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

by Bill Bernico

  “What did you find?” Dean asks.

  “Take a look for yourself,” Clay says, stepping up to the kitchen table and looking down and four stacks of hundred-dollar bills. He turns to Dean. “There has to be twenty grand just laying there in plain sight.”

  “So obviously robbery wasn’t the motive,” Dean says. “But the question here is, what was Vogel doing with all this cash?”

  “Are you thinking it’s not his?” Clay says, picking up one of the bundles and fanning out the bills.

  “Too early to tell,” Dean says, dropping the stacks of money in an evidence bag, sealing it and marking the date, place and name on the bag.

  *****

  The mailman walks up to the porch of the house on Gordon Street. It’s a two-story white wood frame house with a neatly manicured yard. This looks like as good a place as any, he thinks, as he rings the doorbell. A woman answers the door. She’s wearing a frilly apron over her house dress and she wipes her hands on her apron. The mailman tells her he has a package for her and that she must sign for its receipt. He holds out his clipboard with the notice on it and points to the place where she is supposed to sign. She looks around for a pen and then looks at the mailman, making the universal gesture of signing something, like the customers do in a restaurant when they want the check.

  The mailman smiles and reaches into his shiny brown mail pouch, his hand wrapping around the handle of the silenced .45 inside. Just then a young boy, perhaps five or six years old, comes into the hallway asking for mommy. The mailman releases his grip on the weapon and says he made a mistake and that the package is actually for someone else. He hands her the rest of her regular mail and tells the woman to have a nice day. He leaves and the targeted victim doesn’t know how close she came to becoming another statistic on the police blotter. The kid has no idea how close he came to joining Mommy.

  The mailman moves on down the block, his gun hand still itching to use the weapon just once more today. He skips the next row of house of this block and crosses the street. He delivers several more bundles of letters, magazines, fliers and other junk mail before he settles on a brick house that he knows has only one occupant. He has delivered mail here in the past and has met the old woman who is usually kneeling in the garden alongside the house. She’s not there today and the mailman knows she must be inside. Looks like those flowers will have to die, and so will she.

  Three days pass and now a fourth newspaper lands on the porch on Gordon Street. Letters stick out of the mailbox and the lawn looks like it could use a trim. The neighbor to the north walks up the sidewalk and up onto the porch. He presses he face up to the window, his hands cupped around his eyes. Once his eyes focus on the body lying just inside, he recoils and jumps back, turning and running off the porch and back to his own house. He dials the police station and shouts into the phone, telling them what he has discovered. Minutes later several police cruisers squeal up to the curb in front of the house on Gordon Street.

  Detective Sergeant Eric Anderson walks through the house, two patrolmen following close behind. Two more uniforms guard the front and back doors of the house, keeping the curious out.

  Clay Cooper eases his car to a stop behind one of the black and whites and gets out to see what has happened. He’s stopped by the officer watching the front door.

  “What happened here?” Clay says, trying to see around the officer.

  The officer holds both of his arms out perpendicular to his body. “Sorry,” he says. “I can’t let you in.”

  “Is Lieutenant Hollister here?” Clay says.

  The officer shakes his head. “I’m afraid not,” he says. “The lieutenant had a doctor’s appointment this morning. I’m not sure when or even if he’ll be here.”

  “Then who’s in charge of this scene?” Clay says.

  “That would be Sergeant Anderson,” the officer tells Clay.

  “Would that be Sergeant Eric Anderson?” Clays asks.

  The officer nods and looks over Clay’s shoulder at a reported approaching the front door.

  “Would you tell the sergeant that Clay Cooper is here and would like to see him, please?” Clay says.

  “You can’t go in there just yet,” the officer tells the reported behind Clay. “You’ll have to wait out here for a while yet.”

  Clay looks at the officer again and repeats his request to see Sergeant Anderson. The officer holds up one finger and tells Clay to wait where he is. Then he disappears into the house. A minute later he returns with the sergeant.

  “Clay,” Anderson says, “Come on in.”

