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

by Bill Bernico

  “That would explain a few things,” Gloria said.

  “Exactly,” I said. “Things like why the police have nothing to go on or why this case has been put on the back burner. They were probably just trying to outlast Marie, hoping she’d give up in frustration.”

  “Instead she called you,” Gloria said. “What are you going to do, Elliott?”

  “The only thing I can do,” I explained. “Follow through with it.”

  “But…”

  “But nothing,” I said. “If I don’t do something about this, I’ll never be able to look another client in the eye. I wouldn’t even be able to look back at the man shaving in the mirror every morning. No, I have to do this. You may not want to get involved, but I have to finish what I started here.”

  “Don’t be so quick to count me out,” Gloria said. “I have a conscience, too, you know.”

  “Well, then,” I said. “Let’s get to it. Which would you like to tackle, the Burbank Police Department or Marie Reese?”

  “Elliott,” Gloria said. “I think we need to stick together, whatever we do, unless you can suddenly grow eyes in the back of your head.”

  “You’re probably right,” I said. “Marie can wait. Let’s get back up to Burbank and see what Lieutenant Houser has to say.”

  “Lead the way,” I said, and locked up the office. Once again we found ourselves across the counter from Lieutenant Gregory Houser. He seemed surprised to see us again so soon.

  “Did you forget something?” Houser said, meeting us at the counter.

  “Just doing a little follow-up work,” I said. “I wonder if we might talk with you, Lieutenant.”

  “Certainly,” Houser said, lifting the hinged countertop and allowing us to pass into his area. “Won’t you have a seat?”

  I looked around. “Is there someplace a little more private where we can talk?”

  “This sounds serious,” Houser said.

  “It is,” I said.

  Houser led us to a door near the back of the public space and showed us inside. He flicked on the overhead light and directed us to sit at a conference table in the middle of the room.

  “Now what’s this all about?” Houser said.

  “Do you have your own cell phone, Lieutenant?” Gloria said.

  “Yes,” Houser said warily. “Why?”

  “Do you have it on you now?” I said.

  Houser reached around to a belt clipped phone holder and retrieved his cell phone. He held it out in front of him. “All right,” he said. “What did you want to know?”

  “Do you use it a lot?” Gloria said offhandedly.

  “I must confess,” Houser said. “I held off as long as I could, but technology caught up with me. I finally bought one of these things a little better than two months ago.”

  “And do you use it much?” Gloria said.

  “Look,” Houser said, “You want to get to the point? I have too much work to do to play twenty questions with you. Now what’s on your mind, young lady?”

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” Gloria said. “I had to ask those questions so I could get to my next one. The reason I asked how long you’ve had it and how much you used it was because I wanted to know if your phone’s history screen might still have a number on it from two months ago. That’s all I was getting at.”

  “Well, why on earth didn’t you just say so?” Houser said, a little annoyed now.

  Gloria held out her hand. “Would you mind if I took a look at it just for a minute,” she said.

  Houser shot me a glance. I nodded and he handed his cell phone to Gloria.

  Gloria paged through the menus until she came to Call History and hit a button that displayed all of Houser’s received calls. She scrolled through eight or nine and then came to the one she was looking for. She held the screen up so that Houser could see it.

  “Yes?” he said, a bit puzzled now.

  Gloria pulled Gordon’s cell from her pocket and flipped it open to his History page. She hit the button that displayed Calls Made and scrolled down to Houser’s number. It showed the date, time and duration of the call. She held the phone next to Houser’s.

  “It would appear that Gordon Reese called your phone twice, Lieutenant,” Gloria said. “This first call was made just two days before he died. The second call was made less than an hour before he died. It looks like you were the last person that Gordon Reese called.”

  Houser held the two phones in his two hands. There was no getting around the facts. “The dates of those calls,” Houser said. “That was just a few days after I bought the phone. I wasn’t sure how to use it at that point. As you can see, the calls each lasted just ten seconds, about the time it would take for my phone to ring a couple of times before the caller gave up and disconnected. Both of them are identical. I remember getting a couple of calls early on but by the time I pulled it off my belt and got it open, the ringing had stopped. I looked on my caller I.D. but all it said was ‘Number Unavailable’ and no name. I guess that’s what comes up with these disposable phones.”

  “So you never talked with Gordon Reese then?” I said.

  Houser shook his head. “Never,” he said.

  “Well, it sure looks like he wanted to talk to you, Lieutenant,” I said. “You have no idea what he wanted, do you?”

  “Not a clue,” Houser said. “Sorry.”

  I sighed and pursed my lips. “And that puts us right back to square one,” I said.

  “Lieutenant,” I said. “Would you mind if I just asked around the station here, you know, a little informal like? I promise I won’t try to ruffle anyone’s feathers. I just want to get a feel for some of your officers and see if anything jumps out at me.”

  “What are you going to ask them?” Houser said.

  “I’m not sure myself,” I said. “But I have nowhere else to go with this investigation. Just a couple of hours should do it one way or the other. If it still leads nowhere, I’ll just tell Mrs. Reese that we hit a dead end and drop the whole matter.”

