by Bill Bernico
“We’d better get over to the twelfth precinct and fill out our statements,” Elliott said. “No sense in breaking up our day tomorrow when today’s already shot.”
As they were heading for the office door, the phone on Elliott’s desk rang. “Cooper and Son Investigations,” he said. “Elliott Cooper speaking.”
Matt sat back down and waited while Elliott took care of their first business call in the new office.
It wasn’t until ten days later that police caught up with Jack, the man who had hired Sonny to torch the Cahuenga Building. He turned out to be a man named Jerome Mattern, a man with a grudge against his lawyer, who had failed in his attempt to get Mattern off of a charge of drunken driving. Mattern had lost his license and in turn had lost the job that he could no longer perform with transportation. When he could no longer provide income for his wife, she left him, already having been fed up with his drinking.
Mattern did not want to come quietly when confronted by the police and ended up with as broken leg as well as multiple bruises and contusions from his scuffle with the arresting officers. Now he’d go to court and face charges of hiring Salvatore Riteman to set fire to Mattern’s lawyer’s office, which resulted in the death of one man plus injuries to several other people caught in the fire. At least he wouldn’t have to be separated from Sonny. Both men got long sentences in San Quentin for their parts in the deadly fire. It was another perfect example of the domino effect.
Eric had called Cooper investigations the same day that Mattern had been arrested. He wanted to personally tell Matt that the man responsible for putting him out on that ledge had finally been brought to justice. Matt breathed easier now for the first time in almost two weeks. He could finally drive past the Cahuenga Building and look up at the ledge below his third story window without shuddering. He was actually looking forward to the day renovation on the building would be complete and he could move back into his old office.
Elliott was also eager to get back to his old office—the office where two generations of Coopers before him had built the family business to what it was today. He hoped one day to see Matt’s son, Nicholas, take over the business, making him the fifth generation of Coopers to keep the tradition going.
132 - The Good Humor Man
It was the beginning of another week at Cooper and Son Investigations and Matt Cooper, the Son half of that title was in the office before Elliott, the father half of this team of private eyes. Usually it was Elliott who got in early and it was usually he who gave Matt the grief for being late. Today Matt would have the pleasure of giving back some of what his father had dished out to him. He couldn’t wait for Elliott to arrive.
As Matt sat there rehearsing what he was going to say to his father when he came in, the phone on Matt’s desk rang. “Cooper and Son Investigations,” Matt said. “This is Matt Cooper.”
“Matt, it’s Dad,” Elliott said. “You’re going to have to handle things by yourself today. I picked up a late client last night after you left and I have to meet him in Burbank early this morning. I’m on my way there now. I expect to be back to the office sometime after lunch. You going to be all right by yourself?”
“Sure, Dad,” Matt said, disappointed that he wouldn’t get to use the clever lines he’d been rehearsing. “I’ll see you this afternoon.” Matt hung up and stood behind his desk, stretching and yawning. His fifteen-month-old twins had kept him up late the night before. He walked over to the window and looked down onto Hollywood Boulevard. He was glad to be back in his old office after having been stuck in temporary headquarters for more than two months while this office was being renovated. There’d been a major fire in the building and Matt had nearly lost his life going out the window and trying to cling to the ledge outside. A fast-acting fireman was all that stood between Matt and a splatter onto the pavement below his window.
The temporary quarters on Sunset Boulevard had served their purpose, but it just wasn’t the same as running the business out of the original office where Matt’s great-grandfather and namesake, Matt Cooper, had started right after World War II. Matt never got to know his great-grandfather, but he’d heard his father, Elliott and his late grandfather, Clay talk about him enough so that he felt he knew him through them. He had to admit that Elliott’s grandfather had some pretty interesting stories about some of his early cases.
