Copp In Deep, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) Read online

  "I don't know about him, but I've sure got one!" she replied.

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means I'm filing for divorce, that's what it means. You should see the stuff they found in his car. Has he always been a pervert? Honestly, I've been married to a total stranger. I never knew this man! Have you known about this?"

  I told her, "I don't know what you're talking about, Miriam. I doubt that you do either. Don't be hasty about—"

  "Well what can I expect! Of course you'll defend him! You're exactly alike! All of you cops are the same! Don't call here anymore, Joe!"

  She hung up in my ear but I didn't really mind. Miriam had always been an asshole in my book. Never could understand how Tom would put up with her, let alone kowtow to that kind of bitchiness. I always sort of thought that she was the main reason why Tom and I had drifted so far apart. She'd never liked me either, probably raised hell with him every time we got together.

  So, what the hell, at least I was finding some reference in reality. It had not all been lies. Apparently Tom was indeed in custody and in deep trouble. I didn't know what to make of the "pervert" stuff but I figured it wouldn't take much to make a pervert of anyone in Miriam's eyes. I remembered how upset Tom had been over the possibility that she would learn of his involvement with another woman in the case and . . .

  And what? That he'd been led along, suckered and fatally compromised by that woman? Was that what was happening to me?

  I needed a bit more reference with reality.

  So I left some money on the counter and went out through the kitchen, circled the block on foot, came up behind the tail car. Different car, yeah, and different guys. I shattered the window on the passenger side with the butt of the S&W, pulled the guy through the opening and bounced him off the sidewalk, almost had ahold of the other one but he'd kicked the starter damn quick and was screeching away from there while I was reaching in for him. I had to disengage cleanly or get my arms ripped off so I stepped away and let him go.

  Had what I needed, anyway—someone to identify. This one was bloodied and groggy, harmless looking, total stranger. I helped him to his feet and hustled him up the street, pushed him into the van while onlookers gawked, got the hell away from there. The guy was groaning and dabbing at facial cuts with a handkerchief while I careened around the streets looking for another place to stop and interrogate. Found a deserted parking lot beside a bank several blocks over, opted for that.

  I pushed the guy hard against the door on his side, wedged his head between the dash and the windshield, invited him to tell me all about it. Didn't take him long to decide that might be the most intelligent thing to do, but what he told me did not make me much happier about the reality we were referencing.

  Seems that he worked for PowerTron as a security officer. Tom Chase was his boss but there were several layers of management between them, didn't know Chase personally, didn't know anything about his trouble with the feds. Didn't know Cherche LaFemme, didn't know any Gina Terrabona and had never heard the name before, had also never heard of Nicholas Gudgaloff.

  I gave the guy some breathing room and handed him a first aid kit. Things got almost chummy after that. He treated his cuts while we continued getting acquainted.

  "What is your interest in Joe Copp?"

  "Never heard of him either."

  "So why were you tailing him?"

  "Oh!—is that you? My God, are you a cop? I didn't know . . ."

  "Tell me about the tail."

  "This is like moonlighting. I work for PowerTron but this is extra, personal work for Mr. Putnam."

  I had to challenge the guy. "Who is Putnam?"

  "He's the executive vice-president of the company."

  "So how does personal work for Putnam put you on my tail?"

  "They just gave us the description of the van and said we should keep tabs on it."

  "When was this?"

  "This was at six o'clock tonight."

  "How did you know where to find me?"

  "Not you, the van. They sent us to the address in Beverly Hills, said look for it then stay with it. We saw it going in and we stayed with it."

  "You were keeping a log or something?"

  "Yeah."

  "Time in, time out?"

  "That's right."

  "You keep saying 'they.' They who?"

  "Well . . . dispatch. Whoever is dispatching."

  "You said this was personal work for Putnam."

  "Right. I didn't mean official PowerTron dispatch. I don't talk to Putnam directly but . . ."

