Copp On Ice, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series)

by Don Pendleton

  In that sunlit background a man and woman sat at a table beside the pool. The man, I'm sure, was Tim Murray. The woman, it seemed, could be Lila Turner. Both wore swim suits, and the woman appeared to be caressing the man's shoulder.

  I wanted to take that photo but I suppressed the urge, leaving it undisturbed in its small plastic frame; it was, after all, the private property of one who evidently possessed little else—but I went out of there with the photo etched indelibly into my gray matter.

  The guard station yielded three years' worth of logs showing cryptic notations chronicling the comings and goings at the mansion—nothing at first look to get excited about—and surveillance tapes covering only about the past week. Apparently the tapes were "rolled over" on a weekly basis and used again.

  Upstairs, though, Zarraza discovered a veritable bonanza of video tapes along with cameras and lights, the works. They had been stored in a locked walk-in closet especially outfitted for such storage, the walls lined from floor to ceiling with stacked four-drawer "video library" boxes, each carefully labeled as to date and time and subject. The cameras were state-of-the-art camcorders, looked very expensive, and there were eight of them.

  Coincidentally, maybe, there were eight bedroom suites in the mansion.

  "Look at the labels on here!" Zarraza crowed. "Do you recognize some of these names?"

  Yes, I recognized some of those names.

  "If this is what I think it is," he said, "these guys have to be out of their skulls, unless they never knew that they were on candid camera. This guy Schwartzman must be a total pervert! Look at all these tapes! There must be hundreds!"

  His two assistants wanted to come in and take a look, and the three of them had a hooting good time as they scanned labels on the boxes.

  I could not quite get up to their point of elation over the find, maybe because it was pretty much what I'd expected to find and maybe because I could not get the photo from the maid's room out of my head.

  I told Zarraza, "Take your time with this stuff. Log it in very carefully. Do the same with the clothing and any other items you think worthwhile. Then I want you to take it all to San Bernardino and very carefully log it in there with the sheriff. Check each item into each evidence locker, be sure it's properly sealed."

  Zarraza understood where I was coming from, and he was in total agreement that the evidence should not be stored in Brighton. But he said, with a glum look on his face, "It will probably take all day."

  I knew that, and I also knew that I did not have the whole day to spend on it.

  So I left them there at five o'clock on Sunday morning, to complete the task on their own, and I turned my sights toward home.

  It was time for a showdown with Lila Rapture. But I decided on a small sidetrip along the way. It came to me that I needed, first, to have a little talk with a local politician.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  During my earlier questioning of Norm Tomkins, the security guard, he had mentioned "on-board activities" and implied that special security measures were in effect at such times. He had also told me that the late Friday night gathering was a "board meeting," but the guy was talking cutesy with me, with a lot of insider smirking and sniggling, and I'd just let the remark pass over my head as talk to impress me by. I was being a bit "cute" myself at the moment, of course, and had not wanted to appear overly dumb or curious so I hadn't pursued the matter.

  But now I was really beginning to wonder about the activities at the Schwartzman mansion, trying to form a coherent pattern in the mind which would explain what had gone so wrong with the city of Brighton. It seemed rather clear that the major troubles had begun developing at roughly the same time, three years earlier. At that time, the city had terminated its participation in the joint-agency task force for drug enforcement and initiated its own

  beefed-up approach to the problem, presumably after the mayor had become miffed over the division of spoils.

  Coincidentally, Harold Schwartzman appeared on the scene with two million dollars in a letter of credit from a Bahamian bank, bought the land and built the mansion, cozied up with the cops and opened his mansion to them for parties and whatever even when he was not present to participate. He bought into Helltown, apparently employed a lot of moonlighting cops to help him run the businesses, and began funneling money from those businesses into an overseas banking network.

  But Schwartzman himself was a wraith, a phantom figure who conducted all of his business under a variety of corporate covers. I could not even get a physical description of the man, and his Brighton home was more like a clubhouse for cops, it had no imprint which would reveal the personality or habits of the owner.

  Apparently Tim Murray had been on the payroll even while still Chief of Police, perhaps as Schwartzman's "man on the scene" at Brighton—and maybe this was the first fatal mistake. Maybe he became less and less a cop, more and more a stooge for Schwartzman and an illicit international empire, and maybe he began seeing his own department as little more than a private force to protect his other interests.

  It is very difficult to corrupt an entire police department, even from the top down. I had never known of one. But you don't have to corrupt the entire force if it is an efficient machine to begin with. You just need the key people, and that does not necessarily mean the brass. If you have the keys to the machine, you can run it in the direction that serves you best, and it will serve you while also serving the primary interests in ways that do not affect you.

  So who were the keys at Brighton?

  Depending on the nature of your own private operation, you might want a vice key, you might want a narcotics key, you would probably want a rather hefty patrol key and a very delicate investigations key. Of course if your interest is in stolen goods, you'd want a burglary key; if fraud and swindles, a bunco key. And, just to keep things tight and secure all the way to the top, you'd want a damned strong brass key.

