Cooper By The Gross (All 144 Cooper Stories In One Volume)

by Bill Bernico

  The space above was silent and dark. I pointed the flashlight upwards and pressed my face against the floorboards overhead. From between the small crack, I could see the beam of light from my flashlight illuminating the ceiling but not much more.

  “What a cracker box,” I said. “All that money and they never bothered reinforcing the floor. I guess they figured that if anyone was going to try to snatch the payroll, they’d do it from upstairs.”

  I aimed the light back at the newly formed hole and stepped back out to the tunnel side. “Payday’s tomorrow morning. That must mean that the payroll’s up there already. Much as I’d like to see that jerk fall on his ass on this one, I better tell Hollister about it.”

  Squeezing past the pile of bricks, I crawled back out to the apple cellar. I withdrew from the hole and was about to stand up when I found myself staring at a pair of pants. The pants were filled with the legs of Mrs. Kilgore.

  “Good evening, Mr. Cooper,” she said as I stood fully up. “How nice of you to finish Nate’s work for him.”

  I was now staring into the barrel of Mrs. Kilgore’s .38 snub nose. Mrs. Kilgore stepped back, out of my reach, and extended her hand, pointing the gun at me. I started to speak but was distracted by the sight of the barrel aimed at me. I also noticed that she was holding the revolver in her left hand.

  “Well, well, Mrs. Kilgore. So this is what…” I started to say. I reached into my front jacket pocket.

  “Careful, Mr. Cooper,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to have to plug you right here. Now, slowly take your hand out of your pocket.”

  I did as I was told and held the silver earring up in front of Mrs. Kilgore’s face. She smiled a sly smile.

  “Lose something, Mrs. Kilgore?” I said, offering the earring to my assailant.

  “Please, Mr. Cooper, call me Lily,” Mrs. Kilgore said. “So that’s what happened to it. Where’d you find it?”

  “My house,” I said. “You’re sure a sloppy house keeper, aren’t you? And now I find you here. Could we both be after the same thing?”

  Mrs. Kilgore grabbed the earring and stepped back again. “And while you’re at it, Mr. Cooper, I’ll take your gun—slowly.”

  I eased my gun from the holster and handed it to Mrs. Kilgore, butt first. She threw it in the dirt and directed her attentions back to me.

  “I just thought I’d like to be here to welcome you out of that hole,” she said, smirking. “I knew your inquisitive mind wouldn’t rest until you got the answers you were after.”

  “But, why, I mean how, uh…” I began.

  “You were getting a little too close for comfort, Mr. Cooper,” she said. “And I couldn’t let months of planning fly out the window just because you wanted to be a hero, now could I?”

  The recently grieving Lily Kilgore now seemed composed and sure of herself as she spoke, all the while pointing her revolver in my face. “I don’t suppose it matters anymore, since you won’t live to tell anyone,” she said.

  “You shot Harry, didn’t you?” I said pointing my finger in Lily’s face.

  “You’re close, Matt,” she said. “Too close. Actually, Nate took care of that lose end. Harry and I got pretty friendly these past few months. You might say we were an item,” she said, half smiling to herself. Harry was just for laughs but that chump was starting to get serious and I had other plans. Besides, he was going to evict Nate from this building today and we weren’t quite ready to leave just yet.”

  I listened, my hands still raised in the air.

  “You know, I think Nate actually enjoyed snuffing Harry,” she said. “Harry was getting to be quite a thorn in our sides.”

  “And like a dope, I finished your work for you,” I said looking back at the hole in the wall.

  “Don’t think I don’t appreciate it, either,” she said. “Now all you gotta do is bring the bundle out and I’ll be on my way.”

  “And I’ll be yesterday’s news, is that right?”

  “That’s the breaks, kid,” she said. “Some win, some lose. You lose this time. Now get in there and finish what you started,” she said pointing to the hole with the revolver.

  I turned and dropped to my knees once more, my flashlight aimed in front of me as I crawled. Lily Kilgore was just two feet behind crawling and propping herself with one hand and pointing her gun at me with the other.

