No Place to Die (Sam Leroy Book 3)

by Philip Cox

  It was a full five minutes before Delroy plucked up the courage to get up from his hiding place.

  Chapter 23

  ‘Godammit! I don’t believe it,’ Leroy groaned as the camera moved, its point of view tracing across the parking lot. He rested his hand on Quinn’s shoulder. ‘See if it pans back in time.’

  They waited, but by the time the screen showed the dumpsters, the truck had gone.

  ‘Take it back to the truck.’

  ‘Okay.’ Quinn reversed the footage and froze the picture. ‘It looks like a Dodge,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. Holly’s old man has one. Years old, though; this one looks newer; you know, shinier.’

  Leroy stared at the screen, saying nothing.

  ‘What about the tyres?’ Quinn asked. ‘SID would have taken pictures of the scene, or we could go back and take a look ourselves.’

  Leroy rubbed his chin. ‘You mean, see if we can identify the tracks, match that to a make of tyre and try to get a make of vehicle that way?’

  ‘Sure. Why not?’

  ‘Couldn’t hurt, I guess.’ Leroy sat down at his own desk and logged on. ‘Let’s hope they’ve uploaded the report,’ he said as he pressed a few keys and waited. It had been uploaded: saying nothing, Leroy speed-read the report. He shook his head. ‘That’s a no go. It was hard, dry pavement, no skid marks. Some tyre marks, but no identifiable impression, marks from many vehicles.’ He logged out, and returned to Quinn’s screen. ‘Nice idea, though.’ He stared back at the screen. ‘The licence plate is the answer.’

  Quinn zoomed in on the back of the truck, but close up the image was out of focus. He looked up at Leroy. ‘Would that guy you know at the FBI be able to help?’

  ‘Calloway? Maybe; I’d rather we didn’t ask him unless we had to.’

  ‘But Sam; he’d -’

  Leroy patted his hand on Quinn’s shoulder again. ‘Probably. But maybe Sudeep could. I wonder if he’s about.’ As he spoke, Leroy wandered off into the corridor.

  Sudeep Khan was a fellow officer. After leaving college with two or three degrees, he went to work for Microsoft in their Sacramento office, from where four years ago he was recruited by the LAPD to support the cybercrimes division. He had forgotten more about IT than Leroy could ever learn.

  While Leroy was away, Quinn kept zooming in and out, trying to read the plate number. Eventually he took a magnifying glass out of his desk drawer and held that up to the screen.

  ‘Very high-tech,’ Leroy said as he returned, alone. ‘I’m guessing it didn’t work?’

  ‘No.’ Quinn shrugged and tossed the glass back in the drawer. ‘No Sudeep?’

  Leroy shook his head. ‘He’s in court this morning. I’ve left a message for him; hopefully he’ll be back this afternoon.’

  ‘So, we keep on with this?’

  Leroy tapped the top of Quinn’s screen. ‘Not for now. Let’s wait for Sudeep. Let’s go talk to Mets again; at least try to. One more attempt before we park him for now.’

  *****

  ‘Restaurant or home?’ Quinn asked later, as they approached Reseda and Victory.

  Leroy checked his watch. ‘Restaurant first. It’ll be lunchtime soon, so he’s more likely to be there. Anyway, it’ll be good for that prick Dudley to feel some more heat.’

  They parked outside the Europa restaurant. It had not yet opened for lunchtime, but through the window they could see the staff preparing things. Leroy banged on the glass and held up his badge. After a little what looked like panicky conversation, one of the waiters let them in.

  ‘Is Mr Dudley in?’ Leroy asked.

  The waiter at first didn’t understand who Leroy was referring to. ‘Ah, Mr Dudinsky?’ he eventually replied.

  ‘Whoever. Your manager. Is he in? I want to see him.’

  ‘Yes, yes, come this way, please.’

  The waiter led Leroy and Quinn through the restaurant. Dudley met them at the door leading to the restrooms, kitchen and his office. ‘Detectives,’ Dudley said with a hint of sarcasm, ‘how can I help you today?’

  As he replied, Leroy looked beyond Dudley’s shoulder. ‘In actual fact, sir, it’s Mets we want to see. Is he in?’

