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

by Bill Bernico

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Dean said. “My dad was as sharp as a tack up to the end, but cancer is no way to go, either.”

  “It’s strange to imagine my life without him,” I said. “I mean, I know none of us has found a way to live forever, but when he finally goes, I’m sure I’ll feel a little lost.”

  “I know I did,” Dean said. “If I were you I’d just enjoy him while he’s still around, sharp or not. You’ll be glad you did.”

  I nodded and sighed. “Well, I’d better get home. Veronica’s fixing dinner and I promised Elliott I’d take him to the park to fly his kite.”

  “Give ‘em both a hug for me,” Dean said just before I closed the door to his office.

  That night I enjoyed dinner with my family and then told Elliott to go and get his kite. Before he returned I made a phone call.

  “Dad,” I said. “It’s Clay. How’d you like to go to the park with Elliott and me?”

  40 - Beatlemaniac

  SATURDAY, July 11, 1992

  “Ask me why,” the note said. “Ask me why I killed her and I just may tell you.” The note wasn’t signed or dated and left no other clues as to its origin or composer. It was just a quarter sheet of paper with the handwritten note and nothing more.

  Sergeant Dean Hollister turned the note over in his hand, finding nothing on the backside. He looked at the front side again and tried to make sense of it. There were just twelve words and two small pinholes in the paper where it had been attached to the victim’s chest with a safety pin. The victim had been found nude and the safety pin had pierced her flesh right about where you’d expect to see a corsage pinned during prom night. But it was no prom that this poor girl had attended. Her last outing anywhere turned out to be just that—her last outing anywhere.

  The body had been found behind several trashcans in an alley off Beverly Boulevard the night before last. Andy Reynolds, the county medical examiner had determined that the as yet nameless girl had died as a result of strangulation. Her neck sported a bright purple ring around it and her tongue hung out like a thirsty dog on a hot summer day. Whatever had been used to strangle her must have also had a knot tied in it near the middle because the killer exerted enough pressure to crush the woman’s trachea. The only other marks on the body were the two pinholes in the chest.

  “Can you narrow down the time of death, Andy?” Dean said.

  “Best guess or within thirty minutes?” Andy said.

  “Huh?” Dean said.

  “I can give you my best guess right now,” Andy said. “Or I can get within thirty minutes after I do the autopsy. Which would you like?”

  “Give me your best guess now,” Dean said. “You can narrow that down for me later.”

  “Well, then,” Andy said. “I’d say she took her last breath sometime around eleven or eleven thirty Thursday night.”

  “Thanks, Andy,” Dean said. “That’ll give me some place to start anyway.”

  “Well, you’ll have to start someplace else other than that alley,” Andy said. “Because she was killed someplace else and dumped there. The lab crew went over that area with a fine tooth comb and nothing they found points to it being the murder location.”

  “Thanks again, Andy,” I said. “Let me know the minute you determine the time of death.”

  “Can do, Dean,” Andy said,

  “Oh, and one last thing,” Dean said. “I’m going to send an officer in here with a fingerprint kit and have him roll her fingers just in case her prints are on file. It would help a lot if we knew her name.”

  Three and a half hours later a match came back on the fingerprints. It turns out that the victim had had her fingerprints taken when she’d applied for a job as a Pasadena police dispatcher while she was still in high school. She didn’t get the job, but at least her prints had been on file. Her name was Sharon Draper and her birthday was listed as July 10, 1975. She had been killed the day after her seventeenth birthday.

  MONDAY, July 13, 1992

  “All I’ve got to do is find another woman who wants to party,” this second note said. It contained just one more word than the first note from the victim found on Thursday. Now, four days later, a new note arrived at the twelfth precinct with the morning mail. The envelope had been addressed specifically to Sergeant Dean Hollister. That was different from the first note, which had been attached to a victim. This one didn’t come with an accompanying victim, but from the content of the note, the author clearly planned on finding one. Hollister knew he’d better get his team into action before that happened.

