The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories)

by Bernico, Bill

  “This is far enough, Sarah,” Clyde said.

  Sarah stopped and motioned to her son. He stopped and held tight to Ellen’s wrists. Sarah turned to her son and said, “Let me have her, Jake. I’ll take it from here.”

  Jake released his grip on Ellen’s wrists. Ellen immediately turned and tried to run. Sarah stretched out one foot, tripping Ellen. Ellen went down hard on the forest floor, getting a mouth full of dead leaves for her efforts. She spit them out and rolled over onto her back. Sarah dropped to her knees, straddling Ellen’s chest. Sarah brought the hunting knife around to the front and stuck the tip under the tape on Ellen’s wrists. With a single pull she cut Ellen’s bonds and then looked the frightened woman squarely in the eyes.

  “This is your luck day,” Sarah said. “We’re going to let you go and if you tell anyone about any of us, I’ll hunt you down and finish the job, understand?”

  Ellen nodded furiously. “I promise,” she said. “I won’t tell a soul.”

  Sarah stood, pulling Ellen to a standing position again. “I know you won’t,” Sarah said and plunged the knife deep into Ellen’s heart. Ellen was dead before her body hit the ground again.

  “You’re such a tease, Sarah,” Clyde said, grinning a stupid grin and wrapping his arm around his wife’s shoulder. “Why can’t you just do it like Jake does, quick and quiet?”

  Jake beamed with the compliment, proud of how fast he had dispatched George back on the road.

  Clyde held his hand out and Sarah laid the hunting knife in it. “Jake,” he said looking at his son, “get the shovel out of the trunk. We’ve got work to do.”

  “Oh, pa,” Jake said. “I already did my part with the guy on the road and Ma took care of her.” He gestured toward Ellen’s body. “What are you going to do?”

  Clyde backhanded Jake across the mouth. “Don’t you ever sass me, boy,” Clyde said. “You just do as you’re told. I already got rid of that couple’s car. No one’s gonna find it in that ravine.”

  Jake wiped a couple drops of blood from the corner of his mouth but didn’t say another word to his pa. Instead he opened the trunk, pulled out the shovel and set it aside. He grabbed George’s body and pulled it out of the trunk, letting it thud on the ground. Jake grabbed George’s wrists and pulled the body next to where Ellen lay. He walked back to the rear of the car and scooped up the shovel. A foot or so away from Ellen’s body, Jake began to dig. He kept digging for twenty minute before he was satisfied that he had a deep enough hole for the two bodies. He threw the shovel down and walked over to where his ma and pa stood watching.

  “You at least gonna help me throw them into the hole?” Jake said.

  Clyde laid his hand on top of the boy’s head and tussled his hair. “Sure, son,” he said and walked with Jake to the fresh grave. Jake grabbed George’s wrists while Clyde grabbed George’s ankles. “On three,” Clyde said. On his signal, he and Jake swung the body in a single, shallow arc and released their grips on George. The body plopped down into the hole, one of George’s arms falling over his face. They repeated the procedure with Ellen. Her body fell on top of George’s and then rolled to one side. The two of them looked cozy, lying there next to each other.

  Jake smiled and grabbed the shovel again, filling in the hole one shovel full at a time. Once the dirt on top of the dead couple was level, Clyde instructed Jake to step on the dirt to compact it even more. Clyde did the same. Once they’d finished, Jake continued to throw more dirt on top of the indentation they’d made. One more compacting action and Jake shoveled four more scoops over the grave. He and Clyde stepped it flat again.

  While Jake busied himself disbursing the leftover dirt in other places, Clyde kicked lots of dead brown leaves over the fresh dirt. He finished by kicking leaves over the area where Jake had just disposed of the extra dirt. Pa and Ma each grabbed a fallen branch and began sweeping the area, trying to make it look as natural as possible. Jake returned the shovel to the trunk, closed it and then examined his hands.

  He turned to Pa. “Blisters,” he said, showing Pa his hands. “I got blisters now.”

  Pa looked at Jake’s blisters and said, “You can’t expect to do a decent day’s work without a few blisters, now can you?”

