by Bill Bernico
“Suppose we check Raymond Bailey’s background?” I said. “Something may pop out at us and we can take it from there.”
Gloria gestured with her palm toward the windshield. “Lead on, boss.”
We drove to the hall of records and found my contact, Marie Bullard, behind the counter as we walked in. I smiled and gave a polite wave. “Marie,” I said, “how are you today?”
“Elliott,” she said, smiling. Her smile faded when she saw Gloria next to me. “What brings you around these parts?”
“Looking for a little information,” I said.
Marie glanced at Gloria and suddenly I remembered my manners. “Marie,” I said, “I’d like you to meet my wife, Gloria. Gloria, this is Marie Bullard.”
Gloria held her hand out and Marie took it, giving it just one pump before releasing it again.
“Mrs. Cooper,” Marie said curtly and then turned her attentions back to me. “What specifically are you looking for, Elliott,” Marie said.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I think it’s going to be one of those things that’ll I’ll know if and when I see it. Suppose we start with real estate records and go from there?”
“Sure thing, Elliott,” Marie said and turned to a shelf full of bound computer printouts. She pulled one large volume off the shelf and placed it in front of me, open to the first page. “Start with this one and let me know if you need anything else, Elliott. I have a few things to take care of in the meanwhile.” Marie walked through a door behind her and closed it again.
“Oh, Elliott,” Gloria said in a mocking voice. “Is the anything else I can do for you Sweekins?”
I kept my poker face on. “I didn’t know you were the jealous type,” I said and started paging through the book. Gloria punched me in the shoulder and settled in next to me to have a look at the printouts.
“What are we looking for?” she said.
“Let’s just see what Raymond Bailey’s real estate activity looks like,” I said, turning another page.
I found several references to Raymond Bailey along with three parcels of land that he’d recently purchased. I made a note of the tracts in my notepad along with their locations and selling prices. This was all that was listed under Bailey’s name. I closed the book, slid it back across the counter and tapped the bell on the countertop. Marie came back out from the back room.
“Find what you were looking for, Elliott?” Marie said.
I shrugged. “Can I see the records for marriages and divorces?” I said. “And while you’re at it, can I also have the printouts for wills?”
Marie smiled at me, but avoided eye contact with Gloria altogether. She placed the two volumes on the counter and returned the real estate volume to the shelf. I started to look through the first bound volume.
“You know,” Marie said, “You can take both of these over to that table over there.” She gestured toward a long oak table surrounded by oak chairs.
“Thanks,” I said. “We’ll do that,” and carried the printouts to the table.
Gloria started paging through the volume of wills while I began looking for any reference to Bailey under marriages and divorces. I found Raymond and Abigail Bailey listed under marriages, along with the date they were married. And I found one more reference to Raymond Bailey under divorces. It seems that Mr. Bailey had been married once before to a woman named Suzanne Lazslo. The divorce decree was dated just three months earlier than his marriage to Abigail Fisher. I noted those two occurrences in my notepad and closed the volume.
“I think I found something,” Gloria said, turning the volume toward me while turning sideways in her chair. “Right here, see?”
I could see Raymond Bailey’s name listed along with four other people under a reference to the will of one George Kendall. “Kendall,” I said. “That name sounds familiar.” I flipped through the pages of my notepad and stopped when I found George Kendall’s name. “I thought so,” I said, jabbing a finger on the page with Kendall’s name. “He was one of the guys Abbie mentioned when she first came to see me. There was John Mullins, Paul Stewart and George Kendall—John, Paul and George.”
“And Bailey’s listed as one of the beneficiaries in Kendall’s will,” Gloria said. “Who else is listed as beneficiary?”
I slid my finger down the page and whispered, “John Mullins, Paul Stewart, Derek Slate and someone named Cochrane, Tom Cochrane. Now who do you suppose he’ll turn out to be?”
“Don’t you think it’s time we stopped in to see Lieutenant Anderson?” Gloria said.
