by Bill Bernico
I looked at Coulter. “Your buddy Butch here has been keeping secrets from you. Did you know that?”
Coulter just stared at me blankly.
I looked back at the license. “Seems Butch’s real name is Marion,” I said. “Marion Collins. Isn’t that sweet?” I paused for a moment and then added. “Say, isn’t that supposed to be a girl’s name, Marion?”
Collins started to get up but immediately sat back down when he saw my .38 aimed at his face.
“Well, Marion,” I said. “Looks like you and Justine here are going to the slammer.”
“Justin,” Coulter yelled.
“Yeah, right,” I said, and tossed Collins’ wallet back at him. I hung on to his driver’s license and slipped it into my shirt pocket, next to Coulter’s.
Four minute later two black and whites pulled up to the mouth of the alley, their red lights flashing. Eric and several uniformed officers got out and walked over to where I was babysitting the two gangster wannabes. I gestured toward the two young men and said, “You want take Marion and Justine away?”
“Justin,” Coulter screamed.
“Oh, and you might want to check Marion’s pocket,” I told Eric. “He should have a wad of cash and probably some more drugs on him.” I just smiled at him and shook my head. Once the two were secured in the back of the patrol car, I looked at them once more and said, “Goodbye, ladies. It’s been a ball.”
Eric turned toward the officers and pointed at Coulter. “Get that one to the emergency room and have them look at that arm. The other one can go directly to lockup.”
“Yes sir,” the officer said, before closing the back door of the patrol car and sliding beneath the steering wheel.
I fished the two driver’s licenses from my shirt pocket and handed them to Eric. “There you go, Eric,” I said. “Now you can take that vacation with no loose ends dangling over your head. You can drive on up to… Where was that you said you were going?”
Eric opened his mouth and then smiled. “Nice try, Elliott,” he said. “But I’m not even telling you where I’m going. For the next two weeks, I’m just going to be Joe Average Citizen with a fishing pole. We’ll talk when I get back, and thanks for this. I owe you, pal.”
“You owe me, all right,”“ I said. “My bill will be in this afternoon’s mail.” I slapped his shoulder. “Have a good vacation. I’ll see you in two weeks.”
Eric followed the black and whites back toward Hollywood and I returned to my van. I drove back to the office and found Gloria still busily pecking away at her keyboard. She glanced up at the clock when I walked into the office. It was just after three-thirty.
“That was quick,” she said. “You still going to get the one day minimum out of Eric for this job?”
“You bet,” I said. “I still can’t get him to tell me where he’s going for those two weeks.”
“I know,” Gloria said, looking up from her computer screen.
“How could you know?” I said.
“I just called Rose,” Gloria explained.
“How do you know Rose?” I said. “She and Eric haven’t been going together that long. Have you met her?”
“Just once,” Gloria said. “I ran into her and Eric on the street last week. We chatted for a while and found out we have a few things in common. I decided to call her and invited her to lunch today. We had quite the talk. Turns out she’s going with Eric on his vacation, at least for the first week. Then she has to get back to her own job. Eric will be up there by himself for the second week.”
“Up where?” I said.
“Lake Arrowhead,” Gloria said. “I guess they’ll be camping near the lake in some little fold-up tent. Personally, that sounds a little claustrophobic to me.”
“I don’t imagine he’ll get much fishing in that first week,” I said. “But I’ll bet he’ll catch at least one furry little dam building creature while he’s up there.”
“Huh?” Gloria said, and then suddenly she caught my implication. “Oh, Elliott,” she said, shaking her head.
118 - Gentlemen Prefer Bombs
Matt and I were spending Saturday morning in my garage, building a bookshelf for his room. He wanted me to buy him one he saw at Wal-Mart, but I decided that he’d take better care of it and appreciate it more if we built one together instead. We had already cut the boards to their proper lengths and had them screwed together. The next step in the process would be staining the shelves to match Matt’s dresser and headboard. But before we could to that, the entire shelf unit needed to be sanded. A quick search of my woodworking inventory told me that I was out of sandpaper disks.
