Copp In The Dark, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series)

by Don Pendleton

  "No."

  "What did Craig steal from you?"

  "I guess he stole my dad," she whispered.

  "You've known about your dad?"

  "Wondered," she said quietly. "But I never knew for sure until... you should see his closet."

  "I have, but what about it?"

  "Did you see all the women's clothing?"

  "Yes. Figured he had a live-in girlfriend."

  She said, "So did I, until I looked closer. How odd. All the clothing in that closet was made for the same person."

  I said, "That's uh ..."

  "He cheated me, Joe! He cheated my mother! Oh God, how could he ... ?"

  "Don't leap to conclusions, Judy."

  "... my own father, the great and wonderful and super respectable judge of all that's holy and noble ..."

  "Look, uh, you told me that you theater people take pride in your liberal attitude toward—"

  "This isn't the theater, this is real, this is where people live. I never knew this man, Joe. Never knew him. Neither did Mother. We were married to a drag queen!"

  "Maybe not," I told her, bleeding for her and wanting to protect her but knowing I couldn't. "Look at it from his point of view, try to understand what he tried to turn away from and give up for your sake, for her sake. Your mother has been dead a long time, Judy. Think of what the man has been living with."

  "That's all I can think of," Judith replied bitterly. She got to her feet, gave me a sidewise look, asked me, "Can I go now?"

  I said, "Dammit, kid, let's get square with each other."

  "Too late for that," she told me. "None of it matters anymore anyway."

  "Matters to me," I said.

  "Not to me." She stepped past me and went on out.

  I stood there for a moment trying to get myself together, lit a cigarette, wandered on through the living room and into the study, following a light source that turned out to be a small hi-intensity lamp on the judge's desk. He was there, too, but not as the judge. He wore a flowing pink negligee over other flimsy feminine things, slumped in his chair and staring emptily at a sheet of paper in the portable typewriter.

  The judge was not in, right.

  The judge was dead.

  He'd sucked up the barrel of his own little snubnosed revolver and bought peace the way Lahey had. The note in the typewriter simply read, "I am most regretful for the policeman and his family—but I do, please believe me, regret it all."

  I picked up his phone and called San Bernardino, got through to the homicide bureau, asked the guy there, "Does Captain Waring come in this early?"

  "Not usually," was the reply, "but I think he's here this morning. Who's calling?"

  I told him who was calling and he said "oh" and a moment later Waring came on. I told him what I'd found and I told him why I thought I'd found it and I read him the note.

  "Sounds like a confession," Waring commented. "But what do you want me to do? You need to call LAPD."

  "You call them for me," I suggested. "I called you because it's your case and because you told me yesterday that it's closed."

  "I mis-spoke," he told me. "I was referring to the case against the deputy marshals."

  "Well, you can close it for real now," I said.

  "Maybe. But your judge did not kill Alfred Johansen."

  "How can you be sure of that?"

  "Because we have the man who did it. Or rather we have his remains in our morgue. It's shaping up as a classic contract job. The hitman himself was hit after the fact, and you know why."

  I knew why, sure. And it was classical, all right. When would these suckers ever learn that their payoff usually comes as a bullet to the brain?

  I asked Waring, "How do you know you have the right man?"

  "We have the physical evidence—address found on the body, the knife, bloodstained handkerchief that was used to wipe the knife and a bloodmatch with the victim. We have the right man."

  I sighed and told him, "I want to come in and talk to you."

  "Any time," the captain said.

  "Lahey was killed in the line of duty."

  "Well see."

  I said, "No, bullshit, we won't see. He was killed while investigating these murders, suspended or no, so the man died on duty."

  "Come in and talk to us, Joe."

