by Bill Bernico
Weber grabbed the arm of his chair to steady himself and finally sat back down again, burying his head in his hands.
“Look,” I told Weber. “None of this will bring your wife back, but at least now you can get closure and try to move on. I think your next move should be to call Lieutenant Anderson again and see if he can come right over.”
“Would you call him?” Weber said. “He’s probably so tired of hearing from me, but he’d listen to you.”
“Sure, Mr. Weber,” I said, retrieving my cell phone and hitting the speed dial button for Anderson. I talked with Eric for less than a minute, explaining what I found and he had assured me he could be there within twenty minutes. I closed the phone and turned back to Weber. “He’s on his way.”
Weber wiped the tears from his face and turned away. He walked into the kitchen and I could hear him blowing his nose and sniffling. By the time he returned to the living room he had composed himself somewhat. Anderson arrived in eighteen minutes and looked at what I’d found. I took him though each step of the photo enhancing process, ending with the blow-up of Otto Pemberton’s face at the patio door. That, along with the time stamp on the photo, was all the evidence Eric needed to call the precinct and get a warrant out for Pemberton’s arrest.
After Eric had left with the chip from Leslie Weber’s camera, I packed up my laptop and prepared to leave. Weber walked us to the door and extended his hand. “I can’t thank you enough, Mr. Cooper,” he said. “I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.”
“I’m just glad we could help,” I said, shaking Weber’s hand. “You be sure and let us know what the outcome of this is.”
Gloria gave him a comforting hug before she left. Together we walked back to the car and sat there for a moment before we left. Parked in front of our car was Lieutenant Anderson’s cruiser. He was still sitting behind the wheel making notes on a clipboard. I got back out of the car and walked over to this window, knocking on it with my knuckles. Eric lowered his window and looked up at me.
“That was a pretty easy one,” I said. “I’m going to feel uncomfortable billing Weber for our one day minimum.”
“Don’t feel uncomfortable,” Eric said. “If it hadn’t been for you and your software, this case might have gone unsolved.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” I said. “That Leslie Weber ended up taking a picture of her own killer.”
“You want to talk ironic?” Eric said. “How about that kid in the alley behind the electronics store?”
“What about him?” I said, a puzzled look playing on my face.
“I mean, I find it somewhat ironic that Leslie Weber’s murder took more than four months to solve,” Eric said. “And the kid behind the dumpster, well, we already solved his murder. Caught the guy and took him in already.”
“Really?” I said. “Who did it?”
I climbed behind the wheel of my car, started the engine and pulled away from the curb. “What were you and Eric talking about all this while?” Gloria said.
“Nothing much,” I said. “Only that he’s already caught Dewey Halstead’s killer.”
“Are you kidding me?” Gloria said. “Who did it?”
“Wilson Halstead,” I said. “Can you beat that?”
“Wilson Halstead?” Gloria said. “He killed his own nephew?”
“His own thieving nephew,” I said. “And it doesn’t look like he’ll spend a day in jail for it, either.”
“How’s that possible?” Gloria said.
“Self-defense,” I explained. “When Andy got Dewey’s body back to the morgue he discovered gunshot residue on Dewey’s hand. Wilson Halstead told the police that Dewey had been caught red-handed coming out of the back of the store with that radio-controlled airplane when he ran into his uncle standing there. Dewey knew he was in deep shit that he wouldn’t be able to talk his way out of and just pulled a gun on his own uncle. In fact, he fired at him, but because he was still trying to hold onto the plane, he missed Wilson completely.”
“And Wilson just happened to be carrying his own gun at the time?” Gloria said.
“No,” I explained. “He rushed Dewey and grabbed the gun. They struggled and it went off, but not before Wilson had managed to turn it around toward Dewey.”
“He shot himself?” Gloria said. “But where was the gun? They didn’t find one at the scene.”
“Wilson panicked, grabbed the gun and fled the scene,” I said. “It wasn’t until an hour later that he knew he had to go back and explain the whole thing to the police. They went back to the alley and found the slug that Dewey had fired at his uncle. It was embedded in a telephone pole on the other side of the alley. The brought a reconstruction team to the alley with their laser pointers and all that CSI equipment and proved beyond a doubt that that’s exactly how it all happened.”
“I thought Wilson Halstead wasn’t supposed to be in town for another two weeks,” Gloria said.
“He got suspicious when another of his employees called him and told him of the recent shortage in the store,” I said. “Fred Waring wasn’t even aware that Halstead knew about all this. But once Halstead turned himself in, Waring stepped forward to corroborate what Halstead had suspected. As Eric put it, that’s called tough shit for Dewey Halstead.”
Gloria chuckled. “That’s one way to put it,” she said. “What about all the stuff Dewey stole from the store?”
“They found it right where they thought they would,” I said, “in Dewey’s house, tucked away under a bunch of boxes in the basement.”
“So that’s it for both cases,” Gloria said. “This has got to be some kind of record for us. Two cases is the same day and both brought to a satisfactory conclusion before the close of business. I could use a few more days like this.”
“What do you want to spend the four hundred on?” I said.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Gloria said. “How about the bills?”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “That’s a given, but I was talking about any money that might be left over.”
