by Bill Bernico
“I didn’t tell anyone anything,” I said. “They called me to the stand and disregarded almost all of my testimony. They didn’t get anything from me.”
“And they’d better not,” the man said, poking me with the gun again. The door opened and the man shoved me out into the lobby just before the doors closed again. I hurried back out to the car and found another man standing next to Gloria’s open window. His right hand was in his pocket and he was wearing a ski mask. Gloria looked petrified as she clung to Matt on her lap. I stepped over to the man and looked into the brown eyes that hid behind the mask.
“What do you want?” I said, knowing full well what he and the man in the elevator wanted.
“Keep your mouth shut,” Ski Mask said. “If you know what’s good for you.”
I held my hand up, palms facing him. “I don’t want any trouble,” I said. “I already told your buddy in the elevator that they didn’t get anything out of me on the witness stand. I don’t have anything to tell them.”
The man began to pull his right hand from his coat pocket and I knew this was the only chance I might get. I shifted all my weight onto my left foot and swung my right foot up in an arc, connecting with the man’s still hidden hand. He howled and pulled any empty hand from his pocket. I bunched up my fist and laid it across his jaw with enough force to crack walnuts. He went down and stayed down, his eyes rolled back in his head. I pulled the gun from his pocket while Gloria pulled a pair of cuffs from the glove box of her car. I snapped on cuff onto his right hand and wrapped his right arm through the open back window of the car. I snapped the other cuff onto his left hand and let him hang there on the door. I pulled the ski mask form his head and threw it into the back seat. I didn’t recognize the man. He must have been the driver.
“Call Eric,” I told Gloria. “There’s another one in the building. I’m going after him. I think these are the same guys who took me for a ride.”
I hurried back into the building and called for the elevator. The doors opened but the car was empty. I rode it to the third floor and soft-footed it down the hall to my office. The door was open and a man had his back to me as he rooted through my filing cabinet. I sneaked up behind him and stuck the gun that I’d taken from the second man in his back. “Don’t move,” I said.
The man released the file he was holding and raised his hands. I patted him down, found the gun he’d held on me in the elevator and relieved him of it. I tucked the gun into my waistband and spun him around. It was the same mad who’d thrown me into the back of his car and had delivered me to his boss at the room with the worn checkerboard floor.
“What is your problem?” I said. “You idiots don’t know when to leave it alone, do you?” I pointed to the floor with the gun. “On your stomach, hands behind your back.”
The man complied and I stepped on his hands while I dialed Lieutenant Anderson’s phone. He answered on the second ring. “Elliott,” he said. “Gloria just called me,” he said. “I’m on my way. What’s up?”
“Got a second one in my office,” I said. “Better send another car to pick him up.”
“I’m on it,” Eric said. “Stay put until I get there.”
“We’ll be waiting for you,” I said and hung up. I pulled my shoulder holster off the coat rack and dropped it into the filing cabinet, locking the drawer. I sat in my chair and rolled it around to the front of my desk where I could keep an eye on my prisoner. Less than ten minutes later I heard footsteps in the hall and rose from the chair, the gun I’d taken from the man downstairs trained on the office door.
Lieutenant Anderson stepped in and backed up one step when he saw me holding the gun. I lowered it and he stepped all the way in. He looked down at the man on the floor and then up at me. “Recognize him, Elliott?” Eric said.
I nodded. “He’s the same guy who grabbed me and brought me to that place we found on Beechwood,” I said. “I take it you found his partner cuffed to my car door.”
“We got him in the other patrol car,” Eric said, pulling his cuffs from his belt and snapping them onto my guest’s hands. He pulled the man to his feet and faced him. “Who are you working for?”
The man just stared back defiantly and said nothing.
“That’s all right,” Eric told him. “We’ve got you and your friend downstairs for kidnapping and assault.” Eric gave the man a closer look. “I’d guess that you’re about thirty-five or forty. I’m trying to picture what you’ll look like when you finally get out at sixty-five or seventy.” Eric pulled him toward the door.
Before Eric led the man out, I stopped him and checked the man’s coat pocket. I found some papers he’d taken from my filing cabinet and pulled them out of his pocket. I held the papers up to the man’s face. “You weren’t going to steal these, were you?” I slapped his face with the papers and then slipped them into my own pocket. I pulled the man’s gun from my waistband and handed it to Eric, along with the gun I’d taken from his partner downstairs.
“I’ll drop these two off downtown and I’ll see you back in court,” Eric said. He dropped the two guns into his pocket and walked the man out of my office.
“We’ll be there,” I told him. “And I think I found the proof I need, in case they call me to the stand again.”
I locked the office again and hurried back down to Gloria and Matt, who were talking with one of the uniformed patrolmen when I approached. “Everything all right here?” I said.
“We’re fine,” Gloria said.
Matt looked up at me and then pointed to the patrolman. “Daddy,” Matt said. “He’s a policeman and he’s got a gun.”
I looked at the cop. His name tag identified him as someone named Holden. “Officer Holden,” I said. “It looks like you’ve made quite an impression on my son.”
“That’s a great kid you’ve got there, Mr. Cooper,” Holden said. “I hope to have two or three of my own some day. Is Matt your only child?”
