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

by Bill Bernico

  “Sorry to have bothered you, Mr. Hyde,” Elliott said. “Good day, sir.”

  Norman closed the door without bothering to respond.

  Elliott walked back toward his car and turned back for one more look at the house. He noticed some curtains at the side of the door drop back into place. He ignored it and slid behind the wheel of his car. Elliott drove away and pulled around to the other side of the block, parking his car and getting out again. He soft-footed through a driveway and yard before he found himself behind Norman Hyde’s house. All he could see from where he crouched were two metal trash cans, a clothesline with two shirts hanging from it and a twenty-six inch bicycle leaning up against the house.

  Just above the sidewalk, Elliott spotted a small basement window and quickly made his way over to it. He dropped down onto his stomach and inched over to the edge of the window. What he saw in the basement made him flinch and slide back on his stomach. His foot hit the trash can and sent it tumbling. Elliott quickly got to his feet and flattened himself up against the side of the house around to the side with the driveway. He could hear the back door opening and the sound of the trashcan being set back into place. Elliott held his breath and grabbed his .38 from the holster under his arm.

  A moment later a figure rounded the corner and Elliott extended his gun had straight out. Norman Hyde stopped less than an inch from the gun’s barrel, his eyes crossing as they stared down at the gun in Elliott’s hand. He quickly stepped back.

  “What are you doing sneaking around out here?” Norman said.

  Elliott held the gun in Norman’s face. “Shut up and turn around,” he said. “Put your hands on the side of the house and spread your legs. Norman made an attempt to step forward instead and stopped when Elliott pulled the hammer back on the .38 and repeated his instructions. “Do it, now.”

  Norman turned around and laid his palms on the side of his house. Elliott pulled a pair of cuffs from his coat pocket and slapped one end on Norman’s right wrist, pulling it around to his back. He holstered his gun and pulled Norman’s other wrist behind the man’s back and connected the other cuff. He spun Norman around and pushed him up against the building.

  “Unless I’m mistaken,” Elliott said, “that man strapped to the chair in your basement is Christopher Gunther. Come on. Let’s go see how Mr. Gunther is doing, shall we?” Elliott pushed Norman ahead of him in through the back door and followed him down the basement steps. When he saw the man strapped to the chair, Elliott turned to Norman and pushed him down onto another chair. “Move and I’ll kill you,” Elliott said, and turned his attention to Gunther.

  Elliott’s stomach started to turn when he got a look at the damage to Gunther’s forearm and chin. Only after a few moments did he notice the packed nostril on one side and the drilled hole up the other side. Elliott turned toward the workbench and found a pair of wire cutters. He clipped the plastic ties off Gunther’s wrists and ankles. Gunther tried to stand up, but Elliott set him back down again.

  “Don’t try to move, Mr. Gunther,” Elliott said. “I’ll get an ambulance here right away.”

  “Thank you,” Gunther said, in a weak voice. Tears ran down his face.

  Elliott turned back toward Norman to make sure he hadn’t moved and then pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed Lieutenant Eric Anderson’s number.

  “Anderson,” Eric said.

  “Found him,” Elliott said. “You’d better get over here and bring an ambulance and the crime lab with you. You’re not going to believe this shit.” Elliott gave him the address, closed his phone again and turned his attentions back to Gunther.

  “Just sit still,” Elliott told him. “You’re going to be all right.”

  Christopher Gunther might have survived the physical ordeal, but Elliott doubted that the man would be mentally all right ever again.

  *****

  “Why didn’t you call?” Elliott said to Gloria when he got home that night.

  Gloria sighed. “To tell you the truth, I forgot all about it,” she said. “I got involved with Matt and started talking to Mrs. Chandler and time just slipped away from me. I’m sorry. Did you need me to help with your case?”

