The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories)

by Bernico, Bill

  “Call for more backup,” Dan said to Roger. “Get ‘em around that building. No one goes in or comes out. Got that?”

  “Yes sir,” Roger said, slinking away to make the call from his squad car.

  Dan turned to me. “If this is the same guy from this morning, that let’s you off the hook as his intended target. And if it is the same guy, I think we know who he’s targeting…anyone in a blue uniform.”

  “Someone’s got a grudge,” I said. “And cops are gonna be jumpy after today.”

  “Can you blame ‘em?” Dan said, turning to me. “I’m going over to the back of the Belfont Building. You wait here.”

  “Forget it,” I said. “I’m coming with you. I’ve got to protect my investment.”

  “Your investment?” Dan said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You. You still owe me five bucks. Who’s gonna pay if you get killed?”

  We both made a dash for the end of the block and through the parking lot, ending up at the rear door to the Belfont Building. Dan pulled the glass door toward himself and hurried inside. He scanned the interior and gestured for me to follow him.

  I slapped myself up against the wall next to Dan and whispered, “Can’t take the elevator. If he’s still there he’d hear it coming. We’d be sittin’ ducks.”

  “I hope you’re in shape,” Dan said, pointing with his .38 toward the stairway.

  “Don’t worry about me, old man,” I said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Dan took the stairs two at a time to the first landing and paused until I caught up to him. He nodded at me and I led the way to the second floor and then waited for Dan to catch up. We switched positions again and Dan sprinted up to the next landing. Once I caught up, I took the lead again and climbed the stairs to the third floor. Dan joined me at the landing to the third floor and silently gestured toward an office that faced Sunset. We each took up positions on either side of the door and waited. Dan gave the signal and we both leaned back and kicked the door with all we had. The doorframe splintered and the door swung inward.

  I quickly looked around the frame and then ducked back out again. I looked at Dan and nodded. He stepped into the room and I followed. The room was empty but the window looking out onto Sunset was still open. A chair had been dragged in front of it and a rifle lay on the windowsill, it’s barrel pointing outward. Whoever sat here sniping at the cops below had left in a hurry, leaving the rifle behind. I checked the adjoining room and found it also empty.

  Dan opened the window all the way and signaled the all clear to the cops on the street. Several of them hurried out into the intersection to retrieve Ray Carlisle’s body while several other cops ran toward the Belfont Building. Dan hurried out into the hall and stood outside the elevator. When it opened, four policemen exited and looked to Dan for further instruction.

  “Check every room on this floor,” Dan said. “When that’s done, work your way down to the lobby and check back with me.”

  They all acknowledged Dan’s orders and quickly disbursed, checking doorknobs all along the corridor. Dan met me in the adjoining room and holstered his .38. I did the same.

  “We can’t have missed him by much,” Dan said. “He’s either hiding somewhere in the building or he got out shortly before we got here.”

  “This is crazy,” I said. “Anyone’s gotta know that you’re gonna pour it on when the targets are cops. To me, that spells psycho, and they’re the hardest to catch because they don’t care about any lives, even their own.”

  We returned to the room that the shooter had used. An officer came into the room, looked around briefly and stopped when he spotted us. “Oh,” he said. “I didn’t know you were in here.”

  Dan gestured to the officer. “Come on in,” Dan said, looking at the nametag on the officer’s shirt pocket. “Officer Cahill,” Dan said, pointing at the rifle. “Get that rifle down to the lab right away, will you. Have ballistics check it against the slug they took out of Tim Blake and tell them I want the results on my desk this afternoon. Got that?”

  “Yes sir,” the cop said, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapping it around the shoulder strap of the rifle. He carried the rifle out of the room with one hand and closed the door behind him.