  Jake knew better than to argue the point with his pa and just retreated to the back seat of the car. Pa crooked his elbow and Ma stuck her arm through it. They walked back to the car, arm in arm and parted when they got in front of it. Pa slid behind the wheel and Ma slid in beside him. They turned around, headed back to the main road and drove off into the night.

  *****

  Clay Cooper, who had recently retired from his private investigations business, and who had turned it over to his son, Elliott, looked up at the string that stretched across the room. Brightly colored balloons had been tied to the string and there were several of these strings adorning the ceiling of the rented hall. Elliott stood up on a step ladder, tying more balloon strings to the cross members of the dropped ceiling. Across the extra wide doorway hung a series of letters that spelled out “Happy Retirement, Dean” in glittery gold cardboard. Elliott stepped down to take a look at his handy work. He nodded approval when he got a look at the overall effect. He liked it and turned to his business partner and fiancée, Gloria Campbell.

  “What do you think?” he said, his arms crossed over his chest.

  Gloria grabbed Elliott’s arm. “He’s going to love it,” she said. “And he’ll probably love his retirement even more.”

  Dean Hollister had been with the Los Angeles Police Department for more than thirty years, finishing up as a Lieutenant, the same job his father, Dan had held up until his death decades earlier. Dean had only recently decided to step down and coast through the rest of his life. Once Dean retired, the job of Lieutenant was sure to go to Sergeant Eric Anderson, Dean’s frequent partner and a long-time cop himself.

  Clay walked over to where Gloria and Elliot stood admiring the decorations. “Looks like I may have a fishing partner soon,” he told Elliott.

  Clay and Dean had been friends since they were old enough to walk, Clay being one year older than Dean. Their fathers had worked together on many occasions. Clay’s father, Matt had been a cop under Dan Hollister before leaving to start Cooper Investigations in 1946. They remained close friends and occasionally called on each other for help on their respective cases.

  “What time can you get him here?” Gloria said to Clay.

  “I told him we were going to the seven-thirty movie,” Clay said. “I can have him here by then.”

  “And you’re sure he doesn’t suspect anything?” Gloria said.

  “I can’t guarantee a total surprise,” Clay said. “He’s been talking about retirement for a while now so it is possible that he could see this coming.”

  “Just try to be subtle,” Elliott said. “Don’t drag him in here with some lame excuse and then go out of your way not to make eye contact with him. He’ll figure that out in a damn hurry.”

  “Just leave it to me,” Clay said. “He’ll be so surprised that I’ll have another heart attack.”

  Gloria’s face dropped. “Clay,” she said solemnly, “Don’t even joke about that. We almost lost you twice and it wasn’t funny then, either.”

  “All right,” Clay said. “I’ll see you both tonight at seven-thirty. Gotta run.”

  Elliott looked at his dad. “Go on,” he said. “You don’t want to keep those pigeons waiting. If you don’t toss ‘em their peanuts, they could starve.”

  Clay waved his smart-alec son off and left without comment.

  Gloria looked at her watch. “Gees,” she said to Elliott, “we still have five hours to kill.”

  Elliott grabbed Gloria’s hand and pulled her toward the exit door. “I have a few ideas that could kill some time,” he said.

  “Sure,” Gloria said, “But what do we do for the other four hours and fifty minutes?”

  Elliott stopped dead in his tracks and gave Gloria a sideways glance. “How soo
n you forget,” Elliott reminded her. “Last time we made it last for nearly half an hour.”

  “That’s because you didn’t hurry things,” Gloria said. “This time when we eat the pizza, try to chew before swallowing. I only got three of the eight pieces from that last pie. You have to savor the flavor. You can’t do that by inhaling the pizza.”

  “Skip the pizza,” Elliott said. “We still have a few loose ends to tie up back at the office.”

  “That’s it?” Gloria said. “This is your idea of killing five hours? Pizza or office work? I can see the romance has gone out of this relationship. Come on, Romeo, we’ve got paperwork to do.” She emphasized paperwork as though it left a bad taste in her mouth.

