by Philip Cox
‘Thank you for helping me out on that one, sir. We’ll carry on. Thank you.’ Leroy turned back to his desk and Prescott returned to the outer office. ‘Let’s just keep looking through this lot, Ray. Mark any papers you find. We’ll get them copied and be out of here.’ He looked over at the filing cabinets. ‘Only five drawers to go.’
They had the contents of two drawers to wade through when Leroy’s phone rang. Quinn looked over as Leroy took the call, saying the occasional ‘sure’ and ‘right’ but mainly listening. When he had finished the call he said to Quinn, ‘Come on, Ray; let’s finish these last two quickly and pack up. That was the lieutenant. We’ve had another murder.’
FORTY-THREE
‘SO, WE’RE NO longer interested in Prescott?’ Quinn asked, as he and Leroy hurried back down to the harbour.
‘We might have to park him, put him on the back burner for now,’ Leroy replied. ‘If the lieutenant’s right, and we are talking about a serial killer starting up in business, then we may have been pissing in the wind the last few days.’
‘No connection with Hutchinson?’
‘Hutchinson was white, retired, and affluent. This latest was Asian, late twenties, and lived in a one bedroom apartment. Couldn’t be more different, could it? But he was found on his bed, bound up with duck tape, and shot in the ass and balls.’
‘Same MO, then?’ Quinn asked.
Now they had arrived at the harbour. A ferry was waiting by the pier, a line of passengers embarking.
‘I’ll fill you in when we get back to the car,’ Leroy said, mindful of the other passengers. ‘We’re headed for Chinatown when we’re back on the mainland.’
*****
Once back on the mainland, Leroy hit the 710 and, strobe flashing, they headed north.
‘The vic’s name is Anthony Wong,’ Leroy explained. ‘Rondout Street. About a mile from the Dodger Stadium. Like I told you, he was found taped up, and shot in the ass and balls.’
‘Who found him?’
‘His girlfriend, apparently. She tried to contact him all day on his cell, then on his landline. She called round early last evening; had a key, so let herself in, and found him in the bedroom.’
‘Nice.’
‘Yeah. She had to be sedated, according to Perez.’
‘Cause of death the same as before?’
‘Perez said the bedclothes were covered in blood, so it looks that way. The ME would have to confirm, of course. Now before you say Chinatown’s not our patch, Perez told me he’s arranged for us to take this one, in view of the similarities with Hutchinson. He’s still banging on about this serial killer theory.’
‘And you don’t?’
‘I’m not convinced. He could be right; it could be. Or it could be a copycat. He thinks not, as a lot of the detail of the Hutchinson case was not passed on to the press. The type of weapon used was the same: a Saeilo. What do you think, Ray?’
‘I’m inclined to agree with you. The victim’s profile is all wrong.’
‘Precisely. They couldn’t be more diametrically opposite. Anyway, we’ll go check out the crime scene. We’ll need to find an hour or two to go through the paperwork we took from Prescott, although that might have to wait till tomorrow.’
*****
The journey from the Ferry Terminal to crime scene took just under an hour. Leroy could tell where the crime scene was: four police cars were parked outside a three storey warehouse with whitewashed walls. The warehouse had in fact been refurbished and converted into apartments. Leroy and Quinn looked around as they got out of the Taurus. On one side of the warehouse was a vacant lot with six cars parked; it looked as if the lot belonged to the apartments. The other side was a square red brick single floor building. The empty lot next to it was bordered by a chain link fence, topped by razor wire. On the other side was a light industrial building: a sign on the wall read Crellin Machine Co, but there were no signs of life. A silver pick up was parked here, and further down, a white and red RV. A couple of houses, painted a light green but with windows and doors boarded up, were across the street. On the cross street a hundred yards away was a small shopping centre, the primary establishment of which was a white single floor building: Nick’s Café, Serving Breakfast & Lunch.
Leroy and Quinn showed their ID to the uniformed officers standing on the street. The entrance to the warehouse was taped off, and they had to duck under the tape to get into the building.