  Dan turned to me. “Matt,” he said. “Can you meet Officer Cahill back at the station? I have a few things to clean up here before I can go back. Just make sure ballistics moves this job to the front of the line, priority one.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll see you back there.” I took the elevator to the lobby and walked out the front door and across the street to my car. Fifteen minutes later I parked in the lot behind the precinct and walked inside. I’d spent three years of my life as a cop in this precinct so I didn’t have to ask where ballistics was. I walked in and found a lab technician, Henry Burrell standing bent over a microscope. When he heard me come in he straightened up and turned toward me. He smiled when he recognized me.

  “As I live and breathe,” Burrell said. “If it isn’t Matthew Cooper.”

  He extended his hand and I shook it.

  “What brings you down here?” Burrell said.

  “Hollister asked me to follow up on the rifle that Officer Cahill brought in a few minutes ago,” I said. “It was the one used in the shooting over on Western and Sunset.” I pointed to the microscope. “That the slug you’re working on now?”

  Burrell looked puzzled. “Rifle?” He said. “What rifle are we talking about here, Matt?”

  “The one Officer Cahill just brought in,” I said.

  “Cahill,” Burrell said. “Not a familiar name. Is he new?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. “I would probably have been out of here already by the time he started working here.”

  “Check up at the front desk,” Burrell said. “Maybe they’ve seen him.”

  “Don’t go away,” I said, and hurried down the hall to the front desk.

  I found Sergeant Mark Drummond sitting behind the desk and nodded as I approached. “Mark,” I said. “How’s it?”

  “Hey, Matt,” Drummond said. “Haven’t see you in a while. What’s shakin’?”

  “Have you seen Officer Cahill recently?” I said. “He was bringing a rifle to ballistics from the site of that shooting on Western and Sunset.”

  “Cahill?” Drummond said, grabbing the duty roster clipboard from the wall behind him and paging through it. “Cahill, Cahill,” he said, running his finger down the list. “You sure that’s the name, Matt? There’s no Cahill on the morning watch.”

  “What about the afternoon watch?” I said. “Maybe he came in early.”

  Drummond flipped several pages up over the clipboard and scanned the list. “Nope,” he said, releasing the pages, “No Cahill on any of the watches.”

  The hair on my forearms stood up and I shivered. Cahill, or whoever he was, was probably the shooter dressed in a cop’s uniform. And he’d walked off with the evidence, right out of Dan’s hands. That took nerve.

  “Thanks, Mark,” I said, walking slowly back down the hallway.

  I exited to the parking lot just as Dan was pulling into his parking space. He got out and walked over to where I was standing, a puzzled look on his face.

  “What’s the matter, Matt?” He said.

  I took a deep breath. “I think we’ve been had,” I said. “Cahill doesn’t exist.”

  “What are you talking about, Matt?” Dan said.

  “Cahill, or whoever he was, never showed up here with the rifle,” I explained. “Sergeant Drummond on the desk never heard of him.”

  Dan’s face went pale. “Are you telling me…?”

  I nodded. “Uh huh, Cahill was the shooter and we let him walk out of there with the only evidence we had.”

  “Come on,” Dan said, walking back inside.

  We walked back to the front desk and Dan found Mark Drummond behind the desk. As soon as he looked up and saw Dan, Drummond snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “You
were just here asking about a cop named Cahill?”

  I nodded. “Yes, did you find him?”

  “No,” Drummond said, “But we just got a call from the two-seven in Pasadena. A citizen called in about a dead body they found in an alley on Glendale Avenue.”

  “And?” Dan said impatiently.

  “And it’s Cahill,” Drummond explained. “Officer Pat Cahill. He was dumped in an alley wearing only his underpants, tee shirt and socks.”

  “He’s one of theirs?” Dan said. “Positive I.D.?”

  “Positive,” Drummond said. “Someone apparently jumped him, made him strip out of his uniform and then shot him and left him there in the alley.”

  Dan turned to me. “At least we know what he looks like,” Dan said.

  “What who looks like?” Drummond said.

  “The killer,” I said. “We both got a good look at him.”

  Drummond looked over at Dan. “You, too?”

  Dan nodded. “And I handed over the rifle.” Dan slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “And he walked out of the Belfont Building right past our guys.”

