The first week seemed to have little or no effect on Abu. Then about eleven days into our tail job the pressure began to get to him. At first he didn’t try to lose either of us, but now he began making an effort to dodge both of us at every opportunity.
Monday night after my shift, I got a call from Dean. “I think our boy’s beginning to crack,” he said. “He tried to lose me on the train and then again on a bus headed for downtown.”
“It’s time to pour it on,” I said. “I’ll meet you at Highland and Santa Monica in half an hour. He always takes the bus from there at exactly five-thirty. If you lose him, I’ll pick the tail and that’ll give you time to join me later.”
“This guy knows he’s got immunity and knows we can’t touch him, Dean said. “Why would he try to lose us now? I don’t get it.”
“Wouldn’t you?” I said. “Tail a guy long enough and he’s bound to get spooked. Sooner or later something is going to happen and when it does, I want to be there.”
At five twenty-five Dean and I waited at the bus stop on Santa Monica. Dean sat on the bench with a paper held up over his face while I waited in the doorway of a nearby office building, keeping the bus stop in sight. Two minutes later Ralah Abu arrived at the bus stop. A minute after that the uptown bus rounded the corner and pulled to a stop in front of the bench. Dean laid his paper down on the bench and stepped up into the bus. Abu waited outside the bus and let the doors close without boarding. The bus pulled away and Abu stood there smiling and waving to Dean as the bus passed by him.
Abu turned and walked away. He spotted me in the doorway and froze. I took a few steps toward him and he slowly backed up, looking both ways for a quick exit.
Dean flashed his shield and had the bus driver stop half a block from where he had boarded. It took him a few seconds to join me again at the bus stop. Abu had turned away from me and was heading up the street when he spotted Dean coming toward him. We closed the gap between us and Abu panicked. He bolted and made a dash across the street in the middle of the block. He was still looking over his shoulder at us when he crossed.
The traffic light changed on the Highland Avenue side. An older sedan came around the corner from Santa Monica Boulevard at full speed from the opposite direction. As he ran, Abu looked back to see if either of us was following him. Dean and I stood where we were and watched as the speeding car bore down on Ralah Abu. Neither of us made a move or said a word. Abu and the sedan arrived at the same spot on the street at exactly the same time.
A woman screamed, tires squealed, and a loud, sickening crash sent Abu’s body flying into the air. It sailed several dozen yards before it landed with a sudden thud against a lamppost. In a moment, Abu was lying lifeless and twisted in the street with the lamp’s light casting an eerie glow onto his agonized face.
Dean and I hurried across the street to the sport where the car had come to a stop. The driver of the car emerged shaking and sobbing. Dean put his hand on the driver’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, buddy,” Dean said. “I’m a police officer and we saw the whole thing. It wasn’t your fault. We saw that guy run across the street without looking where he was going.”
I backed Dean up. “Yeah, you’ll get full immunity, I’m sure.” Dean looked at the damage to the front of the man’s car. The car’s grille was caved in and took on the shape of the man it had hit. The identity of the car had been obscured. Dean turned to the man. “Looks like your car’s totaled,” he said. “What kind of car was it?”
The man stopped shaking long enough to point to a different nametag on the side of the car. “It’s a ‘79 Dodge Diplomat. Why?”
“No reason,” Dean said, turning to face me, a wide smile playing on his face.
“I guess he didn’t have immunity from this Diplomat,” I said. “Let’s call this in and after it’s wrapped up, we can get something to eat. I’m starved.”
“I’ll bet I nod off the minute my head hits the pillow tonight,” I said.
49 - Justice Delayed
It was one of the strangest Januarys on record for Hollywood. In my thirty-two years on this planet I’d never seen snow in Southern California. This was a first for me and even though I knew it wouldn’t stay on the ground for long, I decided to enjoy the phenomena while it lasted. I watched out my office window as the fluffy white flakes drifted down onto the streets, covering the cars and shop awnings on Hollywood Boulevard below.