  Houser thought for a moment and then agreed to let me speak to a couple of his men. He excused himself, walked back into the public area and hit his intercom button. I could hear him from where we were sitting.

  “Sergeant Landry,” Houser said. “Would you come in here for a minute?”

  A few seconds later a tall man in a starched blue uniform walked in. Houser turned to me and said, “Elliott Cooper, this is Sergeant Landry. He’ll take you around to see the men who are still in the building.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” I said, and then turned my attention to the sergeant. I shook Landry’s hand and then introduced him to Gloria. She shook his hand as well and the three of us headed for the door to the hallway.

  Sergeant Landry walked us to what appeared to be a lunchroom. There were three officers seated at the tables. They were drinking coffee and eating sandwiches. Landry introduced us to the three officers and told us he’d be back in a few minutes. Gloria and I sat across from the officers.

  “Would you mind if we asked you all just a couple of questions?” I said.

  None of the men objected so Gloria asked the first question. “Have any of you heard of Gordon Reese?” she said. “He was a private investigator.”

  “Reese,” one of them mumbled. “Doesn’t ring any bells with me.” He turned to the cop sitting next to him. “What about you, Tom?”

  Tom shook his head. “Nope,” he said.

  The third cop thought for a moment and then said, “Reese, wasn’t he that gumshoe who was killed a while back? I’m thinking a month or two ago.”

  “Yes, he was,” I said. “It was just two months ago. We’re trying to find a lead on the case. Anything you can remember about him might be helpful.”

  The third cop shook his head. “I wasn’t involved with that case,” he said. “I just remembered hearing about it. Sorry.”

  “Would any of you know any officers who were involved with that case?” I said.

  To
m and the first officer shook their heads. The third cop said, “The guy I heard this from was on second shift. His name is Kevin Murphy. You can probably catch him here around three if you care to come back.”

  I made a note of the name and thanked him. Just then Sergeant Landry came back for us. He took us around to several other officers who couldn’t give us any additional information. Landry walked us to the front door and we thanked him for his cooperation. “I guess we’ll have to stop back around three,” I said. “There’s one more officer who may have some information for us, but he doesn’t come on until then.”

  “All right then,” Landry said. “I guess I’ll see you both then.” He walked back toward Lieutenant Houser’s office.

  Gloria and I walked back to my car and paused. “Did you notice anything strange with any of the cops we interviewed?” Gloria said.

  “Strange?” I said. “Like how?”

  “It’s almost like they were expecting us and had pat answers ready,” Gloria said. “Like they’d been coached.”

  “I hadn’t noticed at the time,” I said. “But now that you bring it up, yes, it did seem that way. Who do you suppose is behind the coaching?”

  Gloria shrugged. “No way to know how deep it goes,” she said. “I doubt it goes as high as Lieutenant Houser. He was too cooperative right off the bat, even before he knew what we were after. No, I think if anyone’s involved, it’s probably at a lower level, if at all. You know, maybe we’re just getting paranoid about the whole thing.”

  “What about Sergeant Landry?” I said.

  “I’m not sure,” Gloria said. “He didn’t strike me as someone with anything to hide, either.”

  “Oh hell,” I said. “We don’t even know that there’s anything going on here at all. Let’s just let it go until we come back at three and talk to this Kevin Murphy.”

  I sat in my car and pulled out the seven photocopied sheets Houser had made for me. I made a mental note of the scene of Reese’s murder. On our way back toward Hollywood we stopped at the alley where Gordon Reese’s body had been found. Any trace that there had been a crime committed here had long since vanished.

  “What are we doing here?” Gloria said, looking at her surroundings.

  “I’m just trying to picture the circumstances,” I said. “I thought I might be able to get a feel for the place.”

  “Do we know that this is where Reese was killed?” Gloria said. “Do we know for sure he wasn’t killed somewhere else and dumped here?”

  “According to the police report,” I said, “The coroner is sure he was killed right here where they found his body. There was a trace of blood splatter on that wall at about the height of Reese’s head.” I pointed to one of the alley walls behind me.

  Gloria gestured with her chin at the wall. “And what is this building here?” she said. “I’m sure the police would have checked with whoever lives here or has a business here.”

  “It couldn’t hurt to check again,” I said.

  We walked around to the street side of the building and found it to be a second hand shop. There were mannequins in the windows wearing old clothes, sitting on used chairs and surrounded by other used items. The bell above the door tinkled as we entered and an old man came out from behind a door that had a long, black curtain hanging in front of it.

  He looked at Gloria and me and decided we had to be a couple. He smiled as he approached us. “How can I help you today?” he said, his hands spreading in front of him.

  “I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions,” I said.

  The man’s face dropped, realizing that we were not the paying customers that he needed. Gloria was quick to add, “Would you have any women’s jackets in my size from the 80s era?” She held her arms out from her side and spun around to give the man a good look at her body size and shape.

  The smile returned to his face and he led Gloria to a rack of clothes and pulled a jacket off the rack. He held it up in front of her and turned her around to face the full-length mirror on the dressing room door. “If you weren’t so young,” the man said, “You could have been the original owner of this jacket. It’s you.”

