Hard Exit, page 1
HARD EXIT
A JACK DRAKE PRIVATE-EYE MYSTERY
BRUCE LEONARD
HARD EXIT
A Jack Drake Private-Eye Mystery
Book 1
Bruce Leonard
Published by Eye-Time Press
Copyright © 2024 Bruce Leonard
All rights reserved.
This is a novel, meaning it’s fiction. The characters came from my imagination, so they’re not based on anyone, living or dead. If one of the characters reminds you of your Uncle Ned, well, that’s just coincidence. If you’d like to reproduce part or all of this book, you are not legally allowed to do so, either electronically or digitally. Doing so would violate the copyright, and then lawyers would have to get involved. Although some of my friends are lawyers, I’d rather not involve them because I probably owe them money.
Cover Design: Eva Spring and Getcovers.com
Cover Photo: Bruce Leonard
Connect with me at bruceleonardwriter.com.
First Edition
Printed in the United States of America
Created with Vellum
CONTENTS
Dedication
Other Books by Bruce Leonard
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Acknowledgments
About the Author
DEDICATION
I dedicate Hard Exit to Sedonia Sipes, the most impressive wife anyone has ever known, to my parents, and to my brother and sister. And I’d like to send a special thank you to Mike Krentz and Jayne Ann Krentz.
OTHER BOOKS BY BRUCE LEONARD
Quilt City Murders, the first Hadley Carroll Mystery, named Best Mystery of 2022 by the National Indie Excellence Awards
Quilt City: Panic in Paducah, the second
Quilt City: Measure Once, Cut Twice, the third
Quilt City: Proving a Negative, the fourth
Quilt City Cookbook, a companion book narrated by Hadley at her funniest and most vulnerable
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https://www.bruceleonardwriter.com
I’ll let you know when I release new books.
My books are all available via my website.
CHAPTER ONE
I lifted the kayak onto the hooks under the house and knew the workout hadn’t cleared my head. After releasing the stairs down to Broad Beach, I climbed them and rinsed off in the outside shower on the side of the house. Stepping out of my bathing suit, I dried off, opened the sliding-glass door, and pushed “play” on the stereo. Miles Davis’ “So What” filled the room. I picked up my cell phone from the kitchen counter and listened to my messages.
“Jack, it’s Mike. There’s been a shooting in Oakville, near the school. Call me ASAP.” The next message, from my neighbor and best friend, Jennifer, said, “It will be okay, Jack. You can dodge whatever Amanda throws at you. You always have. Let me know how it goes.” Mike’s second message said, “Where are you, jackass? Meet me at 164 Ivy.” Followed by Amanda cooing, “Sweetbuns, I miss you. You better be home when I get there because I have a surprise for you. Kisses.”
I headed to Oakville.
Why would Mike involve a private investigator, especially a lazy one like me based in Malibu, in a shooting in the inner city? That was police territory, although the Oakville police were notoriously incompetent.
If you committed a murder in Oakville, you had a seventy-six percent chance of getting away with it. Rape, ninety-three percent. Mike Sherwood knew this, which meant he had a personal interest in this shooting. He and I went way back, so I knew he wouldn’t involve me frivolously.
On the drive, I was grateful for the distraction of the Oakville excursion. My girlfriend, Amanda Bigelow, a movie star, would return from two months in Italy that night. She’d been on location in Milan, staying in a magnificent villa, but I was willing to bet she’d visited the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. Her last visit to this famous bridge lined with shops had led to her spending $33,000 on a sapphire necklace that she wore to the Academy Awards, then claimed she could never wear it again in public.
Unlike most PIs, I’m principled, but only to a point. My job often requires me to find dirt on someone—ugliness I can use to blackmail a blackmailer. Almost as often, I bury unfortunate realities. The movie stars, with help from their public-relations flaks, have created their images—from squeaky-clean to seductively scandalous—and I help to prop up those images, regardless of the truth. Obviously, I can name my price because in Hollywood all publicity is not good publicity, despite rumors to the contrary.
Of course, you don’t have to have talent to own a house on the sand in Malibu. The one I lived in with Amanda—the $30 million profusion of spires and turrets, surrounded by glass and topped with patina, all suspended by some architectural sleight of hand twenty feet above the breakers—is a showpiece owned by a woman who couldn’t act surprised if she found a horse’s head in her bed.
She and I lived near the gnarled finger of rock known as Victoria Point that juts into the sea. Our neighbor Jennifer Pearson hired me twice. She owns the architectural marvel two doors away. She’s smart, educated, funny, gorgeous, and as broken as the rest of us.
As I passed Santa Monica High School, my cell rang. I hit the answer button on the steering wheel without looking to see who was calling.
“Jack Drake.”
