by Bill Bernico
“Elliott,” a familiar voice said. “It’s Eric. Did I catch you in the middle of anything important?”
“Just this damned data entry,” I said. “Gees, I’ll be glad when we’re all caught up. I’m starting to see these files in my sleep, among other things.”
“I can imagine what those other things are,” Eric said. “That’s kind of why I’m calling. As you were aware, we looked into the death of that guy who fell from the skyscraper being built on Western and Hollywood.”
“You don’t have to remind me of that one,” I said. “Raymond Bailey’s image will be with me for quite some time to come.”
“Raymond Bailey?” Eric said. “Wasn’t he the guy who played Milburn Drysdale, the Beverly Hills banker on The Beverly Hillbillies back in the sixties?”
“Now that you mention it,” I said. “I hadn’t thought of that connection until you just now mentioned it. No, I’m talking about the other Raymond Bailey who splatted next to me on the street.”
“How’d you know his name?” Eric said. “We hadn’t released it until just recently.”
“I got a letter this morning from his widow, Abigail, asking me to call her this morning,” I said. “Apparently she doesn’t thing her husband’s death was an accident and she wants me to look into it for her.”
“I know,” Eric said. “She hounded me for several days with her theories. I told her that we had no evidence to the contrary but that she was free to pursue it on her own. I gave her your name and address before she left my office. I figured you could use the work. There’s really nothing else I can do for her anyway, unless you dig something up. Then we might be able to reopen the case.”
“Thanks for the referral,” I said. “I’ll be sure to let you know if anything turns up on this one.”
“That was my other reason for calling,” Eric said. “Let’s keep in touch on this one. I’ll be happy to share whatever we have on this one but you have to do the same for me.”
“That’s a given,” I said. “Thanks again.” I hung up and got back to my data entry chores.
I was still pounding away at my keys when I looked up at the wall clock that hung over the office door. It was ten minutes past ten and I decided I’d had enough data entry. Besides, Abigail Bailey should be home by now. I dialed her number and waited. She answered on the third ring.
“Hello,” a female voice said.
“Mrs. Bailey?” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Mrs. Bailey,” I said, “this is Elliott Cooper from Cooper Investigations. I got your letter this morning. How can I help you?”
“Oh, thank you for calling, Mr. Cooper,” she said. “I was wondering if I might come to your office this morning and talk to you about my suspicions concerning my husband’s death.”
“I guess that would be all right,” I said. “But I just got off the phone with Lieutenant Anderson and he tells me that Raymond’s death was an accident. What makes you think it was anything but?”
“I’d rather not discuss that on the phone,” Abigail said. “I’d rather talk to you in person, if you don’t mind. Are you free this morning?”
I pretended to shuffle though some papers on my desk, making enough noise for her to hear it over the phone. I didn’t want to admit that I had no clients at the moment. “I can fit you in,” I said. “Does eleven o’clock work for you?”
“I’ll make it work,” Abigail said. “I’ll see you then, Mr. Cooper and thank you.”
Forty five minutes later I heard footsteps in the hall coming toward my office. Abigail Bailey walked into the office and spotted me sitting at my desk. I rose from my chair as she approached and held out my hand.
“Elliott Cooper,” I said, shaking her hand.
She took it and pumped it twice before releasing it. “Abigail Bailey,” she said.
I gestured toward my clients chair and asked if I could get her a cup of coffee. She waved it off and sat down. I took my seat and pulled my yellow legal pad and pencil from my drawer. “Suppose we get to know a little about each other before we start in with your concerns, Mrs. Bailey?” I said.
“Abbie,” she said. “You can call me Abbie.”
“Very well, Abbie,” I said. “Would you like to go first?”
“Actually,” Abbie said, “I’d like to hear a little more about you first. Lieutenant Anderson recommended you, but he really didn’t tell me anything more than your name and address.”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s see, I run this agency with my wife, Gloria. She’s usually here this time of day, but she taking our son, Matt in for a pre-school registration checkup. My father, Clay is mostly retired from this business but helps out occasionally as we need him. His father, Matt started this business in 1946 after a few years on the L.A. police department. We’ve handled literally thousands of cases in the last forty-seven years and I’d have to say with all modesty that we’re very good at what we do. Does that answer all your questions about Cooper Investigations?”
“Very impressive, Mr. Cooper,” Abbie said.
“Elliott,” I said, interrupting her.
“How’s that?” Abbie said.
“You asked me to call you Abbie,” I said. “Please feel free to call me Elliott.”
Abbie nodded. “Fair enough, Elliott,” she said. “What would you like to know about me?”
I picked up my pencil and looked at Abbie. “Just so I have a little background,” I said, “suppose you tell me a little about you and your husband. How long were you married? Where and when did you meet? How long had he worked in the construction business? Things like that.”
“Why is it important where and when we met?” Abbie said. “I don’t see what that had to do with Raymond’s death.”
“Abbie,” I said, “it may not seem important now, out of context, but it helps me get an overall picture of you two and who knows, maybe somewhere down the line during the investigation, something you tell me now may suddenly fall into place. The more I know about you two, the better my chances are of connecting some seemingly unimportant piece of information to the truth.”