  Gloria slipped out of her own jacket and laid it across the rack of other garments. She slipped into this jacket and looked at herself in the mirror again. “Ooh,” she said. “I like it. How much is it?”

  The man pinched the price tag that hung from Gloria’s arm and held it up for her.

  “Are you serious?” Gloria said. “That’s a steal. I’ll take it. Thank you so much.”

  “Can I show you anything else today, young lady?” the man said, carrying the jacket up to the cash register.

  “This is my limit for today,” Gloria said, “But come payday, I’ll be back for a closer look at the rest of your beautiful clothes.”

  The man rang up the sale, slipped the jacket into a bag, took Gloria’s money and gave her change.

  Gloria squeezed the man’s arm before taking the bag from him. “Say,” she said offhandedly, “Would you happen to remember an incident that happened in the alley behind your store about two months ago? The police found a man who’d been hurt back there, if I remember correctly.”

  “Hurt?” the man said. “He was murdered, he was. Oh, it was terrible. I was watching when they put him on the stretcher and took him away. I’ll never forget it.”

  Gloria stepped up her game. “I’m sorry,” she said. “My name’s Gloria Campbell and this is Elliott Cooper.” She gestured toward me. “I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Israel Sheldon,” the man said. “Folks around here call me Izzy.”

  Gloria touched his arm again and smiled broadly. “Would it be all right if I called you Izzy?” she said.

  I think I saw the old man blush just then. “Certainly,” he said, smiling shyly.

  “Izzy,” Gloria said, “The night that man was killed behind your store, you didn’t happen to see or hear anything just before that, did you?”

  Izzy held both palms up in the air. “I didn’t see anything,” he said adamantly. “I didn’t hear anything, either. I mind my own business and I don’t bother people.”

  Gloria pulled one of her business cards from her pocket and handed it to Izzy. “Mr. Sheldon,” Gloria said and then corrected herself. “Izzy, Elliott and I have been hired by that poor man’s wife to find out what happened to him. No one seems to know anything, or if they do, they aren’t talking. The poor woman is beside herself with grief and is just looking for some closure so she can get on with her life. She simply won’t rest until she knows whether or not her husband suffered at the end. I’m sure you can understand that, can’t you?” She smiled at Izzy again, and whether or not she planned it, she batted her eyelashes at the old man.

  “Miss Campbell,” Izzy started to say.

  “Gloria,” she said. “Please call me Gloria.”

  “All right, Gloria,” Izzy said. “The police talked to me for more than an hour that night and I didn’t tell them anything.”

  “Could you have?” Gloria said.

  Izzy looked both ways before addressing Gloria again. “Gloria,” he said, “I know some people who don’t live so long getting involved in other people’s business. Me, I want to live to a ripe old age so I mind my own business.”

  “I promise you, Izzy,” Gloria said. “That whatever you tell me won’t go any further. We’d just like to put an end to that poor woman’s worries. Please, Izzy, can you help us?”

  Izzy walked over to his front door, twisted the Open sign so that the Closed side showed outside, pulled the shade down over the door and locked it before walking back over to where we stood. He guided us into his back room and let the black curtain drop behind us. He motioned us over to a small window at the back of the room.

  I walked over and parted the curtains slightly to look out the window. I could see the spot in the alley where we’d been standing just minutes earlier. I let the curtains drop again and turned to Izzy. “You saw what
happened that night, didn’t you?” I said.

  Izzy hung his head and nodded slowly.

  Gloria stood next to Izzy again and laid her hand on his shoulder. “Would you tell us about it, please?” she said, gesturing toward an overstuffed chair.

  Izzy sat on the chair and sighed heavily. I pulled up two straight back chairs for Gloria and me and we sat close enough to Izzy so that he could talk softly.

  “It was just before sunset,” Izzy said. “I hear a scuffling noise in the back and went to take a look out the window. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but a second after I pulled back the curtain a little, I saw him shoot that poor man.”

  “You saw who shoot that poor man?” I said.

  “Why, that policeman,” Izzy said. “Shot him dead without any warning at all. Then he just calmly walked away and I didn’t see him again.”

  “Which man was facing you?” Gloria said.

  “The man who was shot was facing me,” Izzy explained. “The man who shot him had his back to me. He didn’t see me and I closed the curtains again right after the shot. I don’t mind telling you, I was scared. I never said anything to anybody else before tonight and you know what? It feels good to get it out after two months bottled up inside.” Izzy let out his breath and settle back into the chair.

  “Did you notice anything about the policeman?” I said. “I mean, could you tell if he was a patrolman or an officer?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Izzy said.

  “I mean, did you see any stripes on his arms or bars on his shoulders?” I said. “Officers would have something on their uniforms to identify them as such.”

  “Oh, I see what you mean,” Izzy said. “No, I didn’t see anything like that. All I could see from the back was the blue uniform shirt with some kind of patch on the shoulders and the blue cap with the visor. And, of course that gun. My goodness, what a big gun that was.”

  I was trying to picture the action in my mind from the time Izzy parted the curtains until the policeman walked away. I played the scene over and over in my mind, trying to visualize the events of that night. I looked up at Izzy. “Do you recall which hand the policeman used?”