Once the case had turned from a missing persons case to a murder case, Dean and I spent a lot more time interviewing Emily Jacobs’ friends. One of his first stops was at a house four doors east of the Jacobs house. It belonged to Elwood Franklin, whose daughter, Phyllis went to school with Emily Jacobs.
Mrs. Franklin answered the door and invited Dean and me inside. We stayed in the front hallway while Mrs. Franklin called Phyllis down from her upstairs bedroom. Dean followed Mrs. Franklin into the kitchen for his interview while I sat in the front room for my interview with Phyllis.
I withdrew my notebook and pencil and sat back on the sofa. I looked at Phyllis and said, “What can you tell me about Emily Jacobs?” I said.
Phyllis was a redhead with bright green eyes and scattered freckles across the bridge of her nose. The makeup she wore made her look older than her sixteen years. She shook her head. “What is it you want to know?” she said.
“Well,” I began, “How well did you know her?”
Phyllis leaned forward. “About as well as anybody, I guess” she said. “We were in the same class at school and sometimes we double-dated.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Tell me about that,” I said. “Did she date Chet on those occasions?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “But lately she told me she was breaking up with him. He was too weird.”
“What do you mean, weird?” I said.
“That’s not my description,” Phyllis said. “She called him that. She said he was too violent and the last time he hit her, he came over crying that he’d never do that again and that he loved her and all that garbage.”
“What did she do?” I said.
“She laughed at him, right there on her front porch, and told him to get lost,” Phyllis said. “She slammed the door in his face.”
“And what did Chet do?” I said.
“Nothing,” she said. “He just stepped off the porch and into that beater car of his and drove away.”
“Did Emily see anyone else on a regular basis?” I said.
“Oh,” she said offhandedly, “You mean…” She stopped when she realized that I had no idea what she meant. She hung her head.
“What did you say?” I asked her. “You said something about you mean. Mean what? Who else was she seeing?”
“Terry,” Phyllis said reluctantly.
“Does Terry have a last name?” I said.
“Minski,” Phyllis said. “Terry Minski.”
“Do you know where he lives?” I asked.
Phyllis almost chuckled but stopped herself.
“Something funny about all this” I said.
She straightened up noticeably. “Oh no,” she said. “There’s nothing funny at all. Emily was my friend and I’m sorry she’s gone.”
“Then what about Terry?” I said. “What was so funny about him?”
“Her,” she said.
“What?” I said, confused.
“Her,” she said. “Terry’s a girl.”
My scalp raised and my ears shifted back when the idea finally sunk in. “Oh,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “Emily went both ways, if you know what I mean.”
I knew exactly what she meant but that still didn’t make the idea sit any better with me. I had dealt with lesbians on the job before and I knew that one of the most violent types of anger resulted from a thwarted love affair between two lesbians. I took down the information I thought I’d need and rose from the sofa just as Dean emerged from the kitchen with Mrs. Franklin right behind him. He gave me the nod. I extended my hand to both women and thanked them for their cooperation before Dean and I left.
Back in the car, I turned to Dean and said, “Did you know that Emily Jacobs was, er, I mean…” I said.
“I know,” Dean said. “I got the same story about McCauley from the mother. Apparently it was no big secret, although I doubt Mrs. Jacobs knew anything about Terry.”
“I think you’re right,” I said. “I could have read her face the other day if that had been the case. If we don’t have to, let’s not say anything to her about this Terry girl.”
Dean agreed. “Guess it’s back to the kid, Chet,” he said.
I nodded and headed the car west on Santa Monica, toward the McCauley home. We got there in just under ten minutes. The McCauley’s were out of town and had left their car. Chet also had a car of his own. Since no murder weapon was found with the body and there was very little blood at the scene, we knew that the girl had to have been murdered elsewhere and dropped in the abandoned hearse.
When we got there, Chet gave us permission to search both cars. A thorough search turned up nothing out of the ordinary—no blood or sign of a struggle. We had nothing further to ask Chet and decided to let him think he’d been eliminated as a suspect. We hoped it would throw him off his guard and we needed any break we could get.
The murder weapon was missing and an extensive search of the area was made to try to locate it. We searched the flat roofs of the factory-type buildings in the area. The sewers in the area were checked in case the weapon had been thrown down a storm drain. Metal detectors were brought in. This effort, too, resulted in no additional information. Nothing more was found.
With little or nothing to go on, we played a hunch and staked out the field where the hearse had been parked, thinking that the murderer might return to the scene of the crime. As we sat there one night we saw a car pull up on the other side of the tracks. A male emerged from the car and proceeded to walk toward the field. He was in the process of climbing the fence into the yard when we got out of the squad to chase him.
“Halt,” I yelled, as Dean and I started after the man. Like a scared rabbit, the man ran back to his car and drove away before we could get close enough to him. It was dark and the car had been too far away for a positive identification.
“Looks like we hit a nerve,” I said as Dean and I slowly walked back to the squad car to catch our breath and let our heart rates return to normal.
