The Cooper Saga

Featuring Six Generations of the Cooper Family

Stories 371-870

by Bill Bernico

That Really Burns Me

Dorothy Fairchild walked away from the Twelfth Precinct disillusioned with the police for writing her off so fast with her complaints and suspicions.  She tried to tell the Sergeant at the front desk about her dead aunt but no one there seemed interested in looking into the case for her. After speaking to his superiors about the woman’s problem, the officer working the front desk, Eddie Holman suggested she take her problem up the street to the office of private investigator Nick Cooper.  She mumbled to herself in disgust for every step of those four blocks and she was still complaining to herself when she stepped off the elevator on the third floor and walked to the end of the hall.  She found the Cooper office in the last door on the right and let herself in.

The newest agent in the firm, Abby Cooper, who had recently married John Cooper, greeted the woman as she entered.  “Good morning and welcome to Cooper Investigations.  My name is Abby; how may I help you today?”  She offered her hand and the woman shook it.

“I just came from the police station down the street and they sent me here,” the woman explained.  “They didn’t seem interested in my problem.  I hope you’ll at least hear me out before you judge me.”

Abby gestured to the chair across from her desk.  “Won’t you have a seat, Mrs.…?”

“Fairchild,” the woman said.  “Dorothy Fairchild; and it’s Miss.”

Dorothy sat but immediately looked at the two men seated at the desks behind her before looking at Abby with some trepidation.

“It’s all right,” Abby told her.  “They’re both investigators with the firm.  The man directly behind you is Nick Cooper and that man to your right is my husband, John Cooper.  Depending on how complex your case might be, either or both of them could end up working on this case with me so feel free to talk in front of them.”

Dorothy took a deep breath and let it out slowly before she started in with her problem.  “Well, you see, my Aunt Mildred died last week under suspicious circumstances and I tried to get someone at the police station to take a closer look into it, but apparently they’re not interested.  Would you look into her death for me so I can get this nagging feeling off my shoulders?”

Abby pulled out her yellow legal pad and pencil and began taking notes.  “Tell me all you can about what happened, if you wouldn’t mind.  And don’t leave out anything.  Even the smallest details may lead us in the right direction, but we won’t know until we gather all the information and compile it into some semblance of order.  When did you say your aunt died?”

“It’ll be a week tomorrow that I came over to her house and found her like that,” Dorothy said.  “Oh, it was horrible.”

Abby wrote furiously, trying to keep up with the woman.  “You found her like what?  Do you know what she died of?”

“Fire,” Dorothy said.  “She died in a fire at her home.”

Abby looked up from her pad and into Dorothy’s eyes.  “And that’s why the police didn’t want to investigate; because the Fire Marshall and perhaps the coroner declared her death to be caused by the fire?”

Dorothy nodded and then hung her head.

“Well, Miss Fairchild,” Abby replied.  “I guess I can understand their position in this matter.  I’m not sure what it is that you think we can do for you that the police and the fire department couldn’t do.”

“I want you to look into this and prove that my aunt didn’t die from her own negligence or stupidity and that the cause of her death was out of her control.”

Nick and John both looked up and over at Dorothy now.  Abby laid her pencil down and said, “Please, Dorothy, tell me more about your aunt and how you found her.”

“What do you want to know about Aunt Mildred?” Dorothy asked.

“Was she a drinker or a smoker for starters,” Abby replied.  “Tell me about her habits; at least the ones you knew about.”

“Aunt Mildred was depressed about my Uncle Nate having died several years earlier.  I guess you could say she compensated by eating too much.  Lately her weight passed the three hundred pound mark.  She was a heavy drinker and was also a chronic smoker; in case you were thinking that she could have fallen asleep with a cigarette in her hand.”  Dorothy sighed in exasperation.  “As for how I found her…”  Her eyes began to mist up and Abby handed her a tissue from the box on her desk.  “When I walked in that day I found her, or what was left of her in her living room.  The chair she always sat in was burned to a pile of cinders as was some of the carpet around that area, but the rest of the room was untouched.”

Nick and John exchanged a knowing glance but didn’t interrupt the proceedings.

Dorothy went on with her explanation.  “And like the chair she was sitting in, Aunt Mildred was burned down to nothing more that a pile of ashes.  The only thing left of her was both of her ankles and her feet were still in her favorite slippers.”

Nick stepped over to Abby’s desk now and laid a hand on Dorothy’s shoulder.  “Excuse me, Miss Fairchild; I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation with my daughter-in-law.  From what you described, it sounds like your aunt may have been the victim of spontaneous human combustion.”

Dorothy turned in her chair to face Nick.  “Exactly; that’s what I’ve been trying to explain to the police and the coroner, but they say there’s no basis of truth in that theory.  No one’s ever been able to prove spontaneous human combustion.”

“Then what makes you think we could?” Nick asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Dorothy replied.  “I just didn’t know where to turn after the police made me feel like some kind of nut case for even mentioning it.  Would you please at least look into it for me so I can stop wondering and get on with my life?”

“We can,” Abby said.  “But what happens if we do an extensive investigation at three hundred dollars a day and we end up not being able to prove your theory?”

“It’s not just my theory,” Dorothy said.  “I’ve been researching this thing ever since that terrible day.  And from the articles I’ve read, other people have also been said to have died from it as well, but as you can imagine, no one’s obviously ever been an eyewitness to the phenomenon or they would have put the fire out before it got that far along.  And as for your fee, that’s not a problem for me.  Aunt Mildred left me everything in her will.”

“Well then,” Abby said.  “How about if we draw up a contract and get started on this right away for you?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Cooper, that’s all I was asking.”

Abby was able to secure Dorothy Fairchild’s signature on one of their contracts and collected six hundred dollars as a retainer before seeing her to the door.  Before she left, Abby asked for the keys to her aunt’s house in case they needed to see the site firsthand.  Once she had left, all three of the Coopers immediately got on their laptops and did Internet searches for spontaneous human combustion.  They were all surprised by what they’d read on the subject.  Abby spoke up first.  “She was right about this phenomenon, you know.  Listen to this; I found this on the web.  It’s what happened to one old lady way back when.

On 2 July 1951, Mary Reeser, a 67-year-old woman, was found burned to death in her house after her landlady realized that the house's doorknob was unusually warm. The landlady notified the police, and upon entering the home they found Reeser's remains completely burned into ash, with only one leg remaining. The chair she was sitting in was also destroyed. Reeser took sleeping pills and was also a smoker. Despite its proliferation in popular culture, the contemporary FBI investigation ruled out the possibility of SHC. A common theory was that she was smoking a cigarette after taking sleeping pills and then fell asleep while still holding the burning cigarette, which could have ignited her gown, ultimately leading to her death. Her daughter-in-law stated, "The cigarette dropped to her lap. Her fat was the fuel that kept her burning. The floor was cement, and the chair was by itself. There was nothing around her to burn.

Nick held up an index finger and said, “I found another example myself.  This one was an old gentleman from South Wales in the British Isles.  Check it out.”

Henry Thomas, a 73-year-old man, was found burned to death in the living room of his council house in South Wales, in 1980. His entire body was incinerated, leaving only his skull and a portion of each leg below the knee. The feet and legs were still clothed in socks and trousers. Half of the chair in which he had been sitting was also destroyed. Police forensic officers decided that the incineration of Thomas was due to the wick effect.

“The wick effect?” John said.  “What’s that?”

Nick scrolled further down in his article and read aloud to his co-workers: 

The wick effect hypothesis suggests that a small external flame source, such as a burning cigarette, chars the clothing of the victim at a location, splitting the skin and releasing subcutaneous fat, which is in turn absorbed into the burned clothing, acting as a wick. This combustion can continue for as long as the fuel is available. This hypothesis has been successfully tested with pig tissue and is consistent with evidence recovered from cases of human combustion.  The human body typically has enough stored energy in fat and other chemical stores to fully combust the body; even lean people have several pounds of fat in their tissues. This fat, once heated by the burning clothing, wicks into the clothing much as candle wax is drawn into a lit candle wick, providing the fuel needed to keep the wick burning.   The protein in the body also burns, but provides less energy than fat, with the water in the body being the main impediment to combustion. However, slow combustion, lasting hours, gives the water time to evaporate slowly. In an enclosed area, such as a house, this moisture will condense nearby, possibly on windows. Feet don't typically burn because they often have the least fat; hands also have little fat, but may burn if resting on the abdomen, which provides all of the necessary fat for combustion.

“Talk about your human candle,” John said.  “Listen to this example; again another old woman who also lived by herself when she died.

Margaret Hogan, an 89-year-old widow who lived alone in a house on Prussia Street, Dublin, Ireland, was found burned almost to the point of complete destruction on March 28, 1970. Plastic flowers on a table in the centre of the room had been reduced to liquid and a television with a melted screen sat twelve feet from the armchair in which the ashen remains were found; otherwise, the surroundings were almost untouched. Her two feet, and both legs from below the knees, were undamaged. A small coal fire had been burning in the grate when a neighbor left the house the previous day; however, no connection between this fire and that in which Mrs. Hogan died could be found. An inquest held later, recorded death by burning, with the cause of the fire listed as "unknown".

“To tell you the truth,” John said, “I’d never heard of spontaneous human combustion until this very moment.”

“You must have,” Abby said.  “Don’t you remember; on our way up to the resort when we were trying to come up with topics to talk about, you gave me a choice of two subjects—spontaneous human combustion or the body farm.”

John snapped his fingers and pointed at Abby.  “You’re right, I did.  But if you had selected either one of those topics, I’d have been at a loss for what to say next.  I only saw those two particular topics mentioned in a magazine, but I never got to read either article.  And now here we are with an actual case to look into.  How cool is that?”

“You might not think it was so cool if you were the one to come upon the burnt remains of one of these victims,” Nick suggested.  “Now that we’ve all read about actual cases, where do you suppose we should start our investigation?”

The three of them were silent for a moment, not sure of their course of action.  It was Abby who spoke up first.  “I say we start at the aunt’s house and see the site first hand.  Something may occur to us that the police had overlooked.”  She dangled the key that Dorothy had given her and stood.  “Well?”  She plucked her jacket off the coat hook, grabbed her purse and headed for the door.  “You coming?”

Abby and John slid into Nick’s sedan and the three of them drove to the address where Dorothy Fairchild’s Aunt Mildred had died.  After they let themselves into the house, they immediately caught the odor of burnt ashes and damp carpeting.  Abby held her nostrils closed with her thumb and index finger as she walked around the burnt room.

John pointed down at a charred portion of the living room floor and said, “This must be where she sat in her chair before she burned up.  And look at the rest of the room; it’s wet from the firemen’s hoses but the other furniture isn’t even singed—just the place where she sat was affected.”

Nick produced his cell phone and began snapping photos of the room and in particular, the charred portion of the floor.  “I don’t see any furnace or stove nearby,” he remarked.  “And Dorothy never mentioned the authorities finding and matches of cigarette packs nearby.”  He closed his eyes and tilted his head back.

“What are you doing, Dad,” John asked.

“Just trying to get a detailed mental picture of that awful day,” Nick replied.  “I imagine something may have ignited her housecoat or pajamas while she was sleeping or passed out.  And according to those articles we all found, her own body fat could have acted as an accelerant and fed the fire.”

“The wick effect,” Abby chimed in.  “But why didn’t she wake up when the fire first started?”

“I think you’re on to something there, Abby,” Nick commented.  “Go on.”

“How about this,” Abby added.  “Good old Aunt Mildred was sitting there puffing on one of her cigarettes when she had a heart attack and just died right there in the chair with the cigarette dangling precariously from her lips.  Let’s say it dropped down onto her lap and smoldered for a minute or two before starting the fire on her lap that ignited her body fat, leaving nothing behind but her feet in her slippers.”

“Right,” John agreed.  “And by the time the coroner got a look at the body, he may not have even considered any other cause of death beside the fire itself.  He wouldn’t have looked for signs of a heart attack; not that there’d be anything left to find.”

Nick jumped in with, “So what do we tell Dorothy about all this?  She could go off on another tangent and tell the coroner to check for the heart attack theory but all that would get her is more expense and possibly not even a solid conclusion.  And when you think about it, what we talked about here is just our best guesses about the cause of death.  We could make it easier on Dorothy and just tell her that after a careful analysis, that we came to the same conclusion that the Fire Marshall did; that she died from the fire and nothing more.”

John nodded and said, “That seems like the only way she’ll ever find her peace of mind.  I vote for Dad’s conclusion.”

“So do I,” Abby said.

“Then it’s settled,” Nick concluded.  “We just charge her three hundred dollars for one day of our time and give her a refund tomorrow.  Come on; I need to get out of here and get some fresh air.”  He left the house with John and Abby following close behind.

The following day, back in their office, Abby called Dorothy Fairchild and arranged to have her come back to the office to sort things out.  She arrived shortly before ten-thirty and listened to the three detectives lay out their findings for her.  “Dorothy,” Abby started.  “It looks like the coroner and the Fire Marshall were right with their assessments of your aunt’s death.  She just fell asleep in her chair with a lit cigarette that started the fire that killed her.  I’m sorry we couldn’t have gotten the results you were hoping for, but it was just one of those freak accidents.”  She handed Dorothy Fairchild a check for three hundred dollars as a refund.

Dorothy took the check and sighed heavily, folding it once and slipping it into her purse.  She stood on weary legs, thanks the private eyes and turned for the door.  She left without another word on the subject.

After she had left, Abby looked at John and said, “On that trip up to the resort, you brought up two topics of conversation—spontaneous human combustion and the body farm.  It would seem that we’re all well versed on the first subject; maybe it would do us some good to familiarize ourselves with the second topic just in case we run into a case having to do with it.”

Nick shook his head.  “Come on; what are the odds of that?”

“Hold on, let me check,” John said and entered the term in his search engine.  After a moment he said, “Nope, we don’t have to worry about it.  There are only five body farms in this country and none of them is in California.  Next subject…

Disguise the Limit

Marvin Spry sat nervously waiting for his doctor to see him for his regular appointment.  It had been just two weeks since his last appointment and Marvin was afraid of what his doctor was going to tell him in the next few minutes.  Knowing there was nothing he could do about it either way, Marvin decided he’d just have to deal with the outcome when the time came.  He continued to sit in the waiting room while he wrung his hands in his lap.

“Mr. Spry,” the nurse called out into the waiting room.

Marvin rose from his chair and followed the nurse into the smaller room down the hall.  He hung his jacket on the coat hook and took a seat, waiting for the doctor to finally make his appearance.  He didn’t have to wait long for the knock on the door before it opened and Dr. Hiram Greenburg let himself in and took his seat next to Marvin.

He stalled for time just a bit too long and Marvin finally opened the dialog between the two.  “All right, Doc,” Marvin said.  “It’s show time, so let’s not beat around the bush any longer.  Just tell me outright; what’s the diagnosis?”

The doctor cleared his throat and said, “I’ve studied the results several times, Mr. Spry and, uh, I…”

“Come on, Doc; out with it.  I can tell from the look on your face that you’re not bringing me good news.  Suppose you just tell me how much time I have left and we’ll take it from there.”

“Six weeks,” Dr. Greenburg said.  “Two months at the outside.  It’s really hard to pinpoint an exact time.  I’d suggest you get your affairs in order because the closer you get to that two month mark, the harder things will be for you to manage without a lot of drugs, and even then…”

“I see,” Marvin replied.  “And I don’t suppose a second opinion would do me any good, would it.”

The doctor shook his head.  “Not even a third or fourth opinion would change the facts, I’m afraid.  I’m so sorry to have to give you this news.  I realize this can’t be easy for you.  Be sure and let me know if you need anything else in the way of pain medication.  I’m afraid I have a full schedule this morning, so if you will excuse me.”  He left the room, leaving Marvin sitting there with his innermost thoughts.

Marvin dragged himself out of the chair and out of the doctor’s room, back into the main lobby.  He walked right past the receptionist and back out to his car.  He had a difficult time concentrating on his driving and experienced two near misses with other cars on the road but somehow managed to make it back to his suburban neighborhood driveway.  Back in his house, Marvin flopped down in his easy chair, a hundred different thoughts swirling around in his brain.

He thought about all the payments he owed that he would not be making.  He thought about not having to replenish any low levels of groceries in his pantry.  He thought about not being able to see the finale of his favorite TV show.  He thought about the wife that had left him just weeks earlier and how she had moved out without an explanation.  It wasn’t until several days later when she had served him with divorce papers that he learned of his wife’s trysts with his neighbor, Earl Manners and how she had moved in with him.

That made Marvin think of one more thing; how he wouldn’t have to face the consequences of murdering Earl Manners.  Nature would take care of Marvin’s punishment.  Yes, that would do nicely, he thought.  Now all he had to do was work out the foolproof details of how he could accomplish the task successfully.  It was all he thought about for the next week and a half.  Finally on the tenth day, he was sure he had all the details worked out and now all he had to do was to put the task in motion and let the legal system sort it all out.

He studied the weather patterns for the next three days and decided that Wednesday would be the ideal day for his plan to work.  Earlier that week had found a site online and had purchased a two twenty-four inch diameter weather balloon and a small canister of helium.  He already had the .32 caliber revolver and the black plastic trash bag.  But before the big day, he’d have to test his plan to make sure everything went off as planned.  He attached a three foot length of twine to the end of the balloon, along with the black plastic trash bag.  He found a rock of approximately the same size and weight as the revolver.

Marvin’s back yard faced the Pacific Ocean and his nearest neighbor was a mile and a half away on either side of him.  He wrapped the rock in the plastic bag and secured it with a large rubber band.  Marvin waited for the right time, checked his watch and released the balloon.  It quickly ascended and drifted out over the ocean.  Perfect, he thought.  The trial run went off without a hitch.  Now it was time for the real thing.

The next day Marvin called Earl and told him that he really needed to talk with him at Marvin’s house.  He promised Earl that it would only take five minutes or less and that he had something he wanted to get off his chest.  Earl agreed and the two of them agreed on four-thirty for the meeting.  Marvin told Earl that he’d be waiting for him in his back yard with a couple of cold beers and two comfortable chairs.  And now all that was left was the waiting.  Marvin watched his driveway from a secluded spot next to his garage and when he saw Earl’s car pull into the driveway, Marvin hurried into his back yard.

Marvin made sure his revolver had been wiped clean of any prints before he stuck his hand into the black plastic trash bag and situated the gun in his grip.  It would ensure that Marvin’s right hand would have no traces of gunshot residue on it.  The gun had been secured to the trigger guard with the length of twine that led to the balloon.  As soon as he heard the car door slam in his driveway, Marvin pressed the barrel of his revolver to his temple and pulled the trigger.  The report wasn’t very loud, but did the trick.  Marvin was dead before his body had hit the ground and his .32 caliber revolver immediately floated off over the ocean.

Earl walked around the garage to meet with Marvin in the back yard but when he rounded the garage, all he saw was a body lying on the grass.  He hurried over to where Marvin had fallen and knelt next to the body.  Even with a perfectly round hole spurting blood, Earl still checked Marvin’s neck vein for any sign of life.  He wasn’t surprised when he didn’t find any and called 9-1-1, requesting the police and an ambulance, both of which arrived within ten minutes.

The police took over the scene and found that the victim had been shot just once in the right temple.  They also notes that there was no gun found next to the body and let the coroner take over from here.  After spending a few minutes with the lifeless body, the coroner, Dr. Adam Kline, determined that the victim had been dead for no longer than thirty minutes and he told the police as much.  At that point, the two cops cuffed Earl Manners and read him his rights on the ride back to the police station.

Earl waived his rights and agreed to talk to the two cops, Sergeant Mike Becker and his partner, Officer Eddie Solomon.  It was Becker who started things off with his first question.  “Mr. Manners, tell us what you did with the murder weapon.”

“Murder weapon?” Earl said, taken by surprise with the question.  “What murder weapon?  I didn’t kill him; he was dead when I got there.  I called you; remember?  If I had killed Marvin, why would I call you and wait around?”

“Never mind,” the sergeant said.  “We have a forensics team scouring the yard and surrounding property, as well as your car.  It’s just a matter of time, but we’ll find it.  You could just make it easier for us if you told us where to look.”

“I told you,” Earl repeated.  “I didn’t kill him.  How can I convince you of that?”

