Dean turned his head toward Abbey and whispers, “Show him in, please.”
“Right away, sir,” Abbey says, leaving the office door open.
Clay Cooper walks in and is surprised to find Dean in the bent over position. He laughs at first. “And me without a rubber glove,” Clay says. He stops laughing when he realizes that the man who’d been his friend since they were little children is in severe pain. “Oh, I’m sorry, Dean,” Clay says. “Did your back go out again?”
Dean nods but says nothing at first. A moment later he asks Clay to remove the hot water bottle. “I should probably try to stand up again,” he says to Clay. “You want to help me?”
Clay took hold of Dean’s shoulders. “Say when,” he tells Dean.
“Okay,” Dean says, starting the painful ascent back to an upright position. When he is vertical again, he exhales and then holds his breath, letting a little at a time out of his lungs. He follows that with deeper, more frequent breaths before arching his back a little past vertical and slowly twisting from side to side.
“Is that any better?” Clay says.
“You know,” Dean says. “I don’t know what I’d do without that hot water bottle. That made all the difference, let me tell you.”
“Don’t chew my head off,” Clay says, “But have you given any more thought to retirement? I can tell you first hand that I’ve never felt more liberated and carefree than when I made that decision last summer.” To Clay’s surprise, Dean doesn’t voice his usual objection.
“Funny you should mention retirement, Clay,” Dean says. “Just before you got her, that’s exactly what I was thinking about. Hell, if you can retire at sixty-two without any kind of a plan, I’m sure I can put in for my pension and let someone else take over this zoo.”
Clay smiles. “Now you’re talking,” he says. “Just think of all the things we can do together once you pull the plug. Did I tell you about the club I recently joined?”
“Are you talking about that A.A.R.P. club?” Dean says. “What, are you getting really good at shuffleboard and canasta?”
“It’s not like that at all,” Clay says. “The Action-Adventure Role-Players club is a lot of fun, actually.”
“The what?” Dean says.
“The Action-Ad…”
“Never mind,” Dean says. “I’m not going anywhere for at least another two months. After the first of the year I can put in my papers and sit back with my feet up and then you can tell me all about it again. So what brings you here today?”
“I wanted to invite you to dinner Saturday night to meet my brother,” Clay says.
“Excuse me,” Dean says. “I think this is my bad ear. I thought you said your brother.”
“Half-brother, actually,” Clay says. “Oh, that’s right, you haven’t heard about Nicholas yet, have you?”
“Nicholas?” Dean says, his face scrunching up.
“Yeah,” Clay says, “That’s his name, Nicholas Sawyer. It’s a long story and I can fill you in Saturday. You free?”
“Sure,” Dean says. “What else have I got to do?”
The phone on Abbey’s desk rings and Dean can hear it from inside his office. He eases himself over to his office door and peers out. Abbey catches his eye and he nods.
“Just a moment, please,” Abbey says into the phone. “I’ll connect you.” She hangs up her phone and nods at Dean. “It’s the captain.”
Dean eases himself into his chair and picks up his phone. “Yes, captain,” he says. “Uh huh. No, I hadn’t heard about it. When did this happen? Yes, I’ll get right on it.” Dean hangs up the phone, closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Come on, January,” he says, stretching out the second word, like he was urging a race horse on to the finish line.
“What is it?” Clay says.
“Another murder,” Dean says. “Same M.O. as the last two. I think it could be the same guy in all three cases.” He looks at Clay out of the corner of his eye. “Say Clay, do you suppose you could drive me to…”
“You got it, buddy,” Clay says. “Let’s go.”
Dean walks slowly out of the precinct to the parking lot behind the building. Clay opens the passenger side door and waits for Dean to ease onto the seat. He closes the door and then slides behind the wheel and starts the cruiser. “Where to?” Clay says.