  Dudley shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not. He hasn’t shown up for work today. Yet,’ he added.

  ‘Was he working last night?’

  ‘Hold on, please.’ Dudley turned to one of the waiters and spoke to him in another language. Neither Leroy nor Quinn could understand, but the word Evald was in there somewhere. The waiter replied, shaking his head, and waving his hands in the air.

  Dudley turned back to Leroy. ‘I was attending a reception in Bel-Air last night, so was not here; but I understand Evald did not show up then, either.’

  ‘Do you know why? Did he call in sick?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. After the lunchtime rush, I had planned on calling in on him. He doesn’t live far from here, as it happens. Shall I tell him you called?’

  Leroy turned to go. ‘Don’t worry, sir; we’re headed up there now. I’ll tell him you’re concerned about him, shall I?’

  Dudley opened his mouth to reply, but Leroy and Quinn were already walking out. They returned to their car and headed back up Reseda, soon making a left into Jovan Street. They left the car out front, parked next to the gleaming motorcycle. There was no sign of the owner this time, though.

  ‘My folks had a neighbour once,’ Quinn said as they walked past the Harley. ‘He had a set of wheels like that. Was always out front cleaning and polishing it. It was always spotless, always gleaming, so’s you could use it to shave into.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Leroy asked, as they climbed up the stairs, only half-interested.

  ‘Thing is,’ Quinn went on, ‘we never, ever, saw him ride it. Never.’

  Leroy smiled and knocked on the door to apartment 217. They could hear a television playing inside. Then somebody turned the volume down and a second later the door opened. It was Mrs Mets.

  Leroy held up his badge and asked if Mr Mets was in.

  Mrs Mets ushered them inside and closed the door. ‘No, my husband is not here,’ she said in her broken English. As she spoke she looked down at two young children who were sat on the floor watching Tom and Jerry on the television.

  ‘Oh. He’s not at work. Where is he?’

  ‘He… he’s gone missing.’

  ‘Missing? Since when?’

  ‘Since he went to work yesterday. After he spoke to you.’

  Leroy said, ‘After we spoke to him yesterday, he went to work. His boss said he sent Evald out on an errand. Do you know anything about that?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Have you reported him missing?’

  She shook her head again.

  ‘You ought to.’

  ‘He has done this before. He always comes back after a few days. I think he visits another woman. Anyway,’ she added, looking up at Leroy, ‘don’t I have to wait 48 hours or something?’

  Leroy shook his head. ‘That’s a fallacy. You’ve gotten that from the TV. You can report a missing person as soon as they go missing. Here.’ As he spoke, he gave her one of his business cards after writing down a number on the back. ‘This is the number of our Missing Persons Unit. You ought to give them a call.’

  She took the card, nodding.

  ‘When he does get back,’ Leroy added, ‘please tell him we need to talk to him. He’s not in any trouble; I just need to ask him one or two more questions.’

  With that, and with one more glance down at Tom and Jerry, Leroy and Quinn let themselves out. Back in the car, Leroy sat still before starting the engine.

  ‘Coincidence?’ he asked Quinn. ‘Not. We talk to Mets, then he disappears. Either he knows something and has gone to ground; or he knows something and somebody wants him out of the way.’

  ‘Or he could just be like his wife said, and visiting another woman.’

  ‘He didn’t look like a Casanova to me.’ Leroy tapped the steering whee
l. ‘We’ll give the MPU his details anyway. They can contact her; that might motivate her to file a report.’

  ‘She didn’t seem that concerned; did you notice that?’

  Leroy agreed. ‘Seems like you and I are more interested in finding him than his wife is.’ He turned on the ignition. ‘Until Mets shows up, we need to focus on that pick-up. We desperately need to get our John Doe identified.’

  ‘Another thing, Sam,’ Quinn said as Leroy pulled out into the traffic. ‘Did you see what those kids were watching on TV?’

  ‘Cartoons, yes?’

  ‘Yes, Tom and Jerry. But did you notice the station?’

  ‘No, what’s your point?’ They turned right into Reseda, heading for the freeway.

  ‘That little logo top right hand corner of the screen. KVEA.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘That’s a Spanish language station. Mets and his family are from Eastern Europe, supposedly. So why would they be watching television in Spanish?’

