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

by Don Pendleton

  She smiled and said, "Takes one to know one, doesn't it. I'm not afraid of you, though, Joe. Did you come looking for me?"

  "Maybe I picked up your vibes," I replied. "Yeah, I came looking for you. You have something to tell me about Cindy?"

  She really was quite attractive, obviously intelligent and downright flirty. She leaned closer and with a seductive air said, "Is this place okay for you?"

  I asked, "Did you have something else in mind?"

  "Can't get much privacy here," she replied soberly.

  I did not know why not; we were the only ones in the whole place except for a cook and a waitress, both half asleep in the back. I told her, with a joking leer, "You're scaring the hell out of me, Marie. Let's just keep it right here. What else is on your mind?"

  "Scaredy-cat. You need some attention to your head injury. And whatever else needs attention. Have you eaten?"

  I said, "I grabbed a hamburger a while ago. Where do you live?"

  "I have an apartment right here at the hotel. Nice apartment. Do you have a place to stay tonight?"

  "Now that you mention it, I guess I don't."

  "You do now, if you want it."

  I said, "Well, we do need a quiet place to talk. It's too damned noisy in here."

  She had a great sense of humor. That observation was as funny to her as it was to me. "So let's get out of here," she giggled.

  So we got out of there. But it took us a while to get back to the point of our discussion. Hell, it took quite a while. And I remembered, then, what it was about older women that charmed me so.

  She gave me attention, all right—from the top of my head to the tip of my toes. And she had been right, I really needed that—to block out the shocking reality that had been pummeling me these past two days—and I needed sanctuary, at least for a moment.

  Some may feel that I am an insensitive, sexist lout after all this talk about my sense of tragedy over the death of Martha. I can only say that it had been a furious and even sometimes numbing experience from almost the beginning, and of course I only now and then had a foggy recall of Martha. I needed Marie—thank God for her and the respite that she provided me during a difficult time.

  Besides that, it was beautiful and she was beautiful. Such fire in that woman—and, yes, there will always be a special place in my heart for her.

  It was a brief respite, however. One of Terry's people must have spotted me going in—or maybe they had spotted my van outside and someone put the pieces together, whatever, but Chief Terry was at Marie's door at one o'clock.

  I heard him apologizing for the intrusion as she answered his soft knock at the door. She did not seem the least flustered or embarrassed—but definitely unhappy with the interruption—as she announced his presence while skipping through to the privacy of her bathroom.

  This was the type of accommodation supplied to top management personnel in the hotel trade. It was actually a suite of rooms, quite homey and comfortable with all the normal trappings of residential needs.

  There was an entirely serviceable kitchen area, large bath with shower, expensive television with VCR and cable hookups, spacious living room with a sun deck, and a master bedroom suite with a king bed.

  I slipped on my pants and went to the door to meet the chief outside. He said, "Sorry if I broke up anything here, bud, but I thought you would want to know about this."

  I replied, "It's okay. What's up?"

  "Your pals from L.A. got blown away a few minutes ago."

  I guess I just stared at him stupidly for a moment before I inquired, "Where was this—Tahoe?"

  "No, they never got to Tahoe. Someone blew them off the highway north of Lee Vining. I'm going to run up there. Would you like to go with me?"

  "Give me a minute," I told him.

  "Make it quick. I'll be waiting in the car."

  Marie came out of the bathroom the minute I closed the door and grabbed for my clothes. "Is the party over?" she asked.

  "For now, I'm afraid so." I struggled into my clothes as I reminded her, "There was something you wanted to tell me about Cindy Morgan."

  "I guess it can wait," she replied.

  I said, "No, let's have it."

  "I just wanted you to know that Cindy was planning on leaving. Today was to have been her last day on the job. She and Harley Sanford were going away together."

  "How do you know that?"

  She scooped a small package from a bedside table. "She was in such a state the day she died, she left this behind in her drawer at the front desk."

  There were two airline tickets in that package, made out to Mr. and Mrs. Harley Sanford, and the destination was San Juan, Puerto Rico. They were one-way tickets.

  "They were leaving Saturday," Marie told me. "And it looks like they were not planning on coming back."

  I said, "That's the way it looks, yeah, but how do you know that Cindy had not merely picked up those tickets for the Sanfords?"

  "Because I know that one of these tickets was for Cindy. She had been excited for a week and she even quit her job. I know it belonged to her."

  I thanked her and added, "Hang on to these tickets until I get back. They could be very important. Good work. I'll discuss this with you later."

  "So you're coming back?"

  "Sure, soon as I can. But it's police business so..." I kissed her warmly and told her, "Just don't wait up for me."

  Terry was waiting in the squad car just outside the lobby entrance. He was wheeling it even as I was closing my door. He said, as we hurtled onto the street, "Hope I didn't cramp your style there, bud, but I figured you would want to be in on this."

  "Thanks, yes, I appreciate it. Hope this doesn't mean that I'm a suspect."

  "This is no Toonerville police force here, you know. We've known your movements from the minute you hit our city limits." He showed me a droll smile without missing a beat on the rapidly accelerating police car. "You and Marie—I would never have suspected it."

