I glanced at my watch and saw that it was nearly seven-thirty. “How about if I meet you back home at nine o’clock?” I said. “I just want to check out one more lead and then I’ll come home, I promise.”
Gloria shot a glance at Eric. Eric shrugged and spread his hands. “Hey,” he said, “don’t look at me. I suppose I could make him stay off this case but I can’t make him go home.”
“An hour and a half,” I said, and kissed Gloria on the forehead. “I’ll be home by nine either way.”
Gloria sighed. “All right,” she said, “but no later. We still have our own business to run and I don’t see myself running it as a widow.”
She turned and left the trailer. A moment later I heard her tires crunching on gravel.
“What’s this one more lead you wanted to check out?” Eric said.
I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said. “I was stalling for time. I thought I’d ride along with you, if you don’t mind.”
“Chances are we won’t be able to wrap this up in ninety minutes,” Eric said. “You realize that, don’t you?”
“Not if keep standing here talking about it,” I said. “Let’s hit the road.” Without another word we left the trailer and got into Eric’s cruiser.
Eric started the engine and then turned to me. “Where to?” he said.
I thought for a moment and then said, “If you were Cochrane, where would you be?”
“Well,” Eric said, “he probably doesn’t know yet that Mullins and Stewart are dead, so he might not be in as much of a hurry to run. But as for where he’d be now, that’s anyone’s guess.”
Eric was about to pull out of the construction parking area when I held up one finger. “Wait,” I said. “I thought I saw something out there. Turn the car off. Listen.”
Eric’s window was down and we both peered out into the night. Something moved again. This time I got a better look at it. It was a man and he was running through the construction site. Eric and I slid out of the car and drew our guns, following the sound of quick footsteps through the gravel.
“Over there,” I said, pointing toward a pile of rough-cut lumber. “Behind the wood pile.” I circled around one end of the pile and Eric took the opposite side. We met around the back but there was no one else there. We stopped in our tracks and listened again. A few seconds later the footfalls sounded again to Eric’s left. He spun toward the sound and tried to see where the sound was coming from.
“Let’s go,” Eric said, leading the way toward a small pile of dried concrete drippings. Whoever it was out there had to have known that we were in pursuit. When we stopped, he stopped. When we started again, he started walking or running.
In the dark, a figure ahead of us stopped, turned toward us and raised a hand. Eric and I ducked behind the wood pile just as a shot tore a chunk of wood off one of the two-by-fours on the pile. We crouched and returned fire, aiming at the spot where we’d seen the muzzle flash coming from. The figure turned and ran, putting another ten yards between us before we continued our pursuit.
I gestured for Eric to swing wide, around one end of the uncompleted building while I swung wide in the other direction. We could still see each other through the skeletal framework of beams and girders, but the man we’d been chasing was nowhere to be seen. Eric and I met on the opposite side of the structure. He turned toward me. We listened again but didn’t hear any more footsteps. The next sound we heard was the blast of a handgun from somewhere ahead of us. Blood spurted from the front of Eric’s shoulder and splashed onto my shirt, the bullet whizzing past, missing me by less than an inch.
Eric fell to his knees, clutching his wounded shoulder. “Get him,” he said. “I’ll be all right.”
I left Eric there kneeling and picked up the pursuit, dodging in and out of cover. I could make out the figure ahead of me and knew I was within range for a clean shot. “Freeze,” I yelled to the man. “Freeze or I’ll shoot.”
The man stopped dead in his tracks, his hands raised. In his right hand he still held fast to the handgun, his finger still wrapped around the trigger.
“Drop it,” I yelled. “Do it now.”
The man slowly began to turn toward me, but still hadn’t dropped the gun. “I said drop it,” I repeated.
The man quickly lowered the gun, trying to get a shot off at me, but I was quicker and put one into the center of his chest and another into his thigh as he fell. Finally he dropped the gun and fell dead where he lay. I cautiously approached him, taking no chances. When I got close enough, I kicked his gun out of reach and then knelt next to the man. I quickly patted him down, checking for another gun. He didn’t have one, nor would he ever need one again. I reached into his back pocket and produced a brown bi-fold wallet, flipping it open to the driver’s license. It identified the dead man as Thomas Cochrane from Hollywood.
I carried the wallet back to where Eric was still kneeling. “Cochrane,” I said. “He’s dead. And now we’d better get you to a hospital, fast.” I sped through the streets of Hollywood and squealed to a stop in the emergency entrance of the hospital. I found a wheelchair sitting just outside the door, loaded Eric into it and wheeled him inside, yelling for some help. A doctor appeared and took the wheelchair from me, wheeling Eric behind two swing doors next to the nurse’s station.
I flipped open my cell phone and called home. Gloria answered. “Gloria,” I said. “Listen, I know I told you I’d be home by nine, but we ran into a snag.”
“What kind of a snag?” Gloria said, an edge to her voice.
“I’m calling from the emergency room at the hospital,” I said.
“Elliott,” Gloria said in a panic. “Are you all right?”
“Sure,” I said, “but Eric’s been shot. It’s not too serious, but they still have to remove a bullet from his shoulder. He’ll be fine, but we got Cochrane.”