  "So where is it dispatched from?"

  "His house, maybe, I don't know. We have a radio in the car."

  "PowerTron car?"

  "Yeah."

  "How many people involved in this?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "How many like you working directly for Putnam?"

  "Oh. I don't know. Quite a few, I think."

  "How many people in PowerTron security?"

  "It's a big department. Several hundred, I guess, just at my plant. I mean, you know, it's three shifts plus all the clerical and administrative."

  "So we're talking about a small army, if you put them all together from all the plants in the area."

  "Probably a thousand people, yeah."

  "Tom Chase headed all that?"

  "Yes, he's director of security for the whole division."

  "He's in jail."

  "No!"

  "Oh yeah. The feds took him in last night. Charged with espionage."

  "Espionage!?"

  "Yeah. How does that cut with you?"

  "My God! I guess that explains why . . ."

  "Why what?"

  "Why Mr. Putnam took direct control of security."

  "But you seemed to think you've been moonlighting."

  "Well that's the way they made it sound, swore us to secrecy and all that, but . . ."

  "But now you're seeing it differently."

  "Yeah. God, what a bomb this is!"

  I was beginning to see the faint dimensions of something far bigger than Chase himself had hinted at when I was recruited into the mess. And no comfort whatever for either Tom or myself.

  As for Gina . . .

  I did not want to think about Gina.

  I took the guy back to the coffee shop and let him out. Didn't seem to be at all mad at me, even wished me good luck. I watched him inside, saw him head straight for the telephone. There was only one way in and out of the parking lot, so I circled the block and came back up the street, went to the curb at almost exactly the same spot the other guys had used to wait for me, had the place in good view.

  It was a short wait. The same car came back from the opposite direction and made a left turn into the coffee shop lot. My pigeon came out immediately and entered the car, they went around the loop and came onto the street toward me. There was a lot of gabbing and arm waving as they went past totally absorbed in each other. I gave them a block then did a U-ey and fell in behind.

  They led me straight to Pasadena via Coldwater Canyon and the Ventura freeway, took about thirty minutes because it was not nine o'clock yet and traffic was still pretty heavy, took another ten minutes straight up Lake through Pasadena and Altadena into the high hills, so it was almost exactly nine when I cut the tail and reached for my briefcase to get Putnam's precise address. They could be headed nowhere else, and I didn't want to push my luck into those darkened hills with hardly any other traffic moving through.

  So I gave the moonlighters five minutes then went on under my own lead.

  It was a big joint, two storied with maybe an acre or two of grounds, gated entrance, circular drive, ablaze with lights everywhere. I left the van a block away and went back on foot, carrying the reloaded S&W in shoulder harness and a small backup pistol in the boot.

  The car I'd been following was nowhere in sight. That should have told me something but I guess I was too focussed on slipping into the place unobserved. Two other cars were
parked in front of a large garage and a third was standing under a portico at the entrance to the house. There were lights everywhere but no sign of human presence. I pushed the gate open and walked up the drive. Something got me to quivering because I had the S&W in hand as I went up the steps to the house. The front door was ajar. I went in, expecting and almost

  hoping to be challenged at any moment but there seemed to be no one at home.

  I was wrong.

  I found the ones at home in the library. One was crumpled just inside the door, a youngish man wearing a business suit he would never need again. An older man wearing silk pajamas and a dressing gown was collapsed in a chair behind the desk, deep in the sleep from which one never awakens.

  These guys had been dead for quite a while.

  I assumed that the man in the dressing gown was Morris Putnam, had no idea who the other stiff was and didn't especially care at the moment. My survival instinct was telling me to get the hell out of there quick but I guess the police instinct was stronger. I was searching through the desk drawers when the sheriffs made a grand entrance with weapons drawn and irresistible demands. I served with these guys for five years myself so I knew it was no time for idle debate.

  I meekly took the spread right there at the desk. They took my guns without comment, and cuffed me.