“I see,” Abbie said. “Okay, Raymond and I met six years ago, ironically enough on another construction site south of here. Raymond had been in the construction business for five years when we met. He was working on a new building and I was watching from the sidewalk. He looked down at me from the second floor and smiled. I guess I smiled back. I don’t remember. But he said I did and within a minute he was down on the street talking to me.”
“And who says there’s no such thing as love at first site?” I said, and then realized that she had no idea that I was talking about the work site. “First site, first sight,” I said, trying to explain my offbeat humor. “Never mind, go on.”
“Well,” Abbie said, “we started dating that night and we got married just four months later. That was six years ago. This July would have been our seventh anniversary.” Abbie retrieved a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her eyes. She took a deep breath and continued. “When Raymond left the house that morning the last thing he said to me was something about picking up a gallon of milk on his way home. I never saw him alive again.” This time she dropped her head and sobbed into her tissue.
I got out of my chair and came around to her side of the desk, laying my hand on her shoulder.
“I thought I was all cried out,” Abbie said.
“Take your time,” I told her. “There’s no hurry.”
“I don’t know what more I can tell you about us,” Abbie said.
“Well then,” I said, “how about if you tell me about your suspicions? Why do you think Mr. Bailey’s death wasn’t an accident?”
Abbie wiped her eyes and looked up at me. “It was something Raymond said the other night,” Abbie explained. “He said he had some suspicions about two of the other workers on that skyscraper project.”
“Did he tell you specifically what those suspicions were?” I said. “And did he mention
the names of those two guys he suspected?”
“That’s just it,” Abbie said. “That was all he told me. He said he didn’t want to say any more until he had the proof, otherwise it wouldn’t mean anything and he wanted to be sure. He wouldn’t tell me the names of the two guys he suspected, either. He said he’d have the proof he needed any day now. He never got to share his suspicions with anyone else. That’s what I want you to look into, Elliott. I want you to find out what Raymond was so suspicious about and see if you can find out the names of the two guys he was checking up on before he died.”
“Do you have the names of any of Raymond’s co-workers, Abbie?” I said.
She thought for a moment. “Well,” she said, “there’s Derek Slate, the foreman. I’ve heard Raymond mention him many time over the years. Some of the other guys he mentioned were John, Paul and George. You don’t forget names like those where you’re as big a Beatle fan as we both were.”
I made a note of those names on my yellow pad. “You should meet my father, Clay,” I said. “He can hold his own with anybody in any Beatle trivia contest. He once helped solve a case where a serial killer left clues related to Beatle song titles.”
“Well,” Abbie said, “those are the only names I ever heard Raymond mention. Doesn’t sound like much, I know, but it’s all I have.”
“It’s enough to get me started,” I said. “I’ll get going on it right away, if that’s okay with you.”
“Please, Elliott,” she said. “I won’t rest until the person who pushed Raymond off that building is in custody or dead.”
I showed Abbie out and called Gloria’s cell phone. She was probably still in the doctor’s office, because I got her voice mail. I left her a message about getting here as soon as she was finished with Matt and hung up. I decided to wait for Gloria before I did any checking on Abbie’s behalf. I looked at my computer again but just wasn’t in the mood for any more data entry. I turned it on anyway and connected to the Internet. I decided to look up whatever I could find on Harper Construction, the company that Raymond Bailey had worked for.
I got several hits right away and clicked on the first link. It was a newspaper article about safety violations that Harper Construction had faced on their last build, a thirty-two story high rise in Downtown Los Angeles three years ago. The story went on to say that the head of Harper Construction, Leo Harper had been sited eighteen times for safety violations and had paid fines in excess of a hundred twenty-five thousand dollars.
There was a photo accompanying the article. It showed five men standing on the girder of an unfinished high rise building. The caption below the photo identified the men as Leo Harper, Derek Slate, John Mullins, Paul Stewart and George Kendall. These were the men Raymond Bailey had told his wife about.
I jotted the five names down on my yellow legal pad and narrowed my search specifically to each of the five men listed in the photo. All I got from everyone except Harper was just the bare essentials but nothing more that I found useful. The search on Leo Harper told me all I needed to know about Harper, his business and his family history, starting with his grandfather, Vincent Harper, who had founded the company in 1941. Further down in the article it told of Leo’s father, Alan, who ran the company following Vincent’s death in 1972. Alan Harper took control of Harper Construction and held that position until his death in 2008. Leo had been running the company since.
I checked a few financial information locations on the web and followed with interest the progress of the Harper Construction Company. Its stock sold publicly on the exchange and the history chart showed a steady increase from the time of its first IPO in 1973 until late in 2008. Coincidentally the stock started to take a dip shortly after Leo took control of the company and that gave me something to look into to. I still wasn’t sure how or if it was connected to Raymond’s Bailey’s fifteen-story fall.
It was a few minutes after twelve noon when Gloria walked into the office. She set her purse on her desk, hung up her coat and came over to my desk.
“How did Matt’s checkup go this morning?” I said, still clicking on links. “Everything all right?”
“The doctor only gave him another eighty years to live,” Gloria said and then looked to me for some reaction.