  When we reached the end of the tunnel, I stopped and grabbed the hatchet. Lily was quick to catch my move and warned, “Throw it into the crawlspace, Mr. Cooper,” and followed me into the area beneath Dennison’s office.

  I stopped and turned toward Lily, “You were the one I saw from my office window that night, weren’t you?”

  “Indeed, Mr. Cooper,” Lily admitted. “Nate was already back at the car. He thought I’d be there but I went snooping to make sure he did the job right—and he did.”

  “That brings me to another point, Mrs. Kilgore,” I said.

  “Please, Matt, call me Lily—while you can,” she said, snickering.

  “All right, Lily,” I said. “What was Harry doing in my office in the first place?”

  “Nate found out that Harry was planning to evict him prematurely and went next door to talk to him,” she said. “Harry was already closed but he let Nate in anyway. They got to arguing and a fight broke out. Harry ran from the back of the store and hightailed it to your office.”

  Lilly seemed to enjoy filling in the pieces for me, knowing I’d never be able to pass on the information.

  “But what about…” I started to say.

  “Never mind,” she said, picking up the hatchet and handing it to me. “Get those floorboards off and make it quick.”

  Reluctantly I inserted the blade into the crack and pried. The wood splintered as I took hold of the newly widened crack with the axe blade. Keeping my eyes on the floorboards, I continued to grill Lily Kilgore for answers. “What about Nate? Why did…?”

  Anticipating my next question, Lily interrupted, “Nate was getting a little too cocky for his own good. I found out he was planning to grab the cash and leave me here to take the fall so I followed him. When you left him locked up in your trunk, I saw my chance to finish him,” she said, almost proud of her accomplishments.

  The first floorboard creaked as I pried and pushed until the nails worked loose. I pushed up on the board and it flipped over. “If you were gonna kill him anyway, what was the big deal about getting back the lease?” I said, returning my attentions to the second floorboard.

  “It was important at first,” she said. “That dimwit Marcheske told Nate he was taking the lease to his lawyer in the morning and Nate grabbed him and shook him up some. That’s when Harry ran to your place,” she said. “Nate didn’t want anybody connecting his eviction day with Harry’s death so we had to get that lease back. After I sent Nate on ahead to the happy hunting grounds, it didn’t matter anymore, but it kept you busy enough to stay off of my back.”

  I managed to free three more floorboards and was working on another. “And Willy?” I asked casually.

  “Willy was expendable,” she said. “Thanks for tying up that loose end for me, Mr. Cooper. That’s one less way to split the cash.”

  “We’re back to Mr. Cooper now, are we?” I said.

  “Shut up and keep working,” she snarled, her revolver still pointing at me. “I’m getting tired of listening to you.”

  I separated several more boards and stuck my head up into the hole. “Well, there you are. Help yourself,” I said, aiming my gaze at the gaping hole above us.

  “Not so fast, Cooper,” she said. “You get up there and pull me up. You try anything funny, anything at all and I’ll plug you and use your body for a step stool, now get up there and stay where I can see you,” she snapped, passing me the flashlight.

  I boosted myself up through the hole and held out my hand. She grabbed my wrist and I pulled her up, by one arm, through the opening, her revolver still aimed at my face.

  Lily looked around at
the cold, hard walls and then back at me. “Imagine these hicks building a cage around this room and forgetting about the floor. This’ll be easy pickin’s. Goodbye, Mr. Cooper,” Lily said, cocking the gun and aiming it at me.

  “We didn’t forget, Mrs. Kilgore,” a voice from the dark replied. She turned with her flashlight toward the voice and her gun went off, leaving a hole in the wall. The overhead light flashed on, revealing Nancy Marcheske, Dan Hollister and several uniformed officers.

  Stanley Duncan stood alongside Dan, smiling broadly, looking to me for approval. One of the officers, who was positioned behind and to the right of Lily Kilgore, grabbed the short barrel of her revolver and yanked it out of her hand.

  Lily stood there, peering at me. “Why, you dirty, stinking...”

  Surprised as Mrs. Kilgore, I looked at her in amazement. I was speechless for the moment and turned to Dan Hollister with a puzzled look on my face.

