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

by Don Pendleton

  "But you had all this moonlight work in the meantime, this special assignment. Who was punching your ticket for that, if not Putnam?"

  "That isn't in your need to know."

  "I'm putting it there."

  "Go to hell, then. The interview is over." He picked up the telephone and dangled it casually by the left hand. "Start a ruckus in here, Copp, and I'll bury your ass in company cops. Aren't you out on bail?"

  I placed a foot on the edge of his desk and straightened the leg. The heavy desk slid forward, jammed his swivel chair into the well and pinned him to the wall. I slapped the phone out of his hand and pulled the plug on it.

  "Difference between you and me," I told him, "is that you're trying to succeed and I'm just trying to survive. Means nothing to threaten me with minor inconveniences when the hounds of hell are tearing at my flesh. The interview is over when I say it's over."

  This man was not good at bearing pain.

  He weakly gasped, "Let off. You're crushing me."

  "So now you know how it feels," I said. "Someone is crushing me too. Who appointed you Acting Chief?"

  "Putnam did, before he died."

  "Before someone helped him die," I corrected him. "That happened early Wednesday. Chase was arrested late Tuesday. So when did you know about this wonderful change in your status?"

  "Last weekend," Hightower groaned.

  "So Tom knew even before Tuesday that he was out of a job."

  "I don't know if he knew."

  "He might have guessed?"

  "Well I'm sure he knew that something was brewing"

  "How would he know that?"

  "Putnam was very unhappy with him."

  "A personal matter, though, not job-related."

  "Both, I think. Things had not been going well for Tom for some time."

  "Were you friends with him?" "Not exactly."

  "How would you rate his job performance?" "Excellent."

  "So why would he have a job-related problem?"

  "If the CEO distrusts you, I'd say that's job- slated."

  "Did Putnam tell you that he distrusted Tom?"

  "Not in so many words, but . . ."

  "He told you last weekend that he was firing him."

  "Yeah."

  "How did he put it to you?"

  "Just told me to get ready to take over. Told me I shouldn't let Tom take any records out of the plant."

  "He didn't tell you when you'd be taking over?"

  "I just knew that it would be soon."

  "What do you suppose he was waiting for?"

  "He didn't say and I didn't ask."

  "What kind of records?"

  "What?"

  "He said you should not let Tom take any records." "I don't know what he meant by that."

  "Guess."

  "There were rumors of a GSA audit. I don't know.

  "What would an audit like that entail?"

  "Just, I guess, looking into the costs and the billing and all that."

  "Tom wouldn't have access to those records, would

  he?"

  "The classified stuff, sure. That's a big part of our job here in security, running herd on classified documents."

  "Come on, they don't classify the financial stuff.”

  "Sometimes, yeah, we have to, when the costs are tied to research and development, secret specification and the like. 'Course the billings just recap all that b reference. But sometimes the detail stuff is classified.

  I said, "Why would Tom want to take stuff like that out of the plant?"

  "I don't know. You said guess. I was guessing."

  "Tom knew he was about to be fired."

  "Yes."

  "Did he talk to you about it?"

  "No."

  "What about the sex parties?"

  Hightower blinked and replied, "What about them?"

  "Did you ever attend any?"

  "No."

  "You were never invited?"

  "No."

  I smiled. "Would you go?"

  He smiled back, despite the pressure on his rib cage. "I might. Depends."

  "Even if that is what got Tom in all the trouble?"

  The smile faded. "I don't think that was it."

  "Putnam is dead."

  "Yes."

  "Delancey is dead."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Now Chase is dead. Who's next?"

  Hightower strained ineffectually against the desk as he replied, "Isn't that enough?"

  "Depends on your point of view," I told him. "Looks to me like someone is trying to blot something out. Who would need to do that?"

  "Beats me."

  I kicked the desk a bit tighter and held it there. "Think hard."

  The eyes were beginning to bulge. "I swear I don't know anything about it!"

  So maybe he didn't.

  I let the pressure off and told him, "I have it from an impeccable source that Morris Putnam was fired Wednesday morning before he died, that his office was locked and a seal put on his personal records. Did you know about that?"

  "Yes, I knew about it. I handled the security angle."

  "Oh whose orders?"

  "I was called personally by General Maxwell himself. He's the Chairman and CEO back east."

  "What'd he tell you?"

  "He just said that Putnam should be barred from entering the premises."

  "Didn't tell you why?"

  "Just that Putnam was out and should be kept out."

  "Why do you think he was fired?"

  "I don't know."

  "Was Delancey fired too?"

  "Yes."

  "And barred from the premises?"

  "Yes."

  "What do you think is happening with PowerTron?"

  "God, I don't know," he replied.

  I said, "If I were wearing your hat right now, pal, I think I'd be giving it some thought."

  "I'll do that. Thanks."

  "And sleeping with one eye open."

  "You think I'm in danger?"

  "Do you think you're not?" I asked, and left him on that note.

  A "theory of the case" had begun to form for me during that interrogation. That means the broad overview, with all the seemingly disparate pieces falling into a pattern of cause and effect.