“That’s just what I was thinking,” I said. “Let’s go see what Eric has to say.” I returned the bound printouts to the counter and thanked Marie for her help.
Eric was out when we got to the twelfth precinct. His secretary told us that we could probably still find him around the back of the building where new construction was going on. Gloria and I walked down the hallway and out the back door to the parking lot. To my left I could see scaffolding and sawhorses separating the unfinished new section of the police station from the parking lot. Eric was standing just inside the sawhorses as we approached. He waved when he saw us coming.
“Eric,” I said cordially.
“Elliott,” Eric responded and then turned to my wife. “Gloria, what brings you two down here?”
I held up a hand. “I didn’t know you were adding on to the building,” I said. “When did this all come about?”
“You haven’t been here in a while, have you?” Eric said. “Construction on our new wing started more than a month ago. You really ought to get out more.”
“Well,” I explained, “I do have another job that takes up most of my time.”
Eric gestured toward the hole in the ground. “They had already excavated this part of the basement and had partial construction begun,” Eric said. Down in the hole were large slabs of cement that were laid with these steel reinforcement rods sticking up out of them in certain places.
“What’s the ambulance doing here?” Gloria said. “Did one of the workers get hurt here, too?”
“Nothing that cut and dried,” Eric said. “We arrested a man on a drug warrant and brought him in to the detective bureau on the first floor. The man was sitting at a desk being interrogated by two of my detectives when he suddenly stood up and bolted towards the window. He dove head first right out through the glass window and went down and landed right in this basement area. It was just a miracle that somehow he never landed on any of those rods and impaled himself.”
Just then the two ambulance attendants brought the gurney up out of the hole and wheeled it toward the waiting ambulance. One of them looked at Eric and said, “He’s suffered some broken bones but he will survive.”
Eric looked down at the man on the gurney, his nose broken and bleeding and his face and hands scraped up. “And once you’re released from the hospital,” Eric told the suspect, “we’ll start the whole interrogation process all over again. Only this time you’ll be cuffed to the table so you won’t be tempted to try flying again.” He looked up at the attendant. “Take him away and just to make sure he doesn’t go anywhere, I’m sending an officer along with him.”
The suspect was loaded into the back of the ambulance and the doors were closed. It drove away, its lights and siren clearing a path in front of it.
Eric turned back to Gloria and me. “Now, what was it you wanted to see me about?” he said.
I gestured with my hand toward the door. “Can we go someplace private?” I said.
“My office,” Eric said.
Gloria and I followed him back down the hall and made ourselves comfortable in Eric’s office. “Have you ever hear of a man named Tom Cochrane?” I said.
“Is that all you have?” Eric said. “It sounds like a pretty common name.”
Gloria leaned forward in her chair. “This one is listed as a beneficiary on the will of a man named George Kendall,” Gloria said. “Kendall works at Harper Construction.”
“That same construction company where that man took a header off the fifteenth floor earlier this week?” Eric said.
“One and the same,” Gloria said. “And the only connection we have between the victim and Mr. Cochrane is the mutual acquaintances that the victim told his wife about—three men that he worked with before his death.”
“These men listed as beneficiaries for Kendall?” Eric said. “Are they related to Kendall? I mean, people don’t generally list their friends or co-workers as beneficiaries, so they?”
“We hadn’t dug that deeply yet, Eric,” I said. “We wanted to see if you had anything on this Cochrane character first. Can you see if he has a record?”
Eric swiveled in his chair and turned toward his computer screen. He typed in Cochrane’s last name then first and then clicked on search. A few seconds later a man’s picture appeared on the screen along with his name, address, date of birth and other pertinent information. Eric scrolled down past the bottom of the screen. “Bingo,” he said.
“What have you got?” I said.
“He’s been in trouble before,” Eric said. “Larceny, burglary and grand theft auto. Did three and a half years in San Quentin. So, what does that do for your investigation?”