“Where the hell are you?” Mike asked.
“Passing the Lincoln exit.”
“Well, hurry up. Game was hit, but superficially. Five others in the park didn’t make it, though.”
“Who’s Game?”
“Wendell Jackson. Our point guard, remember?”
“Right. Quick as hell.”
“Good kid, but in the wrong place at the wrong time today. Crispus Attucks Park. Borders on ironic. Game’s been heading in a bad direction, so I can use your help. Step on it.”
I headed east on the 105 until I reached Oakville. I saw many mom-and-pop eateries, and every major intersection was anchored by at least two fast-food restaurants. Korean grocers fought for space among the bail-bonds shacks, check-cashing stores, chop shops, and auto-parts chains. And every second block featured a liquor store.
I wanted to examine the shooting scene before I went to Game’s house. I asked Siri the location of the park, then headed there. When I arrived, I saw a park nothing like the ones I grew up playing in. One basketball court didn’t have a hoop at either end, only the remains of fiberglass backboards. The seesaw, monkey bars, swings, and slide sat on blacktop cobwebbed by ruts, and the entire baseball field was nothing but dirt.
I inched my way past the park. Half of the Oakville PD had set up out front. In the next row were the television crews doing stand-ups at the curb. The crews’ vans were parked in the eastbound lanes of Mallory, and that side of the street had been blocked off by black-and-whites, so the news vans weren’t impeding traffic. The police, however, appeared to be upset because the newscasters and reporters were badgering them for information about the shooting. And I’m sure the news chopper circling overhead didn’t please any of the city officials.
Groups of three or four teens milled about, some of them being asked by the media what they thought about the events of a couple hours earlier. I stopped, rolled down my window, and saw a young, well-dressed blond woman extend a mic to a large male teenager I guessed was Samoan—wearing Osh Kosh overalls but no shirt. I heard him respond to her question by asking, “Would I a been in the park, lady, if I knew it was jumpin’ off?”
I drove to the end of the block and turned left at the corner. The other cars checking out the scene turned right, heading out of the residential area the park was located in and into downtown Oakville. I followed the yellow crime-scene tape along the chain-link fence that bordered the two tennis courts without nets. Officers were posted at each corner. Plainclothes detectives wandered around, looking for the clue that would solve the case and get them out of the media’s spotlight.
Lab techs had chalked the outlines of five bodies, which presumably had been taken to the morgue. Dozens of small white plastic markers with black numbers printed on them were scattered around, trying to establish order out of chaos.
But there was no way to tell in which order the bullets had landed, let alone to deduce anything about the shooters. Authorities could tell by the pattern of the spray where the shooters had been standing, which was relevant. But the exercise was nothing more than theater, performed for the sake of appearances.
I pulled to the curb and tuned the radio to KNX. After two minutes I heard a report o
The newscaster said, “The investigation is ongoing,” then added: “Not much is known at this time, except the perpetrators were last seen leaving Crispus Attucks Park, heading west in an old, brown Honda Accord.” Next, a male Latino who witnessed the shooting was quoted: “These guys in no hurry. They just walk fast away, no big deal.” Then came a report on the status of the freeways. I turned off the radio.
Oakville’s population was about sixty percent Latino, twenty-five percent Black, ten percent Samoan, and five percent Asian. The municipality’s only real distinction was that twice in the last five years it had led the nation in gang-related murders. The school district was so atrocious that Mike had told me that many of the students in his tenth- and eleventh-grade English classes could barely read, let alone comprehend Julius Caesar and Great Expectations.
A tap on the window startled me. I lowered it to a young police cadet who asked, “You got some reason for being here, sir?” The “sir” obviously pained him.
“I’m a private investigator.” I flashed him my license. “I’m curious what happened. Any progress?”
“Ain’t you outta your jurisdiction?”
“P.I.s are licensed by the state. But I’m not from here, if that’s what you’re asking.” I smiled to let him know I wasn’t there to cause trouble. He didn’t buy it.
“Well, okay, but this is a crime scene, so—”
“You mind if I look at something?”
“What?”
“The dirt between the court and the road?”
“That’s part of the crime scene.”
“Not trying to hassle you, but the scene’s on the inside of the tape, and I just need to look at the outside.”
“I guess. Just don’t touch nothin’.”
I got out of the car and began to walk in the street. The yellow tape that read Police Line Do Not Cross was strung around the four courts on the basketball stanchions, well inside the park. It took me about a minute before I found what I was looking for: fresh shoeprints in the dirt that the shooters could have made while leaving. A real police department—or a conscientious Boy Scout troop—would have had the whole area cordoned off, at least to the sidewalk on the other side of the street. But this was Oakville.