  I could do that. Sure, I could do that now. And it was time to come in from the dark.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The problem for me throughout had been too many actors upon the stage, too many playwrights behind the scenes, and too many stories within stories—and I'm speaking not of La Mancha but of Copp in the Dark. La Mancha was designed that way. Copp in the Dark, I think, just happened that way. In Man of La Mancha Craig who was really Alfie portrayed Cervantes who portrayed Quijana who fantasized himself as Quixote. Elaine Suzanne whose real name is Somoza portrayed an ugly female prisoner transformed by Cervantes into Aldonza, a sexy barmaid who in turn is transformed by Quixote into Dulcinea, the fairest of them all, and every actor in the play is portraying multiple roles. It is a transformational play and, in the end, the audience itself is transformed by the power of its message.

  On the threatrical stage, it is powerful stuff.

  Offstage, however, down here where most of us are staggering about in the dark much of our lives anyway, this kind of confusion only compounds the darkness and often results in tragedy.

  We'd had plenty of that, all right, while Copp was in the dark—and that was not just because I was in the dark but because everyone was to one extent or another.

  Craig Maan, the gifted actor with the power to transform audiences, was in reality Alfred "Alfie" Johansen, son of a Minnesota Supreme Court justice and supposed student of chemical engineering who instead had majored in drama and thus had conned his father the judge out of nearly three years of an expensive college education.

  But that was not the whole con. Alfie also was a closet gay and sometimes transvestite who'd fallen in with a shady crowd while still a student in Chicago. Caught in an FBI sweep of Chicago organized crime elements and sure to be exposed and scandalized at home, Alfie had thrown himself on the mercy of the FBI agent in charge of the operation and promised to deliver incriminating evidence on other crime figures while working undercover as an informant for the FBI.

  The deal was struck and Alfie delivered—for awhile— and somehow he became entangled with the West Coast operations of Vin DiCenza who was already on trial in Los Angeles. Through this contact he had picked up hints that DiCenza already had Judge White in his pocket, and he relayed this information to his contact in the FBI.

  The FBI then actively entered that angle and helped engineer an "in" for Alfie close to DiCenza. I believe that it was at this point that Alfie began to sniff a jackpot somewhere for himself and he began playing a double- agent role, trying to play both ends against the middle in the hope of parlaying a grand slam for himself.

  Apparently, DiCenza was not all that comfortable in his accommodation with Judge White. He was no dummy so of course he knew about the judge's daughter, undoubtedly knew of her connection with his own son—(perhaps this was even his hold on the judge)—and he had Alfie under his wing, a gifted actor. I believe it began as Alfie's idea that he be positioned in close association with the judge's daughter "to keep an eye on things." The wily DiCenza, well schooled in Mafia symbology, quickly picked up on that idea but with a different slant: he would position Alfie next to the daughter and then tell Judge White that he had done so as a not-so-subtle message that the judge had best keep in line and deliver.

  So Vin sent Alfie to Jimmy and Jimmy sent him to Judith who did not need a twisted arm to go for the guy. Meanwhile Vin's long arm had reached through San Francisco to make an offer that Greg Houston, already cast in La Mancha, could not refuse—and the blocks all slipped neatly into place.

  Pursuing his double game, Alfie then reported his new position to the FBI who already were watching the trial very closely. The FBI instructed Alfie
to hang in there and stay in touch and he did so, biding his time and alert to any and all developments that could be turned to his own advantage.

  I believe the first development came when he finally succeeded in coming face to face with the judge. Something sparked there and Alfie knew it, he pursued it, and Alfie and the judge became an item, undercover of course. Love, you know, can cloud the mind—and homosexual love is no different in that regard. This guy Alfie was not only a gifted actor, he was a gifted con man too, so maybe he could convince a love-smitten judge that he would never betray him even though the judge had known up front that Alfie worked for DiCenza.

  The judge became nervous about Alfie coming regularly to his condo, though, so he gave Alfie money to rent an apartment convenient to Alfie, and the judge began going to Alfie in disguise, dressed in drag—and maybe that was even a lot of fun for both of them. But note the twist on names again: Alfie rented the apartment in the name of the judge's dead wife. I talked to Lunceford about this doubleplay name business and maybe he had an insight there. Lunceford told me he thought Alfie hung his own name on Lunceford because he was afraid of dying incognito and no one would have known that he'd lived and died. A violent death would have brought the truth out with the real name closeby. I don't know. Myself, I think the guy just loved to play those kind of games and couldn't resist macabre little touches.