  Clay gives the officer a look and walks past him, following Sergeant Anderson into the living room. “I picked this up on the police scanner and thought I’d take a look,” he says. “How’s Dean doing this morning?”

  “He’s been off for the past two days,” Anderson explains. “Once the doc looks him over and signs off on him, he should be back this morning already. He’s already been to the chiropractor and it seems to have helped. At least he’s walking erect these days.”

  “He’s finally evolved,” Clay says, laughing. He looks down at the old woman lying in a pool of blood. Like the other victim from a few days ago, her face has also taken two bullets in the front of her face and out the back again. She was probably nobody’s idea of a beauty queen to begin with, but this latest event took her out of the running altogether.

  “No robbery this time, either, I suppose,” Clay says.

  Sergeant Anderson shakes his head. “She didn’t have much to take in the first place,” he says. “But from the looks of things, what she did have wasn’t disturbed.”

  “Mind if I look around?” Clay says.

  “Knock yourself out,” Anderson says. “Let me know if anything seems out of place.”

  Twenty minutes later, after having been through the entire house, Clay returns to the living room and finds Sergeant Anderson talking to Andy Reynolds. Andy’s two attendants have slipped the old woman into a body bag and have hoisted her onto the gurney for the trip down the porch steps and into the waiting ambulance.

  As the attendants reach the bottom of the porch, Lieutenant Hollister steps up onto it and into the house.

  Clay meets Dean in the front hallway and steps carefully over the pool of blood. “How’s the back?” Clay says.

  “Much better,” Dean tells him. “What a difference that chiropractor made. I tell you, I feel like a new man. But boy, you should have heard the sounds my back made when he straightened me out. Sounded like someone stepping on a bowl of Rice Krispies.”

  Clay gestures around the room with a sweeping arm. “If this has any connection to the Vogel hit,” he says, “I don’t see it. This old lady couldn’t have had any tie-in with any union leader. She was just an old, retired woman with nothing left but her garden.”

  “I don’t see any connection, either,” Dean says. “But this is definitely the work of the same killer in the first three murders.” Dean thinks about the first two victims, a twenty-eight year-old construction worker and a forty-four year-old widow who lived alone. None of the victims had anything in common except the last thing they ever saw—two slugs coming toward all of their faces. “I can’t say I’ve ever come across a totally random serial killer in all my years on the force.”

  “This is a new one on me, too,” Clay agrees. “You would think every killer would have to have a motive, even if it was just for one of the victims.”

  Dean turns to Clay. “What was that last thing you said?” he asks.

  “Huh?” Clay says.

  “You said something about just one victim and a motive, or something like that,” Dean says.

  “I said you would think every killer would have to have a motive, even if it was just for one of the victims,” Clay says.

  “That’s got to be it,” Dean says. “One of these victims must be the real target and the other three were just killed to throw us off the trail, looking for a common thread.”

  “But wh
ich one?” Clay says.

  “My money’s on Vogel,” Dean says. “The other three are all nobodies, as far as I can see.”

  “That would have been my guess, too,” Clay says. “But what if more victims turn up?”

  “I hate to think of it,” Dean says.

  “Well what do we do next?” Clay says.

  “We?” Dean says. “I thought you were supposed to be retired. Aren’t you writing a book or something?”

  “I finished that,” Clay explains. “And it looks like I only had one book in me. They say everyone has at least one. I’ve already written mine and I’m bored out of my socks. I need this just to stay sane. Hell, I’m not looking to be paid for my time. I just need something to do to keep my mind from rotting away.”

  Dean laughs. “Is this what I have to look forward to?” he says. “And with my own retirement less than two months away. Come on, Clay, let’s go get some coffee.”

  “Don’t you have to stay here and secure the scene?” Clay says.

  “Anderson can handle it,” Dean says. “Besides, I’m not even back from the doctor yet. Let’s go.”

  Clay and Dean weave their way back through the house to the front door. Dean tells Sergeant Anderson to finish up with what needs to be done here. Dean opens the front door and steps out onto the porch.

