my VHS. Back from ’92, I think it was, against the Broncos.’ He looked at Johnson as he added, ‘The Denver Broncos.’

  ‘Regardless of what you were watching,’ Johnson asked impatiently, ‘you’re saying you went to bed around one, maybe one thirty?’

  ‘Around then, I guess.’

  ‘And was the vehicle here then?’

  ‘I guess it was. I don’t recall checking.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw the truck here?’ Quinn asked.

  Tracey lifted his cap and scratched the top of his head. ‘Don’t rightly know. Around eight, maybe. I don’t recall the exact time.’

  ‘Do you live alone, sir?’ Johnson asked.

  ‘I’ve lived alone for these past fifteen years, ma’am. Ever since my dear wife passed on.’

  ‘Sir,’ asked Quinn, ‘would you have heard the vehicle being started?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. I’m a good sleeper, and my bedroom’s out back. And I had the game on kind of loud.’

  ‘So, you wouldn’t have heard anything?’ Johnson asked.

  ‘Don’t reckon so, ma’am.’

  ‘And the vehicle was locked?’ she asked. ‘Doors locked, no key left in the ignition?’

  ‘It’s surprising how many people do leave their cars on their drive unlocked,’ Quinn explained. ‘And leave their keys under the sun visor.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Tracey replied. ‘But I don’t. The keys are indoors, and they are the only keys I have into the bargain. But…’

  ‘But?’ Johnson asked.

  ‘I was going to say, sure I keep her locked, but she’s goes back to the 1960s. There was no new-fangled central locking with those fancy keys like TV remotes. If you knew what you were doing and had a mind to, it’d be mighty simple to break in and hot-wire her.’

  Johnson was not impressed. ‘No alarm? No immobiliser?’

  Tracey stated her full in the face. ‘1960s.’

  ‘There’s nothing else you can tell us?’ Quinn asked.

  ‘Don’t reckon so. When will you let me have her back?’

  ‘I really don’t know. Once it’s been thoroughly checked for evidence. I can’t say right now.’

  ‘You boys aren’t going to take her apart, are you?’

  ‘I can’t see any reason why,’ reassured Quinn. ‘They’ll be checking for any traces the killer might have left. Once that’s been completed, then I can see no reason not to return it to you.’

  ‘Will you need my prints?’ Tracey asked, eagerly. ‘For elimination purposes, is that what you guys say? I’ve always wanted to do that.’

  ‘Not right now,’ Johnson replied. ‘Somebody will call another time to take them.’

  ‘Here’s my number,’ Quinn said as he gave Tracey a business card. ‘If you do come to recall anything else, you can get me on that cell number.’

  Tracey took the card and read it. ‘Sure thing, Detective Quinn.’ He stepped back to his screen door. ‘Be seeing you, Detectives.’

  ‘Agent and Detective,’ corrected Johnson as she and Quinn turned to leave.

  Tracey looked at her one last time. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Sam wants us to talk to the others in the street. As far as Olive and up to Mildred. Let’s start there,’ said Quinn, heading back to the sidewalk.

  ‘Probably more time wasted,’ grumbled Johnson, as she followed Quinn. Quinn overheard her but said nothing. What’s her problem? he thought.

  *****

  Meanwhile, Leroy was at the intersection with Mildred Avenue. After leaving Quinn and Johnson at Burt Tracey’s house, he had wandered up the street. Nothing looked out of the ordinary he
re: it was a typical residential street, with a mixture of one- and two-storey homes. A small apartment building here and there. He looked up and down Mildred Avenue: here fresh blacktop had been recently laid, contrasting with the pavement of Boone which was cracked with tufts of grass protruding from the gaps. He had the impression that Mildred Avenue was, what was the word? Nicer? Nicer than in Tracey’s street. Maybe it was just the freshly laid tarmac and the recently painted lines yellow lines and white lines and stop signs.