‘It’s all happening on the second floor,’ one of the officers said.
‘Don’t throw up this time,’ Leroy said quietly as he and Quinn climbed up the stairs.
Quinn said nothing.
Anthony Wong’s apartment was a hive of activity. The crime scene officers were already on the scene, two of them checking through the lounge. Leroy and Quinn walked into the bedroom.
The bed was still made, unlike the Hutchinsons’, which had seen some activity. Anthony Wong lay on his side on the bed, still bound with tape. He was a slight man, Leroy estimated around five feet tall. His mouth was covered in silver tape, which was also used to bind his hands behind his back. He was fully clothed above the waist, but his clothing below had been pulled down to his ankles. His buttocks and genital area were coloured deep red, as were the bed sheets, a dark, sticky red. A crime scene officer was taking photographs of the body.
Leroy glanced at his partner. ‘You okay?’
Quinn nodded.
One of the uniformed officers spoke to Leroy. ‘The ME finished his prelim exam a while back, but said to keep the body here until you arrived. Is it okay to move the body now?’
Leroy considered a moment then said, ‘Yes, that’s fine. Take him away.’ He watched as Anthony Wong was taken away then turned to the uniformed officer, a sergeant. ‘Were you first on the scene?’
‘Yes, Detective.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘The call was put in by his girlfriend, a Ms Lee. She had been trying to call him all day, on both his cell phone and his landline. She doesn’t live here, but has a key. Worried about him, she came here after work.’
‘After work?’ Leroy queried. ‘She works nights, then?’
‘Er, kind of.’
‘Kind of?’
‘She says she works as a hostess, but she sounds like an escort. Dancer, maybe.’
‘Okay. Go on.’
‘Well, she let herself in, and found him lying there.’
‘Was he dead by then?’
‘He must have been. The ME said it looks as if he died of exsanguination, and had been dead around twelve hours.’
Leroy looked over at Quinn. ‘That makes it in the early hours.’
‘That’s what the ME said, though he needs to carry out a full autopsy.’
‘Sure,’ said Leroy. ‘What do we know about Mr Wong?’
‘He was dressed in a suit and tie. His pants and shorts had been pulled down, so they could shoot him…there,’ the officer spluttered, ‘but he had on a white shirt and dark tie.’
‘Probably works in an office, then?’ Quinn suggested.
‘Yes,’ agreed the sergeant. ‘The Gold Line station is only a short walk away, so we figured he had most probably come from there.’
‘After finishing work Downtown,’ Leroy continued.
‘So he could have been followed on the way home from work?’ Quinn suggested.
Leroy nodded, wandering around the bedroom, looking around. ‘Sergeant, did anybody find any drugs here?’
The sergeant nodded. ‘There was a small stash of 420 in one of the drawers over there. In a small plastic envelope.’
‘Had it been used?’
The sergeant shook his head. ‘That’s a negative. It was still sealed, hidden between two pairs of socks.’
Leroy nodded. ‘Nothing lying around on the floor?’ As he spoke, he knelt down and checked under the bed.
‘No. Apart from the 420, the place is clean.’
Leroy straightened up. ‘Okay.’ He looked aroun
d the room again. Quinn had been checking the bathroom. ‘Anything there, Ray?’ Leroy asked.
Quinn shook his head.
Leroy turned to the sergeant. ‘All right, thanks. We’re done here. I’ll await the ME and CSIs’ reports. I’ll leave you to wind things up here.’
‘Sure thing, Detective. Do you want to talk to Ms Lee?’
‘Not sure yet,’ Leroy replied. ‘If I do, where is she?’
‘At home now, I guess. She was hysterical, surprise, surprise. We had to take her home and call her doctor. I understand he had to sedate her.’
‘So I can’t really talk with her right now. We have her address?’
‘Sure, it’s on the incident report.’
‘That’s great. Good job.’ Leroy patted the sergeant’s arm. ‘We’ll leave you guys to it.’
