Copp In Deep, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series)

by Don Pendleton

  It was a very long dream and totally confused. Somewhere near the end I'd managed to pull my feet up out of the muck and I was trying to kick ol' Satan into it. I finally connected with a good one to his chin, but he was Ivan now, and that's where I woke up.

  I was in a gorgeous room with sunlight streaming through the window, lying in a tangle of covers atop a very nice bed that smelled of roses and felt like velvet to my naked body. Alexandra stepped out of a connecting bathroom and gave me a curious look. She was wearing a sheer negligee and nothing but.

  "Are you fully awake this time?" she asked me.

  "Which time is this?" I asked back with an uncooperative voice.

  "It's nearly two o'clock," she told me. "You've been dead to the world for about four hours, passed out on the patio. Do you remember talking to me beside the pool?"

  I said, "Sure. Did you enjoy your swim?"

  "Too short," she replied, wrinkling her nose for effect. "You must weigh three hundred pounds. Thought we'd never get you up the stairs."

  "Whose bed is this?"

  "Mine."

  "Did we have fun?"

  She laughed. "Maybe you did. I think you were wrestling bears the whole time. Look, I have to get dressed. But you're welcome to use the shower any time you're ready. And please shave."

  I felt my face and agreed, "Yeah, I've got some stubble here. Is this still Friday?"

  She laughed again and said, "Of course. And that is more than mere stubble, my friend. You're like sandpaper."

  "Checked it out, eh?"

  She lightly replied, "Remember what I told you last night?"

  I said, "Yeah, and you told me at the pool that this was a very good day. Talk dirty to me."

  She just laughed and went back into the bathroom.

  I fought my way clear of the tangled covers and got

  both feet on the floor. That was quite a victory, but I was beginning to feel alive again and to feel glad about that.

  Alexandra reached back and patted my belly as I squeezed past her en route to the shower. "Leave something for me," she suggested playfully. "But you'll have to put it on hold. I'm at work in ten minutes. Have to arrange a special party for Mr. Woodman."

  I turned back from the shower door to say, "It will keep. Who is Woodman?"

  "One of Cherche's very special accounts. And the guest list is huge."

  Cherche's special parties were not at the top of my interest at the moment. "How's Angelique?" I asked.

  "You'll have to hold forever for her," she replied, still playing. "Angelique quit today."

  "Quit?"

  "Yes. Packed up and left early this morning."

  "The damned bubbles," I said, recalling the dream.

  "What?"

  "Private joke, I muttered, and stepped into the shower.

  But it was no joke.

  And neither were the bubbles.

  I needed to get dressed and out of there damned quick. I don't know about the significance of dreams. But I knew for damned sure that Toni Delancey was in deep trouble and probably getting deeper with every passing hour. I'd already dreamed away four precious hours. Now it was time to start bursting bubbles.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It would be at least another hour before Cherche would be presenting herself to the new day, so I left her a note and promised to report back at the earliest opportunity, got out of there at just a little past two o'clock.

  Needed to look some people up, needed to do it quickly and efficiently, because I knew that time was running out and there was a long way to go—like a two- minute drill in football, starting at your own ten yard line. Problem with that allegory is that there were no yard markers and no chalk marks to show where I was actually starting from, and the stadium clock was out of order. I could've been starting from the one foot mark with only one second on the official clock.

  I knew that I had to get out there and hustle, just the same, and try to make something happen. So if dreams have any meaning beyond their moment, I needed to go crashing through the bubbles of this very real cesspool and drag Toni onto the grass where I could look at her with a clear focus. If I am mixing my metaphors, so be it—I'm sure you get my meaning, even if I was a bit unsure of it myself at the time.

  It had occurred to me that several common threads were holding this entire weave together. One of those threads was marked PowerTron—and now the three top West Coast executives of the company were dead by violence. Those three shared other things in common, as well.

  Chase's widow, Miriam, had referred to her disgraced husband as a pervert and apparently she'd been shocked and appalled, in that connection, by some objects that had been found in his car when he was arrested—enough so that she had been planning a divorce when he was killed.

  Cherche had told me that Putnam and Delancey, also, had exhibited sexual problems that disqualified them from membership in her exclusive sex club. Toni was Delancey's widow and she had sadly left him some time earlier. Barbara was Putnam's widow and apparently she had been "partying" at a distant resort while he lay dead in his own home.

  So what else tied these guys together in death? Criminal greed? Treason? Drug addiction? If at least two out of three of those, was that begging a coincidence or what?—that all three were top executives of the same company, all three were mixed up in a deadly game, all three had succumbed to that game?

  I had to know.

  The telephone at the Delancey home rang twenty times and no one answered.

  Next on my list was the Chase home. The phone got picked up there on the third ring and Miriam's mopey voice made me wish I could have skipped that one. I said, "This is Joe. Have you heard?"

  I guess she'd been crying and the voice was still foggy. "Yes. I heard."

  "Can I come over?"

  "It isn't necessary."

  "I said nothing about necessary. Can I?"