“Well, he sure as hell didn’t kill himself,” Becker remarked.  “There was no gun found on him, near him or under him and from what the coroner tells me, there was not the slightest trace of gunshot residue on Mr. Spry’s hand.  Pretty neat trick if you can do it, wouldn’t you say?”

Earl was speechless for a moment and then said, “I can’t explain it; I just know I didn’t do it.  You have to believe me.”

“No we don’t,” Becker replied.  “We just have to present the evidence as we found it and let the grand jury sort it out.  Come on; we have to take you to your cell now.  In the morning the judge will listen to your case and either set bail or remand you to our custody.  If you decided between now and then to tell us what happened, I’m sure the judge will take it all into account.”  Becker and Solomon walked Earl down to the cells and locked him in one.  “You might as well get some sleep; you’re going to need the rest for tomorrow morning when you stand before the judge.”  The two cops walked away and back upstairs.

The following morning, Judge Harlan Henderson heard the charges against Earl Manners and set a court date for his trial in three and a half weeks.  He also denied any bail and Earl was led back to his cell.

It was two days later that the door to Cooper Investigations opened and Emily Spry, the victims former wife walked in and sized up the three occupants before settling on the oldest; Nick Cooper.  “Are you Mr. Cooper?” Emily asked as she approached Nick’s desk.

“I am indeed,” Nick said, offering this woman a chair across from his desk.  “And you are…”

“Emily Spry,” the woman replied.  “I’d like to know if I could hire your services.”

“That would depend,” Nick said.  “What is it you’d like me to do for you?”

“I’d like you to prove that my boyfriend didn’t murder my ex-husband,” Emily said and waited for Nick to respond.

By now her remarks had caught the attention of Nick’s two partners; his son, John and his daughter-in-law, Abby, who both focused on the woman across from Nick.

“I’ll need some more information, Mrs. Spry,” Nick told her and then produced his yellow legal pad and a mechanical pencil.  He wrote the woman’s name across the top and then looked up at her.  “Suppose you start with the basics.  How did your ex-husband die and why do you think your boyfriend did it?”

“But that’s just it,” Emily began.  “Earl didn’t kill Marvin.  Someone shot Marvin in the head and must have left with the gun because the police didn’t find it.  Earl just happened to be the first person on the scene after Marvin was killed, but I’m telling you, Earl didn’t do this.”

Nick explained about his daily fee and that he’d need a six hundred dollar retainer to get started on her case.  She agreed and signed one of Nick’s contracts.  Before she left, she gave Nick the address of her ex-husband’s house, along with her set of keys and gave him permission to look over the premises.  Nick thanked her for her business and showed her to the door.  He turned to John and said, “Did you get all that?”

John nodded.  “Sounds like an open and shut case against this Earl person but we’ve come upon harder cases than this, so I say let’s do it.”

“I agree,” Abby said and plucked her jacket off the coat hook.

The three of them all slid into Nick’s sedan and drove to the Spry house out in the country.  Nick parked in the driveway and he led the other two to the back yard where they could still make out a small puddle of blood where Marvin Spry had fallen.  They all looked around the yard; east toward the house and then west toward the ocean.

“So he was found right here by this fellow, Earl Manners,” Abby remarked.  “And by the time the coroner got here he had determined that Spry had only been dead less than thirty minutes.”

“Right,” John replied.  “And that only leaves two possible scenarios; either someone killed Spry a minute before Manners showed up and then left in a hurry, or Manners killed Spry and then cleverly hid the murder weapon.”

“Either one of those scenarios makes sense,” Nick said.  “But if Manners hid the gun, he couldn’t have gone far with it, all things considered.  And I don’t see any other footprints running away, so I think we can rule out the early killer theory.  It’s beginning to look pretty grim for Earl Manners.”

John held up one index finger.  “So if that’s the only other choice, it comes down to where did Earl hide the gun?  I mean; it just didn’t get up and walk away.”

Abby’s eyes darted this way and that and soon she found herself deep in thought.  “Bear with me a minute while I voice some of these weird ideas floating around in my head.  Going with the theory that Earl killed Marvin, what if Earl brought some kind of animal with him and attached the murder weapon to it and then just let it run away?”

“An animal?” John probed.  “You mean like a rabbit?  How far and how fast could a rabbit run with a gun strapped to him?  I don’t think so, but what about a bird with the gun secured to its leg.  How big would the bird have to be to be able to fly away with that much weight hanging under it?  And what’s to say that it wouldn’t circle back and land right at the cops’ feet?  No, I think that would pose too much of a risk for Earl if he even did that.”

Abby lowered her head and shook it.  “No, I didn’t think that idea would fly; pardon the pun.”

“Come on,” Nick said.  “As long as we’re here, we might as well check out the house.”  He fished Emily’s keys from his pocked and walked toward the house.  On the second try he found the key that fit the back door and let himself in.  John and Abby followed close behind.  “Split up and check for anything unusual.”

After twenty minutes of looking in the rooms, the three of them met back in the living room to compare notes.   John and Nick returned empty handed but Abby was holding a length of twine.  “I couldn’t find any spool that this might have come from and this odd length just reminds me of those hoarders who can’t seem to throw anything away.  What do you make of it?”  She handed the length of twine to Nick.

“Back to the bird theory?” he said.

“Not a bird,” John interjected.  “But what about a balloon; is that possible?”

Nick furrowed his brow and gave the idea some thought before he replied, “Okay, run with that idea for a bit.  If you’re thinking Marvin Spry shot himself with a gun attached to a balloon, then why didn’t the police find gunshot residue on his hand?  It can’t be done without leaving at least a little residue on his gun hand.”

“Hang on, Dad,” John said.  “The more we talk about this, the more it seems to indicate that Marvin Spry killed himself.  Did he do it just to frame Earl Manners; and if that’s the case, doesn’t that seem rather extreme.  I mean, who comes out the real loser here—Marvin.  And he wouldn’t even be around to see and enjoy the fruits of a frame like that.”

Abby chimed in with, “Unless Marvin had nothing to lose by killing himself and framing Manners.”

“Nothing to lose?” John asked.  “Except his life; you can’t lose any larger than that.”

“This whole thing is making my head swim,” Nick remarked.  “I think we’d better go back and do some more background research on all three of the principal players.”

“Three?” Abby asked.

“Yeah, Marvin, Earl and Emily,” Nick clarified.  “The eternal triangle; and those geometric shapes have been known to cause nothing but trouble for all those involved.  Let’s split up and each take one of them for a thorough background check.  Abby, how’d you like to tackle Emily Spry?  John, you can have Earl Manners and I’ll try to find out everything I can about the late Marvin Spry.”  They all rode back to their office in silence, each one wondering where they might start their search.  They split up in the parking lot, each one taking their own car.

John drove over to the Twelfth Precinct and spoke with Lieutenant Steve Stone, who gave him permission to visit with Earl in his cell.  When the door closed behind him, John looked down at the man reclining on the lower bunk and offered his hand.  “John Cooper; Emily hired us to look into your case.”

Earl swung his legs over the side and sat up, taking John’s hand.  “I don’t know what I’d do without Emily on my side,” he said.  What is it you’d like to know, Mr. Cooper?”

“Mind if I sit?” John asked and sat on a wooden chair across from the bunk.  “I hope you don’t mind going back over your story again but I have to get it all straight in my mind.”

“Not at all,” Earl said.  “Where would you like me to start?”

“Anywhere you like,” John said.  “Start where you think it’s relevant.  Would you care to tell me about you and Mrs. Spry?”

Earl sighed and said, “That’s the funny part; we met totally innocently at a neighborhood gathering.  We got to talking and something just clicked between us.  Neither of us meant for anything to happen but it did and before you know it, we were seeing each other on the sly whenever we could.”

John produced his notepad and pencil and began taking notes.  “Did Marvin know about you two?”

“Not at first,” Earl said.  “And by the time he did, Emily had already left him and moved out.  Whatever the two of them had just died, I guess.”

“And was Marvin bitter?” John asked.  “I mean, did the two of you have any confrontations about it?”

“That’s the funny part,” Earl said.  “Even after Emily served him with divorce papers, he still kept mostly to himself; like he had just accepted it and had given up.  He withdrew into his own little world and Emily was afraid that maybe he would just boil over one day and go postal on her or me, but he didn’t.  It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop.  It was torture, wondering what he was planning and always having to look over our shoulders for him.”

“I think I have a pretty good picture of the circumstances, Mr. Manners.  Thanks for your time and if we come upon anything that will help with your case, one of us will be sure to let you know.”  John called out for the jailer to let him and turned back to Earl.  “Good bye and don’t give up hope as long as we’re on the case.”

Abby got pretty much the same story out of Emily Spry with just slight variations and after thirty minutes with the woman, Abby returned to her office to compare notes with her two co-workers.

Nick decided to pay Dr. Adam Kline a visit and see what he could learn about the late Marvin Spry.  Nick found him in the morgue standing over the body of an old woman laid out on his table.  Kline looked up when he heard footsteps coming his way.  He smiled when he saw Nick approaching.  “Mr. Cooper,” the coroner said.  “With all the beautiful places this city has to offer, why would you want to spend any time in a place like this?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Doc,” Nick replied.  “Maybe it’s the alluring smell of formaldehyde that keeps me coming back.  No, actually, I just wanted to talk to you about Marvin Spry, if you have a minute to spare.”

Dr. Kline looked down at the old woman on his autopsy slab and the turned to Nick.  “Sure, I don’t think she’ll mind if I take a break.  What’s on your mind today and you’ll have to refresh my memory; who is Marvin Spry?”

“Marvin was the gunshot victim who was found out in his yard a while ago,” Nick explained.  “I was just wondering if you have completed the autopsy on Mr. Spry and what you found.”

Dr. Kline peeled off his blue latex gloves and tossed them in the medical waste can.  “Well, if I recall, Mr. Spry took one bullet to his right temple and died instantly.  That was an easy one.  They almost never survive a shot to the head.  Was there something specific you wanted to know about the results of his autopsy?”

Nick held up both palms toward the doctor and said, “Now, don’t think I’m trying to second guess you, Doc, but once you determined the cause of death, did you stop there or did you look through the rest of the body?”

“To what end?” Kline asked.

“I’ve had this loose end bouncing around in my head ever since that day,” Nick said.  “I can’t seem to shake the idea that Marvin Spry went to some pretty extreme measures if all he wanted to do was frame someone else for his murder.  Then I got to thinking that if Spry had nothing to lose in the first place…”

“Ah,” Kline said, catching Nick’s drift.  “You’re wondering if he had some terminal illness and was going to die anyway, then why not get your last digs in with someone you wanted to see sent to prison; is that about how you figured it?”

“You took the words right out of my mouth, Doc,” Nick said.  “Tell me; who has to make the determination to do another autopsy, or is that something you could take upon yourself?”

“You know, Nick, now you’ve got me second guessing myself and I’m starting to wonder if I may have overlooked anything else.”  The coroner made himself a note, folded it once and slipped it into his pocket.  “Tell you what I’ll do, Nick.  The body is still in the cooler.  How about if I take a closer look and call you later today?  Does that work for you?”

Nick offered his hand and the doctor shook it.  “Thanks, Doc; that’s all I’m asking.  I’ll be in the office for the rest of the afternoon.  I’ll wait for your call.”  He left the morgue and drove the four blocks north, back to the Cahuenga Building.  John and Abby were already there when he walked in.

“Anything new, Dad?” John asked.

“I won’t know until Dr. Kline calls me here this afternoon,” Nick replied.  “He’s agreed to take another look at Marvin Spry’s body.  How about you two; anything to report?”

“Abby and I were just talking about that before you came back,” John replied.  “Neither of them had any inkling that Marvin was up to anything unusual nor out of the ordinary.  I guess we’ll just have to wait for that call.”

“Well, while we’re waiting,” Nick went on, “how about if we kick around that idea you came up with?”

“What idea was that?” Abby asked.

“The idea that Marvin could have shot himself and then let the gun float away on a balloon,” Nick said.

John held up an index finger.  “I thought we’d given up on that idea since there was no gunshot residue on his hand.”

Before Nick could respond, the phone on his desk rang.  “Cooper Investigations, Nick speaking. 

“Nick, it’s Lieutenant Stone.”

“Oh, hi; we were just talking about that very thing before you called.  Do you have something new to report?”

“This is going to sound like something right out of Mission Impossible or The Twilight Zone, but some guy just walked into the station with a brown grocery bag containing a small deflated weather balloon with a revolver tied to it with some twine.”

“Hang on Steve,” Nick said.  “I’m going to put you on the speaker phone so I won’t have to repeat this to the others.  Go on.”

“Like I said, the guy told me that he’d been walking the beach earlier today and found the balloon with a revolver tied to it with twine.  Plus there was something else that didn’t make a lot of sense by itself, but once we put all the pieces together, it all fell into place.  Besides the gun there was also a black plastic trash bag tethered to the balloon with the same kind of twine.”

“Let me guess,” Nick interrupted.  “The crime lab turned the bag inside out and dusted it for prints and came up with none other than Marvin Spry’s right hand prints.  How’d I do, Steve?”

“You hit the nail on the head, Nick,” Steve replied.

“Ah ha,” John called out from his desk.  “So I wasn’t out in left field with my theory after all.”

“How’s that?” Steve asked.

Nick said, “When we were kicking around possible scenarios earlier, John suggested a gun tied to a balloon but we quickly dismissed it because of no GSR on the victim’s hand.  But now it all fits together.  But we’re still not clear on the why part of all this.”

“I think I can clue you in on that part as well,” Stone said.  “I got a call from Dr. Kline in the morgue a minute ago.  Seems he decided to take a closer look at Marvin Spry’s body and guess what he found when he went digging around in the body cavity?”

“I can imagine,” Nick said, “but go ahead and tell us anyway.”

“He found a tumor the size of a grapefruit and that made him take a closer look at Spry’s medical file.  He got the name of Spry’s doctor and spoke to him.  Turn’s out Spry was terminal with maybe seven or eight weeks left to live.”

Abby spoke up now.  “And now it all fits together.  Spry had some sort of a grudge against Earl Manners and thought up the perfect way to frame the man before he took that big dirt nap.”

Stone laughed into the phone.  “Let me guess; you’re a Raymond Chandler fan.”

“Huh?” Was all that Abby could muster.

“Never mind,” Stone said.  “I guess with everything we know about the case now, it looks like Earl Manners is in the clear.  I’ll have to go down there and give him the good news.”

“Steve,” John called out.  “Would it be all right if we told him instead?  Then we can bring Emily Spry with us and tell them together.”

“Sure,” Stone agreed.  “I’ll hold off until you all get here.”

“Thanks, Steve,” Nick said.  “Give us about thirty minutes so we can go pickup Mrs. Spry.  See you later.”  Nick hung up and turned to his two partners with a wide smile.  “I’d say we all earned our retainer on this one.  Come on; let’s go pick up Emily.”

Once the proper papers were filed, Earl was released from his jail cell and left the police station hand in hand with Emily Spry.

John stood there looking at Nick and said, “I wonder why that balloon came down so soon.  Under the right conditions, it could have floated across the ocean and we’d never have known what happened.”

Lieutenant Stone interrupted their conversation.  “I wondered about that, too, until the crime lab crew found a bullet hole in the balloon itself.  I guess a target of opportunity like that doesn’t come along every day and some kid just couldn’t resist the temptation.  And it’s a good thing he didn’t find the balloon when it came down or poor Earl would still be sitting behind bars.”

John smiled now and pointed out the window at the clouds floating by.  “Disguise the limit, I guess.”

Abby just rolled her eyes and led John out of the Twelfth Precinct.

The Seven Year Bitch

Helen Matthews walked west on Hollywood Boulevard toward the corner of Cahuenga where the Cooper Investigations office was located.  For a long time now she has suspected her husband, Les of being unfaithful and she needed some help in proving her suspicions.  If she was going to get a confession from Les she was going to have to play this smart.

She stopped at the corner of Hollywood and Cahuenga to catch her breath and then looked up to the third floor corner office.  She knew from her research that this was where Cooper had his office.  She let her breathing and heart rate slow down before she entered the building and walked straight toward the elevators.  She stepped inside, pressed the button for the third floor and went over in her mind what she was going to say and hoped Cooper would go along with her plan.

Helen stepped out of the elevator, turned left and walked to the end of the hall to the last door on the right.  She paused, took a deep breath and then let herself in to find three desks; two of which were empty.  The third desk had a young woman sitting behind it.  She stood when her guest entered the office.

“Hello, and welcome to Cooper Investigations.  My name is Abby Cooper.  How may I help you today?”  Abby gestured toward the client chair across from her desk and invited the woman to sit.  She offered her hand and the woman shook it before sitting.

“My name is Helen Matthews and I’m in need of someone to help me get the proof that my husband is fooling around with another woman.  Is that something that you do?”

“Among other things,” Abby admitted.  “Tell me; what makes you think that your husband is being unfaithful?”  She withdrew her yellow legal pad and pencil and wrote down Helen Matthews across the top while she waited for Helen’s explanation.

“There’s no one thing I can put my finger on,” Helen explained.  “But there are several other things that when put together make me wonder if he’s seeing someone else.  We’ve been married just seven years, Mrs. Cooper.  And just the other day I found a strange phone number on his cell phone’s call history.  It didn’t take much snooping to find out who the number belonged to.  No, I’m sure he’s up to no good but I need him to want to dump me; not the other way around.”

Now Abby looked puzzled.  “And just how do you propose to make that happen?”

Helen scooted her chair closer to Abby and leaned in toward her.  “That’s why I need your help.  I want to hire you to follow me and gather evidence that I was the one being unfaithful.  It’ll all be bogus, of course because I’ll be setting it up to look that way.  All you have to do is tail me, get photos and write down times and places and names.  Then when it is all presented to Les, he’ll surely have to confront me with it.  I could take over from there with the rest of my plan.  Will you do it?”

“I’d do it,” Abby agreed.  “But I can see one big problem with this whole scenario.”

Helen frowned.  “And what’s that?”

“Well,” Abby began.  “If Les didn’t initiate this tail job, how could we present him with the evidence?  He’s sure to ask how we got the evidence and who asked us to get it.  Then what would we say?”

Helen looked puzzled now and found herself at a loss for words.  “What if you gather the evidence your regular way and turn it all over to me?  I can take it home and accidentally leave it where Les would be sure to find it.  Yes, that should work.”

“He’ll still wonder who initiated the tail job and how you ended up with the evidence,” Abby said.  “Then what will you tell him?”

Helen snapped her fingers and pointed at Abby.  I could mail it to him anonymously like a concerned citizen or just a nosy neighbor looking to start trouble.”

“I think you may be onto something with that one,” Abby said with a wry smile.  “You know this whole thing could cost you our one day rate of three hundred dollars.”

“And it would be the best three hundred dollars I ever spent.  Let’s get started.  I just need someone to play the part of my boyfriend.”

Just then the office door opened and Abby’s husband, John walked in.  He smiled at Abby and politely nodded at Helen before continuing to his desk.  Abby and Helen smiled at each other and nodded just once.  Abby rose from her desk and stepped over to John’s desk, sitting on the edge.  “Say, John,” Abby began and then laid out Helen’s plan for him.

“That sounds like something a female would do,” John said and then looked over at Helen.  “No offense.”

“None taken,” Helen replied and then gave John her friendly smile.

“So you’ll do it?” Abby asked.

“Sure, why not,” John agreed.  “Could be good for a couple of laughs.  But if it’s supposed to look real, I guess that means Helen and I will have to look like we’re super friendly with each other; if you catch my drift.”

Abby grabbed John’s collar and pulled his face closer to hers.  “Just don’t get too friendly, if you catch my drift.  Remember, I’ll be right there with the camera.  Just pretend you’re an actor in a movie and just make it look good.”

John nodded in agreement and Abby released her hold on John’s collar.  He flopped back into his chair and straightened out his collar.  “All right, where do you want to start?”

Now Helen rose from her chair and turned to face John.  “Les is still at work.  We could start at my house.”  She turned to Abby and added, “And you could situate yourself outside our front window and snap a few pictures of John and me on the sofa making out or whatever.  Then take a picture or two of the two of us walking hand in hand into my bedroom.  We can let Les’s imagination take over from there.  I promise I won’t seduce your husband.”  She added a nervous smile after that last statement.