  The mailman walks up to the house, his shiny brown mail pouch slung over his shoulder and several letters in his hand. He’s looking down, sorting through the letters. When he looks up again he’s standing nearly toe to toe with Dean and Clay. He stops and nods at the two of them. “Morning,” he says and looks at his surroundings. “What’s going on here?”

  “There’s been some trouble and this is a crime scene,” Dean says, holding up a hand, preventing the mailman from going up the porch steps.

  The mailman holds up his handful of letters. “What about their mail?” he says.

  Dean thinks about it momentarily and says, “What do you do with a person’s mail when they die?”

  “She’s dead?” the mailman says in mock surprise.

  “Yes,” Dean says and then turns and walks up onto the porch, retrieving the mail from the box. He steps back down to the sidewalk and hands it to the mailman. “Do whatever it is you do with the mail in these cases.”

  The mailman takes the letters from Dean’s hand and stuffs the letters from his hand back into the mail pouch, in a side compartment reserved for outgoing mail. “I’ll take care of it,” he says. “I’m sorry to hear about Mrs. Leedom.” He turns and walks away up the street.

  “There’s something I never thought about,” Clay says.

  “What’s that?” Dean says.

  “What happens to a person’s mail when they die,” Clay says. “It must go somewhere, but where?”

  “Does it matter?” Dean says. “How about that coffee?”

  “You want to grab a cup in my office?” Clay says.

  “Your office?” Dean says. “You mean your house, or Elliott’s office? You’re retired, remember?”

  “Habit,” Clay says. “I meant Elliott’s office. I need to see him for a minute anyway and he does have the coffee machine and it’s free and we don’t have to tip some waitress for taking those twelve steps from the kitchen to our booth.”

  “Since when did you become such a skinflint?” Dean says.

  “Just watching my pennies, now that I’m retired,” Clay tells him. “Every little bit helps, you know.”

  “I’ll have to follow you down,” Dean says. “I have places to go, things to do and people to see yet this morning. I don’t have the luxury of retirement…yet.” He smiles again at the prospect.

  The two men pull into the parking lot behind Elliott’s building, parking next to each other. They ride the elevator up to the third floor and find the office at the end of the hall, where’s it’s been for the last seventy years. Clay opens the inner office door and smiles when he sees Gloria sitting at her desk. Elliott’s desk is empty. Clay is just about to ask where Elliott is when he hears the toilet flush. A few seconds later Elliott emerges and walks over to the sink against the wall and washes his hands. As he wipes them on the towel, he looks up at Clay and says, “You know, Dad, I’ve always wondered why the sink in this office isn’t in the bathroom.”

  “Well, hello to you, too,” Clay says sarcastically.

  “Hi Dad,” Elliott says and then turns to Dean. “Good morning Dean. How’s your back?”

  “Much better,” Dean tells him.

  “Because the bathroom was added later,” Clay says.

  “Huh?” Elliott says.

  “You asked why the sink isn’t in the bathroom,” Clay reminded Elliott. “Dad had the bathroom added in the early fifties. He already had the sink in that recess where it is now. There was no room for a toilet so he added this little room for just the toilet. Anything else you’d like to know about the history of this office? Perhaps you’d like the guided tour.”

  “All right,” Elliott says. “I get it.”

  Clay turns to Gloria, who has risen from her desk and comes to greet him, throwing her arms around him and giving him a gentle hug. “Nice to see you again, Gloria,” Clay says. “You keeping my boy in line?”

  Gloria’s eyebrows furrow. “That’s not in my job description,” she tells him. “Besides, I think he’s beyond that. He’s going to do whatever he wants, no matter what I say, so why fight it?”

  Clay laughs and throws an arm around Gloria’s shoulder. “Just keep doing whatever you’re doing,” he says. “It seems to be working.”

  “So what brings you here this morning, Dad?” Elliott says.