  She thought about it for about five seconds before replying, "Okay," and hung up.

  So I went to see Miriam. Stopped off first at my safety deposit box and retrieved the five-thousand "retainer" from her husband, took it with me.

  It was strained and stiff there. I think I've told you that we had never been friends, exactly. I gave her the five grand and told her, "Tom left this with me for safekeeping."

  "Where did he steal it?" she asked in a voice going very bitter very quickly.

  "He didn't say. Maybe he'd been saving it for a rainy day."

  "It has been nothing but rainy days all this year," she said. "My lawyer discovered that he had gone through everything. We're broke." She amended that with a twisted smile. "I'm broke. He even borrowed to the maximum on his insurance policies. We owe every bank and loan company in town. I called PowerTron today, after . . . he'd cashed in all his company stock and borrowed against his deferred compensation. Dammit, Joe, all that was half mine! He had no right!"

  "He was in trouble, Miriam," I said as gently as 1 could.

  "Oh boy, was he in trouble! The trunk of his car was stuffed with leather corsets and whips and all that crazy stuff! How could he have spent all that money? My lawyer says it will be impossible to trace it if he put it in secret bank accounts overseas."

  "Save the effort," I suggested. "I think he spent it. I think I know how and I think I know where."

  "Do you use the same whores?"

  I kept it as genteel as possible. Miriam was hurting, I knew that. And although maybe she had been partly responsible for all that herself, it was no time for anything but consolation. "He didn't spend it that way, Miriam. I believe he was an addict."

  She said, "Oh! God!"

  "Ring a bell somewhere?"

  "About six months ago . . ."

  "Yeah?"

  "Well there was this raunchy crowd in Malibu that he was trying to run with. Dragged me to several of the parties. I just couldn't handle it. Told him to leave me out of any future plans with that bunch. I believe they were using cocaine. They smoked pot, too, I know that for s
ure. Place reeked of it."

  "Remember any names?"

  "No. I . . ."

  "Does the name Dostell ring any bells?"

  I saw the light appear in her brain. She said, "That was one."

  "One of the beach duplexes right off the highway?"

  "Yes. They skinny-dipped in the surf by moonlight."

  I sighed and told her, "Well let that be his epitaph. It's probably as kind a one as you're going to find." I turned to go, paused at the door to tell her, "Look into his police pension rights. There could be something there."

  "Thanks," she said brightly. "I'll do that. Thanks for bringing the money and . . . thanks for coming, Joe. I really do feel better."

  I was sure she did. As deadly as it may be, a cocaine addiction is an easier rival to contemplate than chains and whips—more understandable somehow— but really the two were the same. Both spelled compulsive behavior and a monkey on the back for sure.

  Myself, I felt not a damned bit better.

  The drive of the Putnam home in Altadena was jammed with cars. The front door stood open and it was almost a party atmosphere inside. Well-dressed people were standing about with drinks in hand and talking spiritedly, laughter here and there, trays of fingerfoods being passed around.

  It was a wake for Morris Putnam.

  A pretty woman of indeterminate years came over to greet me. "You must be Joe."

  "And that makes you Mary." I'd spoken to her again by telephone just a few minutes earlier.

  Turns out that she is Barbara Putnam's sister. She gave me a conspiratorial hug and looked quickly around as though searching for a face in the crowd, told me, "Barb is about somewhere."

  "Never mind," I said. "We'll cross eventually."

  She replied. "Oh good, meanwhile I'll just keep you to myself. Cocktail?"

  We walked to a makeshift stand-up bar where a middleaged man was acting as bartender. I took a rock and a splash of bourbon and we went on out to the yard where some smokers were gathered in exile. I asked Mary, "How's she taking it?"

  "Surprisingly, Joe, she's taking it pretty bad."

  "Why surprisingly?"

  "Well . . . it's no secret that . . ."

  "What?"

  She laughed with a trace of embarrassment and replied, "Don't speak ill of the dead but things have not been exactly cozy around here for quite a while. I assumed you knew. Barb would have been gone long ago except for the children. Hell, I don't care, I'm going to speak ill. He was a son of a bitch and I'm glad my sister is finally free of that man."

  I tasted my booze and said, "No, I hadn't known."

  "Consider yourself educated."

  I smiled. "There are always two sides, aren't there?"

  "Hey, whose side are you on? Let's see, two sides ..." She had her face screwed into a comical grimace. ". . . nope, I find only one. Cheer up, Joe. If you came to eulogize Morris, you're going to be in a company of one. Speaking of which, his own company has disavowed him. Barb just learned that they fired him the day he died."

  I said, "No!"

  "Yep. Locked his office and sealed up all his records. I just know there's going to be a scandal. I feel bad about that for the kids, but... well, if it will help Barb erase this man from her life ... am I presuming too much?—or could I suggest—"

  I had to head it off. This lady was a compulsive talker and romantic, and I'd given her a bit too much encouragement. Didn't want her to end up feeling like a total fool, so I told her, "You've got it wrong, Mary. I barely know Barbara. In fact—I'll level with you— don't know her at all. I'm a cop."