  Hollister caught Mrs. Kilgore by the wrist and snapped one half of the cuffs on it. “All we had to do was follow Matt. Stanley here helped us find him. We knew from the first that he was on to something. We just couldn’t let him in on it.”

  Stanley beamed with pride and smiled at me. “How’d I do, Mr. Cooper?”

  I put my arm around the kid and laughed. “Just fine, kid. You did just fine.”

  Lily Kilgore sneered at Mrs. Marcheske. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

  Nancy just smiled a painful smile, “Harry and I were very happy until you interfered. At least I can rest knowing his killers didn’t get away with it.” She slapped Lily Kilgore hard across the face, turned and walked out the door.

  “Mrs. Marcheske came to us shortly after your visit with her, Matt,” Dan said. “With what she told us and with what we already knew about this case, all we had to do was follow you and the rest fell into place.”

  Dan turned Mrs. Kilgore over to Officer Burns, who led the cuffed woman out the front door to the waiting squad car. Stanley Duncan followed close behind with his camera dangling around his neck. He was taking last minute notes and smiling like a kid at Christmas.

  Dan and I stood alone in the vault, looking at each other, speechless. Dan turned his attentions to me. “Matt, I couldn’t let you in on it at first. We had to keep our distance until the Kilgores played out their hand, otherwise all we’d have is a hole in the wall and no solid evidence.”

  I smiled a phony smile and thought about all the unnecessary danger Dan had exposed me to. “Forget it, Dan,” I said. I cocked my fist and connected with Dan’s jaw.

  Hollister bolted backwards and landed on the hard, wooden floor. He propped himself up on one elbow and rubbed his jaw.

  “Now we’re even.” I turned and left through the front door. The sun was setting over my office building to the west. If I hurried, I could still make the late show at the Majestic Theater downtown. They were playing a Bogart film. I tried not to miss too many of his.

  05 - The Reunion

  It was sixty-three stories straight down and I got dizzy just thinking about it, yet something made me look. The people below appeared as crumbs and the cars looked like ants carrying those crumbs away. From the relative safety of the windowsill I could see for miles. The sun was just peeking over the mountains on the horizon, laying an orange blanket over Los Angeles. The sky was clear and the birds were in flight. It was going to be a great day. Well, maybe for everyone else, but not for the lady on the ledge outside the window.

  She looked to be about twenty-four or twenty-five with bright red hair, a fair, smooth complexion and a slim build—the wholesome kid of gal you take home to mama. Her face was contorted in a gruesome, frozen horror, her eyes tightly squinted shut. She wore a plain white blouse, white ankle socks and no shoes. Her aqua blue skirt fluttered in the wind and her shoulder-length red hair blew back and forth, sometimes covering her face. Her hands lay flat against the side of the building, clinging to the space between the bricks.

  A crowd gathered below and I could see a few rotating red lights on the tops of some of the ants. Behind me in the girl’s apartment stood three firemen, a uniformed patrol cop and Sergeant Dan Hollister. I pulled my head back inside and looked at Dan, who was studying my face for some sort of answer to the problem that stood just outside the window.

  “Matt, is there any way to reach her?” Dan said.

  “I don’t see how,” I said. “She’s at least twenty feet from the window and that little alcove she’s cornered herself into blocks the view from the other room down the hall.”

  Dan scratched his head and looked at the uniformed cop. “Tell me that part again. The part where you first saw her.”

  The cop removed his hat and held it under his armpit. “I was on routine patrol down on sixth when I spotted that gal running across the street in the middle of the block. I blew my whistle and yelled for her to stop but she just kept running and ran into the lobby of this building.”

  “See anybody else?” I said. “I mean like someone chasing her?”

  “No sir, Mr. Cooper,” he said. “Just her. Anyway, I followed her into the lobby and she got on the elevator before I could get to it. I stood there and watched the dial above the elevator car and it stopped on sixty-three. I took the next car straight up but the hall was empty by the time I got there.”

  Dan retrieved his note pad and flipped through the pages. He stopped when he reached the page where he’d left off. He pulled a pencil from his shirt pocket and began jotting down more information from the cop. “Did you call it in?”

