The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories)

by Bernico, Bill

  “Never run toward a moving car,” Amy told Clay. “You wait until it stops, you hear me, mister?”

  I opened the car door and Amy released her grip on Clay’s arm. He came running and wrapped his arms around my leg. It was impossible to move while he was attached. “Sit,” I barked, as I’d done with Clay many times before. He sat on my left shoe and hung on to my leg. With every other step, Clay swung along with my leg until we reached the house. “Last stop,” I said. “Everybody off.” Clay stood and we went into the house together with Amy close behind us.

  I kissed her and hung my hat on the rack near the door. “I have an idea for tonight,” I said.

  Amy raised her eyebrows like Groucho Marx and gave me a sly smile.

  “Well, then, two ideas,” I said. “The first idea is taking in a movie tonight. You up for it?”

  “What about Clay?” Amy said.

  “We can get a sitter,” I told her.

  She smiled. “Okay,” she said. “Which picture did you want to see?”

  “There’s a good Robert Mitchum movie at the Strand,” I said. “He plays a psychotic preacher stalking two kids. I guess the girl has something he wants. Supposed to be pretty good.”

  “Sounds like a good choice,” Amy said. “What’s the name of it?”

  “Night Of The Hunter,” I said. “Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish are in it, too.”

  “I love Shelley Winters,” Amy said. “What time does it start?”

  “We can catch the six-thirty show,” I said.

  After dinner Lois, the sitter showed up and got her last minute instructions from Amy before we left. We drove to The Strand and took our favorite seats, in the last row on the aisle. Partway through the film they cut to an underwater scene with Shelley Winters sitting in a submerged car in the lake, her hair waving in the current.

  “Great,” I whispered to Amy. “I can’t even get away from my work at the movies.”

  “Shhh,” Amy said, poking me with her elbow. “Tell me later.”

  When the movie ended a little more than an hour later Amy and I stayed to watch the credits roll and then walked out to the car. “Okay,” Amy said. “Now what was it you were trying to tell me in there?”

  “I just commented on not being able to leave my work at the office even when I go to the movies.” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “My client’s son,” I said. “You remember, the kid I pulled out of the lake?”

  “Yes, I do,” Amy said. “Who could forget that scene? I still see that kid’s face in my mind.”

  “Well,” I said, “it’s starting to look like murder. Dan’s looking into it a little closer now, since my visit to him today.”

  “You think Dan will be able to connect anyone with that kid?” Amy said.

  “Maybe even two guys,” I said. “He’s got a pickup order out for two suspects and it shouldn’t be long now before this whole thing is over.”

  When we got home Clay was fast asleep in his bed and Lois was watching television, nearly asleep herself. She sat upright when she heard the front door close.

  “Was he any trouble?” Amy said.

  “Not at all,” Lois said. “He’s a real pleasure to sit for, Mrs. Cooper.”

  “Well, thanks for coming on such short notice,” Amy said, and paid her for the night.

  I pulled Lois’s coat from the hook near the door and helped her into it. I drove her home and got back before Amy had changed for bed.

  The next morning I dressed for work, had a quick breakfast and drove to my office on Hollywood Boulevard. My keys were still dangling in the door lock when my phone rang. It was Dan Hollister asking if I wanted to go with him when they picked up one of the suspects in the drowning case. I agreed and Dan told me where to meet him.

  Dan met me in the parking lot behind the Hotel Rector on Hollywood and Western. Two black and white radio cars were there also. Two detectives, Pat Stevens and Bob Grant, were standing behind a Chevy sedan that had its trunk open. They were looking in at the body of a man who’d obviously been shot several times. The inside of the trunk was splattered with blood and the trunk lid had just as many holes in it. The morning sun shone thorough the holes, sending streams of sunlight down onto the body. As Dan approached the two detectives stood aside to let him have a better view.

  “What do we have here?” Dan said to Grant.

  “Willie Davenport,” Grant said, handing Davenport’s wallet over. “Looks like he might have rubbed someone the wrong way.”

