The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories)

by Bernico, Bill

  “Just think,” I said. “If I’d stayed at the coffee shop with Peggy another half hour, she’d be alive today.”

  “Now don’t go blaming yourself,” Clay said.

  “Oh, I’m not,” I said. “I was just making a comment on how fickle fate is, you know? Like if you miss your plane and later you hear that it went down and left no survivors.”

  “Well, anyway,” Clay said. “You’re out and you’re off the hook and you’re welcome to come in on this with Dean and me if you want to.”

  “Just try and keep me out,” I said. “Do you know if Dean has asked his dad if he wants any part of this?”

  “No, he hasn’t,” Clay said, “I guess Dan isn’t feeling too good lately. He just wanted to stay around the house and rest.”

  “Thanks for telling me,” I said. “I’ll have to make a point of stopping by to see him sometime today. It’s been, what, six months since I saw him last.”

  “He’d like that,” Clay said. “So, where do you think is a good place to start this?”

  “Well,” I said, “his obvious pattern is westward movement, but he can’t really go too much farther west without getting wet. Suppose we start with Peggy’s friends and neighbors. Somebody had to have seen something.”

  “I’ll drive,” Clay said.

  “Don’t you trust my driving?” I said.

  “I just feel better when I can control whether or not we hit anything with the car,” Clay said.

  I let it slide and got in beside him in his car. We drove over to Western Avenue and then turned south to Santa Monica Boulevard.

  On the way there, Clay said, “Didn’t it seem a little strange being out with that woman? I mean did it feel like you were cheating? Oh, I don’t know what I mean.”

  “No,” I said, “you put it in much the same way I was feeling. I know your mother’s been gone for fifteen years, but we did have fifteen years of our own together and yes, it did feel a bit odd to be sitting across from another woman and having those kinds of thoughts. You’ll understand better once you’ve been married for a while.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Clay said. “I’m liking bachelorhood just fine, thank you.”

  “What about Veronica?” I said. “There has to be something there. You two have been dating for three years now. Doesn’t she want to get married?”

  “We talked about it,” Clay said. “We’re waiting for the right time.”

  “Believe me,” I said, “You’ll never even see it coming and then one day, BAM you’ll find yourself in love and walking down that aisle.”

  “Can we move on to something else?” Clay said.

  “Sure,” I said. “What would you like to talk about? How about what to get her for your first anniversary? Or maybe what’s a good first house to buy together? Or maybe…”

  “Knock it off, all right dad?” Clay said, a little annoyed now.

  I folded my hands in my lap and stared out the window without another word the rest of the way there. Clay turned onto Santa Monica and pulled up to the curb. We both got out and scanned the houses for the street number Dean had given us. The house was the second one from the corner and still had the crime scene tape wrapped around the porch columns.

  I started with the house to the west of Peggy’s and Clay took the corner house to the east. I stepped up onto the porch and rang the doorbell. I looked across Peggy’s porch and could see that someone was already letting Clay into their house. I rang the bell again and the door opened, revealing an older woman standing there, supporting herself with a walker.

  “Yes?” the woman said. “What do you want?”

  “Ma’am,” I said. “My name is Matt Cooper and I’m investigating the death of your neighbor, Margaret Sanders. Could I speak with you for a few minutes?”

  “But I’ve already told the other police everything I know about it,” she said.

  I wasn’t about to correct her assumption that I was also a cop and I let her go on thinking I was one. “Please, ma’am,” I said. “I promise I won’t keep you more than a couple of minutes. It’s very important.”

  “Very well,” she said, shuffling backwards with the walker and pulling the door open.

  I walked in and she invited me to sit on the sofa. She parked her walker next to an easy chair and sat in it. She looked me in the eye and said, “What is it you think I can tell you that will help?”

  “Did you notice what time Mrs. Sanders got home last night?” I said.

  “No,” she said. “I was already in bed by nine-thirty and if she came home after that I wouldn’t know.”

  “Maybe while you were lying in bed you might have heard something,” I said. “Is that possible?”

  “Mr. Cooper,” she said, “I can usually fall asleep right away once I crawl under the covers. Last night I had a little trouble nodding off and I laid there for a while. I looked at the clock on my end table and it was a little after ten-thirty.”

  “And what do you suppose made you remember that time?” I said.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I thought I heard a noise but then I didn’t hear anything else after that so I forgot about it until just now.”

  “So you didn’t mention this to the police when they questioned you?” I said.

  “I just now remembered it,” she said. “Besides, I couldn’t identify the noise. It was just a noise. I can’t even be sure that it came from the Sanders house.”

  “Well, thank you, Mrs.…”

  Benedict,” the woman said. “Sarah Benedict.”

  “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Benedict.” I rose from the couch and turned for the door and pulled on the knob.

  “I hope you catch him,” Mrs. Benedict said. “That car of his is loud enough to wake the dead. There should be a law against that.”

  I turned back to face her. “A loud car, you say?” I asked. “What makes you think it belonged to whoever was in that house?”

  “Because I saw a man get into a car and when he left it was loud,” she said. “Everyone in the neighborhood must have heard it.”

