“Thank you, Mrs. Starkey,” I said. “That’s all I needed to see.”
She led me back out to the driveway, snapping the lock on the door again. “Did you find anything, Mr. Cooper?”
“I’m not sure. I just wanted to get a bird’s eye view from on top. I thought it might answer a question that’s been nagging at me.”
“And did it?”
“I won’t know until I look into it a little further. Thanks again.”
“Will you let me know if you get the answers you’re looking for?
I laid my hand on the woman’s shoulder. “I will.”
I drove back downtown to my office and settled in with another boring session of going through my files looking for anything that I thought could point me in the right direction. I poured through the last of my files and Paul Starkey simply could not be connected to anyone or anything in those files. I was beginning to think my suspicions might be correct and that I was the intended victim and that Starkey just happened to be standing where I would have stood if we had stood still during our conversation in his warehouse. I’d hate to think that I may have skimmed right past the killer’s name while looking for the Starkey connection, but the fact remained that the killer could very well be somewhere in my files.
My phone rang, startling me out of my deep thoughts. It was Dan Hollister at the twelfth precinct.
“Matt,” Dan said. “I think I may have something of interest for you. Can you stop down here?”
“I’m a little tied up with my case right now. Is it important?”
“It could be. Depends how bad you want to tie up your case.”
“My case? You have something I can use?”
“Come on down and find out. You are still looking into Pike’s death, aren’t you?”
“I’ll be right down.”
I made to Dan’s office in record time. He took me to a room with a large window with one way glass in it. On the other side of the window I saw two detectives standing over a table where a small man was seated. His right hand was handcuffed to a bar under the table. Dan and I watched the proceedings but I couldn’t hear what was being said. I turned to Dan.
“So, who is he?”
“Name’s Brewster, Nate Brewster. Ring any bells?”
“Brewster,” I repeated. “Brewster, I think I came across a Brewster in one of my cases, but that was probably five or six years ago, if it’s the same Brewster. And how do you think he’s connected to my current case?”
“Patrolmen picked him up this morning downtown on a drunk and disorderly. We ran him through the system and came up with a list of priors as long as your arm, including assault, assault with a deadly weapon, breaking and entering, a mugging and burglary.”
“And?”
“And we picked up another man, one Carl Beemer, along with him who was looking at a couple years for an outstanding warrant, but we struck a deal with him.”
I looked at Dan sideways. “What kind of deal?”
“Beemer gave us Brewster in exchange for immunity.”
“What did he have on Brewster?” I said.
“Claims Brewster told him that he’d stuck a pair of scissors in some guy’s back. He even bragged about it. When Beemer didn’t believe him, he also told him that he’d bounced a rock off some woman’s head in McArthur Park.”
I bolted for the interrogation room but Dan grabbed my arm and held on tight.
“Matt,” Dan said. “Use you head. That won’t do any good.”
I let my breath out and looked up at the ceiling. I settled down and Dan let go.
“Nate Brewster,” I said again. “The Brewester in my case wasn’t a Nate or Nathan. It was something like Neil or Ned or, oh I don’t remember. I’d have to look it up. You thinking this Brewster might be related and out to even some score?”
“Anything’s possible,” Dan said. “But it’s no coincidence in this case. He’s the one who killed Gladys and Pike, all right. “You may have to dig a little to find a connection to Starkey, if there is one at all. You know, it is possible that Starkey was...”
“Collateral damage?” I said, completeing his thought. “It had occurred to me that I might have been the intended victim and that Starkey was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but how’d you come to that conclusion?”
“From something Brewster said earlier.”
“Huh?”
“He also told Beemer that he’d missed that gumshoe in the warehouse.” Dan scratched his head. “It didn’t register right away, but after I thought about it, I remembered that you were in that warehouse with Starkey when he got killed and it made me think that you were the gumshoe he was talking about.”
“That would make sense,” I said. “Suppose that rock in the park was meant for me and he was just a bad shot. And as far as Pike goes, Brewster may have known where my office was and thought he was stabbing me in the back. He couldn’t have gotten much of a look at Pike’s face. And now that I know all this, he could just as easily have been trying to push those papers over on me but Starkey and I shifted a bit while we talked. It’s just dumb luck that I wasn’t the one killed.”
“So the connection between Pike and Gladys both working at Prudential?”
“Just a coincidence,” I said. “The only coincidence in this whole mess.”
“Well, why do you suppose Brewster came after you?” Dan said.
“Beats me,” I said. “But I’ll bet when I check my files for the other Brewster, it’ll come together. It always does.”
Dan turned toward the one way glass but spoke to me. “We’ll be a while with Brewster yet. It could help us move this along if you could check the files and let us know if there is a connection.”
I nodded. “Give me an hour. I can be back with whatever you need by then. Just don’t let him get away.”
“Don’t worry, Matt. I’ll guard him with my life. Go on.”
I turned without further comment and walked back to my car. I was back in less than a hour with a single folder marked, ‘Neil Brewster’. Dan was in his office when I came in holding the folder.
“That ties it,” I said.
“Ties what?” Dan said.
