“And the old guy was still alive after that?” I said.
“Apparently,” Dean said. “The officer told the daughter to bring him a glass of milk while they were waiting for the ambulance to arrive. He tried to get Shapiro to drink some of the milk but he was just thrashing around so much that he couldn’t do it. The second officer just grabbed Shapiro by the nose and pulled his head back while the first officer forced the milk down his throat anyway.”
“You’d have thought this guy would be screaming out in agony,” Gloria said.
“They did what they could for him,” Dean said, ‘but it was too little, too late. You saw the results for yourselves.”
“Well, when did the sister get involved?” I said.
“This morning,” Dean told me. “When she found out that her brother, Sam was dead, she got suspicious and called me. I told her about the officers’ reports and the M.E.’s findings and that it was listed as a suicide. Of course, she just couldn’t believe little Sammy would do such a thing.”
“Little Sammy?” Gloria said. “Just how old was Little Sammy?”
“Sixty-seven,” Dean said. “I guess he was always Little Sammy to his big sister.”
“And big sister is how old?” I said.
“Seventy-four,” Dean said. “But she can swear like a thirty-year-old. So, do you think you might like to talk to sis and see if there’s a job in it for you?”
I looked at Gloria. She nodded and I turned back to Dean. “We’ll pay her a visit,” I said. “Do you have her name and address there somewhere?”
Dean gave Gloria the information we needed and I thanked him for the referral. Gloria and I headed back out to my car and just sat there for a moment.
“I must say,” I told Gloria. “That was one of the most ghostly, eerie sights I’ve even seen in my life.”
“I’ll be dreaming about Little Sammy for months,” Gloria said. “Gees, that must have hurt like a son-of-a-bitch going down.”
I winced at the thought of it, but wondered. If it wasn’t a suicide, why kill the old man in that fashion? And why do it right there in the living room? And most of all, who would have put the old man through that kind of agony to begin with? We had our work cut out for us on this one.
“Suppose we pay the sister a visit?” I said. “Read me that name and address again, would you?”
Gloria unfolded the slip of paper Dean had given her and said, “Sylvia Nash, 602 North Bronson Avenue. That’s just south of the Paramount Studios.”
602 North Bronson Avenue was a white stucco house with a red tile roof. It was what tourists thought of when they tried to imagine housing in Los Angeles. It had a neatly trimmed hedge surrounding the property and a single car garage around the side of the house that emptied out onto Clinton Street. I parked at the curb and got out to take a better look at Sylvia Nash’s digs. Gloria followed closely and we walked up the cement path to the front door in tandem.
The front door was made of a dark wood and looked like it was heavy. I could see bright brass hinges poking out between the wood and they were complimented with a large brass door knocker. I didn’t see any button for a door bell, so I gave a couple of taps on the knocker and waited. A few seconds later the door opened and a lady, perhaps in her mid-fifties peered out at us.
“Yes?” she said.
I nodded and smiled at her and said, “My name is Elliott Cooper and this is Gloria Campbell. We’re looking for Mrs. Nash.”
“I’m Mrs. Nash,” the woman said.
“I looked down at the slip Gloria had given me before we got out of the car. “I’m looking for Mrs. Sylvia Nash,” I said. “Would that be your mother?”
The woman smiled a broad smile. “I’m Sylvia Nash. How can I help you today?”
“We got your name from Lieutenant Dean Hollister from the Los Angeles Police Department,” I said, looking again at the slip of paper. “I was told that Sylvia Nash was seventy-four.”
The puzzled look on my face must have been a look that she was accustomed to. “I get that all the time,” Sylvia said. “I must have good genes or something. Won’t you come in?”
Gloria and I walked inside and I immediately felt like I’d stepped out of a time machine and into the fifties. The house was decorated in what could only be described as early poodle skirt, for lack of a better term. The furniture looked like it had just been delivered from the Montgomery Wards store catalog. Pictures on the walls brought images of American life during the Eisenhower administration. I was surprised that the house wasn’t decorated in blacks, whites and shades of gray, like the television shows from back then.