“Let’s go,” Abby said and turned on the answering machine before locking up the office and following Helen back to her house.  The three of them went inside so Abby could check the layout of the house and best position herself for the photos.  She left the front door open and walked out to the area near the front window.  She told Helen and John to have a seat on the sofa while she lined up the shot in her view finder and then went back inside.  “Perfect,” she said.  She pointed to a spot on the sofa and told John to sit there while Helen was to take the place to John’s right.

Abby stood back and told John to turn into Helen, making sure only the back of his head would show in the photos.  She told them how to pose for three or four of the photos and then went back outside.  She took half a dozen photos from her vantage point before coming back inside to share the results with Helen.  “I think I have two or three out of this batch that will serve your purpose.  Now let’s get you two into the bedroom for a shot or two from there.”  When she got a strange look from John, she corrected by saying, “Don’t worry, you’ll both be fully clothed and under the covers.  All I need is to have your heads poking out from under the covers.  And again, all I want to see from you is the back of your head.”  She turned to Helen and instructed, “Your face will be visible in these shots, so put on your best act and show your pleasure face to the camera.  I’m going back outside to the bedroom window.  Just make sure the curtains are open just enough for me to get the shots.”

Abby got four shots from outside the bedroom window and came back in to show Helen which ones she’d be using.  She turned to Helen.  “I’ll get these back to my office and trim the ones I’ll be using before I print them and stick them in an envelope addressed to your husband.  The important thing to remember is to start out denying everything until he confronts you with the pictures.  Make it believable and you just may pull this off.  We won’t have any further contact after today.  I already have your one day payment so do not call our office or try to contact me again.  You’re on your own from here on out.  Thanks for your business.”  She turned to John and added, “And this is the last time I expect to see you in bed with any other woman; got it?”

John held up one palm toward his wife.  “You don’t have to worry about that.”  He looked at Helen and said, “I think we should break up, don’t you?”  He winked and made sure Abby saw it.  She did and slapped John’s arm with the back of her hand before the two of them left the Matthews’ house.

It took Abby less than thirty minutes to select and trim the four photos that she’d be mailing to Les Matthews.  She slipped the photos into a large manila envelope along with a note to Les himself.  She sealed the envelope and then used a pen in her left hand, in order to disguise the handwriting.  She added several stamps, moistened at the sink and then wiped the entire envelope clean just in case Les decided to check for fingerprints.  She picked it up with a tissue and told John she’d be back as soon as she dropped it into the corner mailbox.

When she returned several minutes later she said, “That has to be the easiest three hundred dollars we ever made.”  She held her arms out wide, inviting John in.  They hugged and then Abby stepped back.  “I think you’d better go wash that perfume smell off your face and neck before Nick gets a whiff of it.”

John agreed and stepped over to the sink in the alcove next to Nick’s desk and gave his face and neck a thorough scrubbing.  He stepped up to Abby afterwards for her approval.  She couldn’t smell any Helen Matthews residue and gave her approval.

Two days had passed before the envelope addressed to Les Matthews was delivered.  He got home an hour before Helen and had time to studied the contents by himself.  He slipped the envelope into a drawer in the kitchen and waited for Helen to arrive.  She walked in a little later and hung up her coat, being sure to act like everything was normal at the Matthews household.

Les started with the four most dreaded words in marriage history, “We need to talk”.

“What is it, dear,” Helen said as Les walked her into the living room.

The two of them sat on the sofa and Les started right in with, “All right, who is he?”

Helen furrowed her brow, playing her part perfectly.  “Who is who; what are you talking about?”

“The guy you’re having an affair with,” Les said.  “How long has it been going on between you two?”

Helen followed her mental playbook and just sat silent, not sure how to respond.

“So it’s true, isn’t it?” Les pressed.

Trying to stretch this charade out a little longer, Helen said, “What are you…?”

She didn’t get to finish her last statement when Les got up and hurried into the kitchen.  He retrieved the large manila envelope from the drawer and brought it back into the living room, tossing it on her lap.  Helen opened the envelope and withdrew the photos before making her eyes wider than usual.  She knew if she held them open without blinking, that she could produce believable tears.

“Well?” Les demanded.

By now the tears had started to run down Helen’s face.  “I don’t know what to say.  I’ve never done anything like this before.  Please don’t leave me, Les; I love you.”  She wrapped her arms around Les’s shoulders and pulled him in, still crying.  After several minutes of playing her role to the hilt, Les relented and said, “Come on now; there’s no need for all this.  I’m not going to leave you.  As a matter of fact, this may have all worked out for the better and we’ll be stronger than before because of it.”

Helen released her grip on her husband and sat up straight now.  “What are you talking about, Les?”

“Well, now that you’ve gotten this curiosity phase out of your system, I guess I can finally tell you that I strayed, too, so I guess we both learned a little lesson here.”

Helen wiped her eyes and said, “You strayed, too?  With who and when was that?”

“Does it really matter, Helen?”

“Tell me,” she insisted.

At this point, Les felt he had nothing to lose and unloaded his burden on Helen, giving her times and places and names and ending with, “And just like you, I guess it was just one of those things.  Anyway, we’re even now so how about if we just put it behind us and move on.”  He reached for Helen but she withdrew and stood now.

“Oh I’m going to move on, all right.  You just bet I am.  I want you out of this house tonight and I’m filing for a divorce tomorrow.”

“What?” Les barked.  “Is this some kind of a double standard?  It’s all right for you but not for me?”

“That’s where you’re wrong, buddy boy,” Helen said in a more forceful voice this time.  “I never once fooled around on you, but you; you dog.  Get out.”

Les picked up the photos and waved them in Helen’s face.  “What about these?  You can’t deny these photos and this note.”

Helen had to laugh now.  “I hired someone to pose as the other man and a third person to take those photos.  It’s all made up but your affair was real; we’re finished.”  She turned her back on her husband.

It had been three days since Abby and John had participated in the phony affair photo case, as it had come to be called.  Nick was at his desk, reading the morning paper when the office door opened and Lieutenant Steve Stone from the Twelfth Precinct let himself in.  Abby looked up and gave the lieutenant a warm smile.  John waved.  “Hey, Steve; what brings you here?”

Steven handed Abby one of her own business cards.

“No thanks, Steve,” she said.  “I still have a full box of ‘em.  Where’d you find that one?”

“In some woman’s purse?” Steve answered.

Abby looked puzzled.  “What were you doing in some woman’s purse?”

“It’s customary to go through a victim’s belongings when we come upon her body,” Steve explained.

“Whose body are you talking about?” Abby asked.

Nick and John were on their feet now.

“Can you explain how your card got into the purse of some other woman?” Steve asked.  Abby and John exchanged a quick glance, which Steve caught.  He turned to face John.  “And I take it you would be involved in this as well.”

“Involved in what?” Nick wanted to know.  “What’s going on here, you two?”

Abby gestured toward the leather sofa that sat beneath the south window.  “You’d better take a seat while John and I explain what happened here.”  It took her and John just fifteen minutes to lay out the events of several days earlier for the cop.  “Helen Matthews just wanted to have some leverage she could use on her husband to get him out of the house and get an uncontested divorce and we helped set it up.”

After all was said and done, Lieutenant Stone looked at Abby and said.  “Well, after that lengthy explanation I have just one question—who in the heck is Helen Matthews?”

John and Abby looked at each other again, dumbfounded.  “Who are you talking about, Steve?”

“I was talking about Dotty Ferguson,” Steve explained.  “We found her shot to death in Pasadena.  When I went through her purse I found your business card.  How do you suppose it got there?”

“Dotty Ferguson?” Abby replied.  “I’ve never heard of anyone named Dotty Ferguson.”

Steve stood now, pulling his notepad and pen from his pocket and writing down Helen Matthews’ name and address.  With everything he’d heard just now, there just had to be some connection between Helen and Dotty.  “Thanks for that detailed story.  I think I’d better go have a talk with Les Matthews.”  Steve headed for the door and turned back for one more comment.

Abby intercepted him and said, “Yeah, I know; don’t leave town.”

Steve was gone before Abby could come up with a smart-ass reply.  Nick looked at John and said, “And just when were either of you going to tell me about the Matthews case?”

“We were just waiting to see how it played out,” John replied.  “The whole case took just a little more than two hours and we got a full days pay for it.  And Mrs. Matthews told us that she’d take it from where we left off.  I suppose we’ll here something about her status once she give ol’ Les the boot.”

Nick let it go and went back to reading his paper while John and Abby sat back at their respective desks.  It wasn’t until later the following afternoon that John gave Lieutenant Stone a call at his office to inquire about the Ferguson woman.

“What is it they say about weaving a tangled web?” Steve said.  “Turns out after Les Matthews got kicked out of the house; he immediately drove over to the house of the woman who had gotten him into all this trouble—Dotty Ferguson.”

“Uh oh,” John said.  “This can’t be good.”

“That’s the understatement of the year,” Steve replied.  “Turns out this Ferguson woman was also married, so now I have two suspects; her husband and her boyfriend.”

“Did you already eliminate Helen Matthews as a suspect?” John asked.

“Make that three suspects,” Steve corrected.  “Listen, I gotta run.  I still have two more suspects to question.   I’ll talk to you later.”

John hung up and turned to Abby.  “That was Steve.  Looks like he’s got his hands full with that Ferguson woman’s murder.  And it could have been any of three people who killed her.”  He relayed what he and Steve had talked about.  “My money is on Ferguson’s husband with Les Matthews running a close second.”

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” Abby said.  “What is it about men that just have to stray?  They were only married for seven years.”

“Why are you asking me?” John said.  “I don’t have a straying bone in my body.  Now Dotty Ferguson; she might have.  Hell, she could have been Les Matthews’ seven year itch, for all you know.”

“Then that would make her the seven year bitch,” Abby replied.  “Take it from me; the grass is definitely not greener on the other side of the fence.  It’s the same grass right here.”

“Dial it back, Mrs. Cooper,” John said.  “Save for when you catch me straying; which will be never.”

Abby stopped herself, took a deep breath and said, “Sorry, John, I guess I just got caught up in the Fergusons and Matthews mess.”  She topped it all off with a warm smile.

“That’s better,” Nick said from his desk.  “Just appreciate every day you two have with each other.  There’s nothing I wouldn’t give to have just one more day with Shelley.”  Shelley was Nick’s late wife, who had died while on the job with him.

The next day as John was paying for his order of hot pretzels at the corner vendor’s stand, he saw Lieutenant Stone coming his way from across the street.  He gathered up the cardboard tray with three sodas and three pretzels and paused at the corner.  “We were just talking about you this morning,” John said.  “We were all betting on who killed Dotty Ferguson.  I told them my money was on Dotty’s husband.  Nick picked Les Matthews and Abby didn’t have a favorite.”

“Too bad,” Steve said.  “Turned out to be Helen Ferguson.  We picked her up last night and sweated it out of her over two hours in the interrogation room.  I guess she regretted kicking her husband out and the more she thought about it, the more she put the blame on Mrs. Ferguson.  She went over there to confront the house wrecker and words were exchanged.  Things got heated and she picked up the nearest weapon she could find—a lamp—and bashed Mrs. Ferguson’s head in.”

John tossed his head in the direction of his office building and said, “Come on up and tell the others about this.  I’d probably leave something out.”  The two of them got on the elevator and rode it to the third floor.  On their way down the hall, John said, “Boy, you weren’t kidding about that tangled web, were you.”

They didn’t come much more tangled than this one.

Jack Pott

The private investigator husband and wife team of John and Abby Cooper was out on a case, leaving John’s father, Nick alone in the office that day.  He was just finishing the morning paper when the phone on his desk rang.  “Cooper Investigations, Nick speaking.”

“Mr. Cooper, the woman’s voice said.  “My name is Rosemary Pott and I’d like to know if I could hire you for a few days.”

“That would depend on what it is you want me to do for you.  Can you give me some more details?”

“It would be better if I could come to your office and talk to you in person.  Would that be all right with you?”

“Certainly,” Nick replied.  “Do you know where our office is located?”  The woman said that she didn’t and Nick gave her the address and directions on how to find the office.  She said she could be there in twenty minutes, thanked Nick and hung up.  Nick folded his paper and hid it in a drawer, straightening up the rest of his desk in the process.  He really didn’t care what the case involved, as long as it gave him respite from the boredom of just sitting there with nothing to do.

Rosemary Pott arrived eighteen minutes later and let herself into the office.  She caught Nick’s gaze and the two of them smiled at each other.  Nick introduced himself and invited the woman to have a seat across from his desk.  She turned down his offer for something to drink and they got right down to the business at hand.

“Before we get started,” Rosemary said, “I need to know if what we talk about here will be confidential.  I wouldn’t want any of what I’m about to tell you find its way back to certain people.”

“If by certain people you mean the police, then no, I can’t give you any assurances, otherwise, what is said in this office stays in this office.  I can’t be a party to any illegal activities so maybe you’d better think about what you want to say before you tell me what it is.”

The woman paused for fifteen seconds before she had made up her mind.  “I guess I have no choice, Mr. Cooper.  I’m going to have to trust you with this information.”  When Nick didn’t respond, she went on.  “Mr. Cooper, have you heard or read anything about my husband, John Charles Pott?”

“The name doesn’t ring any bells with me, unless he goes by the nickname of Jack,” Nick said, trying to lighten the moment.

“You’re not the first person to make that connection,” Rosemary said without smiling.  “John has heard that one all his life.  No, the reason I ask is because my husband disappeared nearly seven years ago without a trace and I desperately need you to find him before the end of this month.”

Nick switched his gaze to the wall calendar behind John’s desk and remarked, “That’s just nine days from now, Mrs. Pott.  Depending on where he might have gone, something like this could take weeks.  You’ll have to tell me more so I’ll have a place to start looking.”

Rosemary Pott sighed deeply and began again.  “Mr. Cooper, my husband was declared dead several years ago.  It will become official in nine days at the seven year anniversary of his disappearance.  That’s why I need you to find him before then.”

“You lost me there, Mrs. Pott.  You say he will be declared dead in nine days.  Did he or didn’t he die?”

Rosemary paused for a moment and then said, “That’s why I asked you about confidentiality, Mr. Cooper.  John faked his own death and just went away so that I could claim his life insurance and eventually join him.  But something has come up to complicate things.”

“Go on.”

“Last week I got a notice from some lawyer in Iowa saying that John’s great-uncle Thaddeus had died and had left him the bulk of his estate in his will.  Mr. Cooper, that estate package is worth around thirty-eight million dollars.”

Nick held up his index finger.  “Ah, the plot thickens.  Let me guess; if John doesn’t claim that inheritance before the end of this month, there’ll be some other relative in line for that pot of gold, so to speak.”

“Exactly, only there are no other relatives so if John doesn’t claim it, it will all got to some university in the mid-west.”  Rosemary Pott wrung her hands in her lap.  “You’ve just got to find him for me.”

“Let me ask you, Mrs. Pott,” Nick began.  “What happens if I find your husband and he comes back to claim his inheritance?  Won’t the insurance company and a host of other authorities be waiting for him with charges?”

“I’m not worried about having to deal with the insurance company, Mr. Cooper.  It’s those other authorities I’m worried about.  Is there any way around that part of it?”

“That would depend,” Nick replied.  “I’m going to need a lot more details.  For example; has he kept in touch with you all this time?  Any letters or phone calls from him?”

Rosemary shook her head.  “No, he said it wouldn’t be smart to leave any physical evidence or a paper trail, including phone bills.  He said when the seven years was up and the insurance company settled with me that I would get a call from him at that time, telling me where to find him.  But the insurance settlement was just for two hundred fifty thousand dollars; peanuts compared to the estate settlement.  If I wait nine more days, we’ll at least get the insurance money, but, well, you see how it is.”

“I do indeed,” Nick said.  “Let’s start by you telling me everything you know about your husband’s life before you met him and after.  The more information I have, the easier it could be for me to locate him.”

Before she could supply Nick with any information, the office door opened and John and Abby stepped in.  John was holding one of their contracts and a check.  He was about to tell his father about the case he and Abby had just concluded when he noticed the client sitting across from Nick.  “Oops, sorry, I didn’t know you had a client, Dad.”

Nick waved both of them in.  “That’s all right, come on over.  I’d like you to meet someone.”

Rosemary face turned worried but Nick quickly explained that this was his son and daughter-in-law; both partners in the investigations firm.  “This is perfect,” Nick told his client.  “Now John and Abby can help find your husband.  With the three of us on this case, we might just be able to meet your deadline.”

“Deadline?” John asked.

Nick quickly gave John and Abby a rundown of what he and Mrs. Pott had talked about.  “If we all get on this case right away, we may just be able to pull it off before the end of the month.”

“Nine days?” Abby said.  “Where do we ever start looking?”

“Pull up a couple of chairs,” Nick said.  “We’re going to need your input as well.”

Rosemary Pott spent the next half hour telling the three Coopers all she could remember about her husband’s previous life, along with the details of their eight year marriage, culminating with her husband faking his own death and disappearing.

“Mr. Cooper,” the woman said.  “From what I’ve found out by calling several other private eyes in town, I understand that you probably get something like two hundred to four hundred dollars a day.”

“Our rate is three hundred,” Nick explained.

“Fine; just let me say that I can pay the three hundred dollars a day but if you don’t find my husband before the end of the month, that’s all you’ll get—twenty-seven hundred dollars…period.  However, if you are successful and he comes back in time to claim the estate, we’ll pay you one percent of what we get from that estate.”

Abby’s quick mind calculated the figures and she had to whistle.  “That comes out to three hundred eighty thousand dollars.  Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

Rosemary waved her off.  “That would be peanuts compared to what we would walk away with.  Yes, that’s what we will agree to.  Are you in?”

“Count me in,” Abby said.

“I’m in,” John interjected.

Nick smiled.  “Then I guess it’s unanimous.  We’ll get started on this as soon as you finish the paperwork and give us a deposit.”  Nick got her signature on one of their contracts and asked for six hundred dollars as a retainer.

Rosemary withdrew a checkbook from her purse and tore out a check, making it out for twenty-seven hundred dollars and passing it to Nick.  “That should cover all nine days.  My address and phone number are on that check.  Call me if you find anything out.  I’ll be waiting for your call and thank you.”

Nick looked at the check and then back at Rosemary Pott.  “No, thank you.”  He showed her to the door and held his index finger up to his lips until he heard the elevator doors close before he let his breath out.  He looked at his two partners and said, “Well, this should bring the average way up.  Come on; let’s get on it.  First thing we need to do is scour the Internet for information on John Charles Pott.”

John was quick with his reply.  “Jack Pott?  How appropriate.”  All three of them opened their laptops and searched for Mr. Pott.  There was a seven year old article from the local newspaper regarding Pott’s supposed death, including a funeral with all the trimmings.  “Hey Dad, listen to this.  It says here that John Pott’s body was never found and that’s why the seven year wait for the insurance payout.  It also says that after seven years, he’ll be officially declared dead.”

“There’s a perfect example of Catch-22 if ever I’ve seen one,” Nick replied.

“How’s that?” Abby asked.

“Think about it, Nick said.  “If Pott comes back before the seven year wait is up, he’d be in line for the multi-million dollar estate but if he waits another ten days to surface, he’d get the two hundred fifty thousand dollars insurance money and be free from prosecution, since it’s impossible to prosecute a dead man.”

John chuckled to himself.  “I think this is where greed would take over because as soon as Pott hears about the estate, he’ll hurry back, claim the estate, sign off on any insurance payout and live happily ever after.”

“Bird in the hand, in other words,” Abby said.  “His two in the bush is just that; uncertain at best.”

Nick jumped in with, “Well, as long as there’s a chance of him inheriting that estate, we’ll do our best to see that he gets it so we can collect our three hundred eighty thousand dollar fee.”

The three of them spent another forty-five minutes on their computers before they felt they had enough to go on.  Nick turned on the answering machine, left a new message about being closed for the next nine days and locked up the office.  Armed with only their computer printouts and their honed experience, they all jumped into Nick’s sedan and left the parking lot, heading for the onramp to the freeway.  Nick drove while John sat in the back and Abby sat in front with her laptop open on her lap.  She’d navigate while Nick drove to their first destination.

Nick pulled onto the onramp to the freeway and asked Abby about directions.  “Just keep going straight ahead for another forty miles; I’ll tell you where to turn.”

