by Bill Bernico
“So today was pretty much a wash all around,” I said.
“It wasn’t a total waste,” Gloria said. “We can add Melinda Cameron to our Rolodex of contacts. You never know when her services might come in handy for us.”
“I suppose,” I said.
“You know, Elliott,” Gloria said. “Meeting Melinda got me to thinking about our own family tree.”
“What about it?” I said.
“Aren’t you curious about your roots?” Gloria said. “Don’t you want to know where you come from?”
“Why?” I said. “How can I use that information once I get it?”
“You never know,” Gloria said. “How far can you trace your family back now?”
I thought about it for a moment and then said, “Only about as far back as my great-grandfather, Nick. And I only know about him because Grandpa Matt used to tell me about him.”
“Nick’s the one who was shot in the back, wasn’t he?” Gloria said. “Something about land leases and oil rights from way back when?”
I nodded. “Nick died back in nineteen twenty-nine,” I said, “just a few months before the stock market crash.”
“Didn’t you ever ask Grandpa Matt about his grandfather or anyone else who came before him?” Gloria said.
“I never even thought about it,” I said. “And I still wouldn’t have thought about it if you hadn’t brought it up just now.”
“But wouldn’t it be something if somewhere along your family tree, you were related to someone famous?”
“Or infamous,” I said. “A search like that could also go the other way. What if I found out that I was related to Al Capone, for instance? That’s not something that I’d want to get around, especially in a business like the one we’re in. Would you?”
“There is that,” Gloria said. “But there are also the potential clients out there who would be drawn to a connection like that one. I mean, Capone’s been dead, what, nearly seventy years. Who’d even care anymore? Besides, the odds of you being connected to him are a million to one. What do you say? Should we have a peek into your past?”
I had to admit, I was a little curious about my ancestors. “Why not?” I said. “We’ll call Melinda tomorrow and set up a time to go and see her.”
“That’s great,” Gloria said. “When we get the family tree, I’ll be sure and put it away so Matt will have it to look back on when he’s older.”
“And when we’re finished digging up my family skeletons,” I said, “Melinda can start in on the Campbell family tree.”
Gloria smiled. I think that’s what she wanted all along, but she surely took the long way around getting there. “Fair enough,” she said.
The following morning Gloria called Melinda and set up an appointment for us to go in and talk with her. Melinda told Gloria what I should bring in order to help make her search easier and more efficient. Armed with a briefcase full of whatever I could find, Gloria and I went to see Melinda.
Melinda greeted us at the door and invited us to sit. “Can I get anything for either of you?” she said. “Coffee, soda, tea perhaps?”
I waved her off. “Nothing for me, thanks,” I said.
“Tea sounds nice,” Gloria said.
Melinda set the cup of tea in front of Melinda and then looked at my briefcase. “Did you bring me something interesting that I can use?” she said.
I popped the clasps open on my briefcase and opened it, pulling out its contents and handing them to Melinda. “I’m afraid that’s all the printed material and photos that I have,” I said. “The rest is all up here.” I tapped the side of my head with my finger.
Melinda took a quick look at what I’d brought and then laid it on the table between us. From another table behind her she produced what looked like a blank flow chart with boxes connected by lines and arrows, forming somewhat of a pyramid of boxes. She laid it in front of Gloria and me and pointed to the bottom box. “This would be your son, Matt,” she said and wrote Matt’s name in the box. She pointed with her pencil to the two boxes directly above Matt’s name. “And here is where we put your two names.” She wrote both our names in the boxes and leaned back in her chair. “There, you already have two levels to your family tree.”
“I see the logic behind this,” I said. “So above my box you would fill in my father and mother’s names.” I looked at Melinda, expecting her to do it.
Melinda handed me the pencil. “You do it, Elliott,” she said.