“Neil Brewster was Nate’s brother. I tailed Neil for a week and got enough on him to send him away for six years. Nate no doubt thought it was his duty to avenge his brother and teach me a lesson, but he wasn’t the brightest bulb on the tree and three other people paid the price for his blunders.”
“But what was with the whole Paper, Rock, Scissors theme?”
“Thought he was being clever,” I said. “Some of these idiots just feel the need to make a game out of stalking. They think it’ll unnerve their quarry to the point where they let their guard down and make mistakes. Kinda like a cat playing with a mouse, but it always ends up being their undoing.”
“Can I hang on to this file for a while, Matt?” Dan said, closing the folder.
“If you can have your secretary make copies, you can keep the originals.”
“Will do,” Dan said. “What are you going to do now?”
I sighed. “I thought I’d stop by the flower shop where Gladys used to work and pick up a nice bouquet.”
“I didn’t know you liked flowers,” Dan said, surprised.
“They’re not for me,” I said. “I thought I’d drop them off at the cemetery. Gladys would want that.”
“Good choice,” Dan said. “Lay one on for me, too.”
Gladys could have been Miss Right, but I never got the chance to find out. She was, however, Miss Right Now while it lasted. And now, lying beneath my feet, she was Miss Right Here. Rest in peace, Gladys.
25 - The Other Matt Cooper
It had been a long week since I’d been home. Unlike most of the population, I didn’t look forward to vacations. There was usually no place I wanted to go, needed to see or liked being once I got there. I guess I’m just a homebody at heart. However, this was one exception that I couldn’t pass up.
>
Two months earlier as I stood in line at the grocery store I’d noticed a small table with a cardboard box perched on it, a slit in the top. Next to it were dozens of slips of paper with several blank lines. The idea was for the customer to fill in their name, address and phone number and drop the slip into the box. The sign next to the box promised a one-week, all expenses paid vacation to Palm Springs. I had to wait for the woman in line in front of me to make out her check anyway, so I killed the time by filling out a slip and dropping it the box, never expecting to hear another word on the matter.
Three weeks after I’d filled out the slip at the grocery store I got a call from a mouthwash company who had sponsored the contest, telling me that they’d drawn my name and that I was the winner of the vacation. I’d all but forgotten about the contest and had almost hung up on the prankster, or so I thought. But I somehow stayed on the phone long enough to verify that the prize was real. A week later I got a letter from the company with my itinerary and a voucher for three hundred fifty dollars. I guess I could make an exception this one time and actually take a vacation.
I fully expected to stay a night or two and then return home after spending the three hundred dollar voucher. However, the company had probably done this before and had anticipated my moves. The voucher was only good for sixty dollars a day, which meant I had to stay all five days to be able to spend the full amount. It looked like I was stuck in the desert for the week.
I found enough activities to keep me occupied for the five weekdays and when Saturday morning rolled around I was eager to get back to civilization and my job as a private investigator. I loaded my car and thanked the folks at the hotel and started down the highway back to Los Angeles. The radio in my Olds was broken so I had to run through the latest songs in my mind. I had some stupid song stuck in my head and I couldn’t shake it. ‘Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette’ kept eating away at my brain. I tried hard to replace it with something more palatable, like that harmonica instrumental, ‘Peg ‘O My Heart’ but ‘Smoke, Smoke, Smoke’ kept shoving it out again.
I found it hard to concentrate and gave that up for another activity to occupy my mind during the long trip back. My mind began to wander and by the time I could focus again on my driving, a jackrabbit ran into the road and I instinctively yanked the wheel away from him. The Olds fishtailed several times before spinning completely around, coming to stop facing in the opposite direction. I’d spared the rabbit’s life but my Olds ended up on the shoulder with one flat tire. I pulled to a stop and let my heart rate get back down to normal before I got out to inspect the damage. The right front tire had come off the rim and was lying flat off to one side. The rim had some dents and gouges on it as well. It was beyond repair, that much was obvious.
I opened my trunk to get out the spare tire but as soon as I looked into the trunk I got a mental picture of me bringing it in to the service station to be repaired. Suddenly I remembered that I still hadn’t gone back to pick it up. Terrific. Now what? I scanned the horizon in both directions. I was the only vehicle on the road for miles and it was high noon.
I knew it wouldn’t be wise to start walking in either direction. The last town I’d passed was at least fifteen miles behind me. I didn’t know how far in the other direct civilization lay. All I could do was sit and wait for someone to drive by. Hopefully they’d stop and help me out of this predicament.
It was a little better than an hour before a car appeared on the horizon. I waited until it was a mile away before I got out of my car, raised my hood and took my place alongside it. He was coming at quite a clip and wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down. He had to have seen my disabled car and me by now unless he was totally unobservant. The other possibility was that they were afraid to stop for any strangers. I guess I couldn’t fault them for that, but I was in real danger myself. They had to stop or I could very well die right here in the desert.