As Matt glanced out the window to the sidewalk below, his eyes were drawn to one pedestrian in particular. It was an elderly man in slacks, dress shirt and a red cardigan sweater who was taking his time shuffling across the intersection against the red light. Cars stopped short of the intersection to avoid hitting the old man and cars behind those cars honked impatiently while the old man continued across the intersection. By the time he’d made it to the other side of the street, the light had turned red again and the cars that could have gone through were now backed up halfway up the street. The old man disappeared from Matt’s line of vision and he stepped away from the window. He took his seat again behind his desk. He had lost himself on the internet, looking for information on a potential client when the shadow fell across the inner office door. Matt closed his browser and sat up straight, ready to present himself to whoever came through the door in search of investigator services.
After two short knocks the door opened and Matt was surprised to see the old man in the red cardigan sweater. He was eighty-five if he was a day. He hadn’t bothered closing the door behind him and just stepped up to Matt’s desk.
“Good morning,” Matt said, extending his hand. “My name is Matt Cooper and you are...?”
The old man shook Matt’s hand. “You know me,” he said. “Conrad Jenkins. You took down my name the last time I was here. I just came by to see if you’ve made any progress on my case yet.”
“Your case?” Matt said. “Did you maybe talk to Elliott about a case?”
The old man frowned. “Your name’s Matt Cooper, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Matt said, still not sure what Jenkins was talking about.
“And this is Cooper Investigations, is it not?” Jenkins looked around the office. “The place looks a little different since I was here last.”
“We had a fire recently,” Matt explained. “We had to have the office renovated and remodeled.”
“I liked the old office better,” Jenkins said. He didn’t say anything further for a while and the silence between them became awkward.
“I’d ask you to have a seat and wait for Elliott,” Matt said, “But he won’t be back until after lunch.”
“I don’t need to see this Elliott guy, whoever he is,” Jenkins said. “I came to see you.” He squinted a little and blinked a few times. “You look a little different, too.”
“Different?” Matt said. “Different that what?”
“Than the last time I talked to you.” Jenkins began walking around the office now, looking for anything familiar. “I’d like to finally get my case solved so do you think you could get back to work on it? I need to know what happened to Lila. She doesn’t get around very well anymore since she lost her leg in that car accident last week. Poor kid.”
“Mr. Jenkins,” Matt said. “I don’t think...” He stopped, thought better of any further objections and wondered if maybe the old man had all his faculties. He said, “Mr. Jenkins, could you give me a number where I could reach you once I solve your case?”
Jenkins thought for a moment and said, “HOllywood six-three-eight-one.”
Matt began writing and quickly realized that Jenkins had not given him enough numbers. He wrote down what Jenkins had said anyway, along with the man’s name. “And can I get your address, Mr. Jenkins.”
Jenkins hiked a thumb over his shoulder. “Just up the block at sixty-five fifty-five Yucca,” he told Matt. “You know where that is, don’t you?”
Matt wrote the address down and looked up at Jenkins. “Sure, it’s just a couple of blocks east of Highland Avenue and two blocks north of the boulevard. Can I call you there r
ight after lunch?”
As if he suddenly hadn’t a care in the world, Conrad Jenkins said, “Okay, goodbye.” And with that he left the office and again didn’t bother closing the door behind him. He shuffled off down the hall and rode the elevator to the lobby.
Matt shook his head and tossed his yellow legal pad on his desk. “Takes all kinds,” he mumbled to himself. He took his seat again and tried to pick up his internet search where he’d left off. Matt managed to get everything he needed while killing three hours. When he finally looked up from his screen, the wall clock told him it was quarter past twelve. Matt heard footsteps coming down the hall toward the office. He closed his browser and tried to look busy.
Elliott, carrying his laptop computer, stepped into the office, looked at Matt and remarked, “How’d your morning go?”
“Not much happening,” Matt told him. “I got all the information I needed on Phyllis Fenske. I think she could become a real gold mine of business for us.”
“That’s great,” Elliott said. “You want to handle that one?”
Matt almost laughed. “That’s two cases in one day,” he said.