“That’s fine,” I said without looking up.
“Says Matt has a bad case of epidermis opinglottis,” Gloria said. “Could be fourth stage.”
“Uh huh,” I said, still staring at my computer screen, moving the mouse around.
“He wants you to get checked out for it,” Gloria added. “You know, in case it’s contagious.”
“Okay,” I said. After a moment I couldn’t hold back any longer and shifted my eyes toward Gloria without moving my head.
“You snot,” she said. “Did you hear any of what I said?”
“Every word,” I told her.
“Would it have killed you to show a little interest?” Gloria said impatiently.
“I already knew all this,” I said. “I called the doctor’s office, trying to reach you. They told me you’d already left so while I had them on the line I asked about Matt’s checkup. See? I am showing an interest.”
Gloria pointed at my computer screen. “What’s that you’re looking up?” she said.
“I’m trying to get a little background on Harper Construction,” I said, swiveling my screen toward her. “I wanted to know if they were in any kind of trouble, financial or otherwise and whether or not there was any connection to Raymond Bailey’s death.”
“And what did you find out?” Gloria said.
“Not much,” I had to admit. “I may find out more by actually talking to some of the principle players. I thought I’d visit the construction site.”
“Look out for any grease buckets,” Gloria said. “And wear a parachute if you’re going to walk around anywhere up high.”
“Yes, Mom,” I said. “Do you have anything pressing going on here this afternoon, or would you like to join me?”
“What happens if I stay here?” Gloria said.
I pointed to her desktop computer. “More data entry,” I said. “We’re getting close to the end.”
Gloria grabbed her purse and turned to me. “Let’s go, Mr. Cooper,” she said, walking me to the elevator.
We drove east on the boulevard and I found a parking spot half a block from Western Avenue. Gloria and I walked past the taco stand and crossed the street to where the construction fence barrier began. We followed it around to the main gate and stopped when the guard came out of the shack with his hand up. I fished out my wallet and opened it to my badge and I.D. card.
“I’m here to see Derek Slate,” I said. “Can you direct me to him?”
“What is this in regard to?” the guard said.
“I’m looking into the death of Raymond Bailey,” I said. “You remember, the guy who fell fifteen stories earlier this week? It was in all the papers.”
The guard let out a deep breath. “Do I remember?” he said. “I was right here when it happened. You can’t imagine the sound he made when he hit.”
“I think I can,” I said. “Mr. Bailey landed less than ten feet from me. I know all too well what it sounded like. Now, can you direct me to Mr. Slate?”
“Certainly,” the guard said, pointing to an unattended bulldozer. “See that bulldozer?” he said. “Just turn right when you get to it and you’ll see a trailer with a set of steps going up to the door. He’s in there. Just watch your step and put these on.” He handed Gloria and me each a yellow hard hat. We put them on and walked toward the bulldozer.
We found the trailer and climbed the five steps. I knocked on the door and heard a gruff voice on the other side.
“Come in,” the voice said.
I pulled the door open and peered inside. “Derek Slate?” I said.
The man nodded and motioned for us to come inside. “Close the door,” he said. “It’s too damned loud out there. I can’t even hear myself think. So what can I do fo
r you?”
I extended my hand. “Elliott Cooper,” I said, briefly flashing my credentials. “And this is Gloria.”
He shook her hand as well and gestured toward a couple of chairs. “Have a seat,” Slate said. “I’ll be with you in just a minute. I just have one thing I still have to take care of before the next concrete truck pulls into the yard.” Slate picked up a walkie-talkie and held it to his face. He presses the talk button and said, “Mr. Stewart, make sure your crew is ready for the next truckload of concrete. It’ll be there in just a minute.”
The walkie-talkie squawked back, “I’m on it, Mr. Slate.”
Derek Slate laid the walkie-talkie down on his desk and turned to me. “So what can I do for you, Mr. Cooper?”
“Were you here Monday morning,” I said, “around nine or so?”
“I was,” Slate said.
“So was I,” I said. “Mr. Bailey hit the pavement not ten feet from me. In fact that’s why we’re here, Mr. Slate. We’ve been hired to look into his death.”
“Did OSHA hire you?” Slate said. “I knew they’d be sending someone around, I just didn’t expect a couple like you two.”
“What about us two?” Gloria said.
“I don’t know,” Slate said. “I’ve just never seen a woman OSHA inspector before.”
“You still haven’t,” Gloria said. “We’re not from OSHA. We’re working for Mrs. Bailey.”
Slate immediately stood. “In that case this meeting is over,” Slate said. “Our attorneys have advised us not to talk to anyone regarding this case, so if you’ll both excuse me, I have a concrete pour to oversee.”
“But…” I started to say before Slate showed us to the door and then left the trailer himself.
Slate walked away toward a concrete truck that had just pulled into the construction area. We stood there, briefly watching while the large barrel of the truck rotated and concrete poured out onto a conveyor belt that carried the concrete to the upper levels of the unfinished building.
“We’re wasting our time here, Elliott,” Gloria said. “Let’s go.”
Gloria and I walked back to the car and sat there for a moment, collecting their thoughts and mapping out their strategies.
