Cooper By The Gross (All 144 Cooper Stories In One Volume)

by Bill Bernico

  When the day arrived for Laverne to give birth, nothing happened. The same nothing happened for the next six days. The baby was late. I had mixed emotions from this—worry over Laverne’s and the baby’s health, and just a tinge of relief for the calendar counters amongst my side of the family. On the seventh day Laverne’s water broke and she delivered a healthy baby boy shortly after midnight. Dean Orville Hollister came into the world on September 17, 1951. Mother and son came through it without a hitch. I, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck, having chewed most of my fingernails so short that several of them bled.

  Amy and Matt visited Laverne the next day and brought her a blue blanket and a get well card. Matt had never seen me look so happy as I did when he entered Laverne’s room that morning. When I saw him, I turned away and Matt thought he saw my hand go to my eyes before I turned back toward him.

  “Must be something in this hospital’s ventilation system,” I said. “Really irritates the eyes.”

  “I know,” Matt said. “Congratulations, Dan.” He shook my hand and patted my shoulder. I pulled a cigar from my shirt pocket and stuck one end of it in Matt’s mouth.

  Amy stood at Laverne’s bedside and bent over the baby, tickling his chin and talking nonsensical baby talk. The baby seemed to respond to her voice.

  Matt stepped closer and got a look at the bracelet the baby was wearing. He leaned closer to see the name on it. “Dean Orville Hollister,” he said. “No Daniel, Junior?”

  “No Matthew Junior?” I said, looking at Matt. He had named his son Clayton, or Clay for short.

  “Touché,” Matt said. “But where did you get the names?”

  “Dean was my father’s name,” I said. “And Orville was Laverne’s father. The Hollister part we just picked at random.”

  Laverne pulled a face at me. “Dan, Dan, Dan,” Laverne said. “What am I going to do with you?”

  I stepped closer and bent down to kiss my wife. “Looks like you’ll have to keep me,” I said.

  Matt turned to me and said, “Dean’s just fourteen months younger than Clay. Maybe they’ll get to play together when they get older.”

  “Maybe,” I said, another tear running down my cheek.

  “Damned hospital ventilation system,” Matt said, patting my back.

  *****

  It had been nearly two years since Dean had come into the world and I felt totally comfortable in my role as husband and father. I kept in frequent touch with Matt Cooper, the former police officer turned private eye and we occasionally worked together on cases that overlapped our territories.

  It was a week before Halloween and I found myself partnered with Officer Ted Harding. The two of us worked well together and had gotten to where we knew each other’s moves and thoughts. Officer Harding had been with the Los Angeles Police Department for four years but had never moved up the ranks like I had. Ted had a bit of an attitude and his superiors responded by overlooking him when promotions came around. Ted was beginning to get resentful and bitter.

  On this particular night, Harding and I had answered a call about a domestic dispute. It was the one type of call that most cops dreaded answering because the outcome could turn on a dime. In cases where the wife was being beaten by the husband and the cops came to arrest him, suddenly the wife would turn on the cops and they’d be thrust into a dangerous situation.

  When we got to the house on Las Palmas I called in our location and Officer Harding got out of the patrol car. The husband was sitting on the porch waiting for us. He knew that his wife had called the police. Officer Harding walked up the sidewalk and approached the man and when he got to the bottom of the stairs, the man pulled out a knife and he leapt at Harding. He headed straight for him, the knife thrust out in front of him. Harding drew his gun but it never phased the charging man a bit. He just kept coming after Ted with his knife. Harding kept retreating from him, backing up and running out of the front yard and along side of the house to the back of the yard.

  Harding also had his nightstick out and was trying to hit the man either in the arm to dislodge the knife, or to hit him in the head, but the crazed man kept dodging him. This guy just was focused in on the one officer that he was after. They got into the back yard where there was a little garden and Harding was backing up from the subject. He didn’t want to shoot the man and kept telling the guy to stop, but the man just kept coming at him, slashing wildly with the knife.