  She drew back to give me a whole new kind of scrutiny, wavering between a smile and a frown, finally said to me, "How exciting. I've never met a detective."

  "Now you have."

  "So you are investigating . . . ?"

  I said, "Follow up. Routine, actually. Just trying to put some background together."

  "But you have found the killer. The man you arrested . . ."

  "It's pretty well nailed down, yes."

  "So . . . what do you need to know?"

  "Why Morris was killed."

  "Oh! Well it had something to do with business, didn't it."

  "Monkey business, maybe," I replied with a wink.

  She said, "Aha, okay. Then you're on the right track. There was an unnatural relationship with George Delancey, we knew that. So maybe it was a homosexual triangle."

  I told her, "That's a possibility, of course. I'm also looking into the drug angle."

  "Oh! Yes! Right!"

  "You knew about his addiction, then?"

  "Well, no. Not exactly. But he'd been acting very strangely. That could be it."

  I drew her farther aside and lowered my voice to a conspiratorial murmur. "Can I depend on you to keep something under your hat for a while, Mary?"

  "Oh! Absolutely!"

  "Morris had been involved in a sex club. I feel that he also could have been a cocaine addict. Delancey was involved in all that too. I am trying to determine if another man was involved. His name is Tom Chase. He was the security chief for PowerTron. Have you heard the name?"

  Her eyes were as big as saucers. She said, "Oh my God," in an awed voice.

  "You know him?"

  She shook her head. "No. But what kind of sex club?"

  "Do me a favor," I quietly requested. "Go find Barbara. Get a moment alone with her. Ask her if she knows Tom Chase."

  I had just made that lady's day. She was almost staggering with excitement as she hurried back into the house.

  Maybe it was not the kindest addition to a wake.

  But I got the information I wanted.

  Putnam and Chase had been close friends, on and off the job. There had been some connection in the past, prior to Tom's employment by PowerTron, and Putnam himself had brought him into the company.

  But there had been a "falling out" recently.

  Just two weeks before the tragedy, there had been a violent argument between the two men in Putnam's study, and Chase had been "thrown out."

  And Putnam had commanded his wife: "Never let that man in this house again!"

  The bubbles were beginning to burst, yes.

  And the odor was awful.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I went out to PowerTron and walked into the central security offices at a few minutes before five. There was a late Friday afternoon atmosphere in there, line of unoccupied desks, one woman working at a file cabinet and another tidying the counter area. The one at the counter flicked her eyes at the wall clock as she gave me about ten percent of her attention and went on with her tidying. I asked for Tom Chase and that got me maybe ninety percent.

  "Mr. Chase was terminated on Wednesday," she informed me.

  That came as no great shock. I was prepared for it, in fact, in one form or another. I flashed my ID and told the clerk, "I need to see his successor, then. Tell him it's an FBI matter."

  Her eyes flicked to the clock again as though to confirm the number of minutes remaining before her week was ended. "Mr. Hightower is Acting Chief. Just a minute, I'll see . . ."

  She retreated to a line of private offices at the rear, said something into an open doorway, and kept on going. The other woman followed quickly behind her and I saw neither of them again. A man came out of the office immediately and approached me with a set smile which rapidly evaporated as he drew closer.

  This was the guy who two days earlier had led me to Altadena and the cold corpses of Morris Putnam and George Delancey. Several small circular bandaids on the forehead concealed the minor damage he had sustained in our first meeting.

  I said, "We need to talk, Hightower."

  Took him a couple of seconds to make up his mind on that issue. Then he said, "Come on back," and buzzed me through the security door.

  We went into his private office, sat down, went right to work. "What do you want, Copp?"

  "Were you Acting Chief the last time we met?"

  "Yes."

  "
So all that razzmatazz about moonlighting—"

  "Wasn't razzmatazz. I wasn't acting in an official capacity."

  "Uh-huh. So who appointed you?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "You told me you were working directly for Putnam."

  "That was a lie."

  I said, "One of many, eh? So who was giving you orders?"

  "That's none of your concern."

  "The hell it isn't. You knew I would follow you from the restaurant, didn't you."

  "Don't know what you mean."

  "Sure you do. Someone wanted to place me at the murder scene. You led me up there. Tell me why."

  "No, you have it wrong. Maybe you have an over- bloated sense of your own importance. Maybe you weren't the target."

  "You think maybe you were?"

  He nodded. "Seemed that way."

  "That why you split without phoning it in?"

  "Would you have phoned it in, Copp?"

  I said, "Maybe not. Are you telling me that someone sent you up there?"

  "Telling you nothing. Why'd you go back? That was dumb."

  "I hadn't been there."

  "Your gun had been there."

  "Not attached to me. I think you know that. I think you iced those people, Hightower. Then you sucked me up there to take the fall."

  He showed me a sober smile. "Why would I do that?"

  "Why would someone make you Acting Chief?"

  "The ex-Chief was behind bars. I was next in line. Simple as that."