Authors: Philip Cox
FIFTY-TWO
Leroy decided he
would shower at his own apartment. There was no Julia there to shower with him, and in any case, he preferred his own: the water was faster and the temperature easier to control. He made himself more coffee, dressed in the previous day’s clothes, and walked back to his own place, taking with him the file Julia had left out for him.
Once home, he showered and shaved, dressed, fixed himself some
more eggs and more coffee, and sat down with the file. While he was in the shower, he remembered where he had heard the name Emma recently: when he and Domingo visited Lance Riley’s workplace in Century City, they were met with the office manager. Her name was Emma. Emma Kennedy. Could she be Davison’s sister? He recalled that there were no bands on her left hand, so she appeared unmarried. So, why Kennedy, not Davison? Also, unless she looked remarkable well for her age, she seemed too young to be the Secretary’s sister. But there had always been something about her that didn’t quite ring true.
He swung round and switched on his laptop. While he waited for it to boot up, he rang
Quinn. Much to his surprise, his partner answered immediately.
‘Hey there, big boy,’ came
Quinn’s cheerful voice. ‘How you doin’? Where you calling from today?’
Leroy laughed. ‘Still at home. Was just about to leave to see those other guys on that list. Was just wondering if you knew much about
Davison.’
‘About him personally, you mean?’
‘U-huh. In particular about his family.’
A moment’s pause. ‘As far as I know, he’s a pretty normal family life. Married a dozen years or so, a couple of sons.’
‘No,’ said Leroy. ‘I was thinking siblings.’
‘Siblings? Don’t know, off hand. I’m sure there’s something on the internet; you want me to -?’
‘No, it’s okay; I’m online here now. I’ll search.’
‘Sure. What you getting at, Sam?’
‘It’s something that came up last night. I was trying to figure out what connection Davison has with out here.’
‘Yeah, go on.’
‘It turns out that he had family out here. A sister. She’s called Emma.’
‘And
?’
‘One of the John Does worked in an office in
Century City. Domingo and I went to visit the place early on in the investigation, and the person in charge there, the office manager, was a woman called Emma Kennedy.’
‘And
?’ repeated Quinn.
‘It’s just a theory, I know, but when we visited the offices, she seemed…seemed obstructive.’
‘Obstructive? How so? Don’t tell me, Sam: somehow she managed to piss you off, and so she’s your number one suspect. Been here before, haven’t we?’
‘Maybe
so. Yes, she did piss me off somehow; I think it was her superior attitude. But there was one tangible thing. We were asking about sites the vic might have been visiting.’
‘You mean like that dating place? Dates 4 you or something?’
‘Yeah. He’d wiped the search history on his device. I asked her if there was any way we could retrieve what he had deleted. I’m no computer geek, Ray, as you know, but I’m sure I had read that a computer retains everything, even though it’s been deleted.’
‘That’s right; it does.’
‘Well, we asked her that, and she said it was possible. Offered to check the device for us.’
‘Go on.’
‘She’s the manager of an office in an IT firm, for Christ’s sake. Surely she’d know everything would be retained? It’s on the hard drive, or something, wouldn’t it?’
‘It would. So, where are you going with this, Sam?’
‘Not quite certain, yet. Look, a few days back I passed the guy’s laptop over to the CCU to get it checked out. Has anything come back from them?’
‘CCU. Hold on.’ There was a short pause. ‘Sam, there is something. I guess so, anyway. It’s a laptop, sealed up. Hold on.’
While he waited, Leroy typed into his search bar:
George Davison family
. There were 1.7 million results. He started tabbing down.
‘Sam, you still there?’
Quinn asked.
‘Yeah, still here.’
‘Well, the CCU retrieved the last three months’ searches.’
‘Great. Anything of any interest?’
‘Well, out of the last fifty or so, there were at least one, two, three, four….ten visits to arrangeadate.com.’
‘That’s the place,’ Leroy exclaimed.
‘Okay; well, he was a regular visitor.’
‘I guessed as much. So - he was a visitor to the site, met up
with someone -’
‘And ended up dead,’ said
Quinn.
‘Yeah. Full of drugs.’
‘So,’ Quinn went on, ‘he used that site, deleted it from the search history to cover his tracks, as it were.’
‘And Emma Kennedy didn’t want us to retrieve that information from the hard drive. ‘
‘You said she offered to check it out for you?’
‘She did. And you can bet your ass she’d come back and say, “Sorry, Detective, we can’t find anything.”’
‘So - next steps? Anything you want me to do?’
‘Not sure if there’s anything you can at this time, but I’ll call you if there is. Keep you in the loop.’
‘Sure. You going to see Kennedy, then?’
‘Thought I’d start with her, yes. See what I can stir up.’
‘Okay, but take care, Sam.’
