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

by Bill Bernico

  “Hitting the road,” I said, making a fist and pantomiming punching the road.

  Gloria rolled her eyes.

  My phone rang, giving me the perfect excuse to get out of the conversation we were having. “Cooper Investigations,” I said into the phone. “Elliott speaking.”

  “Elliott, it’s Eric. Do you have a minute?”

  “Sure, Eric,” I said. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Oscar Peterson,” Eric said.

  “What about him?” I said. “And how do you know him?”

  “So you are familiar with the name?” Eric said.

  “Yes I am,” I told Eric. “What about him?”

  “I found one of your business cards on him this morning,” Eric said. “Were you working for him?”

  “If I was,” I told Eric, “and I’m not saying that I was, that would fall under the category of client confidentiality, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I don’t think he’ll mind,” Eric said. “Dead men don’t but up much of an argument. Now do you want to tell me about it?”

  “How about if I come to your office?” I said.

  “No need,” Eric said as he opened my office door with his cell phone to his ear. “We can talk right here.” He closed his phone and then closed my office door behind him and took up a position across from my desk.

  I stood behind my desk and came around to where Eric stood. I gestured to my client’s chair but Eric declined. He took a few steps toward my leather sofa and I followed. We sat simultaneously and then Gloria joined us.

  “What’s going on here, Eric,” Gloria said. “Elliott was supposed to start working for Mr. Peterson tomorrow morning.”

  Eric turned to me. “In what capacity, Elliott?” he said.

  “He, uh, wanted me to tail his wife to Palm Springs,” I said. “He got it into his head that maybe she was seeing someone else on the side. He just wanted me to confirm or disprove that.”

  “And just who is this wife?” Eric said.

  I pulled my notepad from inside my jacket and flipped it open to the last page. “Doris Peterson,” I said. “Mr. Peterson said that his wife told him that she was going to The Springs to visit her sister. She was supposed to leave early tomorrow morning and I was supposed to follow her.”

  “I think it’s safe to say that trip has been cancelled,” Eric said.

  “Well, what happened to Peterson?” I said. “I mean, do you know the cause of death yet?”

  “I’m no medical examiner,” Eric said, “but even a guy like me could tell from one glance that he’d been shot in the head.”

  “Any suspects yet?” I said.

  “I’m afraid not,” Eric said. “You were my first lead. Now I guess we can look into Mrs. Peterson’s personal life and see what surfaces.”

  Gloria leaned in and said in a low voice, “You thinking there might be a boyfriend who’d want Peterson out of the way?”

  “You know,” Eric said, “after fifteen years of doing this, nothing surprises me anymore. I’ve come across wives who have killed their husbands for the change in their pants pockets. I’ve seen one that had her husband killed because he spilled soup on their new carpet. One wife even shot her husband while he slept because he snored so loud and kept her awake. I wouldn’t put anything past any woman these days.” Eric turned to Gloria. “No offense. Present company excluded, of course.”

  “None taken,” Gloria said. “Although there have been times when I could easily kill Elliott for leaving the seat up.”

  I laughed nervously. “She’s kidding, of course.” I said.

  Eric turned to Gloria, who simply raised one eyebrow and stared back at him.

  “Yeah,” Eric said, “I’ll be in a real hurry to get married.”

  Gloria slapped Eric’s shoulder and smiled. “Why should you have it any better than the rest of us?” she said and then quickly looked at me. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”

  Eric rose from the sofa, pulled his own note pad from his pocket and made a few entries on the page before closing it and returning it to his pocket. “Well, thanks for being so candid with me,” he said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. I’ll let you know how it turns out.” Eric let himself out and walked back toward the elevator.

  “Poor Mr. Peterson,” Gloria said. “I wonder what Mrs. Peterson will have to say for herself.”

  “Who knows?” I said. “It’s out of our hands.”

  “So is the twelve hundred dollars you might have made on this case,” Gloria said.

