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

by Bill Bernico

  When the music stopped, Matt half expected to see the couple embrace or kiss or show some sign of affection, but there was none. Joan’s face had more of a look like that of appreciation, or maybe even gratitude, but not desire. The man pulled away from her, walked to another part of the room Matt couldn’t see and returned a few seconds later, just as the music started up again, this time with a different beat. The man took Joan’s hand again and guided her across the floor in time to the music and then it hit Matt. Joan Armstrong was taking dance lessons on the sly. For whatever reason, she didn’t want her husband to know about the lessons and that’s why she snuck away every Tuesday night after work.

  Matt walked back to the front of the house and made a note of the address on his notepad before returning to his car. He slid behind the wheel and then reached into the back seat to retrieve his laptop computer. He flipped it open, turned it on and clicked on the Internet icon at the bottom. Once connected to the web, Matt found his Favorites list and selected the reverse directory application. He entered the address of the house he had been watching and a few seconds later the owner’s name appeared on the screen—Lance Hendricks. Matt highlighted the full name and copied it into memory before exiting the reverse address lookup program. He moved to his search engine screen and pasted the man’s name into the search window. He got several hits, including personal information about the man who owned that house, his phone number and a lot more that Matt didn’t find particularly useful. What he did find very useful was the man’s occupation—dance instructor at one of Hollywood’s premier dance studios.

  It was all starting to fall into place now. The woman wanted dance lessons without letting her husband know about it and it was obvious that the dance instructor wanted to make a few extra dollars on the side without having to share that income with his employer. While the action of these two people was not entirely above board, it certainly wasn’t anything worth losing any sleep over. He’d just report back to the husband and tell him, what? If he laid out the truth for him, he’d be relieved to find out that his wife wasn’t cheating on him, but a disclosure like that would certainly spoil Joan’s surprise for him.

  Matt wondered if it would even be an option to approach Joan Armstrong as she emerged from this house and fill her in, but then he remembered that it was her husband, not Joan, who had hired him. That option would open him up for a breach of confidentiality lawsuit. He could tell Mr. Armstrong that Joan was not cheating on him and leave it at that. But would Mr. Armstrong be content to know only that much of the equation? This was a tough call, Matt thought. He decided he’d wait, lay it all out for Elliott and see what he suggested. One more night wouldn’t kill anyone.

  Matt started his car and pulled away from the curb. He’d gone just a block when he remembered that Elliott had told him to remember to call home and let Chris know that he was all right. He found a gas station, pulled in and killed the engine. Matt fished out his phone, flipped it open and dialed his home number. Chris answered right away.

  “Matt,” she said. “Your mother called me and said something about you being on the news. She told me there was a fire in your building. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Matt assured her. “Mom tends to exaggerate sometimes. You know how she gets when it comes to me or Olivia.”

  “But I caught the newscast,” Chris said. “Was that you out on the ledge?”

  “It was nothing,” Matt said. “The fire department sent a ladder up and brought me down. No problem at all. Listen, I’m just finishing up on a case Dad gave me earlier and I should be home in an hour or so. We can talk about it then, okay?”

  “Okay,” Chris said. “I’m just glad you weren’t hurt. Hurry home, dear.”

  “I will,” Matt said and closed his phone. He looked at his watch. It was creeping up on six-thirty and he wondered if Elliott had had any luck find them a temporary office. He also decided that that could also wait until tomorrow. Right now he just wanted to get home and be with his family. Matt pulled out of the gas station and headed home. He’d gotten to within half a mile from his house when his cell phone rang. He flipped it open and looked at the caller I.D. screen. It was Elliott.

  “Dad,” Matt said. “What’s up?”

  “Are you all right, son?” Elliott said.

  “Dad, didn’t we already go through all this over lunch?”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean you asking me if I was all right,” Matt explained.

  “Matt,” Elliott said. “Where are you?”

  “I’m almost home,” Matt said. “Why?”