  Elliott shook his head. “You know,” he said, “It’s probably just as well that we didn’t connect. You wouldn’t have wanted to see what I saw.” He explained the job Lieutenant Anderson had hired him to do, leaving out the grisly details of how he’d found Christopher Gunther in Norman Hyde’s basement. “That guy’s lucky to be alive.” Elliott told Gloria about the first two victims and how they were no doubt also victims of the deranged Norman Hyde.

  “My dad had a favorite saying to cover almost anything that ruined his day,” Elliott said.

  “And what was that?” Gloria said.

  “He used to tell me that ‘hell is other people’ and now I understand what he meant,” Elliott said. “And I’ll bet you wouldn’t have to explain that one to Christopher Gunther after the hell he’d been put through.”

  “And how’s he doing?” Gloria said.

  “The doctor in the emergency room said he’d never see anything like the damage Gunther had done to him,” Elliott explained. “Eric and I had a chance to talk to Gunther after the doctor finished patching him up again. It looks like some good came out of all this carnage after all.”

  “Good?” Gloria said. “How could any good come out of all that?”

  “Gunther told me that bankruptcy or not, he’s going to repay every person and business on that list if it takes him the rest of his life,” Elliott said. “It might just take him the rest of his life, too. But he says he’s done with the handyman business. He says he’s going to get a regular job doing whatever he can to earn what he needs to repay everyone on that list.”

  “Hell is other people, eh?” Gloria said. “Do you feel that way, too?”

  “Huh?” Elliott said.

  “Matt and Clay and I are other people,” Gloria said. “Are we hell?”

  Elliott smiled and wrapped his arms around his wife. “If this is hell,” he said, “I can’t wait to see what heaven is.”

  91 - By Hooker By Crook

  I was in my surveillance van on my way back to the office and it was almost noon. Traffic on Hollywood Boulevard was congested, making me wonder if there wasn’t some show business ballyhoo going on somewhere up the block. One of my favorite songs came on the radio and my mind wandered for just a second. But I guess one second was all it took for me to lose my concentration. The car ahead of me stopped suddenly, its taillights blaring in my face. I hit my brakes, but apparently I was half a second late and my front bumper hit the trunk lid of the car ahead of me. The trunk lid popped open just a second before the other driver leapt out of his car and rushed back to where I was sitting.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” the man yelled. “Can’t you see I had to stop?”

  I leaned my head out of my window. “Sorry,” I said, making up an excuse. “My foot slipped off the brake pedal.” I got out to take a closer look at the damage to his car. The man was trying to close his trunk lid and not having any luck making it stay down. It popped up again and that’s when I saw the body lying in the trunk, partially wrapped in a blanket, its blonde hair curling out from under the edge of the blanket.

  Purely out of instinct, I drew my .38 from under my arm and trained it on the other driver. “Keep your hands where I can see them,” I barked. Ahead at the next corner I could see the blue uniform of a traffic cop. I whistled a high-pitched, shrill whistle and motioned for the cop to come over. Before he got here, I dug my badge and I.D. out of my jacket pocket and by the time he made it to where I was holding the other driver at bay, I had it held up for him to see.

  “What’s going on here?” the cop said.

  The man with his hands raised, gestured with one of those hands toward me. “I was stopped in traffic,” the man said. “I felt this bump from behind and when I got out to look at the damage, ol’ Nutsy here pulls a gun on me.”r />
  I motioned toward the trunk. “Take a look in the trunk,” I said. “There’s a body in there.”

  “Is that what this is all about?” the irate driver said.

  “You just shut up and stand still,” I said, keeping my gun trained on him.

  Just then the traffic cop turned around. He was holding the body in his hands. “Is this what you saw?” he said to me. He was holding a store mannequin in his hands.

  I looked at the mannequin and then at the other driver, who had now lowered his hands. He spread them and shrugged at me. “Are you going to tell me I’m under arrest for transporting a mannequin?” he said sarcastically. He took the mannequin from the cop’s hands and dropped it back into his trunk.