  “Thank you again, Mrs. Benedict,” I said. “You’ve been a big help. Good day.”

  I walked off her porch and looked at the corner house. Clay was just coming out the front door and saying his goodbyes to the residents there. We met on the sidewalk next to his car.

  “What’d you find out?” I said.

  “Not much,” Clay said. “Just that they heard a loud car shortly after ten-thirty.”

  “Mine, too,” I said. “She thinks she might have heard a noise just before that but she couldn’t be sure. But she was sure about the loud car. She said she saw him pull away.”

  “Well,” Clay said. “That’s something. We can always check with the police and see if anyone was issued a ticket or a warning for a loud car anywhere in town last night.”

  “I wanted to stop and see Dan on our way back to the precinct,” I said. “Would you mind?”

  “Sure, dad,” Clay said.

  We stopped by to see Dan and Laverne Hollister and found them both in. Laverne greeted us at the door and invited us to sit in the living room.

  “Dan will be happy to see you both,” Laverne said. “Come in, please.” She called to the kitchen, “Dan, would you come in here? Matt and Clay stopped by to see you.”

  There was no answer from the kitchen, just some rustling sounds from a bread bag.

  Dan was nine months older than me and we’d been friends since the forties. He was turning seventy this September and didn’t like the concept one bit. He’d told me so on more than one occasion. “Seventy,” he’d said, “was what I considered ancient back when we were in our thirties. Now it doesn’t seem all that old.”

  When he shuffled into the living room I was taken aback by his appearance. He seemed to have aged a decade in the past six months since we’d last spoken. He was gaunt and hollow in the face. His hands were bony, capped with white knuckles and large blue veins. His head was bald and
shiny. He must have seen the shock in my face and stopped in his tracks.

  “Sit down, Matt,” Dan said in a frail voice that was barely above a whisper. “And don’t look so shocked.”

  “Dan,” I said, “I’ve been away too long. What happened to you?”

  “It’s the cancer,” Laverne said. “You remember last summer when he mentioned something about a checkup?”

  “Yes,” I said, “That was last July, just after my birthday. But he never mentioned cancer.”

  “He didn’t want to alarm anyone and thought he could lick it on his own,” Laverne said.

  I looked at Dan and he shrugged. “Who knew?” he whispered.

  “But it’s only been six months since I last saw you,” I said. “How could it spread this fast?”

  “Last August I went in for treatment,” Dan said, “and they told me that they thought they’d gotten it all, but it got into my lymph nodes and just spread throughout the rest of my body. That was in October. There’s nothing more they can do.”

  I fell back into the sofa cushion and sighed heavily. When I looked up again Dan was casually eating his sandwich without a care in the world.

  He swallowed and washed it down with some milk and said, “Don’t look so sad,” Dan said. “It’s not the end of the world. At least not for you.”

  “How long does he have?” Clay said to Laverne, who looked to Dan and got a nod of permission.

  “Three months,” she said. “Maybe less.”

  I caught my breath and covered my mouth with my hand. My eyes welled up and I had trouble breathing. The enormity of this new information was just too much for me to take in. I stood and walked over to where Dan stood with his sandwich. I laid my hand on his shoulder.

  “Dan.” I said. “You’ve been a good friend to me for so long. I just can’t imagine you not being here for me.”

  “I’m not gone yet,” Dan said. “Save the tears for April. You know, it looks like I won’t have to file my tax return this year after all.”

  I hugged him briefly and released him again. “I’ve got to go, Dan,” I said. “Clay and I are meeting with Dean on this strangler thing.”

  Laverne tried to wave me off, but it was too late. I’d let the cat out of the bag.

  “What strangler thing?” Dan said.

  I looked at Laverne and she was biting her bottom lip.

  “The tag team wrestling match this weekend,” I said, thinking fast. “It’s The Crusher and Big Jake vs. Tiger Jones and The Strangler. Should be a great match. I was stopping by to see if he could get us tickets.”

  Laverne sighed with relief and that was my cue to leave while I was ahead.

  “Good save, dad,” Clay said once we were outside. “Looks like Laverne is keeping Dan in the dark about any police work. I guess she doesn’t want him getting too excited. Obviously Dean has known about his dad’s condition for quite some time now, but he never mentioned anything to me about it.”

  “It was a shock to me, too,” I said. “He’s half the man I knew in his prime. Good grief, what Laverne must be going through.”

  Clay pulled into the parking lot behind the twelfth precinct and the two of us walked down to Dan’s old office, now Sergeant Dean Hollister’s office. I knocked on his door and waited for a reply.

  “It’s open,” Dean said. Clay and I entered and Dean could see from our faces that something wasn’t right. “What is it?”

  “We just came from your dad,” Clay said.

  Dean’s face dropped now.

  “He’s not doing well, is he?” I said.

  Dean shook his head. “I didn’t want to say anything about it sooner and before I knew it, it was too late to tell you.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear about this,” Clay said.

  Dean nodded and turned to me. “How are you handling this, Matt?” he said.

  “I don’t think it’s set in yet,” I said. “Maybe I just don’t want to believe it. I don’t know. It was a shock seeing him like this. He was always such a strong, muscular man.”