  I didn't have all the causes in total focus yet, and certainly not all of the effects, but I felt for the first time some coherent sense of flow that I could throw a saddle on and ride into the dirt.

  I would have to do that, I knew.

  Or I would die.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It was nearing onto dusk when I hit the Delancey place, an upscale hillside home worth maybe half a mil in today's market—not quite as grand as the Putnam digs but close. I entered through a rear window, found the atmosphere in there not exactly pleasant because the house had been shut up tight for a long time, it seemed. The windows were all heavily draped and the air conditioning system was shut down.

  Very stylish place, though, with a circular stairway lifting to a loft room and bedrooms beyond, a large he and she bath complete with Jacuzzi and wardrobes connecting separate master sleeperies, one very austere and the other femininely sensual—male clothing in one, female in the other. They had not routinely slept together. For some reason I took comfort in that—I guess because it seemed more like an arrangement than a marriage, but it was a sad thought too.

  Two large suitcases stood open atop her bed and articles of clothing had been rather carelessly packed

  into them. That morning's newspaper lay folded on the foot of the bed. I found bloodstained puffs of cotton and an open bottle of hydrogen peroxide in the bathroom, evidence that someone had recently been cleaning minor wounds.

  She'd been there, all right, at some time during that day. I recalled the telephone conversation when she thought I was the coroner and she told me that she needed her husband's body released because she was leaving town—"leaving for Europe," I think she said.

  But had she already
left, deciding to not bother with the big suitcases?

  I poked around for a while up there but found no clues to her actual intentions—felt a bit peculiar going through her personal things—finally gave it up and went back downstairs for a quick check of those premises. Mail was stacked on a table in the entry hall, all of it addressed to George, all bills and advertisements—too late, folks, he's gone and left no forwarding address. The finality of that struck me in a way I'd never thought of death before. I vaguely wondered what George had worried about and dreamed about—what he feared the most and loved the most—and how it all reduced to exactly nothing now that there were no more tomorrows.

  In the kitchen I found pungent coffee simmering in a Silex, a cereal bowl and a spoon rinsed and resting in a dish drainer, bare refrigerator and a nearly bare cupboard. I turned off the Silex, in case no one would be around to do so later.

  This home had recently been nothing but a head-

  quarters, maybe not even that. Obviously George had spent very little time here since the separation. Now these few meager tracings of habitation only emphasized the neglect and made poignant the shattered hopes with which this home must have been established. I'd never seen the man in life but I'd seen him in cold, stiff death, an inanimate caricature of a human being—and I grieved a little for George Delancey in his barren kitchen. Okay, I grieved for Toni too—and I would have put those two together again if I could.

  But all the king's horses and men could not have done that even a week earlier, and I saw why when I found the little den behind the study. It was only about an eight-by-ten cubicle without windows, and it contained only a bigscreen projection-type TV with VCR, an overstuffed chair, a small table. Plus a video library with about fifty cassettes of the X variety—double and triple X, maybe, if you consider the genres of porn. This was all lash and leather culture, pure S&M, not a good recipe for marital health if it turns one on and the other off.

  I went out the way I'd come in, found a neighbor grunting over a buried lawn sprinkler in the adjacent yard, a silver-haired oldster who'd probably spotted me coming in and whose curiosity was lying in wait for me. He waved and said, "Hi there," so I went over to speak to him.

  "Bakers bake and bankers bank," the old man grumbled. "So could someone please tell me why gardeners don't garden?"

  I suggested, "When you find one that does, better be nice to him."

  "Guess that's the secret," he replied with a little laugh, then did a double take as I got closer and said, "Oh, you're not him. I was wondering ..." He chuckled, more with embarrassment than humor. "This is terrible. Lived right next door for two years and don't even know their name."

  "Delancey," I said.

  "Oh."

  I showed him my badge but put it away while he was still trying to focus on it, told him, "You don't know them very well, eh?"

  "No," he said emphatically. "What's wrong?"

  "Mr. Delancey was murdered two days ago."

  "No! My God! Really? What kind of a world is this getting to be?"

  "Certainly not gentler and kinder," I said. "You didn't see much of your neighbors, eh?"

  "Well no, not lately. Used to see him going and coming all the time—all hours of the day and night, I might add. She's a pretty little thing but I haven't seen her in months. Used to see her, at first, out in the back yard once in a while." He cocked an eye at me. "Sunbathing. In a teeny bikini. Let me tell you . . . but no, I think she left some time back. Used to talk a little bit back and forth across the fence. Him, no. Never looked left nor right, always seemed in a hurry. I worry about that place. Kids could break in there and raise hell, maybe bum it down, maybe mine with it. He's dead? So what's going to happen to the place?"

  I told him, "Maybe it will get a nice young family with dogs and kids."

  He said, "Oh no! I don't like dogs. Not right next door!"

  "Kids and cats then," I suggested, and went on my way.

  "I don't want kids right next door either!" he yelled after me.

  It was getting to be a hell of a world, yeah. Gentler and kinder? Huh-uh. Not even right next door.

  I have a friend who operates a small travel agency. She had helped me before, I figured maybe she could again. The suitcases on Toni's bed bore the remains of old Eastern Airlines baggage checks. Wasn't much of a clue, but people do often have favorite airlines so I hoped it might narrow the search just a bit.

