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

by Bill Bernico

  “Did anyone tell Harper about all of this?” Eric said.

  “Not yet,” I said. “I figured you’d want to talk to him yourself when you get out.”

  His right arm in a sling, Eric held his left hand out and I awkwardly shook it. “Thanks, Elliott,” Eric said. “I owe you one.”

  “Forget it,” I said. “You’ve thrown enough work my way in the past to more than cover it. Just keep throwing me more of it. I can use the work.”

  I got home shortly before eleven that night and found Gloria still up, waiting for me. When she saw me she held one finger up to her lips.

  “Shhh,” she said. “I finally got Matt to sleep. He wanted to wait up for you but he just couldn’t keep his little eyes open any longer.”

  I smiled and then wrapped my arms around Gloria. I sighed heavily. “It’s been one hell of a day,” I said. “How about if I fill you in on the whole story in the morning?”

  Gloria stood on tip-toes and kissed me. “In the morning,” she said, and led me to the bedroom.

  96 – Oscar Night

  I was driving north on Western Avenue the morning that I looked up in my rear view mirror and saw the rotating red lights behind me. I quickly glanced at my speedometer and realized that I was unconsciously doing nearly forty miles per hour in a twenty-five zone. I pulled over to the curb and turned my car off, waiting for the inevitable. I checked my outside mirror and saw an officer walking my way. A second later the knock came on my window and I lowered it, looking up at the patrolman in blue.

  “Good morning, officer,” I said. “Have I done something wrong?” What the hell, it never hurt to play innocent.

  “License and registration, please,” the cop said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  I dug my wallet out of my back pocket and flipped it open to my license.

  “Would you take it out of the wallet, please?” the officer said.

  I removed the license and handed it up to him. I flipped open my glove box door and found the registration slip as well and handed that to the cop. I waited while he looked over my credentials.

  “The reason I stopped you,” the cop said, “was because you were driving in excess of forty miles per hour in a twenty-five mile per hour zone.”

  I tried to play dumb. “I’m sorry, officer,” I said. “I hadn’t realized that I was going that fast. I guess my mind was on my work. In fact, I was just on my way to see Lieutenant Eric Anderson over at the twelfth precinct. We’re working together on a case.” I flipped my wallet open to my badge and I.D. and held them up for the cop to see. He looked down at the I.D. card and silver badge.

  “Private eye?” he said.

  “Uh huh,” I said. “I know that’s no excuse for letting my speed get away from me.”

  The cop handed me back my license and registration. “I’m going to let you off with just a warning this time, but just keep a closer eye on your speedometer, sir.”

  “Thank you, officer,” I said, slipping my license back into my wallet and my registration back into the glove box. “And have a nice day.” I regretted that last part as soon as the words left my mouth. “Have a nice day?” What was I, some geeky shoe salesman? I pulled away from the curb at exactly the posted limit and turned left at my first opportunity. I wanted to be out of that cop’s sight and out of his mind as quickly as possible. I wasn’t going anywhere near Lieutenant Anderson’s office, but the cop didn’t need to know that. I turned right at the next corner and headed back to my office on Hollywood Boulevard.

  Back in the office, Gloria could tell something was up but didn’t say anything at first. I’d sneak a glance at her every now and then and each time she seemed to be absorbed in her data entry chores on her computer. Having her remain silent was almost worse than having her say something.

  “All right, already,” I said. “I got pulled over on the way here. You happy now? You got it out of me.”

  Gloria looked up from her computer. “What?” she said. “I wasn’t really listening. What did you say?”

  “I didn’t get a ticket,” I said. “In case that was your next question. I got off with a warning, okay?”

  “Whatever you say, Elliott,” Gloria said in that condescending way that irritated me.

  It would have been better if she’d just chewed me out and gotten it over with, but she seemed to be enjoying this little game of hers. I felt like a mouse being toyed with and she was an awfully big cat—a big, sadistic cat.

  I took shelter behind my desk and turned on my computer, eager to move on. I spent the next fifteen minutes browsing the web to see what new surveillance toys they had available out there. I paused on a page that showed a pair of horn-rimmed glasses like the ones Buddy Holly used to wear. Upon closer examination, I found that these glasses had a miniature camera embedded in the stems. It saw what the wearer saw. Too bad wearing them made you look like a total dweeb. They might have come in handy otherwise.

  One site offered a similar item only this one had the tiny camera integrated into the embroidered design on the front of a baseball cap. Now there was something that could be useful to me in my business as a private investigator. Surveillance could sometimes get to be downright difficult without the right tools and this was one of those tools that I just had to have. I clicked on the icon of the hat and next to it, clicked on the quantity box and entered a two. I figured Gloria might be able to use one as well.

  My phone rang shortly after I’d submitted my order and credit card information. “Cooper investigations,” I said. “Elliott Cooper speaking.”

  “Mr. Cooper,” the female voice on the other end said. “I wonder if I might be able to stop in and talk to you this morning.”

  “Let me check my calendar. Can you hold for a second?” I said and put the woman on hold while I pretended to check my calendar, which in reality was wide open. I pressed the button for line one again and said, “When did you want to stop by?”

