“You will,” I said. “Just give it time.”
The screen on the television switched from the weather man to the news anchor, who shuffled a few papers in front of him and said, “To recap our top story this morning, another body was found last night, this time in the hills below the Hollywood sign. That makes three murders in as many weeks, all presumed to have been killed by the same person or persons unknown. We’ll keep you updated as we learn more.”
“Gonna be one of those days, is it?” Dean said.
“What kind of day is that?” I said.
“The kind where all the crazies come out of the woodwork,” Dean said. “Whenever they find another body, the police get swamped with people who just have to confess to the murder, whether they did it or not. I remember back about twenty years ago when there was that string of killings tied into those Beatle songs. We had a dozen or more people confessing to those murders. Most of them ended up in the mental hospital.”
“Don’t remind me,” I said. “I was there, remember?”
“I did thank you for your help on that one, didn’t I?” Dean said.
“Many many times,” I said. “Glad I could help.”
Dean rode with me to the office. Gloria had already left for her dentist appointment and Elliott was just slipping into his jacket when we walked in the door. Elliott looked at me and then over at Dean.
“Figured you needed some help watching the phones, Dad?” Elliott said.
“We’re switching off,” I said. “Dean and I figured we could trade off in shifts of ten minutes each. That way neither of us would get bored.”
“Funny, Dad,” Elliott said. “What’s the other one going to do when one of you is hard at work watching the phones?”
Dean help up one hand. “Nap time,” he said. “These days I don’t have much of an attention span, so ten minutes is all I can nap before I need to move on to more stimulating activities. You just run along now, Junior. Your pappy and I can take it from here.”
I had to laugh. I’d never heard Dad referred to as Pappy before and I suddenly got a mental picture of Popeye’s father. “You two kids just behave yourself and don’t get into any mischief while I’m out.”
“Bye, Elliott,” Dad said, waving and rolling his eyes at me.
“Gees,” Dean said. “I thought he’d never leave. Come on, break out the cards and let’s get this game going. I need to pay off that three dollar debt before you have a conniption fit.”
“Three dollars and fifteen cents,” I reminded him.
“Why don’t I just give you four Viagra pills and call it even?” Dean said.
“Like I told you before,” I said, “I don’t even have a steady girlfriend. What am I supposed to do with those?”
“Never hurts to be ready,” Dean said, and shuffled the cards.
We were three hands into the big game when Elliott’s phone rang. I looked at Dean, who was sitting across from me at Elliott’s desk. “You gonna get that?” I said.
“You’re closer,” Dean said. “Besides, this isn’t my family’s business.”
“Fine,” I said. “But this was your shift.”
I picked up the phone. “Cooper Investigations,” I said. “This is Clay Cooper.”
“Clay,” the voice said. “This is Eric Anderson. What are you doing there?”
“Hey, Lieutenant,” I said. “Good to hear your voice again. You looking for Elliott?”
“As a matter of fact, I was,” Eric said. “Is he in?”
“Sorry,” I said. “He and Gloria are both out. I’m watching the office today and Dean Hollister’s here keeping me company. What can we do for you?”
“I guess you’ll have to do,” Eric said.
“Stop,” I said. “All this flattery is bound to go to my head.”
“That didn’t come out right, did it?” Eric said. “What I meant to say was I think I can throw some work Elliott’s way if he’s free.”
“Well,” I said. “He’s not free, but his rates are reasonable.”
“I can see you’re having too much fun with this stand-up comedy routine,” Eric said. “Maybe I should call the Acme Agency. I’ll bet they’d have an agent available.”
I straightened up immediately. “Sorry, Eric,” I said. “What can we do for you?”
“You know,” Eric said. “You both do have the experience this job requires and since Elliott is out, how would you two geriatrics like to earn a few bucks helping me out for the afternoon?”
“Sure,” I said. “Who do you want whacked?”
“Come on,” Clay,” Eric said. “Can we be serious for just a minute?”
