Dean twisted the strap, looked the rifle over and said, “It’s a .30-30 Winchester.” Dean gave Clay a knowing look before handing the rifle back to the patrolman. “Get this over to ballistics right away,” Dean told the patrolman. “Make sure no one, including yourself, touches the rifle itself.”
“Yes, sir,” the patrolman said, laying the rifle on the back seat of the black and white cruiser. He drove away and another cruiser took its place in the street.
Clay pulled Dean aside from the crowd. “Someone’s going to have to tell Mrs. Ahern that her husband is dead,” he said. “How about if I go with you?”
“You’re volunteering to tell a wife that her husband is dead?” Dean said. “Normally no one wants that duty. Why are you so eager to tell her?”
“I’m not really eager,” Clay said. “But I had a hunch that she knew more than she was telling me when I was there. She might open up if her husband isn’t there hovering over her. It’s worth a shot, isn’t it?”
Dean agreed and Clay stepped over to where Gloria and I were talking.
“Elliott,” Dad said. “Dean and I are going over to see Mrs. Ahern. I may not see you two anymore today, so let’s meet tomorrow morning back in the office.”
On the way over to the Ahern house, Clay turned to Dean and said, “How about if we don’t tell her right away that Louis is dead?” he said.
“What?” Dean said. “Why?”
“Because without Louis around she may open up to us,” Clay said. “After we tell her about him, she may not be able to talk to us.”
“Good idea,” Dean said. “You can just try to pick up the conversation where you left off. I’ll stay out of it until we have what we need.”
Dean parked in front of the Ahern house and two of them stepped up onto the porch. Clay rang the bell and the two men waited. Mrs. Ahern answered the door and invited them inside.
“Mrs. Ahern,” Clay said, “this is Lieutenant Dean Hollister of the L.A.P.D. Would you mind if we both talked to you just a little bit more about the Watsons?”
The woman looked puzzled. “Louis isn’t home. What more can I tell you?” she said.
They all sat in the living room and Clay began the conversation. “Mrs. Ahern,” he said. “Had your husband shown any signs of strange behavior lately?”
“What do you mean by strange behavior?” she said.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Clay said. “Maybe talking too much about the Watsons or about Olivia Watson in particular?”
Mrs. Ahern shifter her gaze between Clay and Dean, her hands fidgeting in her lap. “Why would you ask such a question?” she said.
“No particular reason,” Clay said. “Think back. Did he mention Olivia Watson more often than you might have thought necessary?”
“Now that you mention it,” she said, “I thought it was a little strange that he’d talk about her and not about Mr. Watson. Louis would bring her up at the most inopportune times for no reason at all. As a matter of fact, he mentioned her just yesterday again.”
“Can you remember what he said?” Clay asked.
“Louis said that we wondered how Olivia was getting along without a husband now that Mr. Watson was dead,” she said. “He never cared about either of them before.”
Dean spoke up. “Mrs. Ahern, does Louis have a home office or a den in this house?”
Mrs. Ahern looked at me and then at Dean. She nodded and rose from her chair. “He has an office in the basement,” she said, gesturing toward the basement door.
“May we see it?” Dean said.
“Louis might not like it,” she said. “He’s very private and protective about his office. He doesn’t even like me to come in sometimes.”
“It’s important, Mrs. Ahern,” Dean said. “Can we have a look?”
She wrung her hands, hesitated for a moment and then said, “Just a quick look. Louis may be home any minute. I don’t want him to find us in there.”
She led us down the basement steps and over to a door with a hasp and a padlock on it.
“Does he always keep it locked?” Dean said.
“Yes,” she said, “but I know where he keeps the key. He doesn’t know I know, so don’t tell him.”
“We won’t,” Clay said. “And we won’t make a mess. We just want to have a quick look.”
Mrs. Ahern lifted a lamp from a small table outside Louis’s office and found a small, brass key under it. She unlocked the padlock and lifted it off. She stepped aside while Dean and Clay entered the office and flipped on the light switch. Mrs. Ahern followed close behind. She gasped when she saw all the photos of Olivia Watson taped to the walls of her husband’s office.
