The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories)

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The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories) Page 188

by Bernico, Bill


  While she looked at them, I scanned through the photographs. There was a full body shot of Gordon lying in what looked like an alley. Another photo captured his head wound in full gory, color. The third photo was another full body shot from the opposite angle and the fourth photo was a close-up of Reese’s still holstered .38 under his arm. I handed the photos to Gloria and took the forms from her.

  “Do you suppose I could get copies of all these?” I said, gesturing to the file folder.

  Houser shook his head. “Those are the only photos we have,” he said. “I can photocopy the forms, if you like.”

  “Could you photocopy the pictures, too?” I said. “It doesn’t make any difference to me if they’re in black and white. I’d just like them for reference.”

  “Give me a minute,” Houser said, taking the file folder from me and retreating to an adjoining room. He returned a minute later with seven sheets and handed them to me with a paper clip on the corner. “You will let us know if you find out anything,” Houser said. It was not said with a question inflection in his voice.

  “Absolutely,” I said. “Thanks for your cooperation, Lieutenant.” I handed Houser one of my business cards and stood.

  Gloria and I headed for the door. She turned around and said to Houser, “This really is a clean, modern police department.”

  “You forgot tidy,” Houser said, and smiled.

  Gloria and I headed out the main door and noticed a delicatessen directly across the street. “Are you up for some lunch?” I said.

  “Great timing,” she said. “I just ate two donuts.”

  “Is that a no?” I said.

  “No it isn’t,” Gloria said. “Since you’re buying, I guess I’m still hungry.”

  We found a booth just inside the door and slid in. We each grabbed a menu from behind the napkin holder and studied it. I decided on the ham on rye with a glass of milk while Gloria chose a club sandwich and a cup of coffee. I started to watch the traffic outside the window. Gloria gave me a stern look.

  “What?” I said.

  “Is this your idea of lunchtime conversation?” she said.

  “I don’t know what it is with women,” I said. “They always feel the need to constantly be talking. I don’t get it. Two guys could have lunch together or ride across town together and not have to say a word. Why do women feel the need to always be talking?”

  “Must be something in our genes,” Gloria said. “We always want to know what’s going on around us. I’ll bet women would make better debaters.”

  “Probably,” I said. “But you can bet they’d get the buzzer more often than men when their time was up and they kept talking.”

  “So what are you saying?” Gloria said. “That you don’t want to talk?”

  “Only if we both have something to say,” I told her. “I don’t want to talk just to hear my own voice.”

  “All right,” Gloria said. “How about if we discuss the case? Would that be something that might interest you?”

  “I guess,” I said. “What would you like to know?”

  Gloria sighed heavily. “Well,” she said. “Don’t get too enthusiastic about it. Where do think we should start with this case?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure,” I said. “There’s not a whole lot to go on yet, is there?”

  Gloria was silent for a moment and then offered, “What about phone records? Either his home phone, his office phone or his cell phone may have a number on it we can use to get started. His wife would have gotten the bills for his office and home phone by now. She probably also has his cell phone lying around somewhere.”

  Our sandwiches and drinks arrived just then.

  “See,” I said. “That’s why you get the big bucks. You’re a thinker.”

  “And a talker, apparently,” Gloria said, giving me a sideways glance.

  “Touché,” I said and took a bite from my sandwich, washing it down with a swallow of milk.

  After we’d finished lunch, Gloria and I drove back over to see Mrs. Reese. I introduced her to Gloria and told her about our visit with Lieutenant Houser. She was able to find both telephone bills for the house and her husband’s business. The three of us sat at the kitchen table going over the bills. Gloria and I asked Marie Reese about some of the numbers on the printouts. Most could be explained simply and she knew who belonged to those numbers. There were two numbers on Gordon Reese’s office bill that she couldn’t identify. I wrote those two numbers down on my notepad and then turned to Marie.

  “Do you have a monthly bill for Gordon’s cell phone?” I said.

  “He didn’t get a bill,” Marie explained. “He had one of those pay as you go disposable cell phones.”

  “Did the police give you back his phone when they gave you the rest of his personal possessions?” Gloria said.

  Marie pulled open a kitchen drawer and withdrew a large manila envelope with Gordon’s name on it. She opened the clasp and dumped the contents out on the counter. Among the things that the police had taken from Gordon’s pockets was a small flip phone. I flipped it open and pressed the power button. It was dead. I looked at Marie.

  “It hasn’t been used since Gordon died,” Marie said. “It’s probably been on the whole time.”

  “Have you got the charger for it?” I said.

  Marie shook her head. “I looked for it recently and it’s nowhere in the house,” she said.

  I picked up the phone. “Would you mind if I took this along with us?” I said. “I’ll be sure to get it back to you when we finish looking at the contents.”

  Marie nodded. “Sure,” she said. “If you think it’ll help.”

  Gloria and I got up from the table and thanked Marie for her time and assistance and then headed back to my car.

  Out in the car Gloria held up the phone. “How are you going to get the information off this phone?” she said.