“And the name of this place is?” Nick asked.

Abby checked her notes.  “According to the information from the web it should be an old hotel in some one horse town.  I’m looking at your notes from Mrs. Pott and according to her there’s a guy working there who should be able to direct us to the next place.”

John leaned forward in his seat.  “Why do you suppose Mrs. Pott didn’t just check with this guy herself?”

“Because he may not still be there,” Nick explained.  “But it’s at least a place to start looking.”  Half an hour later Abby told Nick that the old hotel was just another mile and a quarter further down the freeway and half a mile east of the off ramp.  Nick exited the freeway and turned east.  A moment later he found himself sitting in front of the Desert Hotel.  The three of them got out to stretch their legs and eventually walked in through the front door to find an old man behind the desk, napping.  Nick slapped his hand down on the bell.

The old man sat upright, blinked his eyes a few times and turned to look at his visitors.  “Yes,” he said in a sleepy voice.  “How can I help you folks today?”

“Yes,” Nick began.  “We’re looking for Harvey Paulson.  Do you know where I can find him?”

“Sure do,” the old man replied, pointing to his left.  “Just keep going down this road out front.  You’ll find him in the third row back, second from the left.”

“How’s that?” Nick said.

“Third row back, second from the left,” the old man repeated.  “It’s a cemetery.”

Nick looked at Abby and just rolled his eyes.  He turned back to the old man and thanked him before turning for the door.

“Now, if you want to speak to Harvey, junior, well, he’s upstairs in room 2-A,” the old man said with a sly smile.

Nick and the others started for the stairway before the old man stopped them.  “But he ain’t up there at the moment.”

Nick was losing his patience with the old man.  “Well then, where can I find him?”

“He’s out behind the hotel mending the fence.  If you like I’ll…”

Nick didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence before all three of them left the hotel and walked around to the back.  There they found a middle-aged man with a hammer in his hand and four or five nails held between his lips.  Nick walked up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.

The man instinctively spit out the nails and spun around, his hand on his heart.   “You tryin’ to give me a heart attack?  What do you want?”

“Are you Harvey, junior?” Nick asked.

“The one and only,” Harvey replied.  “Who wants to know?”

Nick produced one of his business cards and handed it to Harvey.  “Nick Cooper,” he began.  “My associates and I have been hired to find someone and they gave your name as a place to start looking.”

Harvey examined the card, turned it over and slipped it into his shirt pocket.  “They gave you my name?”

“Yes they did, if you’re Harvey Paulson.”

“That would be my dad,” Harvey said.  “But he’s dead; died just about three years ago.”

“So I heard,” Nick replied.  “Maybe you can help us.  We’re trying to locate a man named John Charles Pott.  His wife would like to contact him.”

“Pott,” Harvey said.  “That ain’t a name you’re likely to forget; ‘specially if he goes by Jack, get it?”

“Not often enough, but yeah, I get it,” Nick said.  “So do you know anything about where we can find Mr. Pott?”

“It’s been quite a few years since I saw him last, but he did give me this.”  Harvey held his arm out to Nick, showing him a tarnished wrist watch.  He slipped it off his wrist and handed it to Nick.

Nick examined it, turned it over and read the inscription on the back, which said, For John-Twenty year’s service-Ryan Industries.  He handed the watch back to Harvey.  “Do you know where this Ryan Industries is?”

“Sure, it’s about twelve miles north of here on Ryan Road.  You can’t miss it.”

Nick thanked Harvey and walked back to the car.  He turned to Abby and pointed up the road.  Twelve miles that way.”  The time they spent at Ryan Industries was twenty minutes they’d never get back.  No one there knew whatever became of John Pott.  They moved on to an address of another employee from that company.  That lead also turned out to be a dead end.

John remarked, “I hope there’s an actual wild goose at the end of this chase.”

The Coopers spent the rest of that day chasing one lead after another until the sun went down.  They spent the night at a motel in Twentynine Palms, called the el Rancho Motel.  It was a sprawling affair of hacienda-style units with a red tile roof.  Nick paid for two rooms and told John and Abby to meet him back at the car once they got settled in.  There was a family style restaurant just down the road where they’d have their dinner before retiring for the night and getting a fresh start in the morning.

Once the three of them had placed their orders with the waitress, Abby spoke up.  “Why do you suppose Pott would part with a watch like that?  I would thing there’d be some sentimental attachment for him.”

John held up his index finger.  “Because it had his name on it and someone might be able to identify him with it.  Chances are he’s taken another name and wanted to sever all connections with John Charles Pott.”

“Oh great,” Nick said.  “Now we not only don’t know where he is, we also don’t know what name he might be using.”

Dad,” John said.  “Did you find out what Pott did at Ryan Industries?”

“Yeah, he was a truck driver who delivered Ryan’s product around the area.  I see where you’re going with this.  We find out who Ryan sold his product to and check with some of his customers.  Well, now we have some place to start looking tomorrow.”

They finished their meal and returned to the motel.  Nick watched just a little of the local news coverage on TV and then turned in for the night.  Abby and John stretched out in the king size bed and talked for several minutes about their current case.  Abby asked, “If we eventually do find John Pott and persuade him to come back with us and if we do get that large finder’s fee, what do you think you’ll you buy with your share?”  By the time she got her entire thought out, John’s eyes were closed and he had begun to snore.

The following day and for the next six days in a row, the three Coopers followed lead after lead and still got no closer to the ever elusive Mr. Pott.  Then on the seventh day and with just two days to go, they caught a break when one of their leads sent them to a man who said he knew where they could find John Charles Pott.  When he saw how eager the three private eyes were to have that information, he demanded a hundred dollars to share what he knew.  Weighing that hundred against a possible three hundred eighty thousand dollar payday, Nick agreed.  He tore the hundred dollar bill in two and gave the man the smaller half.

“You’ll get the other half once you show us where to find Mr. Pott,” Nick told the informant.  “And if it’s the right man, there’ll be another C-note in it for you.  Now take us there.”

Abby climbed into the back seat next to John while the informant sat up front, directing Nick as he drove.  Less than ten minutes later he told Nick to pull into the parking lot of a gas station and kill the engine.  Nick followed them man’s directions and turned to face him.  “Is he here?”

The man nodded and said, “Come with me.”  When the back doors opened, he turned and looked at John and said, “Just one; you two wait here.”  The back doors closed again as the man led Nick inside the gas station to the man behind the counter.  He looked at Nick and held out his outstretched palm.  “The other half.”

The man behind the counter looked at Nick’s informant and said, “What’s going on here, Ed?”

Ed cocked his head toward Nick and said, “Cory, this guy wanted to find you and I brought him over.”

“Cory?” Nick said.  “I told you I was looking for a guy named Pott.”  Nick noticed Cory’s face fall and figured he might be onto something here but decided to dig a little deeper.  He looked at Cory and asked, “Is your name John Charles Pott?”

Cory hesitated and then said, “You got the wrong man, mister.  My name is Cory Feldstein.  I don’t know anyone named Pott.”

Nick gave Ed a stern look but didn’t hand over the other half of the torn bill.  Ed looked at Cory and said, “Come on, John; this guy’s harmless and I could use the money.”

Cory sighed and turned to Nick.  “What do you want?”

Nick gave the other half of the torn bill to Ed and told him to wait in the car while he and Cory talked.  Once Ed had left the station, Nick looked directly at Cory and said, “Look, Mr. Pott, you’re not in any trouble.  To the contrary; I’m bringing you great news from Rosemary.”  The man’s face showed signs of recognition and Nick noticed him sneaking a peek at the calendar.  “That’s right,” Nick said.  “Just two more days to go until your seven years are up and you and Rosemary can collect that quarter million dollars from the insurance company.  But I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Why not?”

“That’s the good news I’m bringing,” Nick said.  “Your great-uncle Thaddeus died and left you the bulk of his estate in his will.  There’s just one catch; you have to claim it before the end of the month, just two days from now, otherwise it all goes to some college in the mid-west somewhere.”

“Knowing Uncle Thaddeus, he probably pissed most of it away by now and all that’s left are his bills and some house with three mortgages.  I don’t need the aggravation.  I’ve waited this long; another two days won’t matter one way or the other.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Nick explained.  “The estate is worth thirty-eight million dollars and you were his only relative, so it all goes to you.  Now do you see why it’s so important to get you back to Rosemary by tomorrow?”

Pott’s mouth fell open and he found himself at a loss for words.

“Say something,” Nick demanded.  “Time’s wasting and we’ve got to get back to Hollywood before the time runs out.”  When Pott still didn’t move, Nick said, “Go on; call your wife.  She’ll verify everything I just told you.  Then we really have to get moving.”

Without another word, Pott picked up the phone on the counter and dialed his wife’s number.  It had been several years, but he recognized her voice right away.  Several minutes later when he hung up the phone, Pott stared at Nick and grabbed his jacket off the coat hook.  “Well, what are waiting for?  Let’s get moving.”

Nick dropped Ed back where he’d found him and drove straight back to the freeway.  Three and a half hours later, when he was just a few minutes from his office, he called Rosemary Pott and told her to meet them at his office right away.

She agreed and quickly hung up and went running for her car.  She arrived at Cooper Investigation just behind Nick’s sedan and parked next to him.  She and John Charles Pott got out of the cars and immediately embraced right there between the two cars.  “Isn’t it wonderful?” Rosemary said to her husband.  “You don’t have to hide out any more and we can live the life we’ve always dreamed of.”

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Pott replied.

Nick pulled them apart and said, “You’ll have the rest of your lives for this kind of talk.  Right now we have to get upstairs and call your great-uncle’s lawyer.”  Nick unlocked the office and let everyone in.  He picked up his desk phone and handed it to Rosemary.  “Make the call.”

Rosemary withdrew a piece of paper from her purse and punched in the number.  It rang just once before a man’s voice said, “Hawthorn, Bailey and Higgins; Arthur Bailey speaking.”

Rosemary identified herself and told Mr. Bailey that with the help of Cooper Investigation, that she was able to bring her husband back to her and that now she wanted to make sure the estate wasn’t given away to any college.”

“Mrs. Pott,” Bailey said.  “I have a man from our there from our Los Angeles office and he can meet you both within the hour.  Let me have the address where you are now and then just sit tight until he gets there.”  Bailey hung up and Rosemary turned around with the widest grin Nick had ever seen.  She looked at her husband and said, “They’re sending a man over from their L.A. office to get the ball rolling for us.  He said he’ll be here within the hour.”

They hugged again and involuntarily began jumping up and down in circles.  Eventually they calmed down and sat on the leather sofa beneath the south window.  The time dragged by but eventually they could hear a set of footsteps coming down the hall toward the Cooper office.  They held hands and stood now, ready to greet the lawyer.

Two knocks came on the office door before it opened and a stern-looking man in a three-piece business suit let himself in.  He looked around the room and his eyes finally settled on the Potts.  “John Charles Pott?” the man said, extending his hand.

Pott agreed that he was and the man smiled at each John and Rosemary Pott before turning to Mr. Pott.  “You had us worried there for a minute.  Another two days and there would have been a much different outcome to all of this.  And it looks like we can thank Mr. Cooper here for this happy ending.”  He opened his briefcase and pulled out a legal-looking document, flipped the first page back and laid it on Nick’s desk.  He pointed to the line where Pott was to sign and then got Mrs. Pott’s signature as well.

He thanked them both and started for the door when Mr. Pott said, “So, what about Uncle Thaddeus’s will?  When will you finalize that part of it?”

The man frowned.  “And just who is Uncle Thaddeus?”

Pott replied, “My great uncle who left me his estate.”

“I don’t know anything about any estate,” the man said.  “I just came here to get your signature on our insurance documents, and just in time, I might add.  We just saved ourselves a bundle and just under the wire.  Thank you sir; good day.”

The office door closed and the two sets of footsteps faded down the hall.  Now everyone in the room shared the same puzzled looks on their faces.  Nick turned to Rosemary and said, “Can I see that piece of paper with the lawyer’s name on it?”  Rosemary produced the phone number and handed it to Nick, who looked it over carefully and then said, “Where were you calling?”

Rosemary looked at the piece of paper in Nick’s hand.  “I thought I was calling the lawyer from Iowa that originally called me a week ago.”

Nick held up the paper.  “This is a local number from right herein the L.A. area.  Maybe you should call him back and make sure that the guy who was just here was from his office.”  He handed the paper back to Rosemary.

She punched in the number and immediately heard that annoying series of tones before a recorded voice told her that the number she just dialed was not in service.  She turned to her husband and began to cry.  “I think we’ve been had,” she cried.

Now it was Abby who spoke.  “Are you telling us that there is no estate; no will; no inheritance?  Nothing?”

“I’m afraid not, Mrs. Cooper,” she replied.  “Somehow the insurance company duped us into thinking that there was so my husband would come back before they had to pay out any death benefits.”  Mr. and Mrs. Pott were still crying as they left the Cooper office.

While John and Abby were busy complaining about the outcome of this case after seven days on the road, Nick was busy at his desk, scribbling something out on his yellow legal pad.  “What are you doing, Dad?” John asked.

Nick held his index finger up without looking up at John.  “Give me a minute yet.”  He continued writing and then dug into his pocket and produced thirty dollars, giving a ten dollar bill to each of them.

“What’s this for, Nick?” Abby asked.

“That’s your share of the fee from Mrs. Pott,” Nick explained.

John held his ten spot up and examined it.  “But she gave you twenty-seven hundred dollars.”

Nick held up his ciphering so they both could see it.  “After seven days of paying for two rooms every night plus twenty-one meals, drinks, gas for the car and paying that informant, we were left with thirty dollars and sixty-seven cent.  I’m keeping the change, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Don’t spend it all in one place,” John said bitterly and tucked his ten dollar bill into his shirt pocket.  He turned to Abby and remarked, “Come on; let’s go down to the corner and grab a couple of pretzels.”

“Would you bring one back for me?” Nick asked.

John held out his hand and Nick passed his ten dollar bill over to his son.  “And a Pepsi, please.”

“That’ll be another sixty-seven cents for delivery,” John said sarcastically and left the office with Abby.

Sleep Tight, Angie

“Anything interesting in the news this morning, Nick?” Abby Cooper asked that morning in the office that she shared with her husband and father-in-law.  All three were private eyes but sometimes business got really slow.

“Same crap, different day,” Nick replied.  “I swear, on slow news days they must have a filing cabinet with filler items that they keep recycling.  Like this one that says something about the weather for the rest of this week.  Come on; it’s Southern California.  How much difference can there be in the weather?  Hell, even I could do it.  I’d put in there, warm today with a chance of clouds, continuing for the rest of the week.  And I’d be right ninety per cent of the time.”

“Try that same routine on John when he comes in,” Abby suggested.  John was Nick’s son and the sixth generation to work in this business from this same office since the forties.

“And when it’s a really slow news day, they always pull out the old reliable file of what happened five years ago; what happened ten years ago, as if people forgot.”

“What’s the article today that’s supposed to escort the reader down memory lane?” Abby asked.

“All right,” Nick said, turning the page until he found it.  “Here we go; ten years ago today.  Angela Roth, 20, was found raped and stabbed eighteen times in her apartment.  The attack was so brutal that police initially thought Roth’s heart had been removed from her body.  The coroner said…”

Abby started crying and turned her chair away from Nick.

“What is it, Abby?” Nick asked.  “Did I say something wrong?”  Abby still could not control her crying and hurried into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.  Nick laid his paper down and just sat there for a moment before he stepped over to the bathroom door and knocked.  “Abby, are you all right?”

It took her several minutes before she could come out and face Nick again.  She stepped back over to her desk and sat down.  She looked over at Nick and said, “I’m sorry, Nick.  I guess the memories just came flooding back and it was too much for me to handle.”

“Memories?” Nick said.  “Memories of what?”

“Angela Roth,” Abby replied.  “I haven’t thought of her for years, but every now and then something happens to make her creep back into my thoughts.”  When Nick didn’t respond, Abby added, “Angela and I were roommates in college and we were inseparable, like sisters, only closer.  We had been alphabetically paired as roommates in their freshman year at U.C.L.A. and we hit it off almost instantly.  We shared the same room for nearly two years.  Heck, we even had the same initials and shared our clothes and jewelry.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry I even brought it up,” Nick said apologetically.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Abby said.  “You had no way of knowing.  I didn’t find out myself until someone called me at my parents’ house the following day.  I dropped out of college that same week and moved back home.  I just couldn’t go back there after what happened to Angie.”

“What did you do for work after you left college?” Nick asked.

“I kept living with my parents for about two years,” Abby explained, occasionally wiping her eyes.  I tried to get on with my life as best I could, but I couldn’t forget Angie or the questions that I desperately needed answers to.  I couldn’t even attend Angie’s funeral.  I just knew I’d break down and I didn’t want her parents to see me like that.  They were always so nice to me and treated me like their second daughter.  I did everything I could to keep those terrible thoughts out of my head and then one day many months later; I was finally able to get through my day without thinking of Angie.  Oh, she’ll always be with me in some form or another, but the pain wasn’t as intense anymore.”

“I don’t mean to drag this out any further than necessary,” Nick said.  “But did they ever catch the guy responsible for that terrible crime?”

Abby shook her head.  “The case went cold after a couple of months and I never heard another thing about it after that.”

“I know it’s probably the last thing you need in your life right about now, but have you even given any thought to re-examining the case, now that you’re a private eye with much more resources at your disposal?”

Abby waved both palms back and forth toward Nick.  “Oh, I just couldn’t.  It would just dredge up more horrible memories again and I’m trying to put it out of my thoughts for good.”

“You know,” Nick went on, “DNA research has taken large strides since then.  Maybe now they could do a more thorough workup than they were capable of back then.”

Just then the office door opened and John walked in, hung up his jacket and took a seat behind his desk.  Then he suddenly felt uncomfortable in the silence that followed.  He looked at his father and asked what was going on.  Nick folded the paper and handed it to John, who read just three sentences of the Angela Roth article before he laid the paper down and turned to Abby.  “Are you all right?” He asked, having heard the Angie story before.  He got up and went over to Abby’s side, wrapping one arm around her shoulder.

Nick said, “I suggested that maybe the case could use some fresh eyes, but she said the memories would just bring it all to the surface again and she’s not ready or willing to do that.”

“You know,” John said to Abby, “Dad’s right; even if you don’t want to look into it, he and I could make some inquiries and see if there’s anything we can do to give you some closure finally.  What do you say; do you want Dad and me to work on this?”

Abby pulled her face out of her hands and looked at John.  She forced a weak smile and nodded almost imperceptibly.  “All right, but just the two of you.  I don’t think I could handle reliving that nightmare.”

John turned to Nick.  “What does the schedule look like for the rest of this month?”

Nick turned a few pages in his daily planner and replied, “We have a case starting next week, but this week is clear, unless someone calls or stops in.  Let’s give it a shot and see what turns up; you never know.”  He looked over at Abby and asked, “I know it was ten years ago, but do you remember who handled the original case?”

Abby just shook her head.  “I don’t know; I wasn’t exactly thinking too clearly back then.  I’m sure they must have a record of it somewhere.”

“I’ll check with Tim,” Nick replied.  Tim was Captain Tim Murphy at the Twelfth Precinct just four blocks south of the Cooper office.  “Excuse me.”  He got up, grabbed his jacket off the coat hook and left the office.  It was a perfect day out and Nick decided to walk the four blocks.  He found Captain Murphy in his office and was invited in with a warm smile.

“Nicholas Cooper,” Tim said.  “How long has it been?  What brings you here on a perfect day like this?”

Nick shook the captain’s hand and sat, but had a hard time returning the captain’s smile.  “I’m afraid it’s not a social visit,” Nick began.  “I need your help with a cold case from ten years ago.”

“One of our cold cases?” Tim asked.  When Nick nodded, Tim said, “What would you be doing looking into one of our cold cases?”

“John and I want to do this for Abby,” he explained.

“Abby; what does she have to do with this?”

Nick gestured with his head toward the folded newspaper on Tim’s desk and said, “Take a look at the ‘Remember When’ column in today’s paper.”

Tim turned to that page, read a few lines and then looked back at Nick.  “This is the cold case you want to look into?  How is Abby involved?”

