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

  My memory of the area was returning in scattered little bits and pieces,- The Chart House plopped in on me the moment we stepped inside. There is a chain of these restaurants sprinkled throughout California, each definitely upscale and popular, and each individually tailored to its own particular locale. I would suppose that there are no two exactly alike, but I knew instantly that I had been inside this one before, yes, and more than once. I did not recall the details but there was a strong deja-vu quality to the memory.

  Chief Terry was a popular man in this town. We received instant attention and easy camaraderie from the staff. Obviously word of the crime wave had spread like

  wildfire and we were besieged by expressions of shocked disbelief.

  "I can't believe it!"

  "Not in Mammoth!"

  "I'm worried about my kids!"

  "Who could have done something like this?"

  The Chief coolly reassured one and all that the proper steps were being taken and tried to assuage their concerns. What could the poor guy say, after all?

  We took a booth in a secluded area at the rear, hoping to get a moment to ourselves. Still everyone, it seemed, continued to stop by and express regret, so it took a few minutes before things settled down.

  We ordered dinner and I asked the waitress if she could send the hostess over to our table. As soon as the waitress departed, the Chief asked me, "What's that all about?"

  I told him, "Trying to get a line on your man Douglas, to clarify that note from Cindy Morgan."

  He said, "Gotcha. Not sure where you're headed with that, but it couldn't cost anything."

  I replied, "I'm hoping for a sensing on the relationship between those two. Seems like Douglas has had a lot of involvements with the young women of this town. Hell, I don't know what I'm going for, John. I'm just flaying around, hoping to find a handle."

  At this moment an attractive young woman walked up to our table and said, "You asked to see me, Chief Terry?"

  The Chief said, "Yes, Rachel. This is Joe Copp, an investigator from Los Angeles. He's been working with me on this. He wants to talk to you."

  Rachel forced a solemn little smile as she replied, "Sure, I remember Joe. I heard about the shooting at the hospital. That's terrible. Is it true that Cindy Morgan is dead?"

  He replied, "I'm afraid so."

  I told her, "We feel that there must be a connection between Cindy's death and the shooting of Officer Douglas. We're just trying to make some sense of all this." I gave her a reassuring smile, hoping to put her more at ease. "Were they in here today?"

  She replied, "Not them, no. Cindy was in here alone around noon."

  I asked, "Do you know if she made a phone call while she was here?"

  She said, "I don't know about that, but she received a call."

  "When was that?"

  She replied, "Ah, I think... the call was from Harley Sanford... she seemed upset. Wait a minute... she did make a call right after that. Just after her conversation with Harley... ah, yeah, I remember seeing her placing a call at the pay phone outside the ladies' lounge."

  "So that would have been about... ?"

  "Let's see... I seated the Anderson party of six at exactly twelve forty-five ... I'm sure of that... yes!... she was at the pay phone outside the lounge when I seated the Anderson party. When I returned to my station, Cindy was sitting at the bar."

  I asked, "Did you see Cindy leave?"

  "No, I didn't. That was our rush hour and I was really swamped."

  "The last time you saw her she was sitting at the bar?"

  "Yes."

  I angled a glance at the Chief and said, "Maybe we need to talk to that bartender."

  She said, "I'll send him back if you'd like."

  I thanked her and the Chief added, "Thanks, Rachel."

  The girl seemed relieved that the cross-examination was over. She went on toward the bar and the Chief told me, "The bartender is a guy named Eddie. He's okay, local boy, keeps his nose clean."

  I said, "Let's hope so." My mind was hung up on something else. "I noticed that Sanford's car had a telephone. It seems obvious, doesn't it, that Sanford called Cindy right after he left us at his house?"

  "Yeah, I agree. And Cindy left that message for Douglas with the dispatcher only minutes after she took the call from Sanford."