  “He’s lost probably sixty pounds in these last six months,” Dean said.

  “How’s Helen holding up?” I said.

  “She’s been my rock,” Dean said. “We’ve only been going together for a little better than a year now, but she’s already like one of the family. You know, we were planning on a June wedding this year.”

  Clay’s eyes got wide. “This is the first I’m hearing of this,” he said.

  “But we’ve moved it up to next month,” Dean said. “Dad won’t make it until June. Hell, he probably won’t make it until April and we wanted to have him there so we set the date for Saturday, February sixteenth. There isn’t enough time for formal invitations and replies under the circumstances, but we definitely want you all there with us.”

  “You couldn’t keep us away,” I said. “Congratulations, Dean. Helen is one special girl.”

  “I know,” Dean said. “I was lucky to find her.”

  “As I remember,” Clay said, “she found you, didn’t she?”

  “What’s this?” I said. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard this one.”

  Clay turned to me and said, “Well, Dean’s making the rounds at the neighborhood bars one night with nothing particular in mind. You know, just killing time and observing people.”

  “If he’s gonna hear the story,” Dean said, “He should at least hear the accurate version. May I?”

  “Be my guest,” Clay said and turned to me. “Listen to this. This is a good one.”

  “So, as you know,” Dean said, “I was dating this other girl, Sue. We were supposed to go out to the drive-in theater that night and we were all set to go. Well, she’s puffing on those damned cigarettes just before we had to leave and you know how I hate smoke. And besides, I always get a summer cold and I’m always coughing.”

  “Yeah,” Clay said, “I noticed that about you every summer.”

  “Anyway,” Dean said. “We’re standing at the kitchen sink and I’m telling her we gotta get going and she’s trying to suck the last puff out of that cigarette. Well, I was never long on patience so I grabbed her by the wrist and held her hand under the faucet, cigarette and all, and said something like, ‘now can we go?’ Well, of course she cops an attitude and we’re arguing in the car as we’re backing out of the driveway. I get half a block from her house and she says, ‘take me home.’ And without another word, I threw my old Chevy into reverse and backed up to her driveway and she got out. But before she walked away, she looked at me and says, ‘see ya, prick,’ and walked back into the house.”

  “Didn’t I tell you this was gonna be good?” Clay said to me. Dean gave Clay a look and he quieted down again and let Dean continue with his story.

  “Naturally I didn’t go to the drive-in movie that night,” Dean says. “Instead I went bar hopping, looking for any kind of distraction from the argument we’d just had. Well, I’d hit about six bars and was about to call it a night and go home when I decided to stop into just one more place—Shorty’s Bar. I pulled up a stool and had a Pepsi.”

  “Who drinks Pepsi at a bar?” I said.

  “Dean does,” Clay said. “You know he doesn’t drink.”

  “You don’t?” I said to Dean.

  “Never liked the taste of any of that stuff,” Dean said. “So anyway, I’m sitting at this oval-shaped bar and across from me are two women and a guy. The guy’s looking a little antsy, like he wants to get going, but the two women are obviously having fun and want to stay a while longer. The woman sitting next to the guy is obviously his date and the other woman is the tag-along. She’s sitting there with three or four beer bottles in front of her and she has a pair of drumsticks. Don’t ask me where she got them, I don’t know and it’s not important to the story. Anyway, she’s banging on the bar with the sticks and then looks up at me and then turns to the other woman and probably thought she was whispering when she told her, ‘He’s cute,’ and went back to drumming on the bar. We
ll, I overheard her comment. You couldn’t help but overhear it. So I say to the bartender, ‘Shorty, buy the drummer a beer for me,’ and he does.”

  “And that’s how you met Helen?” I said.

  “Wait,” Clay said. “There’s more.

  Dean nodded and said, “So I ask her if she want to play a game of pool and she agrees. We get to talking and I get her phone number and when it’s time for the bar to close, I ask her if she’d give me a ride to my car and she says yes. I climb in beside her and tell her to turn right at the corner and then right again and then another right and before you know it, she’s pulling up behind my car. It was parked right behind the space where she’d parked hers. She thought that was pretty funny and we started dating that very next night and haven’t been apart since.”

  “Isn’t that a great story?” Clay said.

  “What happened to Sue?” I said.

  “Never saw her again,” Dean said. “Never looked back for a minute, either.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “That is a good story.”

  “You two didn’t come by here just to hear how I met Helen, did you?” Dean said.

  “Actually,” I said, “Clay and I have been talking to some of Peggy Sanders’ neighbors and thought you might be able to check something for us.”

  “What’s that?” Dean said.

  Clay looked at me and I gestured with my hand for him to explain. “Dad and I each interviewed the neighbors on either side of the Sanders house and they both mentioned someone with a loud car leaving at about the time of the murder,” he said. “We were wondering if by some slim chance any of your patrolmen might have issued a ticket or a warning that night to anyone with a loud muffler.”

  “It’s worth looking into,” Dean said, pressing his intercom button. “Maxine,” he said and released the button. There was no answer.

  “There was no one at the desk when we got here,” I said.

  Dean looked at his watch. “She’s probably at lunch. Wait here and I’ll check myself.”