“From what Dean tells me,” Clay said, “They don’t have anything to go on. This latest serial killer is good at covering his tracks or at not leaving any clues at all. What makes you two think we can do what the police haven’t been able to do so far?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I said. “Sometimes we have the advantage of not being police officers. They have to follow certain procedures that we don’t and that works to our advantage sometimes.”
“So where did you plan to start looking?” Clay said.
Gloria and I both stammered and shifted our feet. “I was thinking maybe you could ask Dean if we could get a look at the records,” I said. “You two are thick as thieves and it might work out to Dean’s advantage to have us looking into this. If we find something out that they couldn’t, it could only help their case, don’t you think?”
“When the going gets tough,” Clay said, “they all come to me. See, that’s where experience counts just as much as youthful enthusiasm. Okay, let me go and see what Dean thinks of all this. I’ll be back in an hour or so. Think you two can stay out of trouble until I get back?”
“Okay, Daddy,” I said sarcastically. “Will you bring us some toys?”
Clay shook his head and left the office, mumbling something about kids.
“We’re not just going to sit here, are we?” Gloria said.
“Hell no,” I said. “Let’s go out and dig up some leads of our own. Remember, we have youthful enthusiasm on our side. How about if we pay Andy Reynolds a visit?”
“What can the M.E. tell us?” Gloria said.
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” I said. “Come on. We’re burning daylight.”
“Burning daylight?” Gloria said, her eyebrows furrowing. “What are you, some kind of cowboy taking the herd to Abilene?”
“It’s just an expression,” I said. “Perhaps you would prefer if I said time’s a-wastin’?”
“Forget it,” Gloria said. “At least now I know what to get you for Christmas.”
“Yeah?” I said. “And what would that be?”
“A reference book of current sayings,” she said, laughing.
Andy was in his office when we arrived. Out in the work room there was a body lying on the table, its chest cavity yawning open. Andy was making notes on a form and looked up as we entered.
“Well, if it isn’t the Bobsey Twins,” Andy said, smiling.
Gloria looked at me. “Make that two copies,” she said.
“Two copies?” Andy said. “Did I miss something? Two copies of what?”
“Never mind,” I told Andy. “Gloria’s just being a smart ass today.”
All right,” Andy said, shifting his gaze from Gloria to me. “What can I do for you two?”
“I don’t suppose I’d be violating any client confidentiality if I told you her name,” I said. “After all, you’ll find it out when I tell you whose death we’re looking into.”
“Is it someone who passed through this office?” Andy said.
I nodded. “About five months ago,” Gloria said. “You probably worked on a guy named Conrad Watson. It was assumed that he was the fifth victim of the Rooftop Sniper.”
“Assumed?” Andy said. “Is there something to lead you to believe otherwise?”
“Yes,” I said. “Our client, Mrs. Watson. She’s not convinced that her husband was just another sniper victim. We’re looking into it if for no other reason than for her peace of mind.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation,” Andy said, “she’s not the first spouse to come around asking questions about their deceased loved ones. Seems like everyone’s sure that their husband or wife was not a sniper victim, but rather a victim of someone they actually knew.”
“Really?” Gloria said. “And what did those other autopsies reveal?”
“So far,” Andy said. “They all fall into the same category of Rooftop Sniper victim.”
“All of them?” I said.
“Just what are you expecting to uncover?” Andy said.
“That’s just it,” I said. “I don’t know. I may not even know it when I see it, but I at least have to look.”
“At what?” Andy said.
I shrugged. “Could we take a look at anything you have on Watson?” I said.
“Not much to look at,” Andy said. “Couple of photos, some reports and half a page of my notes. If any of those will help your client get closure, then by all means, go for it.” Andy swiveled his chair around and pulled open a drawer in his filing cabinet. He withdrew a file and laid it out in front of me. “That’s everything I have on Watson. You’ll have to look at it here. This stuff can’t leave my office. I have to finish up on the last night’s victim. Just leave the folder there when you’re done looking at it.”
“Thanks, Andy,” Gloria said.
Gloria sat in Andy’s chair and I stood looking over her shoulder at the papers in front of us. The photos of Conrad Watsons exploded head made my stomach rumble. I picked up the photos and turned them face down, picking up the autopsy report instead. Watson was depicted on this form as a drawing, showing where the bullet had entered and exited his head.
“What’s this word?” Gloria said, holding Andy’s handwritten notes up for me to see. “He’s got the penmanship skills of a doctor.”
I looked at the word, trying to determine if it said ‘wart’ or ‘want’. “I think it says wart,” I told her.
“Well then, according to Andy,” Gloria said, “Mr. Watson had a wart on his neck. What does that prove?”
“Nothing that I can see,” I said. “What else do we have?”
Gloria scanned through the notes and came up empty. “Zip,” she said.
“Does it say anything about what caliber bullet killed Watson?” I said.
“It says here that all seven of the victims were shot with a .30-30 but the police hadn’t released that information,” Gloria said. “I guess they didn’t want any copycat killers getting any ideas.”
“What did you say?” I said.