“He’s our one and only,” I said and then looked at Gloria, who smiled nervously and quickly looked away. I opened Gloria’s car door and the back door. She strapped Matt into his car seat and then slid into the front seat. I got in beside her and we drove back toward the courthouse. “What’s with you?” I said, not taking my eyes off the traffic ahead of me.
“What do you mean?” Gloria said.
“When I told Officer Holden that Matt was our one and only child,” I said, “you had a look on your face like someone just caught you with your hand in the cookie jar.”
“I did?” Gloria said. “I hadn’t noticed.”
I thought for a moment and then said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d guess that you had a kid on your won before you met me, but that’s not the case, is it?”
Gloria nervously laughed. “Don’t be silly, Elliott,” she said. “Matt is the first kid I ever had.”
She left it at that and I felt cheated out of what I expected to be an extended conversation. “First kid?” I said, and laughed. “Where’s the second one?” Then the wheels fell into place and I understood. I pulled to the curb and put the car in Park. I turned to my wife and said, “Gloria, are you trying to tell me something?”
Gloria licked her lips and sighed. She turned to me and said, “Actually, I was trying not to tell you something.”
“Gloria,” I said, “is the size of our family going to increase? Is that what you’re not telling me?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m a little late but I wouldn’t say...”
I looked at my watch. “We still have a little time before we’re due back at court. Suppose we make a quick side trip to the drug store and get one of those do-it-yourself test kits? I mean, it’s better to know than to not know, isn’t it?”
“I guess so,” Gloria said.
I pulled away from the curb and drove three blocks to the corner drug store. “What are you so nervous about?” I said. “If it turns out to be positive, is that something you’d want?”
&nb
sp; “I don’t know,” Gloria said. “I haven’t had time to digest the idea yet. How do you feel about it?”
I paused momentarily and then said, “You know, all my life I’ve been an only child. It was different growing up in the house all by myself. Sometimes I wished I’d had a brother or sister when I was young. Other times, I was grateful to be an only child. I’m sure I had a few more advantages than the kids I grew up with who had siblings. I guess it’s a toss-up, depending on how you look at it.”
“I know,” Gloria said. “I was an only child, too. I would have liked to had a sister to talk to and to do each other’s hair and tell my secrets to. But you’re right, I had those same advantages growing up.”
I pulled to the curb in front of the drug store and Gloria sat there for a moment.
“You going in?” I said.
She nodded and slid out of the car. She returned a few minutes later with a plain white bag in her hand. She got back in the car and sighed again. “Let’s go,” she said.
“Well,” I said, “is it positive?”
Gloria looked at me like I was from Mars. “It’s not like I could test myself right there in the aisle,” she said.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “I forgot. I’ll pull into that service station and you can put your mind to rest one way or the other, okay?”
Gloria said nothing but slid out of the car and into the ladies room. I turned in my seat and looked at my son, who was busy taking in his surroundings. “Isn’t this more fun than going to school?” I said.
Matt smiled at me and my heart melted. His two front baby teeth had fallen out and he had just the stub of one poking through in that two-tooth gap. “Mrs. Leedom is doing finger painting today,” Matt said. “I like to paint with my fingers.”
“Well,” I said, “She’ll probably do it again real soon and then you can bring me home a colorful picture, okay?”
Matt nodded, “Okay, Daddy,” he said and went back to looking out the window. A few minutes later he pointed toward the filling station when he saw his mother coming back to the car. Here comes Mommy.”
It was hard to read Gloria’s face. She slid back into the car and didn’t look at me immediately.
“Well?” I said. “What was the result?”
Gloria took a deep breath and then turned toward me. “Positive,” she said.
I hesitated for a moment. “Is that positive that you’re not pregnant?” I said, “Or positive that you are?”
“I am,” Gloria said and waited for my reaction.
I smiled widely and wrapped my arms around her. “That’s great, Gloria,” I said. “Don’t you think so?”
Gloria let out the breath she’d been holding and broke down in tears.
“What’s with the tears?” I said. “Are you glad you’re pregnant or devastated with the news?”
Gloria buried her head on my shoulder and sobbed. “I’m so happy,” she said. “I was afraid you might not be.”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “Matt’s going to have a little brother. That’s great.”
“Or a little sister,” Gloria said. “Could go either way just as easily.”
“I don’t care which it is,” I said, “as long as you and he are healthy.”
“Or she,” Gloria said.
“You really want a daughter, don’t you?” I said. “I have to admit, that would be nice, too. Someone for Matt to look after and protect and someone you could dress up and tell the facts of life to later on. I suppose you already have a name picked out if it’s a girl.”
Gloria smiled at me and nodded. “Olivia,” she said. “Olivia Mae Cooper.”
“I like it,” I said. “It has a nice ring to it.”
“And if it turns out to be another boy?” Gloria said. “Did you have any thoughts on the subject?”
“This is all so new to me,” I said. “I hadn’t thought about it at all until now. But a while ago I thought Alan might be a nice label to stick on him.”
“I like that, too,” Gloria said. “Now we’ll just have to wait and see what it’s going to be.”