  “We passed a phone store on the way here,” I said. “We can get a cheap charger or just get a new battery. Hopefully it’ll be worth the expense and we’ll find something useful on the phone.”

  Gloria pointed out the window on her side. “Is that the store you’re talking about?” she said.

  “That’s the one,” I said, and pulled into the parking lot next to the store.

  We walked in and looked over the merchandise displays. A phone charger for Gordon’s phone was $12.95 and a replacement battery was $19.95. On another display rack we found the entire phone package, including the charger, a battery and ten minutes of talk time for $9.95.

  “Well, that’s a no-brainer,” I said, picking up the pre-paid phone in the shrink wrap package. Once we were back in the car, I ripped open the plastic package and pulled the phone out. The battery popped out of the back of the phone in just seconds and it took just a few more seconds to exchange the batteries. Gordon’s phone powered up this time. I handed the phone to Gloria.

  “Go ahead,” I said. “You’re probably more familiar with cell phones than I am. First give me the number of Gordon’s cell phone.”

  Gloria read off the number and I made a note of it. It ended in 4518.

  I pointed to Gordon’s phone. “Does it have a button to tell you what numbers were called from this phone?”

  Gloria hit a few buttons and in just a moment she had a list up on the screen. It was a short list, but a list nonetheless. She read off the first number, along with the date and time of the call. I checked my notepad for numbers I had written down while we were talking with Marie Reese.

  “No good,” I said. “That’s his home phone. Probably wanted to test it out when he first got it. What other numbers are on it?”

  Gloria scrolled down to the next number and read it off to me. It was dated one week after the first call. I checked my notepad. “That’s the phone store,” I said. “He probably called them to find out how to work some of the features on his new phone. Are there any other numbers?”

  The third number on Gordon’s phone was one that I didn’t
have in my notepad. This one was dated just two days before his death. The duration of the call was only ten seconds. I wrote it in the notepad with a question mark. There was a site on the web that had a reverse directory where you could input the number and it would tell you who that number belonged to.

  “Is that it?” I said, gesturing toward the phone in Gloria’s hand.

  “There’s one more,” she said and read the number off to me.

  “That’s the same number you just gave me,” I said. “Did you get to the end of the list?”

  “No,” Gloria said. “That number’s on here twice. The second time it’s dated the day he died, about an hour before.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “What’s the duration?”

  Gloria looked at the paper again. “Ten seconds again,” she said.

  “That’s where we’ll start. Let’s get back to the office and see who belongs to that number.”

  We headed south on the Hollywood Freeway and made it back to the office in twenty-five minutes. Gloria went directly to her laptop computer and found the reverse directory.

  “Give me that number again,” she said.

  I read her the number, she typed it in and hit Enter. Half a second later we were looking at the name that went with the last number Gordon Reese ever called.

  “What do you make of that?” I said.

  “That would explain a few things,” Gloria said.

  “Exactly,” I said. “Things like why the police have nothing to go on or why this case has been put on the back burner. They were probably just trying to outlast Marie, hoping she’d give up in frustration.”

  “Instead she called you,” Gloria said. “What are you going to do, Elliott?”

  “The only thing I can do,” I explained. “Follow through with it.”

  “But…”

  “But nothing,” I said. “If I don’t do something about this, I’ll never be able to look another client in the eye. I wouldn’t even be able to look back at the man shaving in the mirror every morning. No, I have to do this. You may not want to get involved, but I have to finish what I started here.”

  “Don’t be so quick to count me out,” Gloria said. “I have a conscience, too, you know.”

  “Well, then,” I said. “Let’s get to it. Which would you like to tackle, the Burbank Police Department or Marie Reese?”

  “Elliott,” Gloria said. “I think we need to stick together, whatever we do, unless you can suddenly grow eyes in the back of your head.”

  “You’re probably right,” I said. “Marie can wait. Let’s get back up to Burbank and see what Lieutenant Houser has to say.”

  “Lead the way,” I said, and locked up the office. Once again we found ourselves across the counter from Lieutenant Gregory Houser. He seemed surprised to see us again so soon.

  “Did you forget something?” Houser said, meeting us at the counter.

  “Just doing a little follow-up work,” I said. “I wonder if we might talk with you, Lieutenant.”

  “Certainly,” Houser said, lifting the hinged countertop and allowing us to pass into his area. “Won’t you have a seat?”

  I looked around. “Is there someplace a little more private where we can talk?”

  “This sounds serious,” Houser said.

  “It is,” I said.

  Houser led us to a door near the back of the public space and showed us inside. He flicked on the overhead light and directed us to sit at a conference table in the middle of the room.

  “Now what’s this all about?” Houser said.

  “Do you have your own cell phone, Lieutenant?” Gloria said.

  “Yes,” Houser said warily. “Why?”

  “Do you have it on you now?” I said.

  Houser reached around to a belt clipped phone holder and retrieved his cell phone. He held it out in front of him. “All right,” he said. “What did you want to know?”

  “Do you use it a lot?” Gloria said offhandedly.