  The cop seemed nervous and jittery. “Well, sir, there was nothing to call in at this point so I just walked up and down the hall listening for sounds coming from any of the apartments.”

  “And . . .”

  “And when I heard what sounded like moaning coming from 6313 I knocked. No one answered and I tried the knob.” The cop pulled his handkerchief from his hip pocket and wiped his brow. “She didn’t even bother locking the door,” he added. “But by the time I entered the apartment, there was no one here. I searched all the rooms and didn’t find her but I found this window open and her shoes were sitting right there where they are now.” He pointed to a pair of low, flat brown shoes neatly sitting near the open window.

  “And that was approximately twenty-five minutes ago. Is that right?” Hollister confirmed.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’ll be all, officer. Return to the street and give the other officers a hand with the crowd.”

  The cop nodded acknowledgment and placed his hat back on his head and adjusted the visor before leaving the room. Hollister finished writing in his book and returned it to his lapel pocket. “Matt, there’s no way the fire department can begin to reach this high with any of their equipment and trying to catch her in a net would be like trying to catch an anvil with a hanky. We’ve got to get her in from there, and soon!”

  It was another tense fifteen minutes before the apartment door opened again and Officer Burns entered with another man. “Sergeant, this is Albert Carpenter,” Burns said. “He says he knows the lady out on the ledge.”

  Hollister offered the man a seat but the man was far too nervous to sit. He tried to ease himself over to the window, taking small, cautious sideways steps before Dan placed his hand on the man’s chest. “What can you tell us about her?” Dan said calmly.

  “It was all so stupid,” Carpenter said. “I mean the argument and the fight and the . . .”

  “Whoa, slow down, son,” I said. “One thing at a time. What’s her name?”

  The man heaved a sigh. “Sandy, Sandy Collins. She and I were going to be married and then we got in this stupid argument about her wanting to work and she just ran out,” the man explained.

  “Out?” Hollister said. “Out of where?”

  “Out of my apartment. We’d been up all night trying to work things out when it got out of control and she just ran. I live just four blocks from here so I assumed she ran home. I was going to let her cool down and think a
bout things and call her later, but I couldn’t sleep and came right over here. I told the officer on the street who I was and he brought me up to see you.”

  I put my hands on the boy’s shoulders and looked him squarely in the eyes. “We have to get her inside right now. She’s got to be getting tired and I’m not sure how long she can last out there. She’s scared and we can’t get through to her. You’ve got to try.”

  Tears filled the boy’s eyes and he nodded in agreement. He wiped them with his thumbs and went over to the window, hesitated, looked back and then stuck his head out. Dan and I stood back to give him all the space he needed. We didn’t want to spook the girl and felt that Albert Carpenter could do this on his own.

  We couldn’t hear what she was answering to the boy’s questions and statements, but his voice seemed to have a calming effect. Within five minutes Sandy Collins was inching her way back toward the window. The boy pulled his head in just long enough to let us know she was coming in and to warn us to stay back.

  Looking out at her again, Albert Carpenter reached out to his girlfriend, who was just twelve inches from the windowsill. She bent down and took hold of his hand. Through the window I could see part of her from where I stood. I was beginning to breath easier.

  Albert reached his other hand out to Sandy and she grabbed it, their four hands now locked together. Suddenly Sandy lost her balance and tumbled away from the window. We watched in horror as Albert’s body was pulled out the window and disappeared from view. One of his penny loafers remained on the floor where he once stood. Now there were three shoes whose owners would never fill them again.

  I ran to the window and looked out, afraid of what I knew I’d see. There was a mere seven or eight seconds of screaming and flailing limbs before it was all over. The crumbs on the street parted like the Red Sea as Sandy Collins and Albert Carpenter became one with the cement. Even from sixty-three stories up I could hear definite sounds from the crowd. There were screams of horror and disbelief and then the Red Sea closed again around the couple.

  I pulled my head back inside and immediately sat down, shaking and dizzy. “Jesus Christ, Dan,” I said. “What a way to go.”