I turned to Matt. “Come on, let’s take a ride to the hardware store.”
On the way to the hardware store Matt swiveled in his seat toward me. “Why can’t we just paint the shelf the way it is now?”
“It’s too rough,” I said, not taking my eyes off the road. “And we’re not painting it. We’re staining it. Besides, every imperfection in the wood and the cuts we made would show so it has to be sanded smooth before we can stain it. Remember this, if nothing else, Matt. If you’re going to put the effort into a project, you might as well do it the right way, otherwise every time you look at that shelf, you’ll wish you had.”
“It’s in the details, is that what you’re trying to say?”
I snapped my fingers and pointed at my fifteen-year-old son. “Couldn’t have summed it up better myself.”
The hardware store was on the other side of Hollywood and we made it there in twenty-five minutes. Once inside, I found the first clerk who happened by and asked where I could find the rotary sander disk replacements. I looked at his name tag. It said, Todd.
Without missing a beat Todd said, “We don’t carry that product,” and continued on his way to do whatever he had set out to do before I stopped him.
I didn’t believe Todd for a second, since one, I’d purchased the sander at this very store and two, I saw Todd head for the break area when he left us. I must have been a threat to Todd’s break period. Matt and I walked the aisles of the store and within a minute found the sander section. Ten seconds after that we found the replacement pads we had come here for.
I looked at Matt and rolled my eyes. “He’s giving your generation a bad name.”
“My generation?” Matt said defensively. “He’s not part of my generation. He’s old. He’s got to be twenty at least.”
“Pardon me,” I said, holding up my palms. “Didn’t mean to smear your generation with that old guy.”
On my way back to the checkout, we stopped at the employee break area and walked up to the table where Todd sat talking to a young lady, obviously another clerk at this very store. I held the pads up in front of his face and said, “Todd, you do too carry this product. You’d know that if you weren’t in such a hurry to get to your break. Thanks for nothing, and I’ll make sure your boss knows what a big help you are to your customers.” I left Todd sitting there red-faced and proceeded to the checkout.
“You were pretty rough on that clerk, weren’t you, Dad?” Matt said.
“He shouldn’t be working in a job that involves interacting with the public. Todd should be in a job, tucked away in some cubicle entering data into a computer somewhere.”
“Did you see the look on his face when you ripped him a new one in front of that girl?” Matt said. “He looked like he wanted to crawl under the table.”
“Good,” I said. “That’s the effect I was after.”
The checkout clerk rang up my sanding disks and I was about to hand him my credit card when Matt tapped me on the shoulder. “Dad, do you already have the stain we need?”
I held one finger up to the clerk. “Hang on to those disks,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I returned forty-five seconds later with a small can of stain. Two people in the line behind me gave me disgusted looks. I shrugged at them and checked out with my purchases as quickly as I could and got out of there.
Matt looked over the
top of Gloria’s car at me before we got back inside. “Now you know how Todd felt,” he said.
“Get in,” I told Matt. We rode home in silence. Not because I was mad at him, but because I realized he might have been right and I didn’t want to get into it. Back in the garage I unpacked my purchases and was just starting to pull out a new sanding disk when Gloria called from the kitchen door.
“Elliott, telephone.”
I looked at Matt. “Don’t do anything until I get back. I mean it.”
“Yeah, Dad,” Matt said as I returned to the house.
I took the receiver from Gloria’s hand and held it to my ear. “Elliott Cooper here.”
“Elliott, it’s Eric,” the voice said. Eric was Lieutenant Eric Anderson from the twelfth precinct.
“What’s up, Eric?”
“Did I catch you in the middle of anything important, Elliott?”
“Nothing that can’t wait.” What do you have?”