  “I must confess,” Houser said. “I held off as long as I could, but technology caught up with me. I finally bought one of these things a little better than two months ago.”

  “And do you use it much?” Gloria said.

  “Look,” Houser said, “You want to get to the point? I have too much work to do to play twenty questions with you. Now what’s on your mind, young lady?”

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” Gloria said. “I had to ask those questions so I could get to my next one. The reason I asked how long you’ve had it and how much you used it was because I wanted to know if your phone’s history screen might still have a number on it from two months ago. That’s all I was getting at.”

  “Well, why on earth didn’t you just say so?” Houser said, a little annoyed now.

  Gloria held out her hand. “Would you mind if I took a look at it just for a minute,” she said.

  Houser shot me a glance. I nodded and he handed his cell phone to Gloria.

  Gloria paged through the menus until she came to Call History and hit a button that displayed all of Houser’s received calls. She scrolled through eight or nine and then came to the one she was looking for. She held the screen up so that Houser could see it.

  “Yes?” he said, a bit puzzled now.

  Gloria pulled Gordon’s cell from her pocket and flipped it open to his History page. She hit the button that displayed Calls Made and scrolled down to Houser’s number. It showed the date, time and duration of the call. She held the phone next to Houser’s.

  “It would appear that Gordon Reese called your phone twice, Lieutenant,” Gloria said. “This first call was made just two days before he died. The second call was made less than an hour before he died. It looks like you were the last person that Gordon Reese called.”

  Houser held the two phones in his two hands. There was no getting around the facts. “The dates of those calls,” Houser said. “That was just a few days after I bought the phone. I wasn’t sure how to use it at that point. As you can see, the calls each lasted just ten seconds, about the time it would take for my phone to ring a couple of times before the caller gave up and disconnected. Both of them are identical. I remember getting a couple of calls early on but by the time I pulled it off my belt and got it open, the ringing had stopped. I looked on my caller I.D. but all it said was ‘Number Unavailable’ and no name. I guess that’s what comes up with these disposable phones.”

  “So you never talked with Gordon Reese then?” I said.

  Houser shook his head. “Never,” he said.

  “Well, it sure looks like he wanted to talk to you, Lieutenant,” I said. “You have no idea what he wanted, do you?”

  “Not a clue,” Houser said. “Sorry.”

  I sighed and pursed my lips. “And that puts us right back to square one,” I said.

  “Lieutenant,” I said. “Would you mind if I just asked around the station here, you know, a little informal like? I promise I won’t try to ruffle anyone’s feathers. I just want to get a feel for some of your officers and see if anything jumps out at me.”

  “What are you going to ask them?” Houser said.

  “I’m not sure myself,” I said. “But I have nowhere else to go with this investigation. Just a couple of hours should do it one way or the other. If it still leads nowhere, I’ll just tell Mrs. Reese that we hit a dead end and drop the whole matter.”

  Houser thought for a moment and then agreed to let me speak to a couple of his men. He excused himself, walked back into the public area and hit his intercom button. I could hear him from where we were sitting.

  “Sergeant Landry,” Houser said. “Would you come in here for a minute?”

  A few seconds later a tall man in a starched blue uniform walked in. Houser turned to me and said, “Elliott Cooper, this is Sergeant Landry. He’ll take you around to see the men who are still in the building.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” I said, and then turned my attention to the sergeant. I shook Landry’s hand and then int
roduced him to Gloria. She shook his hand as well and the three of us headed for the door to the hallway.

  Sergeant Landry walked us to what appeared to be a lunchroom. There were three officers seated at the tables. They were drinking coffee and eating sandwiches. Landry introduced us to the three officers and told us he’d be back in a few minutes. Gloria and I sat across from the officers.

  “Would you mind if we asked you all just a couple of questions?” I said.

  None of the men objected so Gloria asked the first question. “Have any of you heard of Gordon Reese?” she said. “He was a private investigator.”

  “Reese,” one of them mumbled. “Doesn’t ring any bells with me.” He turned to the cop sitting next to him. “What about you, Tom?”

  Tom shook his head. “Nope,” he said.

  The third cop thought for a moment and then said, “Reese, wasn’t he that gumshoe who was killed a while back? I’m thinking a month or two ago.”

  “Yes, he was,” I said. “It was just two months ago. We’re trying to find a lead on the case. Anything you can remember about him might be helpful.”

  The third cop shook his head. “I wasn’t involved with that case,” he said. “I just remembered hearing about it. Sorry.”

  “Would any of you know any officers who were involved with that case?” I said.

  Tom and the first officer shook their heads. The third cop said, “The guy I heard this from was on second shift. His name is Kevin Murphy. You can probably catch him here around three if you care to come back.”

  I made a note of the name and thanked him. Just then Sergeant Landry came back for us. He took us around to several other officers who couldn’t give us any additional information. Landry walked us to the front door and we thanked him for his cooperation. “I guess we’ll have to stop back around three,” I said. “There’s one more officer who may have some information for us, but he doesn’t come on until then.”

 

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