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

by Bill Bernico

  Waring complied and Eric studied the license. “Is this your real name and current address?” Eric said.

  Waring nodded. “Yes,” he said, “and before you ask, no, there’s no connection to the blender guy.”

  Eric looked at me and then back at Waring. “What are you talking about?” he said. “What blender guy?”

  “You never heard of a Waring blender?” Waring said. “Never mind.”

  Eric jotted down Waring’s information in his notepad and then turned to me and Gloria. “What are you two doing here?” Eric said.

  “They were working for me,” Waring said. “They were trying to track down some stolen merchandise for the store.”

  Eric looked down at the packaged airplane on the kid’s chest. “Is that one of the stolen items?” he said.

  “That’s one of many items that are currently missing from the store,” Waring said.

  Eric pursed his lips and then sighed. “Looks like someone caught him in the act,” he said.

  Waring quickly turned to Eric. “Like I told Mr. Cooper,” Waring said, “I didn’t do this. That kid was the owner’s nephew.”

  Andy Walsh finished examining the body and then stood facing Eric.

  “Well, Doc,” Eric said. “How does it look to you?”

  Andy pulled the surgical gloves off his hands and stuffed them into his pocket. “Looks like he’s been dead maybe six hours.”

  Eric glanced at his watch. “That would put the time of death at about nine this morning, give or take,” he said. Eric turned to me. “And what time did you two say you got here?”

  “A little after one,” Gloria said. “We’d just finished lunch in the park and then drove straight here. Well, not here, but across the street at the dollar store.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “I dropped her off and came here by myself. Mr. Waring was telling me about his theft problem and after we talked for a while, he hired me and Gloria to watch the store, looking for anything out of the ordinary. I came back here, and here we are.”

  Andy Walsh motioned to his two assistants, who wheeled a gurney over to where Dewey Halstead lay. They wheeled his body back to the coroner’s wagon and slid the gurney in the back, closing the door after him.

  Eric made a note of what I’d told him. He turned to Waring. “Where were you around nine this morning, Mr. Waring?” Eric said.

  “I was still at home,” Waring said. “We don’t open until ten.”

  “Isn’t that kind of late?” Eric said.

  “It’s our normal time,” Waring said. “We’re open until ten at night. Mr. Halstead studied the traffic patterns over the years and decided that there weren’t enough early morning customers to warrant opening until ten o’clock, so he made up for it by being open for twelve hours starting at ten a.m.”

  Eric finished with his notes and slipped his notepad into his jacket pocket. “You know we’re going to have to call Mr. Halstead about this,” Eric said. “He’ll want to know what happened.”

  “I guess so,” Waring said. “He wasn’t due here for another two weeks, but now when he gets here and finds out that the inventory is short, well, I guess that’ll be it for me.”

  “Where can I reach Halstead?” Eric said.

  Waring gave Eric one of the company business cards and pointed to Halstead’s name in the lower right corner. “You can reach him at that number,” Waring said.

  “I’ll want to talk to you again, Mr. Waring,” Eric said. “Don’t leave town.”

  “Where am I going to go?” Waring said.

  Eric turned to me. “So I guess this means Waring won’t need your services anymore,” he said.

  “Still,” I said, “it was an easy two bills. We do have a one day minimum. Listen, are you going to need us anymore today? Otherwise we’re going back to the office.”

  “Sure, go ahead,” Eric said. “If I need anything else, I know where to find you. Go on.”

  Gloria and I drove back to Hollywood and took the elevator up to our office on the third floor. I hung my jacket on the coat rack, sat behind my desk and pulled a blank invoice form from my desk. I rolled it into the typewriter, filled in the date and the amount, addressed it to Fred Waring in care of the store, and stuffed it into an envelope. I turned to Gloria. “Have you got a stamp?” I said.

  Gloria pulled a partial roll of stamps out of her desk drawer, ripped one off and handed it to me. I looked at the stamp and then back at Gloria. “Let me guess,” I said. “You’ve been eating those Mexican cheese puffs again.”

