The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories)

by Bernico, Bill

  “When you confirm his I.D. then we’ll have a name to call him. That should take the confusion out of it.”

  “I’m heading over to Walsh’ office from here,” Hollister said. “I’ll let you know what he uncovers.”

  Sergeant Hollister rose from the chair and started for the door.

  “Dan,” the captain said. “Please let me know how Betty’s progressing, will you?”

  “I will, captain. Thanks.”

  Hollister closed the captain’s door and walked down the hall towards the medical examiner’s office. He found Jack Walsh looming over the body they’d found in the park. Walsh was dictating his finds into the overhead microphone with each cut. When Walsh had finished, Hollister approached and looked only briefly at the gaping chasm that was this person’s chest. The genitals were fully exposed and the victim’s make-up had been cleaned off and his real hair lay there all short and wet.

  “Dan,” Walsh said, slipping out of his gloves and dropping them in the trash, “I confirmed what I suspected at the scene. One shot to the heart was the cause of death. No other signs of trauma anywhere on the body, with one exception.” He pointed to a blue bruise on the victim’s temple. “We didn’t initially see it in the field because of the hair that covered it.”

  “That would have been the killer’s initial reaction,” Hollister said. A punch in the head, I’m guessing, followed by the dry heaves and then the shot.”

  “If this hadn’t ended so tragically, it might actually be funny,” Walsh said.

  “I can just imagine the look on the killer’s face when he reached into this guy’s pants,” Hollister said. “What a mental picture that conjures up.”

  Walsh shrugged. “I can’t even imagine.”

  Hollister looked at the victim’s fingertips. They were all black, even the thumbs. He looked up at Walsh.

  “So you got the prints?”

  Walsh nodded. “Yup, sent them over to records before you got here. You need anything else?”

  “You happen to find anything under his nails? Skin? Hair? Anything?”

  Walsh shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Sarge. The initial attack must have come out of nowhere. The victim wouldn’t have had time to react. May have even been knocked unconscious for a short time. That would explain the lack of anything under the nails.”

  Dan looked at the remaining eight fake fingernails. “Would you remove the rest of them and put them in a small envelope for me? I may need to track down their origins.”

  “Wait a sec, you can have them now,” Walsh said, removing the other fake nails. He dropped them into a small manila envelope and handed it to Dan.

  “You check in the victim’s mouth?” Dan said.

  Walsh nodded. “You called it—semen and plenty of it. I suppose once he got his he wanted to reciprocate and that’s when the trouble started.”

  “What about anywhere on the rest of the body?” Hollister said. “Any fibers, smudges, stains or blood?”

  Walsh picked up the blouse that had been removed from the victim prior to autopsy and pointed to the collar. “Just two drops here on the collar. It’s the victim’s. Probably from the head wound.”

  “How about the skirt or panties?” Hollister said. “Anything on them?”

  “Nope. Just wrinkled and messed up. The panties were torn at the waistband. The killer probably ripped them when he pulled his hand back out in a hurry.”

  “No kidding,” Hollister said. “Reaction time must have been quick once he found the surprise inside.”

  “There’s something you won’t find in any box of Cracker Jack,” Walsh said.

  Hollister turned to go but paused at the foot of the autopsy table. He turned back to Walsh and said, “Thanks, Jack. You’ve been a big help. I’ve got to get over to records and see what they found on the prints. I’ve got to find out who this guy was.”

  Walsh held one finger up and said, “If the prints don’t come back on this guy, you might want to try area dentists.”

  “Huh?”

  Walsh opened the victim’s mouth and pointed. “See here? That’s a custom bridge between the upper left molars and the canine. Didn’t come cheap and there’s bound to be a record of it in some dentist’s office.”

  “Thanks Jack,” Hollister said, walking away.

  Hollister turned left out of Walsh’ office and headed over to the records bureau. He pushed the double swinging door in and walked straight ahead to the desk of a woman he’d known even before he’d joined the force. He stopped in front of her desk and she looked up, smiling.