“The victim was Abby’s college roommate and best friend,” Nick explained.  “She’s a wreck right about now and I told her John and I would look into it and see if we couldn’t provide her with some closure after all these years.”

Tim took another quick look at the article and said, “Whatever you need, Nick.  I’ll be glad to help in any way I can.  It would be great if we could finally close that case.  What do you need first?”

Nick thought about it for a moment and then said, “If I could, I’d like to see the original file and maybe talk to the original detective who handled it.”

“Hang on, Nick, I’ll go and get it.”  Tim left the room and returned several minutes later with a fat manila folder in his hands.  He opened it on his desk and paged through the contents.  He slipped one sheet out and turned it so that Nick could read it.  “Detective Tom Drake was originally assigned to this one.”

“Tom Drake,” Nick echoed.  “Wasn’t he…?”

Tim nodded.  “Tom and his partner, Adam Kennedy were both killed on their last case many years ago.  Man, there’s one that’ll haunt me until the day I die.  Hang on; let’s see if anyone else had anything to do with this case.  Here we go; Frank Bishop also worked on this one.  He retired six months ago, but I’ll bet you could still find him at home.  He’d probably be willing to bring you up to speed.”

Nick gestured with his chin at the open folder in front of Tim.  “Does it say anything in there about any evidence found at the scene?”

Tim pages through the stack again and stopped on another sheet.  He looked it over and said, “The crime lab bound semen, blood and fingernails at the scene.”

“Sounds like that should have been a slam dunk,” Nick said.

“You would think so,” Tim replied.  “But even armed with that much evidence, they came up dry in the crime database.  The killer could have been new at this and if it was his first crime, he might not have ended up in the databases around here.”

“Did they try the nationwide databases?” Nick asked.

Tim nodded.  “They checked everywhere across the country and still came up with nothing; sorry.”

Nick gave it some more thought and than said, “If this guy thought he got away clean from his first murder, do you think he’d have a little more confidence and try it again after laying low for a while?”

Tim bit his bottom lip and said, “I hadn’t thought of that.  By the time this case went cold, we probably had ten more like it to work on instead.  I’ll take another look and give you a call later today.  Tell Abby not to give up hope just yet.”

Nick shook Tim’s hand again and thanked him before he left the office and walked back to Hollywood and Cahuenga.  Before he went back into his building, he stopped at the corner vendor and bought three hot pretzels and three cups of soda.  They were just what the three of them needed to ease the tension of the moment.  His handful of treats was welcomed with smiles and the three of them sat on the leather sofa beneath the south window and ate them in silence.  When the last sip of soda had been downed, Nick took everyone’s trash and dropped it into the waste can before he told them of his visit with Tim.

Tim’s call came an hour before the close of business that afternoon.  Nick spent several minutes on the phone with him, thanked him and said he’d share this new information with Abby and John.  Nick hung up and turned to the other two and began with, “As you know that was Tim.  He did another nationwide search of the DNA databases and came up with several matches from the same person.”

That got Abby’s attention and she slid closer to Nick.  “What did he find?”

Nick took a deep breath and said, “The DNA found at the scene ten years ago came back a match with someone named Donald Allen Perry, a convicted rapist from the mid-west, who is currently serving a life sentence at Huntsville, Texas on another rape charge of a twelve year old girl there.  There is absolutely no doubt about it; he was the man who raped and killed Angie Roth ten years ago.”

Abby looked puzzled.  “How long has he been in that prison and will he ever get out?”

“According to Tim,” Nick replied, “Perry was sentenced to ninety-nine years but could be eligible for parole before the end of his natural life.  Maybe with your help and what you know about him, the Texas authorities could help us see to it that Perry gets executed.  We’ll just have to make sure that they get all the evidence that Tim’s department has been sitting on all this while.”

Equipped with the knowledge that semen, blood and fingernails were found at the crime scene, L.A. police tasked detective Frank Bishop with reopening the case.  He sent off the DNA evidence found at the scene for analysis.  More than three weeks passed before Tim heard anything further from Texas, but an unsuspecting hit from Abby gave law enforcement the answer they needed.  Donald Allen Perry was convicted of Angela Roth’s rape and murder and was subsequently sentenced to death.  Angela Roth’s murder was the only cold case solved in L.A. that year.

Many weeks later when Donald Allen Perry was convicted, there was absolutely no closure, as far as Abby was concerned.  “Angie is still dead; the people that talk about closure, they’ve really never been through something like that,” Abby said.  “People say things like, ‘Don’t you feel better?  Don’t you feel some accomplishment?’  No, my best friend is still dead.  Maybe I’ll get some kind of closer once that scumbag is executed.”

Abby still thinks of Angie often and hopes that solving her murder has helped in some way.  “I hope she’s resting in peace now,” Abby said, tearing up. “Because the last few minutes of her life were so violent.”

Abby wasn’t to get that closure for another eighteen months.  And it didn’t come from Donald Allen Perry’s execution from the state of Texas, but rather at the hands of three Huntsville inmates who had decided to take on the job themselves.  In one corner of the laundry room, two of those inmates held Perry’s arms while the third one stabbed Perry exactly eighteen times before the other two let him drop to the floor in a pool of his own blood.

When Abby read of Perry’s death in the newspaper a few days later, she couldn’t help but smile.  She had gotten her closure.

Sleep tight, Angie.

What A Perfect Body

It was still thirty minutes before Nick Cooper was supposed to open his private investigations office that Monday morning.  Along the way he stopped to pick up the morning paper so he’d have something to read while he waited for his son, John and his daughter-in-law, Abby to arrive.  The three of them ran the somewhat successful business from the same office on Hollywood and Cahuenga that Nick’s great-great-grandfather, Matt had started right after World War II.  Nick looked forward to this first half hour by himself, just sitting there in the peace and quiet with his paper.

He rode the elevator to the third floor and walked to the last door on the right at the front of the building.  His office overlooked Hollywood Boulevard and his desk sat just to the west of the window.  Nick hung up his jacket, poured himself a glass of chocolate milk from the mini fridge and settled in with the stories of the day.  There’s wasn’t much to report on as far as the crime beat went, but that changed day to day.  It was the article on page eight that caught his attention.

The article was about a new business coming into the Southern California area.  That in itself wouldn’t normally have caught Nick’s eye, but it was the nature of this new business that made the article note worthy.  One of the area medical colleges was opening what folks called a body farm.  That is, they had set aside thirty acres within a fenced in area where the donors of their dead bodies could be sure that they were contributing to science in their own strange way.

Once the person had signed away the rights to his body, upon their death they would be taken to this body farm, where their body would be clothed—or not—and left on the ground to naturally rot so that the scientists could study the decay process and make notes based on what they had observed.  For example, they could visit the body daily, making notes about the arrival of flies and other insects.  Knowing ahead of time how long fly eggs took to hatch into larvae would be helpful in determining in the real world just how long a victim had been lying where it had been found.

Some bodies would lie right on the ground, out in the open, while other bodies would be buried only to be dug up later to study the decomposition process.  Some bodies might be propped up in a car in the field, while others might be submerged under water.  Each process had it own unique characteristics that needed to be studied and recorded.

Nick found the whole concept fascinating and read the entire article all the way through before John and Abby showed up.  “Good morning,” Nick said, folding his paper and laying it aside.

“Morning, Dad,” John said.

“Morning, Nick,” Abby chimed in.  “Do we have anything going for today?”

Nick quickly checked his day planner and replied, nothing until ten; then John has to serve that summons in Pasadena.  That should kill forty minutes.  After that it’s just a case of waiting for that first call or walk-in.”

John hung up his jacket and sat behind his desk.  “Anything interesting in this morning’s paper?”

“Funny you should ask,” Nick replied and told them both about the article he had just finished.  “I know, it sounds a little ghoulish at first, but when you think about it, the information they gather from a procedure like that would help the police and the coroner narrow down the time of death.

John found it hard to swallow since his mouth was suddenly dry.  “Gees, how’d you like to see a time lapse video of some guy’s face just rotting away?  No thank you, sir.  I’m glad I don’t come across too many stiffs in my line of work, and the ones that I do are usually pretty fresh.”

“Can we talk about something else?” Abby asked, her face turning sour.

“Like what?” Nick said.

“Anything but this,” Abby clarified.

Sitting in his own house on the outskirts of town that same day was a man named Henry Berger who had lived at this same house for more than thirty years.  He was totally comfortable here and could imagine himself staying here until he died.  Such would not be the case after that day when Henry had read the article in the newspaper about a new business coming to Southern California.  Henry read with fascination about this new place that would house human bodies in order that their decomposition progress might be studied scientifically.

Henry finished the article and set the paper aside, thinking about his own body farm, right behind the house he’d been leasing for nearly a decade.  True, it could never compete with this new business coming soon, but still, it was all his and it contained but one body; the body of Henry’s wife, whom authorities had thought had just left home one day never to return.  She left home, all right; exactly ninety feet from home in a shallow grave alongside the garage, wrapped in a plastic shower curtain.  That was eight years ago and by now the grave had settled enough so that Henry was able to throw more dirt on the sunken portion and smooth it out.  He put the finishing touches on the grace with grass seed and three scraggly-looking dogwood plants.  If you didn’t already know the grave was just below those bushes, you’d walk right past it without giving it a second look.

Henry folded up the paper, set it out with the other burnable trash and never gave it a second thought.  Four more months had passed.  Ironically, so did Henry’s landlord from a sudden heart attack.  After the business of conducting the landlord’s funeral and disposing of his personal assets, the lawyer assigned to his case finally got around to the disposition of the house that he had been leasing to one Henry Berger.  Continuing with the current arrangement was out of the question, as was the idea of offering the house for sale to Mr. Berger.  The landlord’s own family wanted to take possession of that house for their own use and Henry Berger would just have to vacate.

Those orders to vacate took another four weeks to reach Henry Berger’s mailbox.  The contents of that letter had taken Henry completely by surprise.  The letter informed him that he had exactly two months to find another place to live and to move all of his worldly possession out.  The part about finding another place to live was the easy part.  Henry secured a nice apartment that was immediately available and put his deposit down on it.  The hard part of this transaction would be to relocate Mrs. Berger from the back yard to some place more suitable; some place where she wouldn’t be found.

Then Henry remembered the article that he had read several months earlier about the body farm coming to the area and the enormous weight on his shoulders suddenly lifted.  He still had six weeks left before he had to be out of his permanent residence and that would be plenty of time to relocate his wife’s body and smooth that patch of ground out again so as not to be noticed.

Henry spent the next eight days researching everything he could find about the new body farm.  He had also visited the facility many times during those same months, surveying it from every angle during the day as well as at night.  His initial reaction to the corpses that he saw lying about on the grounds had first repulsed him and then fascinated him.  His trip around the perimeter of the grounds always brought him back to the same spot, furthest away from the body farm office.  It was easily accessible yet couldn’t be seen from the office or even the road that led to the office.

There were at least three other bodies in different stages of decay in that area and Lila Berger would fit right in with them, like she had been there from the beginning.  The following night, under cover of darkness, Henry set about excavating his wife’s body from that shallow grave.  He was able to remove most of the dirt that had covered her for all these years, but when he tried to grab hold of the plastic shower curtain, it disintegrated in his hand.  He hurried back to the house and pulled the top sheet off his bed, bringing it back to the grave and laying it alongside the hole.

It took him longer than he thought it might, but in a little less than two hours, he had the body out of the hole and wrapped up in the sheet.  Ten minutes later that wrapped body had found a temporary home in the trunk of Henry’s car.  It took him another thirty-eight minutes to drive to the far end of the body farm.  He killed his headlights and hurried around to the rear of his car, looking all around him once more before removing the former Mrs. Berger’s wrapped body and carrying it over to the fenced-in area he had pre-selected.

By now, Lila Berger’s body had shriveled up to a dark brown collection of skin and bones and weighed almost nothing.  Henry lifted the body to the height of the top of the fence and made sure he held tight to the sheet before he rolled her over the fence and let her body settle face first among the leaves and dirt.  Henry kissed his fingertips and waved good bye to Lila and said, “Rot in peace, you bitch,” before he tossed the sheet in his back seat and then slowly, quietly drove back home.

Henry Berger slept like a baby that night and woke up refreshed, without that same nagging problem hovering over his head.  He burned the sheet that had served as a shroud and then vacuumed his back seat until he was sure that not a speck of anything that might be evaluated as incriminating was gone.  Just to be sure, he emptied the vacuum cleaner bag into the same fire that had consumed the sheet.

It had been more than a month since Nick had first told John and Abby about the article in the paper that described the body farm business coming to the area.  They had forgotten all about it and had gotten on with their own business of private investigation.  Once again with his morning paper, Nick found a follow-up article about the body farm and how it already had more than two dozen bodies strewn about the grounds in various degrees of decomposition.  He decided to keep this information to himself when John and Abby came in.  No need upsetting the apple cart again.

The rest of that week passed uneventfully and the P.I.s enjoyed the following weekend in peace.  It was during his weekend off that Nick unintentionally ran into a woman at the grocery store.  He and the woman both rounded the aisle with their carts, neither one looking where they were going, when the carts collided.  Nick and the woman both excused themselves and engaged in small talk about being sorry and all that.  When the conversation came to an uneasy pause, Nick glanced at the woman’s left hand and was delighted not to have seen a ring of any kind on it.  She looked to be about Nick’s age and was very attractive with a pretty face and a great shape.  Nick thought to himself, what a perfect body.

He worked up a little more courage now and asked what he later realized was the worst pickup line in the world.  “So,” Nick began.  “Do you come here often?”  He regretted it almost immediately and rolled his eyes.  “I can’t believe I just said that,” he told the woman.  “Let me try again; I know I can do better.”

That got a laugh out of the woman and she gave Nick a warm smile.  After a moment she said, “Well, let’s hear your better line.  I shouldn’t be too hard to top that last one.”

Now Nick was laughing.  He extended his hand to the woman and said, “Suppose we start over.  My name is Nick Cooper, and you are…?”

“Looking for the spaghetti sauce,” the woman said and then let Nick off the hook when she noticed the blank look on his face.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “I was just having a little fun with you.  My name is Michelle Lewis; nice to meet you, Mr. Cooper.  I do have just one question for you, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Sure, ask away,” Nick said a little more confidently now.

“Do you know where the spaghetti sauce is?”  She managed to keep a straight face through it all.

Without missing a beat, Nick said, “Aisle three on the left side, halfway down.  Come on, I’ll take you there myself.”  He turned his cart and aimed it toward aisle three with Michelle falling into line behind him.

On their way toward aisle three, Michelle spotted the jars of spaghetti sauce on the end of aisle two and quietly plucked on off the shelf, holding it in her hand.  When Nick turned up aisle three, she followed him and waited for him to stop and turn around to admit he was making it all up.  When Nick turned and saw the jar of spaghetti sauce in Michelle’s hand, he sighed heavily and said, “Looks like I’ve just been busted.”  He looked down at the jar in her hand and then back at the woman.  “Oh, spaghetti sauce; I thought you said tortillas,” and pulled a box of tortillas off the shelf, offering them to Michelle, who just had to laugh at the absurdity of the moment.

They shared another good laugh and headed for the checkouts.  Nick was delighted to see that after Michelle had checked out her cart of groceries, that she waited for Nick to check his out so they could leave the store together.  In the parking lot, Nick followed Michelle to her car and loaded her groceries into her back seat.  He asked, “Have you had lunch yet?  I haven’t, but I hate to eat alone.  Would you like to join me for a sandwich and a drink?”

Michelle smiled and nodded.  “I’d be delighted, Mr. Cooper.  Lead the way; I’ll be right behind you.”

Nick loaded his groceries into the back seat of his car and backed out of his space.  In another minute he was pulling out of the grocery store parking lot with Michelle following close behind him.  Several blocks down, Nick made it through the yellow light but Michelle got stuck at the red light and before she knew it, Nick, who was lost in a daydream about how lucky his trip to the store had been, was out of sight.  By the time he remembered to check his rear view mirror, Michelle’s car was nowhere to be seen.  Nick pulled to the curb and slammed his hands on the steering wheel.  “Oh, that’s just great,” he said aloud and just kept sitting there, hoping he’d see her car go by.  He didn’t and just drove back home, disappointed.

Once he got all his groceries put away, Nick immediately pulled the phone book from a kitchen drawer and turned to the L section, hoping to find an entry for Michelle Lewis.  He ran his finger down the page and found that there were more than two whole pages of people named Lewis.  There were no Michelles or just plain M Lewis listings.  Now what?  He closed the phone book and put it back into the drawer.  He was about to give up and go sit in the living room, feeling sorry for himself, when the wall phone in the kitchen rang.  “Hello,” Nick said in a forlorn voice.

“Is this the private eye, Nick Cooper,” a female voice that Nick didn’t recognize said.

Nick sighed and said, “Yes it is, but I’m not open for business today.  It’s Sunday.”

“But I need your help,” the woman said.  “I was involved in a head-on collision this afternoon and I need to find the other driver.”

“Like I said,” Nick repeated, “It’s my day off.  Besides you should be talking to the police, not me.”

“But this guy ran right into me in the grocery store,” she said.  “He rammed his cart right into mine and…”

“Michelle?” Nick said.  “Is that you?”

Michelle was laughing by now.  “I lost you at the light and couldn’t find you once it turned green.  I did, however, remember you name and found a Cooper Investigations in the phone book.  Below that was a listing for John Cooper and then Nick Cooper.  I knew it had to be you.”

“Now who’s the private eye?” Nick said.  “Good job tracking me down.  You don’t happen to need a job right now, do you?”

“Uh, no, but thanks for the offer,” Michelle said.  “Are you still hungry and is that offer of a drink and sandwich still good?”

Now it was Nick who was laughing.  “You bet, and before we get cut off, let me have your phone number and address.”  She gave Nick what he asked for.  “Second thought,” Nick said, “How about if I make you lunch right here at my house.  They tell me I’m a good cook.”  Michelle paused, causing Nick to say, “I’m sorry, it’s too soon.”

“It’s not that,” Michelle said.  “I already started making lunch here.  I was wondering if you’d like to come here and join me for lunch.”

“That’s me you hear ringing your bell,” Nick said, looking at the address he had just written down.  “I can be there in ten minutes.  What are you making?”

“Spaghetti,” Michelle said.  “If you want, you can bring the wine.”

“I’m on it,” Nick said, thanked her and hung up.  He didn’t have any wine but knew where he could pick some up along the way.  Nick slipped into his jacket again and hurried back out to his car.  Michelle lived just three miles from his house and Nick knew where there was a liquor store along the way.

Once inside the store, Nick looked at the rows and rows of wine bottle and was thoroughly confused.  He walked up to the counter and asked the clerk which wine went with spaghetti and was personally led down the aisle.  The clerk pulled a bottle off the shelf and said, “Can’t miss with this one.”

Nick got back into his car and continued on his way to Michelle’s house.  He was no more than three blocks from his destination when some inattentive kid on a bike pedaled right out in front of him.  Nick stood on the brakes and the kid just kept peddling on his way.  Nick was unscathed.  The bottle of wine on his lap, however, didn’t fare as well.  It broke against the steering wheel and spilled out all over Nick’s lap.

By the time Nick walked up to the door, all he had in his hand was the jagged neck of the wine bottle and a large red stain on the front of his pants.  “It’s actually a pretty funny story,” Nick said when the door opened and Michelle stood there hysterically laughing.

“Come on in,” she said, taking the bottle neck from him and sniffing it.  “Ooh, you picked out a good one, too.”

That was all it took to get Nick in a better mood and soon he was laughing, too.  The lunch date was still special in Nick’s eyes, even if they had to drink diet soda with the spaghetti.  After the meal, Michelle went into the bathroom and returned with a large bath towel, handing it to Nick.  “Here, put this on and let me throw those pants in the washer.  I can’t send you home like that.”

Nick did as he was told, setting his keys and wallet and comb on the kitchen counter before slipping the belt out of the loops and turning over his pants to Michelle.  As the pants agitated in the washer, Nick and Michelle sat in the living room, getting to know each other a little better.  “Would you like to tell me a little about your business?” Michelle asked, making sure Nick was comfortable next to her on the sofa.

Nick spent the next two minutes giving Michelle the condensed version of a typical day at work.  “Well, Michelle, that’s about it.  It’s not like people see on TV.  There’s a lot of waiting around for something to happen.  Tell me a little about what you do.”