  So... if my pattern was forming according to the observed logic, I had most of the players pegged, most posthumously. Roger Williamson had been the brass key. Manning and Peterson carried the investigations and burglary keys. With Helltown so prominent in the background, I figured a need for a vice key and maybe even a narcotics key—so maybe Turner, Hanson, and Rodriguez would fit those locks.

  Strange, isn't it, how patterns can form from seemingly nowhere? Ever watch clouds appear in a cloudless sky, lightning streak from cloud to cloud, raindrops appear like magic, streams and puddles form on dry ground, raging torrents inundate the flashflood areas and suck down victims to a watery death? An hour ago the sky was clear. But an invisible pattern was there nonetheless, and maybe even the victim's name was written in the empty space that quickly became the storm.

  Maybe I had the wrong pattern in mind... but certainly I had the victims, I could see them as the effect of the pattern, and I was merely trying to reason backward to a probable cause—because I was not there when the clouds began to form.

  If my theory was right, then the clouds probably began to form when a "reform slate" disrupted the cozy politics of a small town turned big, the mayor was very nearly unseated and two of his cronies were turned out of office.

  That could put a strain on things, especially if the mayor and his boyhood friend whom he'd installed as the chief of police had sold their city to a highrolling international financier who was now using it in virtual asylum as the seat of an illegal empire.

  In my reading at the time, I put Schwartzman's influence on the scene ahead of the decision to withdraw from the multi-agency task force. Brighton withdrew because they wanted to be able to call their own shots to the maximum possible extent, and it could be very difficult to "key" such an operation. So Katz and Murray prepared the ground and Schwartzman waltzed in. It would have been incredibly easy. And things probably moved along smoothly until the political clouds formed. Now all are vulnerable, nerves get touchy, anxieties arise. . . and thieves fall out.

  The inevitable storm eithe
r produced or was produced by the death of Mayor Katz. The rest all fell like dominoes. Maybe not all in a direct line, there could have been isolated branch lines, but surely all began to topple when Katz fell.

  And the panic within the total structure of corruption must have been great. Panic bugged the office of the new city administrator and learned that he was trying to contact a private eye named Joe Copp; panic moved to discourage the potential interloper from entering the private preserve; and panic then began disposing of the weaker keys when it became apparent that the interloper was now in charge and capable of bringing the whole house down.

  Manning, Peterson and Turner were now the most vulnerable because they'd become exposed—so down went Manning and Peterson. But why not Turner?

  I had assumed that the two narcs, Hanson and Rodriguez, had been hit in the mistaken belief that they had succeeded in hitting me; I now began to revise that scenario, and it seemed more likely that they were hit because

  their hit had failed and someone with a command key knew it, feared that I had recognized them, and got to them before I could get to them. A patrol key took care of that little necessity.

  Why dissolve the brass key, Roger Williamson?

  The captain was crumbling, and that must have been more evident to others than to me. The death of Murray might have hastened that process—but Murray was not a key, Murray had been the keeper of the keys, so why had he gone down? A branch line? Maybe.

  Why had Turner not gone down? Because she was more nimble than the others?—faster on her feet?

  A problem here.

  If Murray indeed had been "in charge," as my logic pattern demanded, who was keeping the game alive now that Murray was dead? Had he ordered the bombs for my car and Williamson's car before he fell himself? Or was there a damage control group at work now, hoping to cut the losses and come out clean?

  If Katz represented a branch line and Murray another, and both had died for reasons outside the scenario—if indeed Lydia Whiteside had killed them both for reasons of her own—wasn't it ironic that the entire chain of dominoes had begun toppling from a branch line?

  But still there was Turner.

  And why had she said "I'm next to die" when told of Lydia's death?

  I guess I wasn't buying the murders of Katz and Murray as branch line events...which means also that I was not buying Lydia Whiteside as their killer.

  If not Lydia, then who?

  Was there really a "board" which had met in secrecy at the Schwartzman mansion at about the time that the latest round of killing had begun?

  If so, of whom was it composed, what was its purpose, and who was its chairman?

  Where did all this leave the nimble Turner?

  And when the pattern finally resolved, where would it leave the romantically smitten Copp?

  His name was Charles Calhoun, man of about fifty-five with very intelligent eyes and impressive bearing—even in pajamas and robe—and he was one of the newer members of the Brighton City Council. It was Calhoun's son, Richard, who had been arrested at the high school some ten months earlier on a charge of dealing drugs to the other students. The charges had been dismissed because of what the judge in the case termed "tainted evidence." Going purely on what Murray had revealed to me about the case, Calhoun had then embarked on a "vendetta" against the most visible cop in Brighton, the chief of police.

  I realized that I was perhaps exposing myself prematurely to a potential enemy, but I rang Calhoun's doorbell at shortly past five o'clock on that Sunday morning, identified myself, and had a go at a better understanding of the city's problems.