“Dead?” Gloria said.
“As dead as they come,” I told her. “I just want to hang around here until they bring Eric out of surgery, okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” Gloria said. “As long as you’re not hurt. What time do you think you’ll be home?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It all depends on when they finish with Eric. Shouldn’t be too long. I’d better get off now and call someone at the precinct to let them know about Eric. I’ll see you later. Love you.”
“I love you, too, Elliott,” Gloria said and hung up.
I made the call to the twelfth precinct and waited around for another hour and a quarter before the doctor came out to talk to me. He told me Eric would be fine and that he’d make a full recovery with two weeks rest. I thanked the doctor and asked if I could see Eric. He told me which room I could find Eric in. I walked into Eric’s room and found him reclined in his bed, which had been cranked up to a sitting position.
“How do you feel?” I said as I walked up to the bed.
“A little foolish,” Eric said. “I should know better than to expose myself to getting shot and still I stood there like a rookie.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “If anyone at the station asks, we were ambushed. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”
“Thanks,” Eric said. “Did they send someone to the construction site to pick up Cochrane’s body?”
“Andy’s got him on a slab down at the morgue,” I said. “Andy Reynolds was the county medical examiner and a friend of mine.
“Did anyone say anything to you about Cochrane’s role in all this?” Eric said.
“From what they could find out at the station,” I said, “Slate and Cochrane cooked up this whole thing while they were bunking together at San Quentin. They just had to wait for the right set of circumstances before they could play it out. They forged George Kendall’s name on a phony will, listing those other guys as beneficiaries. Then they began knocking them off, one at a time starting with Raymond Bailey.”
“Wait a minute,” Eric said. “Cochrane’s name was on that list, too. And so was Slat
e’s.”
“They wanted themselves to appear to be in just as much danger as the others,” I said. “Then when the other three beneficiaries were dead, they were going to take care of Kendall, too. Then the two of them would share in Kendall’s will.”
“But what did Kendall have that they wanted?” Eric said. “Hell, if he had anything worth killing for, why would he be working in construction?”
“It was all part of this complicated plan that Slate and Cochrane had worked out,” I said. “Kendall didn’t know it, but seventy-five percent of the interest in Harper Construction had been signed over to him. Once Kendall was dead, the company would pretty much belong to Slate and Cochrane.”
“How could that happen without Leo Harper getting wise to their plan?” Eric said.
“They were going to kill him, too,” I said. “Remember, Slate worked in the office and had plenty of examples of Harper’s signature. He kept himself close enough to Harper to gain his confidence and trust. And if Mrs. Bailey hadn’t hired me to look into her husband’s death, this whole thing could have gone on record as an accident. And there would have been more accidents, you can bet on that. Slate and Cochrane knew from their stretch in San Quentin how to be patient and it might have taken them another year to get to the last killing. But with the stakes as high as they were, they must have figured that they’d just sit back and wait.”
“Did anyone tell Harper about all of this?” Eric said.
“Not yet,” I said. “I figured you’d want to talk to him yourself when you get out.”
His right arm in a sling, Eric held his left hand out and I awkwardly shook it. “Thanks, Elliott,” Eric said. “I owe you one.”
“Forget it,” I said. “You’ve thrown enough work my way in the past to more than cover it. Just keep throwing me more of it. I can use the work.”
I got home shortly before eleven that night and found Gloria still up, waiting for me. When she saw me she held one finger up to her lips.
“Shhh,” she said. “I finally got Matt to sleep. He wanted to wait up for you but he just couldn’t keep his little eyes open any longer.”
I smiled and then wrapped my arms around Gloria. I sighed heavily. “It’s been one hell of a day,” I said. “How about if I fill you in on the whole story in the morning?”
Gloria stood on tip-toes and kissed me. “In the morning,” she said, and led me to the bedroom.
97 – Oscar Night
I was driving north on Western Avenue the morning that I looked up in my rear view mirror and saw the rotating red lights behind me. I quickly glanced at my speedometer and realized that I was unconsciously doing nearly forty miles per hour in a twenty-five zone. I pulled over to the curb and turned my car off, waiting for the inevitable. I checked my outside mirror and saw an officer walking my way. A second later the knock came on my window and I lowered it, looking up at the patrolman in blue.
“Good morning, officer,” I said. “Have I done something wrong?” What the hell, it never hurt to play innocent.
“License and registration, please,” the cop said in a matter-of-fact tone.
I dug my wallet out of my back pocket and flipped it open to my license.
“Would you take it out of the wallet, please?” the officer said.
I removed the license and handed it up to him. I flipped open my glove box door and found the registration slip as well and handed that to the cop. I waited while he looked over my credentials.
“The reason I stopped you,” the cop said, “was because you were driving in excess of forty miles per hour in a twenty-five mile per hour zone.”
I tried to play dumb. “I’m sorry, officer,” I said. “I hadn’t realized that I was going that fast. I guess my mind was on my work. In fact, I was just on my way to see Lieutenant Eric Anderson over at the twelfth precinct. We’re working together on a case.” I flipped my wallet open to my badge and I.D. and held them up for the cop to see. He looked down at the I.D. card and silver badge.