  “Did you tail Joan Armstrong earlier, like we talked about?” Elliott said.

  “Yeah, and it’s kind of a funny thing.”

  “Funny?” Elliott said. “How do you figure? I just got a call from Eric down at the twelfth precinct. They got a call from some neighbor who said they heard a scuffle and then two gunshots. He and another patrol car went to the address that the neighbor had given them and they found a couple lying on the living room floor—both dead.”

  “And what does any of this have to do with me?” Matt said.

  “The dead woman was Joan Armstrong,” Elliott explained. “And according to the driver’s license they found on the man, his name was…”

  “Lance Hendricks,” Matt said, completing Elliott’s announcement.

  There was a moment of silence before Elliott spoke again. “Now just how did you know that?”

  “Because I followed Joan Armstrong to Hendricks’ house,” Matt explained. “I looked in the window and saw them both.”

  “Well you weren’t along,” Elliott said. “They’re holding Jerry Armstrong for the double murder. All he’d say when they caught him sitting outside the Hendricks house was something like, ‘that cheatin’ bitch’. They didn’t have to chase after him at all. He was just sitting on the sidewalk in front of that house with the gun in his hand. Talk about an open and shut case.”

  “Not so fast there, Dad,” Matt said. “It might seem like an open and shut case, but I have some information Eric might need about all this. Do you want to meet me at the twelfth precinct? I’ll turn around and head there now.”

  “I’ll see you in fifteen minutes,” Elliott said and hung up.

  When Matt walked into the police station, Elliott was already there, talking with Lieutenant Anderson. They both stopped talking when they saw Matt approaching.

  “What’s all this about additional information?” Eric said to Matt.

  “Is there someplace private we can talk about this?” Matt replied.

  Eric led the two men to an interrogation room and closed the door. He looked at Matt. “Now what’s all this about?”

  Elliott spoke first. “I met with Jerry Armstrong this morning,” he explained. “He wanted to hire me to tail his wife, Joan because he suspected she was cheating on him.”

  “Looks like he was right,” Eric said.

  Matt jumped in at this point. “Actually he couldn’t have been more wrong.”

  “But he said he caught them in an embrace,” Eric said. “He told me that he just snapped and shot them both through the living room window and then went inside and put two more slugs into each of the bodies until his gun clicked on empty.” He turned to Matt and waited.

  “I saw them, too,” Matt said. “But after watching them a while, I realized that this was no rendezvous between two lovers. The man, this Hendricks character, was some sort of a dance instructor downtown. Joan Armstrong was seeing him on the side every Tuesday for private dance lessons. I guess she wanted to surprise her husband or something.”

  “Well, she surprised him, all right,” Eric said. “Three slugs worth.”

  The three men were silent for a moment before Elliott spoke up. “Boy, talk about your domino effect.”

  “How’s that?” Eric said.

  “Think about it,” Elliott explained. “If just one thing about this whole set of circumstances had been different, Joan Armstrong wo
uld still be alive. If she had told her husband about the lessons, or if Hendricks had just told Joan to come to the dance studio for the lessons, or if Jerry Armstrong hadn’t been so critical of his wife’s inability to dance, well, then she might still be alive. One thing in that chain of events affected the rest and it led to the double murder. See what I mean?”

  “I understand completely,” Matt said to his dad. “Kind of like if I’d gone with you on that interview this morning, or if the windows in our office hadn’t been painted shut, or if that fireman hadn’t strapped me into that harness…”

  “I see what you mean,” Elliott said.

  “What’s all this about a harness?” Eric said.

  Elliott gave him the condensed version of the fire tragedy from earlier that day.

  “That was you on that ledge?” Eric said. “I saw that on the news and thought what bad luck that guy was having. So that was you, eh?”

  Matt nodded. “I’m afraid so. Can we stop talking about it now and get back to the business at hand here?”