By the time the car got to within a hundred yards it became evident that they had no intention of stopping and a few seconds later zipped right by me. The driver never even took his eyes off the road. I guess he didn’t want to have to look me in the eye as he left me there to rot. A minute later his car was just a spec on the opposite horizon. I let my breath out and closed my eyes. Sweat ran down my forehead and into my eyes, stinging them. I wiped at them with my handkerchief and climbed back into my car, exhausted.
More than three hours later another car appeared, coming from the opposite direction. I got out of my car and raised my hood again and waited. A minute later the car, which was coming from the direction I’d been going, slowed to a stop on the opposite side of the road. The car looked familiar and then I saw the driver’s face. It was the same driver who’d passed me by more than three hours earlier. He got out and walked over to my car, a sheepish look on his face.
He shook his head as he approached. “I’m so sorry I didn’t stop before,” he said. “I was rushing my wife to the hospital. I just couldn’t take the time to stop then, but as soon as I knew she was all right, I told her I was coming back to see if you still needed assistance. Again, I’m sorry.”
I really couldn’t get mad at him under the circumstances. “What was wrong with your wife?” I asked.
His face sported a wide grin. “She gave me a son,” he said proudly. “A seven pound eight ounce boy.”
I had to smile. “Congratulations,” I said, shaking his hand. “What did you name him?”
“William, Jr.” the man said.
“Well, that’s great. My name is Matt.” I held my hand out and he shook it.
“Evans,” he said. “Bill Evans. Nice to meet you, Matt.”
I nodded but couldn’t really think of any more to add to his celebration. “So,” I said. “I’m really glad you came back. Yours was the only car to come by here in more than three hours. I was afraid I’d be a fried egg out here before too long.”
Evans looked at my car and pointed. “Engine trouble?”
I shook my head. “Flat tire and no spare.”
Evans took a closer look at my tire and rim. “I have a spare, but it won’t fit your Olds. I have odd sized tires and rims and they only fit this kind of car. Sorry. I can give you a ride into town and you can ride back here with a tow truck. They should be able to help you get going again.”
“That would be great,” I said, reaching into my car to retrieve my coat. I locked all the doors, closed the hood again and hurried across the road to Evans’s car. He slid in beneath the wheel, leaned over and unlocked the passenger’s door and started his engine. He made a quick U-turn and we were on our way. With a little luck I could be back here with the tow truck before sunset.
“So,” I said, trying to be polite while not really caring about the answer, “Is Bill, Jr. your first child?”
Evans smiled but shook his head. “No, I have three daughters, but this is my only son. We kept trying until I got my son and now my wife says we have enough children. I’m happy with four and so is she.”
“That’s quite a family you have there,” I said.
Evans agreed.
“Bill,” I said, “It’s not that I wouldn’t want to keep up my end of a conversation with you, but I am so tired. Would you mind if I just caught a few winks until we get to town?”
“Not at all,” Evans said. “I know how you feel. I’ve been up most of last night myself. You go ahead and try to sleep. I’ll be fine.”
“Thanks,” I said, settling back, laying my head against the back of the seat and closing my eyes. I was out like a light in less than a minute.
The next thing I knew Evans was shaking my shoulder. “Wake up, Matt,” he said. “We’re here.”
I opened my eyes, sat up and scanned my surroundings. We were in a town somewhere between Palm Springs and Los Angeles. Right outside my door I could see a tow truck sitting on the driveway of the gas station Bill had stopped at. I checked my watch. It was just past four thirty. There were still a couple hours of sunlight left. I co
uld still make it back to my car before it got dark.
I stepped out of Evans’s car and came around to his side. He rolled his window down and looked up at me.
“Thanks a lot for coming back to get me, Bill,” I said. “I might still be out there if you hadn’t.”
“Glad to do it,” he said. “I’m only sorry I couldn’t have picked you up on the way in earlier.”
“Don’t be,” I said. “You just go and spend some time with your son and wife.” I waved once more as I walked toward the gas station.
Bill Evans drove off and was gone even before I’d opened the door to the gas station. The bell overhead tinkled as I entered. The office was empty but a few seconds later a man in overalls came in from the attached garage, wiping his hands on a rag. He nodded at me.
“Can I help you?” he said.
“My car has a flat back on the highway and I don’t have a spare.”
I looked through the door to the garage and saw rows of new tires on the racks. I pointed to the tire display. “I think I’m gonna need a new one,” I said. “The old one got chewed up pretty bad when if popped off the rim.”
“What size do you need?” the man said.
I shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
“What kind of car is it?”
“Oldsmobile,” I said. “It’s a ‘40 coupe. Got something that’ll fit?”
The man grabbed a chart and ran his finger across a line and stopped at the end. He looked up at the rack of new tires and turned back to me.
“Yep, I got one left. Been here for a couple of years, but it’s still brand new. You want it?”
“I don’t think I have any choice,” I said. “How much is it?”
The man referenced his chart again and said, “Twenty-five bucks.”
That sounded a bit on the high side, but he had me over a barrel and he knew it. “Okay,” I said. “The rim is shot, too. Got a rim to fit it?”
He scratched his chin and then took a look behind his building. He came back in a minute holding a rusty rim. “I found one out back. It ain’t pretty, but it’ll do the job. Want it?”
The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories) Page 73