“All right,” Gloria said. “What new spy toy did you have your eye on this time?”
I pulled out the folded ad that I’d cut from one of Gloria’s magazines and handed it over to her. She unfolded it and then gave me a strange look. “Panty shields?” she said. “You want to spend it on panty shields?”
“That’s the wrong side,” I said. “Turn it over.”
Gloria turned the ad over, read it and then looked up at me with a scowl. “All right, already, I get it.” She looked down at her fingertips again. They were still tinted orange from the Mexican cheese puffs. She looked back at the ad and then added, “You really think this stuff will get the stain off my fingers?”
“It’s worth a shot,” I said.
101- Mention My Name In Sheboygan
It had been two months since Gloria and I had dealt with the two pickpockets who had migrated to Los Angeles from the Midwest. I thought we’d seen the last of those two after they’d gotten us what we needed from a mark’s pocket in a downtown bar. They promised me they’d leave the area and in exchange I wouldn’t turn them over to the police for trying to pick Gloria’s purse. I’d caught the man with his hand inside Gloria’s purse and got his immediate attention by sticking my gun in his ear. As it had turned out, we found a use for their illegal talents and turned them loose again. And now here they were again, both standing in front of me in my office. They could tell by the look on my face that I wasn’t happy.
“Hold on a second,” Rob said. “Before you get excited and jump all over us, hear me out.”
At that instant, Gloria came back from lunch to find the two pickpockets standing where she’d last seen them three weeks earlier. She looked at me. “What’s going on here, Elliott?” she said. “I thought…”
“So did I,” I said. “They just showed up.”
Rob’s accomplice, Eileen turned to Gloria with a timid look. “Hello,” was all she could muster.
G
loria nodded politely and turned back to me. I shrugged.
“Perhaps if we could all sit down and talk this out,” Rob said.
“What’s there to talk out?” I said. “You two were supposed to leave the area and not come back. What, do you want me to call the police?”
“No,” Eileen said, quickly jumping in. “We want to hire you both.”
“Hire us?” Gloria said. “What makes you think we’d want to work for you two?”
Rob reached into his back pocket and withdrew a manila business-size envelope and pulled the flap open to show me its contents. There looked to be a lot of money in there.
“Looks like you two have been busy,” I said. “You take all that from unsuspecting marks?”
“Oh no,” Eileen said, stepping between Rob and me. “This isn’t that money. We got a check in the mail the other day.”
“In the mail?” I said. “You two didn’t even have a permanent address. How’d you get that mailed to you out here?”
“We got ourselves an apartment in Pasadena,” Rob said. “We were planning on going legit, maybe finding ourselves a couple of jobs and making a life for ourselves out here. We like it in California, and I found us an apartment in Pasadena. It’s warm and friendly—friendlier than the town we’d left.”
“And where was that?” I said.
“It was some small Wisconsin town called Sheboygan,” Rob said, eyeing the leather sofa against the north wall. “Listen, could we all just sit down and talk this out? My feet are killing me.”
I gestured toward the sofa and my two guests sat. Gloria and I each pulled out office chairs across from the sofa and sat. “All right,” I said. “Talk.”
“Do you think maybe you could lose the attitude?” Rob said. “We didn’t come here for any more trouble. You could at least listen with an open mind.”
I sighed. “All right,” I said. “We’ll clean the slate and listen as though you two were just two regular clients looking for help. What can we do for you two today?”
Gloria interrupted. “Would either of you car for something to drink?” she said. “A soda, coffee, water?”
Rob and Eileen waved her off. “Nothing, thanks.” Rob turned back to me. “Anyway, like I was saying, we’d just left Sheboygan to come out here. I don’t suppose it would hurt now to tell you that Eileen and I and another guy, Chuck, had just cleaned out several dozen marks at some wiener festival called Bratwurst Days. We did all right and ended up with around twelve thousand dollars.”
“This isn’t endearing you to me,” I said.
“Just being honest and open with you,” Rob explained. “Anyway, our entire take, all twelve grand, was stolen from us.”
“I laughed. “And they say there’s no justice left in this world.”
“That’s not the worst of it,” Rob said. “Our other partner, Chuck, was shot three times and left for dead by a couple of punks. They got the twelve grand and Chuck got a ride to the hospital. They couldn’t even do that right. Three shots and they couldn’t manage to kill him. If any one of those shots had gone half an inch either way, Chuck would be dead and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. As it is, he’ll be laid up for another day in that Sheboygan hospital. He’s getting out tomorrow.”
“And this concerns us how?” I said.
“I’m getting to that,” Rob said. “Police caught the punk who shot Chuck. He tried to shoot it out with the cops and got a trip to the morgue for his trouble. Some Sheboygan coroner named Levine ended up with the kid on his slab. He still had the twelve grand on them and police confiscated it. The cops there had no idea that the twelve grand they found on that punk was the take from all those pockets at that wiener festival. They ran the bullets from the shootout through ballistics and found that they matched the slugs taken out of Chuck’s chest. They naturally assumed that the money was from a robbery. When Chuck regained consciousness he told the cops that the twelve grand was his life savings and that the kid had robbed him and then shot him. They gave him back the money.”