  Harding tripped on something in the yard and fell down. The ornery man came right up on top of him with the knife raised and was going to stab him. With all other options exhausted, Harding shot once, up from a lying position. His shot hit the man under his chin and exited through the top of his head. The man fell directly on top of Harding before flopping over on his side, dead.

  I slid out of the patrol car and hurried around to the back of the house. Harding had sat up by now and was visibly shaken by his ordeal. I helped him to his feet and got him back to the patrol car. I had him sit on the edge of the front seat while I called for backup and a supervisor. They arrived within ten minutes and had brought an ambulance with them.

  When I brought Harding down to the station to fill out reports on the incident, he broke down and cried. He felt very bad about having to kill a man, but it was ruled a justifiable shooting by the supervisor and no charges were brought against him. Word of the incident drifted up to the brass on the third floor and within three weeks they’d issued Officer Theodore Harding a citation for his work on this domestic dispute case. It came with one extra stripe for his arm, but it would still be a few more months before Harding could put the whole incident out of his mind.

  That would be a good example of the down side of our jobs as cops. But it wasn’t all seriousness and danger. Officer Harding and I had been partnered the following spring on a call that was a lot less stressful. Ted Harding had a twin brother named Ed who lived in Hollywood. He was a factory worker who hated his job and he’d spend a lot of time in the bars trying to drink away the memories of a terrible job. He would go down to skid row practically every night and drink until he passed out on the bar. Ted almost never mentioned his brother to anyone and many a time other bar patrons thought the man passed out on the bar was Officer Ted Harding.

  On this particular night the bartender, who knew Ted, called the station and asked for him. Usually Ted had to drive to the bar to pick his brother up and take him home. The people who owned the tavern knew that I was Ted’s sergeant and on the nights when Ted was off and I’d be working, it would fall on me to drive down to the bar and pick up Ed Harding and take him home.

  Officer Harding and I would have to pick this guy up off the stool, carry him outside and put him in the back of the squad car, drive him home, pick him up and carry him up a set of outside stairs into his apartment and throw him on his bed. We had done that for a while and we got pretty sick of it.

  The very next night I got a call to go over to the same bar again and carry Ed Harding out of the place, so I called his brother, Ted, who was off duty at home. When Officer Harding answered the phone, I told him, “I want to tell you something, Harding. I’m getting tired of carrying your drunken brother home.”

  Embarrassed, Ted Harding said, “Do whatever you want with him, Sarge. I’ve tried talking to him and I can’t seem to get through to him. If you want, take him down to the station and throw him in the cell. Maybe that will sink into that thick skull of his.”

  I told Ted, “I’ll take him home tonight, but this is the last time. You understand me?”

  Ted cleared his throat and said, “Thanks, Sergeant. Oh, and by the way, you know he moved.”

  “No I didn’t know that,” I said.

  “He moved to an upstairs apartment,” Ted said.”

  Ted told me how to find Ed’s new apartment, but for some reason, I didn’t write it down. He told me to go to a particular corner and that there was a Mom and Pop store on that corner. He said that Ed’s building was the third house south of there.


  The officer I’d been working with that night, John Shane and I picked Ed up in the squad car and drove him home. John counted the houses from the Mom and Pop store and said, “It’s that yellow house over there.” He pointed up the street.

  We picked Ed Harding up by his armpits and legs, carried him around the back, and opened the door which led up to a stairway. We carried him upstairs, turned the lights on and there were three bedrooms up there. Every one of the rooms that we looked at looked like a girl’s or woman’s bedroom. They had all fancy curtains, fancy lace on the beds and were decorated the way a woman would for herself.

  We carried Ed from one room to the other. We didn’t know which room was his, so we finally laid him on the bed of the room that looked like it could be a man’s room. We shut the lights off, went back down the stairs and got back into the squad car. We were just about ready to drive off and I counted the houses from the corner and instead of the third one, it was the fourth one, so I told Officer Shane, “We got him in the wrong house, that’s not the right house.”

  Shane replied, “Well, the hell with him, leave him there, I’m not going to go back in there again.”