“I have Ron Harper here with me. You two have never met so I told him I’d call you. He’d like to talk to you, if you don’t mind.”
“Ron Harper,” I said. “Name doesn’t ring any bells.”
“Ron’s part of the arson squad at the Hollywood sub-station,” Eric said. “He just transferred in from San Pedro. Here, I’ll let Ron explain it all to you.”
There were a few seconds of silence before another man came on the phone. “Hello, Mr. Cooper,” Ron said. “Sorry to bother you at home on the weekend, but Eric tells me you may just be the right guy to help me out of a jam.”
“Well,” I said, “it’s always nice to get a recommendation from Eric. What do you need?”
“Have you been reading the papers lately? We’ve had quite a few fires in Hollywood in the past couple of months.”
“Yes, I have read something about that. Are you thinking this could be the work of an arsonist?”
“Not just one,” Ron said. “Probably three or more from our estimates. If I may cut to the chase, Mr. Cooper, I’m short-staffed and Eric suggested I call you and see if you might be interested in looking into one of our cases before the trail goes cold and the good faith period expires.”
“Good faith period?”
“The insurance companies that handle the fire claims have to settle within a certain time.”
“The good faith period.”
“Exactly,” Ron explained. “If they don’t make a decision one way or the other before the grace period runs out, they could be sued for triple damages by the policy holder. So far, we haven’t been able to track down the people we need to talk to and time’s running out.”
“Don’t you have a whole department to handle this sort of thing?” I asked.
“We have eight investigators,” Ron explained. “They’re already handling two or three cases each and we just don’t have the authority to hire more investigators until the next board meeting in four months. Meanwhile, the good faith period in this case is either going to lapse, in which case the insurance company ends up paying triple the amount of the claim, or they’ll settle before that time but they’ll still be out six hundred thousand dollars. That is, unless we can prove arson before that happens, and we can only do that if we can locate two other people. I hate to be brief, Mr. Cooper, but I need an answer right away.”
“What’s my time frame?” I said. “When does the good faith period run out?”
“Eighteen days from today.”
“Hold on a minute, Ron,” I said and cupped my hand over the mouthpiece. I turned to Gloria. “Would you happen to know what our schedule looks like for the next three weeks?”
Gloria shrugged. “I’m not sure. I think I remember one or two cases pending, but the appointment book is back at the office.”
I took my hand off the phone. “Ron, I have to drive back to the office and check my appointment book. Can I call you from there in, let’s say, fifteen minutes?”
I could hear Ron letting out his breath on the other end. “That’ll be fine,” he said. “I’ll be here in Eric’s office waiting for your call. Thanks, Mr. Cooper.”
“Don’t thank me yet, until I call back.” I hung up and turned to Gloria. “I have to drive back to the office. I should be back in half an hour or so.”
“I’ll be here,” Gloria said. “Olivia and I are making a cake for Matt’s birthday. Sixteen is a milestone, you know.”
“I know. You can bet he’ll be after me to take him for his driving test. Gees, where did the time go? I’ll see you later.”
Elliott,” Gloria said, “Take you van, would you? I need the car.”
“Okay,” I said and hurried back out to the garage and crooked a finger at Matt. “Come on, Matt. I’m going to the office for a minute and I’d like you to come with me. I may be able to use your help.”
Matt rolled his eyes. “Dad,” he said exasperated, “you’re so transparent. You just don’t want me sanding and staining by myself.”
“Can’t put anything past you, can I? Come on, time’s a-wastin’.”
The two of us drove downtown to my office on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Cahuenga. My office was on the third floor at the end of the hall. It overlooked the boulevard and had been the office for Cooper Investigations ever since my grandfather, Matt started the business back in 1946. My dad, Clay took over the business in the seventies and stayed with it until he died several years ago. Now the private investigations duties fell on Gloria and me, and someday my son, Matt.