  It was a perfect situation for the compulsive con man, though, and he of course was looking for ways to exploit it.

  But then the judge got even more nervous about Alfie, checked him out, probably discovered then—to his horror—that Alfie had ties not only to the mob but to the FBI as well.

  Enter, then, Dobbs and Harney, under instructions from the judge to protect his daughter and also to learn all they could about Alfie's true role and connections—and that was a dangerous game for the judge in itself, shows you how desperate the guy had become.

  The rest was almost inevitable, certainly predictable.

  The judge probably passed word to DiCenza that Alfie was on the FBI payroll and demanded that either DiCenza extract Alfie from the equation or their deal was off. Vin obviously did not know of the homosexual relationship

  between the two and he probably figured that he had all he needed out of Alfie anyway—so he ordered him hit.

  Meanwhile Alfie had been forging ahead with his own mad scheme. He'd convinced Dobbs and Harney that he'd been assigned by the FBI to keep an eye on Judith White and that was his only involvement. But he hinted also that someone else in the cast was working for the mob, and he had these two hardened lawmen chasing their own tails around; God knows how many "disinformational spins" he had those guys in before they got to me.

  They got to me through Alfie too, of course, but not by his design. They got to me by merely watching Alfie and his co-conspirators. Alfie was setting up a blackmail scheme, intending to bleed the judge for everything he had, and he'd conned the kids from La Mancha to assist him in that by leading them to believe that he would use the money to bankroll them all into bigtime theater.

  Sanchez, Stein and Peterson were central to that scheme. These guys were into every kink in the sexual repertoire and had absolutely no qualms about setting any stage under Alfie's direction. The idea, I think, was for the judge to meet Alfie as usual at the blind apartment—maybe under the pretext of talking things out and making amends, whatever—and then Alfie was to lure the judge to the other apartment where the trap would be sprung under the watchful eye of a video camera and with a P.I. right next door ready to enter on cue and bear witness to the compromising scene. I believe he was setting the judge up for a homosexual orgy, all on tape and certainly destructive to everything the judge held dear. Don't know why he thought he needed me for that except as a melodramatic touch designed to really scare the judge, and I still have not made up my mind as to why he sent someone to my gym to get a nude picture of me. Maybe he'd intended a bit of blackmail against me too, just to keep me in line and cooperative.

  Maybe it would have worked and maybe not, but obviously Alfie was confident enough in his attraction to the judge to feel that it would work. But something went terribly awry with the plan—I think possibly due to the marshals' activities, partly to mine, partly to DiCenza's, and partly to blind fate.

  Instead of the judge showing up at the blind apartment, DiCenza's hitman took his place. This may have been by design. Whatever, the hitman killed Alfie and made it look like a sex crime. Maybe the nude photo of me had been there under the sofa cushion for awhile and just happened to play that way—or maybe the hitman found it in the apartment and used it as another set for the sexcrime angle. Whatever and however, Elaine became confused and delivered me to the wrong apartment—I believe she'd been there before and had a key—where we both discovered the crime but more to Elaine's consternation than mine. I've found no record of a marriage between her and Alfie; I think it was pure fluff.

  I don't know how Dobbs and Harney got onto Elaine but after all they are professionals, maybe they had my house staked out, anyway they snatched her and grilled ha* and she took them back to the trap apartment. We know that because it's on the tape. Those guys kicked their way in there and probably had a field day with those kids— maybe not exactly with mayhem in mind but intending only to inflict pain and fear in the search for truth.

