LOS ANGELES -- Sundown in Compton, on a busy boulevard, where the beat is thumping from cars passing by, windows open. It’s typical for these streets, basically, especially after 6 p.m. Working class folks are unwinding and headed home, except for those at M&M Star Car Wash and Detailing, where a dozen weary employees have just enough energy left to shoot a collective eye-roll in the direction of their otherwise beloved boss.

They just overheard his brief phone conversation with someone running late: “Man, we’re ‘bout to close, but bring it real quick,” a common response from a businessman who kept the cash register and the customer happy. Whenever the workers are ready to punch the clock there’s always someone driving in trying to beat it, and that’s when Mark Leonard -- they called him by his nickname, “Mick” -- tells his staff: “We’ll do one more.”

And they answer: “Mick, you always say one more.”

As the small and soiled pickup truck arrived and received a scrubbing, Leonard and his wife, Jacquelyne, who worked in the back office handling the books, stood on the lot at 413 North Wilmington, ready to lock up for the night, yet still caught up in the afterglow from the day before. That’s when she told him he was going to be a father again; each had children from previous relationships but this was their first together as a couple after trying for years. He was thrilled. That night, he broke the news to relatives and then fetched her favorite fruits from the grocery. He wanted her to eat healthy the next nine months.

"With the kids, he was a teddy bear,” she said, “and with me, he gave me everything.”

Mark Leonard was murdered on Jan. 18, 2008 at a car wash he owned and operated.

One of Leonard’s other children, a son, would be playing a high school basketball tournament in about an hour and Leonard feared the evening rush on the 405 Freeway.

And just then: Someone else appeared on the lot and approached quickly, not by car, but by footstep, and with a strut.

“Who in the hell?” Jacquelyne remembers saying.

Mark Leonard came from the South Side of Chicago, then was raised and lived most of his entire adult life in and around Compton. People with that geographical bloodline usually carry a gene for detecting danger. His sixth sense did not betray him this day; indeed, the man reached for a handgun under his shirt and aimed.

The first shot sent Leonard stumbling and the employees scattering. He told his wife to run and pushed her toward the office. She did not fall; she stayed steady on her feet, actually, and did as she was told. Her husband was right behind her. Until he wasn’t.

“I ran into the building and when I realized he wasn’t with me, I ran back and stood at the window and watched, and the guy was standing over him and shooting him,” she says.

When the pistol emptied, the gunman turned to her, then turned away and disappeared down the block. At 43, Mark Leonard was a husky man, 6-foot-3 and pushing 300 pounds by his wife’s estimation, a body built from playing football at nearby Banning High School and layered by her tacos. But he couldn’t survive multiple gunshot wounds, not that the punctures discouraged a shaken wife from reacting reflexively after rushing out the building. She collapsed on him, tears mixing with blood, then begged him.

“Get up,” she said. “You got to get up.”

And:

“What about the baby?”

* * *

There are over 18,000 murder cases cramming the digital library at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and roughly half are unsolved. When a case stalls, it sits until detectives receive what’s known in investigative parlance as “the magic phone call,” meaning, a tipster who helps blow the dust off that particular whodunit. But that could be weeks, months, years, even decades -- if ever.

In Compton, glorified as the birthplace of gangsta rap, a South-Central township of 100,000 proud residents who grapple with an exhausting history of crime and gang violence, the unsolved rate is among California’s highest. Recent studies show 59% of killers get away with murder. Compton is home to Adams Mortuary, believed to be the country’s only drive-thru funeral home, with a bullet-proof glass partition, which became necessary because a rise in cemetery shootouts made gang members skittish about paying their respects.

One particular case is now 11 years old and stayed untouched until this summer. There is renewed interest and buzz in the Mark Leonard case and partly because the son whose high school game the father never made on Jan. 18, 2008 is a two-time NBA Finals MVP and now with the LA Clippers.

In a quirky twist, Kawhi Leonard could be a factor in his father’s case all because he became superb at basketball, and as a free agent last summer signed with one of L.A.’s hometown teams, citing a desire to be closer to friends and family as a reason.

With Kawhi Leonard back in Los Angeles, there is renewed interest in his father's case.

“Just to be able to have them drive to the games and watch me play and see them afterward is going to be great,” he said the day he was officially introduced as a Clipper.

Kawhi was 16 and a high school junior when Mark Leonard was slain and seemingly not on the path to beating LeBron James and Steph Curry for championships back then; all he had in common with his current self was his now-trademark cornrows. Although Kawhi was a late-rising star among Southern California prep players, the chatter he generated was strictly regional and he eventually signed with San Diego State, not one of the nation’s basketball powerhouse schools.

But now, as an NBA superstar, savior of the Clippers and future Hall of Famer?

“Kawhi’s popularity can help,” says Shaun McCarthy, a detective in the Unsolved Unit. “He wasn’t famous when his dad died. But even some of the baddest criminals may be sympathetic to Kawhi, who is beginning to do good things in the community. Maybe someone out there says, `I didn’t know that was Kawhi’s dad’ and tells us something. This happens often in high profile cases. Look, it’s all `what-ifs’ and `maybes’. Maybe someone in trouble with the law knows about this murder and may be more willing to provide that now, knowing it will give him consideration in his case. They may benefit by giving up information.”

McCarthy said the process of interviewing witnesses and exploring new angles has already begun for other reasons he hesitates to divulge, citing the ongoing nature of the case.

“I’ve decided, `Let’s investigate these things,’” he said. “We can either put it to bed or maybe solve these things. It’s a long shot, but I’m optimistic we can identify some people.”