  I said, "Why not? Attractive woman. They don't all have to be twenty and dumb."

  He was enjoying this. "My sentiments exactly, but still..."

  "Still nothing," I retorted. "She's a lot of woman. And, incidentally, she has some information that she's holding for you."

  "What's that?"

  "It seems that Harley and Cindy Morgan were planning on running away together. At least, it looks that way to me. Cindy gave notice and quit her job last week. She and Harley had booked flight to Puerto Rico for this weekend—one-way tickets."

  The chief almost lost a beat with his car. "I would have to question that information," he said stiffly. "He couldn't just—well, maybe he could, but not that way. Harley had too much at stake here, a hell of a business empire. I could buy Puerto Rico for a few days, sure, but not forever."

  I said, "Maybe not, but maybe his 'empire' was not as stable as one might think. Maybe he needed an escape and he took it. And maybe that's why the whole kingdom seems to be falling apart around him."

  The Chief sighed. "Well, I don't know. Everything seemed to be just beautiful a mere week ago."

  "Maybe it was and maybe it wasn't. The whole works was falling apart, it seems, as of about the time George Kaufman died." The Chief shot me a disturbed glance as I continued. "So okay, this is pure theory, but I'm picking up the long-distance marks on this tragedy from a long way back."

  "So you're a psychic, now."

  "Doesn't take a psychic to read these signs, pal," I said. "The whole thing was going rotten. I don't know from what, exactly, or from who, but this family was going into self-destruct long before I first encountered it. Why didn't you tell me that something had been going on between you and Janice Sanford?"

  "Don't you mean Martha? I told you about that."

  "No, I meant Janice."

  "Hold it there, bud. You're shooting from the hip again."

  I said, "No, I'm talking reality here, pal. I saw a picture of you and Janice at Tahoe. Harley wasn't in it and I just canno
t picture him behind the camera. Don't give me any crap about the age difference. Janice Sanford is a beautiful woman and you aren't exactly a kid yourself. So when are you going to level with me?"

  He stomped the brakes and screeched to a halt on a shoulder of the road just outside of town, took a long, hard look at me, and then asked, "Am I going to have to kick the shit out of you, bud, gimpy head and all?"

  I grinned and said, "God, I hope not."

  He chuckled and I chuckled, then we started off again. This guy had a very endearing and entirely credible way about him.

  Again, though, I was hoping that I was not wrong about this guy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Someone had planned this one to a close count. The L.A. County unmarked sheriff's car had apparently been midway through a curve along the divided highway section of Conway Summit, a long grade pulling to above 8,000 feet at the crest, when they were hit.

  This can be a somewhat desolate drive during late night when highway traffic is at a minimum. The small town of Lee Vining, just south of the pull toward the summit, is the last town encountered until reaching Bridgeport, about twenty-five miles to the north. Just east of Lee Vining stands the eerie, almost moonscape desolation of Mono Lake, an ancient sea nearly 700,000 years old and regarded as one of the oldest lakes in North America, surrounded by volcanic craters still regarded as seismically active today.

  You could read the markings on this hit almost as though it were a movie script. It had come about with the same deadly accuracy and timing as the hit on Arthur Douglas in Mammoth. The shooter had known the locale and conditions best favorable to his intentions. Both men had been shot in the head by powerful bullets that probably had been wielded by a high-powered rifle or maybe a shotgun using deer slugs. They probably did not know what hit them.

  The vehicle had traveled only a brief distance before swerving across the lanes and then back to bury itself, wheels down, against the surrounding mountainside. There were no witnesses on the scene. The vehicle had been spotted by a trucker who had called it in on his citizen's band radio without remaining on the scene; presumably he had not witnessed the attack and knew only that a car had gone off the road.

  The state police were on the scene as well as two sheriff's units. We arrived at about the same time as the coroner's vehicle from Bridgeport. The police on the scene had made only a cursory examination of the bodies to identify them and to confirm that they were beyond help. Their wounds were massive and death no doubt instant. The investigating officers were nervous and obviously still a bit spooked by the realization that it could come to any of them at any time, with no more warning than these two had had.

  I had known these victims, although one of them very briefly, so I guess I was a bit more angry than anything else. It always hits a bit close to home when the victim is a fellow officer. That is not because the death of a cop is more important than other deaths. It is because there is more a sense of personal identification with the victim, even a stranger.

  In this case, I knew these guys personally, so the sense of loss was more immediate. Making it even worse, it was a cold ambush. There was no other way to look at it. The marks were all there, and so obvious. The shooter or shooters had followed the vehicle and then ran on ahead for a distance before picking their spot, quickly scrambling into position alongside the road, and then coolly lying in wait. That was the way I read it.

  Andrews and Zambrano had been shot through the right window of their moving vehicle—two sudden blasts from a high-powered rifle, and it was as quick as that.

  But why?

  Why them?

  One of the shooters had followed them on foot while their shattered vehicle careened along the death path. The cops on the scene already had all the marks on that. A clear set of footprints, right foot only, began from a fresh tar spot beside the road some fifty yards behind the wrecked vehicle, went toward the vehicle and then returned.