  A thing like that can easily get out of hand and someone, maybe Elaine, died in the process—and with that the die was cast for the rest of them. I think the marshals panicked and left there in a hell of a mental state after covering up the first perhaps accidental death with three more on purpose and intended to look just the way it did look. Panicky, yeah, and that's why they missed the video- cassette—and that is why they missed Susan Baker. She'd gone over there to find out why I hadn't shown, was in the bathroom when Dobbs and Harney arrived, and spent the entire time hiding in a bedroom closet of that blood- spattered apartment, heard the whole gruesome encounter, ventured out only after all became quiet and spent the balance of the night pacing the floor in her own apartment, trying to contact Alfie and wondering what to do.

  Judge White killed Art Lahey, sure.

  He'd gone to the theater that night to see Judith, very concerned about the murders and probably feeling very threatened, probably intended to tell her the truth about his relationship with Alfie and beg not only her understanding but also her support in case things went sour for him. But Art Lahey and I were standing outside on the patio engrossed in conversation when he arrived; maybe he knew who one or both of us were and maybe he just overheard enough to know that the thing was falling apart. Remember the little old lady who asked me if Lahey and I were discussing the next play? Maybe someone else was listening, too, and maybe that someone panicked and followed Lahey out to his car, slugged him, then put Lahey's revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

  The judge probably left in a panic after that, drove around or killed time somewhere trying to figure out what to do next, called Judith and asked her to meet him after

  the show. Judith was very protective of her father, knew that something was wrong, didn't want me involved in it, no way. I don't believe he told her the whole story but maybe enough to make her wonder after she learned of Lahey's death.

  She tried to drown the wonder in sex with me but it wouldn't hold, so later that night she went to see him, had it out with him, maybe learned the whole truth. And I think that is when the judge sucked up his own gun barrel.

  Well, it's always good to come up into the light, even if what you see there is not exactly pretty.

  There was some talk early on about a mistrial in the DiCenza case but I guess there will not be one. Another judge has been assigned and there has been a continuance of the sentencing phase. All the smart money now is saying that there will be no deal and that Vin will die in jail. That's okay with me, of course, everyone dies somewhere and a guy like Vin DiCenza was made for prison bars—and I guess it’ll be okay, too, for a lot of nervous politicians wh
o no doubt will go right on, now, enriching themselves at the public troughs.

  I've heard no seamy scandals on Judge White yet, but of course there is endless speculation about his reasons for murdering a police officer and I guess the rest can't be far behind, the usual stories in the sensational press about murder conspiracies and hints that all was not clean in the judge's past. Actually it's already starting. A local TV station did a news feature the other day on the federal court system and judicial abuses, obviously trying to link Judge White's suicide with a recent spate of senate impeachments of federal judges back east somewhere.

  See, these guys are not gods, they're not even perfect human beings, and at the bottom line they are politicians— so what can you expect of an inverse system? You can pay them what they're worth, show them the proper respect, and watch them like hawks—then hope that the cream will find its proper place at the top of the bottle. What else can you do?

  Dobbs and Harney are back in jail and the San Bernardino prosecutor is re-examining the evidence against them in the "unsolved" murders of Elaine Somoza, Jesus Sanchez, James Peterson and Peter Stein. I believe they'll take the fall like men, cop a plea on extenuating circumstances, and hope for a softhearted judge. They could even draw one count of involuntary manslaughter and three of second-degree murder, and maybe they'll get off with seven to ten in the slammer and an early parole. I'm due to go in tomorrow and give a deposition, and you already know what I'm going to say to the prosecutor.

  Art Lahey's death has been officially upgraded to "line of duty" status, and that's good for his family. The good do sometimes die young, you know, but how do we know for sure that death is always a sort of punishment?—maybe sometimes it's a reward for good behavior, an early release like parole from the troubles of earth, a return with honors to the bliss of dreamtime. I'd buy that idea, for guys like Art Lahey.

  Susan Baker has already told her story to the prosecutor and she's working something out that will allow her to go to Japan next month with a show—following her karma, I guess, still in pursuit of the unreachable star. Maybe she’ll even find it between her thighs, where she's been looking all the while anyway.