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

by Bill Bernico

  Eric dropped Warren Sanders back at his office and then fell in behind my car. He motioned for me to drive and then followed my car to Greg’s apartment. We approached the front door and Eric and I each pressed two of the doorbells. I don’t know who responded, but once again someone buzzed us in. I pointed to the door to Greg’s apartment and we each stood on either side of the door while Eric knocked. No one answered so he tried the doorbell. Again no one answered but we heard the sound of a window opening. Eric motioned toward the outside door and I hurried outside again and around to the side of the apartment building.

  Eric leaned back and kicked at the flimsy door. The door frame shattered and Eric rushed inside to find a man lying on the floor, a fresh pool of blood spreading even as he knelt next to the man. Eric pressed two fingers into the man’s neck and didn’t find a pulse. He hurried over to the window and looked out just in time to see me tackle the man who’d just exited through it. I had the man on the ground, my knee in his back. Eric climbed out the window and took up a position beside us. He pulled the cuffs off his belt and slapped them onto the man’s wrists before pulling him to a standing position.

  I bent down and picked up the briefcase this man had taken with him through the window.

  He looked down at the case and then up at me. “That’s mine,” he said. “You have no right to take that.”

  Eric grabbed the man’s shirt collar and pulled him face to face. “What about your friend inside?” Eric said. “Is he yours, too?”

  “That was self-defense,” the man said. “He was trying to kill me.”

  “Back up a minute,” Eric said. “Who is that guy on the floor in there, and by the way, who the hell are you?”

  The man didn’t answer so Eric patted him down and retrieved a wallet from the man’s hip pocket. He flipped it open to the driver’s license photo and compared it with his prisoner. They matched. Eric looked the man in the eyes again. “So, Kevin Lewis,” Eric said. “I take it the guy inside would be Greg Mulligan. Is that right?”

  Kevin didn’t answer. He just sneered at Eric.

  Eric pulled Kevin back around to the front of the house and back into the apartment. He grabbed Kevin by the hair and forced him to look at the body on the floor. “Look at him,” Eric almost yelled. “I don’t see so much as a scratch on you, Kevin. You want to tell me again how this was self-defense?”

  I laid the briefcase down on the dining room table and snapped it open, lifting the lid to reveal a couple dozen stacks of wrapped bills. I picked up one of the stacks, held it to my ear and riffled through the bills. “Yup, that’s five grand,” I said, counting the number of stacks. Twenty-five in all. A hundred twenty-five grand in all. Funny, that’s the same amount Greg had this afternoon and now you have it.”

  Kevin tried to squirm away from Eric’s grasp and get at me. Eric held him back. “He stole it from me,” Kevin explained. “I just came here to get it back, that’s all.”

  “And how did you come by it?” Eric said.

  Kevin clammed up again and sighed. “What do you say to a three-way split?” he said. “You can walk away from here with more than forty grand each. Whaddya say?”

  Eric forced Kevin to sit at the dining room table. “I’d say you’re just digging yourself a deeper hole and I advise you to shut up until you get yourself a lawyer. Do you want the whole formal paragraph? No, I’ll just bet you have it memorized from having it read to you so often. Am I right, Kevin?”

  I had to laugh when I saw the look in Kevin’s eyes. He knew the routine, all right.

  “Whatever else that comes out of your mouth can and will be used against you in a court of law,” Eric said. “Do you understand?”

  Kevin looked away. Eric grabbed his radio and called the station to send backup and the coroner to Greg Mulligan’s address. He turned back to Kevin. “Now we just wait,” he said.

  Two black and white’s squealed to stop in front of the building. Not far behind was Andy Reynolds and his two attendants in the coroner’s wagon. He followed the officers into the apartment and went directly to the body on the floor.

  “Did you get the murder weapon?” Andy said, examining Greg’s body.

  Eric shook his head. “We haven’t touched a thing yet,” he said.

  Andy motioned to one of the officers. “Officer,” he said, “Would you help me turn him over, please?”