“Sorry, Eric,” I said. “I just get carried away sometimes. What do you need?”
“We’re just a bit short-handed here at the twelfth precinct,” Eric said. “I have six men out on vacation and another one in the hospital. I could use a couple of fresh minds while I try to figure something out.”
“You got one in the hospital?” I said. “Gunshot?”
“Appendix,” Eric explained.
“Well,” I said, “our minds aren’t exactly fresh, but they’re still sharp as two tacks. When did you need us?”
“Twenty minutes ago,” Eric said. “But I guess you’re both too busy watching the phones over there. Too bad you haven’t heard about that new contraption they came out with called the answering machine. It’ll handle the calls for you while you’re away.”
“I get the picture,” I said. “Dean and I are on our way. Don’t call Acme just yet.”
I hung up and looked up at Dean. “Feel like a little stimulating work?” I said. “Eric can use us for a day, at least, unless you’re set on losing another three bucks playing cards.”
“I don’t know,” Dean said.
“I’ll forget the three-fifteen you owe me,” I said.
Dean threw his cards down on the desk. “Let’s go, Clay.” He said, heading for the door.
We pulled into the parking lot behind the twelfth precinct and hurried down the hall to Lieutenant Eric Anderson’s office. Dean could have found his way in the dark, since it used to be his office before he retired. Dean knocked and let us in without waiting to be invited.
Eric turned around in his chair and stood to greet us. “Well, if it isn’t the Over-The-Hill Gang come to visit,” he said.
Dean and I looked at each other and turned around toward the exit.
“Come on, guys,” Eric said. “You may not exactly be over the hill, but I’ll bet you can see it from where you are.”
Dean slapped my shoulder. “I think he’s talking about you, old man,” he said.
“Come on,” Eric said. “Sit down and I’ll explain what I need from you two professionals.”
“Now that’s good schmoozin’,” Dean said. “You could learn a lot from this guy.”
We sat across from Eric while he laid it all out for us. “No doubt,” Eric said, “you’ve already heard about that third body they we found last night up in the hills just beneath the Hollywood sign.”
We both nodded, our interest piqued now. “What about it?” Dean said.
“You’ve probably also heard that this is the third body to turn up in the last three weeks,” Eric said.
“So we’ve heard,” I said. “Besides the obvious, what’s troubling you about this spree?”
“The fact that there doesn’t seem to be any pattern, rhyme or reason,” Eric said. “No apparent connection between the three killings and it’s driving me nuts trying to come up with something I can use.”
Eric took a few steps to his right and stood in front of a large map of Hollywood that hung on the wall. It was a laminated model that could be written on, erased and used over and over as needed. Behind the lamination was a thin metal sheet, making the map surface doubly handy for use with small round magnets to mark designated areas. Eric picked up one of the small magnets and placed it over the spot on the map where the Hollywood sign was located.
“This is where we found
the third victim last night,” he said. “It was a woman named Ruth Baker, age sixty-six and a grandmother of twelve. How she got way up there, we still haven’t figured out.”
There were already two other magnets on the map. One was sitting just east of the Golden State Freeway, at about the spot where Chevy Chase Drive dead ends. Eric pointed to this magnet.
“There’s a wooded area here alongside the freeway,” he said, pointing. “That’s where we found the second victim, one Malcolm McCormick, age fifty-eight. It looked like he’d been dead for at least forty-eight hours before the body was discovered.”
“What about that first button, there on Hollywood and Highland?” I said.
“That was where they found the first victim three days ago,” Eric said. “That one was a twenty-three year old woman named Doris Connelly. No pattern in the victims’ ages, either. The body was found north of the boulevard, behind the Hollywood First National Building. There’s a small gap between it and the Oriental food stand next to it. It has a wrought iron gate in front of it.”
“I’ve seen that,” Dean said. “It’s on the east side of Highland.”