‘I will. Call you later.’
‘Yeah, speak to…hang on, Sam; there’s something that might be of interest.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I came across a report last night. It was a guy who was picked up the other night at the Blue Line stop at Florence and Graham. He was caught carrying out a scam with vehicles in the parking lot. When he was questioned, he gave the officers some story about a van pulling up, a guy falling out and puking up in the lot.’
‘Right…’
‘I’m wondering, it seemed from the kid’s story that the guy was thrown from the van. What if he was pumped full of drugs like the others, but survived somehow. A smaller dose, maybe. He would have thrown up, wouldn’t he?’
‘It’s possible, I guess.’
‘You want to speak to the kid? He’s been released, but we have his address.’
‘Did he get the van’s licence number?’
‘No. Just heard the other guy puke up.’
‘Has the other guy’s body been found?’
‘No, not as far as we can tell.’
‘So he might still be alive. It’s worth a shot. I don’t think it’s worth speaking to the kid, but a sample of that vomit might be useful, if it’s still there. It’s not rained for a while, so there might still be traces there. Maybe we could get a match to the stuff we found in the others. If you can, take a look at any CCTV for that area; see if you can see where he went. You might also get a shot of the vehicle he arrived in; maybe get a plate number. Anyway, you’ve got your day job,
Ray; once I’ve spoke to Ms Kennedy, I’ll call the hospitals nearest to that part of town and see if they treated the guy.’
‘Sounds a plan. Will be in touch.’
‘By the way: Major Crimes are going to be investigating Domingo’s shooting. Any word on how it’s going?’
‘Not really. Only that a couple of detectives are around. Have they contacted you yet?’
‘No, nothing.’
‘That’s odd. I would have thought you’d be one of the first they would want to speak to.’
‘Yeah, so would I. Anyway, I’ll speak to you later. What cases you dealing with by the way?’
‘It’s a stabbing at Grand Central Market. In fact, Sam, I think -’
‘I did. Good luck with that.’
As Leroy hung up, he clicked on an entry entitled
Secretary of Defence George Davison spends Christmas in California.
The article itself was from a DC newspaper. At the start of the text was a photograph of the Secretary and his own family.
And his sister, Emma Kennedy.
At the end of the article, there was a link to
Family History
. He clicked on that.
‘That explains it,’ he muttered as he read that she was in fact his half sister. His own father died when he was fifteen years old. His mother had remarried, and had a daughter with her second husband. Leroy frowned: but that differed from the official online biography he had read previously. Was
Davison trying to airbrush part of his life out of the public domain? It was just as Julia had said: just because something’s on the internet, it doesn’t mean it’s true.
FIFTY-THREE
By now, Leroy
knew the way to the Century City office. He parked the Taurus in the same spot he and Domingo had used previously. He walked past the sign for Culver Technologies and called the elevator.
At the sixth floor, he got out and walked down the hall to Emma Kennedy’s office. The frosted glass door was closed, but he could see two silhouettes sitting either side of her desk. Surprised nobody had approached him, he knocked on the door and opened it.
A wide-eyed Emma Kennedy was sitting behind her desk; opposite was the other employee they saw at their last visit.
‘Detective
Leroy,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘This is a surprise. Give us a moment, Rolando, would you?’
Rolando stood up. ‘Sure thing, Emma.’ He turned and left, nodding to Leroy as he passed him.
‘How can I help you, Detective?’ she asked. ‘I thought we were done.’
‘Just a couple more questions.’
‘Mm?’
‘Concerning Lance Riley’s laptop. You might recall we were interested in the websites he visited before he died.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘And that he had deleted his search history. Maybe to cover his tracks; he
was in a relationship, you know.’
She adjusted her jacket and shifted some papers on her desk. ‘I know that. What does this have to do with us here?’
‘You very kindly offered to check out his laptop for us. You know, to see if the addresses he had deleted could be retrieved.’
‘That’s right, I did.’
‘Well, my colleagues at the Computer Crimes Unit checked his hard drive and found….well, they have provided the last three months’ history.’
‘And where did he visit?’
‘That’s neither here nor there. What I’m interested in, Ms Kennedy, is how you appeared to imply that the history might not be retrievable, when in fact, the hard disk retains everything.’
She shrugged. ‘Oh, I didn’t know,’ she replied nonchalantly.
‘Come on, Ms Kennedy. This is an IT company, isn’t it? And you’re the office manager, aren’t you? Are you telling me-?’
‘I’m not telling you anything, Detective,’ she replied angrily, rising from her chair. ‘Now leave my office.’
Leroy said nothing; did not move.
‘I said leave this office,’ she repeated,
becoming angrier. ‘Why are you here anyway? You’ve no right to be here! The case is closed, and you’re on vacation!’
FIFTY-FOUR
Leroy said nothing.