Behind the desk on the wall were at least three dozen photos of Olivia Watson, all in candid shots. It was obvious that she didn’t know she was being photographed. Some of the shots were a little grainy and looked as though they’d been taken with a telephoto lens. The wall to the left of the desk had just as many photos, all candid shots of Olivia Watson.
Clay reached over and pressed the Enter key on the laptop computer that sat on top of the desk. The screen came alive and there was another picture of Olivia Watson in the nude. Mrs. Ahern made a small squeaking noise and placed one hand over her mouth.
“Looks like he’s taken this obsession to the extreme,” Dean said, glancing at the photo.
Clay leaned in for a closer look. “That’s not Olivia Watson,” he said. “Oh, the head is hers, but it’s been edited onto an existing nude body of some other woman. This isn’t a very good editing job. I can still see the different skin tones between the shoulders of the body shot and Olivia Watson’s neck.”
“But why would Louis have all these pictures of Mrs. Watson?” Mrs. Ahern said.
“Because he was infatuated with her,” Clay said. “And that’s why he killed Mr. Watson.”
Mrs. Ahern’s eyes got narrow. “What are you saying?” she said. “Are you accusing Louis of killing Mr. Watson?”
“It’s beginning to look like it,” Dean said. “And when Clay here came over earlier asking questions of both of you, Mr. Ahern began to get uncomfortable with it all. He was afraid we’d find out that he had killed Mr. Watson.”
“And that’s another part of why we came to see you, Mrs. Ahern,” Clay said.
Mrs. Ahern sat on a chair next to the desk and sighed. She dropped her head and waited.
“Mrs. Ahern,” Dean said. “There was a shooting tonight in Hollywood. Your husband Louis was shooting at Clay from a rooftop. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Louis was shot in the exchange.”
She looked up quickly and shifted her gaze between Clay and Dean. “Is he…?” she said.
Dean nodded. “I’m afraid so, Mrs. Ahern. He was killed trying to shoot Clay’s son. They took his body to the morgue. I’d like you to come down and make a formal identification, if you think you can.”
Mrs. Ahern buried her face in her hands and wept. Dean laid a hand on her shoulder and patted it.
“We’d better go now,” Dean said. “Let me help you up.”
The three of us drove back to the twelfth precinct and from there it was a short walk down the hall to the morgue. A few minutes later, Dean walked Mrs. Ahern back to his office for a formal statement. I left the two of them there and called Elliott to come pick me up.
When we got back to the office, Gloria was nowhere to be found. Dad and I sat on the leather sofa against the wall, kicked our shoes off and slumped down into the soft leather folds.
“One hell of a case,” I said. “I’ll give Olivia a call in the morning and have her come in so the three of us can fill her in on what’s happened.”
Dad was about to answer me when our office door opened and an older woman walked in. She was a bit hunched over, wearing a long overcoat. She wore black, chunky-heeled shoes like I’d seen many a grandmother wearing. Her head was wrapped in a brightly colored scarf and she wore thick glasses down on her nose. A large, black purse dangled from her arm. She
remained hunched over, but raised her head to look at us.
“Excuse me, young man,” she said. “My name is Emily Crumford. Can you tell me where I can find Mr. Cooper?”
“That’s me,” Dad and I both said in unison. We stood to greet the woman.
“What is it we can do for you today,” I said, gesturing toward my client’s chair.
The woman sat and snapped open her purse, withdrawing a lace handkerchief and dabbing at her nose with it. She dropped the handkerchief back into her purse and snapped it shut again. She looked up at me and said, “I’d like to hire you to find a woman who cheated me out of three thousand dollars.”
“We could probably do that,” I said. “Can you give me the woman’s name?”
The old woman held one index finger in the air. “Give me a moment,” she said. “It’s on the tip of my tongue. Yes, I remember now. Her name was Gloria Campbell.”