“Exactly,” Eric said, turning back to the map. “Just look at these three locations. There’s no pattern there that I can see. Connect the dots and you don’t even get a decent right triangle. I don’t get it.”
The phone on Eric’s desk rang.
“Excuse me,” he said, picking up the phone. He listened for a moment and then said, “When? Do we have someone on the scene? Well, tell them not to disturb anything. I’m on my way.” Eric turned to Dean. “Let’s take a ride. I think we just found victim number four.”
“So soon?” Dean said. “Less than a day after the third victim?”
“Yeah,” Eric said. “And that’s not following any pattern, either. Come on, let’s go have a look.”
Dean and I rode with Eric to an apartment building on Mariposa, just south of Santa Monica. There in the underground garage we found two uniformed patrolmen standing guard over a body that was lying just inside the overhead door.
The two officers straightened visibly when Lieutenant Anderson approached. “What have we got here?” Eric said.
The first patrolman, a young man by the name of Bullard pulled a notepad from his pocket and began reciting from it. “Victim’s name is Patrick Kilgallen, thirty-nine of this address.”
“He lived in this building?” Eric said.
“Third floor,” Officer Bullard said. “It looks like someone surprised him when he came for his car.” Bullard pointed to a Chevy sedan in the first parking spot near the door. “Single shot to the back of the head. No one else in the building reported hearing anything so we figured he must have used a suppressor. The superintendant found Kilgallen thirty-five minutes ago when he came to check on why the garage door had been left open for so long.”
“Did you call for the coroner and an ambulance?” Eric said.
“Yes, sir,” Bullard said. “They’re on their way.”
“Have you questioned anyone here in the building?” Eric said.
“No sir,” Bullard said. “You told us to guard the body and that’s what we did.”
Eric clapped his hand on Bullard’s shoulder. “Good man. You did the right thing. Stay here with the body. I’ll check with some of the residents.”
“Yes, sir,” Bullard said.
Eric turned to Dean. “I could use some help with this part,” he said. “Suppose we split up? I’ll take the ground floor. You and Cooper can take the second and third floors.”
“Got it,” Dean said, as he and I headed for the elevator. Dean turned to me. “What’ll it be, two or three?”
“I’ll take the third floor,” I said. “I’ll meet you back in the garage unless one of us turns something up.”
Dean nodded and got off the elevator when it stopped on the second floor. I rode up one more floor and stepped out. The elevator was situated at the end of the hall and there were six door in this hall, three on each side. I knocked on the first door and waited. No one answered and once I took a look at the name plate above the doorbell button, I knew why. This was Kilgallen’s apartment. I continued down the hall, staying on the north side of the building. The middle door had the name ‘Bobby Fredericks’ posted above the doorbell button. Let’s just see what he had to say.
He turned out to be a she. Bobby Fredericks was a tall, shapely brunette in her mid twenties with skin tight slacks and a striped form-fitting, sleeveless shirt. My mind went blank for a moment when she opened the door. She got tired of waiting for me to say something.
“Yes?” she said. “Can I help you?”
“Bobby Fredericks?” I said.
“Yes,” she said a bit impatiently. “What do you want?”
“I’m checking into your next door neighbor, Mr. Kilgallen,” I said.
“Pat?” she said. “What did you want to know?”
I still carried my badge and I.D. card and fished them out of my pocket for her to examine. “When did you last see him?” I said.
She thought for a moment. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe an hour, hour and a quarter. Why?”
“Did you hear or see anything unusual at that time?” I said.
“Like what?” she said.
“Anything,” I said. “Suppose you just tell me what you remember.”
“Not much to tell, really,” she said. “He was going out just as I was coming in. We passed in the hall and he said ‘hi’ or something like that. I think I returned the greeting and then went inside. That’s it, nothing special. Just like every other day. Is Mr. Kilgallen in some sort of trouble?”
“He’s dead,” I said, and let the sentence hang in the air.