  "Right. And a few minutes later we have the Douglas shooting. Would it seem reasonable that a man has a standing date with his lover and along the way, only two blocks from here, lies in wait to shoot a police officer? Does that make sense? For damn sure this was not a random shooting. Whoever the shooter was, he knew that Douglas would be coming out of that parking lot at one o'clock."

  Before the Chief could respond to this, the bartender came over. He was a nice-looking guy of about thirty- five, immaculate in his bar uniform and obviously very sharp. He came to us with a genial smile and focused on the Chief as he asked, "Did you want to see me, Chief?"

  Terry replied soberly, "Meet Joe Copp. He's working with me on our problem. Joe wants a word with you, Eddie."

  The bartender seemed a bit nervous, which was understandable under the circumstances. He showed us a tense smile as he replied, "Yes, I remember Mr. Copp. He's the Spanish wine expert—right?"

  I told him, "I don't know about the expert part, but you do have a mean sherry here."

  Eddie said, "Nobody else has ordered that lately. I still have a supply. Would you like me to bring you a bottle?"

  I said, "Thanks, Eddie, not right now." Martha had been the one with the fondness for sherry. I never really liked it myself, but maybe I had acquired the taste during the time I had spent with her. It was strange the way isolated little memories would come flooding back on me and hurt like hell. I swallowed the pain and continued, "You heard about Cindy Morgan?"

  He replied, "Yeah, that was terrible. I served her a drink just a few hours ago."

  I asked him, "Was she in here alone?"

  "Well, yeah—until Mr. Sanford dashed in and pulled her out of here."

  "You mean he literally pulled her out?"

  "Yes, almost literally. He wouldn't give her time to finish her drink."

  "You would say that he was upset about something?"

  "Oh yeah."

  "Did he tell you what he was upset about?"

  "Not to me, no, but he told Cindy that someone had nearly killed him."

  "Did he explain that?"

  "Not that I heard. There was some back-and-forth between them but I didn't hear it all. I figured he meant that someone had tried to cut him off the road or something."

  "So then what happened?"

  "Nothing happened. He tossed some money at me and they were gone before I could even make his change."

  "But let's get this straight—Sanford claimed that somebody had tried to kill him?—is that the way he said it?"

  "Yes, that's exactly what he said—'Someone nearly killed me.'"

  I said, "And he didn't say that calmly."

  "No sir, that's right. I told you he was in a sweat."

  "You didn't tell me that, Eddie."

  "Sorry. But that's exactly the way it sounded, he was in a sweat, and he couldn't get out of here fast enough."

  I said, "Thanks, Eddie, that's helpful. What can you tell me about Cindy's frame of mind before Sanford arrived?"

  "She seemed worried, maybe a bit agitated. Look, working in a bar you get a slice of everyone's life, the good and the bad. She had her problems like all of us have."

  I said, "Do you know anything about the relationship between Cindy and Douglas?"

  "They knew each other, but Cindy knew a lot of guys. Douglas comes in often after work. He knows a lot of girls."

  "You can talk plainer than that. This is a murder investigation."

  "There were no strings on Cindy. She came and went

  as she pleased. I don't know what she saw in Harley Sanford. He sure as hell wasn't paying her bills. She was very independent. I know that she was very troub
led today, the last time I saw her."

  "You still haven't told me about Cindy and Douglas. She called him from here earlier today. What do you think that could have been about?"

  "Hell, I don't know. She didn't talk to me about it."

  "Were Cindy and Douglas sleeping together?"

  The guy was trying to sound honest and dumb at the same time. "Oh, that's what you were getting at. I thought I gave you that. Sure, I guess they were sleeping together now and then."

  I said, "Well, we finally got that in the open."

  He said, "Look, guys, I wasn't trying to be evasive. I live in this town and I work with all these people. Most of them are friends of mine. I'm just not comfortable talking intimately about my customers. You can understand that."

  "Sure, I can understand that," I replied.

  Eddie asked, "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

  I said, "Is there anything else you'd like to tell us?"

  He replied, "Not that I can think of. If something else should come to me, I'll let you know."