  “Mary my dear,” Hollister said. “How have you been?”

  “Dan,” the woman said, obviously glad to see him. “I was just talking to Sue about you yesterday. Your ears should have been ringing.”

  “I hope it was all good,” Hollister said.

  “What else?” Mary said. “What brings you to my neck of the woods?”

  Hollister grabbed a wheeled chair from the desk across from Mary’s and rolled it next to her chair. He sat down and slid even closer, talking in a low voice.

  “The M.E. sent over a fingerprint card earlier. It’s from a case I’m working on and I just wondered if you had any luck with it yet?”

  Mary leaned in, getting closer to Hollister’s face. “Why are we whispering?”

  Hollister sat up straighter and Mary did the same.

  “This case is a little delicate,” Hollister said. “Kind of sensitive material here and I didn’t want anyone overhearing what we say. So, what’d you find out?”

  “I checked the prints against our files fifteen minutes ago and I’m waiting for Alice to bring me the results. Should have an answer any minute now. You want some coffee while we wait?”

  Hollister didn’t get a chance to answer before Mary’s co-worker, Alice Miller walked over and handed Mary the original fingerprint card and its match. Mary turned around to display the fingerprints side by side. The one of the left was from the fingerprint card and was identified as such. The one on the right was apparently found somewhere within the system. She looked closer at each with her loop before handing them over to Hollister.

  Hollister looked them over and then looked up at Mary. “You did it again, you beautiful genius.”

  “Thanks,” Mary said. “What’d I do?”

  “You just helped me identify the victim in my current case, is all.”

  “Glad I could help,” Mary said, smiling.

  “Gotta run,” Hollister said, rising from the chair and rolling it back to the desk where he’d found it.

  “Don’t be a stranger, you hear?” Mary said. “Seems the only time I see you is when you need something.”

  “And I mean to remedy that,” Hollister said. “When this case is done, I’ll buy you a drink.”

  Mary remembered that Dan’s wife had been sick for some time and said, “You make sure and give Betty my best.”

  “I will. And thanks again,” Dan said, glancing at the information on the sheet. The victim’s name was Felix Chamberlain, twenty-nine, from Pasadena. He’d been arrested several times before for solicitation. There’s a surprise, Dan thought. He folded the sheet twice and slipped it into his inside coat pocket. He hurried down the hall again and took the elevator to his floor. Back at his desk he pulled the folded sheet out of his pocket, folded it back the opposite way, trying to flattened out the creases and laid it on Carla Billings’ desk. She looked up at Dan with friendly eyes.

  “Something I can do for you, Sergeant?” she said coyly.

  “Can I have twenty copies right away?”

  “Sure, sugar. Just give me a couple of minutes.” She came back twelve minutes later and handed the copies to Hollister. The air filled with the smell of mimeograph fluid. “Here you go, sweetie. Hot off the presses.”

  “Yeah, I can smell it. Better open a window or we’re all gonna get high off these,” Dan said. “Thanks, Doll, give yourself a raise.”

  “If only,” Carla said as Dan walked
away with the copies of the victim’s face.

  He took the sheets with him to the captain’s office and left one on his desk. The rest of the sheets were handed out to officers on patrol. It would be their job to canvas the neighborhood bars asking if anyone knew the man. They would also have photos of the victim in full drag so they could ask if anyone knew him as a woman. This photo had been enhanced in the eye area, since the original photo’s eyes looked dead. A quick touchup by a police artist gave them a little twinkle and some life.

  Hollister had the original sheet and the post mortem photo with him when he stopped by one of the better-known watering holes in the city. The inside was dark and it took his eyes a while to adjust. Tables throughout the place had just a single candle in a glass container flickering out enough light for the table’s occupants to see each other. There were about seven couples in the bar at this hour.

  Once his eyes had dilated enough to allow him to see in this low light place, Dan walked over to the bartender, who was polishing a glass behind the bar. Hollister pulled out his badge and I.D. and held them up for the man to see.