The officer had been shadowing me. I asked, “Do you know if the techs made casts of these shoe prints?” I knew they hadn’t because no residue and no other fresh prints existed around those of the shooters. But I figured I’d let him present the idea as his own to his superiors. He’d either be praised or sacked.
“Don’t think so.”
“Probably won’t get anything off them, and they could be anyone’s, but this guy wore Nike running shoes, size twelve or thirteen. And this guy wore what look like work boots. See the small slice there, on the heel? That could be useful, you find the guy. You’ll call the techs?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Good luck.” As I pulled away, I saw him talk into the radio on his left breast, letting his superiors know of his discovery. How they would bungle the investigation, I could only guess.
CHAPTER TWO
Ivy Street was only four blocks long, beginning at Alameda Street and ending in a cul-de-sac that abutted a small park. There must not have been a homeowners association to enforce standards because the houses ran from nicely maintained, with well-tended lawns and cared-for flowerbeds, to run-down and decrepit, including one house with an ancient gray Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme up on blocks in the driveway.
Game’s house was of the well-maintained variety—small, painted sky blue with yellow trim. The lawn, bisected by a brick walkway, had been recently mowed. On the left side of the house stood a large sycamore tree. On the right, the driveway ran beneath a closed white gate into the backyard. A forest-green Toyota Corolla was parked in the driveway, outside the gate. I found a spot at the curb, got out, grabbed my jacket, and locked the car.
“You must be Jack,” Rachelle Jackson said after opening her front door. She had a natural hairstyle that framed her face. The red in the corners of her big, brown eyes told me she’d been crying. She looked about forty. “Hello, I’m Rachelle, Wendell’s mama.”
“Nice to meet you, Rachelle.”
We shook hands, then went inside. I set my jacket on the nearest chair.
“Sorry I’m late. I stopped by the park first. What a mess.”
Mike and Wendell were inside the small living room. Mike held a bottle of Miller Lite and leaned against the doorjamb to the kitchen. He wore chocolate slacks, brown wingtips, and a silk rep tie that picked up the royal blue in his dress shirt.
Game was lying on the couch, his head propped up by pillows, his legs hanging out of sight over the far edge. He wore his hair shaved on the sides with an elevated flattop. He didn’t wear a shirt and had a bandage on his left shoulder. He wore baggy jeans cinched below his waist with a thick, black belt.
“Did you forget the accelerator is the pedal on the right?” Mike asked.
“Hush,” Rachelle said. “Can I get you something to drink, Jack? Soda, beer, something stronger?”
“A Diet Coke would be great, if you have it. Thanks. Hi, I’m Jack.” I put out my hand, and Wendell surprised me by sitting up and looking me in the eyes as we shook. He said, “What up? I’m Game.”
“Nice to meet you, Game. I like the way you run the point. Saw you dish twelve assists against Crenshaw last season.”
“Thanks, man. Just finding the open man, like Coach Sherwood taught us.”
“How bad’s your shoulder?”
“Ain’t nothing.” He waited two seconds then added, “Thanks for asking.”
I sat down in one of two flowered armchairs.
Rachelle reentered the room with my soda and handed it to me. She sat next to the couch in the other armchair. I looked around the room. The décor was minimal: a few large candles, souvenirs from not-very-distant locales, and three photos of boys on the shelves. The pictures looked like official school portraits, the kind in which subjects pose unnaturally. One was of Wendell.
“What did you find at the park?” she asked. “Forgive me for not getting to know you better before I start badgering you, but it’s been a rough day.”
“You think it rough? I the one got hit,” Game said.
“English, Wendell. Is this what you teach him in that class of yours?” she asked, turning to Mike.
He opened his mouth to respond but rethought whatever he was about to say. He gestured with his head for me to follow him, and we walked through the kitchen and into the backyard.
Mike had been best man when I’d married Jami, my late wife, and I’d been there for him when his father died and when a drunk driver killed his sister.
A cinder-block wall enclosed the small rectangle of the backyard. A young peach tree didn’t bear fruit yet in the corner farthest from the kitchen door. A transparent Plexiglas backboard was mounted on the roof, above the left side of the back door. We sat on the steps.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Graduation was at noon today. Every year, the graduates pretend to be hopeful, but they know the deck’s stacked against them. Anyway, summer’s here, so Game’s playing full-court pickup with older guys, members of his set, or gang, called the MLKs. Shooters pull up right at game-point, so the players’ and onlookers’ attention is elsewhere. Shooters get close enough to hit seven of the fifteen people on and around the court in a matter of seconds, then they walk away. Game got hit and was lucky because a much bigger guy stood between him and the shooters. The big guy didn’t make it. We don’t know much other than it’s between da Uptown Posse and Game’s MLKs, but he won’t tell us any more than that.”