“Lexington near Bronson,” Dean says. “There’s already a black and white on the scene and the M.E.’s on his way as well. I just hope there are no eager beaver reporters listening to their police band radio today. I couldn’t take dealing with any more of them.”
Clay pulls the cruiser up behind the black and white patrol car and comes around to Dean’s side of the car and helps him stand up. Dean waves him off after that, not eager for his men to see him in this condition. He walks slowly up to the front door and lets himself in. The two patrolmen inside straighten visibly when Dean enters the room.
“What do we have here?” Dean says.
The first patrolman, a sergeant named O’Dell gestures with his chin at the man lying on the floor. “No I.D. on the victim, Lieutenant,” O’Dell says. Looks to be about fifty-five, six foot one or so, two hundred twenty or thirty pounds, brown and brown. Looks like someone met him at the front door and put two slugs in his face before he knew what hit him. That’s just the way we found him.”
Dean looks at the splatter on the wall at the six foot mark. “Looks like he was standing there facing this way,” Dean says. “Not much of a mystery as to the ‘how’ but the ‘who’ and the ‘why’ is another matter entirely.”
Clay surveys the immediate area and then turns back to the front door, examining the frame. “Doesn’t look like a forced entry,” Clay says. “So either the killer had a key, or it was someone the victim knew and let him in.”
“With friends like that,” Dean says, without finishing the thought.
Footsteps sound on the front porch just before the front door opens and Andy Reynolds, the country medical examiner walks in. He stops just inside the door and looks down at what was left of the victim. “This is about the dumbest part of my job, checking for a pulse on a man in this condition,” he says, pulling on a pair of rubber surgical gloves, bending over the body and pressing two fingers to the victim’s neck. He knows there’ll be no pulse, but it is standard protocol to go through the motions before officially declaring the man dead. Andy stands up again and notes the official time of death on his clipboard. “I can narrow this time down a bit once I’ve completed the autopsy, but off the record, I’d say he’s been dead for no more than three hours.”
“Thanks, Andy,” Dean says, stepping carefully past the bloody mess in the front hall and moving on to the living room.
Clay follows Dean into the living room, looking on shelves and the fireplace mantle at framed photos that were probably this man with other family members. Clay stops at one picture in particular that rests on top of a console piano in the corner. “Hey, Dean,” Clay says. “Take a look at this one.”
Dean steps over to the piano and tilts his head down to look at the picture. Clay notices Dean wincing and lifts the picture to Dean’s eye level. “Thanks,” Dean says. “Now what did you want me to notice about this photo?”
“Doesn’t he look familiar?” Clay says. “Take a closer look.”
“Okay,” Dean says. “What am I looking for?”
“Clear your mind,” Clay says, “And picture him behind a podium speaking to a union hall full of Teamsters.”
Dean looks more closely at the picture and then shifts his gaze to Clay without actually turning his head. “Mad Dog Vogel?” he says, not believing what he was saying. “You think that’s him?”
“Kind of hard to make a positive with half his face missing,” Clay says. “But that’s definitely him in the photo.”
Dean turns to look more closely at some of the other photos on the shelves. He picks one off a high shelf and pulls it closer to his face. He turns to Clay and says, “It’s him. He’s in this one
, too.”
“Where do you suppose everyone else is today?” Clay says. “From these photos, it looks like he has a family.”
“Had a family,” Dean says. “Don’t you remember that massacre two or three years ago in that beach house in Santa Monica? That was Vogel’s family. He and his wife and two kids were shot and left for dead. The house was torched, but Vogel managed to crawl out before it burned to the ground. Someone was sending a message to Vogel.”
“I do recall that one,” Clay says. “Word on the street was that Francisco Vasquez was responsible but no one was eager to step forward with any information.”
“Can’t say that I blame them,” Dean says. “I wouldn’t, either. Vogel swore he’d even the score once he was released from the hospital.”
“Yeah,” Clay says, “But that was more than two years ago. What was he waiting for?”