  The houses, though, did seem larger and more expensive, better maintained. The cars parked on the street and driveways seemed newer. So far, Leroy had been unable to spot any security cameras: maybe he would have more success on this street. It was still a long shot, anyway. And as for physical witnesses: the words straws and clutching sprang to mind. The killer - or whoever left the vehicle at LAX - limped into the men’s room at 4:18pm. Ray had talked about the Chevrolet being stolen and then being driven direct to the airport, but that might not have been the case. They were working on the theory that this was a last-minute substitution, the pick-up being a totally different type of vehicle to the ones in which the first two victims were found. Unless he was changing his game plan, or just playing with them, a last-minute substitution would seem the obvious reason for a change of vehicle type. But there was the matter of maybe moving the body from the original vehicle to Tracey’s. So did the murderer take Tracey’s car back to his own place and change vehicles in the privacy of his own garage or back yard as Cordell had done, or was he forced to carry out the transfer in the street?

  Every year in the City of Los Angeles approximately thirty thousand vehicles are reported stolen. That equates to five hundred seventy-six a week. Eighty-two a day. Vehicle theft represents twenty-four percent of property crime and eighteen percent of total crime. Auto theft is a big and profitable business. One line of enquiry they might be forced down would be to check all cars found dumped and carry out the same forensic checks they were doing with the two so far. Then, if and when - and these were mighty big ifs and whens – they had identified the killer’s original vehicle, they could start the routine of checking traffic cameras and hunting potential witnesses.

  All very tenuous and all very needle in a haystack.

  Like ninety percent of police work.

  Checking and checking and checking and double checking and triple checking and like that. There was no such thing as a dumb or stupid or pointless angle or line of investigation: it was just that most of them never went anywhere.

  Leroy’s ruminations had gotten him as far as where Mildred Avenue hit Washington Boulevard. It was the first time Leroy had ever set foot, literally or metaphorically, in this part of town. He found it ironic that he lived five, six minutes away, yet could be in a different city.

  Washington Boulevard is, as the name suggests, a five or six lane street. It runs from Venice Beach Pier to meet Olympic Boulevard just over twenty-seven miles later. It passes through such diverse areas as Marina del Rey and Ladera Heights to Mid City, Arlington Heights and Whittier. It is the dividing line between Venice and Marina del Rey. Leroy shielded his eyes from the dropping sun as he looked up and down the boulevard, its tall palm trees stretching to the sky for as far as the eye could see.

  He pressed the button, waited until the cross countdown has reached 1, then walked over to the other side of the road.

  *****

  ‘Were you really expecting anything else?’ Johnson asked, as she and Quinn reached Olive Avenue.

  ‘I don’t know what I was expecting.’ As he spoke, Quinn looked up and down Olive, to see if Leroy was anywhere in sight. He wasn’t.

  ‘There he is,’ Johnson said, pointing to the other end of Boone Avenue. ‘As if he has all the time in the world.’

  They walked down the street to meet him.

  ‘Well, team?’ Leroy asked.

  Johnson shook her head and folded her arms, leaving Quinn to reply.

  ‘We got to speak to Burt Tracey. He didn’t see or hear anything. Went to bed around one thirty after watching an old football game on his VCR.’

  ‘His VCR?’

  ‘Yup. I’m guessing he’s a tad eccentric. But the point is, it looks as if the vehicle was taken some time after dark, before sun-up.’

  ‘And the neighbours? They see or hear anything?’

  ‘That’s a negative. Around half were out; the others couldn’t help.’

  ‘Because they were in bed,’ Leroy said. ‘Or on their couches watching NFL reruns or something. So you both came up with nothing.’

  Arms still folded, Johnson looked at Quinn.

  Quinn said, ‘Nothing. Nothing we didn’t know already.’

  Leroy nodded. ‘Just as well I did.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Hands on her hips, Agent Johnson looked over at Quinn. The expression on her face read what the fuck?

  It was Quinn who actually asked the question. ‘What do you mean?’

  Leroy tapped the side of his nose. ‘Let’s head back to the car.’

  Back in the car, as Leroy pulled away, Johnson asked, ‘What’s going on, then?’

  Grinning, Leroy glanced at her reflection in the rear-view mirror. ‘You’ll see presently.’ Quinn had taken off his sunglasses, but Leroy and Johnson had kept theirs on. Behind hers, Johnson’s eyes burned into the back of Leroy’s head. He was toying with her, she knew he was toying with her, and he knew she knew he was toying with her.

  ‘Where are we headed, Sam?’ asked Quinn.

  ‘Not far.’