  “How’d you know?” Gloria said.

  I held up the stamp. It had little orange crumbs across the front of it. “Take a look at your fingertips,” I said. “That stuff is harder to get off your fingers than nicotine stains. You almost need to wear gloves when you eat it.”

  Gloria quickly looked at her fingertips, stuck them in her mouth and tried to suck off the stain. It was still there. She walked over to the sink on my side of the office and ran her hands under the warm water. The stains persisted. She tried soap with the same non-result. “Damn,” she said. “This stuff just doesn’t want to come off.”

  “What did I tell you?” I said.

  Gloria returned to her desk, slid open her bottom drawer and pulled the bag of cheese puffs out of it. She hesitated for just a moment and then dropped the bag into her trash can. “You happy now?” she said. “You were right. I hate it when you’re right.”

  My ringing phone put an abrupt end to the conversation. “Cooper Investigations,” I said. “Elliott Cooper speaking. Yeah, uh huh, sure, we’re available. Do you want to come here or do we need to come there? Right, we can be there in twenty minutes. Can you give me that address? Great, we’ll see you then. Goodbye.”

  “What have you got?” Gloria said, wiping her hands on a paper towel.

  “We need to take a ride to Glendale,” I said. “Looks like we might have another case.”

  I wrote the address down and plucked my coat off the rack. “You ready?” I said. “Or would you like to take a few minutes with my power sander and try to get that orange crap off your fingers?”

  “Don’t be a smart ass,” Gloria said. “I hate it when you’re a smart ass.”

  We drove east on Hollywood and turned north on Highland, following it as it turned into Los Feliz. We made it to our destination in eighteen minutes. “Here it is,” I said, pulling up to the curb.” We stepped up to the porch, rang the bell and waited. A middle-aged man answered the door and invited us inside.

  “Mr. Cooper?” the man said.

  I shook his hand and said, “Yes, and this is my wife, Gloria.”

  As Gloria shook the man’s hand he said, “Chuck Weber. I’m glad you could make it. Won’t you come in and have a seat?”

  We sat in the living room on a sofa that faced an overstuffed easy chair. The two pieces of furniture were separated by an oval coffee table with a set of coasters on it. In anticipation of our arrival, our host had set a tray on the oval coffee table. On the tray were two cans of soda, two glasses of ice and two cans of beer.

  Weber gestured toward the tray. “Please,” he said, “help yourself.”

  Gloria and I each took a can of soda, popped it open and poured them into the two glasses of ice. We both sipped, set the glasses down and looked at Weber. “So, Mr. Weber,” I said. “How can we help you today?”

  “I don’t suppose you know anything about my wife’s death, Mr. Cooper.” Weber said.

  I exchanged glances with Gloria and then turned to Weber. “What was your wife’s name?” I said.

  “Leslie,” Weber said. “Leslie Weber. She died four months ago right there.” He pointed to an area on the carpet. “That’s where I found her.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Gloria said, touching the top of Weber’s hand. “What did she die from?”

  Weber shot me a glance and then looked back at Gloria. “She was murdered,” Weber said. “I thought you might have seen something about it in the pap
ers.”

  Gloria shook her head. “I’m afraid we haven’t heard about that one, Mr. Weber,” she said. “Can you talk about it? I mean, if it’s not too painful.”

  “Sure,” Weber said, “I can talk about it. I’m all cried out and after this long I can finally step back and look at this terrible event with a little more detachment. What did you want to know?”

  “Can you tell us how she was killed?” I said. “The more we know about the circumstances, the easier it might be for us to help you.”

  “She was strangled,” Weber said. “It must have been shortly after I talked to her on the phone. I called home and we talked briefly. That was at three-thirty on Wednesday the fifth. The coroner placed time of death at approximately three forty-five, based on what I told the police about having talked to her at three thirty. The neighbor found Leslie at ten minutes to four. She looked in the patio door and saw Leslie lying there on the carpet. The door was unlocked and she let herself in. The neighbor called the police from our phone and that call was logged in at exactly three forty-nine.”