  “Sergeant Hollister,” Dan said, pulling the morgue photo out and passing it over to the bartender. “You ever seen this woman in here before?”

  The bartender put his glass and rag down and picked up the sheet. He turned around and held it under the light of the beer sign behind him and then turned back, handing the sheet back to Hollister.

  “Doesn’t ring any bells,” he said. “Should it?”

  “You tell me,” Hollister said. “Think back to the last two or three nights. Might she have been in here? She would have been alone and would have left with someone.”

  “Well,” he said, “Why didn’t you say so? That narrows it down. That only describes nearly everyone who comes in here.”

  Hollister described the blouse and skirt that the victim was wearing when police found it in the park.

  The bartender thought for a moment and then held one finger up. “Come to think of it, I might have seen her in here night before last. Not in the outfit you described, but something about this strikes a familiar chord.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, it’s kind of dark in here, as you may have noticed, but sometimes when a customer comes up close to the bar and the light from the sign hits them just right, you notice things that you didn’t before.”

  “Go on,” Hollister said.

  “Well, anyway, this woman comes up and asks for some frilly sissy drink and that made me look at her a little closer, you know, to make sure I heard her right.”

  “Yes?”

  “And just for a second, I thought I saw something move up and down in her throat.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like an Adam’s apple,” the bartender said. “I remember thinking at the time how odd that was but then I got busy with other customers and forgot about it until just now.”

  “You saying this woman might not have been a real woman?”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s as good a way to put it as any,” he said. “You find that kind of odd?”

  “No,” Hollister said. “I’ve been around long enough to have seen it all. So tell me, did you notice if she left with anyone?”

  “Sorry, like I said, I got busy, gave her the sissy drink and turned to wait on someone else. When I looked back she was gone.”

  “Can I get your name and number?” Hollister said, pulling out a notepad.

  “Why? I didn’t do anything.”

  “It’s just in case I need to ask you any more questions later. You’re not a suspect.”

  “Suspect?” the bartender said with some alarm. “Suspect in what?”

  “Nothing,” Hollister said. “Just routine questions.

  The bartender provided his name and phone number and tried to twist his head around to see what Hollister had written on his pad.

  “Thank you.” Hollister said and left the bar.

  He had no sooner sat back down in his car than the radio squawked.

  “Car eight, come in.”

  “Car eight. This is Sergeant Hollister. Go ahead.”

  “Car eight, see the man. Six seven five seven Yucca Avenue. Shooting. Car eight, code three.”

  “Car eight, copy that.”

  Hollister squealed away toward Yucca Avenue, his lights flashing and his siren screaming. A few minutes later he pulled to a stop at Yucca and Highland Avenue. There was one other police car on the scene and two officers were talking with a man who looked visibly shaken. Behind the officers at their feet lay the body of a man. The body laid face up, one leg folded up under the body. There was a hole in the victim’s chest. The victim also had a leather strap across his shoulder that ended in a leather bag, maybe eighteen inches square. There was also a hole in the middle of the bag. On a woman he’d have called it a purse. On this man, you’d probably have to describe it as some sort of all-purpose utility bag.

  Hollister approached the officer who was taking notes. “What do we have here?”

  The officer stopped writing and turned to Hollister. “Officer Frank Collins, sir. My partner, Ken Gallo and I answered a call about a shooting. We got here just two minutes before you arrived and we found the victim right there where he is now. We haven’t moved anything. We just determined that he was dead and waited for you. I was just getting a statement from the man who called this in.”

  Hollister knelt next to the body and pressed two fingers into the man’s neck. He didn’t find a pulse, but then again hadn’t expected to. He looked down at the man’s left hand and noted that there was a hole clean through it. A defensive wound, he decided. Probably held his hand up instinctively when he saw the gun. But something wasn’t right. The bullet entered the back of his hand and exited through the palm.