  It did.

  We found her under her real name on a flight to Washington leaving LAX at midnight, and the search required only about ten minutes. It cost me a future dinner date but what the hell.

  I marked my mind for a midnight intercept at LAX and went on to Malibu, got there shortly past eight o'clock.

  Dostell wasn't at home but his lady was. Didn't want to let me in the house but I insisted, kicked the door off the safety chain and caught her a glancing blow in the process. So, hell, she was surly and rubbing her butt while threatening to kill me in various terrible ways as I shook the place down looking for Frankie boy. I wondered why men like Dostell tolerated women like this one, decided maybe the aggravation was the only thing that kept him feeling alive. She had a mouth on her that could wither hardened felons and a vocabulary to match. Besides which, she liked to get right in your face and talk into your tonsils with every muscle in her body.

  Finally I sat her down hard in a soft chair and dared her to bounce off of it. I think she was falling in love with me, kept rubbing her hip and wanting me to look at what I'd done to her, daring me to do it again and even suggesting other ways I'd better not hurt her.

  Now this one I could see with a George Delancey maybe. Except I think that men like Delancey do it mostly in the mind—and when it does get beyond that level, they prefer the sweet, submissive, frightened women, not dragon-mouths like this one. Anyway, I had this gal's number. She fed on her own anger, not physical abuse from another. She could probably get off all alone on a desert island with no one to hear her but the seagulls if she could just keep worked up long enough.

  I wasn't about to feed her, so I went outside and waited for Dostell in the car. Good thing, too, or I might have missed him entirely. I recognized his Ferrari lurching along the coast highway just uprange, saw it nose into the embankment and grind to a rest. The traffic was heavy and there were four lanes of it at that point but

  managed to get over there without getting killed and tried to pull him out of the car. Couldn't do that; he was imp as a dishrag and I couldn't open the door widely enough because of the oncoming traffic.

  He was as high as it's possible to get and remain alive—and from the looks of things, that would not be :or long. I doubt that he even knew where he was or who le was, certainly not who I was.

  "This is crazy, Frank," I told him. "You shouldn't be driving in this condition."

  His speech was badly slurred and the words just barely recognizable but he seemed to be working at a semi-coherent message and trying desperately to get it across. "Shot me up, man, that's too much—can't handle this—kill me, kill me—Jesus!—burning me up!—where's the hospital, man?"

  "Who shot you up, Frank? Who did it?"

  This guy was collapsing from the inside out, as though muscle by small muscle was hanging out the do lot disturb sign and going to sleep. Apparently he'd already lost the bladder muscles and peed his pants. His eyes were not tracking together and each movement of :he head was a jerky, mechanical overshoot.

  I worked at him for a minute or two, knowing all the while that it was no use. If the mind inside was

  functioning at all, the thoughts were finding very little resonance in the brain cells required to express them.

  "Who did this to you?"

  "Told 'em better. He no no no. I would no no."

  "Frank! Try to focus! You're overdosed! Who did

  it?"

  "She would say say. See? We no no no. Oh shit, man, shit man!"

  "Did you see Nicky?"

  "Nicky no no no. See he be h
e be. I no no no no."

  I could not even hold him upright in the seat any longer. He was just a bag now, a skin covered bag with nothing but liquid inside seeking its flow back to the sea.

  I stepped back and let him ooze away, closed the door to at least contain him to some measure, then I went back to tell his woman.

  "Frank's car is just up the street. He's in big trouble. Better call the medics."

  She gaped at me, all the anger turned off as though by a switch. "What's wrong?"

  "Looks like an OD. Better hurry, he's fading fast."

  She cried, "Oh my God!" and ran for the telephone.

  I called after her, "Then I think you'd better get lost. Climb into a hole somewhere and pull it in over you."

  "My God, why?"

  "Whoever did it to him could feel the need to do it to you too."

  "What are you saying?"

  "A pile of people are dead, kid. And the pile is still growing. Do you know anything about Frank's business?"

  She wildly shook her head. "We never talk about that."

  "Call the medics," I said tiredly, and went out of there.

  A police cruiser was parked behind the Ferrari when I went by, beacon flashing, so I knew that help would be on the way very shortly.

  But I knew also that Frank Dostell was beyond help.

  They say, live by the sword and you'll die by it.

  This guy had died by the needle.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I confronted Cherche in her private sex parlor and told her, "We've hit the bottom line here, old friend, so your life probably depends upon how well you can forget your vow of discretion and get down to raw truth. I've called a bomb squad out here. They'll be arriving any minute and you've got to fully cooperate with them. This place could be wired for destruction and I'm guessing the timing would be midnight while the party is in full swing. Meanwhile I want you to get everybody out and keep them out until it's declared safe. Are you following me?"

  Her eyes were looking a little wild but the mental composure was still in place as she replied, "My goodness, darling, what a terribly devious mind you must have. Why would someone want to blow up my beautiful home?"

  "Well it won't be a disgruntled neighbor," I assured her. "Sorry, darling, but you've been very badly used by some highly unscrupulous people."