  There were no questions, no explanations.

  This was one of those times when the right to remain silent should be vigorously exercised. It's a passive right, though, and damn small comfort when it's the only right you've got.

  Chapter Ten

  I here should have been reason enough to doubt I that these people had been dead long enough to go stiff but their killer was still hanging around. But, see, police investigations do not ordinarily proceed on grounds of reasonable doubt. They leave that to the courts. The police take it by the numbers—not calculus but basic arithmetic—and what they see is what you get. An armed man standing over a dead body equals killer and victim, as simply as one plus one. Forget that "innocent until proven guilty" routine. That too is for the courts. Has nothing whatever to do with police procedure.

  So I knew what I was in for. I was already wanted for questioning in connection with another killing, and possibly several more if they'd tied me to the freeway thing. Didn't take these guys any mental gymnastics whatever to come up with that score. Procedure is procedure, however, and it took us a long time to get there.

  I'd figured that it was about nine o'clock when I arrived at the Putnam home, give or take five minutes. I sat outside in a police car until nearly ten, then I was taken down to the Altadena substation and sat around there for another hour awaiting transport to the county jail. I knew some of these guys, by sight if not by name, but that doesn't cut you any slack in a homicide. I wasn't treated badly but there were no special considerations either.

  The booking procedure took forever. It was past midnight before the sergeant even came in and started writing it up. By then I was damned near a basket case. Every hurt I'd incurred over the previous twenty-four hours was making itself felt again, which did nothing to bolster a crumbling morale as the immensity of my problem began to settle on me.

  Which is to say that I was feeling mean and nasty when the homicide team finally took it over. Those guys would have laughed me into a padded cell if I'd told them the story. So I told them nothing. They played the usual games—good guy, bad guy—bait and switch—derision and sympathy—but I remained surly and uncooperative through it all, and now it's two o'clock and I am dying inside.

  That is where I was when the FBI took over.

  They have a big contingent here in L.A., hundreds of agents and I don't know how many different departments but I know it is a damned big operation. The two who came in to talk to me looked and acted like senior people. Of course you never know with these guys. Talking to an FBI guy is like talking to a lawyer, in fact

  it's usually the same thing, so they all act like senior people.

  These two wanted to talk about Walter Mathison, the one that tried to whack me at Gina's apartment. What did I know about him?—how long had I known him?—what was the connection with the Sarastova woman . . . ?

  They got me on that one. I unbuttoned my lip at that point long enough to ask, "Who's she?"

  She lived in the apartment in which Mathison was killed. What was my relationship with her? Was she a client? How long since I'd seen Thomas Chase? What was my present relationship with Chase? How long had I known Morris Putnam and George Delancey and what was my relationship with them? What did I know about a shooting on the freeway in which three men were killed?

  I just glared at them through all of that. The one was a Special Agent Browning—did most of the talking—the other Special Agent Vasquez. Smooth as silk, both of them, but tough as hell also under that surface, and these are the kind of guys you want to worry about. So I told them nothing. I saw them huddling with the homicide team before they left. Shortly thereafter I was accorded my right to one telephone call, and it took another hour for my lawyer to arrive.

  We have an arrangement, my lawyer and I. We work for each other as the need arises and all we pay each other is expenses. Works out to a pretty good balance for both of us, but I think he was a little afraid of this one.

  "Jesus, Joe," he growled at me, "I think you've outdone yourself this time. These people are ready to throw the book at you."

  I growled back, "Yeah, well, let them get in line. I've had everything else thrown at me today already."

  He said, "Don't be flippant about this. You're in deep trouble. You'll have to spend at least the rest of the night in jail. How much bail could you go?"

  "Try fifty cents."

  "Get serious about this and do it damn quick. How much could you raise?"

  So I got serious about it and we made a list of assets. Looked sort of pitiful, on paper like that. Equity in my house was by far the best thing I had going. Bondsmen demand at least ten percent in security up front. We figured I had ten percent of damned little, which can be demoralizing as hell when you realize that it is the net residue of your life's work.