  “Would ten o’clock work for you?” she said.

  I checked the wall clock over the office door. It was nine-fifty. “Can you get here that soon?” I said.

  “I’m right across the street,” she said, “at the public phone.”

  “Must be one of the last public phones in the city,” I said. “I thought they were all gone.”

  “Guess not,” she said and waited.

  “Sure,” I said. “Come on up. I’ll be here.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Cooper,” she said and hung up.

  Four minutes later she stepped into the office, took one look at Gloria and then glanced at me. In that split second, she deduced that I must be the man she was talking to and walked over to my desk. She looked to be in her mid to late thirties with a few extra pounds showing around her waistline. She had mousy brown, shoulder-length hair and clothes that should have been worn by someone a decade younger.

  “Elliott Cooper,” I said, gesturing toward my client’s chair and inviting her to sit. I extended my hand to her.

  “Donna Babcock,” the woman said, shaking my hand and taking a seat across from me.

  I gestured toward Gloria. “And this is my wife, Gloria,” I said.

  Gloria nodded politely and went back to her data entry chores.

  “So,” I said, getting right down to the matter at hand, “how can I help you today?”

  “What I’d like you to do, Mr. Cooper,” Donna said, “is find my father for me.”

  “That’s it?” I said. “Just find your father? Have you misplaced him?”

  Donna Babcock gave me a look reserved for the Village Idiot and I realized that maybe I shouldn’t be joking around with her until I got to know her better.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Bad joke. When did you last see your father?”

  “I think it was June thirteenth,” Donna said.

  I looked at my desk calendar. Today was June fourteenth. “You saw him yesterday and now you can’t find him?”

  Donna sighed. “June thirteenth, nineteen eighty-seven,” she
said. “He left home when I was twelve.”

  “And you’re just now starting to look for him?” I said. “What brought all this on?”

  “My mother,” Donna said. “It was her idea.” She could tell by the look on my face that I was lost. “You see, Mr. Cooper, I’m going to have a baby for the first time in my life at thirty-eight.”

  “Well, congratulations, I guess,” I said.

  “You don’t understand,” Donna said. “I need to find him so I can trace his medical history. I’m afraid I might be passing on something bad to my baby through dad.”

  “Something bad?” I said. “Like what?”

  By now Gloria had stopped her data entry and sat listening intently to Donna Babcock’s story.

  Donna Babcock was dabbing at her eyes now and that prompted Gloria to get up from her desk and approach Donna. She laid an arm around Donna’s shoulder.

  “Suppose you tell us about it,” Gloria said.

  Donna sniffed, wiped her nose and then continued. “It’s something called Edwards Syndrome,” she said. “It’s also known as Trisomy 18 or T18 for short. It has something to do with part of an extra eighteenth chromosome. They tell me it only occurs in one out of six thousand births and that most of the babies affected by it die before birth. This condition has a very low rate of survival, resulting from heart abnormalities, kidney malformations, and other internal organ disorders. So you see, Mr. Cooper, I need to find my natural father so I can check his medical history. I don’t want to take any chances, especially at my age.”

  Gloria patted Donna’s shoulder. “We’ll do whatever it takes to find your father,” she said. “Don’t you worry about it. If we can’t find him ourselves, we have so many more connections in the field that someone will be able to.”

  Donna patted the top of Gloria’s hand. “Thank you, Mrs. Cooper,” she said.

  “Please call me Gloria,” Gloria told her, and then pulled another chair up alongside Donna’s. “Suppose you tell us all you know about your father and then let us see what we can find out. After a couple of days we should have something for you to go on.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “We can start on the search this morning already. We’ll find him for you.”

  “Thank you, too, Mr. Cooper,” Donna said. “I feel better already. Should I call you in a couple of days?”

  “Leave me a number where we can reach you,” I said. “It’s probably better if we call you when we have something.”

  Donna Babcock jotted her name and home phone number on the pad I’d handed her. She was about to pass the pad back to me and then added another phone number. “That second one is my cell phone,” she said.

  We talked for another twenty minutes about her father. Donna gave us all she knew about him and then stopped.

  “I’m sorry there isn’t more to go on,” she said, “but that’s all I know about him.”

  “What about your mother?” Gloria said. “Would she be able to tell us any more than this?”

  Donna shook her head. “Mom passed away six months ago, long before I got pregnant. It just never came up and I didn’t ask her anything more about dad than she’d already told me.”

  “This should be enough to get us started,” I said and rose from my desk. “We’ll be in touch.” Gloria walked Donna Babcock to the door and gave her a hug before letting her go.

  Gloria turned to me. “Poor thing,” she said. “It must be devastating to learn that you might be carrying a ticking bomb like T18 or that your father might have passed something like that on to you. I think for me, at least, that the not knowing would be the hardest part of all.”

  “Makes you thankful for the healthy boy we got, doesn’t it?” I said.