“Private eye?” he said.
“Uh huh,” I said. “I know that’s no excuse for letting my speed get away from me.”
The cop handed me back my license and registration. “I’m going to let you off with just a warning this time, but just keep a closer eye on your speedometer, sir.”
“Thank you, officer,” I said, slipping my license back into my wallet and my registration back into the glove box. “And have a nice day.” I regretted that last part as soon as the words left my mouth. “Have a nice day?” What was I, some geeky shoe salesman? I pulled away from the curb at exactly the posted limit and turned left at my first opportunity. I wanted to be out of that cop’s sight and out of his mind as quickly as possible. I wasn’t going anywhere near Lieutenant Anderson’s office, but the cop didn’t need to know that. I turned right at the next corner and headed back to my office on Hollywood Boulevard.
Back in the office, Gloria could tell something was up but didn’t say anything at first. I’d sneak a glance at her every now and then and each time she seemed to be absorbed in her data entry chores on her computer. Having her remain silent was almost worse than having her say something.
“All right, already,” I said. “I got pulled over on the way here. You happy now? You got it out of me.”
Gloria looked up from her computer. “What?” she said. “I wasn’t really listening. What did you say?”
“I didn’t get a ticket,” I said. “In case that was your next question. I got off with a warning, okay?”
“Whatever you say, Elliott,” Gloria said in that condescending way that irritated me.
It would have been better if she’d just chewed me out and gotten it over with, but she seemed to be enjoying this little game of hers. I felt like a mouse being toyed with and she was an awfully big cat—a big, sadistic cat.
I took shelter behind my desk and turned on my computer, eager to move on. I spent the next fifteen minutes browsing the web to see what new surveillance toys they had available out there. I paused on a page that showed a pair of horn-rimmed glasses like the ones Buddy Holly used to wear. Upon closer examination, I found that these glasses had a miniature camera embedded in the stems. It saw what the wearer saw. Too bad wearing them made you look like a total dweeb. They might have come in handy otherwise.
One site offered a similar item only this one had the tiny camera integrated into the embroidered design on the front of a baseball cap. Now there was something that could be useful to me in my business as a private investigator. Surveillance could sometimes get to be downright difficult without the right tools and this was one of those tools that I just had to have. I clicked on the icon of the hat and next to it, clicked on the quantity box and entered a two. I figured Gloria might be able to use one as well.
My phone rang shortly after I’d submitted my order and credit card information. “Cooper investigations,” I said. “Elliott Cooper speaking.”
“Mr. Cooper,” the female voice on the other end said. “I wonder if I might be able to stop in and talk to you this morning.”
“Let me check my calendar. Can you hold for a second?” I said and put the woman on hold while I pretended to check my calendar, which in reality was wide open. I pressed the button for line one again and said, “When did you want to stop by?”
“Would ten o’clock work for you?” she said.
I checked the wall clock over the office door. It was nine-fifty. “Can you get here that soon?” I said.
“I’m right across the street,” she said, “at the public phone.”
“Must be one of the last public phones in the city,” I said. “I thought they were all gone.”
“Guess not,” she said and waited.
“Sure,” I said. “Come on up. I’ll be here.”
“Thank you, Mr. Cooper,” she said and hung up.
Four minutes later she stepped into the office, took one look at Gloria and then glanced at me. In that split second, she deduced that I must be the
man she was talking to and walked over to my desk. She looked to be in her mid to late thirties with a few extra pounds showing around her waistline. She had mousy brown, shoulder-length hair and clothes that should have been worn by someone a decade younger.
“Elliott Cooper,” I said, gesturing toward my client’s chair and inviting her to sit. I extended my hand to her.
“Donna Babcock,” the woman said, shaking my hand and taking a seat across from me.
I gestured toward Gloria. “And this is my wife, Gloria,” I said.
Gloria nodded politely and went back to her data entry chores.
“So,” I said, getting right down to the matter at hand, “how can I help you today?”
“What I’d like you to do, Mr. Cooper,” Donna said, “is find my father for me.”
“That’s it?” I said. “Just find your father? Have you misplaced him?”
Donna Babcock gave me a look reserved for the Village Idiot and I realized that maybe I shouldn’t be joking around with her until I got to know her better.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Bad joke. When did you last see your father?”
“I think it was June thirteenth,” Donna said.
I looked at my desk calendar. Today was June fourteenth. “You saw him yesterday and now you can’t find him?”
Donna sighed. “June thirteenth, nineteen eighty-seven,” she said. “He left home when I was twelve.”
“And you’re just now starting to look for him?” I said. “What brought all this on?”
“My mother,” Donna said. “It was her idea.” She could tell by the look on my face that I was lost. “You see, Mr. Cooper, I’m going to have a baby for the first time in my life at thirty-eight.”
“Well, congratulations, I guess,” I said.
“You don’t understand,” Donna said. “I need to find him so I can trace his medical history. I’m afraid I might be passing on something bad to my baby through dad.”
“Something bad?” I said. “Like what?”
By now Gloria had stopped her data entry and sat listening intently to Donna Babcock’s story.
The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories) Page 285