  The officer took hold of Greg’s shoulder while Andy grabbed Greg’s belt. The two of them turned the body over onto its back. Andy looked up at Eric. “Not to state the obvious, Eric, but I believe that would be your murder weapon.” He stood up, grabbed his camera and snapped several shots of a deer antler handle knife sticking out of Greg’s stomach. Andy set his camera down and then pulled the knife from the wound and dropped it into a plastic evidence bag, labeling it with a black felt-tip pen.

  Eric called two of the officers over. “Take Mr. Lewis here downtown and book him for murder,” he said. “I’ll be in when I finish up here.”

  “Yes, sir,” the officer said, pulling Kevin to his feet and out to the squad car. One of the two remaining officers gestured toward the briefcase. “You want that brought in too, Lieutenant?” he said.

  “I’ll bring it in,” Eric said. “But before either of us leaves here, I want you both to verify the amount in the case. Write it down and sign it.”

  One officer complied with Eric’s request and then stepped outside to cordon off the crime scene with yellow tape. By now a few neighbors had gathered outside, curious about what was happening inside the apartment. The other officer kept the curiosity seekers from getting any closer.

  Once Andy had finished processing the scene, he motioned for his two attendants to take the body out to the wagon. The crowd outside tried to surge forward when the gurney rolled toward the wagon. The two officers held them all back and gave the attendants a chance to load the gurney into the wagon and close the doors.

  Inside, Andy had finished gathering the evidence, blood samples, murder weapon and whatever other evidence he could and bagged each one before joining his men in the wagon. They drove back to the morgue at the posted speed limit. There was no hurry.

  Eric and I remained in the room for a few more minutes. He looked at me with a stern face. “Now, suppose you explain to me what you were doing in here earlier.”

  I ran down the case again from the beginning, including my little side trip into Greg’s apartment. When I finished telling it, I waited for Eric’s reaction.

  “Well,” he said, “I have to give you some points for restraint,” he said. “I was going to say honesty, but breaking into someone’s apartment wouldn’t qualify. I said restraint because you didn’t take the money the first time you were here. Some men would have.”

  “I’m not some men,” I said. “Not that I couldn’t have found a good use for that much cash, but it wouldn’t have been worth it to always be looking over my shoulder. I’ve seen too many guys sent up for doing just that and I want to be around to see my new daughter grow up.”

  “Gloria had the baby?” Eric said. “But she wasn’t due for a couple of weeks yet, was she?”

  “Ten days,” I said, “but she had some complications.”

  “Is she all right?” he said. “And the baby?”

  “They’re both fine,” I said. “Gloria will be bringing Olivia home in a day or two. You’re welcome to stop by and pay a visit. I’m sure Gloria would like to see you and show off her daughter.”

  Eric took a deep breath and let it out. “Did you tell anyone else that you broke in here, Elliott?” he said.

  I shook my head. “Just you,” I said.

  Eric stared at the floor for a second and then offered, “This will be the first and only time that I don’t included one detail in my report,” he said. “And it had better be the last time. Am I making myself clear?”

  “Crystal,” I said. “Thanks, Eric. I guess I just got caught up in the moment. It won’t happen again, I promise.”


  “Then let’s hear no more about it,” Eric said. “Come on, let’s get this briefcase over to Sanders Industries and see if old Warren has these serial numbers recorded by any chance.”

  “It’s evidence, isn’t it?” I said.

  “I didn’t say I was giving him the money back,” Eric said. “I just need to verify that it came from his safe. From there we should be able to piece this puzzle together. Then he can go through the proper channels to recover his cash. Let’s go, Elliott.”

  It took just five minutes for Warren Sanders to come up with his list of bills that his bank had provided when he withdrew the money. Eric thanked him and told him how to go about claiming his money after Kevin Lewis’s murder trial. I followed Eric back out of the building and we each got into our own cars after I promised to check back with him tomorrow.

  It was nearly the end of our business day by the time I returned to the office. Bud was sitting at Gloria’s desk, a satisfied look playing on his face. He spread his hands as if making a presentation of Gloria’s desktop computer.