  “And that, my dear, is why we get a retainer,” I said. “I still have his six hundred dollars and I’m not giving that back.”

  “And now you’ll have a few extra days to gather more material for your book,” Gloria said. “Why don’t you give Joe Stein another call? I’m sure he’d be more than willing to share some more stories with you.”

  “I think I will,” I said, and took a seat behind my desk. I dialed Stein’s number and we talked for less than thirty seconds before I hung up again.

  “Not interested?” Gloria said.

  “On the contrary,” I said. “He’s on his way over. He sounded as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. You know, I’m glad we can both help each other out like this. I get just as big a kick out of listening to his stories as he does telling them.”

  It hadn’t even been fifteen minutes since I’d hung up with Joe Stein and here he was already at my office door. He had some sort of large, black scrapbook under his arm and his smile couldn’t have gotten any wider with a crow bar.

  “What do you have there, Joe?” I said, gesturing toward the scrapbook.

  “They say a picture is worth a thousand words,” Joe replied. “I’d say I have about a hundred thousand words worth right here.”

  “Well, then,” I said, “let’s have a look, shall we?”

  Joe and I sat on the sofa while Gloria slipped into her jacket and grabbed her purse. “I’d love to stay and listen,” she said, “but it’s past four and I want to get home to Matt. I’ll see you at home when you’re done here, Elliott.” She bent down and gave me a quick kiss and then turned to Joe. “Nice to see you again, Joe.” She left the two of us sitting there on the sofa and closed the office door.

  “You want something to drink?” I said.

  Joe waved me off, eager to get to the contents of his scrapbook. He opened to the first page and I saw a picture of Joe from his rookie days. He was probably no more than twenty-three or twenty-four and was wearing his dress blue uniform and visored cap. “That was 1974, my first day on the job. Seems like only yesterday.”

  I looked at the photo of another cop on the facing page. “Who’s that?” I said.

  “That was Frank Mattern,” Joe said. “My first partner.” Joe’s eyes got distant for a moment. “Gees, I miss that guy.”

  “What happened to him?” I said.

  “Now there’s a story all by itself,” Joe said. “I guess I’d been with the department about eight months and had been partnered with Frank the whole time. We were on third shift and had been assigned to go to some local tavern where they had had a major fight. We got there and found a man sitting on the bar holding his arm. He had been shot in the upper part of the left arm and the bullet had shattered the bone. The arm was broken.

  I had given first aid to the fellow shot in the arm and made a sling for him and put him in my squad and took him to the hospital. Frank stayed behind to question the bartender and a few of the patrons. Some guy came out of the back room, behind Frank and before the bartender or anyone else could warn him, the guy shot Frank just as he turned around. He took a bullet to the chest and the shooter fled the bar.

  I was still at the hospital with the guy who’d been shot in the arm when they brought Frank in on a gurney. They wheeled him into the emergency room and I followed them in, trying to talk to Frank while he lay there. The doctor who was examining Frank pinched the edges of the bullet hole together and we could see blood frothing a
nd being sucked into the wound. The doctor told me that Frank’s lung had collapsed.

  The doctor sutured the wound closed on Frank’s chest and then he took his rubber gloves off and he told the nurses to take Frank upstairs. He said that there was nothing more he could do for him right now. The ambulance attendant who had brought Frank in looked at the doctor and said to him, ‘Doctor, you better check his back, because when we got to the scene, where he was lying on the floor I noticed a pool of blood underneath him.’

  The attendant helped the doctor roll Frank over on the side and, sure enough, there was a bullet hole in his back. The bullet had gone all the way through him. And all the doctor said was, ‘Oh yes, I better take care of that’ and patched him up.”

  “Doesn’t sound like much of a doctor,” I said.

  “The only reason I’m telling this story,” Joe said, “is that doctors do sometimes rush things and make mistakes. He almost sent Frank upstairs with an open bullet hole in his back.”

  “Did Frank recover?” I said.