  FRIDAY, July 17, 1992

  The third note arrived just like the first note—attached to the victim’s chest with a safety pin. The night manager of the Hotel Rector on Western and Hollywood had reported that he’d found one of his tenants sprawled across the bed in her room. Like the other victim, she also had a purple ring around her neck. Whatever had been used to strangle her had been removed and taken away. It had also been pulled tight enough to crush this woman’s windpipe.

  The night manager at the Hotel Rector was a man in his sixties by the name of Norman Blandings. He had a half ring of white hair around the back of his otherwise bald head. His waist measurement undoubtedly surpassed his I.Q. and he was three weeks past due for a bath. I kept a respectable distance as I questioned him.

  “What time did you say you discovered the body, Mr. Blandings?” Dean said.

  Blandings looked at his wristwatch and touched the crystal, counting the numbers in the small circle. He pointed to the watch. “About twelve-thirty,” he said. “I know because the downstairs clock just bonged once. It does that every half hour and just before that it bonged twelve times. I counted.”

  Dean wrote down the time on his notepad. “Is this room rented to the victim?” Dean said.

  “Who’s the victim?” Blandings said.

  Dean pointed to the body on the bed. “She is,” he said. “Is her name on the register for this room?”

  “Uh huh,” Blandings said, nodding his head vigorously. “That’s Vicki Trix. I know.”

  “How do you know?” Dean said.

  “How do I know what?” Blandings said, his head cocking to one side, like a dog who’d heard a strange noise in the night.

  Dean tried to keep his patience with the dim-witted man. “How do you know this woman’s name?”

  “Oh, she’s been here before,” Blandings said. “Lots of times.”

  “And does she check in here alone?” Dean said.

  “Huh?” Blandings said, glancing back at the body.

  “Does she check in by herself, or does someone check in with her?” Dean said slowly, letting each word sink into Blandings’ thick skull.

  “She always checks in with some man,” Blandings said. “And not always the same man,” he added. “I think maybe she was doing bad things up here with those men.”

  “You think?” Dean said sarcastically.

  “Huh?” Blandings said again.

  “Never mind,” Dean said. “Do you know the man’s name? You know, the one who checked in with her this time?”

  Blandings shook his head. “Uh uh,” he said, shaking his head. “He stood away from me when she signed in. I didn’t get a good look at him.”

  “Could you at least tell how tall he was?” Dean said. “How old he was? Hair color, eyes, clothes, anything?”

  Blandings shook his head again. “But he had nice shoes,” he said.

  “Shoes?” Dean said. “What was special about his shoes?”

  “Well,” Blandings said, “they was mostly brown but the tops were shiny white.”

  “Two-tone shoes,” Dean said. “That wraps up this case. I guess we can all go home now, huh?”

  Blandings looked to Dean for further explanation but got none. He switched his gaze to each of the two uniformed officers who had accompanied Dean to the scene. They both looked away. Blandings’ eyebrows went up and he pursed his thin lips. “Then I guess you don’t want to know about
his car, either?”

  All three cops spun around and looked at Blandings as if he’d just swallowed a worm.

  “What car?” Dean said.

  “He had a big black car parked outside,” Blandings said. “I seen him get out of it and Vicki got out of the other door. Then they came in here and she signed the registration book.”

  “What kind of car was it?” Dean said.

  “Black,” Blandings said. “Big and black.”

  “Great,” Dean said. “Big and black. That’s it? You don’t know the make or the model?”

  “Just big and black,” Blandings repeated.

  Dean turned to one of the officers. “Get his name and address and phone number. I may want to talk to him again, heaven knows why, but just in case.”

  The woman’s body was removed from the bed and transported to the morgue an hour after having been discovered.

  Andy Reynolds had removed the note from this second victim and passed it over to Dean. He unfolded it and read, “Money, that’s what I want to stop these killings. Details to follow.”