Sylvia invited us to sit. “Now, perhaps you can tell me what this is all about,” she said.
“Certainly, Mrs. Nash,” I said. “Lieutenant Hollister tells me that you suspect that your brother’s death was something other than the suicide that they claim it to be. Would you care to tell us about that?”
“Oh, I see,” Sylvia said. “Yes, I did speak with a Mr. Hollister earlier this morning. He informed me that his department hadn’t planned on pursuing my brother’s case any further. They think Sammy did this to himself.”
Gloria leaned forward. “And what makes you think that your brother did not take his own life,” she said.
“If anyone would know Sammy, “Sylvia said, “It would be me. I’ve known him all his life and he just wasn’t the kind of person who would do something like this, especially in that terrible manner. Sammy had a very low tolerance for pain and if he had decided to end his life, he’d have chosen something painless like pills or car exhaust.”
“Are you sure about all of this?” Gloria said.
“As sure as anyone can be,” Sylvia said. “Sammy lived with me for six years before he moved in with his daughter. He’d only been living with them for less than six months when this happened.”
I held up one finger and said, “Are you suggesting that someone in that house poisoned him?”
Sylvia said nothing and looked at her fingernails. “Can I get either of you something to drink?” she said casually.
“Mrs. Nash,” I said, “is there anything you’re not telling us? If you have suspicions, it would be in your best interest to share them with us. We can do a more thorough job for you if we have all the facts, opinions and suspicions. If you hold anything back from us, it’ll just make our job that much harder.”
Sylvia Nash cleared her throat. “I don’t want to point my finger at anyone, you understand. What happens if I’m wrong about that person?”
“And that’s what we in the investigation business call a hunch or a feeling,” I said. “And we’ll treat it as such until and unless we have evidence to prove it. You needn’t worry that we’ll accuse anyone without proof, but your hunches or feeling could help our investigation. You need to share them with us. We’ll keep it confidential, I promise.”
Sylvia let out a deep breath. “This is not exactly a hunch,” she said, “but I would be interested in knowing who would benefit from Sammy’s death.”
“You mean like a beneficiary to a will?” Gloria said. “Did Sammy even have a will? Did he have anything anyone else would want?”
“All good questions,” Sylvia said. “His son-in-law wouldn’t let me see Sammy these past few months that he was living with them. I wasn’t able to talk to Sammy since he moved out of here.”
“And what did Sammy’s daughter say about all this?” I said. “After all, you are her aunt, aren’t you?”
“I am,” Sylvia said, “Gail seemed friendly enough, but Lloyd was so controlling that I think it was his decision that Sammy not talk to me.”
“I take it Lloyd is the son-in-law,” I said.
“Yes,” Sylvia said. “Lloyd Grimes. I never knew what Gail saw in him.”
“And what does Lloyd do?” Gloria said.
“Do?” Sylvia said.
“For a living,” Gloria explained. “What kind of job does Lloyd have?”
“I don’t thi
nk he’s presently working,” Sylvia said. “But he did have a job with the city doing sewer work. I think I heard somewhere that he got fired when they caught him sleeping in one of the sewers.”
Gloria shot a glance my way and furrowed her eyebrows.
“Does she work?” I said. “I mean your niece, Gail. They have to be getting income from somewhere, don’t they?”
Sylvia leaned back into her overstuffed chair, grabbing the armrests. “I think he’s collecting unemployment,” she said. “I don’t think he likes to work. Gail used to work in a bakery on Santa Monica Boulevard, but they went out of business a while back and she just never found another job.”
I leaned in toward Sylvia and said, “Don’t you find it a bit odd that they can’t seem to hold jobs long enough to support themselves, and yet they can afford to take your brother in to live with them?”