  "Do that."

  Our dinner arrived. I thanked the bartender with a friendly pat on the shoulder and he made a quick retreat.

  It was a stand-up dinner. The steak was great and reminded me how little I had eaten over the past several days. We finished the meal in silence, probably both of us lost in our own introspections. Nice thing about being in the company of a guy like this one, there was no need to pad the mind with small talk.

  We passed on the dessert and were working on the bill when Eddie, the bartender, returned with an air of excitement and with a proud declaration: "I just thought of something, Chief. Mr. Copp told me to let him know if I remembered anything else."

  I asked, "What have you got, Eddie?"

  He was beaming when he reported, "Somebody came in this afternoon not long after Mr. Sanford left. I thought you'd want to know."

  The Chief was sounding a bit impatient as he said, "Let's have it, Eddie."

  "It was Mrs. Sanford. She came looking for her husband. I think I told her I hadn't seen him. I mean, you know, it was a delicate situation."

  I replied, "You're saying that she came into The Chart House after the shooting at the police department?"

  He said, "Yes, sir, that's what I'm saying. Several customers came in after Douglas was shot and they were talking about it. That's why I'm sure of the timing."

  So maybe this was putting a new slant on the story.

  Why had Janice Sanford come all the way back into town looking for her husband shortly after the Chief and I had left her, when supposedly she was preparing for her flight to Los Angeles? Was it because she knew that her husband was meeting his lover at such a time? Could that have been too much for this woman to swallow, with her daughter lying dead in the county morgue?

  Had she never intended to meet the Chief at the airport?—or had she been delayed by more pressing matters? Could Janice Sanford have been capable of murder?

  Of course; any women could be driven to murder by a cruelly insensitive husband. Every cop knew that because every cop had seen this particular form of brutalization many times.

  Evidently she had known precisely where to come looking for her husband. Had she found him? Is there a limit to what a woman could put up with, even a woman like Janice Sanford?

  Did either of us actually know for sure that she had left for Los Angeles as her message to the Chief indicated—or had she still been in the Mammoth area when Cindy Morgan was killed?

  I had to keep reminding myself that the Sanfords were my in-laws, and also that they were virtual strangers to me. There could be many surprising revelations about those two before this case was finished.

  I had to be on the alert for anything that might come my way. The way things had been developing, there were nothing but bombshells ahead.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  arthur Douglas had a small bachelor apartment in Old Mammoth, site of the original village. Miners once panned for gold nearby. The U.S. Forest Service had been instrumental in developing Mammoth as a summer resort area during the 1920s, hoping to attract more visitors to the region. In later years the commercial development of "white gold" attracted thousands to the winter ski slopes.

  We did not have a formal search warrant in hand, but Chief Terry figured we had the next best thing. A judge had okayed the entry of the officer's home and promised that the paperwork would follow.

  But someone had beaten us to it.

  The place had been trashed. Whatever had been the object of the search, it had been a furious one. Everything had been pulled from all the kitchen cabinets, the refrigerator had been emptied, all the contents—even milk and ice cream—had been dumped onto the floor, and a small dining table had been upended. A VCR had been overturned, racks of videotapes systematically inspected, tapes pulled from their cases and discarded in a pile. Couch cushions had been slashed.

  They had not spared the bedroom either. The mattresses had been pulled off the bed and slashed, the contents of dresser drawers scattered about. Clothing had been pulled from the closet and ransacked.

  These people had done a total demolition job. They had methodically gone through the apartment with a fine-toothed comb. It was not for fun and games. They obviously had been searching for something small enough to have been concealed within a milk carton or videotape case. The two who invaded Martha's condo earlier had been total gentlemen compared to the ones who did this.

  The Chief said, "Bastards!"

  I replied, "Evidently they knew what they were looking for."

  The Chief gingerly knelt alongside the mess from the refrigerator and poked at the debris. He retrieved a small, broken, electric clock that had been torn from the wall above the kitchen stove. "Take a look at this."