  Chapter 24

  They arrived back at Police HQ early afternoon. On the way down, while stuck in freeway traffic, Quinn called the MPU and gave them Mr and Mrs Mets’ details. As expected, the MPU officer advised Quinn that there was only so much they could do, as to want some privacy was not a crime. Quinn told them he and Leroy understood all that and thank you very much for taking the call.

  Back at the Desk, they bought a sandwich and coffee from the vending machine and returned to the screen. As Quinn booted up the PC, Leroy went back in search of Sudeep Khan.

  He was lucky this time, and returned after a few minutes with Khan.

  Leroy and Khan both grabbed a chair and wheeled it to sit in front of the screen, either side of Quinn. Quinn went back to the time the camera was facing the dumpsters.

  Khan pushed his glasses further up his nose. ‘Hm. It looks like a Ram.’

  ‘We thought a Dodge, yes,’ Leroy said.

  ‘Dark… black, maybe dark blue. Maybe dark red,’ Khan added. ‘The Ram has three pick-up models: the 1500, 2500 and 3500.’

  ‘Can you tell which?’ Quinn asked.

  Leroy got up and fetched Khan a paper cup of lemon tea. ‘It’s a dead end on the tyres, Sudeep; I’m thinking the licence plate is the only way of getting a make.’

  Khan looked closer. ‘It’s a California plate,’ he said. ‘Dark blue on white. Have you tried enhancing?’

  ‘We’ve tried zooming closer and enhancing,’ replied Quinn, ‘but it’s still too fuzzy and out of focus to read the plate.’

  ‘Where did you do that?’ Khan asked.

  ‘On here.’

  Khan tutted and shook his head. ‘You’re using the wrong program, guys.’ He went to the Home screen and clicked on an icon.

  ‘You can do it, then?’ Leroy asked.

  ‘Don’t hold your breath, guys,’ Khan replied. ‘I can’t get something out of nothing.’

  It is a common misconception, fed by movies and television, that government agencies have magic software to create faces from blurry pixels. All imaging technologies, whether digital or analogue, work in roughly the same way. All cameras create an image when light interacts with an image creating medium. In a film camera it is a chemically treated light sensitive strip of celluloid. In a digital camera, it is a photoelectric sensor. Any picture, especially a screenshot from a moving camera, is taken over a finite period of time, usually a fraction of a second; therefore, there is an upper limit to the detail of any captured image. In digital imaging, the upper limit often has to do with the ceiling the camera or device has – the number of pixels the sensor inside the camera is capable of detecting, for instance. This is all about the limits of the device itself. In other words, as Khan had explained to Leroy many times, no camera, however advanced, has an infinite capacity for resolution. In basic terms, garbage in, garbage out.

  So-called enhanced images are a function of the original image. When you start with a blurry or pixelated image, no amount of filters or computer trickery can coax data out of a place where there isn’t any.

  In the case of a person’s face, it may be possible to create some face-like image from garbage data, but that doesn’t mean that what comes out will look like the person that was actually there. You would more likely get a mass of pixels that kind of look like a different version of that face.

  Leroy had heard all this before. ‘Just do your best, Sudeep.’

  In the new program, Khan called up the screenshot. The three of them looked closely at the screen.

  ‘California plate, you said that,’ Leroy said. ‘Blue on white, number in State format. Number, three letters, three numbers.’

  ‘The first number has to be a four,’ Quinn observed.

  ‘And the other numbers are zeroes,’ added Leroy.

  ‘Or eights.’

  ‘Can you get it any clearer?’ Leroy asked.

  ‘Sorry, Sam. Best I can get it.’

  ‘So it’s 000, 888, 808 or 080.’

  ‘Or 800, 880, 008…’

  ‘Okay, I get the picture.’

  Khan took off his glasses and held the lenses next to the screen. ‘The first and last numbers,’ he said, ‘each have detail in the centre which a zero wouldn’t.’

  ‘So they’re both eights.’

  ‘More than likely.’

  ‘And the middle one a zero?’ Quinn asked.

  ‘More than likely,’ Khan repeated. ‘Unless there’s a sticker, or a mark, or even a splash of mud on the plate, corrupting the image.’

  Leroy pointed to the very bottom of the plate. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That’ll be the DMV website address. In red.’