I’d seen movies with children playing in the snow, making snowmen and sliding down hills on sleds. I envied some of those kids as I was growing up but realized, as I got older that the downside to all of this majestic white beauty included shivering, shoveling, blowing, plowing and automobile accidents. Suddenly I didn’t feel so nostalgic anymore.
I was watching two boys below my window. They were making snowballs and throwing them at each other when my phone rang. I tore myself away from my window and took a seat behind my desk.
“Cooper Investigations,” I said. “Elliott Cooper speaking.”
“Elliott,” the voice said. “Can you believe what’s happening outside?”
It was Lieutenant Dean Hollister from the twelfth precinct.
“Dean,” I said. “Hey, tell me, as an old guy you must have seen your share of snow. Ever seen it here in Southern California before?”
“Old guy?” Dean said. “I’m younger than your dad.”
“Not by much,” I said. “So, did you ever see snow like this before?”
“Where have you been?” Dean said. “Last February we got a pretty good covering in Burbank. I think it was the twenty-sixth or twenty-seventh.”
“I heard about it when I got back from Key West,” I said. “Of course, by then it was all gone. I meant before that. Have you ever seen snowfall around here before?”
“Let me think,” Dean said. “Sure, it was back in ‘88 in the valley near Calabasas. I was out in it that day. But that was gone the next day, too. I’m damned glad it doesn’t snow around here on a regular basis. People from this part of the country have no idea how to drive when it rains, let alone snows. And before that we hadn’t had any snow around here since I was twelve. That would have been 1962, and that was just a trace that disappeared that same day. I guess the most snow we ever got was the year before I was born—1949. Dad told me that we got almost a third of an inch.”
“Thank you Al Roker for that insightful weather history lesson,” I said. “Gees, you’re like a typical woman.”
“A typical woman?” Dean said. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean this has happened to me many many times lately and I’m just starting to notice a pattern,” I said.
“A pattern to what?” Dean said.
“Try this yourself sometime,” I said. “Ask a man a simple question like what time is it. Men will generally tell you the time, end it there and move on. Women will give you three paragraphs about watch making and watchband styles before they ever get to the point. It never fails.”
Dean laughed. “Can’t wait to try that out later today,” he said.
“Well don’t do what I did,” I said. “I found out the hard way what not to say to these blabbermouth women.”
“Oh oh,” Dean said. “Come on, spill it. What’d you say?”
“Well,” I began, “I asked one woman on the street if she’d seen a guy I was tailing. After a minute and a half of sideline bullshit, I finally said, ‘so that would be a no’ and she lit into me like a crazy woman.”
“Learn your lesson?” Dean said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve learned not to ask women questions unless I have an extra hour to kill. So, why are you calling this beautiful morning, Mr. Hollister?”
“Well, Detective Edwards is on vacation,” Dean said. “And I’m a little short-handed. Would you be free for a while to sit in on a case with me? I could use some help in the legwork department.”
“Sure,” I said, enthusiastically. “I can always use the work.”
“Hold on there, Chuck
ie,” Dean said. “I’m not asking to hire you to do anything. There’s no extra money in the budget. I just thought that if you weren’t busy and wanted something to do, well.”
I paused momentarily and then remembered how boring the last three days had been with no case and not much else to do. Gloria was out of town and the walls were beginning to close in on me. “Sure,” I said. “Give me fifteen minutes. Are you in your office?”
“Yes,” Dean said. “I’ll see you in a little while.” He hung up and turned his attentions back to the pile of papers on his desk.
I got to Dean’s office in twelve minutes. He was sitting behind his desk, shuffling through a stack of papers when I walked in.
“Thanks for coming in, Elliott,” Dean said. “By the way, how’s your dad doing these days?”
“He’s coming right along,” I said. “He’ll be back to work at the office next Monday and he’s not half as anxious as I am to see that day come. I could use a bit of a break.”
“What about Gloria?” Dean said. “Can’t she take up the slack at the office?”