Not in order to be macho, or intimidating, or to make her speak next, but for the simple reason that he could not think of what to say. This outburst from Emma Kennedy took him by surprise, although it may have answered a few questions.
‘I said what do you think you’re doing here?’ she repeated.
Leroy said nothing.
‘I think you’d better leave this minute,’ she said. ‘Or shall I ring your Captain?’ her hand wavered over the telephone on her desk.
Leroy straightened up. ‘Keep your shirt on. I’m leaving. I only had a couple of questions.’
‘Not for me,’ she said. ‘Now, leave.’
He turned to leave. As he rested his hand on her office door handle, he paused, turning back. ‘Don’t worry. You’ve already answered them.’ He waited a second for some facial reaction from her, then left. As he walked back down to the elevator, his phone beeped. As he waited for the elevator to reach the floor, he checked who had sent him a text. It was
Quinn. The elevator arrived; as it took him down to the first floor, he checked the message.
wasn’t sure what youd be doin rite now call me asap
.
As he walked back to the car, he rang his partner, groaned when he got voicemail, then left a message for
Quinn to call him.
He sat quietly in his car before turning on the engine, leaning forward in his seat, craning up to get a view of the building windows. He counted up to the sixth floor, and squinted. He would have liked to say he could see Emma Kennedy looking out of her office window at him, but the windows were tinted and merely reflected the morning sunlight.
He sat back in his seat, thinking. How the hell could she have known about the case being closed and that he was on vacation? There was only one answer: someone in the Department had told her. Or certainly told somebody outside the LAPD; how else would she have known? That would certainly tie in with his theory that Domingo and Connor were murdered by another cop.
He needed to think, and thought best after a large cup of strong coffee, so started up the car, and pulled away. Ten minutes later, he pulled up outside
Food
, a red fronted building on West Pico. He found himself a single table near the rear of the café, and paid his $2.75 for a large coffee. In normal circumstances, he might have also ordered a Danish pastry or a muffin; however, this establishment was an eclectic café serving seasonal and healthy food, so today it was just coffee.
He sat back in his red chair and thought through what had happened so far today. He had gone to that office with the knowledge that Emma Kennedy was George
Davison’s younger sister, or half-sister to be precise. He was seventy-five percent certain that whatever was linking the deaths of Lance Riley, Ted Parker, and Guy Robbins, it was taking place in the house off Mulholland Drive. That house was owned by Davison. She was Davison’s half-sister; very early on in, she tried to obstruct the investigation. And someone, somewhere, had given the orders that the cases were unrelated and accidental death. That would suggest somebody high in the food chain, and logic would say that the most senior person involved in all of this was the Secretary himself. But they needed evidence; something concrete and tangible, not just theories.
He was not quite sure what he expected to get out of his second interview with Emma Kennedy; frequently, if a case had stalled, he would go on a fishing trip with one of the suspects, just to provoke a reaction, and to see what they did next. So from one point of view, his visit there this morning was a success: it had confirmed all his suspicions. The question now was: what next?
He checked his phone again for word from Quinn. There was none. For a moment, he considered calling his partner again, but stopped himself. He knew Quinn well enough to know he would return the call as soon as he could, and did not want to disturb him while he was working, presumably at Grand Central Market, carrying on from where Leroy himself had left off.
Next step would be to visit the three others whose cars were parked outside the mansion. Then he would check out the hospitals nearest the
Florence and Graham Blue Line station. He checked the list. First there was a Jamal Edwards, down in Culver City. That’s useful, he thought; only a short drive away. He finished his coffee and returned to his car.
‘Well, I’m damned,’ he said aloud as he set Jamal Edwards’ address into his Sa
tNav. The address was on Barman Avenue, Culver City, just across the street from a Clover Park, not the Clover Park he had visited a few days earlier. Maybe that’s good karma, he wondered as he set off; or maybe bad karma, as his enquiries at the other Clover Park proved fruitless.
Jamal Edwards’ house was a small, single storey dwelling at the end of a narrow but long front yard. There was a neatly cut lawn out front, with a flagstone path leading through the middle. At the side of the lawn, separating it from the long driveway, was a modest flowerbed, with pink flowers and small shrubs dotted around. Leroy was unable to park the Taurus directly outside as the front was blocked by three trash bins, green, black, blue. Instead, he parked on the house’s driveway.
The fact that there were three Herbie Curbies outside in common with other houses in the street suggested that somebody was around, although there was no vehicle on the driveway leading up to the garage, and all the windows were shut.
He stepped up to the front door and pressed the bell. He could hear it ring faintly inside, but that was the only sound he could hear. He waited a moment, then rang it again. Still no answer. He stepped along the front patio to a window and looked in. The house certainly looked occupied. Maybe he was at work. He had no idea of Edwards’ marital status, but all of the victim’s from the other night were in a stable relationship. Family maybe, but this house looked too small for a family, just large enough for a couple.