  “What more romantic than returning to the place where we first met?” Elliott said.

  He and Gloria had first met in Elliott’s office two years earlier, when Clay was home recovering from his first heart attack. Elliott had hired Gloria to fill in until Clay could return to work. In the meantime, Gloria had worked her way into Elliott’s heart and managed to stay there, but only after having first had her fling with Clay, which contributed to his second heart attack. Clay and Gloria mutually agreed to call off the relationship in order to spare Clay from another possible heart attack.

  Elliott and Gloria hadn’t been in their office for more than three minutes when the phone on Elliott’s desk rang. Elliott set his pencil down and grabbed the handset, lifting it to his ear. “Cooper Investigations,” he said.

  “Elliott, it’s Dean. Your dad wouldn’t happen to be there by any chance, would he?”

  “Sorry, Dean,” Elliott said. “He’s off on an important mission.”

  “Peanuts for the pigeons?” Dean said. “I know he has a cell phone. Doesn’t he ever have it on?”

  “Usually,” Elliott said, “But he shuts it off when he’s on that park bench. Says he doesn’t want to scare the pigeons away when it rings. Why do you ask?”

  “I just needed to talk to him about one of his old cases from the late seventies,” Dean explained. “Do you know when he might be back?”

  “Back?” Elliott said. “If you’re talking about here, he rarely comes back here anymore since he retired. And I couldn’t tell you where he might be later, either. But I do know that he has a strict schedule for feeding those damned pigeons every day. Says he doesn’t want to throw off their feeding time. He’s probably still there right now. You can still catch him there up until four-thirty or until he runs out of peanuts.”

  “Thanks, Elliott,” Dean said. “Talk to you later.”

  Dean Hollister hung up the phone and hurried to his cruiser in the parking lot. The park Elliott was talking about was just ten minutes away. As Dean pulled up to the curb he could see Clay sitting a hundred yards into the park on a wooden bench. He walked over and sat next to Clay, causing the pigeon to all fly off.

  Clay looked into his still half full bag of peanuts and then looked at Dean. “Nice going,” he said. “They hadn’t finished eating yet.”

  “Can it wait?” Dean said. “I have a few questions I need to ask you about one of your old cases.”

  Clay folded the peanut bag shut and set it on the bench between them. “Which one?” he said.

  “I don’t remember your client’s name,” Dean said, “But I seem to remember you working on it shortly before Elliott was born in July of eighty. That would put it sometime in late seventy-nine or early eighty.”

  “You have to give me more to go on that that,” Clay said. “Do you remember what the case was about?”

  “Seems to me you were looking for a woman who’d been missing for a few months,” Dean said. “Her family hired you to look into the disappearance.”

  Clay rolled his hands in a circle. “Go on,” he said. “Give me a little more.”

  If I remember correctly,” Dean said, “The family finally had to call off the search when they ran out of money, or something like that. Does it jog your memory now?”

  “And this woman’s body finally turned up eight months later in some remote ravine in the mountains,” Clay said. “Sure, I remember that one. Gees, I had nightmares about it off and on for a few months. What about her?”

  “A hunter came across a car down in a ravine in that general area,” Dean explained. “It was empty, of course and when we traced the plate it came back as being registered to George and Ellen Armitage from Pasadena.”

  “And?” Clay said.

  “And the couple has been missing for three days now,” Dean said. “The husband’s sister, Shelly called us about it this morning. She’s been trying to reach her brother since the morning after his surprise birthday party at the Burbank Elk’s Lodge. Coincidentally, I got a call from the L.A. County Sheriff’s Office that same morning about the car they found in the ravine.”

  “You think there’s a connection between my old case and this one?” Clay said. “Hell, they’re thirty-two years apart. How could there be any connection?”

  “I didn’t say there was,” Dean said. “Except for the area where the car was found. It was less than half a mile from where they found the woman from your case.”

  “Dean,” Clay said, “Why are you getting involved in this case? Today’s your last day on the force, isn’t it? What happened to coasting through the rest of your life and letting the younger guys carry the ball for a while?”