  Someone had been as cool as ice and implacable in the determination to take something from that vehicle. They had been fearless enough, or desperate enough, to stay with it, risking imminent discovery while ripping everything out of the trunk and glove compartment in a frenzied search along a public highway.

  What the hell could Andrews and Zambrano have found in Mammoth of sufficient importance to have marked them for death on a lonely country highway? Couldn't have been the bonds or anything else that I could fathom—but, what the hell, it was just as expert and daring as the other shootings had been. And this gave me a little quiver reaching all the way back to L.A. and my own shooting. Not that I had more than a quiver, but in some subliminal corner of my mind, I felt that it must have happened almost exactly this way.

  So what the hell did it mean? What did it mean?”

  I asked Chief Terry, "What were these guys looking for in town?"

  He growled, "Beats me, bud." He was madder'n hell. "But if I find it..."

  I said, "You can't miss the pattern here."

  "I can't? Just watch my lips. I can't even find it. This is insanity."

  "You know better than that."

  "Do I? Okay—sure—I know that. And I knew that Andrews and Zambrano had been nosing around in Mammoth. Ostensibly they were here to pick you up. But they were doing more than that."

  "So what were they doing?"

  "They were investigating the death of Martha Kaufman."

  "But they already had their suspect." "I'm not so sure of that." "What are you saying?"

  He gave me a wry smile. "These guys didn't want you. They could have had you any time they wanted you."

  "So who did they want?"

  "Maybe me," he replied softly.

  "Why you?"

  "I don't want to talk about that," he said quickly. "Maybe tomorrow."

  "What's so special about tomorrow?"

  "I'm resigning tomorrow."

  I gave him a long, hard look. "Don't do that."

  "Maybe I need to do that."

  "No you don't."

  He showed me a quick smile then went on to join the

  others. The coroner's people were preparing to remove the bodies of the slain officers.

  So maybe Terry was just feeling tired of all this. Then again, maybe those L.A. cops had stumbled onto something he was simply unable to defend, and he was bowing to the inevitable.

  God, I hoped not.

  The Chief and I returned to Mammoth in virtual silence. We both had a lot to think about and it was obvious that he did not wish to say any more at the time regarding his surprising declaration that he was thinking about resigning. He was tired and out of sorts and I guess I was, too.

  I wanted to ask him about the life and death of Vicki Douglas, also his relationship with Janice Sanford, but I had already drawn a strong reaction from that line of questioning and I knew better than to try it again at this particular moment. I really felt a bond with this guy but there were questions that needed answers and I felt that I was not serving that sense of friendship by not being straightforward with him. I also knew, however, that nothing would be gained by blustering through his defenses. Obviously there were things in his life that he did not wish to discuss. I have never been known as the "soul of tact," but it seemed more appropriate now to honor his sensitivities to every possible extent.

  All the while, of course, I knew that there were many questions begging for answers and that the moment would come when absolute honesty between us would be the only way to keep that friendship intact.

  It seemed, for example, that his relationship with Harley Sanford was woven in somehow with a sense of loyalty, or perhaps indebtedness, which may not be entirely seemly for a man in his position. I wanted to ask about that. Perhaps Terry owed his job to Harley Sanford. Politics, after all, form the lifeblood of many relationships; that did not have to be "dirty" but could be merely a proper sense of gratitude with no impropriety whatever.

  On the other hand, many otherwise honorable men have been buried by that same
misguided sense of gratitude. I would have preferred to know much more about the true relationship between Terry and Sanford; apparently only Terry himself could now enlighten me in that regard. I would have to wait for that. Meanwhile, there were other disturbing riddles commanding my attention.

  First of all, the whereabouts of Janice Sanford and the particulars of her most recent brush with death.

  Secondly, the whereabouts and present status of Tom Lancer. In that same connection, what was his relationship with Arthur Douglas, Vicki Douglas, Cindy Morgan, and perhaps even Martha Kaufman? For that matter, had there ever been more than a casual relationship with George Kaufman? How well had he known Vicki Douglas and Cindy Morgan? How well had he known Martha Kaufman? And how well did he really know Martha's mother? Was Janice Sanford intimately involved and in love with him as he implied? Was he really in love with her and on the verge of sweeping her up and carrying her off into the sunset?

  How close had Chief Terry been to all these people and how many intimate connections could be drawn between them?

  And why, really, was Terry now talking about resigning from his position in the community?

  Why was Arthur Douglas shot and could this have had any bearing on his interest in me? If not, why had my home address and telephone number been found in this police officer's address book?

  Who really had killed Vicki Douglas and what had been her relationship with the other victims? Had she really been a hooker?—if so, how would that figure into the grand scheme of things known?

  Finally, why had Cindy Morgan left an urgent message for Arthur Douglas moments before he was shot and a short while before she was found murdered herself?

  These were some of the questions that continued to bedevil me.

  Terry dropped me at the hotel and said, "There you go, bud, thanks for the company."

  "What company?" I asked him. "We haven't said two words the whole trip back."

  "Sometimes that's the best company," he replied.

  "Not for you, pal, not tonight. You've got heavy shit between your ears. What was that crap about resignation?"