“Only if you stop calling me Michelle,” she said.  “Most of my friends and colleagues call me Shelley and I wish you would, too.”

Nick stopped dead in his tracks with a look on his face that told Michelle that she’d hit a nerve.  “What is it, Nick,” she said.  “Did I say something wrong?”

Nick took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  “I guess it’s all right for your friends and colleagues, but I’d prefer to call you Michelle, if it’s all the same to you.”  When he saw the disappointed look on her face, Nick explained, “You see, I was married for a long time to my wife, Shelley and it just brought me back to that terrible day when she died.  If you don’t like Michelle, do you have a nickname I could use?”

Michelle slid closer to Nick and laid an arm on his shoulder.  “I’m so sorry, Nick.  Of course you can call me Michelle.  And now that I think of it, you’ll be the only one who does and I’d consider that something special between us.”

The next day at work, Nick couldn’t wait to tell John and Abby about his chance encounter at the grocery store and his first date with the lovely woman.  He figured he’d leave out the part about taking his pants off in her house.

It was later that week that Lieutenant Steve Stone walked into the Cooper office.  He was glad to have found all three of the Coopers there, even though two of them were playing solitaire on their computers and one of them was reading the paper.  “Oops,” Stone said.  “I didn’t know you were all busy.  I can come back later when you’re not so busy.”

John and Abby both closed their laptops and Nick laid his paper down, inviting Steve to have a seat across from him.  “Is it your turn already to head up pedestrian safety week and show us all how to cross the street?”

Stone just rolled his eyes and shook his head.  “Well, at least if this business goes belly up, you can always fall back on that other job.”

“What job is that?” Nick asked.

“Stand-up comedian,” Stone replied.  Anyway, if I can get back to the reason I stopped by.”

“Sorry, Steve,” Nick said.  “What is it?”

“I’m sure by now you’ve read about that new body farm that went up on the edge of town a while back,” Steve began.  “Makes me appreciate the job I already have.  I couldn’t face going into work every day if I knew that all I had to look forward to was counting the maggots on some stiff out in the yard.”  He looked at Abby’s wincing face and said, “Sorry, Abby.”

“Abby?” John said.  “What about me?  I’m about ready to upchuck my breakfast, too.”

“Anyway,” Stone went on.  “I just thought you might find it interesting that the people who run that place called us this morning after they’d taken inventory and came up with one stiff too many.  They were supposed to have twenty-three bodies but ended up counting twenty-four.  That was yesterday and it took them until this morning to narrow it down to which one didn’t belong there.”

Nick and John exchanged a confused look.  “And this involves us how?” Nick said.

“It really doesn’t,” Stone explained.  I just thought you’d find it interesting that we ended up with this particular case,” Stone said.

“Well, that would be a given, wouldn’t it?” Abby asked.

“Yeah, but the interesting part is that we traced the DNA from the extra stiff and it came back to one Lila Berger.”

Nick blinked a couple times.  “And?”

“And she was part of a cold case from eight years ago,” Stone explained.  “Her husband reported her missing back then, saying he thought she’d run off with another man.”

“Uh oh,” John said.  “Sounds like someone’s in trouble.” 

“Uh oh is right,” Steve replied.  “My men picked up the husband earlier and he can’t come up with a feasible explanation why his wife’s body suddenly showed up.”

“You were right, Steve,” Nick said.  “I found it interesting at least.  You got to close out a cold case and that body farm got to help you with the death timeline.  Sounds like that place may just help make your job easier from now on.  I tell you, if I…”  Just then Nick’s phone rang.  “Cooper Investigations, Nick speaking.”  He put his handover the mouthpiece and looked at Stone.  “I’ll talk to you later.”  He pulled his hand off the phone and said, “How may I help you today?”

Jump

Private Investigator Nick Cooper and his new found girlfriend, Michelle Lewis had been dating for six weeks and they were really starting to get comfortable with each other.  He was able to talk about his relationship openly with his son, John, who was somewhat of a newlywed himself, having married his girlfriend Abby Ross less than a year ago.  It was John who had originally suggested that Nick and Michelle go out on a double date with him and Abby and Nick agreed.  The night went very well and before it was over everyone knew each other a lot better.

John especially liked the story Nick had told him about the time he and Michelle took Nick’s car through the car wash and got stuck in the middle when the chain drive that moved the cars along the track broke.  Nick and Michelle had to sit there in the middle of the water spray, soap application and spinning brushes while they waited for someone to fix the machinery and let them out again.  After twenty minutes with nothing happening, Nick got impatient and opened his door to go find out why no one was making any progress.  By the time he made it to the manager’s office, he was covered from head to toe in a wet soapy lather that made him look somewhat like a soggy snowman.

Had he stayed put in the car with Michelle, they would both have come out of the ordeal poorer by having lost twenty-five minutes of their life that they’d never get back, but both would have been safe and dry.  The story would be fodder for teasing for the next six months.  However, whenever Nick had had enough of Michelle’s teasing him, he’d just turn the tables and remind her of the time she tried to surprise him by making him a cheesecake from scratch.  During the first part of the procedure, Michelle had inadvertently used olive oil to grease the pan, turning what should have been a taste treat into one big pile of inedible garbage, but not before Nick had taken a big bite.  He struggled between making believe he liked it and throwing up.

It was the start of a new work week at Cooper Investigations and right off the bat, Nick took on a case wherein he had to tail a couple and report back to his client.  In order to appear more believable, Nick asked Michelle if she’d like to pose as his wife during the tail job so they’d blend in better.  Michelle said she’d like nothing better than to go on this little adventure, as she called it, but she couldn’t get off of work on the day Nick needed her.  Instead he decided to use one of his small, silent drones to follow the couple.

John managed to get a case for himself that same day.  He’d been hired to look into the background of a man that his client had suspected of embezzlement.  He didn’t need to start tailing the guy until three-thirty that afternoon.  One of John’s first steps in his investigation was to pay a visit to his old friend at the Twelfth Precinct, Lieutenant Steve Stone to see if the man he would be following had any criminal records.  Steve was in and was glad to look up the subject in the state and nationwide database.

As Lieutenant Stone tapped the keys on his computer, John patiently waited in the chair across from Steve.  As he sat there, he noticed what looked to be a police artist’s rendering of a middle-aged man’s face.  He took hold of the drawing and turned it around to face him for a better look.  “Who’s this?” John said to the back of Stone’s head.

Stone turned around and saw what John was referring to.  “An assault victim described that man to our police artist earlier this morning.  I was just about to have a couple dozen copies made for my men on the beat.  It’ll be just a matter of time before we find him and bring him in for a lineup.”  When he noticed the strange look on John’s face, he asked, “What’s with the tortured look on your face?  You know this guy?”

John shook his head.  “I don’t know; the face seems awfully familiar put I can’t place him.  But I know I’ve seen this face just recently.  It’s going to bug me if I can’t remember where.”

Steve turned back around when his computer sounded and a page filled the screen with information about the guy John was supposed to follow.  Here we go; Mark Buckley, 46, from Los Angeles.  Is that your guy?”

“That’s the right name,” John agreed.  “What kind of a record does he have?”

“Oh, he’s a real desperado, all right,” Stone said.  “One parking ticket.”

“And?”

“And that’s it.  He’s clean as a blue tick hound.”

“I can’t imagine that blue tick hounds are very clean,” John remarked.  “But it looks like I wasted your time for nothing; sorry, Steve.”

“Don’t worry about it.  It was just two minutes out of my day.  Besides, if you finally do remember where you saw that guy before it could help us find him.  Just keep thinking and give me a call if it comes to you.”  Steve ran the drawing through his copier and gave a copy to John.  “Here; this might help you remember where you saw him before.”

“Thanks for your help, Steve,” John said right before he left Stone’s office and drove back to his own.  When he got back to the office Nick was just packing one of his drones into a cardboard box, along with other assorted surveillance equipment.  “Headin’ out, Dad?”

Nick nodded.  “I’ll probably be out for the rest of the day.  Lock up before you leave and don’t forget to turn on the answering machine.”

It was only then that John noticed that Abby was gone.  “Where’s Abby?”

“You know how women are,” Nick said.  “Always curious and always needing to know what everyone else is doing.  Well, she’s been watching out the window at someone moving into the building in that vacant office on the second floor.  She won’t rest until she can come back and give a full report on who moved in and what it is that they do.  She’ll probably be back before you have to leave.”

“Well, I would hope so,” John replied.  “I don’t have to start my tail job until three-thirty and it’s only quarter to ten.  How long could it possibly take to snoop on the new neighbors?”

“Couldn’t tell you,” Nick said.  “Look, I gotta get moving on my case.  If it works out like I hope it will, I should be able to get the evidence my client needs to win his court case.  Talk to you later.”  And with that Nick was gone, leaving John alone in the office.

On the second floor, Abby was busy pretending to walk past the new tenant’s office on the second floor.  By the time she’d walked past a third time, a woman came out of the office and stepped in front of Abby.

“Are you lost?” the woman asked.  “This is the third time I’ve seen you go by here.”

Abby was at a loss for a credible answer but came up with something off the top of her head.  “I have an office almost directly above yours and I just wanted to stop by and welcome you to the building.  My name is Abby Cooper.”  She extended her hand but the woman didn’t reciprocate.

“Don’t waste your time; I won’t be here long enough for us to form any kind of a bond.  I’ll be gone by the end of the week.  Good day.”  The woman walked back into her office and closed the door.

“And a good day to you, too,” Abby said to the closed door before she headed back up to her own office.  When she got back John was standing at the south window, looking down at the pedestrians on Hollywood Boulevard.  “Oh, you’re back,” she said to her husband.  “How’d it go down at the cop shop?”

“It was worth the trip,” John replied.  “I at least learned that my target is as clean as a blue tick hound, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”  He looked at the copy of the police sketch he was holding and turned to show it to Abby.  “And Steve gave me one of these.  It’s supposed to be a drawing of some guy who assaulted a woman.  They’re passing them around to the patrolmen.”

Abby took the drawing from John and stared at for a moment before she said, “I think I’ve seen this face somewhere before.”

“That’s the same thing I said when Steve showed it to me.  It’s gonna drive me crazy unless I can remember where I saw it before.”

Abby scratched her head and added, “Seems I know this face and when I last saw it, the guy was holding some sort of wrench or maybe it was another tool; I don’t remember.  Just give it some time; it’ll come back to me.”

“Maybe you saw him at a garage,” John suggested.  “Just don’t try so hard and it may come to you when you least expect it.”  He paused momentarily and then added, “Dad tells me you went downstairs to see who was moving into that vacant office on the second floor.  How’d that go?”

Abby rolled her eyes.  “Miss Congeniality gave me the brush off in no uncertain terms.  She made Don Rickles look like someone from the Welcome Wagon.  She said she’d be gone by the end of the week, but I’d still like to know what’s going on in there.  Do you know when Nick’s coming back?”

“He said he’d be out the rest of the day; why?”

“Just curious,” Abby said.

John picked up Nick’s paper and sat at Nick’s desk to read it.  He was somewhere in the middle when he looked over at Abby and said, “Let me see that police sketch again.  I think I remember where I saw that face before.”  Abby stepped over to Nick’s desk with the pencil drawing and handed it to Nick, who held it next to a picture in the paper.  “No doubt about it; that’s him all right.”

Abby shook her head and immediately walked back to her desk.  “Better call Steve right away before this guy flees the jurisdiction.”

“Funny,” John replied and crumbled up the drawing, tossing it in his waste can.  “I don’t think Steve’s going to throw down a dragnet for the guy in the ad holding up the toilet paper.”

“But that’s not where I saw that face,” Abby remarked.  “But now that you showed me that ad, I remember seeing him in an ad for motor oil.  He was playing the part of a mechanic.  Poor Steve; back to square one, I guess.”

The rest of the day passed uneventfully.  John and Abby returned home to the house they had purchased from the bank when the original owners both died on the same day, leaving an eighteen month mortgage.  It was a great deal for John and Abby and the bank got their last eighteen payments without having to foreclose.

Nick finished his day of surveillance and got the evidence that his client was looking for but he’d wait until the next day to turn over his report.  Shortly after he arrived home, he called Michelle to see if she’d like to go out to dinner with him.

“That would have been a good idea,” Michelle said, “but I just finished my dinner here at home.  What about you?”

“I thought I’d grab a sandwich and a glass of milk, watch a little TV and go to bed early.  I’ve been on the go all day and I’m beat, but how’d you like to go out somewhere tomorrow night?”

“Count me in,” Michelle said.  “Any idea where you’d like to go?”

“I’ll let you pick the place,” Nick said.  “You’ll have nearly a whole day to think about it.  You can let me know when I come by to pick you up.  Good night.”  He retreated to the kitchen for his sandwich and glass of milk and then into the living room for just one episode of his favorite show.

The following day back in his office, Nick grew restless at his desk and stood, stepping over to the south window.  On the Hollywood Boulevard sidewalk below people came and went by the hundreds and that made Nick wonder where all these people were going.  Didn’t they have jobs to go to?

“What’s out there, Dad?” John asked.  “What’s so interesting?”

“Just looking at all the pedestrians,” Nick replied.

“Kind of makes you wonder where they’re all going, doesn’t it?” John asked.

“That’s just what I was thinking.”  Nick was about to step back over to his desk but decided to take one more look three floors down to the street.  He stopped and took a closer look at a crowd of people gathering on all four intersection corners and pointing upward.  “Something’s going on out there,” Nick said.  “I think I’ll go down and have a look.”

As Nick left the office, John stepped over to the window to see what his father was referring to.

Once on the street, Nick hurried over to the corner and tried to see what so many people were pointing at.  He could hear a definite undertone in the crowd.  “What’s going on here?” Nick asked the first man he ran into.

The man pointed up and said, “There’s some idiot on the ledge of the ninth floor.  Right now you can only see the tips of his shoes, but every now and then he leans forward and you can see his head.  He must be some kind of a nut.”

Nick rushed back into his building and took the elevator to the ninth floor.  He stepped out and guessed about where the man was standing to determine which office he would have had to climbed out.  He turned left and hurried to the end of the hall.  The office he was looking for would have to be located six floors right above his on the corner.  The door was unlocked but Nick still knocked and when no one answered, he left himself in.  The south window was standing wide open and the curtains were being sucked outward with the breeze.

Nick quietly eased over to the window and leaned out.  Just outside the window, standing on a narrow ledge was a man whose face was as white as typing paper.  He was obviously scared out of his mind.  Nick paused, deciding what to say to this man without startling him.

Before he could work up the right words, the office door opened and John stepped in.  He saw his father standing just inside the open window and whispered, “Dad, what’s happening with the guy on the ledge?  I saw all those people on the street and then looked out our window and caught a glimpse of his head when he leaned forward.”

Nick held his index finger to his lips and then said, “I was trying not to startle the poor guy.  I have to say something, but I don’t know the right words.”

“Let’s take a quick look around the office for some hints,” John suggested.

There was a desk right about where Nick’s desk was sitting six floors below.  Sitting on one corner of that desk was a framed picture of a man, his wife and a small boy.  That had to be the man’s family, even though Nick still had not seen his face for comparison.

On the floor next to that same desk John found an official looking paper with a blue cover; obviously from some court.  “Dad, look at this,” John said, handing the folded document to Nick.  “Looks like his wife just served him with divorce papers.”

Nick noticed the name on the document and in the upper left corner it gave the names of the two people involved in the divorce.  Nick read the two names to John.  “Bradley and Patricia Grayson.  I guess poor Brad just needed that one more thing to go wrong in his life.”

“Dad,” John whispered.  “See if you can get him talking and I’ll see if I can reach his wife on the phone.  She may not want to talk to him but once I tell her the situation, she may have second thoughts.”

“Good idea,” Nick said and stepped over to the window.  He stuck his head out and turned toward the man on the ledge.  In a calm, low voice, Nick said, “Mr. Grayson.”

The man quickly turned his head toward the sound of the voice.  “Go away; don’t you come near me.”

Nick shook his head.  “Not me; no sir.  I’m afraid of heights.  I just wanted to talk to you if I may.  I found your divorce papers on the floor.  You know, divorce doesn’t have to be the end of the world.  While I may not have been divorced, I lost my wife some time ago.  She died on the job, riding next to me in our car.  It took me a while to get over my loss, but every day it got easier and I’m sure if you give it some time yourself, you may find that life is actually worth living.  If not for your sake, think about what something like this would do to your little boy.  It wouldn’t be fair to him to make him have to grow up without you in his life.”

“What are you talking about?” the man said, tears running down his face.

“I found the framed picture of you and Patricia and the boy on your desk,” Nick explained.  “What’s the boy’s name?”

“Brad, Jr.,” Grayson answered.

“He’s a fine looking boy, Mr. Grayson.  I’m sure he’ll grow up to be…”

“He’s dead,” Grayson almost shouted.

Nick was taken by surprise.  “What; how; when?”

Grayson wiped his face with the palm of his right hand.  “Seven months ago,” he explained.  “Patty was out shopping and I was supposed to be watching little Brad.  I only left him alone for a minute to use the bathroom when I heard the thump.  When I came out, my son was lying on the hardwood floor.  He had apparently climbed up onto a shelf, trying to reach something colorful up there.  He lost his grasp and fell backwards, landing on his head.  He lingered in the hospital for nearly a week before he died.  Patty just came apart and eventually blamed me for his death.  And then today I get served with divorce papers.”

“I’m so sorry to hear about your son, Mr. Grayson,” Nick said, mustering up all the sympathy he could.  “I can just imagine how you felt.  My son is here with me now.  We have an office six floors directly below this office.  I don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost him after losing my wife.  Please come in and let me talk to you about all this.  Maybe we can work something out.”

John stepped over to the window, holding his cell phone out to Nick.  “I have his wife on the phone.  I explained what’s going on and she wants to talk to him.”

Nick took the phone from John and held it out toward Grayson.  “Brad, I have Patti on the phone; she’d like to say something to you.”

Grayson slid two steps closer toward the window and held his hand out.  Nick gave him the phone and then retreated into the office to give them a little privacy.  But even from where he stood he could hear Mrs. Grayson’s only word to her husband.  “JUMP,” she yelled into the phone before she disconnected the call.

Nick hurried back to the window just in time to see John’s cell phone fall to the sidewalk below and smash into a hundred pieces.  He looked up at Grayson and could see in the man’s eyes that he had made a decision.  Before Nick could say another word, Bradley Grayson calmly stepped off the ledge and plunged a hundred feet to the pavement.  The crowd quickly parted, leaving just enough room for Grayson to become one with the cement.  Women screamed; men threw up and children cried.  Police sirens wailed in the background and soon two black and white patrol cars screeched to a stop in front of the Cahuenga Building.  Two uniformed patrolmen took charge of the scene on the street, keeping the crowd away from the victim.  In another two minutes, two more uniformed cops stepped into the office to find Nick and John standing there, white-faced, hugging each other.

“Nick,” the first cop, a sergeant named Mike Becker said.  “What are you and John doing here?  Is this where the man on the street jumped from?”

Nick nodded.  “I tried talking to him but he’d already made up his mind.  There was nothing I could do, Mike.

“Did you get the victim’s name?” Becker asked.

Nick picked up the divorce papers from the desk and handed them to the sergeant.  “This was what he was so upset about.  Well, that and his son.”  Nick explained about the jumper’s dead son.  “I guess something like that was enough to send him over the edge, so to speak.”

“Stop down at the precinct, would you both?” Becker said.  “I’m going to need statements from both of you before we can close out this case.”

“Just let us stop back at our office first,” John said.  “Then Dad and I will drive right over.  I just need to let Abby know where we’re going.”

Nick and John slowly walked back to the elevator and rode it down to the third floor.  It was only as he was stepping out of the elevator that John remembered his cell phone.  “Uh yeah; about that,” Nick said.  “You’re going to need to buy yourself another phone.  Unless you know how to put those hundred pieces back where they belong.”

After they’d finished giving their statements to Lieutenant Stone, Nick told him what he had heard Mrs. Grayson yell to her husband.  “Is there anything she can be charged with?” Nick asked.