  “I’m still a cop until five o’clock tonight,” Dean said. “I can’t just turn my back on it, can I?”

  “I guess not,” Clay said. “Just don’t take any unnecessary chances with that little time left on your clock. You know as well as I do that some good cops have been killed on their last couple of days on the job. I don’t know why. Maybe their minds wandered and they got careless. Who knows? Just try to make it through this day.”

  Clay looked at his watch. “I think I can manage another hour and ten minutes. So, could you find me your case file on that case I told you about?”

  Clay rose from the bench. “Come on,” he said to Dean. “You can follow me back to the office. Hopefully we won’t walk in on the kids doing something.”

  Dean gave Clay a sideways glance and raised his eyebrows. “Ah, to be young again,” he said.

  “I’ll save us a little time,” Clay said. “I’ll call ahead and have them pull the file for you. It’ll be waiting when we get there.”

  “Thanks, buddy,” Dean said. “And I’m sure Elliott and Gloria thank you, too.”

  The two of them got to Clay’s old office in just a few minutes. Gloria had the file in her hand. She handed it to Clay when he and Dean came into the office. “Thanks, Gloria,” Clay said, setting the file on Gloria’s desk. “Do you mind if we use your desk for a few minutes?”

  Gloria gestured toward her desk. “Make yourselves at home,” she said and pulled a second chair over for Dean.

  Clay opened the folder and sifted through the paperwork. He pulled out the original contract between him and his client and passed it over to Dean. “The husband’s name was Conrad Archer. He’s the person who hired me and Dad to find his wife, Kate.”

  Dean examined the document and laid it back in the folder. “There’s not much here, is there?” Dean said.

  “I wasn’t able to do much for the family,” Clay said. “Hell, your own file will probably tell you more than this one.”

  Dean pulled another document from Clay’s folder and examined it. “Looks like the Archers had a son,” he said, handing the document to Clay.

  “Yes,” Clay said. “I remember him. That whole ordeal was pretty traumatic for the kid. He couldn’t have been more than five or six at the time.”

  “What about the husband?” Dean said. “Is he still around? He’d have to be a pretty old guy by now if he was. Probably close to your age.” He winked at Clay.

  “Hey,” Clay said, “you’re only a year younger than me.” He looked again at the husband’s name. “I remember this guy. His obituary was in the paper a couple of years back. Ironica
lly he died in a single car crash in almost the exact spot where they found his wife all those years ago. I guess his mind wandered when he took that curve and he went over. They didn’t even notice his car down there for a week or more. His body was in pretty bad shape when they finally pulled the car back up onto the road.”

  “What about their kid?” Dean said. “Ever see him again?”

  Clay shook his head. “Never heard what happened to him,” he said. “He’s probably married with kids of his own by now. Is it important?”

  “Probably not,” Dean said. “Just curious, is all. I took a shot. I thought you might have more information than you do. I’ll have to check my own records again. Thanks anyway.”

  “What do you think you can accomplish in the next hour before your retirement becomes official?” Clay said.

  Dean shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe nothing, but I can’t leave the job having done nothing, now can I?”

  “Why not?” Dean said. “A hundred years from now who’ll now the difference, or care what you did with your last hour?”

  “At least one person will know,” Dean said, hiking his thumb at his own chest. “I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my life and I’ll be able to do that easier if I at least put forth the effort. And the longer I stand here talking to you, the less time I’ll have on it. Catch you later.”

  “So we’re still on for seven-thirty, aren’t we?” Clay said. “Remember, the movie?”

  “Sure,” Dean said, waving over his shoulder as he left the office.

  Elliott turned to me. “And he doesn’t suspect a thing?”

  “If he does,” Clay said, “it isn’t from anything I did or said.”

  “I can’t wait to see the look on his face tonight at his party,” Gloria said. “Did you let Helen know your plans?”

  “Now what kind of a party planner would I be if I didn’t let his wife know what we were planning?” Clay said. “She’ll be there. She’s leaving the house right after Dean and I leave. I’ll take it slow so she can beat us there.”