Copp In Deep, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) (19 page)

"And sleeping with one eye open."

"You think I'm in danger?"

"Do you think you're not?" I asked, and left him on that note.

A "theory of the case" had begun to form for me during that interrogation. That means the broad overview, with all the seemingly disparate pieces falling into a pattern of cause and effect.

I didn't have all the causes in total focus yet, and certainly not all of the effects, but I felt for the first time some coherent sense of flow that I could throw a saddle on and ride into the dirt.

I would have to do that, I knew.

Or I would die.

Chapter Twenty-Five

It was nearing
onto dusk when I hit the
Delancey
place, an upscale hillside home worth maybe half a mil in today's market—not quite as grand as the Putnam digs but close. I entered through a rear window, found the atmosphere in there not exactly pleasant because the house had been shut up tight for a long time, it seemed. The windows were all heavily draped and the air conditioning system was shut down.

Very stylish place, though, with a circular stairway lifting to a loft room and bedrooms beyond, a large he and she bath complete with Jacuzzi and wardrobes connecting separate master
sleeperies
, one very austere and the other femininely sensual—male clothing in one, female in the other. They had not routinely slept together. For some reason I took comfort in that—I guess because it seemed more like an arrangement than a marriage, but it was a sad thought too.

Two large suitcases stood open atop her bed and articles of clothing had been rather carelessly packed

into them. That morning's newspaper lay folded on the foot of the bed. I found bloodstained puffs of cotton and an open bottle of hydrogen peroxide in the bathroom, evidence that someone had recently been cleaning minor wounds.

She'd been there, all right, at some time during that day. I recalled the telephone conversation when she thought I was the coroner and she told me that she needed her husband's body released because she was leaving town—"leaving for Europe," I think she said.

But had she already left, deciding to not bother with the big suitcases?

I poked around for a while up there but found no clues to her actual intentions—felt a bit peculiar going through her personal things—finally gave it up and went back downstairs for a quick check of those premises. Mail was stacked on a table in the entry hall, all of it addressed to George, all bills and advertisements—too late, folks, he's gone and left no forwarding address. The finality of that struck me in a way I'd never thought of death before. I vaguely wondered what George had worried about and dreamed about—what he feared the most and loved the most—and how it all reduced to exactly nothing now that there were no more tomorrows.

In the kitchen I found pungent coffee simmering in a
Silex
, a cereal bowl and a spoon rinsed and resting in a dish drainer, bare refrigerator and a nearly bare cupboard. I turned off the
Silex
, in case no one would be around to do so later.

This home had recently been nothing but a head-

quarters, maybe not even that. Obviously George had spent very little time here since the separation. Now these few meager tracings of habitation only emphasized the neglect and made poignant the shattered hopes with which this home must have been established. I'd never seen the man in life but I'd seen him in cold, stiff death, an inanimate caricature of a human being—and I grieved a little for George
Delancey
in his barren kitchen. Okay, I grieved for Toni too—and I would have put those two together again if I could.

But all the king's horses and men could not have done that even a week earlier, and I saw why when I found the little den behind the study. It was only about an eight-by-ten cubicle without windows, and it contained only a
bigscreen
projection-type TV with VCR, an overstuffed chair, a small table. Plus a video library with about fifty cassettes of the X variety—double and triple X, maybe, if you consider the genres of porn. This was all lash and leather culture, pure S&M, not a good recipe for marital health if it turns one on and the other off.

I went out the way I'd come in, found a neighbor grunting over a buried lawn sprinkler in the adjacent yard, a silver-haired oldster who'd probably spotted me coming in and whose curiosity was lying in wait for me. He waved and said, "Hi there," so I went over to speak to him.

"Bakers bake and bankers bank," the old man grumbled. "So could someone please tell me why gardeners don't garden?"

I suggested, "When you find one that does, better be nice to him."

"Guess that's the secret," he replied with a little laugh, then did a double take as I got closer and said, "Oh, you're not him. I was wondering ..." He chuckled, more with embarrassment than humor. "This is terrible. Lived right next door for two years and don't even know their name."

"
Delancey
," I said.

"Oh."

I showed him my badge but put it away while he was still trying to focus on it, told him, "You don't know them very well, eh?"

"No," he said emphatically. "What's wrong?"

"Mr.
Delancey
was murdered two days ago."

"No! My God! Really? What kind of a world is this getting to be?"

"Certainly not gentler and kinder," I said. "You didn't see much of your neighbors, eh?"

"Well no, not lately. Used to see him going and coming all the time—all hours of the day and night, I might add. She's a pretty little thing but I haven't seen her in months. Used to see her, at first, out in the back yard once in a while." He cocked an eye at me. "Sunbathing. In a teeny bikini. Let me tell you . . . but no, I think she left some time back. Used to talk a little bit back and forth across the fence. Him, no. Never looked left nor right, always seemed in a hurry. I worry about that place. Kids could break in there and raise hell, maybe bum it down, maybe mine with it. He's dead? So what's going to happen to the place?"

