by Bill Bernico
“That was 1971 when I joined Dad here in the business,” Clay said. “After Dad retired, I took the sign down and changed the business name back to Cooper Investigations.”
Nick turned to Elliott. “And now it’s just you and Gloria?”
“Looks like it,” I said.
“Are you keeping the Cooper and Son sign in good condition for that day down the road?” Nick said.
I looked at Gloria and smiled. “You never know,” I said. I turned to Dad. “What are you two doing in town, besides giving my office an inspection?”
Dad shrugged. “We don’t know yet,” he said. “Nick and I thought we’d just wing it.” He turned to Nick. “Do you have any ideas, Nick?”
Nick shook his head. “I’m still trying to get used to having a family again,” he said. “After Bess, that was my wife, after Bess died I thought I was the end of the Sawyer line.”
“Didn’t you and Bess have any children?” Gloria said.
“We had two,” Nick said. “Carol and Joey.” Nick smiled at the memory, then his smile faded.
“Won’t Joey keep the family name going?” Gloria said.
Nick shook his head and then lowered it to his chest. “They’re both gone now,” he said.
“I’m so sorry,” Gloria said. “I had no idea.”
“Carol was twelve and Joey was just ten,” Nick said. “They were spending a week in Chicago with my Uncle, Art. At the end of the week Art put them on a plane for Los Angeles. The plane never made it. It went down in the Rocky Mountains just this side of Colorado.”
Clay stepped up to Nick and laid his hand on Nick’s shoulder. “Come on, Nick,” Clay said trying to divert Nick’s maudlin thoughts. “What do you say you and me hit the town, or at least hit a restaurant?”
Nick took a deep breath and sat up straight again. “Now that you mention it, I am a little hungry,” he said. “Just let me use the washroom first.” Nick stepped into our bathroom and closed the door.
“So,” Clay said to me, “would you two like to join us?”
“Ordinarily we would,” I said, “but Gloria and I have to take a drive to Pasadena to see a potential client. We’ll be gone a couple of hours, so why don’t you two just go by yourselves and have some fun?”
I caught Gloria’s eye and jerked my head toward the door. “You ready?” I said.
Gloria nodded, grabbed her jacket and followed me out the door.
No sooner had they left than Nick emerged from the bathroom. He looked around the room and saw only Clay. “Where did they go?” he said.
“They had to drive to Pasadena to see someone about a job,” Clay said. “They won’t be back for a couple of hours. So how about that restaurant? Any place in particular you’d like to go?”
Before Nick could answer the phone on Elliott’s desk rang. Clay hurried to the office door, stepped out into the outer office, opened the hall door and looked toward the elevator. Elliott and Gloria were already gone. He hurried back to Elliott’s desk and instinctively picked up the phone. “Cooper Investigations,” Clay said. “Clay Cooper speaking. Yes, uh huh. Well, I don’t know if… Sure, but… Could you hold for just a second, please?”
Clay turned to Nick. “Listen, Nick,” Clay said, “Elliott and Gloria are out and I have someone on the phone who needs our services right away. Can we take a rain check on lunch today?”
“Sure,” Nick said, waving his hand at me. “Business comes first. You go ahead and take the job.”
“What about you?” Clay said. “You rode here with me.”
Clay got back on the phone again. “I’m sorry,” Clay said, “But could you hold for just a few more seconds, please? Thank you.”
He pressed the mouth piece to his chest and turned to Nick again. “Would you like to come with me on this call, Nick?” Clay said. “It might not take that long and then we could drive straight to the restaurant from there?”
“That’d be nice,” Nick said. “Go on, tell him you’ll meet with him.”
Clay pulled the phone off his chest and held it to his face again. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” Clay said. “I can be there shortly. Would fifteen minutes from now work out for you? Terrific, give me that address again. Thank you. I’ll see you then. Good bye.” Clay hung up the phone, tore the piece of paper with the name and address out of the notebook and tucked it in his pocket.