  “John, we have to,” I said. “We can’t leave him there in the wrong house. What’ll happen when the owners come home and find him there?”

  Officer Shane thought about it and finally agreed with me. We went back into the house again, went back up the stairs, turned the lights on and picked him up off the bed. “As we were carrying him down the stairs, the doorway from the lower apartment opened and a guy in pajamas stuck his head out to see what the commotion was all about. “What are you guys doing anyway?” he said, looking at me specifically.

  “Do you know this guy here?” I said, gesturing toward the unconscious Ed Harding.

  Pajama guy looked down at Ed and said, “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

  “Well, that’s what I thought,” I told pajama guy. “We didn’t think he lived here, either so we’re taking him down to the station.”

  Pajama guy said, “Oh, fine, thanks officers.”

  And that’s just what we did. We took him down to the station and threw him in the drunk tank. Ted thanked Shane and me and promised that this was the last time we’d ever have to cover for his brother. We never got any calls on Ed Harding anymore after that.

  *****

  I was meeting Matt Cooper for coffee one morning in April of 1962. We usually met at the Copper Penny in Glendale, but this morning I asked him to meet me at The Gold Cup on Hollywood Boulevard. When I walked in Matt was already sitting in a booth waiting for me.

  “Morning, Matt,” I said, and slid in across from him.

  “What’s with the long face, Dan?” Matt said.

  “You remember Jack Walsh?” I said.

  “Sure,” Matt said. “County Medical Examiner, if I remember. What about him?”

  “Former medical examiner,” I said. “Andy Reynolds is the M.E. these days. Jack retired three months ago.”

  “Retired?” Matt said. “Was he old enough to retire?”

  “Sixty-five,” I told Matt. “I know, he didn’t look it, did he?”

  “He sure didn’t,” Matt said. “What’s he doing to keep himself busy these days?”

  “Actually, Matt,” I said. “Jack died this morning from a heart attack. He was found in his fishing boat floating in the lake.”

  “Oh, Dan,” Matt said. “I’m sorry to hear that. Jack was one of the good guys.”

  “Reynolds has some big shoes to fill,” I said.

  “I guess so,” Matt said. “Is that why you wanted to see me this morning, Dan?”

  “Not really,” I said. “It’s Dean.”

  “Dean?” Matt said. “Your boy’s all right, isn’t he?”

  I shrugged. “It’s some of the bigger boys at school,” I told Matt. “They’ve been picking on Dean and he’s still a little too timid to stand up for himself. I’ve been meaning to go a little one-on-one with him and teach him a few defensive moves, but I’ve been a little busy lately.”

  “And you want me to teach him how to fight?” Matt said.

  I shook my head. “Not exactly,” I said. “I was hoping Clay could maybe keep an eye on him at school until I can teach Dean to fight.”

  “You want my son to act as a kind of body guard for yours?” Matt said.

  “Clay’s a year older than Dean,” I said, “and he’s in the seventh grade. It’s some of those seventh graders who are picking on Dean and I thought Clay could handle it a little more diplomatically that I would. I’m afraid I’d just be too tempted to grab them by their shoulder and bang their heads together.”

  “Like Moe did to Larry and Curly,” Matt said.

  “Only without the comical sound effects,” I said. “Would you talk to Clay about it? I’d really appreciate it.”

  “I’m sure Clay wouldn’t mind being a surrogate big brother for a while,” Matt said. “I’ll let him know about Dean’s situation tonight at dinner. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Thanks, Matt,” I said. We finished our coffee and Matt returned to his office on the boulevard. I drove back to the twelfth precinct feeling a little relieved. I’d make a point to set aside some time for Dean this weekend and teach him how to defend himself.

  My son, Dean and Matt’s son, Clay grew close over the next few years. The summer Clay turned fifteen was the summer that The Beatles’ second movie, Help! Came out. Clay had even bought himself a guitar and had learned a few songs on it. Dean, however, didn’t share his enthusiasm for the modern music. Still the two boys had grown up together and had become close friends.