I told him, "Maybe it will get a nice young family with dogs and kids."

He said, "Oh no! I don't like dogs. Not right next door!"

"Kids and cats then," I suggested, and went on my way.

"I don't want kids right next door either!" he yelled after me.

It was getting to be a hell of a world, yeah. Gentler and kinder? Huh-uh. Not even right next door.

      
I have a friend who operates a small travel agency. She had helped me before, I figured maybe she could again. The suitcases on Toni's bed bore the remains of old Eastern Airlines baggage checks. Wasn't much of a clue, but people do often have favorite airlines so I hoped it might narrow the search just a bit.

It did.

We found her under her real name on a flight to Washington leaving LAX at midnight, and the search required only about ten minutes. It cost me a future dinner date but what the hell.

I marked my mind for a midnight intercept at LAX and went on to Malibu, got there shortly past eight o'clock.

Dostell
wasn't at home but his lady was. Didn't want to let me in the house but I insisted, kicked the door off the safety chain and caught her a glancing blow in the process. So, hell, she was surly and rubbing her butt while threatening to kill me in various terrible ways as I shook the place down looking for Frankie boy. I wondered why men like
Dostell
tolerated women like this one, decided maybe the aggravation was the only thing that kept him feeling alive. She had a mouth on her that could wither hardened felons and a vocabulary to match. Besides which, she liked to get right in your face and talk into your tonsils with every muscle in her body.

Finally I sat her down hard in a soft chair and dared her to bounce off of it. I think she was falling in love with me, kept rubbing her hip and wanting me to look at what I'd done to her, daring me to do it again and even suggesting other ways I'd better not hurt her.

Now this one I could see with a George
Delancey
maybe. Except I think that men like
Delancey
do it mostly in the mind—and when it does get beyond that level, they prefer the sweet, submissive, frightened women, not dragon-mouths like this one. Anyway, I had this gal's number. She fed on her own anger, not physical abuse from another. She could probably get off all alone on a desert island with no one to hear her but the seagulls if she could just keep worked up long enough.

I wasn't about to feed her, so I went outside and waited for
Dostell
in the car. Good thing, too, or I might have missed him entirely. I recognized his Ferrari lurching along the coast highway just
uprange
, saw it nose into the embankment and grind to a rest. The traffic was heavy and there were four lanes of it at that point but

managed to get over there without getting killed and tried to pull him out of the car. Couldn't do that; he was imp as a dishrag and I couldn't open the door widely enough because of the oncoming traffic.

He was as high as it's possible to get and remain alive—and from the looks of things, that would not be
^:
or long. I doubt that he even knew where he was or who le was, certainly not who I was.

"This is crazy, Frank," I told him. "You shouldn't be driving in this condition."

His speech was badly slurred and the words just barely recognizable but he seemed to be working at a semi-coherent message and trying desperately to get it across. "Shot me up, man, that's too much—can't handle this—kill me, kill me—Jesus!—burning me up!—where's the hospital, man?"

"Who shot you up, Frank? Who did it?"

This guy was collapsing from the inside out, as though muscle by small muscle was hanging out the do lot disturb sign and going to sleep. Apparently he'd already lost the bladder muscles and peed his pants. His eyes were not tracking together and each movement of :he head was a jerky, mechanical overshoot.

I worked at him for a minute or two, knowing all the while that it was no use. If the mind inside was

functioning at all, the thoughts were finding very little resonance in the brain cells required to express them.

"Who did this to you?"

"Told '
em
better. He no
no
no
. I would no
no
."

"Frank! Try to focus! You're overdosed! Who did

it?"

"She would say
say
. See? We no
no
no
. Oh shit, man, shit man!"

"Did you see Nicky?"

"Nicky no
no
no
. See he be he be. I no
no
no
no
."

I could not even hold him upright in the seat any longer. He was just a bag now, a skin covered bag with nothing but liquid inside seeking its flow back to the sea.

I stepped back and let him ooze away, closed the door to at least contain him to some measure, then I went back to tell his woman.

"Frank's car is just up the street. He's in big trouble. Better call the medics."

She gaped at me, all the anger turned off as though by a switch. "What's wrong?"

"Looks like an OD. Better hurry, he's fading fast."

She cried, "Oh my God!" and ran for the telephone.

I called after her, "Then I think you'd better get lost. Climb into a hole somewhere and pull it in over you."

"My God, why?"

"Whoever did it to him could feel the need to do it to you too."

"What are you saying?"

"A pile of people are dead, kid. And the pile is still growing. Do you know anything about Frank's business?"

She wildly shook her head. "We never talk about that."

"Call the medics," I said tiredly, and went out of there.

A police cruiser was parked behind the Ferrari when I went by, beacon flashing, so I knew that help would be on the way very shortly.

But I knew also that Frank
Dostell
was beyond help.