  “Boy,” I said, “that really narrows down the time of death. What did the police find when they got here?”

  “That’s just it,” Weber said. “They didn’t find anything—not even the weapon used to strangle Leslie. He must have taken it with him.”

  “You think this might have been a burglary gone bad?” Gloria said. “Maybe the guy broke in, ran into Leslie and killed her. He might have seen the neighbor on her way over and decided just to leave.”

  “That was the theory that the police were working on,” Weber said.

  “And did it lead anywhere?” I said.

  Weber shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “And it’s been more than four months since Leslie’s murder and they still have nothing to go on. Personally, I think they’ve given up on my case. That’s why I called you. Today was the last straw after I called some Lieutenant named Anderson.”

  “Eric Anderson?” I said. “Hollywood division?”

  “That’s the guy,” Weber said. “I don’t want to bad mouth the guy. I’m sure they’re doing all they can, but with nothing to go on, I just get the feeling that the case has taken a lower priority to other cases.”

  “And what is it you think we can accomplish that they can’t?” I said.

  Weber wrung his hands on his lap. “I just figured that with you, it would be a higher priority because you’d be able to give it your undivided attention. With the police, it would be just one more case on the pile.”

  “We’re going to need all the information you have on this incident,” Gloria said. “We know Lieutenant Anderson and can probably get him to give us what he has as well. And you are correct in assuming that this would be our only case so we will be able to give it our best effort.”

  “Thank you both,” Weber said. “Maybe now I’ll be able to sleep nights knowing someone really cares.”

  Gloria leaned forward, toward Weber. “Let me ask you something, Mr. Weber,” she said. “Can you tell us, if you know, what Leslie was doing shortly before she died?”

  As if on cue a medium-sized dog trotted into the living room and plopped herself down next to Gloria. The dog stared up at Gloria with beautiful, big brown eyes that sported the longest lashes Gloria had ever seen. Gloria patted the dog on its head and noticed that its hair was kinky and curly. “What kind of dog is this?” she said.

  Weber smiled at the dog. “Daisy is a Goldendoodle.”

  “How’s that?” Gloria said. “I can’t say I’ve ever heard of that breed.

  “It’s not an officially recognized breed,” Weber said. “At least not yet. But they are getting so popular that it wouldn’t surprise me if the created a new category for them.”

  “What are they a mix of?” I said, patting the dog’s head.

  “Daisy’s mother was a Golden Retriever,” Weber explained. “And her father was a Standard Poodle.”

  “Goldendoodle,” Gloria said. “She looks like a lover.”

  Weber patted his thigh and Daisy took her place by his side, laying her head on Weber’s lap. “She really is,” he said. “In fact, Leslie was with Daisy when she died. Daisy’s not really a watchdog or guard dog and just ran and hid when Leslie was attacked.”

  “It’s just too bad Daisy can’t tell us what she saw,” I said.

  “Don’t think that thought hasn’t run through my mind a million times,” Weber said. “Leslie was in this room taking more pictures of Daisy. Why, I don’t know. She already has a couple hundred photos of the dog. But since they’re digital, I never minded. It’s not like she was spending all that money developing two hundred pictures of Daisy. Leslie has a directory on her computer dedicated to pictures of Daisy.”

  “I’ll bet they were really close,” Gloria said. “She probably spent more time with Daisy than you did.”

  “She did,” Weber said. “You almost never saw one of them without the other. In fact, Leslie was taking even more pictures of Daisy right before she was killed.”

  Gloria and I exchanged looks. I turned to Weber and was about to ask him a question.

  “I know what you’re going to ask,” Weber said. “The police already looked at the pictures in Leslie’s camera. There was nothing but eighteen photos of Daisy in different poses. They gave me the camera back when they’d finished looking at the pictures. There was nothing on there that they could use.”

  “Do you have that camera here now?” I said.

  Weber looked at Gloria and then at me. “Yes,” he said. “Why?”