I shook my head. “Nothing so far,” I said.
Gloria held up one finger and turned to me. “I think we need to find out who else was working on the fifteenth floor the day Raymond Bailey fell.”
“And if any or all four of those other guys were up there at the time,” I said, “what would that prove?”
“I’m not sure,” Gloria said. “But it would give us a place to start.”
“Well,” Eric said, “I can save you a little time there. I interviewed almost everyone who was working that day.” He pulled a sheet of paper out of the middle drawer of his desk and slid it over to me. “Three other men were working on the fifteenth floor that day. John Mullins, Paul Stewart and George Kendall.”
“What about Derek Slate?” Gloria said.
Eric checked his notes. “He’s the foreman, isn’t he?”
“Yup,” I said. “We couldn’t get past him. He referred any further questions to his lawyer and then clammed up.”
“Slate was on the ground,” Eric said, “supervising the concrete pour that morning. Mullins, Stewart, Kendall and Bailey were the only four workers on that floor.”
“So if it wasn’t an accident, like they claimed,” I said, “then Bailey had help from one of the other three, but why?”
“I’d be interested in knowing that as well,” Eric said. “Suppose we all take a ride over to Western Avenue and take a closer look into this.”
Gloria and I followed Eric east on Hollywood Boulevard and pulled up behind his cruiser when he parked near the construction site. The three of us walked through the gate and were approached when the guard came out. Eric held up his badge and I.D. and walked right past him. Eric walked directly to the foreman’s trailer and up the steps. He knocked on the door and a man’s voice invited him in. We followed Eric into the trailer and got the evil eye from Derek Slate. He looked me directly in the eye.
“I told you two that our attorneys would be handling any further questions,” Slate said.
“I want to see John Mullins, Paul Stewart and George Kendall right now,” Eric told Slate. “Can you get them in here right away?”
“They’re working,” Slate said. “We have a deadline just like every other business.”
“Well,” Eric said. “I can either talk to them right here, right now, or I can have his construction site shut down until the investigation is concluded. Depending on how much cooperation we get, that could take three hours or three weeks. What’s it going to be?”
Slate glared at Eric and then picked up the walkie-talkie on his desk and pressed the talk button. “John,” Slate said.
“Yes, Derek?” the voice said.
“John, get Stewart and Kendall and come to my office immediately,” Slate said.
“But we’re in the middle of a pour,” John Mullins said. “Give us ten minutes so we can at least get it smoothed out before it sets.”
“Ten minutes,” Slate said. “Then get down here.”
“Will do,” Mullins said.
Slate set the walkie-talkie back down on his desk and turned to Eric. “Might as well make yourself comfortable,” Slate said. “You heard what I heard.”
Gloria turned to Slate. “Is there a porta-pottie nearby?” she said.
“Down the steps and to your right,” Slate said.
Gloria excused herself and left the trailer. Outside she walked right past the portable outhouse and started checking out her surroundings. She didn’t see a concrete truck in the vicinity, nor did she see anyone doing cement work. She did, however, see a red four-wheel-drive pickup truck speed past her toward the guard shack. Gloria noticed three men sitting in the truck. The truck didn’t stop at the guard shack and just kept going out on to the street. It sped south on Western Avenue. Gloria made a mental note of the license plate number and hurried back into the trailer.
“I think our three suspects just left here in a red four-by-four pickup,” she said to Eric. She ripped a small corner off Slate’s desk blotter and wrote down the truck’s license plate number, handing to Eric. “Here’s the plate number. They drove south on Western Avenue.”
Eric turned to me. “I’m going after them,” he said. “You make sure Mr. Slate doesn’t go anywhere.”
I patted my underarm and felt the reassuring heft of my .38. “We’ll be here when you get back,” I said.
“I’m going with you, Eric,” Gloria said and hurried out of the trailer and back to Eric’s cruiser. Eric instructed Gloria to attach the magnetic red light on the roof outside her window and then turned on the siren. He pulled away from the curb and sped south on Western, grabbing his dash mic and calling in his pursuit, along with a description of the truck and its license plate number. He laid the mic on the seat next to him and sped up.