“And where exactly do we come in?” I said.
Rob held out the manila envelope to me. “We want to hire you both to go back to Sheboygan and find that other punk,” Rob said.
“And you want to pay us with stolen money?” Gloria said.
Eileen jumped in. “This isn’t the twelve grand we took,” she said. “This is our money. Rob and I were down to our last ten bucks a few weeks ago and I bought one of those scratch off lottery tickets. Turns out it was a twenty-five thousand dollar winner. Even after taxes we still had almost fifteen grand leftover.”
“And what about the stolen money?” I said.
“Chuck still has that,” Rob said. “Look, I told you Eileen and I like it out here and we want to stay. We really do want to go legit and make California our home with jobs and the house with the little white picket fence. You know, the whole ball of wax. And we discussed how we would go about that.”
“You’re losing me,” I said. “How does Chuck fit into your plan to go straight?”
“I don’t know how he found us,” Eileen said, “but he did. We talked to him on the phone and told him of our plan and he wants to join us after they release him from the hospital.”
“So let him,” I said.
“That’s just it,” Eileen said. “None of us can feel safe always having to look over our shoulders, wondering if that second gunman will be coming after us. Mr. Cooper, we’d like to hire you to find that other gunman.”
“And the twelve grand that Chuck still has?” I said. “What happens to that?”
Now it was Rob’s turn to talk. “Eileen and I talked about that, too. We talked it over with Chuck and he’s agreed that he wants to anonymously send it back to the Bratwurst Days officials in the hopes that whoever had some money stolen that day could get it back. Don’t ask me how they’ll be able to determine who gets what, but that’s the plan.”
“Let me see if I have this straight,” I said. “The four of us are going back to, what was the name of that town again?”
“Sheboygan,” Rob said.
“Sheboygan,” I continued. “And we’re going to try to find some elusive gunman who may or may not be from the area and who may or may not still be in the area. And what is it we’re supposed to do with him once we find him?”
“Obviously you can’t turn him over to the police,” Rob said. “Because the money he took from Chuck was money we stole to begin with. You can ad lib if and when you find the kid.”
“And second,” Eileen said, “it wouldn’t be the four of us going back. Rob and I have to stay here. We both have jobs in Pasadena as well as other responsibilities. No, we were thinking that you two could go back there and wrap this up for us. By the time you’d get there, Chuck would be getting out of the hospital and maybe he could help steer you in the right direction. When all is said and done, I’d like you to bring Chuck back here with you and deliver him to me. I can take it from there and your part would be done.”
“If I take this case,” I said, “And that’s a big if, it wouldn’t be the both of us. One of us would have to stay here in Hollywood to run our own business. You see, we also have jobs and responsibilities.”
“And a child,” Gloria reminded me. “If anyone’s going back to Sheboygan, it would have to be you. I have to stay here and take care of Matt.”
“Matt?” Eileen said.
“Our son,” Gloria said, showing Eileen Matt’s first grade picture.
“Oh, he’s adorable,” Eileen said.
“Getting back to this case,” I said. “You realize that our regular price is two hundred dollars a day plus expenses? With the flight back east and car rentals and hotels and such, this could run into the thousands. Are you prepared to pay that to set your record straight?”
“We are,” Rob said. “Figure out how long you think this might take and figure in your expenses. We’ll pay that much in advance plus whatever else you need.”
Gloria a
nd I exchanged glances. I looked at Rob. “Would you two excuse us while we talk this over?” I said. “If you could just wait in our outer office for a few minutes.”
“Certainly,” Rob said, rising from the sofa and pulling Eileen up with him. The two left the office and I could hear them settling into the chairs in the outer office.
I pulled Gloria aside, over to my desk. I kept my voice low. “What do you think?” I said. “That’s a lot of money and we haven’t had many high-paying cases lately.”
“I don’t know,” Gloria said. “Does any of this make sense to you? I mean two pickpockets wanting to go straight and get real jobs. Sounds suspicious to me.”
“But what if they’re telling the truth?” I said. “Think of what a fee like this could mean to our financial situation. And they’re paying up front. I don’t see much risk on our part.”
“What do you figure your expenses to be for this case?” Gloria said.
I sat behind my desk and pulled out my calculator. “Well,” I said, “let’s see what it comes to. First off there’s a round-trip airline ticket. Figure twelve hundred on the outside. Supposing the job takes two weeks, a car rental could run another couple hundred. A hotel room could be another couple hundred. Food, gas, miscellaneous and whatnot, figure another five hundred. Figure twenty-five hundred all tolled.”
“That’s not exactly a fortune,” Gloria said.
“Add another twenty-eight hundred for my time,” I said and that would make it fifty-three hundred.”
“Yeah,” Gloria said, “but look who you’re working for.”
“That’s why I’d tell them I’d need seventy-five hundred to do the job,” I said. “If they pay it, so much the better. If not, well, then they can find some other private detective to do the job. What do you say? Should we take it?”
Gloria hesitated while she weighed the pros and cons in her head. “All right,” she said, “but not a penny less than seventy-five hundred, agreed?”