  Dan called to me,” Matt, you wanna come over and have a look at this?”

  I walked over to where Dan and detective Grant stood. I shifted my gaze to the body in the trunk and then looked at Dan. “Looks like the work of Cody Jarrett.”

  “White Heat?” Dan said. “Yes, I remember that scene where Cagney let all that air into the trunk after his former prison mate, Roy Parker complained that he couldn’t breathe.”

  “Shouldda kept his mouth shut,” I said. “Cagney might have driven away and forgot about him in that trunk. Hey Dan, extra points if you can name the actor who played Parker.”

  Dan thought for a moment and then said, “I believe it was Paul Guilfoyle, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Give that man a cigar,” I said and then pointed to the body in the trunk. “And give that man a burial.”

  “I’d say I could safely cancel the pickup order on Willie Davenport,” Dan said. “Now we just have to find Vincent Casey who’ll no doubt be responsible for this one as well as your drowned kid.”

  Detective Pat Stevens threw his microphone down on the seat of his radio car and turned toward Dan. “Lieutenant,” Stevens said. “I just got an update on Casey. They found him hiding in a warehouse downtown. They’re bringing him in now.”

  “Thanks, Pat,” Dan said. He turned to me and said, “Let’s go, Matt. Vincent Casey’s in a holding cell at the station and I’m betting we can get him to talk. Want in on the bet?”

  “Even money?” I said.

  “I’ll even give you two to one odds,” Dan said. “We have the upper hand here. Casey knows he’ll get the gas chamber if we nab him for both murders. He may be willing to squeal for a deal.”

  I followed Dan in my car and we both parked behind the twelfth precinct. At the end of the hall was the interrogation room with a large one-way mirror on one wall. Vincent Casey was sitting in that room, handcuffed to the metal table. Dan let him stew for a few minutes before going in to talk to him. I waited on the other side of the mirror, watching Dan’s technique.

  “We found Willie Davenport’s body behind the Rector this morning,” Dan said. “It’s got your name all over it. What happened between you two?”

  Casey remained silent and gave Dan a defiant sneer, shaking his head ever so slightly.

  Dan began walking circles around the table and would occasionally stop directly behind Casey where he couldn’t be seen. He’d pause a moment and then pick up the pacing again. Dan stopped opposite Casey and rested his hands flat on the table, bending over to look Casey in the eye.

  “We don’t need your confession,” Dan said. “We have you nailed on this one. I’m going to enjoy watching them strap you into that chair and set that bucket of acid beneath it. Then while I’m standing outside looking in, they’ll drop that cyanide pellet and you won’t be able to hold your breath. Eventually you’ll have to breath in the fumes and then your lungs will burn, your eyes will burn and you’ll wish you were dead. Oh, you’ll get your wish, but not before a couple of agonizing minutes in hell. Yes, sir, that should be one spectacular show and I’m gonna have a front row seat.”

  Dan began his pacing again, stopping behind Casey for effect. When he came around in front of him again, Dan stopped. “I wonder,” Dan said, thinking out loud for Casey’s benefit. “I wonder if the judge would consider commuting your sentence to life if…” He shook his head and paced some more. “Nah, probably a long shot.” Then he paced some more. This time when he stopped behin
d Casey, the prisoner turned his head, trying to look behind himself.

  “If what?” Casey said.

  “If what?” Dan said. “What are you talking about?”

  Casey tried twisting in his seat to look at Dan. “You said you wondered if the judge would…”

  Dan cut in, “Forget it. I was just talking to myself. But then again…”

  “What?” Casey said.

  “Well,” Dan began, “my boss is after me to clear up another case and I was just thinking that if you were to help tie up the loose ends on that case, well, maybe the judge might take that into consideration when it came time for sentencing.”

  Casey mulled this over for a moment. “What case are you talking about?” He said.

  Dan walked toward the exit and turned back toward Casey. “Don’t go away. I’ll be right back.” He came out to where I was watching his technique and gave me a wry smile.

  “Pretty smooth,” I said. “Hell, I was almost ready to confess myself.”