“Aside from being a cruel and heartless bitch?” Stone said.  “I don’t think there’s any laws on the books to cover something like that.  She can always claim that she never said anything like that.  She could always say that she was listening to Van Halen just then and it was actually David Lee Roth who yelled, ‘JUMP’ and that’s what Brad Grayson actually heard.  No, I think we just have to let this one go, but thanks for everything, Nick.  You, too, John.  I guess I’ll see you both later.”

When John relayed the details of the story to Abby, she held up one palm toward her husband and said, “That’s too much information.”  She held that same hand to her stomach and just shook her head.  “Barbra Streisand didn’t know what she was talking about when she sang about people needing people.  That heartless wife of his reminds me of another saying I’ve heard for most of my life.  Hell is other people.”

John nodded in agreement.  “Sure seems like it sometimes.”

Awkward Encounter

Nick and his new girlfriend, Michelle had been dating for a little better than three months and they’d become comfortable with each other.  Sometimes there were things that Michelle did or said that reminded Nick of his first wife, Shelley, who had been killed on the job nineteen months earlier.  On this particular night the two of them had decided to take in a movie at the Pantages Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.  After some debate about what to see, they settled on an historical epic set in the eighteenth century United States.  After the movie, they both agreed that they should have gone with either of their first choices.  At least that way one of them would have been entertained.  They shrugged it off as two hours of their lives that they’d never get back again.

On their way out of the theater Michelle excused herself to visit the ladies’ room and told Nick she’d meet him in the lobby.  The outer lobby was crowded and Nick bumped into the man ahead of him.  The man turned around and looked like he was about to complain when his face suddenly took on a friendly look and he said, “Nick Cooper, is that you?”  He offered his hand.

Nick paused and said, “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.  The face looks familiar but I can’t place the name.”

“Scotty Lewis; you worked on a case for me about three years ago.  But then I suppose you meet so many people through the course of your private investigator job that you can’t remember everybody.  Let me help you out; you followed one of my ex-employees who claimed he couldn’t work because he hurt his back and you caught him doing all kinds of strenuous things.”

“I handled so many of those kinds of cases, but now that you say your name, I think I remember you; Lewis.”  Nick’s words trailed off and he furrowed his brow.  He shook his head and said, “No, that’s a pretty common name.”

Just then Michelle caught up with Nick in the lobby and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the man Nick was talking to.  Nick turned and saw Michelle standing at his side and said to the man, “Scotty, I’d like you to meet my…”

“Hello, Michelle,” Scotty said.  “Long time no see.”

“Not long enough,” Michelle shot back.  “What are you doing here?”

Nick looked puzzled and looked back at Michelle.  “You two know each other?”

Scotty had to laugh out loud and then said, “Nick, looks like we have more than just that old case in common.  “Michelle is my ex-wife.”

“And you found that funny?” Michelle said coldly.  “Come on, Nick; let’s get out of here.”

Nick looked at Scotty and just shrugged, spreading his hands before he and Michelle walked away.  “So that was your ex-husband,” Nick said.  “Talk about your awkward encounter.  I take it you two did not part on good terms.”

“To say the least,” Michelle replied.  “Can we just drop it and try to salvage what’s left of this night?”

“And to top it all off, Scotty was a past client of mine,” Nick added.  “I think I can safely say that he’ll never use my services again, not that it matters to me, you understand.”  When Michelle gave Nick a stern look, he said, “And I think now would be a good time to drop the subject.  Could you stand a bite to eat?  I’m kinda hungry myself.”

Michelle sighed and said, “That sounds like a good idea.  Where would you like to eat?”

“How about the Gold Cup?” Nick suggested.  “They should still be open tonight.”  He walked Michelle back to his car and the two of them drove the four blocks west on the boulevard, parking across the street in the Cahuenga Building parking lot.  The Gold Cup was just a block west and across the street.  Nick found a booth near the window and let Michelle slide in first before sliding in next to her.

Nick picked up a menu and started scrolling down the first page of choices but Michelle hadn’t even bothered to pick up her menu.  Nick laid his down again and said, “Obviously this has upset you.  Are you sure you don’t want to tell me about it?  I’m a great listener.”  He laid his hand on top of hers.

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to air it just once more but then let’s hear no more about it ever again; agreed?”

“Agreed,” Nick said.  “I’d like to start the ball rolling by asking why you two broke up in the first place, if that’s not prying too much.”

“All right,” Michelle said.  “We were married just three and a half years when I caught him cheating on me with my best friend, Debbie.  Of course, he denied everything until I told him what I had found out through some of my other friends.  After that, we separated and he moved out.  We got divorced eight weeks later to the day.  I’d heard later on that he had moved in with Debbie; the one he was having the affair with.”

Nick squeezed Michelle’s hand and remained quiet for a moment before he could think of something supportive to say.  “You can’t blame yourself.  It sounds to me like the problem was all his.  And if I may add; the one good thing to come out of all of that was that I got to know you and love you and for that I have to thanks Scotty’s indiscretions.   And unless you have anything more on the subject, it’s in the vault and we never have to talk about it again unless you want to unload on me some more.”

Michelle smiled with wet eyes and squeezed Nick’s hands.  “Thank you, Nick.  I’m so glad you were a terrible grocery cart driver or we’d have never met.”  She pulled one of her hands away, produced a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her eyes.  “Now, let’s try some of this fabulous looking food.”

As they ate, Michelle hesitated and Nick picked up on it.  “Was there something you wanted to say?”

Michelle swallowed her food and washed it down with some soda before clearing her throat.  “I was just wondering what being a private eye all involves.  I mean, I’ve watched you work before, but I was still curious about how you track someone down that a client wants you to find.”

“Why the sudden interest in my work?” Nick asked.  “Is there someone you want tracked down?”  He smiled as if what he had just said was in jest.  When Michelle didn’t find the humor in it, he asked again.  “There is, isn’t there?  Care to tell me about it?”

Michelle hesitated for just a moment and then said, “My mother’s first ‘boyfriend’ after my father died said he was a retired cop and a veteran.  He and my mother enjoyed dancing to country music together, eating at fancy restaurants and going to movies.  I guess the red flag was when she told me that she paid for everything.  Later in their relationship that they had bought a new car in her name, even though mom couldn’t drive anymore.  Nick, I’m afraid this guy is taking advantage of my mother and I was wondering if…”

“Say no more,” Nick assured her.  “I can start on this case first thing tomorrow morning if you want.”

“Would you really, Nick?” Michelle said.  “That would really put my mind at ease.”

“Let me ask you something,” Nick replied.  “Does your mother still have that car they bought?”

Michelle shook her head.  “No, that gigolo left town with it three days ago and mom hasn’t heard a word from him since.”

“Gigolo?” Nick said.  “How old is your mother and how old was that guy?”

“Mom just turned seventy-five a couple of months ago,” Michelle explained.  “And that guy who fleeced her was probably no more than forty or so.”

“Well, that at least gives me some place to start my search,” Nick replied.  “We can track down the license plates and registration to find out where the car is.  He won’t be far from it.  Don’t you worry; I’ll find him.  If I have to I’ll pick him up by the ankles and shake any money he has left right out of his pockets.  There’s probably nothing that can be done about recouping the money your mother paid while they were out doing whatever she paid for.  And one more thing; did you happen to learn his name?  That would be a big help in finding him.”

“I only heard it once or twice,” Michelle said.  “I heard mom call him Lance and then another time she referred to him as Mr. Gardner.  Will that help you find him?”

“He’s as good as caught,” Nick assured her.  “When could I speak with your mother?  She may have more information about this guy I could use.”

“Oh, don’t do that, Nick.  Mom doesn’t know that I know or that I’ve asked you for help.  Besides, it might embarrass her.”

“All right,” Nick agreed.  “I’ll work around your mother for now.  But eventually she may be asked to testify in court once I find the guy and return your mother’s car.”

For the first time that night, Michelle was able to work up a weak smile.  “Thank you, Nick.  I’m sure mom will appreciate any effort you put out for her.  And as for your fee, I’ll…”

“Forget it,” Nick said.  “I’d do this one just for the satisfaction of catching up with that low life and making him accountable for his actions.  And if it turns out that the old bastard had a habit of shacking up with widows and bleeding them dry, we can prosecute him for that as well.  I have plenty of friends on the police department that would be eager to get their hands on a guy like that.”

The two of them finished their meal and Nick drove Michelle back to her apartment.  He kissed her good night and told her he’d be starting on her mother’s case first thing in the morning.  The next day in the office, Nick explained to John and Abby what he would be doing for the next few days and asked John if he would like to help him.

“Sorry, Dad,” John replied.  “Sounds like it could be an interesting case, Dad, but I’m already contracted to look into someone’s background for my client.”

Nick turned to Abby and before he could even ask, she said, “I’m in.  Where to first?”

Nick pulled his jacket off the coat hook and slipped it over his shoulder holster.  “Come on, Abby; we can start at the Twelfth Precinct.  Someone there should be able to give us some information on our elusive Mr. Gardner.  And once we report Michelle’s mother’s car as stolen, an APB will narrow down our search.”  He and Abby left the office and drove the four blocks south to the police station.  It turned out that Lance Gardner had a record for larceny.  No big surprise there.  Nick wrote down the address from the database screen and thanked Lieutenant Steve Stone for his assistance.  “If we find him and the car, I’ll call you so you can cancel the APB and just come pick him up.  We should be able to return the car to Michelle’s mother.”

The address Nick had written down was about three miles south of the police station and a mile east.  It was early for a guy like Lance Gardner to be out of bed yet and Nick didn’t foresee any problems picking him up.  It took him nearly half an hour to drive to the Gardner residence, which turned out to be a four story apartment building on the corner of Eight and Magnolia.  From checking the registration, Nick learned that the car in question was this year’s model Toyota Sedan in a bright candy apple red.  And there it sat at the curb in front of the apartment building.

Nick and Abby slid out of Nick’s car and stood in front of the Gardner residence.  They walked around to the back of the building and determined that the front door was the only way out.  Nick instructed Abby to wait at the front entrance while he went inside to learn which apartment Lance Gardner called home.  From the names on the mailbox in the lobby, Nick found Gardner’s name on the mailbox for apartment four on the first floor.  He stood just to the right of the door and gently knocked on the door to apartment four.  When he got no answer, he knocked again, harder this time.

“Yeah, yeah, keep your shirt on; I’m coming,” the voice from inside said.  A moment later the door opened and a young looking man yawned and said, “Whatever it is you’re selling, I don’t want any.”  He started to close the door when Nick held it open with his left hand.

“Lance Gardner?” Nick said.

“Who wants to know?”

“I’m here to pick up the car,” Nick said and held his open palm up toward Gardner.  “The keys.”

“Or what?”

Nick’s open palm turned into a clenched fist and he held it up to Gardner’s face.  Suddenly Gardner came awake and grabbed Nick’s left wrist and twisted it away from his face.  His bravado had increased ten fold and he said, “Scram pops or I’ll…”

“You’ll what?” Nick said, the barrel of his .38 revolver now pressed up against the underside of Gardner’s chin.

As soon as he cocked the hammer, Gardner released Nick’s wrist and stepped back.  “I don’t want any trouble, mister.  You can have the car; here.”  He handed Nick the Toyota keys and then held both hands up in surrender.  “Hey, I didn’t steal it.  The old lady let me use it.”

“That old lady, as you call her,” Nick began, “is my friend’s mother and from what she tells me you’ve been taking advantage of her.  How’d you ever find her in the first place?  What did you do; look her up in some social register and find out that she was loaded?”

“What are you talking about?” Gardner replied.  “I never called her; she called me.”

Nick face took on an expression of confusion.  “She what?  How did she even know you?”

“She didn’t,” Gardner explained.  “She called the agency and they sent me over.”

“Agency; what agency are you talking about?”

“The escort agency.  Sometimes older women just want some company.  You know; someone to take them to dinner and pay a little attention to them.”  When Gardner saw the dubious look on Nick’s face, he added, “But that’s all there is to it.  There’s no sex involved.  And all Violet wanted was someone to talk to and pay attention to her and that’s what the agency provided.  I ain’t no gigolo, if that’s what you were thinking.”

Nick eased the hammer back down and holstered his gun again.  He was beginning to see another side to this whole dilemma and he felt just a little foolish.  “I’m still going to need to take that car back to her and I think it would be best if you didn’t see Violet anymore after this.”

“Don’t worry; I won’t.  Who needs this kind of aggravation?  The agency will still have plenty of other women that would appreciate my services.”

While he stood there, Nick produced his cell phone and called Lieutenant Stone so that Gardner could hear the conversation.  “Steve, it’s Nick.  You can cancel that APB on Lance Gardner.  The whole thing was one big misunderstanding.  He didn’t steal that car, but I’m still going to bring it back to its owner.  Thanks for your help; I’ll talk to you later.”  He disconnected the call, looked once more at Gardner and left the apartment without another word.

“Did you find him?” Abby asked as Nick exited the apartment building.

Nick exhaled deeply and handed Abby the keys to Violet’s car.  “Talk about your awkward encounter,” Nick said.  “I’ll tell you all about it when we get back to the office.  You can leave the car in our parking lot.  I’ll have Michelle drive it back to her mother’s later today.”

Later that morning, after calling Michelle, Nick drove out to pick her up and bring her back to his parking lot for Violet’s car.  He explained the whole situation on their ride back to the office.

Michelle was obviously embarrassed for having involved Nick in the first place.  “I think it might be better if we didn’t bring this up to mom.  I can just tell her that some guy named Lance dropped her car off and told me to tell her that he wouldn’t be able to see her anymore.  She doesn’t need to know that I asked you to get involved.  I think I’ll just have to let mom live her own life and stay out of it as far as who she sees and what they do.”

“I think that would be for the best,” Nick agreed.

Back in Nick’s parking lot, Michelle slid out of Nick’s car and into her mother’s.  She rolled down the driver’s side window when Nick stepped up to it and rested his hands on the door frame.  “And one last thing, not that it matters one way or the other to you, but Scotty called me after I got back home last night.  He just wanted to let me know that he and Debbie would be getting married next week.”

“Well, that was kind of sudden, wouldn’t you say?” Nick replied.

Now it was Michelle who had to snicker.  “Something tells me that Debbie may be pregnant and isn’t that a fitting punishment for that two-timing ex of mine?  Now he can suffer through eighteen years of raising a kid and wiping his mouth and changing diapers.”

Nick found that hilarious and said as much to Michelle.

“What’s so funny?” Michelle asked.

“Think about it; at this stage of the game, by the time he’s grown up, that kid will be changing Scotty’s diapers.  Double whammy, if you ask me.”

Michelle patted the top of Nick’s hand.  “You know, Nick, sometimes when I feel like life isn’t fair, all I’ll have to do now is think of what Scotty will be going through and suddenly the rainbow will come out and the birds will be singing.  Call me tonight and we’ll think of something the two of us can do.”

“You’re on,” Nick said and walked into his office building.

Pot of Gold

Abby Cooper stood at the south window of her husband’s private investigations office, looking down at the pedestrians on Hollywood Boulevard.  They were all walking faster than usual, occasionally looking toward the skies.  Without turning around she said to her husband, John, who sat at his desk surfing the web on his laptop, “The sky’s getting darker every minute.  Those people down there are going to get soaked for sure if they don’t duck inside the nearest building.”

“Them?” John said.  “What about Dad?  If that case he’s on involves tailing some guy on foot, he’ll get soaked as well.  I just hope he has enough sense to come in out of the rain.”

The words were no sooner out of his mouth when a lightning bolt flashed nearby and thunder cracked so loud that Abby had to hold her ears shut.  “You had to mention rain, didn’t you?” She said.  “Now they’re all running for it down there, like a herd of scared sheep out in the field.”  She looked out again and added, “Oh great; now the wind’s picking up, too.  I wouldn’t be surprised if…”

She didn’t get to finish her sentence when the lights in the office went out.  John turned to his wife and said, “You’d better get away from that window in case we get another close lightning strike.  You’re probably safest at your own desk.  It’s far enough away from there.  You know, I think I just may join you.”  He rolled his desk chair out from behind his desk on the east wall and over to Abby’s desk.  They both kept their eyes on the south window where heavy rain was pounding against the glass and being blown across it.

Out on the street two miles from his office, Nick Cooper had decided to stop following his subject and ran for cover in a local drug store.  Maybe he could pick up the trail again once the rain stopped.  If it did, Nick hoped there’d be a rainbow across the sky and that at the end of the rainbow would be a pot of gold for him.

Once inside the drug store, he glanced out the window at the last place he had seen the man he was tailing.  He could still see him running down the street.  Nick almost swallowed his tongue when he saw the bolt of lightning strike the man on top of his head.  The man’s body flew up into the air several feet and came down hard on the sidewalk.  If he wasn’t already dead, he surely had a head full of curly, charred hair at least.  He stayed put and told the druggist to call 9-1-1 to report the man on the sidewalk who had been struck by lightning.  Obviously his case had just ended and there was no need for him to stick around to talk to the ambulance attendants.  He just stood there looking out the drug store window, waiting for a break in the rain so he could make a run for his car.

Three minutes later the ambulance pulled up alongside the dead man and checked for signs of life.  When they found what they expected to, they loaded the victim into the back of their ambulance and drove away in no particular hurry and with the lights out and the siren silenced.  It took another eight minutes for the rain to let up and Nick seized the opportunity to make a break for it.  His car was parked three blocks away and he was pretty wet by the time he slid behind the wheel and started the engine.  Before he pulled away from the curb, he retrieved his cell phone and called his office.

Abby answered right away.  “Cooper Investigations, Abby speaking.”

“Abby, it’s Nick.  I got caught in the storm and I just now noticed that the lights are out all over this block.”

“Here, too,” Abby said.  “That last lightning strike must have knocked out the power for this whole neighborhood.  The lights are all out on the boulevard.  John and I are just sitting here wondering what’s going to go wrong next.”

“Let me talk to him, would you?” Nick said.  When John came on the phone, Nick said, “You might as well close up the office and turn on the answering machine.  I just lost the case I was on and I’m going straight home from here.  I’ll see you both in the morning.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” John replied.  “Drive careful; the traffic lights are also out around here.”  John hung up and turned to Abby.  “Let’s go; Dad said to close ‘er up for today.  Nobody is going to come looking for a private eye on a day like this anyway.”

John and Abby hurried out to their cars and drove home in the rain, being extra cautious at the uncontrolled corners.  They parked both of their cars in the garage to protect them from possible hail, if that’s what this storm held in store for Los Angeles.  He had to get out and manually lift both garage doors since their remotes didn’t work.  Weather like this was very unusual for Southern California, especially this time of the year.  He would be willing to bet his life savings that this would not be the day that photographers would be taking the post card photos to show off their state.

John and Abby’s neighborhood was also blacked out.  Abby held her flashlight out for John to be able to see to lower both garage doors by hand.  The two of them walked in through the side garage door into the house and reflexively flipped on the light switch.  He felt stupid when the lights didn’t come on.  Abby lit up the kitchen with her flashlight and held it toward the drawer where John kept a second flashlight.  Now they could both maneuver around the house independently.  They both hung up their coats and retreated to the living room where they flopped down on the sofa, their flashlight beams lighting up the ceiling above them.

Back at Nick’s house, he too had to manually open his garage door and retreat into the house with the flashlight he kept in his car.  He slipped out of his coat, sat at his kitchen table and called Michelle’s cell phone.  He and his new girlfriend had met by accident several months earlier in the grocery store and had been keeping steady company ever since.

“Nick,” Michelle said after seeing his name come up on her caller I.D. screen.  “Are you all right?  My place is without power and I suppose yours is, too.  I don’t know what I’m going to do if the power doesn’t come back on soon.  I have a freezer full of perishables.  I’m going to have to eat what I can out of the refrigerator.”

“I have the same problem here,” Nick said.  “Only I don’t have as much food in the refrigerator as you do.  I wish I was there with you right now.”

“I know what you mean,” Michelle said.  “At least if we were together we could play cards or a board game.”

Nick laughed his dirty old man laugh.  “Or…”

“You’ve got a one track mind, Mr. Cooper,” Michelle replied.

“At least we have our phones,” Nick said.  “That is for as long as the batteries hold out.  The chargers will be useless until the power is restored.  Might as well make the best of it while we can.  If the rain lets up I could drive over there.”

“No, Nick, don’t chance it.  The streets are jammed with crazy drivers who don’t know how to behave civilly when the traffic lights aren’t working.  Just sit tight for now.”