  “Eventually,” Joe said. “He stayed in the hospital for nine weeks and then they sent him home for more rest. Once he was fully recovered, he quit the force and took the pension.”

  “Can’t say I blame him,” I said. “Is Frank still alive?”

  Joe shook his head. “He passed away in his sleep seven years ago. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him. He made me the cop I became.” Joe sighed and turned the page without looking at the book. He stared off into space and didn’t talk for a moment.

  “We don’t have to do this now,” I said, and closed the scrapbook.

  “I’m sorry, Elliott,” Joe said. “I didn’t know it could still affect me like this after so many years. I think I’ll go on home and rest for a while. I can leave the scrapbook with you if you like.”

  I nodded. “I’d like that, Joe,” I said. “Just some of those photos alone will give me some inspiration. Thanks. I’ll make sure you get it back.”

  Joe headed for the office door and turned back toward me once more. “Again, I’m sorry we couldn’t have covered more ground, Elliott.”

  “Don’t be,” I said. “Just go and get some rest and call me when you think you want to continue.”

  “I will,” Joe said, and left the office.

  I felt sorry for the guy. His whole adult life had been wrapped up in being a cop and now he’d been reduced to a statistic on a park bench. I’d make sure his stories got the space in my book that they deserved.

  Ten days later I got a call from Lieutenant Anderson. He was calling to let me know the outcome of the Peterson case.

  “You solved it already?” I said.

  “Already?” Eric said. “It’s been ten days. I should have been able to wrap this one up a week ago. Mrs. Peterson left an easy trail to follow.”

  “So she did it,” I said.

  “Well, not the wife herself,” Eric said. “The boyfriend shot her husband and then disappeared. That’s why it took me an extra week to wrap this one up. We couldn’t find the little weasel.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “Don’t these people know about a little thing called divorce? Why do they always have to kill their spouse?”

  “Rage, jealousy, greed, take your pick,” Eric said. “She knew we had her and she cut a deal with the District Attorney.”

  “She dropped the dime on the boyfriend,” I said.

  “Bingo,” Eric said. “He’ll get life and she’ll be out in four years. How’s that for twisted justice?”

  “What was that you said about not being in any hurry to get married?” I said.

  Eric just laughed. “I tell you, Elliott, I think you and Gloria could be the exception to the rule, but whenever I see some couple arguing and she’s just ripping him a new one, I just look at the poor schmuck and think, at least that’s not me.”

  “Ironic, isn’t it?” I said.

  “What’s that?” Eric said.

  I paused and then said, “Sometimes I see some poor schmuck sitting in a booth at a restaurant having dinner by himself or I’ll see some guy walking through the park alone and think to myself, at least that’s not me.”

  “It’s a two-headed coin, Elliott,” Eric said.

  “That it is, Eric,” I said. “That it is.”

  103 - Call 911

  The two of us stood in the elevator, both of us facing the doors and both of us watching the floor indicator numbers rise. We stood there in silence for a few moments before I turned to the other man.

  “I think my ears popped,” I said, trying to open my jaw wider than nature had intended. I moved my open jaw back and forth, attempting to equalize the pressure in my ears. I turned to the man with the large suitcase. “Don’t your ears pop?”

  “Ya get used to it,” Suitcase said, still staring straight ahead.

  “You going to the observation deck?” I asked.

  “Something like that,” he said.

  “Whatcha got in the suitcase?” I said.

  Suitcase sighed and turned his head. “You sure ask a lot of questions for a stranger,” he said, somewhat annoyed with me.

  “Sorry,” I said, “It’s just my curious nature. By the way, my name’s Elliott. This is my first trip to New York City. Actually, I’m from California.” I held his hand out, ready to shake his.

  “Okay, Elliott,” Suitcase said, his right hand still clutching the handle of his suitcase.

  “Ah,” I said, “The quiet type, eh?”

  Suitcase said nothing.

  I eyed the suitcase again and then looked back at the stranger. “Runnin’ away from home?” I said.

  Suitcase leaned in toward me. “Can you keep a secret?” he said.