  “I guess so,” Eric said. “Boy, Jerry Armstrong’s gonna be in for a bit of a shock when I tell him what his wife was really doing in Hendricks’ house. Now he’ll never know if his wife could dance or not.”

  “I hate to sound materialistic at a time like this,” Elliott said. “But I don’t suppose I’ll be able to collect the rest of my fee from him now, will I?”

  Matt turned sharply toward Elliott. “Dad, didn’t you get a retainer, like you always tell me to do?”

  “A hundred bucks,” Elliott said. “Half of our daily rate.”

  “Then you’re all right,” Matt said. “I only spent two hours on the case. Count your blessings.” He looked back and forth between Elliott and Eric and then added, “If neither of you has any more questions for me, I have a worried wife to go home to.”

  “Go on,” Eric said. “I can get your statement tomorrow morning. You give Chris a hug for me, you hear?”

  “I will. Thanks Eric,” Matt said and turned to Elliott. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, too.”

  “Just don’t go to the office,” Elliott said.

  “Huh?” Matt said and then caught the implication. “Oh yeah. Why don’t you just call me when you decide where we’ll meet?” He exited the precinct and drove home.

  Chris had a dozen questions for Matt as soon as he walked in the door. The two of them sat in the living room with the twins situated next to them in their playpen. Matt managed to assure Chris that he was not hurt at all and that she shouldn’t worry so much about him. It took him a few tries but she finally relented before they sat down to dinner.

  It was just after nine o’clock the next morning when Elliott met with Ben Weldon, a realtor with one of the large real estate companies in Hollywood. “Come in, Elliott,” Ben said. “Have a seat. I think I found you some office space.”

  Elliott walked into the office, shook Ben’s hand and sat across the desk from the realtor. Ben passed three sheets across the desk to Elliott and pointed to the address lines on each. “This first one is a little farther away from your old office, but it has the cheapest rent and doesn’t require a lease.” He pointed to the second sheet. “This one is just two blocks from your old office but it’s fifty dollars a month more than that first one.” Ben slid the third sheet in front of Elliott. “This one costs about the same and it’s in the neighborhood, but it’s on the sixth floor.”

  Elliott pushed the third sheet away from him. “I think we can discount that last one, after what Matt’s just been through. Let’s stay closer to the ground if we can.”

  Ben pushed the two remaining sheets side by side for comparison’s sake. “Cheaper rent or closer proximity. They both have about the same square footage. Looks like a toss-up, Elliott.”

  As Elliott tried to decide, he looked down at the name plaque on Ben’s desk and then looked up at the realtor. “I don’t suppose I’m the first person to point out to you that you have the same name as an old actor from the fifties, am I?”

  “Actually, you are the first,” Ben said. “And I’m surprised you would even bring it up. Not many people remember the other Ben Weldon. They all know his face the minute they see it, but no one can tell you his name. How do you know it?”

  “Are you kidding,” Elliott said. “I’m a huge Superman fan.”

  Ben smiled. “I thought that was it,” he said. “That’s where most people know him from.”

  “He was always trying to outsmart Superman,” Elliott added. “I always used to get him confused with John Ducette. They looked similar and both of them played bad guys on that same Superman show.”

  “I know who you mean,” Ben said. “Ducette lived to the ripe old age of seventy-two but Ben Weldon, that guy made it to ninety-six. Did you also know that Ben Weldon played one of Eddie Mars’ flunkies in The Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart?”

  “Really?” Elliott said. “I’ve seen that movie a few times but never noticed him in it. I’ll have to keep an eye for him next time I watch it. So, getting back to these two office choices. Does either of them require a lease?”

  Ben shook his head. “The one on the left did, until I explained your situation to the owner,” he said. “He’s an old friend of mine and he agreed to forego the lease requirement. That one’s on the second floor. Will that be a problem for Matt, or for you, for that matter?”

  Elliott shook his head. “I don’t think that’ll matter to either of us,” he said. “If anything happened, we could easily hang from the window ledge and jump the remaining five or six feet. But tell me, what kind of business occupied these two offices in the past?”