“You’re probably right,” Nick agreed.  “Let’s just talk for a while.”

The two of them took comfort in a simple conversation which lasted more than a half hour.  It was then, during one of the lulls in the conversation that Michelle stopped talking and just listened.

“Michelle?”  When she didn’t respond, Nick tried again.  “Michelle?”

“Shhh,” Michelle said.  “It sounds like someone is turning the knob on my front door.”  She kept listening and then she heard a thump, like someone trying to force the door.  “Oh, Nick, someone’s trying to break in.  What should I do?”

“Do you still have that .32 caliber revolver I gave you last month?” Nick asked.

Michelle slid the end table drawer open and withdrew the firearm.  “I have it,” she told Nick.

“Quietly go to your bedroom closet and hide behind the clothes and stay absolutely quiet.  I’m on my way.”  Without waiting for a reply, Nick disconnected the call and hurried back out to his garage.  After struggling to get the door open again, he backed out onto the street and sped off toward Michelle’s house.

Michelle stood like a statue behind her dresses in the closet, the gun in her right hand.  A moment later she heard the tinkle of breaking glass and then the front door opening.  Her heart pounded out of her chest as she listened to the footsteps roaming around in her living quarters.  Those sounds lasted for several minutes and blended with the sound of drawers being opened and cupboards being searched.  Then the terrifying sound of footsteps coming closer made her gasp.

She heard her bedroom door open and more footsteps traipsing around her bedroom.  She thought she could hear someone flipping the light switch several times before giving up.  When she didn’t know if she could stand it anymore, the knob on the closet door turned and the door flew open.  A moment later a hand drew back the clothes on the rack, exposing the frightened woman hiding within.  Michelle froze like a deer in the headlights as the intruder raised his hand to reveal a gun in it.  It was pointing straight at Michelle.  Her own gun hung useless at her side as she braced herself for the impending shot.  A second later came the sound of the shot and she waited for the sensation of pain that never came.  Instead, the intruder fell at her feet, revealing Nick behind him, his own .38 still smoking.

Michelle remained where she was, trying to absorb all that had just happened.  Nick reached in and took her by the hand, pulling her over the dead guy on the closet floor and out into the bedroom.  “Are you all right?” Nick asked, just as the lights came back on.  Michelle dropped her own gun and wrapped her arms around Nick’s neck so tight that he thought she’d choke the life right out of him.  She broke down and cried on Nick’s shoulder.

Nick walked Michelle out of the bedroom and then retrieved his cell phone.  He dialed 9-1-1 and told the operator to send the police and the coroner to Michelle’s address.  He sat her down on the sofa and told her to stay put while he brought her a glass of water.  He returned a moment later and held the glass out to her.  Suddenly he dropped the full glass of water in Michelle’s lap and drew his revolver from his holster all in one fluid motion.  He pointed it in Michelle’s direction, leaned to one side and fired two more shots at the intruder who had appeared in the bedroom doorway holding his gun.  This time Nick was taking no chances and hurried over to the fallen intruder.  He picked up the man’s gun and stuffed it into his waistband before pressing two fingers into his neck.  He breathed easier when he didn’t find any trace of a pulse.

Michelle got to her feet, brushing the spilled water off her lap.  When the reality of the moment hit her, she fainted dead away onto the sofa, looking like someone who had just wet her pants.

Nick knelt at her side and smoothed the hair back out of her face.  He gently tapped the side of her cheek with his palm several time before she came to again.

About this same time, as the lights came back on at John and Abby’s house, the two of them hurried over to the window and looked out to see the street lights all working again.  They didn’t bother finishing the board game they had started.  John decided to call Nick and see how he was doing.  No one answered at the land line so he hung up and tried Nick’s cell phone.  All he got for his efforts was a recorded voice instructing the caller that the recipient’s voice mailbox was full.

“That’s odd,” John said.  “I usually only get a message like that if the other phone’s battery had run out.”

“I’ll bet he and Michelle were talking so long that his phone died,” Abby suggested.  “Why don’t you try calling Michelle’s phone?”

John got the same recorded message from Michelle’s phone and just hung up.  “That’s got to be it.  Both of their phones are dead.  They probably talked like a couple of school kids in the dark.  I’ll have to give him some grief about it tomorrow morning back at the office.”

“Go a little easy on him,” Abby said.  “It couldn’t have been a fun night for him or Michelle.”

They didn’t know the half of it.

Am I Crazy

“Mr. Cooper,” the woman’s voice said from somewhere behind him.

Private eye Nick Cooper turned away from the corner pretzel vendor to look at the woman who had called out his name.  “Excuse me, were you talking to me?” He said to the stranger.

“You are Nick Cooper, aren’t you?” She said.

“Do I know you?” Nick took his pretzel order and paid for it.  He turned back to the woman.  “My office is just upstairs there.  Would you like to come up and tell me about your reason for coming to me?”  Without answering, the woman turned and followed Nick into his building and into the elevator.  They got out on the third floor and walked down the hall to the last door on the right.  Nick held up the tray holding the pretzels and cups of soda and then gestured with his head at the door.  “Would you mind?”

The woman opened the door with the glass lettered, Cooper Investigations, since 1946 and let Nick go in first.  He set the snacks down on his son John’s desk and told him and his wife, Abby to help themselves while he talked to this woman.  Nick invited her to sit across from his desk while he stepped around to his side and sat, producing a yellow legal pad and pencil.  “Now suppose you tell me how I can help you, Miss…”

“It’s Mrs.;” she replied.  “Mrs. Alan Rutledge.”

Nick made a note of the name on his pad.  “Go on.”

“Mr. Cooper, this all may be for nothing, but I have to know for my own sanity if nothing else.  You see, my husband, Alan has been acting strangely now for the past several months.  There’s no one thing I can put my finger on, it’s just that sometimes he acts a bit different than he usually does.  It’s a bunch of little things that don’t add up or make sense.”

Nick laid his pencil down, unable to follow the woman’s train of thought.  “Maybe you should back up a bit and tell me a little more about you and Alan.  Let’s start with how long you two have been married.  And before we continue, do you have a first name that you’d prefer I call you by?”

“Of course,” Mrs. Rutledge said.  “It’s Lorraine.”

Nick wrote this new information down and said, “All right, Lorraine, you were about to tell me how long you and Alan have been married.”

Lorraine wrung her hands in her lap and said, “It’ll be six months next week.”

“And can you give me any examples of events that made you start to have these doubts?”

Lorraine sighed heavily and said, “Now, you have to remember that each little thing in itself may not mean much, but when I put them all together, well…”

“For example?” Nick said and then noticed that John and Abby were both listening intently at his conversation with Lorraine.  He ignored them.

“For example,” Lorraine said, “When Alan and I first met late last year I was attracted to the sultry look in his eyes as well as his warm smile.  Then, after we’d been married just a week, there was something different about the look in his eye and the smile seemed different as well.  Does that sound strange to you, Mr. Cooper?”

“How long did you know him before you married him?” Nick asked.

Lorraine got a far away look in her eye and hesitated for a moment.  “We met in July and married in November of last year.  Mr. Cooper, I, uh…”

“Let me guess,” Nick said.  “You suspect your husband of fooling around with someone else.  I’ve handled cases like this many times before and the telltale signs are always the same.”

“Could you possibly follow Alan and see if my suspicions are correct?  It would be better than not knowing.”

“That’s a big part of what we do here,” Nick explained.  “If you like I can get started on it right away and help you put your mind at ease.”

Lorraine agreed that it would be best all around and signed one of Nick’s contracts.  She gave Nick a recent photo of Alan Rutledge as well as the make and model of his car with the license plate number.  Nick also got the place of employment for Mr. Rutledge and a few of the places he’d been known to frequent.  She gave him a two day retainer for his services, thanked him and rose from her chair.  Before she left, she looked at Nick once more and asked, “Am I crazy?”

Nick assured her that she wasn’t and walked her to the door.

Only after she heard the sound of the elevator door closing, did Abby speak up.  “Men,” she said with a bit of disdain in her voice.  “Why is it they’re never satisfied with what they have?  They always seem to think that the grass will be greener on the other side of the fence.”

“All right, Picasso,” John said.  “Don’t paint all men with that same brush.”

“Present company excluded,” Abby corrected and then looked at Nick.  “Can I help you with this one, Nick?”

“Why; do you think Alan Rutledge’s trail will lead you to John’s love nest?”  He winked at his son and forced a weak smile.

“Not funny, Dad,” John protested.

“Sorry, John; just trying to lighten the moment.”  He turned to Abby and said, “Sure, we can split up and cover different areas.  Let me make a copy of Mr. Rutledge’s photo for you.”  He laid the three-by-five head shot of the suspected husband on the copier and ran off one copy.  On that same sheet, Nick wrote down the information Lorraine had given him and handed the sheet to Abby.  “You have my cell number in case you find something out about him and I’ll do the same with you.  Come on; we have a suspect to follow.”

Nick and Abby spent the rest of that morning and into the afternoon following up on leads.  He started at Alan Rutledge’s place of employment while Abby began her investigation downtown, at a bar Lorraine had mentioned.  She went inside and sat at the bar, subtly checking out the other patrons.  No one at the bar or at any of the tables looked like her subject, but she decided to stick around a while longer and finish her glass of soda.  After twenty minutes the front door opened and a couple walked in, taking a table in the back, near the hall that led to the bathrooms.

Abby left her barstool and headed for the bathrooms, making sure to pass the table where the couple was sitting.  She sneaked a good look at the man’s face as she passed; it was Rutledge, all right.  She let herself into the ladies room and immediately called Nick’s cell.  “I found him,” she said with some pride.  “He and another woman are sitting in this bar on Melrose.  It’s him, all right; no doubt about it.”

“Good job, Abby,” Nick said.  “Stay there; I’ll join you in a few minutes.”  Nick got into his car and started for the bar on Melrose.  As he sat waiting for the red light to change, he noticed a car across the intersection facing his.  As the light changed, the two cars passed each other and Nick took a look at the driver’s face.  Nick pulled out the pocket sized portrait Lorraine had given him and was sure he was seeing Alan Rutledge.  Nick turned around in the first driveway he came to and followed the car he had just passed.  When he got close enough, he confirmed the license plate number Mrs. Rutledge had given him.  He must have given Abby the slip.

At the next corner, that car made the light but Nick didn’t.  He just had to sit there while the other car sped off down the block and was out of sight before Nick could move.  He decided to confront Abby at the bar and try to learn how Rutledge could have gotten by her.  A few minutes later, Nick parked his car on Melrose and entered the bar.  He found Abby sitting at the bar, nursing a glass of soda.  He sat down next to her and gave her the elbow.

She turned toward him and said, “He’s at the back table with some other woman.”

“He’s what?” Nick said.  “He must have slipped by you.  I just passed him in traffic but lost him at the light.”  He cautiously turned on his stool to get a look at the man.  Sure enough, there he sat.  “He must have beat me back here,” Nick surmised.

The comment was lost on Abby, who just kept sipping from her glass.  Nick turned back toward the bar and said, “Are you sure he was here the whole time?  Couldn’t he have slipped away while you weren’t looking?”

“Anything’s possible, Nick,” Abby had to concede.

“I’m going to the men’s room,” Nick said.  “As far as they’re concerned I’ll be just another guy talking on his cell phone.  When I get close enough I’ll snap a picture and just keep walking.”  When he returned to his stool minutes later he showed Abby the photo held up alongside the three by five.  “It’s him all right.  Come on; we have to get back and show this to Lorraine.”

This time on their way back to the office, it was Nick who managed to make the light, leaving Abby sitting at the intersection.  By the time she could go again she decided to try another route back, hoping to make up for lost time.  It was then that she noticed a car with the correct license plate number just pulling into a parking space in front of a drug store.  Something made her take a closer look and sure enough, there was Alan Rutledge getting out, but he was alone.  Maybe he left that other woman at the bar.  Abby pulled over and parked around the corner.  She got out and casually walked toward the drug store, her cell phone already pressed against her face.  “Nick,” she said in a low voice.  “I’m following Rutledge into a drug store on Sunset.  I just want to see what he does.”

“Who the hell is this guy; Superman?” Nick asked.  “How the hell can he get around so quickly?  Don’t let him catch you watching him and let me know what happens next.”

“Will do,” Abby said and disconnected the call.  She entered the drug store and casually walked up and down the aisles, pretending to be shopping.  Now she was really puzzled.  Rutledge was wearing a different shirt from the one he was wearing in the bar.  Abby guessed that he may have spilled his drink on it and being the sly dog that he appeared to be, may have kept a spare in his car.

Rutledge left the drug counter with his bagged purchase and left the store.  Abby followed at a safe distance and watched as he got back into his car and drove off.  Abby hurried to her car and followed him all the way back to the Rutledge house.  He parked the car in the driveway and walked into the house.  Abby could do nothing more at this time and decided to drive back to her office.

When Abby came back into the office John was gone but Nick was sitting at his desk.  He looked up at Abby and said, “I just got off the phone with Lorraine Rutledge and told her what we observed at the bar.  She said that wasn’t possible, since her Alan was there at home with her at the time and that she had sent him to the drug store for some cold medicine for her.  She was expecting him anytime.”

“Yeah,” Abby agreed.  “I followed him from the drug store back to his house, but you know what; he was wearing a different shirt than the one he had on in the bar.”

Nick picked up his phone and said, “I’m going to try something; hang on.”  He dialed the number of that bar on Melrose and told the bartender that he’d like to speak with Mr. Rutledge.

“Hang on,” the bartender said.  “Let me see if there’s anyone here by that name.”  Nick could hear the bartender laying the phone down and calling out Rutledge’s name.

A moment later a man’s voice came on the phone.  “Rutledge here.”  When Nick didn’t respond, the man said, “Hello, hello,” and then he heard the man saying to the bartender, “There’s no one here,” and the line went dead.

Nick hung up his phone and gave Abby a strange look.  “That was Rutledge,” he said.  “Are you sure the man you followed back to Lorraine’s address was Rutledge?”

“If it wasn’t, then he has a…”

“A twin,” Nick said.  “Yes, that would explain everything.”  He paused a moment and then added, “No, that can’t be.”

“What can’t be?” Abby asked.

“Think about it,” Nick began.  “If Alan Rutledge has a twin and wanted to step out on Lorraine, what better way than to have his twin brother fill in for him at home while he was out with some other woman?”

The impact of what Nick was suggesting suddenly hit Abby and she said, “Come on; can anyone be that devious to their own wife?  Thinking back, remember when she told you that she noticed something different in her husband’s eyes and his smile?  Oh Nick, you don’t suppose that both brothers were sharing all the husbandly duties, do you?”

Suddenly the reality of the moment struck Nick’s funny bone and he laughed out loud.  When he saw that Abby didn’t find it funny, he morphed his laugh into a cough, failing miserably.  “No, I guess women wouldn’t find that funny.  The question is now what do we tell Lorraine about our suspicions?  Maybe she doesn’t even know that her Alan has a brother, let alone a twin brother.  We’d better give this some serious thought before we let the cat out of the bag.  Would you want to know?”

“I think I would,” Abby replied.

“Well, to be absolutely certain before we shatter this poor woman’s dreams, I think I’m going to go back to that bar and see if I can’t steal one of the glasses that Rutledge was drinking from and have Steve run his prints.”  Steve was Nick’s good friend, Lieutenant Steve Stone at the Twelfth Precinct.

“How are you going to do that?” Abby asked.

Nick pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, neatly folded it the long way and draped it across his forearm and bending at the waist.  “May I get you a refill, sir?” he said in a different voice.  “Then I just take his glass and walk away with it.  I can be back out of there before he even starts to wonder why it’s taking so long to get his refill.”

“Aren’t you the clever one?” Abby said.

“I can’t take all the credit,” Nick said.  “I saw Wilfred Brambell do the same thing in A Hard Day’s Night.”

“Wilfred who in a what?” Abby said confused.

“Wilfred Brambell was an English actor who played Paul’s grandfather in the Beatles’ first movie.  I always thought that was pretty clever.  Sight tight, I’ll be out for a while.”  Nick quickly left the office and drove straight back to the bar on Melrose.  He was in and out of there in less that two minutes, with the glass wrapped in his handkerchief.

He brought it to Lieutenant Stone, who personally walked it up to the crime lab for fingerprint analysis.  He handed Nick the result sheet and said, “Those prints belong to one Alvin Rutledge.  No serious record, but his prints were on file from some government job he had applied for last year.  Does that help?”

Nick had to smile, knowing his suspicions had just been confirmed.  “Sure does; thanks, Steve.”  He hurried back to his office wearing a wide grin.  “Seems Alan Rutledge’s twin brother, Alvin was the one we saw in the bar.  No crime there as far as Lorraine is concerned.  And that means it was Alan Rutledge that you followed into the drug store.  Bringing home cold medicine for his wife is also no crime.  And when you come right down to it, we don’t know for sure that the brothers traded places in the home.  That leaves just two scenarios.  One, Lorraine is just imagining the supposed differences in her husband’s behavior, or…”

“Or Mrs. Rutledge was getting serviced by both brothers,” Abby offered.  She and Nick traded glances and suddenly both of them broke out in laughter.  The laughter eventually subsided and Abby said, “So, what do we tell Lorraine?”

“We can’t say for sure that her husband was out with another woman,” Nick began.  “And as far as the existence of a twin brother, is that our place to tell her?  I think her husband should be the one to break it to his wife.  On the other hand, she did hire us to look into this for her.  I think we’d better sit on this until tomorrow, after we’ve had time to work out all the kinks.”

The following morning when John and Abby came into work, Nick was already at his desk, talking on the phone.  “Thank you, Mrs. Rutledge.  We can be there in half an hour if that’s convenient for you.  Great; see you then.”  He hung up and looked over at Abby.  “Don’t hang up your jacket just yet.  You and I are going over to see Lorraine Rutledge this morning.  I haven’t told her of our findings yet, just that I wanted to discuss the case with her.”

“But what will you tell her once we get there?” Abby asked.

“I gave this some serious thought at home last night,” Nick replied.  “And I decided that no good could come from our sharing our suspicions with her.  For all we know, maybe the two twins don’t even know the other one exists.  What if they were separated at birth, unaware that each had another sibling?  We should probably let nature take its own course on this one.”

Abby sighed.  “You know, Nick, I came to almost the same conclusion myself last night.”

“With some input from me,” John added.

“That’s right,” Abby agreed.  “John pointed out that he had stumbled upon his biological father by accident and suggested that the Rutledge brothers should do the same and let sleeping dogs lie.”

“Come on; let’s get over there and give Lorraine our report and our bill.”

It took Nick and Abby thirty minutes to make it to the Rutledge house.  There were two cars in the driveway, both identical red Chevy sedans.  The only difference was the license plate numbers and even those were off my just one number.  Nick parked on the street and walked with Abby up to the front door, which hung wide open.  Even from the porch they could both detect the odor of cordite wafting out of the house.  Nick knocked on the open door and called out to Lorraine.  When no one answered, he drew his .38 from under his arm and stepped just inside the open door.

Lorraine Rutledge stood there, the gun still clenched tightly in her right hand.  On the floor lay two identical twin brothers, each sporting a fresh bullet hole in their chests.  “Drop the gun,” Nick demanded.  When Lorraine didn’t respond, he cautiously stepped over and took it from her hand.  “What happened here?”

Still Lorraine couldn’t or wouldn’t speak.  Abby quickly dialed 9-1-1 and told the dispatcher to send the police and the coroner.  She told the operator that she and Nick would wait here until they arrived.

It wasn’t until four days later that Nick and Abby got the whole story from Lieutenant Stone.  He got the story from the court psychiatrist who interviewed Lorraine Rutledge.  As it turned out, the brothers knew about each other and concocted the scheme wherein they would take turns playing husband, giving the other one free time to do whatever he wanted, which included stepping out on Lorraine.  The both mistakenly thought that Lorraine wouldn’t mind the arrangement and may even have gotten a kick out of it.  They couldn’t have been more wrong.  When she realized that her husband knew about and even encouraged the switch with his brother, the thought of her having relations with both of them pushed her over the edge.

Lorraine was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was sentenced to an indeterminate stretch in the county health facility until such time that she was determined to be fit to return to her place in society.

The brothers got a no-frills double funeral.