I shot a look at Dad. He looked just as surprised as I did. I looked back at Emily Crumford. “Are you sure you have the right name?” I said. “Gloria Campbell. That’s the woman who cheated you out of three thousand dollars? How’d she do that?”
Emily sighed and said, “I hired her two years ago to find my stolen jewelry and she took my money and never gave me my necklace. I tried finding her at her old office, but it’s been closed for some time now.”
“Mrs. Crumford,” I said. “Was this Gloria Campbell a private investigator?”
“Yes,” Emily said. “I gave her the three thousand dollars that she asked for and I found out from someone else that she did recover my necklace. I think she’s keeping it and my money. I want you to find her and make her give it back.”
Clay stepped up to the woman. “Mrs. Crumford, we have a woman working for us with that same name, that’s why we have to be very sure that we’re all talking about the right Gloria Campbell.”
“I knew it,” Emily said. “You people all stick up for each other. I had a feeling you’d try to sweep this under the rug.” Emily stood now and opened her handbag. She withdrew a small automatic and aimed it at Clay. She shifted her aim between me and Dad. “Slowly put your weapons on the table,” she said. “I don’t want to have to shoot you, but you will do as you’re told. Now slowly pick them out of their holsters with your thumb and forefinger and lay them down on this desk here in front of me.”
Dad and I each did as we were told and laid our guns on the desk.
“Now step back, away from them,” Emily said.
We stepped back and watched as Emily scooped up the two guns and dropped them in her purse. She pointed the gun at Clay and said, “You look like you’re the boss around here. Sit down and write what I tell you.” She pointed with her small automatic to the seat behind my desk.
Clay sat and picked up his pencil and yellow legal pad and waited for further instructions.
The old woman cleared her throat and said, “Write, ‘Give Gloria Campbell a raise effective immediately. She has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that her skills in makeup and disguise are invaluable’.”
Toward the end of that last sentence, the woman’s voice changed from frail and shaky to the recognizable voice that I had been used to hearing for the last eighteen months. Clay looked up from the pad, a puzzled look on his face. I caught on right away and had to laugh. Gloria untied the scarf and pulled it off her head. She plucked the wig from her head and threw it on the desk, the thick glasses landing on top of it. She pointed the small automatic at Clay and squeezed the trigger. A steady stream of water splashed in his face and ran down his nose. Gloria turned to me and emptied the gun in my face.
She threw the squirt gun on the desk, slipped out of the overcoat and bent over, laughing, her hands on her knees. “You two should see your faces. I wish I had a camera.”
Clay wiped his face with his handkerchief, grabbed the yellow sheet off the pad and crumpled it up, throwing it at Gloria. “Very funny,” he said. “You could have gotten yourself shot pulling a stunt like that.”
Gloria shook her head confidently. “Not very likely,” she said. “I had the drop on you two. You think maybe you’re both in line for a P.I. refresher course?”
“You know you can kiss that raise goodbye,” I said.
“Oh, come on,” Gloria said. “Can’t you two take a joke?”
I thought about it for a second before calmly walking over to my sink and filling a glass with water. I took a small sip and then threw the rest of it in Gloria’s face.
She wiped her eyes and cheeks and looked at me with fury in her eyes.
“What’s the matter?” Clay said laughing. “Can’t you take a joke?”
Gloria softened and smiled. Soon she was laughing, too.
The following morning Clay called Olivia Watson and asked her to come to the office at nine o’clock. She came in ten minutes early.
He explained everything that had happened up to that point and waited for a reaction from her.
“Louis Ahern was infatuated with me?” she said, not believing all Clay was telling her.
“Looks like it,” Clay said. “He had enough photos of you in his office to start his own fan club. And it was just like you suspected. Your husband wasn’t one of The Rooftop Sniper’s victims. Louis Ahern just tried to make it seem that way. I guess by his way of thinking, all he had to do was eliminate Conrad and sooner or later he could make his move. I know, it sounds a bit twisted, but that apparently was his plan.”