  Matt and his second wife, Amy, had gone to a movie of their own that August night in 1965. On their way home, to save a little time, they decided to take the shortcut through the park. It turned out to be a fatal mistake for Amy. She and Matt were mugged mid-way through the park. Matt had been stabbed, shot and left for dead, while Amy had been raped and beat to death with a length of pipe. I swore to Matt that our department would do everything in its powers to find the three punks who had done this.

  A little of Matt had been killed along with Amy. He was a shell of his former self when we was finally released from the hospital. I knew he’d be going after the killers on his own, and as much as I wanted to remind him that it was a police matter, I couldn’t blame him at all for wanting to do something about it himself. He did and I never pressed the issue. One of the killer was squashed under a pile of lumber at the lumber yard. We took the other two into custody, but not before someone had managed to break their arms and legs and leave them lying where we could find them. Those were two of the easiest arrests we’d ever made.

  Seven years later, in the spring of 1972, Dean had joined the police academy shortly before his twenty-first birthday. Matt’s son, Clay, had joined his father in the private investigations business a year earlier. With very little help from me and without me having to use my influence in the department, Dean moved up the ranks and by the time I retired in 1975, Dean felt he was ready to take his sergeant’s exam.

  I’d been retired for less than a year when Dean made sergeant. He hadn’t passed his exam the first time around and spent the next ten months as an officer on patrol. The second time around, Dean passed with flying colors and got his sergeant stripes. They gave him my old office and to me it felt like the carousel ride of life had come full circle. I guess could relax in my retirement now, knowing that another Hollister would be picking up where I had left off.

  On February 16, 1980 Dean and Clay stood up near the altar, each of them dressed in a tuxedo, looking like a couple of trained penguins. They each had another man their own age standing alongside them. I assumed these were the best men. Beside them each stood just one woman in a light pink formal dress. These had to be the maids of honor for Veronica, Clay’s partner, and Helen, the woman who was to marry Dean. I looked around the room. With accommodations for sixty people, this place could still bring in another for
ty more people before they’d be at capacity. I guess this ceremony came with too little notice for most people to be able to make it.

  The whole ceremony took less than twenty minutes, including the vows, the music and the witnessing of the documents later in the pastor’s office. It was almost like the express line at the grocery store—twelve items or less, or in this case, twelve minutes or less.

  When the three couples, the two married couples and the witnesses, emerged from the office holding their wedding licenses, the small crowd in the church clapped and lined the door leading out to the street. As the two newlywed couples exited, the people on either side of them threw the rice they’d brought for just this moment. Altogether, there wasn’t enough rice thrown to make a decent side dish for supper. The two couples got into a waiting limousine and were driven away. I knew where they were going and had Matt drive me there. We got there almost before the new married couples arrived.

  The reception was held in the back room of a Denny’s Restaurant on Colorado Boulevard in Glendale. The crowd of fewer than twenty people filed in and found seats at the tables with their names on small folded cards. Without further fanfare, and with everyone seated, the meals were brought in and placed on each of the tables. Before anyone took a single bite, Matt clinked the side of his glass with his fork and stood.

  “If I may,” Matt said. “I’d like to propose a toast to my son, Clay Cooper and his new wife Veronica.” Everyone raised their glasses and drank. “I’d also like to propose a toast to Mrs. and Mrs. Dean Hollister.” Glasses were raised again and everyone drank. Before Matt sat down he said,” And one last toast, if you will all indulge me for a moment. To my best friend Dan Hollister, the father of the other groom. Here’s to you, my friend.” Everyone drank and Matt raised his glass directly to me, drank, gave me a wink and sat back down again.

  The rest of the evening was surely one to remember. A lone musician provided music that night with an accordion. He was all we could come up with on such short notice. Near the end of the night, after several drinks and dances, my wife, Laverne lost her footing and fell down a short flight of stairs, breaking her right leg. When Matt saw her the following day she was wearing a full-length cast on that leg and she walked really funny with those crutches.