  As I returned my .38 to the underarm holster I could feel my face and ears getting hot. “It was an honest mistake,” I told the cop. “You’d have done the same thing.”

  The cop sighed. “All right,” he said, “both of you break out your license and registration and let’s get this over with.”

  When I got back to the office, Gloria gave me one of her impatient looks. “Where have you been?” she said. “I thought you’d be back thirty minutes ago.”

  “I was in an accident,” I said.

  “Her impatient look quickly changed to one of concern. “Are you all right, Elliott?” she said. “What happened?”

  By the time I’d finished telling the story, I could see that Gloria was having trouble keeping a straight face.

  “Go ahead,” I said. “Get it out of your system. I can see I’m never going to live this one down.”

  “You have to admit,” Gloria said, “it is funny. Did the cop get the mannequin’s I.D., too?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And yes, when the cop asked the other driver if there were any other dummies involved, the other driver pointed to me. Now I hope we’ve heard the last of this incident.”

  Gloria held her hands up in a defensive pose. “I didn’t say anything else,” she said.

  Just them my phone rang. “Cooper,” I said, pressing the handset to my ear.

  “Elliott Cooper?” the voice on the other end said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Thank goodness,” the voice said. “I heard there was a traffic accident involving a dead body and I saw your name on the accident report. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “Eric is that you?” I said.

  Lieutenant Eric Anderson, one of L.A.’s laughed loud and hard in my ear. “I couldn’t resist, Elliott,” he said, still laughing. “Just so you know, I checked the mannequin against out most wanted list and he wasn’t there so don’t give it another thought.”

  “Thanks for your concern, Eric,” I said and hung up.

  I turned back to see Gloria covering her mouth with her hand. When she couldn’t contain herself anymore, she let loose with another extended laugh. Seeing her laugh must have been contagious, because a few seconds later I was laughing right along with her.

  The phone rang on my desk and I held up one hand to Gloria. It took another three rings before Gloria could control herself. I picked up and said, “Cooper Investigations, Elliott speaking.”

  “Mr. Cooper,” the man on the other end said. “I’d like to speak to you about a job I’d like to hire you for. Would it be convenient to come by your office and talk to you this morning?”

  “One minute, please,” I said. “Let me take a quick look at the schedule.” I put him on hold, knowing full well that the daily planner on my desk was blank for today. It was good for business to let people think that we thought they were important enough so squeeze them into our busy day. I gave it a few more seconds before I came back on the line. “I can see you this morning. What time works for you?”

  “In five minutes,” the man said. “I’m across the street at the pay phone in the drug store. Can I come up right now?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Third floor, all the way at the end of the hall. I’ll see you in five minutes.”

  I turned to Gloria. “Looks like we may have some work this morning,” I said. “The client’s across the street and on his way up here. Let’s look professional. And no laughing, all right?”

  “What kind of dummy do you take me for,” Gloria said, trying to get a rise out of me. I wasn’t biting.

  I wagged one finger back and forth in front of her. “Uh uh,” I said. “Professional.”

  A few minutes later the office door opened and a man in casual clothes walked in, closing the door behind him. He looked at Gloria and then at me and decided he’d rather talk to a man. He came over to my desk and I rose to meet him.

  “Elliott Cooper,” I said, extending my hand.

  “Burt Harbinson,” the man said, shaking my hand.

  I gestured toward my client’s chair. “Won’t you have a seat, Mr. Harbinson?” I said.

  Harvey nervously glanced over at Gloria and then back at me. “Is there someplace private we can talk?” he said.

  I summoned Gloria to come over. “Mr. Harbinson,” I said. “This is my partner, Gloria, who also happens to be my wife. We share all our cases and whatever you have to say to me, I’m sure Gloria’s heard it all before.”

  Gloria extended her hand to shake Harbinson’s but he ignored it.

  “Maybe I’d better look elsewhere,” Harbinson said and started to leave.