“He spent ten months of that time flat on his back or in physical therapy.” Dean says. “And he spent another year and some in a wheel chair hidden out in protective custody. He couldn’t have been in this place too long.”
“Long enough for Vasquez to find him,” Clay says.
“You think this is Vasquez’s handy work?” Dean says.
Clay shrugs. “If not his, then someone who works for him,” he says, and then turns to check out some of the other rooms. As he passes the kitchen, he looks in at the kitchen table and whistles.
“What did you find?” Dean asks.
“Take a look for yourself,” Clay says, stepping up to the kitchen table and looking down and four stacks of hundred-dollar bills. He turns to Dean. “There has to be twenty grand just laying there in plain sight.”
“So obviously robbery wasn’t the motive,” Dean says. “But the question here is, what was Vogel doing with all this cash?”
“Are you thinking it’s not his?” Clay says, picking up one of the bundles and fanning out the bills.
“Too early to tell,” Dean says, dropping the stacks of money in an evidence bag, sealing it and marking the date, place and name on the bag.
*****
The mailman walks up to the porch of the house on Gordon Street. It’s a two-story white wood frame house with a neatly manicured yard. This looks like as good a place as any, he thinks, as he rings the doorbell. A woman answers the door. She’s wearing a frilly apron over her house dress and she wipes her hands on her apron. The mailman tells her he has a package for her and that she must sign for its receipt. He holds out his clipboard with the notice on it and points to the place where she is supposed to sign. She looks around for a pen and then looks at the mailman, making the universal gesture of signing something, like the customers do in a restaurant when they want the check.
The mailman smiles and reaches into his shiny brown mail pouch, his hand wrapping around the handle of the silenced .45 inside. Just then a young boy, perhaps five or six years old, comes into the hallway asking for mommy. The mailman releases his grip on the weapon and says he made a mistake and that the package is actually for someone else. He hands her the rest of her regular mail and tells the woman to have a nice day. He leaves and the targeted victim doesn’t know how close she came to becoming another statistic on the police blotter. The kid has no idea how close he came to joining Mommy.
The mailman moves on down the block, his gun hand still itching to use the weapon just once more today. He skips the next row of house of this block and crosses the street. He delivers several more bundles of letters, magazines, fliers and other junk mail before he settles on a brick house that he knows has only one occupant. He has delivered mail here in the past and has met the old woman who is usually kneeling in the garden alongside the house. She’s not there today and the mailman knows she must be inside. Looks like those flowers will have to die, and so will she.
Three days pass and now a fourth newspaper lands on the porch on Gordon Street. Letters stick out of the mailbox and the lawn looks like it could use a trim. The neighbor to the north walks up the sidewalk and up onto the porch. He presses he face up to the window, his hands cupped around his eyes. Once his eyes focus on the body lying just inside, he recoils and jumps back, turning and running off the porch and back to his own house. He dials the police station and shouts into the phone, telling them what he has discovered. Minutes later several police cruisers squeal up to the curb in front of the house on Gordon Street.
Detective Sergeant Eric Anderson walks through the house, two patrolmen following close behind. Two more uniforms guard the front and back doors of the house, keeping the curious out.
Clay Cooper eases his car to a stop behind one of the black and whites and gets out to see what has happened. He’s stopped by the officer watching the front door.
“What happened here?” Clay says, trying to see around the officer.
The officer holds both of his arms out perpendicular to his body. “Sorry,” he says. “I can’t let you in.”
“Is Lieutenant Hollister here?” Clay says.
The officer shakes his head. “I’m afraid not,” he says. “The lieutenant had a doctor’s appointment this morning. I’m not sure when or even if he’ll be here.”
“Then who’s in charge of this scene?” Clay says.
“That would be Sergeant Anderson,” the officer tells Clay.
“Would that be Sergeant Eric Anderson?” Clays asks.
The officer nods and looks over Clay’s shoulder at a reported approaching the front door.