I took the pencil from her and wrote Clay Cooper and Veronica Cooper in the boxes above my name. I handed the pencil to Gloria and gestured toward the flow chart. “Go on,” I said, “fill in your parents’ names.” She filled them in and handed the pencil back to me. I was getting the hang of this and followed the connecting lines up from Mom and Dad’s names. I wrote Matt Cooper above Dad’s name and in the box to the right of Grandpa Matt I wrote Amy Callahan and then looked at Melinda. “Grandpa Matt was married twice,” I said. “Where should we put the name of his first wife, Stella McCarthy?”
Melinda looked at the flow chart. “Did that marriage result in any children?” she said.
“No,” I told her. “Stella was killed two years after they were married. They never had any children.”
“Then we can leave it off the chart,” Melinda said. “After all, we’re just tracing family roots, and Stella’s don’t lead anywhere. So, do you know your great-grandparents’ names?”
“Great-Grandpa Nick was Matt’s father,” I offered. “And Nick’s wife was Eve something or other. If I ever heard it, I don’t remember what it was. And that’s as far back as I know about my family.”
“Well, that’s a good start,” Melinda said. “I’ve had pretty good success with less. Would it be all right with you if I spoke to your father? He may be able to fill in a few more pieces of this puzzle.”
“Sure,” I said. “I don’t think he’d mind. He might even get a kick out of doing a little detective work on this case.”
“That’s great,” Melinda said. “Can you leave your material with me while I research this?”
“Take the briefcase and all,” I said. “That’s as good a place as any to keep it in. Just don’t lose anything. These are the only copies I have.”
“They’ll be safe with me,” Melinda said. “Are you in any kind of hurry for this family tree?”
“No,” I said. “Take all the time you need. Just give me a call when you’ve taken it as far back as you can. And thanks again. I’m getting excited to find out more about my family’s roots.”
Gloria and I drove back to Hollywood and talked about what might lie in my family’s past. “You know,” Gloria said, “if you get some great results, we might want to think about a new advertising campaign for the business. Our Yellow Pages ad has been the same for years, at least since I’ve known you. And I’ll bet if I asked Clay, he’d tell me that the ad hasn’t changed since Matt ran the business back in the forties.”
“What’s your point, Gloria?” I said.
“My point is that it wouldn’t hurt to keep up with the times,” Gloria said. “Have you seen some of the other P.I. ads? If I didn’t already know you and if I needed a P.I. and if I was looking at ads in the Yellow Pages, yours is not one that would stick in my mind. I mean I might get around to calling you eventually, if all other avenues were exhausted. Hey, all I’m saying is that I think it’s time we brought the business in line with the twenty-first century. The Philip Marlowe era has passed.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. “I guess I’m just a traditionalist, like Dad. We both like the familiarity of seeing the ad we’ve become accustomed to for all these years.”
“Elliott,” Gloria said, “it’s fine to want to cling to the past, but realistically we have to update the ad, maybe think about some sort of logo, and maybe even a new sign on the outside of the building.”
“But Dad made that sign when he joined Grandpa Matt in ‘71,” I said.
“Yeah,” Gloria said. “But
it says, ‘Cooper and Son’ and your son won’t be old enough to join you in this business for another twenty years. And since Clay has retired, the sign has become irrelevant. You can still be Cooper, but I’m certainly not your son, now am I?”
“Okay,” I said, “you made your point. We’ll look into updating after we get the results from Melinda. Meanwhile if you want to start thinking about doodling out some kind of logo, I’ll look at it.”
Gloria leaned over in her seat and kissed my cheek. “See,” she said, “that wasn’t so painful, was it?” Just then she looked out her window and then turned back to me. “Can we pull in here and get a bite to eat? I’m starving.”
I pulled the van into the fast food restaurant parking lot and killed the engine. Gloria and I hopped out of the van and went inside. I suppose I could have gone through the drive-thru, but I sat up too high in the van and it was always awkward to pass my money over and take my food from that little window. We took a booth by the front window so we could watch the traffic go by as we ate. Gloria slid in and I walked up to the counter to get our food. By the time I returned to the booth, Gloria was talking to a man who was leaning over the bench, his face close to Gloria’s. When she saw me, she leaned back, away from the man and looked at his face.