  The clock had stopped at 3:17.

  I said, "Our friends were busy before they invaded the hospital. Any doubt that it wasn't the same two guys?"

  "No, I guess not. I've never seen anyone work a place this thoroughly. What the hell could they have been looking for?"

  I replied, "Maybe the same thing Sanford was looking for at Martha's apartment."

  The Chief said, "That's possible. I can't believe that these are unrelated events."

  I told him, "You are buying into a very sticky wicket here, pal. If we go with that thesis, then all of these problems—including the death of Martha—are linked. Are you ready to go for that?"

  "Hell, I guess we're already there. It is all linked."

  I said, "Then Martha was linked. I was linked. Everyone who has been affected by Martha's death is linked. Is that too stiff for you?"

  "Not for me, no. It just seems to be the only thing that makes sense."

  "Sooner or later we have to come to the obvious implications of all this. This stuff has organized crime written all over it. You've hinted at that yourself, Chief."

  "Don't give me credit for an original idea. If there had been any illusions about that earlier, our 'Gunfight at the O.K. Corral' certainly locked it in. They were 'mob' okay." The Chief looked at his watch and said, "Speaking of which, I should have had a line on those guys by now."

  I said, "We're not going to find anything worthwhile here." I picked up the remains of a picture frame from the living room carpet. It had suffered the same treatment that everything else in this apartment had been subjected to. The glass frame was in pieces and even the photograph itself had been torn. It was a picture of two men and two women, all wearing bathing suits, inscribed "Lazy days at Lake Tahoe." The photo had been taken at a marina with a power cruiser in the immediate foreground showing Martha and Cindy Morgan in a smiling pose with two men. Very congenial group—it was hugs and smiles all around.

  I passed the photo to the Chief and asked him, "Anyone here you recognize?"

  He showed me a stiff smile as he replied, "Sure, but it must be a couple of years old. The men are Art Douglas

  and George Kaufman, Martha's first husband. I'm sure you have alre
ady identified the women."

  I said, "Yeah. All but one of these are now dead. The fourth came damn close to joining the others a few hours ago. He's probably not out of the woods yet."

  "I'm ready to get out of here," the Chief said. "It's giving me the willies."

  I said, "Me too. Let's go."

  We returned to the Chief's police car, where he ordered a unit dispatched to secure the crime scene. The dispatcher than reported, "We got a hit from CAL-ID on the hospital incident. Do you want the particulars now or are you on the way in?"

  Terry gave me a pleased smile as he responded. "Feed me, Betty."

  "First suspect identified as Rudolph Earl Marshan, D.O.B. August 4, 1948. Rap sheets in Florida, New York, Illinois, and California. Several arrests, attempted murder, no convictions. Two weapons violations, both reduced to misdemeanor offenses. Second suspect identified as Edward Charles Boschey, D.O.B. January 11, 1950. No criminal record. Honorable Discharge, U.S. Army, 1971. The car they were driving was stolen from a rental lot in South Lake Tahoe. That's the gist of it from CAL-ID, nothing yet from Washington, Chief."

  "Ten-four. Good work, Betty. I'll be coming in as soon as the other unit arrives."

  A few years ago it may have taken us weeks or months to obtain information like this, but modern police detection technology has become so advanced that local authorities can often access such information almost instantaneously. The California Identification Remote Access Network (CAL-ID) allows latent fingerprints to be injected into the system from virtually anywhere in the state and a list of potential matches can turn up within minutes. The use of police computer data-base systems has so revolutionized the identification and histories of suspects that often the officer on the beat, using a dashboard computer, can obtain a complete file on the suspect without even leaving his vehicle.

  Terry left me alone for a moment while he stepped outside to confer with his arriving officer. Minutes later we were rolling toward the police department, a brief run from Old Mammoth. I asked about George Kaufman, reminding him of an earlier conversation that had touched briefly on the man.