“She could,” I said, “But she’s in Phoenix filing some papers on a recent case we had in Arizona. She’ll be back day after tomorrow. So, bring me up to speed. What are you working on?”
“I’ve been assigned to head the juvenile bureau,” Dean said. “If there’s one area of police work that can raise your frustration level, it’s this one. You have to handle juveniles with kid gloves and most of them know a slap on the wrist is all they’ll get for crimes that would send adults to prison.”
“You’re working with kids?” I said.
“Well,” Dean said. “Not kids in general. One kid in particular—Emily Jacobs.”
“What did she do?” I said.
“Nothing I know of,” Dean said. “She’s missing. An hour ago I took a call from a woman who reported that her daughter was missing. I’m going to meet her this morning and wanted to know if you’d like to come along. You know, a fresh pair of eyes looking at this thing.”
“Okay,” I said. “When did you want to go?”
Dean got up from his chair and made an exaggerated motion of checking his wristwatch. “How about right now?”
I walked with Dean out to the parking lot and rode with him in his radio car. He drove to the house he’d visited yesterday and led me up onto the porch. Dean rang the bell and stepped back.
“Mrs. Jacobs?” Dean said, holding up his badge and ID, “My name is Hollister, Lieutenant Detective Dean Hollister from the juvenile division at the twelfth precinct.” He gestured to me. “This is Elliott Cooper. We’re here about your call. Can we talk?”
The woman pushed the screen door open and waited as Dean and I stepped inside. She closed the door behind us and invited us into the kitchen. She instructed us to sit at the table while she busied herself pouring three cups of coffee. She set a cup in front of Dean and me and then sat opposite him with her own cup of coffee.
Dean picked up the coffee cup and sipped. “Thanks,” he said, almost toasting here with his cup held up. “Mrs. Jacobs, according to my notes, you say that your daughter…” Dean looked over my notes for the daughter’s name but came up short.
“Emily,” the woman said, filling in my missing information. “She’s just sixteen.” She sipped from her coffee and looked down at the table.
Dean continued with the interview. “You stated that early yesterday afternoon Emily told you she was going to the corner drug store to buy feminine products,” he said. “Is that right?”
“That’s right, Mr. Hollister,” she said. “It’s just up the street three blocks. Emily always goes there and it’s never taken her more than fifteen minutes to get there and come back. She was always very direct about those things.”
“Go on,” Dean said.
“Well,” she said, “I was busy with the laundry and hadn’t noticed whether or not she’d come back home and left again. She could have, but somehow I don’t think it happened that way.”
Dean wrote notes in his notebook and looked up. “Why do you say that, Mrs. Jacobs?” he said.
“Because when I went to the medicine cabinet in her bathroom, there was still no new box of, you know, feminine products on the shelf,” she said. “That’s where she always keeps them. It was several hours later and Emily had still not returned. It’s just not like her, Mr. Hollister.”
“And what time was it that you said she left for the drugstore?” I said.
She looked up at the wall clock. “It was about one-thirty, maybe quarter to two at the latest,” she said. “That’s almost twenty hours ago. I called all her friends and no one has seen her anywhere today. I’m a nervous wreck, Mr. Hollister.”
“We’ll do everything we can to find her, Mrs. Jacobs,” Dean said. “Don’t you worry.” Before he closed his notebook, Dean took another sip of coffee and asked, “Mrs. Jacobs, does Emily have a steady boyfriend or someone that she sees on a regular basis?”
The woman sat wringing her hands in her lap. “Just Chet” she said. “Chet McCauley. But Emily broke it off with him two weeks ago. Why do you ask?”
“Do you know where he lives or know his phone number?” Dean said.
“You think he might know where she is?” she said, her voice taking on a slight twinge of hope.
“It’s happened before,” Dean said. “Girls take off with their boyfriends and forget to call home or just get so involved with what they’re doing, they just forget the time.”