“Dead?” she said. “How? Why? Who’d want to hurt Mr. Kilgallen? He was such a nice guy. Kept to himself most of the time, but he was always friendly when we’d bump into each other.”
I pulled my notepad from my pocket and jotted down Bobby’s name and address. “Thank you, Miss Fredericks,” I said. “If we need anything else from you, someone will be in touch.”
“I hope you find the person who did this,” Bobby said before closing her door.
“So do I,” I said and moved down the hall to the next door.
Half an hour later I was back in the garage and the body was gone. The place where Pat Kilgallen had died had been cordoned off with yellow police tape. Lieutenant Anderson was standing nearby, talking to Dean when I approached the two of them.
“Anything?” Eric said as I got closer.
“Nothing useful,” I said. “I talked to most of the residents on the third floor. None of them had any information that’ll help. They all agreed he was a nice guy and that was about it. What about you two?”
“Pretty much the same,” Dean said. “Folks on the second floor saw him coming and going, but no one was what you’d call a friend.”
“I got almost the same reactions from the first floor,” Eric said. “No one had a bad thing to say about the guy. I can’t find anyone who wished him any harm.”
“This can’t be totally random,” I said. “There has to be a connection to the first three killings. It might be obscure, but it’s there. I can feel it.”
Dean and I rode back to Eric’s office in his cruiser. Back in Eric’s office I stood looking at the map again. Eric picked up another magnetic button and placed it on the approximate area where Patrick Kilgallen’s body was found little more than an hour ago. He stood back and looked at the map.
“Looks like a lop-sided box,” Dean said, studying the placement of the magnets.
“Or an N, if you connect the dots,” I said.
“The one near the Hollywood sign and the one next to the Golden State Freeway almost make a perfect triangle with this latest one,” Eric observed. “But then there’s the leftover one on Highland and Hollywood. He picked up a grease pencil and drew a big circle around all four magnets. “There has to be some common ground here somewhere.�
��
I looked at the map again. Now all I saw was a lop-sided box with a circle around it. If there was a pattern there, I just didn’t see it.
“Sorry we weren’t more help,” I told Eric. “Is there anything you need from us today?”
Eric shook his head. “I guess not,” he said. “But thanks for coming down here.”
“Any time,” Dean said and then turned to me. “I think we should probably get going, don’t you?”
I nodded and turned to Eric. “If anything breaks on this case, give me a call, will you?” I said.
“I will,” Eric said. “And thanks again, both of you.”
It’s these kinds of cases,” Dean said, “that make me glad I retired. You’ve got your work cut out for you on this one, Eric.”
Dean and I drove back to the office and found Gloria sitting at her desk when we walked in. Her right cheek looked a bit puffy and she was sitting there with her palm rubbing it softly.
“How’d it go at the dentist?” I said.
She didn’t answer. She just slowly shook her head and moaned.
“Did they pull it?” Dean said.
Gloria nodded and winced. “Uh huh,” she mumbled.
“Poor thing,” I said, patting her on the head.
Just then Elliott came back from seeing his client and found me with my hand on Gloria’s head. I looked at him. “Your wife lost a little weight,” I said. “What does one tooth weigh, anyway?”
Elliott gave Gloria a concerned look and stood by her side. She looked up at him with her puffy cheek, rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“You’d better go on home,” Elliott said to her. “I can handle it here for the rest of the day.”
Gloria nodded and rose from her desk. She looked at me.
“Don’t worry, Gloria,” I said. “I’ll stick around and keep Elliott company for a while. You go on home and soak a towel in hot water and hold it on your cheek. That should make it feel a little better.”
Without trying to utter any more painful words, Gloria left the office and closed the door. Elliott took a seat behind his desk and loosened his tie.
“Anything happen here while I was out?” he said, looking at me.
I shook my head. “Nah,” I said. “It’s been pretty quiet around here.”
The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories) Page 276