  Ben pointed to the sheet on Elliott’s left. “This first one, the one on the second floor, used to be a travel agent’s office until he moved his business out to the mall.”

  “And the second one?” Elliott said.

  “That was the main business office of the Hilliard Funeral Home,” Ben said. “That one was…”

  “I’ll take the first one,” Elliott said. “There’d probably be too many people who remember it as the funeral home, and that wouldn’t be good for my business. How soon can I get in that other one?”

  Ben picked up the sheet and looked closer at it. “It’s vacant now,” he said. “You could move in today if you want.”

  “Great,” Elliott said. “Now all I have to do is find some furniture.”

  Ben waved him off. “Don’t bother,” he said. “The travel agent went with all new furniture in his new office and left all of his old furniture in this one. There are two desks with rolling swivel chairs, a filing cabinet for each desk and the phone lines are already in place. You’d just have to transfer your phone number over to the new office.”

  “Perfect,” Elliott said. “Where do I sign?”

  Elliott concluded his business with Ben, thanked him for his help and drove to the phone company to get his old number transferred to the new office. He called home and spoke to Gloria. She sounded excited to hear about the new office and immediately offered to come in and set it up.

  “What’s there to set up?” Elliott said.

  “You can’t just walk in and take over where the previous tenant left off,” she said. “This office has to reflect who you are or you’ll have people walking in and asking you to send them to Tahiti.”

  “Huh?”

  “It probably looks like a typical travel agent’s office,” Gloria explained. “Just let me come in and give the office the personal touch it needs, so it’ll look like a private eye’s office. Won’t take me half a day and it’ll give me something to do. Come on, Elliott. You won’t find anyone else who’ll work for nothing.”

  “Sure,” Elliott said. “Knock yourself out. I’ll be there to let the phone company guy in at one-thirty. Meet you there. And Gloria, would you bring my laptop computer with you when you come? It’s all that’s left of our old records.”

  Gloria showed up on time with her cleaning supplies in hand. She started right in ev
en as the phone company technician was setting up the phone system. Elliott stayed only long enough to tell the phone guy what features he wanted on this new system, wrote down his old number and left to meet Matt at his house.

  Elliott knocked once and let himself into Matt’s house. “Anyone home?” he said, stepping into the living room. His face lit up when he spotted his grandchildren in the playpen. Chris stepped up to Elliott, stretched up on tiptoes and kissed his cheek.

  “Hi, Elliott,” she said. “How’s the hunt for a new office coming along?”

  “I found one,” Elliott said. “Gloria’s there now straightening and cleaning and giving it her personal touch.”

  “I wish I could be there to help her,” Chris said, gesturing toward the twin babies. “But I have my hands full here with these two.”

  Elliott stepped over to the playpen, reached down and picked up his grandson, Nicholas. He held him high overhead with two arms outstretched, his mouth wide open in an exaggerated smile for the kid’s benefit.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Matt said, emerging from the bedroom.

  “Why not?” Elliott said, and continued holding Nicholas overhead.

  Before Matt could explain, poor little Nicholas’s stomach rumbled and he spit up curdled milk in Elliott’s face—the face with the mouth that was still wide open. Elliott quickly handed Nicholas to Matt and ran for the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Even from out in the living room, Matt and Chris could clearly hear the sound of Elliott retching into the toilet, over and over again. They both laughed, but straightened their faces out when he emerged again, still wiping his chin with his hand.

  “That’s why not,” Matt said. “Can’t say I didn’t try to warn you.”

  Elliott’s face was pale white and he looked like he could have a relapse at the slightest provocation.

  “So what’s up?” Matt said, handing Nicholas to Chris. “Did you find us an office?”

  “Yeah, your mother’s there now, cleaning up and giving it some character, as she puts it,” Elliott said.

  “When can we move in and get back to the business at hand?” Matt asked.