“Thank you so much, Mr. Cooper,” Olivia said, getting to her feet now. “Nothing will bring Conrad back to me, but at least now I can try to put this whole terrible mess behind me and move on.” She turned her attention to Gloria and said, “And thank you, Miss Campbell.”
“You’re welcome, Mrs. Watson,” Gloria said. “I wish you well.”
Olivia Watson turned and left the office without a further word.
I stepped up to where Dad and Gloria were standing. “How do you like that?” I said. “She thanked the two of you and completely ignored me. And I was the one who took down her husband’s killer. That’s gratitude for you.”
“What about me?” Clay said. “If I hadn’t made the Cagney connection, we’d have never been able to determine that her husband wasn’t just another Rooftop Sniper victim.”
“What about that Rooftop Sniper,” Gloria said. “What’s going to happen with him?”
“That’s not our problem,” Clay said. “Leave that one to the police. They’ll get him. They always do.”
“Speaking of your Cagney connection,” Elliott said. “Suppose you tell us about that photo of J.C. you have hanging on the wall over there.”
“You just now noticed it?” Clay said. “It’s only been hanging there for a little more than twenty-five years now. And you call yourself a trained observer.”
“It has?” I said. “Funny I never noticed it before. Where’d you get it?”
Clay sat and put his feet up on the desk. “Pull up a chair, you two. This is a pretty interesting story.”
Gloria and I pulled up our chairs and waited for Dad to continue.
“As you may remember,” Clay said. “I’ve always been a huge Cagney fan. Anyway, back in late 1985 after I’d watched Man of a Thousand Faces for about the twelfth time, I decided to send Cagney a letter and see if he would reply.”
“Man of a Thousand Faces?” Gloria said. “What’s that?”
“It was a movie biopic Cagney made about the life of silent screen star, Lon Chaney,” Clay explained. “It was my favorite Cagney movie of all time and I told him so in my letter. I remember specifically telling him that I’d seen the movie at least a dozen times. I thought I was being pretty clever when I said, ‘that’s twelve thousand faces’ in that letter. Well, I didn’t hear back from him and figured he wasn’t into answering fan mail.”
“But you got the photo,” I said.
“Yes,” I said. “A short time later I read in the paper that they’d taken Cagney to the hospital. Something about a
n infected toe, probably as a result of his diabetes. I wrote another letter without all the gushy fan praise and just wished him a speedy recovery. Again I didn’t hear back from him for a few months. Then one night I was watching the news and they said that James Cagney had just died at age eighty-six. That was at the end of March. Sometime in July, right around the time of my birthday, I got a large manila envelope with a return address from somewhere in upstate New York.”
“Who do you know in New York?” I said.
“You want to just sit there and listen to my story?” Clay said, “Or do you want to keep interrupting?”
“Go ahead,” I said.
“Anyway,” Clay said, “I opened it and found an autographed eight by ten glossy photo of James Cagney inside. There was nothing else in the envelope, just the autographed photo. I took another look at the return address on the envelope and the name on it was Frances Cagney, Jimmy’s wife. And then I realized that she had probably read my letter and had sent me the autographed photo. It’s been hanging there ever since.”
“That’s a great story,” Gloria said. “Is that the only picture you have of him?”
“That’s the only one I have from him, and signed by him” Clay said. “I have some others that I bought at a book store years ago, but this one is my prized possession.”
“What do the others look like?” I said.
“One is a full length shot of him standing next to some fancy car,” Clay said. “I bought another of him sitting next to Joan Blondell. That’s a two-shot.”
“A two-shot?” Gloria said. “What’s a two-shot?”
“A two-shot,” I explained, “Is generally a picture shot from the waist up and there are two people in the photo.”
“Then what do you call that one hanging there?” I said.
“When it’s taken from the shoulders up, it’s referred to as a head shot, or close-up,” I said.
“Maybe The Rooftop Sniper had a similar picture,” Gloria said.
“Huh?” Clay said.
“Think about all his victims,” she said. “They were all…”
“A head shot,” I said. “Interesting. It might be worth sharing with Dean, but it can wait until tomorrow.”
The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories) Page 171