“Mr. Crawford,” Gloria said, “this is my husband, Elliott Cooper. Elliott, this is Kevin Crawford.”
I set the food tray down on the table and extended my hand to the man. “Mr. Crawford,” I said. “Is there something we can do for you today?”
Gloria followed my eyes as I slid into the booth across from her. “Mr. Crawford saw us come in here and recognized us,” Gloria said. “He’d like to hire us.”
I slid all the way in, against the wall and invited Crawford to sit next to me. “Pardon us if we eat while you explain,” I said, “but the food’ll get cold if we don’t.”
“Oh, please,” Crawford said, “by all means, go ahead and eat. It could take me that long to explain what I need anyway.”
“Go ahead,” I said, biting into my cheeseburger and sipping from my chocolate shake.
“I’m being sued,” Crawford said. “Some guy came to my door three weeks ago trying to sell me some kitchen utensils. I told him I wasn’t interested and closed the door on him. A couple seconds later I heard some yelling and moaning outside and when I opened the door again, this so-called salesman was lying on the sidewalk that comes up to my door from the street. He was lying on his back, moaning and saying something about tripping on a piece of uneven cement on my walk. I offered to help him up, but he insisted that I call an ambulance to take him to the hospital.”
I swallowed, cleared my throat and said, “Sounds to me like a civil case that your insurance company should handle. Why would you need us?”
“That’s just it,” Crawford said. “I’d just moved in earlier that day and hadn’t seen an insurance agent yet. I was planning on doing that the very next day and then this had to happen.”
“And just what was it you wanted us to do for you, Mr. Crawford?” I said, taking another bite of my sandwich.
“Here’s the thing,” Crawford said. “This idiot is suing me for a hundred grand for negligence and for pain and suffering.”
“And?” I said.
“And the other day I saw him out and about,” Crawford explained. “Not only is he not hurt, he seems to be in perfect health. He’s not walking with a limp or stooped over. He doesn’t even wear a back brace. I think I’m being set up, Mr. Cooper. I need you to get the evidence I need to have his case thrown out of court. I can’t afford a hundred grand.”
“Do you have the guy’s name?” I said.
Crawford pulled a slip of paper from his shirt pocket and laid it down in front of me. I read the contents of the note. “Kenny Fulton,” I said. “Fulton, that name rings a bell for some reason.”
Gloria took the slip of paper from me. “Fulton,” she said. “And he lives in Glendale. It sounds familiar to me, too, but I don’t know why. Maybe I’m thinking of someone else.”
“So,” Crawford said, “will you look into it for me?”
I glanced at Gloria, who gave me a quick nod. I turned back to Crawford. “We’ll take the case, Mr. Crawford. If Fulton is faking his injuries, we’ll get the goods on him. When is your court case coming up?”
Crawford sighed. “Two weeks from tomorrow,” he said. “I know it’s not much notice, but I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Let me ask you something, Mr. Crawford,” I said. “How did you come to choose Cooper Investigations to handle your case? Did you see our ad in the Yellow Pages?”
Crawford’s eyes narrowed and his forehead wrinkled. “You have a Yellow Pages ad?”
I waved him off. “Never mind,” I said. “It’s not important.
Gloria quickly grabbed a napkin and held it over her mouth. Streams of chocolate malt leaked through it and once she could swallow again, she broke out in a giggle. She looked at Crawford. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Did I say something funny?” Crawford said.
“No, you didn’t,” I said. “That’s just Gloria’s way of letting me know she’s thinking about me, isn’t it, Gloria?” I gave her a stern look and she stopped giggling. I turned back to Crawford. “We’ll be in touch.” I gave him two of my business cards. “Keep one of these for yourself and write your name, address and phone number on the back of the other one.”
“Thanks, Mr. Cooper,” Crawford said before he slipped out of the booth and left the restaurant.
Gloria finished wiping her chin and the front of her shirt and then looked at me, but said nothing.