Clay turned to Nick. “Well,” Clay said. “Let’s go see why this fellow thinks he needs a private eye.”
Nick followed Clay out of the office, down the hall and rode the elevator to the ground floor. They both slid into Clay’s car and Clay pulled out of the lot and headed west on Hollywood Boulevard. Clay pulled the note from his pocket and passed it over to Nick. “Would you read me that address again, Nick?” Clay said.
Nick unfolded the paper and read, “624 North Laurel Avenue, wherever that is.”
“I think I have a pretty good idea,” Clay said. “We just take Highland Avenue south to Melrose and Melrose west to Laurel, probably somewhere between Melrose and Clinton.”
“Sounds like you know the city pretty well,” Nick said.
“I was born here,” Clay explained. “And I spent more than forty years chasing around this city on one case or another. Tell me, Nick, how do you like Southern California compared to living in Chicago? I’ll bet you don’t get homesick when the snow starts flying back east.”
“I went back to Chicago two years ago, last February,” Nick said. “It was shortly after Bess died. I spent a few days kicking around my old neighborhood and by the time I left to fly back out here, I wasn’t homesick anymore.”
“I hear you,” Clay said. “Dad was from Chicago, as you know, and he took me back there when I was fifteen or sixteen and that was also during the winter. It felt so good to step off the plane once we touched down in warm, sunny Los Angeles again.”
Nick looked down at the paper again and then glanced out the window, trying to catch a glimpse of a house number. “There it is,” he said, pointing to a white stucco house with a red Spanish tile roof and a perfectly manicured yard.
Clay maneuvered his car to the curb and got out, walking around to the passenger door and helping his big brother up and out of the low riding car. There was no sidewalk up to the house, so the two of them walked up the driveway and then followed a small path to the front door. Nick stood alongside Clay while he rang the doorbell. We waited a moment before the door opened and a middle-aged man in slacks and a golf shirt greeted us.
“Kenneth Lockhart?” Clay said.
Lockhart nodded and opened his door all the way, even as Clay was introducing himself and Nick. “Please, come in,” Lockhart said, quickly closing the door behind the two men. He gestured toward a blue sofa and invited the two men to sit.
“Mr. Lockhart,” Clay said, “I understand you’d like to hire Cooper Investigations to look into a matter for you, is that correct?”
“That’s right,” Lockhart said. “And speed is of the essence in this matter.”
“How’s that?” Clay said.
“I need immediate action,” Lockhart said, “or he’ll get away with it and ruin me.”
Clay looked puzzled. “Who’ll get away with what?” Clay said.
Lockhart wrung his hands and paced. “I own a business called Lockdown Industries,” Lockhart explained. “My partner’s name is Vernon Downs and we started a business that installs burglar alarms for residential customers.”
“And?” Clay said.
“And Vern has disappeared,” Lockhart said. “He said he was going out to install a new system in Beverly Hills yesterday morning and he hasn’t returned to the office yet. A job like that normally takes five or six hours and I expected him back yesterday afternoon.”
“So you’re saying this is a missing persons case?” Clay said. “Did you check with that last customer or call the police?”
“I can’t” Lockhart said. “A thing like this would ruin us.”
“S
uppose you back up to the beginning,” Clay said. “I’m not following you so far.”
Lockhart sat in a straight-backed chair across from Nick and Clay and leaned toward then, his forearms resting on his knees. “About a week ago,” Lockhart began, “Vern and I got to talking over a few drinks after work one night. He offhandedly remarked how easy it would be to get back into a house with one of our systems installed in it, since we’d know how to bypass everything we’d installed. I gave him a strange look and asked if he was kidding and he said he was, but I don’t know. I got the feeling he was just looking for a reaction from me.”
“But you don’t believe him?” Clay said.