  “Keep an eye on him, Matt,” Dan said. “I’ll be right back.” Dan walked down to his office and retrieved his file on Tommy Wheeler and brought it back to where I was standing. He handed me the file and said, “You wanna try out your acting skills, Matt?”

  “Good cop, bad cop,” Dan said. “Which part do you want?”

  Now he had my full attention and I broke out in a smile. “Good cop,” I said. “You already laid the foundation for your bad cop role in there earlier. Let’s just see if he takes the bait.”

  “That’s what I thought you’d say,” Dan said, patting his inside coat pocket.

  “Huh?” I said.

  “Just follow my lead,” Dan said.

  He walked back into the room and I followed, carrying the file folder. I handed the folder to Dan as soon as I got in the room. I closed the door and stood silently in one corner observing but saying nothing. Dan laid the file folder on the table so Casey could see it. He pulled out a photo of Tommy Wheeler that his mother had provided the previous week. Dan turned it around so it faced Casey.

  “We have this case,” Dan said, “with this kid winding up on a slab in the morgue. You know this kid?”

  Casey pretended to study the kid’s photo and then looked up at Dan and shook his head. “Nope, never saw him before.”

  Dan pulled out a second photo of Wheeler that was taken back at the lake, shortly before the ambulance attendants took him away. Wheeler’s blue face stood out against his pale lips. Casey took a quick look at it and shook his head again. “No,” was all he could muster.

  Dan left both photos lying in plain sight and began pacing again. This time when he got behind Casey, he slapped the back of Casey’s head with his open palm. Casey’s head snapped to one side with a dull cracking sound. This is where my part of the good cop came into the scene.

  “Hey,” I said in mock protest. “Is that really necessary, Lieutenant? Can’t you see he’s trying?”

  Dan stayed where he was behind the prisoner. I left my neutral corner and stopped in front of Casey. “I don’t know what gets into him sometimes,” I said to Casey. “I guess he just doesn’t understand that a person needs a little more time to come up with the right answer. Hell, I could see you were thinking, and I’ll bet if you took another look at the photos, who knows? You might even remember where you saw this kid. What do you say? Want to take another look at them?”

  Casey looked up at me and nodded before shifting his eyes back onto the photos again. “Yeah,” he said. “Now I remember.”

  I made a point of looking at Dan. “See, Lieutenant, all he needed was a little time to think.”

  Dan slapped Casey’s head again and then moved around to the front of the table again and again I protested, pushing on Dan’s shoulder to emphasize my point.

  “Hold on there, Lieutenant,” I said. “Look at him, he’s got the answer on the tip of his tongue. Just give him a second.”

  Casey looked up at me with eyes that begged for me to step in between him and Dan. “Sure,” Casey said. “Now I remember. That’s the Wheeler kid, isn’t it?”

  “See?” I said, looking at Dan. “He’s cooperating. Give him a chance.”

  Dan started to pull the leather-wrapped blackjack out of his inside coat pocket. He pulled it out far enough so Casey could see it, pretending to shield it from me. He winked at Casey.

  “Yeah,” Casey said. “It is the Wheeler kid.”

  “How do you know him?” I said.

  “I seen him in the club a couple of times playing blackjack and roulette,” Casey said. “He ran up markers for three grand and couldn’t pay. The boss don’t like it when someone loses and don’t pay. It makes him look bad.”

  “The boss?” I said. “Who are we talking about here?”

  Casey let out a deep breath and said, “Louie.”

  “Louie?” I said. “Does Louie have a last name?”

  Casey knew he’d run out of options and said, “Patterson. Louie Patterson. He owns the Pink Pussycat Club out on Melrose. That’s where the kid lost his three grand.”

  “Go on,” I said. “You’re doing fine.”

  “Louie told Willie and me to take the Wheeler kid out and teach him a lesson,” Casey said.

  “Oh, you taught him a lesson, all right,” Dan said in his bad cop voice. “A real good lesson.”

  “That was Willie,” Casey said. “I tried to stop him, but he just went nuts on me and drowned the kid. I only wanted to scare him, you know, to make him pay up.”