‘Have a good day, Detectives,’ said the sergeant as they left the apartment.
Back on the street, Leroy leaned on the side of the Taurus. ‘What do you think, Ray?’
‘About it being a serial killer? Not convinced. The racial profile, the age, the demographics - they’re all wrong. And the COD - there’s something not right about it.’
‘I agree. It’s like they just pulled his clothes down so they could shoot him.’
‘But they could have done that while he was fully clothed,’ Quinn pointed out.
‘That’s right. I think whoever did it, wanted to repeat what the Hutchinsons’ killers did.’
‘So you think they’re different?’
Leroy rubbed his chin. ‘Maybe they are, maybe they’re not. Whichever way, we’re dealing with one sick son of a bitch.’
FORTY-FOUR
SOMETIMES A COUPLE will go somewhere, or do something in a particular way, or in a particular place or at a particular time. They enjoy the experience, and repeat it. Sometimes many times. Rather like people who go on vacation to the same place every year. After so many times, it becomes a tradition.
In the relatively short time that Sam Leroy and Julia Moore had been seeing each other, a minor tradition had evolved: Monday nights, Leroy would go to Julia’s and she would cook dinner. More often than not, she would make him breakfast as well.
Tonight was no exception. Leroy and Quinn finished work at the station at 7PM, later than the official end of their shift, but they needed to go through the xerox copies they took from Prescott’s office in Avalon. The murder of Anthony Wong had been something of a game changer, blowing the original theory that the Hutchinsons’ murders were somehow connected with his connection with the Avalon Mission; however, Leroy was uneasy about changing tack this far.
‘Ray,’ he said wearily after two hours in front of a computer screen, ‘we’re going to have to treat the Wong and Hutchinson murders as connected, because that’s the order from above. So we’ll treat them as the primary. I want us to keep Avalon Mission as the secondary: I still have a hunch that Wong was hit by either a copycat, or it was a random kill just for our benefit. You happy with that?’
‘I’m cool with that,’ Quinn replied.
‘Fine,’ said Leroy. ‘Let’s give Wong until five, then spend another couple of hours on Prescott’s papers.’
And so they did, disappointingly finding nothing of any note.
At 6:45 Leroy threw his pen down on the desk and massaged his neck. ‘This is hopeless. Let’s call it a night.’ He and Quinn began tidying their desks, putting the dozens of sheets of paper which had been strewn over the desks, back into four neat piles. Leroy shook his head. ‘Maybe we are pissing in the wind here. There’s no concrete evidence - absolutely none - that his background or his lifestyle was anything other than squeaky clean.’
‘Apart from why he left the Army,’ Quinn pointed out.
Leroy nodded. ‘Yeah. Apart from that. And why the service records appear to have been redacted to hide that.’ He sat back and ran his hand through his hair. ‘But I guess maybe years ago, someone thought it was the thing to do not to divulge why he really left the service. Maybe someone didn’t want the good Lieutenant-Colonel to suffer any embarrassment, any disgrace.’ He paused. ‘Does it say in any of the information we have about him whether his father was in the service as well?’
Quinn frowned. ‘I think he may have been. Why? Do you think someone was looking out for the old man?’
‘It’s a theory. I saw it once in the NYPD years back. A detective was caught pilfering some heroin which had been seized; thought he’d sell it back on the street. He got himself a dishonourable discharge of course; ended up taking a one way trip to Sing Sing as I recall. But his father was a Deputy Commissioner in Jersey and a few months after it all, the old man took early retirement. Died a few months later.
‘So maybe, if Hutchinson did have an old man also in the service, maybe a World War Two veteran, maybe decorated, then somebody wanted to spare him rather than Hutchinson himself.’
Quinn said, ‘They say shit runs uphill also.’
‘They do indeed. Anyway, apart from that, there’s nothing concrete I can see. So let’s call it a night, and start on Wong as the primary in the morning.’