She gave Dean Chet McCauley’s address and we thanked her for the coffee and for her time. We left feeling a little apprehensive about Emily’s fate. Call it a gut feeling, but something didn’t feel right with this one.
Dean took as much information as he could. He got Emily’s physical description as well as a recent picture of her from her mother. Mrs. Jacobs stated that Emily was last seen wearing a red jacket, blue jeans, blue gloves and black boots with fur around the tops. Dean made out a complaint and gave copies of it and the picture to all the other officers. The whole department became involved in looking for the girl. Several days passed and the girl still hadn’t returned on her own nor was she found by any of the patrolmen.
The department and the other detectives continued with the investigation, questioning friends and acquaintances of hers. Dean and I talked briefly with Chet McCauley but Chet stated that he hadn’t seen Emily Jacobs for several weeks. Dean had to cut him loose but kept his address handy. We had a feeling we’d be talking to Chet again very soon.
“I kept in touch with Mrs. Jacobs if for no other reason than to give her something to hope for while we continued to search for her daughter,” Dean said. “But it’s not looking so good for the kid.”
“And the boyfriend doesn’t know anything?” I asked.
“Doesn’t know or doesn’t want to say,” Dean said. “Suppose we go back and talk with the friends and neighbors again and see if we can rattle anyone’s cage.”
On his way out of the office, Dean’s phone rang. It was Elmer Cartwright, the man hired to watch over the police impound yard. “Lieutenant,” Elmer said. “You’d better come down to the impound yard right away. There’s something here I think you should see.”
“What is it?” Dean said.
“It’s a dead body in one of the abandoned cars,” Elmer said, his voice a bit shaky.
“I’m on my way,” Dean said and then turned to me. “We might have a break. Let’s go.”
There was an area near town that resembled a big field alongside the railroad tracks and it had cyclone fencing all around it. The twelfth precinct used this area to store junked and abandoned vehicles that were found on the streets. Two little boys, probably eight or nine years old, who had gotten through a hole in the fence and were playing around in the old junked and abandoned cars. One car in particular that seemed to delight the boys was an old funeral hearse. The back door had been torn off and the two boys crawled inside.
During their romp through the hea
rse, the boys stumbled upon the body of a young girl—Emily Jacobs. It was quite a traumatic experience for the two boys. They quickly ran home and reported to their parents what they’d found. Their parents called the twelfth precinct.
Dean had the area cordoned off as a crime scene and two officers kept the curiosity seekers back while Dean and I peered inside the old hearse. We brushed away some of the leaves and debris that had blown in recently and made notes of what we had discovered.
It was Emily Jacobs, no doubt about it. The red jacket and blue gloves were gone, but she was still wearing the black boots with the fur tops. Her blouse and jeans were nowhere in the immediate area, either. The cold had prevented any immediate decomposition and aside from the multiple stab wounds, she looked like she could be asleep. Unfortunately, this was the kind of sleep that she’d never wake up from.
There were several stab wounds in the left side of her neck, her breast and abdominal area. Her hair was matted in clumps as though someone had grabbed it and held on tight or pulled viciously on it. Her hands also had several stab wounds through them, as though she had shielded herself in a useless attempt to stop the plunging knife blade.
Dean called for backup and two other squad cars arrived within minutes. He instructed the officers to watch the area until the coroner got there to take the body away.
“Cooper and I are going to back to the precinct,” Dean told one of the officers. “Tape this whole area off and don’t let anyone near here.”
“Yes, sir,” the officer responded.
“Let’s go, Elliott,” Dean said, walking back to his car. I followed and slid in next to him. We made it back to the precinct in fifteen minutes.
En route, Dean had called into the precinct and asked for any information they might have on Chester McCauley, age seventeen. Chet McCauley had a vicious temper. It didn’t take much to uncover numerous police reports of how he and Emily had gotten into many arguments, resulting in Chet striking her with his fist. He was extremely jealous, following her wherever she went and questioning her every move. Chet became our prime suspect.
The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories) Page 158