“I dismissed it at the time,” Lockhart said, “but the more I thought about it, the more I was sure Vern was up to something. Some of the residences in Beverly Hills and Bel-Air where we’ve installed our systems are worth millions and have millions more in contents inside. That could be too much of a temptation for a lot of guys who wouldn’t follow through because the burglar alarm systems would be almost impossible to get past undetected.”
“Except for either of you,” Clay said.
Lockhart nodded. “Some of the nationwide chains of burglar alarm companies have been taking a pretty big bite out of our business lately and I’m afraid Vern might have decided to help himself to some of our customer’s contents as kind of a hedge against inflation, if you get my drift.”
“And just where does Cooper Investigations come in?” Clay said.
“That last customer,” Lockwood said, “in Beverly Hills. Vern surely must have finished installing that system shortly after lunch yesterday. When he didn’t come back here afterwards, I just assumed he’d gone home for lunch or maybe even got a referral from the homeowner for some neighbor who might want a similar system installed. I let it go yesterday, but today when he didn’t show up for work, I got a strange feeling that Vern let himself into one of our customer’s houses, cleaned them out and took off for who knows where. Naturally when the customer finds out, they’ll call the police and it will eventually lead right back to Lockdown Industries and I’ll be ruined.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” Clay said. “I have a feeling there’s more to this story that you haven’t told me.”
Lockhart hesitated and then offered, “That last customer in Beverly Hills, Mr. and Mrs. Carlisle,” Lockhart said. “When they initially called me last week they told me they wanted a new system installed before they left for Paris Monday morning. They told me they’d be gone a week and would feel better about being gone if they got a new burglar alarm system installed. I told Vern about the call and he offered to install it himself.”
“Is that unusual?” Clay said. “How many employees do you have?”
“There’s just the two of us,” Lockhart said, “and Dennis. He’s kind of an all-round gofer and delivery driver when we need an extra pair of hands. Dennis was off picking up some parts for us at the airport and Vern said he’d take this one by himself, so I let him.”
Nick had remained silent all this while, listening intently to the conversation, but quickly added, “Sounds like Vern was planning on revisiting the Carlisle house after they left for Paris. And you can bet he left himself a way to get back in undetected.”
“I’m afraid so,” Lockhart said. “And that’s why I need your services, Mr. Cooper. I need you to find Vern and get back everything he stole so we can put it back before Mr. and Mrs. Carlisle return. They’ll be back in four days.”
Clay thought about it for a moment and then said, “Sounds like a big job to complete in just four days, but we’ll give it our best shot.”
“Is that all the assurance you can give me, Mr. Cooper?” Lockhart said. “Your best shot? Your best shot is not good enough. I need to know for sure that you can handle this job.”
“Mr. Lockhart,” Clay said. “No one, that is, no other detective agency can give you a guarantee like that. There are just too many variables involved. There are too many places Vern could hide and if we did find him, there are even more places where he could hide anything he took, that is, assuming that he’d even admit to taking them in the first place. Let me ask the obvious, Mr. Lockhart. Have you checked the Carlisle house yet yourself to see if Vern is there of had been there?”
“No, I haven’t,” Lockhart said.
“Well, then,” Clay said. “Before I agree to take on this case, suppose the three of us take a ride to the Carlisle house and have a look around? Then I’ll let you know whether or not we’ll be able to handle this for you.”
“Fair enough,” Lockhart said, grabbing a jacket from a hall closet and leading us back out of his front door.
Lockhart crawled into the back seat of my car and the three of us drove towards Beverly Hills. Lockhart instructed me to drive up to Loma Vista, which wound around up into the hills. He told me where to stop when I rounded a corner and spotted an isolated house set back from the road. I parked in the driveway and the three of us got out to have a quick look around.
Lockhart led us up to the front door and rang the bell, knowing no one would answer it. He tried the door knob but it held fast. He reached into his inside jack pocket and produced a small zippered pouch of black leather. Lockhart opened the pouch and withdrew two pieces of metal with pointed ends that looked like something your dentist would poke around with in your mouth. He slipped the two pointed ends into the front door lock and gave a twist and the door knob turned. Lockhart stepped inside and told us to hurry inside, too. He closed the front door and quickly found the alarm box, which was blinking red now.