I unlocked the office door and walked directly to Gloria’s desk, where the appointment book lay open to next week. The entire week was clear, but the following week had two appointments scheduled—one for Tuesday and one for Friday. That gave me more than a week to help Ron with his arson case, ten days if we worked straight through. I hit the speed dial number for Eric’s office and got him on the first ring. He handed the phone to Ron.
“What’s the good word, Mr. Cooper?” Ron said.
“I’m available for nine or ten days before I have to get back to my own cases,” I said. “And that doesn’t take into account any cases that may come my way between now and then.”
“I’ll take it. I’m grateful for any help I can get.”
“When did you want me to start on this?” I said.
“I was hoping right away,” Ron told me. “I know it’s the weekend and all, but I have so little time to wrap this thing up. Even though the board can’t approve another arson investigator, I can authorize your payment in the meantime, Mr. Cooper. And I’ll pay more for your weekend efforts.”
“That’ll work for me,” I told him. “But just one thing I insist on, and this is not negotiable. I insist you call me Elliott. Mr. Cooper was my dad and he’s gone.”
“You got it, Elliott,” Ron said with a nervous laugh. “Thanks a lot. Can you come to my office? I can get you up to speed and provide you with copies of the necessary documents you may need to track down the two people we’re looking for.”
Ron read the address off to me. I agreed I could meet him in twenty minutes and hung up. I turned to Matt. “Oh great,” I said. “I don’t have time to run you home right now. So, I guess you can either hang out here or come with me.” I thought about that scenario for a second and then revised my statement. “How about you just come along with me? Now’s a good a time as any for you to see just what it is I do.”
Matt stuffed his hands into his jeans and shrugged. “Okay, Dad. Where are we going?”
“We’re going downtown to the fire department,” I said. “They have a special department that looks into intentional fires.”
“The arson squad,” Matt said.
I looked at him, surprised.
“What?” Matt said. “You don’t think I was paying attention? I know what an arson squad is. I also know that you have to be a trained arson investigator to do that kind of work. How did you get the job?”
I cleared my throat. “I’m not actually investigating the arson itself. Ron wants me to tr
ack down two people that may or may not be able to help with this case.”
“Suspects or witnesses?” Matt asked eagerly.
“I’m not sure. Ron will tell me when I get there.”
“When we get there,” Matt added.
“Look,” I said, “I’m taking you along just so you don’t have to sit in my office alone for who knows how long. When we get there, I’ll do all the talking. Is that clear? I can’t have Ron thinking that you’re part of this investigation.”
Matt seemed insulted. “And what would be wrong with that?”
“I just need to make a good first impression,” I said. “After we leave there we can talk about whether or not you’ll be helping me with the investigation. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Matt said with some reservation.
I pulled up in the parking lot behind the fire department and walked with Matt into the building. The receptionist buzzed us in and told us where to find Ron’s office. I knocked and then entered with Matt close behind me. Ron was at his desk, going through some papers. He looked up at the two of us, somewhat of a surprised look on his face when he saw Matt.
“Ron?” I said.
Ron nodded, stood and extended his hand.
“I’m Elliott Cooper,” I said. “And this is my son, Matt.”
Ron shook Matt’s hand and invited us to sit in two chairs opposite his desk. He looked at Matt again, a question playing on his face.
“Matt’s here,” I said, “Because we were out shopping when I stopped back at my office. It was either bring him along or let him sit there until I finished up here. I’ll be dropping him off at home before I start.”
Ron nodded and seemed a little more at ease now. “All right,” he said. “Here’s what I need from you, Elliott. Two of the suspects in this case are brothers named Melvin and Willard Winkle. Melvin doesn’t like his first name and goes by ‘Rocky,’ while Willard goes by ‘Bill.’ Their last known address was in the Silver Lake district but just as we suspected, they’re gone. The house is still fully furnished so it looks like they left in a hurry. So far we don’t have any evidence to tie them to any of the fires. We just want to talk to them.”