The three of us took our seats in the courthouse gallery again and waited for the prosecutor to call me back to the stand. I had to sit through the testimony of two other witnesses before I was called again. I took my seat in the witness chair.
“Mr. Cooper,” William Knight said, “I’d like to remind you that you are still under oath.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Mr. Cooper,” Knight began, “Earlier I asked you about a meeting you supposedly had with Oscar Peterson but you had no proof. Has anything changed since we last spoke, Mr. Cooper?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“And what was that?” Knight said.
“My wife recalled me showing here a photo,” I said. “It was a photo that Oscar Peterson had given me as a way to identify his wife when I tailed her.”
“Objection,” the Ryan Manners said. “We’ve already established that the content of this supposed meeting was hearsay. And as for a photo, Mr. Cooper could have obtained that anywhere.”
“Your honor,” Knight said, “Mr. Cooper not only has the photo that Mr. Peterson gave him, he also has a hand-written note from Mr. Peterson with the Palm Springs address and directions. We’d like to enter these items into evidence.” I handed Knight the note and photo and he passed them both up to the judge, who looked them over and agreed to Knight’s request. He turned back to me and continued with his questions.
“Mr. Cooper,” Knight said, “Would you explain the circumstances surrounding Mr. Peterson’s giving you the photo and the note?”
I cleared my throat. “Mr. Peterson met with me in my office,” I said. “He has suspected his wife, Doris Peterson, of having an affair and he hired me to follow her to determine if this was, indeed, the case. He gave me a photo of his wife so that I could identify her and then he wrote that note that you have before you so I could find his sister-in-law’s Palm Springs residence.”
“His sister-in-law?” Knight said. “Why would you need to know where she lived?”
“Mrs. Peterson had told her husband that she would be visiting her sister,” I said. “And in the event that I lost sight of her on the way, I would know where to go to see if she did show up there.”
“And what did you discover, Mr. Cooper?” Knight said.
“Actually,” I told him, “I never got to start the tail job when I got word that Mr. Peterson had been murdered. I filed the note and photo in my filing cabinet and forgot I even had them until this afternoon.”
“No further questions, your honor,” Knight said.
Judge Parker turned to Attorney Manners. “Your witness, Mr. Manners,” he said.
Ryan Manners stepped up in front of me and paused for effect before offering, “Mr. Cooper, would you tell the court when you first met Mrs. Peterson?”
“I’ve never met her,” I said.
“Then how can you determine whether or not Mrs. Peterson was having an affair?” he said.
“I can’t,” I said. “I never got the chance.”
Manners turned to the jury but directed his question to me. “So, what you’re saying is that you have no first-hand knowledge of Mrs. Peterson’s personal life, isn’t that right, Mr. Cooper?”
“I guess so,” I told him.
“You guess so,” Manners said. “So as far as you know, Mrs. Peterson has been faithful to her late husband.”
“As far as I know,” I said.
“No further question, your honor,” Manners said, returning to his table.
“You’re excused, Mr. Cooper,” Judge Parker said. He turned to Knight. “Call your next witness, Mr. Knight,” he said.
Knight stood at his table. “The prosecution rests,” he said and sat again.
The judge turned to the defense table. “Call your next witness, Mr. Manners,” he said.
“The defense rests,” Manners said.
The judge instructed the jury as to their duty in
this proceeding and dismissed them to the jury room for deliberation. He turned to the courtroom and banged his gavel. “This court stands adjourned.” he said.
“All rise,” the bailiff said as Judge Parker Stepped down off the bench and retired to his chambers.
Eric met me in the lobby and looked a bit worried. “It doesn’t look good for our side,” he said. “I have a feeling Mrs. Peterson is going to walk.”
“Well,” I said, “we gave it our best shot. All we can do is hope that the jury sees through all the bullshit and comes to a logical conclusion.”
“In other words,” Eric said, “we’re screwed.”
“How do you figure? I said.
“What is a jury?” Eric said, “But twelve people too stupid to get off jury duty.”
“Kind of like what Orson Wells said by way of an apology after his War of the Worlds debacle,” I said.
“How’s that?” Eric said.
“He was asked to apologize for scaring the bejeebers out of half the country,” I said. “What he said was, ‘I’m sorry, I just didn’t know so many people were stupid’ or words to that affect.”
“He had a point there, didn’t he?” Eric said.
“Do I need to come back here when the jury returns?” I said.
Eric shook his head. “No, Elliott, your part is done. You might as well go. Thanks for your help, whatever good it did.”
“Mrs. Peterson is bound to slip up some other time and you can nail her then,” I said.
“We can only hope,” Eric said and walked out of the building.
Gloria and I drove back to the office, where I got out and she drove Matt home. The threat against us was gone and I still had a business to run. I sat behind my desk for the next twenty minutes thinking about the second child we were going to have. I was so engrossed in my thoughts that I didn’t hear the office door open. It was Eric.
“Well,” I said, “What brings you here? Is the trial over already?”
Eric sighed. “Yeah,” he said. “It only took the jury half an hour to come back with a verdict of not guilty. So it looks like we’re back to square one.”