  Gloria hugged me. “Let’s find Donna’s father.” She stopped briefly at her desk and switched off her data entry program, clicking instead on the Internet icon. Gloria looked up at me. “I just want to check something for a second.” She typed in Steven Babcock’s name and waited. A few seconds later she got more than seventeen hundred hits. She looked up at me. “That’s what I was afraid of. Steven Babcock is a somewhat common name. Let’s go see if we can narrow that down a little.”

  “What did you have in mind?” I said.

  “I figured we’d start at the hall of records downtown,” Gloria said. Their databases are a lot more encompassing that anything available to the public.”

  After more than an hour at the county computer we were still no closer to finding Donna Babcock’s father than we had been. “Either this guy is good at covering his tracks,” I said, “or he’s been dead for more than twenty-six years and he took all his records with him.”

  We finally gave up in frustration and walked up to the counter. My old friend, Marie Bullard was sitting at her desk behind the counter.

  “Any luck finding what you were looking for?” Marie said.

  I shook my head. “Nothing,” I said. “You’d think we would find at least one little shred of evidence. It’s like the guy never existed. I’m about ready to give up on this guy.”

  “Not so fast,” Marie said. “There’s one more avenue you might want to try.”

  “Really?” I said. “What’s that?”

  Marie wrote a name and number down on a piece of paper and slid it across the counter toward me. “I have this friend,” she said. “She and her husband run a genealogy service.”

  “Genealogy,” I said.

  “You know,” Marie explained. “Family trees and all that. They’ve been known to be able to trace a client’s family back more than four hundred years. She’s not inexpensive, but she gets results.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “We’ll give that a try.”

  “Thank you,” Gloria said to Marie.

  Marie just turned away and sat behind her desk again. Gloria and I left the building and returned to our car.

  “What is it?” Gloria said. “She’s Miss Congeniality to you but acts like I don’t exist. Does she still have the hots for you, Elliott?”

  “Don’t they all?” I said, polishing my fingernails on my shirt.

  Gloria punched me in the shoulder. “Don’t let it go to your head,” she said, and pulled out her cell phone. She dialed the number on the paper and asked for Melinda Cameron.

  “This is Melinda,” the voice said. “How can I help you?”

  “Yes,” Gloria said, “we got your name from Marie Bullard. She tells us you’re pretty good at tracking down a person’s history.”

  “We like to think we are,” Melinda said. “Who were you looking for?”

  “Not over the phone,” Gloria said. “I was wonder if my husband and I could stop in and talk to you about the person we’re looking for.”

  “Certainly,” Melinda said, and gave Gloria the address. “If you’re at City Hall now, you’re less than ten minutes away from our office. I’ll expect to see you then.”

  Gloria wrote the address down and closed her phone. “Let’s go,” she said, gesturing out the windshield of my high-tech surveillance van. We spent the next forty minutes giving Melinda all we knew about Steven Babcock. She told us that it would take her some time to look into the matter and that she’d call us by the end of the day, whether she had anything or not. We agreed and returned to our office.

  We got the call around four o’clock that afternoon. It was Melinda Cameron with the genealogy results.

  “Mr. Cooper,” Melinda began. “I have some results for you on your request. They may not be the results you were looking for, but they are what they are. I’m afraid Steven Babcock is dead.”

  “Is that so?” I said. “When did this happen?” I could hear papers shuffling over the phone.

  “Mr. Babcock died in September of nineteen ninety-one,” Melinda said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have been more helpful to you.”

  “Thank you, Melinda,” I said. “At least I can help put closure on someone else’s concerns. Could you send your bill to my office?”

  “Mr. Cooper,�
� Melinda said, “normally I would, but I really haven’t done all that much for you. I spent less than an hour finding Mr. Babcock and just a few minutes more determining that he was dead. There’ll be no charge for this one, but I would appreciate any recommendations you’d care to throw my way.”

  “You’ve got it, Melinda,” I said. “And thank you again for your effort. I’ll be in touch.” I hung up the phone and told Gloria what Melinda had learned.

  “Poor Donna,” Gloria said. “Not knowing is sometimes worse than knowing. I hope she’ll get through this all right.”

  “Well,” I said, “whatever her decision is, it’ll be hers alone to make. I don’t envy her.” I sighed and looked at Gloria. “Would you make the call, please? She may take it better coming from you.”

  Gloria nodded. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll do it now if you’ll go down to the corner and get us a couple of chocolate malts.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I know when you want the office to yourself. I’ll take my time.”

  “Thanks, Elliott,” Gloria said.

  I gave Gloria half an hour to make the call and an extra fifteen minutes just to be by herself and think. By the time I walked in with the two chocolate malts she was back on her computer working on that never-ending data entry chore. I handed her one of the malts and said, “So, how’d it go with Donna?”

  Gloria took a sip from her straw, swallowed and licked her lips. “She took it fairly well,” Gloria said. “There was no loss on her part, since she hadn’t seen the guy in more than a quarter century. But she was pretty disappointed not to know for sure whether or not her father might have carried the gene for Trisomy 18. She had asked how much she owed us and Gloria told her there would be no charge. “Well,” Gloria told me, “Melinda didn’t charge us and I felt it was only right to pass that on to Donna. She’s got enough on her mind.”