  Gotta be the same guy,” Dean said. “Same M.O. and same kind of note. I sure hope this isn’t a sign of things to come.”

  Again just twelve words were used to convey the killer’s message to the police. Dean photocopied the note and placed the original in the evidence bag. He laid the three photocopies out on his desk in the order that they were found. He scanned across the three documents, looking for a link, a connection, anything that he could use to further his investigation. Nothing jumped out at him. He looked for any numerical references but found none. As far as he knew, all he had were three meaningless notes all written by the same person.

  WEDNESDAY, July 22, 1992

  Wednesday brought another victim, another note and another safety pin through the skin. “Tell me why I’m doing this,” the note said. “See if you can figure me out.”

  This note had thirteen words, like the second note from nine days earlier. This victim was found nude at a remote bus stop. She’d been posed in a sitting position on the bench. Under a bench at a completely different bus stop two miles away, police found a purse with a wallet in it. The picture on the driver’s license looked like the current victim and there was no reason to believe that the purse did not belong to her.

  Dean Hollister laid the photocopy of the fourth note next to the first three and studied them again. If there was a pattern, he surely didn’t see it. All four notes were written in a conversational tone. That is, they read as if the author was talking to the reader through the notes.

  The latest victim turned out to be the oldest so far at twenty-four. Like the other victims, she had also been strangled. This time, however, the crime lab was able to find several strands of whatever had been used to strangle her embedded in her neck. The murder weapon turned out to be a material made of blue silk, most likely a scarf. And again, there were no other marks or wounds on the body. And, as in the first murders, this woman’s trachea had also been crushed. She had not been sexually molested before or after her death, just like the first murders. The killer was indeed methodical about doing away with these women and wasted no time on anything but the killing and dumping of the body.

  He had been careful about leaving little or no evidence behind with each of these bodies. Hollister had a mental picture of a guy obsessed with neatness and tidiness. This could be why each victim had been strangled and not shot or stabbed. The bloody mess those kinds of murders would have left did not seem to fit with this killer’s M.O. That didn’t necessarily work in Dean’s favor. Other murder methods might initially be a little messier, but generally left more clues to work with. Blood spatter itself told volumes about what happened and in what order and sometimes left evidence on the killer as well. Such was not the case so far.

  SATURDAY, July 25, 1992

  “When I get home I can continue playing my latest guest.” This time the note had just eleven words and arrived via the U.S. mail like the second note. Again the envelope offered no clues as to its origin. It and the original note went into the evidence bag and the photocopy took its place alongside the first four on Dean’s desktop. Dean was studying the five notes when he heard knuckles rapping on his door.

  “Yeah?” Hollister said.

  I opened the door and poked my head inside. “You coming or not?” I said.

  Dean looked up at me. “Coming where?” he said.

  “How soon we forget,” I said. “Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Unforgiven,” I said. “We’ve only been waiting for three weeks for it to come to the Pantages Theater. Well, it’s playing tonight and if you don’t get a move on, we’ll miss it.”

  “Huh?” Dean said, absent-mindedly. “Oh, yeah, Eastwood. I’m sorry, Clay. I’m kind of in the middle of something that has me stumped. Can’t you take Veronica and Elliott?”

  “Veronica doesn’t like violent westerns,” I said. “And Elliott’s only twelve. That’s a little too young to be seeing this one. Besides, you promised we’d go when it got here.”

  “I’m sorry, Clay,” Dean said. “I probably wouldn’t be very good company and I couldn’t concentrate on the movie anyway with this much stuff piled on my plate.” He pointed down at the five photocopied papers spread out on his desk.

  “What have you got there?” I said, twisting my head sideways to see the writing on the papers.