  He was right. Ninety seconds later, they arrived at the intersection between Mildred Avenue and Washington Boulevard. Leroy made a right onto Washington, paused for a gap in traffic, then made a one-eighty so he was facing away from the ocean. He pulled up by to a sign advertising Del Mar Natural Cleaners Open 7 Days a Week.

  He had parked adjacent to a bus stop and as they got out of the car, a bus arrived at the stop, coming to a halt behind Leroy’s Taurus. The bus driver sounded his horn at them. As he stepped in front of the bus and onto the sidewalk, Leroy held up his badge for the driver to see. After picking up his two passengers, the driver had to reverse the bus six feet, and made a huge effort in turning the steering wheel so the bus could get around Leroy’s car. As the bus accelerated past the Taurus, its horn blew one more time. Leroy ignored it.

  At the front of the Del Mar Natural Process Cleaners, there was a kind of patio. It was made up of six huge slabs of concrete with tufts of grass growing in the gaps. Too small for more than one vehicle to park, it contained an overflowing trash bin, a handful of cardboard boxes, and a small freestanding sign advertising the cleaners.

  Leroy stood on the sidewalk and looked up and down Washington. Johnson said nothing, just stood and watched Leroy; Quinn asked, ‘Well?’

  Leroy looked up and down the street, both sides. He ran his hand over the top of his head. ‘Shit!’

  ‘Are we looking for anything in particular?’ asked Johnson, barely disguising the sarcasm in her voice.

  Leroy made a gesture with both hands down at the space in front of the cleaners. An elderly woman came out of the store with a carpet bag, looked at Leroy and hurried down Washington.

  ‘There was a group of three panhandlers,’ Leroy exclaimed. ‘Here, right here. Only ten minutes ago.’ He stepped out to the kerb and looked up and down again. ‘They must have moved as soon as I left them. But they had sleeping bags, one had a supermarket cart, they had boxes. One had a makeshift tent.’

  Quinn joined his partner at the roadside and looked up and down the street, their side and the other. He looked at Leroy and shrugged. ‘Looks like you scared them off, Sam.’

  Johnson straightened her sunglasses. Hands on her hips she looked over at Leroy. She tilted her head slightly. ‘So you just lost us a witness?’

  A look of annoyance flashed across Leroy’s face. ‘Hardly a witness.’ He turned back to Quinn. ‘There were three panhandlers, three homeless people here.
Three men. Hanging out right here. No, more than hanging out: they looked pretty settled. After I left you two at Tracey’s house I walked about the vicinity, looking for security cameras, anyone who might be about. Drew a blank there, but I’d made my way as far as this intersection. I spotted them wandering about on this corner, came over and spoke to them. I asked if they were around during the other night. Two of them said they were asleep all night, until sun-up. But the third, who goes by the name of hombre bolsa, was awake all night.’

  ‘Means bag man,’ Quinn explained to Johnson.

  ‘He told me there’s still traffic along here during the night and because everybody else is normally sleeping, there’s no competition for him. I asked if he noticed any classic vehicles - actually, I think I said old vehicles - passing through this spot.’

  ‘Were there?’ Quinn asked.

  Leroy nodded. ‘He described Tracey’s pick-up to a tee. He said he noticed it stop at a red over there,’ - he pointed over to Mildred Avenue - ‘started up on the green, made a left, but pulled up immediately here. He said he didn’t know why the truck had stopped: it didn’t sound like there was anything wrong, and this isn’t a place for pick-ups - hooker pick-ups, I mean – so he hurried over. But he’d gotten to about six feet away when the truck sped off.’

  Quinn said, ‘Oh.’

  Johnson thought, is that it?

  ‘But,’ Leroy added, ‘before our man did speed off, hombre bolsa caught a brief look at him.’

  Now he had Quinn and Johnson’s interests.

  ‘The guy was doing something on his cell, and the light from it lit up his face some. Plus, there was some illumination from the streetlamp here. He said the driver noticed him coming, threw the cell down and drove off. He said the driver looked Mexican.’

  ‘Mexican,’ repeated Johnson.

  ‘Which way did he go?’ Quinn asked.

  Leroy pointed up Washington Boulevard. ‘That way.’

  ‘That could take him to Sepulveda,’ Quinn said.

  ‘Or the 405, both of which could take him to…’

  Quinn finished the sentence. ‘LAX.’