  Dan turned and headed back to his office. I followed him. Dan took a seat behind his desk but I kept standing. I was too keyed up to sit. I paced back and forth on Dan’s floor. After a moment I stopped and turned toward Dan.

  “How’s this for a theory?” I said. “Our shooter could have been someone who applied to the academy to be a cop but was turned down. That could explain a grudge.”

  Dan slowly shook his head. “I don’t think so, Matt. Feels more like revenge to me. It’s more likely someone who crossed our path, either as someone we arrested or someone we dealt with in another capacity.”

  “Like what?” I said.

  Dan shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Could have been someone as benign as the guy who fills the candy machines out in the hall, or the guy who replaces the jug at the water cooler. Could have been anyone who thinks we did him wrong.”

  “What about a friend or family member of a police shooting victim?” I said. “Could be he’s out to even the score for someone one your men shot in the line of duty.”

  Dan thought about it for a moment. “That’s a thought,” he said, pressing the intercom button on his desk. Hannah answered and Dan said, “Hannah, would you bring me any files relating to police shootings for the past six months?”

  “Right away,” Hannah said.

  “You gonna need me for anything?” I said, grabbing the doorknob.

  “Where are you going?” Dan said. “I thought we could sift through the files and see if anything jumps out at us.”

  “It can’t be that big of a file,” I said. “Besides, there’s someone I need to see right away.”

  “I guess,” Dan said. “You coming back here when you’re done?”

  “Depends how long it takes me and what I find out,” I said. “Either way, I’ll at least call you.”

  Dan shrugged and gestured toward his door. “Go.”

  I left and hurried out to my car and drove back to Sheryl Roosay’s house on Willoughby Avenue. I rang the bell and Sheryl answered the door. She’d obviously been crying. She wiped at her eyes with a handkerchief and invited me inside. There was another woman sitting on the sofa. Sheryl gestured toward the woman.

  “Matt Cooper,” Sheryl said. “This is my sister, Cathy Driscoll.”

  I bent over and extended my hand. “Nice to meet you, Cathy,” I said.

  “Nice to meet you, too, Mr. Cooper,” Cathy said.

  Sheryl took my hat and invited me to sit. I took the overstuffed chair that sat next to the sofa. Sheryl joined Cathy on the sofa.

  “Sheryl,” I began, “I don’t know if you’ve heard yet but there’s been another shooting west of here on Sunset. Another officer was killed.”

  Sheryl gasped and pressed the handkerchief to her mouth, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “The officer’s name was Ray Carlisle,” I said. “Does that name sound familiar to you?”

  Sheryl thought for a moment. “I don’t remember the last name, but I recall Tim saying something about having to partner with a guy named Ray last month. It was just a one time thing, though, from what Tim said.”

  “Could it have been a traffic cop named Carlisle?” I said. “Think hard. It’s important.”

  Cathy sat upright and looked at her sister. “Sheryl,” Cathy said. “Is this the same guy you were telling me about right after you met Tim?”

  “Huh?” Sheryl said.

  “Don’t you remember?” Cathy said. “I think it was after your first or second date with Tim. You were telling me that you were supposed to go out with Tim but that he had to cancel because he’d drawn some assignment working with a traffic cop for one night.”

  Sheryl looked puzzled. “How do you remember that?” She said to Cathy. “Even if I told you, I didn’t even remember the other cop’s last name.”

  Cathy shrugged. “I guess it’s because I learned a trick a while back about how to remember people’s names. In the course I took, they told us to connect someone’s name to a celebrity and it would make it easier to recall later.”

  “So?” Sheryl said. “What famous person did you connect to Ray?”

  “It wasn’t the Ray part I connected,” Cathy said. “It was the Carlisle part. As soon as I heard it I thought of Kitty Carlisle.”

  “Who?” I said.

  “Kitty Carlisle,” Cathy repeated. “About a dozen years ago she was in one of those Marx Brothers movies, A Night At The Opera.