“Huh?”
Matt waved him off. “It’s nothing,” he said. “The other one’s not really a case.” He explained about Conrad Jenkins’ visit earlier that morning. “He was under the impression that I was supposed to be trying to find some woman named Lila. To tell you the truth, I don’t think the old guy was all there. Oh, and he said something about Lila losing one leg in a car accident a few days ago. I gotta tell ya, none of this makes any sense. I have a feeling Conrad Jenkins might have wandered away from a rest home, but which one is anybody’s guess.”
“Are you sure?” Elliott said.
“I can’t be a hundred percent sure that’s he’s an escapee from a rest home but...”
“No,” Elliott said. “I mean, are you sure that’s what he said about this Lila woman with one leg?”
“Oh, that I remember,” Matt said. “Kinda hard to forget something like that. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Elliott said. “But something about that rings a familiar chord. I just can’t place it.”
“I asked this Jenkins guy if maybe he’d talked to you because I know he didn’t talk to me about any woman, Lila or otherwise.” Matt picked up his yellow legal pad and read what he’d written. When he got to the phone number, Elliott said, “That’s not enough numbers and nobody uses the HOllywood prefix anymore. It’s all numbers now and the HO in HOllywood would have been changed to four-six long ago.”
“That’s what I thought,” Matt said, “But I wasn’t about to confront him with it. I figured I’d just wait until you got back and see if maybe he was your client.”
Elliott shook his head. “Not mine, but something just occurred to me. Let me have a look at something for a minute.” He slipped out of his jacket set his laptop down on his desk and flipped it open. Elliott opened their case history database, which went back all the way to his grandfather, Matt’s very first case, that of a runaway teenage girl who had come to Hollywood to break into the movie business. Elliott put the search word, ‘Lila’ into the program and hit Enter. After a few seconds, the screen showed four results for women named Lila. He narrowed that down further by entering, ‘one leg’ into the search engine and the screen showed just one possibility, a woman named Lila Fredricks, who had lost her right leg in an automobile accident. He scanned through the report and noted that this had all taken place right here in Hollywood on Wednesday, June eighth—1949.
“It can’t be,” Elliott said.
“What can’t be?” Matt said, coming over to Elliott’s desk to look at his screen.
“Looks like the right woman,” Elliott said. “But look at that date. And check out the name of the client in this case—Conrad Jenkins.”
“What are the odds?” Matt said. “Same case as the one the old guy described and same names as the principals.”
“No odds,” Elliott said. “This is the same guy. For some reason he’s under the impression that he’s still living in the late forties. I’d say his cheese has definitely slipped off his cracker.”
Matt laughed. “Is that your professional opinion, Dad?”
“You get the drift,” Elliott said. “He’s not all there and suddenly he’s picking up his life more than sixty years after the fact.”
“Do you think he still lives on Yucca Avenue?” Matt wondered out loud.
“There’s one way to find out,” Elliott said. “It’s obvious we can’t call there with the number he left. Hell, it’s three minutes up the street. How about if you and I go have a look for ourselves?”
Matt extended an arm and bent slightly at the waist. “Lead the way, Mr. Cooper.”
Elliott and Matt drove to Yucca Avenue in Matt’s car. The address belonged to a small white house that looked like it had been part of the post war housing boom. It had that mid-forties look to it, but it had been maintained quite well over the years. Elliott and Matt walked up the walk, up onto the stoop and rang the doorbell. The door opened and Elliott found himself looking at a young woman, perhaps in her late twenties with a worried look on her face.
“This may sound a little strange,” Elliott began, “But would there be anyone living here by the name of Conrad Jenkins?”
“Have you found Gramps?” the woman said. “Where is he?”
“So he does live here?” Matt added.
The woman nodded and looked past the two men, hoping to see Gramps. “Isn’t he here with you?”
Matt shook his head. “He came to see me this morning,” he explained. “He gave me this address and a phone number with not enough digits. All we could do was drive over here and see for ourselves.”