The next day I returned to the Jacobs house without Dean. He was busy chasing down another lead. Mrs. Jacobs looked as weary worn as ever and had obviously been crying. It had been just four days since she’d laid her only daughter to rest at Forest Lawn Cemetery.
“Mrs. Jacobs,” I began, “I just wanted to follow up on the conversation we had last time I was here. They told me at the station that you may have additional information for me.”
“I may have,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s important or if it’s even anything at all.”
“What is it, Mrs. Jacobs?” I said.
She led me to the kitchen and pulled open the counter drawer. Several large knives and other utensils lay in the drawer. She looked up from it and remarked, “It was always right in here,” she said.
“What was?” I said.
“The carving knife,” she said. “The one with the deer antler handle. I always kept it right here and now that I think of it, I haven’t seen it for a couple of weeks. Just before Emily was… Before she went missing.”
She described the knife and I made a note of it. Then she pulled the drawer open a little further and reached in. She withdrew a two-pronged carving fork.
“The handle looked like this,” she said, handing me the fork. “It was a carving set we got for our anniversary last year.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Jacobs,” I said. “Do you mind if I keep this for a while? I’ll make sure you get it back when I’m finished with it.”
“Yes,” she said. “Take it along. I don’t care if I get it back or not.”
“If I hear anything further I’ll let you know,” I said and held her hand. “I’m so sorry about Emily, Mrs. Jacobs.”
As I returned to my car at the curb, Dean pulled up in a black and white with a uniformed officer behind the wheel.
“What’s up?” I said.
“The McCauley’s are home,” Dean said. “I thought you might want to get in on this one. They’re at the precinct now.”
>
“I’m right behind you,” I said, starting my car and following the patrol car west.
At our request, the McCauley’s had brought their son into the precinct for further interrogation. He denied all involvement, of course. We found a secluded room and Dean and I led the McCauley’s down the hall and closed the door behind us.
Mr. McCauley spoke first. “Look,” he said, “We came down here of our own free will. Nobody dragged us down here, so let’s get one thing straight right off the bat. Chet had nothing to do with the Jacobs girl’s murder.”
“Nobody’s accusing anybody,” I said. “We just need to tie up a few loose ends in our investigation and we appreciate your cooperation. You can call a lawyer if you’d like.”
“What for?” McCauley snapped back. “We don’t need one. Only guilty people need a lawyer, so get on with your questions and let’s get this over with.”
Dean and I asked the usual questions and got the usual responses or no responses at all. We knew we must be getting close to something, but what? After forty-five minutes, McCauley had had enough and took his wife and kid home with him. All we could do was watch as they walked out.
However, Emily Jacobs’ older brother, Edward, filled us in on Chet’s activities immediately following her disappearance. We spoke with him at the place where he worked, a car dealership on the east side of town.
“I’ll make this quick, Edward,” I said.
“Eddie,” he corrected me.
“All right, Eddie,” I said. “Your mother tells me you may be able to shed a little light on this boyfriend of Emily’s.”
“Some boyfriend,” he said, sarcastically. “He’d one bad apple. I just know it. Something didn’t ring true from day one.”
“How’s that?” I said.
“Well, when Emily didn’t come home, Mom sent me out with the car to look for her,” Eddie explained. “I thought of Chet and thought he might be able to take me to some of her hangouts, you know? Anyway, we drive around town for a couple of hours and he points out some of her favorite places. When we get there, I go out and ask around and he just sits there in the car, waiting for me to come out. He never got out at any of the places we stopped. He didn’t help look for her at all. It was as if he knew I wasn’t going to find her. Man, he was one cold fish.”
“Thanks, Eddie,” I said. “You’ve been a big help. I’ll let you know if we turn up anything else.”
As I walked away I heard Eddie over my shoulder, “Get that son-of-a-bitch, Mr. Cooper. I just know he killed my sister.”
I stopped and turned around to acknowledge him, but he was already walking back inside the dealership.
Later the next day we asked Chet if he’d take a polygraph test as a way to eliminate him as a suspect. He agreed, so Dean and I drove Chet and his father to the State Crime Lab where they had a polygraph expert waiting for us. The boy was strapped into the chair while my partner and I waited in another room behind a one-way mirror.
There was a little table in that room where we could take notes. We could observe the test going on. The polygraph expert would ask a question and mark the graph. If the subject was telling the truth, the polygraph administrator would give us the thumbs-up sign from behind his back. If the subject was lying, he’d give us the thumbs-down sign.
The administrator, Frank Dobbins, started with simple questions. “Is your name Chester McCauley?” he said
“Yes,” Chet said.
“Do you live at fifty-six twenty-seven Lexington Avenue?”
“Yes.”
“Do you own a nineteen eighty-three Chevrolet coupe?”
After a pause, Chet said, “Yes.”
Frank made a mark on the polygraph paper and showed us a thumb up behind him.
“Do you currently attend Hollywood High School?” Dobbins asked.
“Yes,” Chet answered calmly.
Again, the thumb up.
Do you know anything about the disappearance of Emily Jacobs?” Dobbins said. The needle rose on the paper, scratching ink back and forth across the page.