“We’d better get out of here,” Nick said. “It looks like that this has already gone off.”
Lockhart waved him off. “No, that just means the owner has forty-five seconds to disarm the system.”
“But the owner’s in Paris,” Clay said.
Before Clay or Nick could voice any further objection, Lockhart pressed four numbers on the keypad and the blinking red light turned to a steady green one.
“How’d you know the code?” Clay said.
“I didn’t,” Lockhart said. “But with every system we install we always program in a bypass code in the event we need to shut off the system to work on it. It only works on our systems and the only people who know that code are Vern and me.”
“So now what?” Nick said.
“Let’s have a look around,” Lockhart said. “See if you can find any obvious signs of things missing or disturbed. I’ll start in here in the foyer. Could you take a look upstairs, Mr. Cooper?”
“What about me?” Nick said. “Where would you like me to check?”
“Try the kitchen,” Lockhart said.
“This place is bigger than some hotels I’ve stayed at,” Nick said. “Where is the kitchen?”
Lockhart shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never been here before myself. Just start looking around.”
Clay climbed the curved staircase, checking the walls as he ascended. There were several framed pictures hanging on the wall on the way up the stairs, but no empty hangers. At the top of the stairs Clay found several doors in a row. He tried each one, opening the door and peeking inside. So far everything looked in apple pie order with no signs of any disturbance. He looked in the upstairs bathroom, which was bigger than his whole office. Everything was immaculate in here as well. The last room at the end of the hall looked to be the master bedroom. Once again, not a thing seemed out of place.
Lockhart walked all around the foyer, checking walls, drawers, doors and cabinets. Nothing appeared to be missing or obviously absent. He finished with the foyer and continued on through to the den. He flipped on the light switch and this room was also spotless and unmolested. He turned the light off again and walked into the living room. Could he have been wrong about Vern actually going through with his plan to rob their rich customers?
Nick found the kitchen and it looked cleaner than the fanciest restaurant he’d ever visited. Past the kitchen he f
ound a laundry room that looked as if it had never been used. On the other side of the laundry room, Nick emerged into what looked to be a solarium. There was wicker furniture and glass tables and plants everywhere. This setting was also pristine, with no signs that anyone had been here recently.
Clay descended the staircase and met Lockhart in the foyer again. “Find anything down here?” Clay said.
Lockhart shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “What about upstairs?”
“This whole place looks like some model home that no one lives in,” Clay said. “You sure this place was ever occupied?”
Nick shuffled back into the foyer just then. He looked at Lockhart. “Is Vern about six feet tall with brown hair and wearing a blue blazer with tan slacks?”
“Now how did you know that?” Lockhart said.
“I found him,” Nick said.
“Where,” Clay and Lockhart said in unison.
“Follow me, boys,” Nick said, shuffling his way back toward the solarium.
When the three of them got to the solarium, Nick pointed out one of the many windows toward the back yard. Lying face down on the plush green lawn was the body of a man wearing a blue blazer and tan slacks. He had brown hair—what there was left of it on the mangled red skull. It was hard to tell from that angle. The tan slacks were stained with blood, lots of blood. One shoe was missing and the shoeless foot was also covered with blood. The blue blazer was ripped to shreds and barely hanging on the body.
“What the hell?” Lockhart said and grabbed the handle to the solarium door.
He’d no sooner twisted the handle than two black and brown Dobermans ran up to the door, jumping and clawing at the outside door knob, their large white and red fangs staring him right in the face. Lockhart pulled the door closed again and jumped back, his heart pounding out of his chest. He quickly locked the door and looked at Clay.
“Jesus Christ,” Lockhart said. “That’s Vern out there. Those two animals killed him.”