  “Two weeks ago,” Dean explained. “Young girls began turning up dead in alleys and hotel rooms. They all had a note pinned to their chests with a safety pin piercing their flesh. These are copies of the five notes we’ve collected so far. Notes two and five came in the mail, telling us, somewhat, of his plans to commit these terrible murders. The other three were pinned to victims. For the life of me, I can’t see any connection between the notes or the victims. The three women so far have come from different parts of the city, had different social backgrounds and were different ages. They had different hair color, different facial features and different body types. This is why I can’t go to the movies with you tonight. This case is driving me crazy. There has to be a connection between, but for the life of me, I can’t see it.”

  “Let me take a look,” I said, stepping around to Dean’s side of the desk and looking down at the notes. By the time I got to the third note I stopped and looked at Dean.

  “What?” Dean said.

  I held up one finger and read the other two notes before commenting. “The Beatles,” I said.

  “What about The Beatles?” Dean said.

  “That seems to be your connection here,” I said. “See? The first note begins with the words, ‘Ask me why’ and the second note begins with the words, ‘All I’ve got to do.’ See a connection yet?”

  Dean shook his head.

  “The third note begins, ‘Money, that’s what I want,” while the fourth note begins, ‘Tell me why’. See a connection yet?” I said.

  “I’m afraid not, Clay,” Dean said. Why don’t you just tell me what it is?”

  “How about the fifth note,” I said. “It starts with, ‘When I get home’. Don’t you see? These are all titles of Beatle songs and it looks like they’re in chronological order.”

  “What order is that?” Dean said.

  I pointed to the first note and said, “This one, ‘Ask Me Why’ is from the album, Introducing The Beatles from 1963. The second one, ‘All I’ve Got To Do’ is from the album Meet The Beatles from 1964. Do you want me to go on?”

  “Yes,” Dean said, enthusiastically. “By all means.”

  The third one, ‘Money (That’s What I Want)’ is a cut off The Beatles’ Second Album, also from 1964.”

  “Hold on a minute there, Clay,” Dean said. “I thought you told me ‘All I’ve Got To Do’ was from the second album.”

  I shook my finger in his face. “No, you don’t understand,” I said. “As far as being in order, Meet The Beatles could be considered their second U.S. album, but Capitol Records titled the next album The Beatles’ Sec
ond Album because it was the second Capitol release. Introducing The Beatles was issued by a small record label called Vee-Jay so it didn’t count. Now, as for the fourth note’s reference, ‘Tell Me Why’ was from the soundtrack album, A Hard Day’s Night, which is also from 1964. The album accompanied the movie they did that year by the same name.”

  “So then that would be the real third album?” Dean said, trying to sort out all this new information.

  “Not really,” I said. “This album was issued by United Artists as a soundtrack to the movie, so it didn’t fall into any number sequence from Capitol.”

  “Now I’m totally lost,” Dean said. “What about the fifth note?”

  “I guess when I’m done explaining this one, you’ll really be confused,” I said. “After United Artists released A Hard Day’s Night, Capitol wanted to cash in on The Beatles’ fame at the time and released an album called Something New, which included ‘When I Get Home’ as well as a few cuts from A Hard Day’s Night.”

  “Let me guess,” Dean said. “That one was also from 1964.”

  “Give that man a cigar,” I said. “Yes, 1964 was a banner year for the Fab Four.”

  “Who?” Dean said.

  “The Beatles,” I said. “Where were you when all this fabulous music was blanketing the airwaves?”

  “I guess I was never that into music,” Dean said. “I was too busy with bicycles and BB guns and television to care what was happening on the radio. But you, good grief, how do you keep all this trivial information straight in your own head?”

  “Me?” I said. “Remember that I was thirteen when I first saw The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in February of 1964. I screamed right along with the girls and my dad was ready to clobber me if I didn’t shut up.”

  “I can imagine Matt doing that,” Dean said. “I take it they were not exactly his cup of tea.”

  “No,” I said. “If he’d have had television in the twenties and thirties, he might have been screaming along with the audience while Glenn Miller was performing. We’ll probably never know. He’d certainly never share that kind of information with me.”