He walked round the side of the house. There was a small, brick built chimney attached to the side: too small to be a traditional chimney; maybe an air-conditioning flue, or maybe just cosmetic. A large bougainvillea bush with pink flowers clung to the side of the house.
The garage was at the end of the driveway; its brown metal door was closed. Leroy tried it; it was locked. A black wrought iron gate separated the garage and drive from the back yard. Through the gate Leroy could see a neatly mown lawn matching the one out front, with neat flower beds either side. From the rear, the house looked empty.
A neat, tidy house, a neat and tidy garden, Leroy thought. Obviously Jamal Edwards was not a drunken drug addict. Fits the profile of the others; respectable family man with a dark secret.
Leroy tried the gate - it was locked – then returned to the front of the house. I
n all probability Edwards lived here with his wife or partner, and they were both out. It looked like a one bedroom place, so there were probably no children; therefore they were both at work. Left the trash out for collection this morning, then left for work. He opened his glove compartment and took out a business card. Wrote a note on the reverse asking Edwards to call him on his cell and put the car in the mailbox.
A gust of warm air caught him as he opened his car door; he paused and lifted his head to take in the draft. It was a warm, humid day, and the warm wind did nothing to temper that.
Back in the car, he checked the next name on the list. ‘Oh shit,’ he said aloud as he read the address: it was Oakland. No way was he going to drive there; a phone call would have to suffice. Something he would do later. Or maybe not: if one assumed he was in LA on business, then he might still be; a call to the home address might reveal where he was working and staying. He got into the car and dialled Information. Got the number, and dialled. He immediately got the ringing tone, but nothing else. He let it ring for a full minute, when he heard somebody knocking on the car roof. He hung up. An elderly man was standing by his door. ‘Can I help you, son?’ the man asked.
Leroy took out his identification; the man stiffened when he saw it.
‘I’m looking for Jamal Edwards,’ Leroy said.
‘Looking for Jamal? Why, he’s not in any trouble?’
Leroy shook his head. ‘It’s just routine. I guess I have the right house then? Would he be at work?’
‘Sure, sure. He left this morning, around six thirty.’
‘Do you know where he works?’
‘Sorry, son; I know he works in an office Downtown somewhere. Don’t rightly know where.’
‘When’s he normally home?’
The old man shrugged. ‘Normally around seven, I guess.’
‘What about his wife?’
‘Wife? No, Jamal ain’t married.’
‘Okay. Girlfriend, then.’
The old man laughed. ‘You got it all wrong, son. Jamal lives with
another guy.’
‘Oh. Right.’
‘Yeah, a really nice white guy. Frankie.’
‘I see. And when will Frankie be back?’
‘’bout six thirty. Just before Jamal gets in. Shall I give them a message?’
‘No, it’s okay, thanks. I put a note through the door
already.’
‘That’s good.’ The old man finished talking and stood by the car.
Leroy looked up at him. ‘Thanks for all your help. I’ll let you get on.’
The old man got the hint. ‘No worrie
s, son.’ He knocked on the car roof and shuffled off.
Leroy watched him disappear round the corner, then leaned forward to start the engine. So, Jamal Edwards was gay. Did that make any difference to things? Probably not: if the mansion was a high class whore house, then they might cater for all tastes. Some places also provide male hookers. Or Edwards might actually be bisexual.
He decided to get something to eat before he went to see the third name and called the hospitals. He turned out of Barman, into Overland. There were plenty of eating places he knew on Venice Boulevard, so headed up there.
Traffic on
Overland was heavy, and he had only gone a hundred yards or so when his phone rang. It was Quinn.
Leroy snatched the phone off the seat. ‘Talk to me
Ray.’
‘Sam, are you driving?’
‘Yeah, why?’
‘You need to pull over.’
‘Huh?’
‘Pull over now.’
Leroy indicated and jerked the wheel to the right to get the Taurus on the side of the road. A car horn blared at him; Leroy gave the driver his middle finger. The other driver pulled up alongside to remonstrate, but pulled away one Leroy showed him his badge. He picked the phone up again.
‘Right, I’m pulled over. What’s up?’
‘You remember that incident at the Blue Line station?’
‘Sure. Any luck there?’
‘Yes. I got hold of the parking lot CCTV and made the vehicle.’
‘Well done.’
‘It was a Ford E-350 wagon.’
‘Did you get the licence plate?’
‘Sure did.’
‘And?’
‘It was registered to a company called GD Enterprises.’
‘Oh. Do we know anything about the company?’
‘Only who owns it.’
‘And who’s that?’
‘Think about it, Sam. GD. Secretary of Defence George Davison.’