  I looked around even though the two of us were alone. “Yes,” I said.

  “So can I,” Suitcase said and then returned his gaze to the floor indicator.

  The car stopped at the observation deck and the two of us stepped out. Suitcase looked at me. “Well, this is where we part ways,” he said.

  “Part ways?” I said. “This is the observation deck. There’s nowhere else to go.”

  “See ya,” Suitcase said, walking away.

  I pretended to walk toward the observation deck but looked back just in time to see Suitcase disappear behind a door marked ‘roof.’ I hurried over to that door and waited a few seconds before opening it enough to peek in. I saw the upper door close a second later. I tiptoed up the steps and paused at the door to the roof. I opened it a crack and peered out in time to see Suitcase standing near the edge of the building. It looked like the man was intending to jump. Oh great, I thought, the one time I strike up a conversation with a stranger and he turns out to be a suicide jumper.

  The man tipped his suitcase over, undid the latches and pulled a bulky lump out of it. I watched as the man quickly untangled the bulk, stepped his two legs into openings and pulled the rest of the mass up to his shoulders. Now it made sense. It was a parachute and the man was going to float down to the street. I breathed easier, pushed the door open further and stepped out onto the roof. As the door closed behind me, the man with the parachute turned and saw me. I hurried over to where the man stood adjusting straps and harnesses on his rigging.

  “Just turn around and go back the way you came, Elliott,” the man said.

  “I just wanna watch,” I said. “I won’t get in the way.”

  “Go on,” the man insisted. “Go back down and watch from the observation deck. I mean it. I’ll be ready to jump in another few minutes and you can have a bird’s eye view from there.”

  “I could go down and tell the security guard on the deck,” I said. “Or I could stay here and quietly watch. Whaddya think?”

  The man thought about it for a moment and decided he didn’t need the aggravation of dealing with security. “All right,” he said. “You can stay, but stay outta my way.”

  “Can you at least tell me your name?” I said. “I hate to keep saying, ‘hey you’ when I want t
o talk to you.”

  The man thought for a second before offering, “It’s Bob.”

  “Hey Bob,” I said. “Are you going to try for the Guinness Record Book by being the first to jump off the World Trade Center?”

  “Too late for that,” Bob said. “Someone already did it twenty-six years ago. A guy named Owen Quinn, back in 1975. I just need this jump to complete my first BASE jump.”

  “BASE jump?” I said. “What’s that? You have to jump from some base?”

  “Not exactly,” Bob said. “BASE is an acronym for the types of structures jumpers need to leap from: Buildings, Antennas, Spans and Earth.”

  “Spans and Earth?” I said.

  “Bridges and cliffs,” Bob added. “I’ve already done the last three and I just need this jump to complete the four required leaps.”

  “No kidding,” I said, obviously impressed. “Which bridge did you jump off?”

  Bob smiled, remembering that day. “That was the Perrine Bridge in Twin Falls, Idaho,” he said. “That was a real rush, let me tell you.”

  “And you jumped off one of those tall antennas?” I said, genuinely interested now.

  “Uh huh,” Bob said.

  “Are you out of your mind?” I said. “You could get killed doing this.”

  “My boss must have thought so,” Bob said.

  “How’s that?” I said.”

  “Well,” Bob said, “About the time Owen was jumping off this building, I was working on the construction of the CN Tower. By the time it was finished that thing stood eighteen hundred and fifteen feet above the surface of the earth. At the time it was the world’s tallest freestanding structure. And there I was at the very top with my chute. I just couldn’t resist it so I jumped.”

  “Did you get a promotion after that?” I said.

  “Nope,” Bob explained. “I got fired right then and there.”

  I was choked with admiration. I’d always been a bit of a rebel myself but this guy could have been the rebel poster boy.

  “Well,” Bob said, “1975 must have been a pretty good year for jumpers. While I was jumping off the antenna, a second guy jumped off of this spot right here where I’m standing.”