“Please,” the woman said, “won’t you come in?” She showed them to a living room and invited them to sit. She remained standing, wringing her hands while worry played on her face.
“My name is Matt Cooper,” Matt said. “And this is my father, Elliott.”
“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “My name is Tricia Jenkins. Conrad is my grandfather and he disappeared this morning while I was in the basement doing the laundry.”
“So he lives here with you?” Elliott said.
Tricia nodded. “I know, he really belongs in a nursing home, but I’ve seen those places and they’re no place for Gramps. He’d die inside of a month if I put him in one of those places. I just had to take him home with me.”
“So it’s just you and Conrad?” Matt said.
Tricia nodded. “It was Gramps and me and my brother, Tom until Tom couldn’t take it anymore and just up and left one day. Gramps and I get by on his pension and Social Security checks and I make a little extra taking in laundry.”
“Tricia,” Matt said and then paused. “Can I call you Tricia?”
She said that he could.
“Tricia,” Matt continued, “Mr. Jenkins came to see me about a case he thought I was working on. As it turns out, it was a case that my great-grandfather, Matt had been working on back in 1949. I think Mr. Jenkins is confused about where he is and when it is.”
Tricia’s eyes misted up. “I talked with his doctor last week and Gramps is...” She sniffled and tried to vocalize her thoughts. “Gramps is dying. Best guess is six weeks on the outside and maybe even as soon as two weeks. Gramps doesn’t know about any of this and I don’t want him to know. Mr. Cooper, I guess what I’m asking is this. Would you be willing to just humor him and play along with his delusions until, until...?”
Matt handed Tricia his handkerchief and he dabbed at her eyes with it.
“I just want Gramps to believe that he’s still in the middle of that case,” Tricia explained. “It would keep his mind occupied and I’d feel better knowing that Gramps would eventually die happy.”
“Do you have any idea what made him choose me?” Matt said.
Tricia slid open a drawer on the end table and withdrew a folder newspaper. She unfolded it and passed it to Matt
. Matt looked at the front page. It was a picture of him right after the fire in their building. The photo also showed the Cahuenga Building in the background, accompanied by the full article about the fire. “When Gramps saw this picture,” she said, “It was like something inside him clicked. He recognized the building and then looked at your picture with the caption below it that identified you as Matt Cooper.”
“And Gramps remembered the first Matt Cooper, my great-grandfather?” Matt said. “I guess I do look somewhat like that other Matt and the building hasn’t really changed that much.”
“So will you do it?” Tricia said.
Elliott jumped in. “What about Mr. Jenkins?” he said.
“What about him?”
“How will he even know we’re working on his case?” Elliott asked. “I mean, he won’t be in the office and he surely can’t ride along with us to some nonexistent place looking for some long-dead one-legged woman named Lila.”
Tricia thought about her grandfather and added, “As long as he thinks you’re that other Matt and as long as he thinks you’re still working on the case, I think that’s all he really wants. So, what do you say? Will you do it? Will you humor him for me?”
Elliott and Matt exchanged brief glances and the slightest of nods before Elliott turned back to Tricia. “Sure, why not? As long as it doesn’t interfere with our regular business. How do you want to work this? Should we just call Mr. Jenkins every now and then and let him know how the case is going? Or does he need to see Matt in the flesh?”
“I’ll leave that up to you, Mr. Cooper,” Tricia said. “Whatever works best for you.”
At that moment, as if on cue, the front door opened and Conrad Jenkins let himself in. He walked into the living room as if he’d only been gone a few minutes instead of four hours. He smiled when he saw Matt sitting there on the sofa. “Mr. Cooper,” Conrad said. “You came. Did you bring me good news?”
Matt nodded. “Yes I did,” he told the old man. “I’m on the case and getting closer to solving it every day. I’ve even brought in some help. Conrad Jenkins I’d like you to meet Elliott.”