  ‘Of course, yes.’ Leroy paused. ‘So it looks like 4, three letters, then 808.’

  ‘Most likely. Now we need to figure out the letters, Sam.’

  Quinn said, ‘The first. It looks like a two.’

  ‘Which it can’t be,’ said Leroy, ‘so it has to be a Z.’

  Khan looked at each in turn. ‘Good job, guys. You seem to be getting the hang of it. What about the next letter?’

  Leroy suggested, ‘What about either a C or a G?’

  Khan nodded. ‘I agree. C or G.’

  ‘And the third letter,’ said Quinn, ‘is either U or V.’

  ‘I concur,’ smiled Khan. ‘The letter’s not wide enough to be a W, so: yes, U or V.’

  Leroy sat on the desk behind. ‘So we have a licence plate that reads 4Z; C or V or G or U; then 808.’

  Khan sat back, arms folded. ‘Yup.’

  ‘So that means,’ – Leroy made a quick calculation – ‘four possible combinations to check with DMV.’

  ‘Easy peasy Japanesey,’ Khan said as he stood up. ‘I’ll let you guys get on.’

  Leroy and Quinn thanked Sudeep and he walked to the door.

  ‘We just need a pick-up, probably a Ram, with one of those combinations,’ Leroy said. ‘At last, we might be getting somewhere. Sudeep, hang on.’

  Khan stopped in the doorway and swivelled around.

  Leroy asked, ‘We also need to identify our DB. The ME has sent over a mugshot of the guy, but because the head was lying in open country for a while, there’s been some decay and some, er – animal intervention, it’s not the best mugshot in the world.’

  ‘You need some help with that?’ Khan asked.

  ‘If you can, thanks.’

  Khan checked his watch. ‘Sure, no problem.’

  Leroy called up the face. Khan grimaced.

  ‘Can you do anything with that?’ Leroy asked.

  Khan shook his head. ‘Like I always say, garbage in, garbage out. You’re just going to have to do it the old fashioned way.’

  ‘That’s what I was afraid of,’ said Leroy. ‘Trawling through thousands of mugshots.’

  ‘You can save yourselves some time, though.’ Khan leaned on the wall as he spoke. ‘Even though your guy’s not looking his best, you can make certain assumptions - no, deductions – in respect of your search criteria.’r />
  ‘Say what?’ Leroy asked.

  ‘Look,’ Khan explained. ‘He’s male?’

  ‘U-huh.’

  ‘Caucasian; I’m guessing under 40, over 25, so you have a range of years of birth; dark hair; you said it was a head: have you found the rest of him?’

  ‘Yes, about twenty miles away.’

  ‘So, approximately how tall was he?’

  ‘Five-nine.’

  ‘So filter your requests.’

  Leroy nodded. ‘You got time to help out?’

  ‘No, but I’ll show you what to do.’

  Khan sat down again and clicked on a different icon. He looked up at Leroy, occasionally glancing over to Quinn. ‘Facial recognition technology uses an algorithm to analyse the relative positions and sizes and shapes of the eyes, the nose, the cheekbones, jaws. Now, just like that licence plate, the image is corrupted, but whereas before the corruption was within the image, here, it’s the subject itself. Now, broadly speaking, the human face is symmetrical, yes?’

  Quinn and Leroy nodded.

  ‘So, where here… part of this side is missing – using the detail of the other side of his face, we can extrapolate the missing piece.’

  ‘I see.’ Leroy sat back on the desk.

  ‘The LAPD use the DigiKam application for this,’ Khan said, ‘but as always, garbage in…’

  Leroy finished the sentence. ‘Garbage out. Yes, Sudeep, I get -’

  ‘The picture. Yes, very good, Sam.’

  ‘No pun intended. So once we’ve got a satisfactory extrapolation of his face, we can compare that to other databases. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes, but that’ll be where your work begins. As you know, there’s still no national database for this. The LA County Sheriff’s Office uses a mugshot database, but that’s only of use to you if your John Doe’s been picked up in LA County.’ He checked his watch. ‘Sorry, Sam; I need to go. Hope I’ve been of help.’

  For the second time, Leroy and Quinn told Khan he had and that they owed him.