  “I forgot to tell you, Elliott,” Gloria said. “I still haven’t brought that camera in from my car. I’d better go get it. I think I’ll get a cup of coffee while I’m out so I might be a while.” She turned and left the office.

  I gestured toward the client’s chair again. “Please, Mr. Harbinson,” I said, “won’t you have a seat and tell me how I can help you?”

  Harbinson reluctantly say and sighed. “It’s my wife,” he said. “I’d like you to tail her and find out what she’s up to.”

  “What is it you suspect her of?” I said.

  Harbinson paused before offering, “I saw her go into an establishment,” he said. “I’d like you to go in and find out if she works there.”

  “You don’t know where your wife is working?” I said.

  Harbinson shrugged. “I know, it sounds strange,” he said. “I mean, I know she has a job. At least that’s what she’s been telling me for the last few weeks. But I never see a payroll check and she always just brings home cash. She tells me she’s a receptionist, but no receptionist I’ve ever met ever made the kind of money she seems to have lately.”

  “So far,” I said, “this doesn’t seem like a job for a private investigator. What’s got you nervous about this job your wife says she has, and which establishment did you see her going into?”

  “After two weeks of her being so mysterious about her job,” Harbinson said, I got curious. I called in sick at work one day and followed her. The place she went into was a...” He paused. “How shall I put this? A house of ill repute.”

  “A brothel,” I said.

  “I guess you could call it that,” Harbinson said.

  “And how would you know that the place is a brothel?” I said.

  Now he really looked nervous. “That’s not important,” he said. “I just know it is and I want to hire you to go in there and see if she really is a receptionist, or...”

  I held up one hand. “I think I understand,” I said. “If she’s a receptionist, is that the end of it as far as I’m concerned?”

  Harbinson nodded. “That’s all I want you to do,” he said.

  “That shouldn’t take me more than an hour,” I said. “I have a one day minimum charge of two hundred dollars. Does that work for you?”

  Harbinson thought about it for a moment and then said, “I guess it’s better than not knowing. The suspense is killing me.”

  “Do you have a recent photo of Mrs. Harbinson?” I said. “Perhaps a three by five that’ll fit in my pocket?”

  “I thought you might ask,” Harbinson said, “so I brought one along.” He handed me a small photo. “This
is Shirley.”

  I took the photo from him and studied it. The woman looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties. She had shoulder length blonde hair, blue eyes and a face right out of a glamour magazine. I tucked the photo in my shirt pocket and assured Harbinson that I’d get him an answer, one way or another.

  “Does she work every day?” I said. “And when does she usually go to work?”

  “She works five days a week,” Harbinson said. “She doesn’t work weekends and she goes in Monday through Friday at six p.m.”

  “Second shift, eh?” I said, trying to illicit a laugh from the distraught husband. He failed to see any humor in it so I let it drop. “I’ll get on it tonight,” I said. “I should have an answer for you by tomorrow.”

  “I can’t wait until tomorrow,” Harbinson said. “My stomach is already in knots. Shirley works six to midnight and I’ll be up until at least then. When you find out, call me right away.” He wrote down his home phone number on a piece of paper and pushed it across the desk to me.

  “I will,” I promised. “Just as soon as I have an answer for you.”

  Harbinson rose from his chair and shook my hand again. “Thank you, Mr. Cooper,” he said, and left the office.

  Gloria came back in a minute later. “I passed him in the hall,” she said. “What was so private that I had to leave the room?”

  I explained Harbinson’s case to Gloria and she immediately smiled. “So what’s his problem?” she said. “That his wife might be hooking or that he might have to find a different place to find his hookers?”

  “See,” I said, “there are two sides to every story. I guess I’ll be working overtime tonight. I can check the place out after supper tonight.”

  “You just make sure that’s all you’re checking out,” Gloria said, her arms folded across her chest.

  “Come on,” I said. “You know me better than that. I’d never waste a dollar paying for it.”