They cleared their desks and made their way to the parking lot. As they separated to go to their own cars, Leroy turned to Quinn. ‘I still can’t get rid of the feeling we’re missing something, though.’
‘You’re just tired, Sam.’
‘Yeah, maybe you’re right. See you in the morning.’
*****
Leroy arrived at Julia’s at 7:40. He was able to park right outside her apartment building on Holly Court. Julia lived on the second floor, just above a shop. Leroy glanced up at the sign: Cutting Edge. Full Service, Hair, Spa, Nails, Foot Massage 310 305-2221. He noticed that some of the neon needed replacing as it read Full vice. Unfortunate, he thought.
Before entering the building, he looked around, searching for any figures waiting in parked cars. Although there was no way that creep Dwight Mason would know where Julia lived, he would still be happier when he was locked up.
Leroy tapped on the door to apartment L on the second floor. Within seconds, Julia opened it. She had changed from her work attire to a hooded pink sweatshirt and black jeans. They embraced as he stepped in.
Leroy followed her into the kitchen. ‘Something smells nice. What is it?’
She was stirring something in a wok. ‘Teriyaki Pork Salad.’
Leroy stared at the wok. ‘Salad. Right.’
‘Hey, Detective. You’ll enjoy it.’
‘I’m sure I will.’
He did.
And the Berry Almond Tart, which Julia admitted had come from the supermarket.
*****
After they had cleaned up, they sat on Julia’s sofa, a glass of red wine each. Julia told him a little about her day, including an argument she had had with another teacher about a stock of history text books; then it was Leroy’s turn.
‘You see,’ he said, after giving her an edited summary of the day, ‘Murray Hutchinson and Anthony Wong each had a totally different profile. Wong was Asian, for a start; not exactly affluent, and much younger.’ He paused, in thought.
‘What is it, Sam?’ asked Julia.
He stood up. ‘I just need to go home.’
‘You what?’ she asked.
‘Just to pick something up. Something at home. I’ll be back before you know it.’
Before Julia could respond, he was rushing out. ‘Double lock the door,’ he called out.
‘Thank God I’ve only had one drink,’ he said aloud as the Taurus pulled away, its tyres protesting with a screech.
He was outside his own home in ten minutes. Rather than heading for the entrance, he ran to the blue Herbie Curbie standing at the side of the building. He lifted the lid: it was full of newspapers.
‘Shit,’ he said, tipping the container on its side. A mountain of folded newspapers spilt out. He sifted through the papers, until he found what he was looking for. Frantically, he leafed through the newspaper.
Then
hit jackpot.
FORTY-FIVE
‘DON’T YOU EVER rest?’ Russell Hobson, ME, asked. ‘Have you any idea what the time is? Where are you?’
‘I’m in my car, outside Julia’s apartment.’
‘Well, I suggest you get inside it.’
‘I will in a minute, Russ. I just want to check something with you.’
‘Okay. Hit me.’
‘It was something you said Friday night.’
‘I said a lot of things Friday night. If I said it later in the evening, then I don’t recall it.’
‘You said something about seeing a lot of retired men recently. More than normal.’
‘Err – yes. That’s true. Kind of. What’s up?’
‘Where shall I start? Last week, Ray and I had to go up to Salinas Valley State Prison. On the way there, I picked up a local newspaper. It has a report about a guy, mid sixties, going by the name of Felix Greer, up in Soledad. Hanged himself ten days ago.’
‘The name doesn’t mean anything to me.’
‘I’m digging around here, Russ. Tell me about the guy who died of a PB sandwich.’
‘Tell you what?’
‘You said you had a guy in who died of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.’
‘Oh, yes; I remember.’
‘Tell me about it again. Just the bare facts.’
‘I see. Where shall I start?’
‘Just keep it simple, Russ.’
‘Well, you know some people are allergic to peanuts?’
‘Yes, I know that. Not sure how it works, though.’
‘Okay. Peanut allergy is the most common food allergy, right?’
‘Go on.’ As he listened to Hobson on his phone, Leroy kept looking around.