“I get it,” I said. “We’ll look into updating the business image just as soon as we finish with Crawford’s case, okay?”
“Whatever you say,” Gloria said.
Back in the van I turned to Gloria. “Why do you suppose we both thought Fulton’s name seemed familiar?” I said. “We’ve handled injury fraud cases before, but Fulton wasn’t anyone we’d investigated.”
“I don’t know,” Gloria said. “It might come to either of us sooner or later. Let’s just see if we can locate Kenny Fulton and see what he’s up to. Do you still have your mini spy helicopters in the back of this van?”
“I’m never without them,” I said. “Read me that address, will you?”
“Ten-eleven Ogden Drive,” Gloria said, grabbing the Los Angeles Street Map book. She thumbed through it and folded the page back. “That’s two blocks east of Fairfax and a block and a half south of Santa Monica. Take a right at the corner. Ten-eleven would put it on the west side of the street.”
The house was very small. It couldn’t have had more than five hundred square feet of total floor space. A narrow paved driveway led to a garage at the back of the house. The driveway and the steps leading to the front porch had both been painted pink. The house itself had been painted barn red with white trim. I drove right past the house and parked up the block. Gloria and I got out and started walking back toward the house, arm in arm, just a couple out for a leisurely walk. We pretended to be talking to each other as we walked past the front of the house. At the corner, we crossed the street and walked back the way we’d come, viewing the house from another angle.
When we got back to the van I crawled into the back compartment and Gloria slid beneath the wheel. In the back compartment, where I kept the attached bench full of monitors, I also had a rack attached to the ceiling that held several changes of clothes that I often used as disguises. I selected one that looked like something a utility worker might wear. It consisted of a navy blue shirt with the name, ‘Chester’ stitched above the pocket. There were matching blue slacks to go with it. The ensemble was topped off with a navy blue cap that said, ‘Public Works’ across the front of it. I pulled a clipboard from one of the racks, attached a few papers to it and retrieved a pen from my glove box.
“How do I look?” I said.
“Like you belong in the neighborhood,” Gloria said. �
��Where are you going to start?”
“Drive around the block and pull up to the curb three houses south of Fulton’s,” I said. “I’ll start asking some of the neighbors if they’ve noticed Fulton hanging around outside lately. We’ll see where it goes from there.”
Gloria circled the block and pulled up to the curb. I looked both ways out the van window before emerging and walking up the path to the house two houses south of Fulton’s. It was a peach-colored adobe-style house with a red tiled roof. I stepped up onto the porch and rang the doorbell. After a moment a middle-aged woman answered the door in a full-length frilly apron. I smiled when I saw her.
“Good afternoon,” I said. “Could you tell me where your electric meter is, please? I’m new on this route and I haven’t been here before.”
The woman pointed to her right without opening the screen door. “It’s around the back,” she said. “Just go through that gate and I’ll meet you back there.”
Without waiting for a response, she closed the door and I hurried around to the back of her house. The woman was waiting just outside her back door. When she saw me, she pointed to a place between two bushes. I crouched down, wrote something on my clipboard and got to my feet again. I turned to the woman. “Thank you,” I said. “Say, I don’t suppose you would know anything about your neighbor two doors north. I didn’t see anyone around earlier and just wondered if you knew when...” I looked at my clipboard and said, “Mr. Fulton would be home.”
“Isn’t he there now?” the woman said. “He’s almost always there.”
“I thought he might be at work this time of day,” I said.
“Him? Work?” she said. “If he works, it would have to be from home. I’ve never seen him leave and I don’t know about any regular job. I wonder how he supports himself, you know? You wonder about guys like that.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “This is my first day on this route.”
“Yes, so you mentioned,” the woman said.
“Well, thanks again for your cooperation,” I said. “Good day, ma’am.”
I walked back around the side of the house, through the gate and back to the street, continuing north to the next house. It looked like a carbon copy of the first house, only in white. I rang the bell and waited. A man answered this time.