  “Because I’ve recently acquired some ultra-sophisticated surveillance equipment, including several digital cameras,” I said. “I also bought the latest state-of-the-art digital photo software. Maybe if I could just take a look at those last photos, I don’t know, there might be something in them that the police overlooked.”

  Weber got to his feet and walked across the room to a large bureau with three drawers. He pulled open the top drawer and withdrew a small camera, about the size of a pack of cigarettes. He brought it back to the sofa and handed it to me. I flipped open the small door on the bottom of the camera and pulled the computer chip out of it. I handed the chip to Gloria.

  “Hang onto this for a minute,” I said. “I want to go out to the car and bring my laptop in.” I hurried out to the car, plucked my laptop from the back seat and brought it back into the house. I set the laptop down on the coffee table and held my hand out to Gloria, who place the small chip on my palm. I inserted the chip into the slot on my laptop and started the software program that came with my spy cameras.

  Gloria slid up next to me on the sofa while Weber took up a position behind me. I hit a few keys and the last photos of Daisy that Leslie had taken filled the screen in miniature versions. I started with the first photo and clicked on it. It was a photo of Daisy lying on her back with both of her back legs splayed out, while her front feet curled up on her chest.

  “Oh,” Gloria said. “Isn’t she a darling?”

  At the bottom right corner of the photo I saw the date and time stamp. It was dated Monday, the third at one-thirteen. The next three photos carried the same date and time stamp information. The fourth, fifth, six and seventh photos were dated Tuesday, the fourth and were comprised of more comical poses of the dog. The last dozen pictures were the ones that interested me the most. They were all dated Wednesday, the fifth, starting at three-ten. The second to the last photo was time stamped at three thirty, about the same time Weber said he’d talked to his wife. The last photo was time stamped at three thirty-eight. I turned to Weber.

  “How long would you say your phone conversation lasted with Leslie that day?” I said.

  “The police checked that, too,” Weber said. “It lasted seven minutes and twenty-nine seconds, from three thirty to three thirty eight, give or take.”

  Gloria looked up at Weber. “And you say the neighbor found Leslie at ten minutes to four?”

  “That’s right,” We
ber said. “Like I said, that call was logged in at three forty-nine.”

  “Well,” I said, “that narrows down the time of death to approximately seven minutes. And did you say whether or not the police had questioned anyone?”

  Weber shook his head. “They never did have any suspects,” he said.

  “Let’s have a closer look at that last photo,” I said, clicking on the thumbnail at the bottom right corner of the screen. The photo appeared full-sized on the screen. It was an extreme close-up of Daisy’s face, more specifically her right eyeball.

  Weber was quick to jump in with an explanation. “Leslie was always fascinated with Daisy’s long brown eyelashes and wanted to get a close-up picture of them.”

  “They are long,” Gloria said. “And they’re beautiful.”

  I looked at the icons that were spread out across the top of my screen and clicked on one that isolated a particular part of a picture. I dragged the mouse pointed across Daisy’s eyeball and then selected the magnify option.

  “Did you find something?” Weber said.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “I just want to get a closer look at the reflection in Daisy’s eye.” I magnified the eyeball three times and a white rectangle came into view. I could tell by the previous pictures where Daisy was sitting when this photo was snapped. The rectangle had to be the light shining in from the patio door. Part of the white rectangle was broken up by a darker image that I couldn’t quite make out. I surrounded the white rectangle and magnified that by five and then clicked on the icon to sharpen the image. The darker image within the rectangle came into view and Weber gasped. The image was that of a man in a dark sweatshirt. He was peering in the patio door.

  “Do you know him?” I said.

  Weber bit his knuckle and then said, “That’s Otto,” Weber said.

  “Otto?” Gloria said.

  “Otto Pemberton,” Weber said. “He used to be the Lewis’s gardener but they fired him last spring.”

  “The Lewis’s?” I said.

  “Our neighbors to the north,” Weber explained.

  “Well,” I said, “According to the time stamp on this photo, Otto was here right around the time of Leslie’s death. No one else would have had time between him and the neighbor who found your wife to do anything. It has to be him.”