  “Works slicker than snot on a doorknob,” he said.

  “Slicker than what?” I said, surprised by Bud’s choice of words.

  “You know what I mean,” Bud said and then pointed to my desktop computer. “Go on; take it for a ride around the block. See if you can notice a difference in performance.”

  I fired it up and waited for what I thought was going to be the usual two and a half minutes between hitting the power button and actually seeing the screen light up. It took just fifteen seconds to be up and running this time. I glanced over at Bud, who was smiling, his eyebrows raised. I connected to the web and tried out a few of my favorite sites. They appeared instantly and I was able to maneuver through them a lot quicker than before.

  I just noticed another contraption that I hadn’t initially seen on my desk. I looked at Bud. “What’s this thing?” I said.

  “That, my good man, is your paperwork organizer,” Bud said, rising from his chair and standing by my side to demonstrate the contraption’s capabilities. “Turn it on here, stick your paperwork, case files, business cards or what have you, in here and the machine will feed it through, scanning it in the process. Then check the screen. That paperwork is now a file that you can access several ways in a searchable database. Pretty slick, huh?”

  “Like snot on a doorknob,” I said. “This is going to save us a lot of time. How much do I owe you for the two scanners?”

  Bud waved me off. “Forget it,” he said. “I still had enough left from the two bills you gave me.” He laid two single dollars and a handful of change in front of me. “And this is what’s left. “Would have been four something, but I bought myself a coffee out of the change. Hope you don’t mind, Elliott.”

  “Mind?” I said. “Hell no. I wouldn’t have minded if you had spent all the change and charged even more for a full meal on me. Thanks a lot, Bud. Gloria’s going to want to try this out. She won’t believe all the extra work we both did for nothing.” I thought for a moment. “Second thought, Bud, how about if we keep this to ourselves for now? I’ll tell her when she comes back to work.”

  “In five years?” Bud said.

  “Whenever,” I said.

  “So, how’d the case go?” Bud said.

  Complicated,” I said. “Couple of murders and more than a hundred grand in play. Eric’s got the suspect in custody already.”

  “That’s great,” Bud said. “Do you have any more information than that?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “No doubt Eric will fill me in with the rest in the next day or two, once he sorts it out. I don’t like to be left hanging with a mystery, so if he doesn’t call in a couple of days, I’ll check with him.”

  “Gonna be a little hard to top this for excitement tomorrow,” Bud said.

  “The only excitement I expect tomorrow is seeing you get your P.I. license,” I said.

  Bud snapped his fingers. “That reminds me,” he said. “I still have to find a way to make contact with Mr. Sanders, don’t I?”

  I shook my head. “No need now, Bud,” I explained, and told him about Warren Sanders part in all this. “He’ll be busy enough organizing his daughter’s funeral.”

  “Poor guy,” Bud said. “I’ve been involved with enough murder cases in the past twenty years to know how he feels.”

  “Besides,” I said. “Now that Bonnie’s dead, there’s no conflict of interest of client confidentiality to worry about. I’ll give him the appropriate amount of time to mourn before I call on him again to see how he’s doing. Then I can casually mention that we’re available if he needs anything else from us. I’ll leave a couple of my cards and politely excuse myself. I plant the seeds and move on, like Johnny Appleseed. Some of them take root and sprout and some don’t. Speaking of which, I need to get you some business cards, too.”

  “Elliott,” Bud said. “Can I ask a big favor?”

  “Anything,” I said.

  “Would you make sure they don’t put Walter or Wally on the cards?” he said. “I’ve been Bud most of my life and I’d like to stay Bud if you don’t mind.”

  “You got it,” I said. “And I hope you won’t mind if when the cards arrive I want to personally hand the first one to you myself.”

  “Huh?” he said.

  “Then I can hand it over and say, ‘This Bud’s for you’.”

  “Gee,” Bud said, “I’ve never heard that one before.”

  “Really?” I said.

  Bud just rolled his eyes.