“Nope,” Chet said.
A thumb down.
“Did you kill Emily Jacobs?” Dobbins asked.
“No!” Chet screamed. He was agitated this time.
Again the needle swayed off center and again the thumb down.
In the middle of the test, Chet turned extremely white and slumped forward and started to fall out of the chair. He was quickly unstrapped and the test was halted. We came around from the room we were in and re-entered the polygraph room. Dobbins told us that the suspect was too tired to take the rest of the test.
Frank Dobbins took Dean and me aside and told us that he believed the suspect to be guilty. He also stated that he wanted to finish the test but that the suspect should get a good night’s sleep so they could resume in the morning. Chet and his father both agreed to come back the next day.
During the ride home, Dean and I talked extensively to Chet about our suspicions, trying to get him to confess. He would not cooperate. From the look on Chet’s father’s face, he seemed to be on our side at the time, believing that his son was involved in Emily’s death, but not actually wanting to say so.
The following day we waited at the detective bureau for Chet to return with his father. When they finally did return, they had a lawyer with them. The lawyer informed us that he was now representing the boy and that we couldn’t ask him any more questions. The lawyer was good and Chet kept his mouth shut.
Frustration had set in. I went back to my private practice and Dean moved on to other cases on his docket. Several months had passed and we were no closer to getting a confession from Chet McCauley than we were when we started. The deer-handled knife never surfaced until late one spring day in May.
It was the same knife. No doubt about it. The handle matched the carving fork in the Jacobs home. I’d know it anywhere and I recognized it that day when Dean called me to accompany him when he went to investigate a body on the banks of the Los Angeles River that ran past Forest Lawn Cemetery. It was the body of Chet McCauley and the deer-handled knife we’d been looking for was protruding out of his sternum.
From the looks of the body, he’d been in the water for a couple of days. The official report listed the cause of death as an accident, but only after input from several so-called experts that owed us favors. It was theoretically possible for a person to trip and fall on a knife at the river’s edge and float away undetected for two days. We also put in our report that Chet McCauley must have returned to the spot where he’d thrown the knife that night he’d killed Emily Jacobs. He obviously tripped on a rock on the riverbank and fell directly onto the knife. Case closed.
That’s the official report. Unofficially, we suspected that Eddie Jacobs had been keeping Chet under surveillance for quite some time. And when he followed him to the river’s edge and saw him recover the murder weapon, Eddie Jacobs decided not to let Chet fall through the cracks again and administered his own brand of justice.
At least that’s what we guessed. We never investigated further or pressed the matter and to tell you the truth, my conscience never bothered me one little bit.
When I got back to the office, I laid it all out for Gloria, ending with the discovery of Chet McCauley’s body in the river.
“Sounds like he got what he deserved,” Gloria said.
“Sometimes things just work out perfectly,” I said. “It makes up for the cases that go unsolved and drive a person nuts.”
Gloria smiled. “In some cases, that’s a short drive.”
50 - Two For One
It’s funny how it all worked out. I wasn’t even supposed to be here, not really. This was just supposed to be something to do to fill my lunch hour. Luckily I was self-employed and didn’t need to call any boss with some lame excuse as to why I wasn’t back to work yet. Sitting in the balcony of the county courthouse became a lot more interesting than I had anticipated and I decided to stay a while longer to catch the outcome
. The entire spectator area was filled to capacity, most of the people fanning themselves with whatever they could find. The temperature inside this building had climbed into the upper eighties and the courthouse air conditioning system had picked this particular day to break down. William Knight, the District Attorney and his adversary, a slick lawyer by the name of Leo Tucker, were trying their cases without their suit jackets. Their shirts stuck to their wet backs as they spoke.
On the floor below I watched with fascination the proceedings of a murder trial. The victim had been a thirteen-year-old girl named Sally Feldman. The accused was a thirty-eight-year-old man, who sat alongside his attorney, making notes and doodles on his yellow legal pad as both sides presented their cases to the jury of eight men and four women. I could almost read the faces of the four women jurors as they glanced over at the accused, Rudy Carver. I imagined them putting themselves in the young victim’s place during the last few moments of her life at the hands of this man.
The District Attorney called Officer Mike Gannon to the stand. Gannon was sworn in and took his seat, adjusting the microphone in front of him.
“Would you state your name and occupation for the record, please,” Knight said.
“Michael Gannon,” The officer said in a loud and clear voice. I’m a police officer in and for the country of Los Angeles.”
Knight continued speaking to Officer Gannon but was now looking into the faces of the jurors. “Officer Gannon, would you please tell the court about the arrest you made on the evening of May the twenty-ninth of this year?”
Gannon leaned into the microphone and said, “My partner, Ronald Schaefer and I were patrolling on Franklin Street during our regular shift. A woman on the corner of Franklin and Vine had flagged us down. She’d told us that she’d heard what sounded like screaming coming from an alley half a block away. She pointed to the alley in question and my partner and I immediately drove over to investigate.”
“And what did you find, Officer Gannon,” Knight said, still looking into the faces in the jury box.
The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories) Page 159