Sylvia thought about this for a moment. “I think they knew that Sammy got his Social Security check each month as well as his disability check. Those two checks amounted to more than seventeen hundred dollars every month.”
“Sounds like those two found their cash cow,” Gloria said.
“More like their sugar daddy,” Sylvia offered.
“And how did you feel about that when Sammy decided to go and live with Gail and Lloyd?” I said.
“If you’re asking was I mad,” Sylvia said, “the answer is no. Sammy’s leaving didn’t put me in any financial straits. I have my own money and I’ve invested it wisely. I get checks every month and I live quite comfortably. I didn’t even charge Sammy any rent to stay with me. He bought his share of the groceries and chipped in for the utilities, but that was it.”
“You see, Sylvia,” I said. “This is the kind of information that helps us put the whole picture together.”
“What do you mean?” she said.
“What Elliott’s getting at,” Gloria said, “is that when an investigation first gets under way, everyone who knew the victim automatically becomes a suspect. That’s why we ask as many questions as we do. The questions may not seem important to the people we’re asking them of, but they help us eliminate people as suspects, and I think we can safely say that you’ve been eliminated.”
“Well, I should hope so,” Sylvia said, somewhat indignant. “I was the one who asked the police to pursue this matter, if you recall.”
I held up one hand. “No offense,” I said. “We ask everyone the same kinds of questions. Everyone doesn’t always answer as straight-forward and honestly as you have, and those are the people we look more closely at during our investigation.”
“I don’t think we need to trouble you any further today,” Gloria said. “Thank you for your time and hospitality, Mrs. Nash.”
Gloria and I got up to leave and Sylvia walked us to the door. “Would you let me know if you find out anything?” she said.
“We certainly will,” I said. “Goodbye, Mrs. Nash.”
Back in the car Gloria turned to me and said, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Later,” I said. “We have work to do.” I tried to keep a straight face.
Gloria slapped my arm. “Apparently not,” she said. “I was thinking that we should check downtown and see if there’s a will on file for Sammy Shapiro.”
“I’m way ahead of you,” I said as I pulled away from the curb and headed for the records department at City Hall. “If we see Delbert today, try not to get him too excited.”
“I can’t help it if Del likes to show his premature appreciation to my touch,” Gloria said. “I think it’s kind of cute, actually. Let me talk to him first. I promise I won’t get him all worked up.”
I found an empty space nearly in front of City Hall and stuck a quarter in the meter. We found Delbert Smithers standing behind the counter in the records department. His face flushed a bit when he saw Gloria and me approaching. He nodded politely when we stepped up to the counter.
“Well, hello again, Del,” Gloria said. “How are you today?”
“Okay,” Del said. “How can I help you?”
“Do you remember us?” I said. “We were here a couple of months ago and you helped us with some land transfer information.”
Del nodded. “I remember,” he said. “What are you looking for today?”
Gloria took over again. “Del,” she said, “we’d like to know if you have any record of a will for a man named Samuel Shapiro. Could you take a look on your computer and see what you can find?”
Without answering, Del turned to his computer, hit a button or two and brought up his search screen. “Spell that last name, please,” he said.
Gloria spelled the name for him and he typed it in. “First name?” Del said. “Gloria provided it and Del entered it, hitting the Submit key when he had finished. A second or two later he announced, “Samuel Shapiro, age sixty-seven, his address is…”
Gloria held up one hand. “You can skip all that, Del,” she said. “Mr. Shapiro has passed away. We’re only interested in whether or not he left a will. Would that information be in there?”
“Let me have a look,” Del said, hitting another series of keys. “Here we are, Samuel A. Shapiro. He filed a will with the county on the twelfth of last month. Looks like he left anything of value to a woman named Gail Grimes, his daughter.”
“Does it tell you exactly what it was that he left her?” I said.
Del scrolled the screen up and checked for me. “Looks like he left a hundred shares of some unnamed stock and the deed to a two point seven acre parcel. That’s all it shows on this screen.”