Gloria looked at me, puzzled. “I said the police hadn’t released that information,” she repeated.
“No,” I said. “That other part about a copycat killer. You just gave me an idea.”
“I did?” Gloria said. “About what?”
I sat on the edge of Andy’s desk and turned toward Gloria. “Suppose a person with a grudge wanted to kill someone else and get away with it. What better way than to make it look like their target was just another victim of the current serial killer? The police would automatically assume that this latest victim was just another unfortunate soul on the serial killer’s list and they wouldn’t even bother looking for any other suspects.”
“Are we talking perfect murder here?” Gloria said. “There isn’t supposed to be any such thing as a perfect murder. The killer always slips up by leaving a clue or a motive or something else that points to them as the murderer.”
“Unless someone like us comes snooping around,” I said. “If Olivia hadn’t come to us, and if the current serial killer would be shot dead by police, he wouldn’t even be around to refute any evidence to the contrary and Watson’s real killer would walk away Scott free.”
“Now all we have to do is find said evidence,” Gloria said. “That’s the hard part.”
“But that’s why they pay us the big bucks,” I said. “Let’s wait and see if Dad turns up anything at the twelfth precinct.”
Clay Cooper sat across of Lieutenant Hollister and stretched in his chair. “Cripes,” Clay said. “My back is killing me. If this is any indication of what I have to look forward to, well, then just shoot me now.”
Dean Hollister reached into his jacket and grabbed the butt of his .38. He pulled it out just far enough so Clay could get a quick look at it. “Say when,” he told Clay.
Clay raised one eyebrow. “You would, wouldn’t you?”
“What are friends for?” Dean said. “You’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you?”
“Speaking of doing things for each other,” Clay said. “Any chance you’d let me have a look at your files regarding this Rooftop Sniper case?”
Dean released his grip on the butt of his .38 and let it drop back into his shoulder holster. “Where’s this coming from?” he said.
“We picked up a client this morning,” Clay said, standing and stretching his back from side to side. “She’s convinced that her husband was not one of the sniper’s victims and she’s asked us to look into it for her.”
“Olivia Watson, I would guess,” Dean said. “She’s in here every other day asking if we have any more information on her husband’s death. I keep telling her that it’s an ongoing investigation and that we still don’t have anything more than we had the last time she stopped in. But she keeps coming in, insisting that we’re not looking in the right place for her husband’s killer. I’m really getting tired of seeing her.”
“Is there anything in what she says?” Clay asked.
“Hell, I don’t know,” Dean said. “I suppose there’s always that one percent chance.”
“Then you won’t mind if I look at the file on Watson?” Clay said.
Dean’s eyebrows furrowed. “What are you expecting to find?” Dean said.
“Maybe nothing,” Clay said. “I might not even know it if I see it, but I at least have to be able to tell Olivia Watson that I tried. You never know, if I look into this thing, she may stop coming in to see you. It would be worth letting me look just for that benefit, wouldn’t it?”
Dean shrugged. “If only,” he said, swiveling around to face his filing cabinet. He pulled out a folder with Watson, Conrad typed on a label across the front of the folder and handed it over the desk to me. “The file can’t leave here,” Dean said. “But have yourself a look and see if the killer’s name jumps out at you.”
“Thanks, Dean,” Clay said. “You just go on doing whatever it was you were doing before I bothered you. I’ll be quiet as a mouse. You won’t even know I’m here.”
Clay slid his chair back, further away from Dean’s desk so he could shuffle through the file without disturbing Dean. Clay checked the autopsy report and the initial report from the murder scene. He looked at a very short arrest record for Conrad Watson. There were only two entries, one for driving under the influence and another for a domestic disturbance. He dismissed these as inconsequential and kept looking for something, anything that might point him in another direction. Clay found notes about Watson’s neighbors, several of whom had made formal statements to the police regarding the domestic disturbance complaint. They all said about the same thing, that Watson had been yelling at his wife and that they could hear the sounds of things being smashed or broken in the house.
One statement stood out from the others. It was from a neighbor named Louis Ahren, who lived just one door to the west of the Watsons. When interviewed by police about the Watsons, Mr. Ahern had been quoted as saying that he thought that if the Watsons weren’t separated, that he was sure one of them would end up dead. Clay set this form aside and kept searching.
Further into the file Clay found a handwritten note that said simply, ‘Ahern lying?’ and was underlined twice. He pulled this note out of the folder and set it on top of the other form he’d set aside. The rest of the folder yielded nothing Clay could use. He closed the folder and laid it back on Dean’s desk.
“Finished with this?” Dean said, picking up the folder.
“Just about,” Clay said, holding up the two pieces of paper. “I just had a question or two regarding these two items.” He handed the report to Dean and said, “In this interview it say that the Watson’s neighbor, Louis Ahern said something about hoping the Watsons would be separated otherwise one of them might end up dead. Did you ask him what he meant by that, or did he offer anything else besides that statement?”
“You got everything I got out of the guy,” Dean said. “I guess he was just saying that those two would have been better off apart. At least that’s what I got out of it. Anything else?”