  It was easier than I had expected. The councilman graciously invited me in although a total stranger had just pulled him out of bed. We went back to the kitchen. He made coffee and listened attentively while I explained my presence in his city.

  I told him, "Carl Garcia and I go back a long way. He called me Friday and told me that he was fearful of his family's safety, seemed to believe that his police force was infested with renegades, asked me to come in and take charge of the department subject to later approval by the council."

  "I see."

  "Uh huh. But I'll give it to you up front, neither of us expected me to win approval and I would not accept the job on a permanent basis for any price. I came because of Carl and I'll be out of here before the council can even begin to think about the appointment. I came to smoke out the renegades and—"

  "With spectacular success, I'd say. I've known about you, Copp."

  "Since when?"

  "Since the hell began. I have a man in place over there, myself."

  "Over there where?"

  "At the PD."

  I said, "Really. Who is that?"

  "Never mind who it is, he's there and he's been keeping me informed. I'm a bit disappointed Garcia would believe he could smuggle a new chief in behind the council's backs. But I do understand the urgency and I'm willing to give some latitude here if it doesn't get too wild."

  "How wild can it get?" I asked him. "We've had eight deaths in roughly twenty-four hours. If it gets much wilder than that—"

  "No, I was referring to the degree of latitude as to the way you operate. My informant tells me that you are something of a maverick, that you cut corners and perhaps play a bit loose with the letter of the law but never with its spirit, and that you usually produce dramatic results. Don't get me wrong, I am not in favor of flouting legal procedure as an expedient to the processes of justice, but I see this as a war, here in Brighton, not a criminal justice problem, and one must make allowances in war."

  I had allowed an amused smile to cross my face as he was speaking. He'd noted it, and I knew that he had, so I

  had to spill it. "The only guy I've known to speak like that straight out of a warm bed on a cold morning is a lawyer friend of mine. I was thinking about that. No disrespect intended."

  "None taken," he replied, with a smile of his own. "Is my profession that obvious?"

  I was warming to the guy. A bit stiff, perhaps a bit old- school, but at the same time warm and likable. "I would call it either lawyer or professor."

  "So you're batting a thousand. I have been both."

  "Now you're a politician."

  "Every citizen is a politician," he lectured me. "Politics is no more and no less than the art of social intercourse. Law is its language."

  "What is crime, then?"

  "Crime is anarchy, chaos, the anti-society. That is what we have had here in Brighton in recent years."

  I said, "Some may feel that crime is a necessity. A starving man will steal bread, no matter how much he may respect the law."

  "It is still anarchy," the councilman insisted. "There is a social solution to starvation."

  "What if no one gives a damn about the other man's hunger?"

  "Ah, but that is crime too. Subtle, but crime."

  I was not merely playing with the guy or indulging in idle debate; I was going for his size, and liking what I found. "Was Tim Murray an anarchist?"

  He gave me a long, sober look, then took cups from the cupboard and poured the coffee. He motioned me to a chair, took one for himself, and said, "Yes."

  "Mayor Katz?"

  "Yes."

  "Harold Schwartzman?"

  "To answer that, we must first produce the persona for identification."

  "Suppose," I said, toying with my coffee, "that the persona is nowhere in evidence. What if Harold Schwartzman is no more than the convenient concoction of a criminal conspiracy?"

  He showed me surprised eyes, replied, "You've tumbled to that already?"

  "I've considered the possibility."

  "So have I," he said soberly, thoughtfully. "But do you want to hear something strange? If that is true, and I believe that it very well could be true, then I also believe that it might have begun as a completely legitimate police operation."

  "A sting?"

  "A sting, yes, that got out of hand. It seduced them, worked too well, they could
n't resist it. And when they got in too deep, it swallowed them."

  "Have you seen anything to suggest that this could be true? I mean, other than sheer intuition?"

  He nodded, sipped his coffee, replied, "I know that several million dollars of the police budget were approved and earmarked for expanded anti-narcotics operations a few years ago, and that there was no accountability for the use of those funds until the new council demanded it."

  "So how was the money spent?"

  The councilman smiled. "It was not spent, if you can believe a hastily produced record. The funds were 'on hold' in the Brighton City Bank, in a special sub-account. Guess who owned the account."

  It did not require much of a guess. "Brighton Holding, Inc."

  He smiled again. "There you go. So what would a policeman call it? Intuition? Or evidence?"

  "What was the earmark?"

  "The earmark was 'Drug War Covert Operations.' The money was not from the general treasury but from drug- bust confiscations. The stated intent was that the allocation be used to fund anti-drug sting operations. I believe that the money may have been used inappropriately, that it may have been used to seed other operations that were never recorded—operations which over the years may have yielded sufficient illegal profits to restore the initial allocation when it became necessary to do so."

  I said, "And you believe that Katz was aware of all this."

  "I have wondered," he replied thoughtfully, "if the entire council may have known about it. The old council, that is. The two who survived last year's election have been acting absolutely paranoid since their beloved leader, Harvey Katz, abandoned them in death. We are now in total chaos."