  Hollister stood again and asked Officer Collins he’d gotten everything he needed from the witness, including his name and address. Collins said that he had and Hollister dismissed the witness and turned to Collins’ partner, Ken.

  He gestured with his chin at the body on the sidewalk. “You notice anything strange about this guy?”

  Gallo looked down for a moment and then back at Hollister. “Besides the purse?”

  “So you’d call it a purse, too,” Hollister said.

  Gallo nodded. “What else could you call it?”

  “Anything else seem out of the ordinary?” Hollister asked.

  “Well, now that you mention it, he looks kind of, uh, you know…”

  “Effeminate? Hollister offered.

  “That’s it,” Gallo said. “I was looking for another word, but that one works, I guess.”

  Collins stepped in. “You notice his hands?”

  “You mean the hole through the left one?” Hollister said.

  Collins shook his head. “No, I was talking about his nails. Looks like polish on them. And take a closer look at his eyes. I’m no expert, mind you, but that looks like eyeliner. Off hand, I’d say this guy was a tad light in the loafers.”

  “Don’t put that in your report,” Hollister said. “You find a more professional phrase to describe your findings.”

  “Yes sir,” Collins said.

  Hollister took a closer look at the body. Now that it had been pointed out to him, he could see more telltale signs that he hadn’t noticed earlier. The victim was wearing clogs on his feet. They had open heel straps with flower designs on the toes. The slacks he had on were almost form fitting and were made of some sort of flexible material. The shirt had a silky feel to it and was open at the neck by three buttons. Around the victim’s neck Hollister could see a gold chain that disappeared behind some of the shirt fabric. Hollister pulled the fabric back to reveal a small heart-shaped locket. Hollister leaned over and sniffed. The cologne had a sickeningly sweet smell and there had been way too much of it applied. The face had been shaved to within an inch of its life—smooth as a baby’s ass.

  Several dozen yards further up the street Hollister spotted movem
ent and stood to take a closer look. Whatever was out there was small, white and fluffy, like a miniature lamb and it was dragging a rope behind it. Hollister took a few steps closer to it and whistled. A miniature poodle cautiously approached, cowering and stepping back every time Hollister stepped toward it. Dan squatted down, clapped his hands and whistled. The little dog came closer until it laid itself down at Hollister’s feet and shivered.

  Hollister grabbed the leash with his left hand and scooped the dog up in his right. It nestled itself in Hollister’s arm, still shivering. Hollister fingered the dog’s collar and found a small clover-shaped identification tag hanging there. He turned the engraved side toward himself and read. It identified the dog as “Fifi” and listed the owner’s name and address below the dog’s name. There was also a phone number below the address. This had to be the victim’s dog and if that was the case, it had just saved Hollister the trouble of finding out the victim’s identity.

  Still, Hollister knew he was going to have to go through the victim’s purse to look for some sort of identity, just in case the dog didn’t belong to the victim. He reached for the purse when a thought occurred to him. Maybe the hole in the victim’s hand wasn’t a defensive wound. He could have had his hand over his purse, like a woman would do, to keep anyone on the street from picking it. In that position the bullet would have entered through the back of the hand, exited through the palm, gone through the purse and into the victim’s body. This could be a break for Hollister if the bullet was still inside the body.

  Hollister grabbed the man’s arms and pulled, half turning the body so he could see the victim’s back. He didn’t see any exit wound. He laid the man back down and reached for the purse. Inside he found a hairbrush, a compact case, an eyeliner pencil, and a package of tissues with a hole through it and a wallet—all items you’d expect to find in a typical woman’s purse. Hollister pulled the wallet out, opened it and found a driver’s license and a library card. The wallet had ninety-eight dollars and some change in it, so robbery was not the motive. The license identified the victim as one Carl Hastings, twenty-seven years old, with an address just two blocks from where he lay in the street with a bullet in him. The name on the license matched the name on the dog’s collar. Hollister slipped the license back into the wallet and put the wallet back in the purse.