“Would you tell the sergeant that Clay Cooper is here and would like to see him, please?” Clay says.
“You can’t go in there just yet,” the officer tells the reported behind Clay. “You’ll have to wait out here for a while yet.”
Clay looks at the officer again and repeats his request to see Sergeant Anderson. The officer holds up one finger and tells Clay to wait where he is. Then he disappears into the house. A minute later he returns with the sergeant.
“Clay,” Anderson says, “Come on in.”
Clay gives the officer a look and walks past him, following Sergeant Anderson into the living room. “I picked this up on the police scanner and thought I’d take a look,” he says. “How’s Dean doing this morning?”
“He’s been off for the past two days,” Anderson explains. “Once the doc looks him over and signs off on him, he should be back this morning already. He’s already been to the chiropractor and it seems to have helped. At least he’s walking erect these days.”
“He’s finally evolved,” Clay says, laughing. He looks down at the old woman lying in a pool of blood. Like the other victim from a few days ago, her face has also taken two bullets in the front of her face and out the back again. She was probably nobody’s idea of a beauty queen to begin with, but this latest event took her out of the running altogether.
“No robbery this time, either, I suppose,” Clay says.
Sergeant Anderson shakes his head. “She didn’t have much to take in the first place,” he says. “But from the looks of things, what she did have wasn’t disturbed.”
“Mind if I look around?” Clay says.
“Knock yourself out,” Anderson says. “Let me know if anything seems out of place.”
Twenty minutes later, after having been through the entire house, Clay returns to the living room and finds Sergeant Anderson talking to Andy Reynolds. Andy’s two attendants have slipped the old woman into a body bag and have hoisted her onto the gurney for the trip down the porch steps and into the waiting ambulance.
As the attendants reach the bottom of the porch, Lieutenant Hollister steps up onto it and into the house.
Clay meets Dean in the front hallway and steps carefully over the pool of blood. “How’s the back?” Clay says.
“Much better,” Dean tells him. “What a difference that chiropractor made. I tell you, I feel like a new man. But boy, you should have heard the sounds my back made when he straightened me out. Sounded like someone stepping on a bowl of Rice Krispies.”
C
lay gestures around the room with a sweeping arm. “If this has any connection to the Vogel hit,” he says, “I don’t see it. This old lady couldn’t have had any tie-in with any union leader. She was just an old, retired woman with nothing left but her garden.”
“I don’t see any connection, either,” Dean says. “But this is definitely the work of the same killer in the first three murders.” Dean thinks about the first two victims, a twenty-eight year-old construction worker and a forty-four year-old widow who lived alone. None of the victims had anything in common except the last thing they ever saw—two slugs coming toward all of their faces. “I can’t say I’ve ever come across a totally random serial killer in all my years on the force.”
“This is a new one on me, too,” Clay agrees. “You would think every killer would have to have a motive, even if it was just for one of the victims.”
Dean turns to Clay. “What was that last thing you said?” he asks.
“Huh?” Clay says.
“You said something about just one victim and a motive, or something like that,” Dean says.
“I said you would think every killer would have to have a motive, even if it was just for one of the victims,” Clay says.
“That’s got to be it,” Dean says. “One of these victims must be the real target and the other three were just killed to throw us off the trail, looking for a common thread.”
“But which one?” Clay says.
“My money’s on Vogel,” Dean says. “The other three are all nobodies, as far as I can see.”
“That would have been my guess, too,” Clay says. “But what if more victims turn up?”
“I hate to think of it,” Dean says.
“Well what do we do next?” Clay says.
“We?” Dean says. “I thought you were supposed to be retired. Aren’t you writing a book or something?”
“I finished that,” Clay explains. “And it looks like I only had one book in me. They say everyone has at least one. I’ve already written mine and I’m bored out of my socks. I need this just to stay sane. Hell, I’m not looking to be paid for my time. I just need something to do to keep my mind from rotting away.”
The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories) Page 211