Clay held up Dean’s handwritten two-word note and waited for an explanation.
Dean took the note and read it again and then looked at Clay. “This looks like it was a note to myself,” he said. “I think I wrote that because at the time, it felt like Ahern wasn’t being totally candid with me. I don’t know, but it felt like he was holding something back.”
“Would you have any objections if I went over there and talked to him?” Clay said.
Dean dropped the note back into the folder and returned the folder to the file cabinet. “You think he’s going to tell you anything that he wouldn’t tell me?” Dean said.
Clay shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m just grasping at straws. It might be something and then again it might lead nowhere, but I won’t know for sure unless I try.”
“Sure,” Dean said. “Just make sure I get any information that you get from him.”
“That’s a given,” Clay said.
“Go,” Dean said, waving his four fingers underhand, like a mother telling her child to go outside and play. Dean’s phone rang just then.
Dean held his index finger up to Clay and picked up his phone. “Hollister,” he said.
“Dean,” Eric answered, “It’s Eric. Do you have the file on victim number five in this Rooftop Sniper case? It’s not here with the rest of them.”
“Yes, I have it,” Dean said. “I pulled it out yesterday when Mrs. Watson stopped by. Do you need it?”
“I’m laying them all out over here in room 128,” Eric said. “I need the file to continue analyzing the bunch of them. All right if I stop in and get it?”
“Never mind,” Dean said. “Clay Cooper is here in my office. He was just coming by that way on his way out. He’ll drop it off in a minute or so.” Dean pulled the mouthpiece away from his mouth but didn’t cover it with his hand when he said, “Won’t you, Clay?”
Clay sighed. “Sure,” he said. “Where am I taking it?”
“To room 128, right down the hall,” Dean said to Clay and then put the phone’s mouthpiece back to his mouth. “You’ll have it in a minute or so, Eric.”
“Perfect,” Eric said. “I’ll leave a space for it.”
Dean pulled the folder back out of his file cabinet and handed it to Clay. Clay got up, took the folder from Dean and hurried out of the office, closing the door behind him.
Detective Sergeant Eric Anderson sat in the empty office with five file folders laid out on the table. He had all of the victim folders except for Conrad Watson, which Dean still had after Mrs. Watson’s visit to his office the day before. Eric had spread them all out on a wooden six foot table. There was an identical table against the opposite wall. Eric dragged it alongside the first table, making a twelve foot work area for himself. He laid out the five folders on the far end of the first table and opened each one, pulling out the information sheet on each victim and laying them on the second table.
Victim number one was a fifty-one year old man from Hollywood named Thomas Powers. At this point, Eric was interested in just the victims’ names. He pulled the information sheet out of victim number two’s folder and laid it next to the first one. This victim’s name was Matthew Nolan, 38, a car salesman from Burbank. Victim number three was a forty-two year old man from Pasadena by the name of James Kincaid. Number four was another man from Hollywood, a thirty-three year old lumber mill owner named Edward Bartlett.
Eric grabbed the next folder and noticed that it was labeled as number six. He left a space for number five and laid the file on victim number six, labeled Steven Collins, 40, from West Hollywood at the end of the others. The newest file, file number seven from tonight, was still being filled with information from the various departments who hadn’t completed their initial investigations yet.
Clay found room 128 and knocked.
“It’s open,” Eric shouted from inside.
Clay stepped in and handed Eric the Watson folder.
“What are you doing?” Clay said.
“Huh? Oh this,” Eric said, pointing at the sheets. “I was talking with Lieutenant Hollister about the data we’d collected on all the sniper victims and there didn’t seem to be any connection at all. I just thought I’d lay them out, side by side and see if anything jumps out at me.”
“You’re only looking at the single information sheets?” Clay said.
“It’s a place to start,” Eric said. “If this doesn’t pan out, I’ll try comparing the crime scene photos or the witness statements. Something’s got to pop.”
“Mind if I have a look?” Clay said.
Eric stood aside and waved with his arm across the table top. “Be my guest,” he said.
Clay stood alongside Eric and glanced down at the collection of victim sheets. He spoke softly, almost to himself, as he read the headings on each sheet. “Thomas Powers, Matthew Nolan, James Kincaid,” he said softly and then stopped. “Kincaid?”
“You catch something?” Eric said.
“Just the Kincaid name,” Clay said. “You don’t hear that one too often.” He continued mumbling the other victims’ names as he scanned each document. “Bartlett, Watson and Collins.” He looked at Eric. “Are these in the order that the victims were killed?”
“Yes,” Eric explained. “The first one, Powers, was killed early last year and the last one, or I should say the second to last one, number six, was killed five weeks ago. I don’t have folder number seven yet. That would be tonight’s victim and they’re not finished processing it yet. I don’t even know the last victim’s name.” Then he remembered the slip of paper Dean had given him at the latest murder scene. “Wait a minute,” Eric said. “Maybe I do.” He unfolded the paper and laid it at the end of the table, after victim number six’s sheet.
Clay looked at the paper and his eyes got wide.
“What is it, Clay?” Eric said.
The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories) Page 169