Over the radio, the dispatcher announced, “Any units in the vicinity of Hollywood and Western, be advised that One Adam Eighty is in pursuit of a late model red pickup truck last seen heading south on Western Avenue. Any unit in the area, please assist One Adam Eighty.”
The response came in less than three seconds. “Dispatch, this is One Adam Sixteen. We will assist One Adam Eighty with the pursuit. We are heading east on Melrose and should intercept the target vehicle any time now.”
“Roger, One Adam Sixteen,” the dispatcher said. “All unit be aware that One Adam Eighty and One Adam Sixteen are in pursuit south on Western and east on Melrose.”
“We’ll get ‘em,” Eric said. “They can’t get far.”
“There they are,” Gloria said, pointing out the windshield. “They just passed Melrose. That must be your other unit right behind them.”
Over the radio one of the officers in the lead pursuit vehicle announced, “Dispatch, this is One Adam Sixteen. We are in pursuit of the red pickup truck traveling south on Western Avenue. Request assistance from any unit south of us.” A few seconds passed and then another transmission came over the radio. “Dispatch, this is One Adam Sixteen. Target vehicle just turned east on Beverly Boulevard. Request interception by another unit at Vermont and Beverly.”
“Roger, One Adam Sixteen,” the dispatcher said.
Eric turned east on Beverly Boulevard and sped up. Now he was right behind One Adam Sixteen. “We’d better catch up with this guy before he makes it to the Hollywood Freeway,” Eric said.
Gloria hung on tight and braced herself as Eric floored his cruiser and passed One Adam Sixteen. They were going to try to box the red pickup truck in between the two police cars and slow him down. The red pickup must have seen Eric in his outside mirror and yanked his wheel to the left, grazing the side of Eric’s cruiser. The red truck bounced off the right side of the police car right where Gloria was sitting. She recoiled and slid further away from the door.
Eric gained a
little more ground and lined up his front bumper with the rear bumper of the pickup. When he got positioned in the exact spot he wanted, Eric yanked his steering wheel to the right and executed a perfect PIT maneuver, pushing the rear end of the truck around, causing it to spin in a half circle and come to a stop in the street, facing the opposite direction. One Adam Sixteen brought its front bumper nose to nose with the front of the truck. Eric turned around and pulled up directly behind the pickup, blocking it from the rear. He jumped out of the car with his service revolver drawn and aimed at the driver. The two officers from One Adam Sixteen covered the three men from the front and ordered them out of the truck with their hands raised.
The two passengers emerged from the right side of the truck, their hands held high in the air. The driver leaned over and ducked down on the seat. When he came back up again, he opened the driver’s side door and jumped out, a gun in his hand. He aimed it at the two officers covering the front and fired twice. Both officers ducked down behind the open door of their patrol car and returned fire.
Eric got around behind the driver and held his gun out in front of him. “Drop it,” he yelled to the driver, who spun and fired, but his shot went wide. Eric’s shot found its mark and caught the driver in the center of his chest. The driver dropped his gun and fell to the street, dead. Eric rushed over and kicked the driver’s gun away and then knelt next to the body, feeling for a pulse that wasn’t there.
Gloria walked up and stood next to Eric. “Gees,” she said, “this is a little more action than I’m used to on a case.”
Eric gestured down with his gun. “That’s the way he wanted it,” he said and then stepped around to the front of the truck.
The two officers from One Adam Sixteen had the other two men spread-eagled over the hood of the truck, their hands patting up and down the sides of their prisoners. One of the officers turned to Eric. “They’re clean,” he said and clamped handcuffs on behind both men before turning them around again.
Eric holstered his .38 and stepped up to the two men. “What was that all about?” he said, hiking a thumb over his shoulder. “Why’d you run?”