  “I’m amazed,” I said. “I consider myself somewhat of a movie buff and I don’t even remember Kitty Carlisle.”

  “Well, I did,” Cathy said. “And that’s how I remembered this Ray’s last name. It was Carlisle.”

  “Does that help?” Sheryl said.”

  “It gives me a place to start,” I said. “Did Tim ever mention anything unusual that may have happened while he was patrolling with Ray?”

  Sheryl shook her head. “Tim was pretty quiet about what happened on his job,” she said. “He didn’t like to talk about his work.”

  I stood and plucked my hat from the coffee table. “I have to get back to the police station,” I said. “If I have any more questions, would it be all right if I called or stopped over again?”

  “Any time,” Sheryl said. “If I can help, you just let me know, Mr. Cooper. I want this guy caught. I owe Tim that much anyway.”

  “Thank you, Sheryl,” I said, turning toward Cathy. “And thank you, too, Cathy,” I said. “I think you may have given me the connection I need. Goodbye.”

  I drove back to the precinct and found Dan at the front desk talking with Sergeant Drummond. I approached Dan and pulled him aside. “Can we go to your office?” I said. “I may have something for you.”

  Dan returned to his office, closed the door and wiggled his fingers back in that ‘come on, give’ gesture.

  I pointed at the open file still lying on his desk. It held information about police involved shootings for the past six months. “You find anything in there?” I asked.

  “I haven’t finished going through the whole file yet,” Dan said.

  “Should I wait until you do?” I said.

  “What?” Dan said. “Come on, don’t spoon feed me. Give me all of it.”

  “Tim Blake,” I said. “He usually worked alone, but on occasion had been asked to partner with whoever was short a partner on any given day.”

  “Yeah,” Dan said. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “All right,” I said. “Did you know that Blake partnered with Ray Carlisle a while back?”

  Dan picked up the file and opened it to a place near the rear of the folder, where he’d left off. He found the report, pulled it out and read through it quickly. When he’d finished, he handed me the report.

  “Too coincidental,” Dan said.

  I scanned the report and read it aloud to Dan. “Ray Carlisle and Tim Blake pull over a burgun
dy Buick and the driver apparently gets belligerent and takes a swing at Tim. Tim pushed him away and the guy starts to reach into his coat. Ray draws his service revolver and fires, killing the driver. Tim pulls the guy’s hand out of his coat to find that he was reaching for his wallet. And now both cops are dead. You’re damned right it’s too coincidental.”

  Dan tapped his finger on top of the report. “Did you notice the suspect’s name?”

  I nodded. “Another coincidence?” I said. “That would be a stretch, to say the least.”

  “Lenny Conners,” Dan said. “That’s trouble no matter how you shake it up and spill it out. That whole Conners family is trouble. And you can bet his three brothers don’t intend to let it pass. I think that’s where we’ll have to start looking. I have a feeling that once we go through the mug books and find the Conners Brothers, we’ll see the one who impersonated Officer Cahill.”

  “Let’s have a look,” I said.

  Dan buzzed Hannah and asked for the mugs books from A through D, which would include the Connors Brothers, if they were in there at all. A few minutes later Hannah came in carrying two fat scrapbooks. She laid them on the desk and left again without comment. Dan grabbed one book and I leafed through the other. We went through both albums and didn’t find any of the Connors Brothers. We both laid the books down again.

  “What about books from the two-seven?” I said. “They might have mug shots in there that you don’t have. It’s worth a trip down there if for no better reason than to satisfy your curiosity, isn’t it?”

  “I’d better call first so we don’t make the trip for nothing,” Dan said, pressing his intercom button. “Hannah,” he said into the intercom, “Get me Captain Coulter at the twenty-seventh precinct in Pasadena, will you?”

  “Right away,” Hannah said.

  A moment later the phone on Dan’s desk rang and he grabbed it. “Hello, Captain Coulter, this is Sergeant Dan Hollister at the twelfth precinct. I don’t know if you’ve heard yet, but we’ve had two officers shot earlier today in two separate incidents.”