“Are there any other details?” Gloria said, smiling at Del.
Del quickly looked away, somewhat embarrassed. “That’s all it shows in this database. You’ll probably have to ask the attorney who drew up the will for the details.”
“Is the attorney’s name listed on the will?” Gloria said.
“Of course,” Del said, as if Gloria should know that.
“Could I have that name?” Gloria said.
“John P. Marshall,” Del said, writing the information on a small slip of paper and passing it to Gloria.
“Del,” Gloria said, “you’re a life-saver. Thank you so much.” She laid her hand on top of his and then quickly withdrew it, apparently just in time from the look on Del’s face.
“Thanks, Del,” I said and quickly shuffled Gloria out of the office.
On our way back down the City Hall steps, I grabbed Gloria’s arm and stopped. “That was a close one,” I said. “Any bets on whether Del has looked you up in one of his databases and has maybe printed out your picture? Another five bucks says it’s hanging on the wall in his private office, or on his bathroom wall at home.”
Gloria pulled her arm out of my grip and said, “Are all men this shallow, or is it just you?”
“It’s all of us,” I said. “It’s a prerequisite to get into the club. Wanna see my membership card?” I reached for my wallet, but Gloria was already on her way down the steps and heading for the car.
“Lighten up,” I said when I was behind the wheel again. “Read me the attorney’s address, would you?”
Gloria paused long enough to give me a look I didn’t like and then said, “Marshall, Marshall and Liebowitz. Sixteen fifty-five Vine Street, ninth floor.”
“How handy is that?” I said. “That’s just three blocks from our office.”
I parked behind our office building and got out, preferring to walk the three blocks rather than have to deal with parking. Gloria and I walked into the lobby and checked the information board. Marshall, Marshall and Liebowitz occupied rooms 910 and 912. The elevator ride gave me a chance to grab Gloria’s neck with my fingers and massage her scalp.
“Feeling guilty about something?” Gloria said.
“Like what?” I said innocently.
“All right,” I admitted. “So my sense of humor borders on the offbeat at times. That doesn’t make me a bad guy, does it?”
“You know, Elliot
t,” Gloria said. “You could keep the sense of humor, if only you could learn when not to use it. That spontaneous manner of yours is gonna get you in trouble one of these days.”
“Duly noted,” I said, and removed my hand from her neck.
The elevator door opened and we found ourselves in a hallway that was plusher than a lot of offices I’d been in. Room 910 was two doors from the elevator and we let ourselves in. A classy-looking gray-haired receptionist peered over her bifocals and greeted us. Her name plaque identified her as Helen Moore.
“May I help you?” she said.
I was impressed right off the bat. Most receptionists I’d encountered had always said, ‘can I help you’ instead of ‘may I help you.’ It showed a bit of class in my book. Even I didn’t always use that word correctly.
“We’d like to speak with Mr. Marshall,” I said.
“Do you have an appointment?” Helen said.
I shook my head. “I’m afraid not. We just stopped in on a hunch. Can we still see him?”
“Which Mr. Marshall did you wish to see?” Helen said. “We have two.”
“You have to what?” I said, and then caught myself. “Oh, there are two of them, I see. I’m not sure which one we need to talk to. Maybe you could tell us. We’re here looking into the details of Samuel Shapiro’s will.”
“And are you related to Mr. Shapiro?” Helen said suspiciously.
“Is that important?” Gloria said.
“I should say so,” Helen said. “You can’t just walk in off the street and ask to see private records without permission.”
I reached into my suit pocket and pulled out one of my business cards and handed it to Helen. “Elliott Cooper,” I said. “And this is Gloria Campbell. We’ve been hired by the late Samuel Shapiro’s sister, Sylvia Nash, to help put Mr. Shapiro’s affairs in order.” I showed Helen a copy of the contract Sylvia Nash had signed when she’d hired us.”
The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories) Page 201