  “Yeah,” Clay says. “Enough with the small talk. Let’s get right down to the Khyber Rifles.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to man?” Elliott says, completely puzzled by the phrase.

  “You just talking or do you really want to know?” Clay says.

  “Because he’ll tell you,” Dean says. “I sat through that explanation one day and it was fascinating.” He rolls his eyes at Elliott.

  “I saw that,” Clay says. “Forget it. Now I’m not going to tell you. You can look it up like I did.”

  “Yeah,” Elliott says. “I’ll put that on my short list of things to do right away. So what’s up?”

  Clay heads for the leather sofa that sits against the east wall of the office. He sinks into the leather cushions and sighs. Dean and I just came from a murder scene,” he says. “It’s the fourth such murder in the past few weeks. Each one has the same M.O. but there doesn’t seem to be any connection between any of the victims.”

  Dean joins Clay on the sofa and tells Elliott and Gloria about the first three victims and how they were found. When he finishes the descriptions, he notices that Gloria is wincing.

  “And you’d like us to do what?” Elliott says.

  “I didn’t say I wanted you to do anything,” Clay tells his son. “I’m just running the facts past you to see if anything occurs to you that we might not have thought of.”

  “Can I say something?” Dean says.

  “Sure, go ahead,” Clay says.

  “What about that free coffee you promised me?” Dean says.

  Clay points to the coffee maker, its orange light illuminated, signaling that the coffee maker is on. “Help yourself,” he says.

  Dean pours himself a cup of coffee and turns to Elliott. “Would you like a cup?” he says.

  Elliott shakes his head. “I don’t drink coffee. Dad bought that machine and only Gloria drinks it now.”

  Dean turns to Gloria. “Can I pour you a cup, dear?” he says.

  “Animal group,” Elliott says.

  “Huh?” Dean says, puzzled.

  “Nicknames,” Elliott explains. “She doesn’t like nicknames from the animal, vegetable or mineral groups. She prefers just plain Gloria.”

  Gloria holds up a hand. “That was just a rule for you,” she tells Elliott. “Coming from Dean, it sounds sweet.” She turns to Dean an
d winks. “Sure, “I’ll have a cup. Thanks.”

  “No really,” Clay says. “Don’t go to any trouble for me. I can get my own.”

  Dean pours a third cup and hands it to Clay. “Don’t forget to tip your waiter,” he tells Clay.

  Gloria sips from the cup and wraps her hands around the mug, warming them. “What about age, occupation, race, social status? Are any of those things the victims might have in common?”

  Dean shakes his head. “Not even close,” he says. “We were thinking that one of the victims might have been the intended target and the other three could have been killed to cover it up.”

  “That’s been known to happen,” Elliott says. “Have you looked into that angle yet?”

  Dean shakes his head. “The only viable conclusion there would be the union organizer,” he says. “Ever heard of Donald Vogel, head of the local Teamsters Union?”

  “Mad Dog Vogel?” Elliott says. “Who hasn’t? You think he killed these people?”

  “Not unless he could do it from the grave,” Dean says. “He was victim number three.”

  Elliott sighs. “That’s a shame,” he says sarcastically. “And such a fine, upstanding citizen, too.” He takes a deep breath. “But my, how much cleaner the air seems now. Did you notice?”

  “But those other three victims,” Clay says. “They didn’t need to die.”

  “I’ve got to get going,” Dean says, finishing his coffee and setting the cup down next to the coffee maker. “Just give it some thought and let me know if anything jumps out at you.”

  “I have to head out, too,” Clay says, pulling a list out of his pocket. “I have a few errands to run myself.”

  “Like what?” Elliott says. “Let me see that list,” he says, taking the list from his dad’s hand.

  Elliott looks at the list, rolls his eyes and hands it back to his dad. “Better get to number three right away,” he says. “They’re probably wondering where you are.”

  Gloria looks at Clay. “Who’s wondering?”

  “The pigeons,” Elliott explains. “Number three says, ‘Park – feed the pigeons. That’s your idea of retirement?”