  Two days passed and I still hadn’t heard from Eric about the details of the murder case. I asked Bud to ride along with me and we drove to Eric’s office. His secretary told me I could find him in the lunchroom. Bud and I walked down the hall to the cafeteria and stepped inside. Eric was sitting at a table by himself, drinking coffee and biting into a sandwich as he read the newspaper.

  I plucked a penny from my pants pocket and walked up behind Eric, tossing the penny onto his paper. He jumped with a start and let out a deep breath.

  “Cute, Cooper,” he said and then saw Bud standing next to me. His face softened. “Bud, you old horse thief. You keep hanging out with Cooper here, and he’ll get you in trouble.”

  “Too late,” Bud said. “Mind if we sit?”

  Eric spread his hands. “Be my guests,” he said. “So what brings you two around today?”

  “The case,” I said. “I’m dying to know how it played out. What happened to Kevin Lewis?”

  Eric folded the paper and laid it down on the table. “Interesting story behind that whole mess,” he said. “Turns out our friend Greg was using Bonnie Sanders to get to the old man’s money, but I don’t suppose that’s any big surprise.”

  “Nope,” I said. “I came to that same conclusion early on.”

  “Kevin Lewis filled us in with the missing pieces,” Eric said. “Of course he wanted us to cut him a deal before he’d spill. I told him I’d see what I could do but didn’t promise him anything. Anyway, Greg got Bonnie to grab the cash from Daddy’s safe and turn it over to him. Apparently he had promised her an exciting time in Jamaica with that money and she fell for it, along with his phony charm. Once he had the money, she became disposable and you saw what happened to her.”

  I nodded. “Beat to a pulp and stabbed,” I said. “Some boyfriend.”

  “It gets better,” Eric said. “Turns out Kevin Lewis was the boyfriend that Bonnie dumped to play around with Greg. Kevin caught up with Greg at his apartment. One thing lead to another and before he left with the cash, Kevin had stabbed Greg with the same knife Greg had used on Bonnie. How’s that for poetic justice?”

  I turned to Bud. “See,” I said, “Sometimes these things seem to work themselves out. Too bad Bonnie had to find out the hard way that the grass wasn’t greener in Greg’s pasture.”

  “And that’s all there is to it?” I said.

  “Cut and dried,” Eric said. “Kevin’s going away for Greg’s murder. Sanders wi
ll get all his money back in a few months, and life goes on.”

  “Speaking of which,” I said, “Bud and I have work to do, so if you’ll excuse us.” Bud and I rose from our chairs.

  Before we left, Bud reached into his shirt pocket and produced one of his business cards and held it up for Eric to see. “I’m official now,” he said, handing the card to Eric. “This Bud’s for you.”

  I looked at him sideways. “That was my line,” I said. “Come on, let’s get back to work.”

  106 - That’s Show Biz

  I’d brought Gloria and our newborn daughter, Olivia home from the hospital almost three weeks ago and I have to admit that it took a little getting used to hearing a baby crying again after Matt had grown out of it. Still, the pluses outweighed the minuses every time I looked into Olivia’s eyes or heard her giggle. I have to admit, though, that I had the easier job between Gloria and myself. I spent eight to ten hours away from home five days a week and some weekends running the family business. Gloria spent every day with the kids and the housework, but she never complained about it. I had to give her credit for that.

  She had told me shortly before Olivia arrived that she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and raise Olivia herself, something that she missed out on with Matt. Even though I missed not having her at the office anymore, I had to agree that she was right about being able to bond with the baby. She could always come back to her job as my partner at the private investigations firm that I’d taken over from my father. He’d taken it over from his father as well and someday I hoped Matt would take it over from me.

  I finished the last morsel of toast and swallowed the last of my milk. Before I left the house that morning Gloria saw me off at the kitchen door, as she always did. “Elliott,” she said. “I’d like to have people over to meet Olivia. I’m feeling stronger now and it’s about time we started exercising our bragging rights to that perfect little girl, don’t you think?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I was just waiting until you thought you’d be up to it. Did you have anyone in particular in mind?”