  "I'll see what I can do," the lawyer said worriedly, and left me on that note.

  Now it is four o'clock and the "procedure" has run its course. I am strip-searched and taken to a holding cell. It is not all that bad, considering where I have been the past seven hours. This is not "justice" but we have not even reached that plateau yet. First comes a damn lot of abject humility.

  You can be denied bail under our system if you've been accused of a heinous crime and someone can convince a judge that your release pending trial would constitute a menace to society. But judges are part of the "innocent until proven guilty" procedure so it's tough making something like that stick before the question of guilt has been decided. They are supposed to give the benefit of any doubt to your constitutional rights. So I knew I was in pretty deep when my lawyer came back at eleven o'clock that morning with the news that the prosecutor was demanding that I be retained without bail. The judge was going to announce his decision at one o'clock. Even if he ruled in our favor, he would probably impose a very high figure for bail, high enough that I would have to rot in jail until I got my day in court.

  "How high would that be?" I wondered aloud.

  "It could go to a million dollars."

  I said, "I'll rot, yeah."

  But it seemed that maybe I was being offered a deal by the prosecutor. If I would be more cooperative . . .

  "What do they want?"

  The lawyer acted a bit embarrassed. "It seems that there are national security implications, Joe. They want you to tell them what you've been doing, on whose behalf—where, when, all the details. I doubt that they will be satisfied until you've incriminated yourself in one area or another, that's my worry. I advise you to talk to them but in my presence only. Let's at least create the impression that you're trying to cooperate but control the damage all we can. If the deal falls through then at least I'l
l have something to take before the judge to argue for a reasonable bail."

  "What exactly am I being charged with?" I asked.

  "You don't know?"

  "I was booked on suspicion of homicide, haven't seen the actual charges," I replied.

  "Well they've got you for three."

  I swallowed hard and said, "Okay."

  "A Walter Mathison—who, incidentally, was a Special Agent of the FBI—a George Delancey and a Morris Putnam."

  "That was Delancey, eh?"

  "What do you know about these people, Joe?"

  I said, "Not nearly enough to cop for their murders. I shot Mathison, sure, because he was shooting at me, but I didn't know at the time that he was FBI. The other two guys I just walked in on. Dammit, they were stiff already."

  "The theory is that you came back to look for something."

  "That's too dumb," I said. "I don't even know how they died."

  "They were shot." He was looking at me hard and close. "With your gun."

  I looked him back, harder and closer. "Neither of my guns had even been fired since . . ."

  "Yeah?"

  I said, "Oh shit."

  "What?"

  "A certain person walked away with one of my guns early yesterday. It was out of my hands until late last night, just before I went out to Putnam's house."

  "All three men were killed with the same weapon, Joe. This gun that was out of your hands all day yesterday—was it by chance an odd-size big calibre?—a .41 Magnum Smith & Wesson?"

  I sighed and said, "That's it."

  "They have a ballistics match on it."

  I said, "I'll talk."

  The lawyer patted my hand and said, "I'll tell them," and went out of there quick. Damn right I'd talk.

  I would talk to anyone who would listen.

  It was quite a party. Present were two detectives from the sheriff s homicide team, a guy from LAPD, two prosecutors and the two FBI men, Browning and Vasquez. Plus me and my lawyer, of course, and a stenographer. The room was crowded and stuffy and I felt like a jerk. One of the prosecutors was a woman, pretty little thing with a sympathetic smile masking a mind of cold steel.

  I told it pretty straight, beginning with the Sunday night meeting with Tom Chase and the illegal entry at the Russian consulate, my discovery and escape through the second story window. Browning wanted to know what I'd taken from Gudgaloff’s office. I told them about the black book, explained that I'd had time to only glance inside to verify the contents and that it seemed to contain the information I'd been sent for.