  “So it was Willie Davenport who killed Tommy Wheeler. Is that what you’re telling me?” I said.

  “So help me,” Casey said.

  “But you shot Willie, didn’t you?” Dan barked.

  “It was me or him,” Casey said. “You know, self-defense.”

  “Yeah,” Dan said. “Self defense through the trunk lid. How was he going to get at you from inside the trunk of that car?”

  Casey said nothing further about it.

  “We have what we need,” Dan said, turning to me. “Let’s go, Matt.”

  Casey called to Dan before he left the room. “You’ll talk to the judge?”

  Dan and I left the room without answering him. Once outside Dan turned to me again and said, “That should do it, Matt. I think we can wrap up both cases with what he told us in there. You can let Wheeler’s mother know that we solved her boy’s murder and she can finally let it go and get on with her life, if that’s possible. And you, well, you can go home and spend a little more time with that boy of yours. I know that’s what I’m going to do when I get home.”

  “Wanna catch a movie sometime this week?” I said.

  “Which one?” Dan said.

  “It’s a toss-up,” I said. “Either Bogart in The Desperate Hours or Cagney in Mr. Roberts. Take your pick.”

  Dan thought for a moment and said, “Bogart. I just saw an example of Cagney’s work this afternoon in the alley behind the Rector. Cody Jarrett, remember?”

  “All right,” I said, “Then it’s Bogart tomorrow at seven-ten. You wanna brings the wives or make this a boy’s night out.”

  “Bring the wives,” Dan said. “I can see you anytime, but I don’t get to see much of Amy.”

  I nodded, turned and walked back down the hall to the rear exit. I drove home and found Amy and Clay waiting on the front porch when I pulled into the driveway.

  “Hi dear,” Amy said. “How’d everything go downtown? Did you finish up with your case?”

  I spread my legs a little, hitched my shoulders up and in my best Cagney impression said, “Made it ma, top of the world.”

  Amy rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Don’t give up your day job, dear.”

  34 - ‘Til Death Do Us Part

  Amy and I had been a perfect match from the day we’d met almost ten years ago purely by accident. I was running to catch a movie and came around a corner without looking and knocked Amy down, spilling her purse out on the sidewalk. As it turned out, we were going to
see the same movie, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court when we met. I offered to pay for her movie ticket and some popcorn and we just hit it off. We were pretty much inseparable from then on. Seven months later we were married in a civil ceremony at the courthouse. Our son, Clay was born the following July, just a day after the Independence Day celebration. Hard to believe he was nine years old already.

  Shortly after we were married, I sold my house and moved into Amy’s. I liked her neighborhood better than mine, and the house had more room for the three of us. Amy had quit her job at the library shortly before Clay was born and she returned to it on a part-time basis when Clay started the first grade in the fall of 1956. Now Clay was in the fourth grade and Amy still enjoyed her job at the library. I was still doing a pretty good business as a private detective.

  The morning was bright and clear with the sun shining down from a cloudless sky. Amy was tending to her garden in the back yard and I was throwing the baseball with Clay in the front yard.

  “Come on, dad,” Clay said. “Burn it in there this time.” He pounded his fist into the palm of the baseball glove several time before turning it outward toward me, making a target out of it.

  I raised my left leg, cocked my right arm and followed through with a pitch that would have made Don Drysdale or Sandy Koufax sit up and take notice. It hit its target in Clay’s glove. After he caught it, Clay ripped off the glove and dropped it with the ball still in it and wiped his left palm on his shirt.

  “Ouch,” Clay said. “That was too hard, dad.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Toss it back here and I’ll give it another try.”

  Clay slipped back into his glove, retrieved the ball from it and threw it back to me. I wound up and followed through with another, softer pitch this time. I doubted that the Dodgers would be recruiting me any time soon. Clay threw the ball back to me and I was about to throw it back to Clay when my neighbor from two doors down, Oliver Delaney came toward me from the front sidewalk. I held back the pitch and held one finger up to Clay to let him know I needed a minute.