Copp On Fire, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp, Private Eye Series) (7 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

Charles Franklin's place was up in the Glendale hills, not swank but no shanty either. He's an urbane man of forty-five, handsome, well set up. I knew at the front door that I did not want to play cute with this one, so I took it straight to him.

"My name is Joe
Copp
. I'm a private investigator. I've become involved in the Wiseman case."

He took the play away from me right there, stepping back quickly and swinging the door wide to invite me inside with a restrained flourish. "I suppose I've been half expecting you to call," he told me in a voice that sounded a bit like Dick
Cavett's
. "I knew that Melissa was trying to reach you. Have you spoken with her?"

I resisted the urge to finger the wound on my scalp. "Yes, we talked briefly yesterday. She isn't home, by any chance?"

He said, "Oh, Melissa doesn't live here. I haven't seen her for days. She did call early yesterday afternoon sounding sort of mysterious and troubled. Of course I'd already heard the news about Bernie, so . . ."

      
He had led me into the interior of what could have been a plush mountain cabin on a ski slope somewhere. Outside was the usual stucco and brick but inside was pure Aspen with oversized fireplace, paneled walls, wooden floors with scatter rugs, open beam ceilings and a picture window that probably looked all the way to Catalina on a clear day. Nice place, and it said "bachelor" to me all the way.

      
He was smoking a pipe as we settled into chairs near the fireplace. I already knew that this guy had been a screenwriter for the past twenty years and I'd been impressed with his list of credits.

      
I asked him, "How long have you and Melissa been separated?"

      
"Oh, we're not separated," he replied quickly. "That is, not in the conventional sense. It isn't like a breakup or any of that. We've never lived together."

      
"Why'd you get married?"

      
"Marriage of convenience," he said, smiling.

      
"Okay."

      
"We're the best of friends."

      
"Okay."

      
"How can I help you?"

      
"I was just with Justine Wiseman. I have her view of... the personalities involved. I'm trying to understand the various relationships."

      
"Justine can be very direct," he said for the understatement of the day.

      
"I'm hoping you will be too."

      
"Glad to try. If you're working for Melissa you're

working for me too in a way. What can I tell you?"

I didn't tell him I was not working for Melissa. I said, "Give me a verbal script, set up the characters for me."

He smiled. "A story treatment."

I nodded. "Whatever you call it."

He stared out the window, got up to stand with an arm on the fireplace mantel, worked at his pipe. "Begins with a boy genius, a prodigy who was playing Brahms at the piano before most kids get free of the playpen. Very gifted, and not just in music. He masters music, in fact, to his own satisfaction at least, and has gone on to other interests by the time he's twelve. Shy, reclusive boy—not big on relationships or peer groups or any of that. Then he discovers sex and begins a five-year affair with one of his tutors. He—"

"Male or female tutor?"

"Female. Linguist." He puffed his pipe. "She teaches him all the tongues."

"Five years starting when?"

"Starting at the age of twelve. He's already mastered the usual studies that take a normal kid through high school. Now he's concentrating on economics, languages and sex. He—"

"Who is this kid turning into?"

"Sorry, thought you knew. He's turning into Bernie Wiseman."

"Okay. Please go on."

"He gets a Harvard A.B., economics major, gets bored with the B-school, goes into Wall Street at the age of nineteen. At twenty-five he's CEO of one of the big investment firms and bored again. Now he's playing too hard and gambling too much. There's a small scandal involving an insider trading deal. He's into therapy now and is often seen in the company of...cheap-looking women."

"How old now?"

"Still twenty-five. Moves west and is married at twenty-six, divorced and remarried at twenty-eight, again at thirty. The third marriage lasts five years. Meanwhile he's become interested in movies, works briefly in the distribution and marketing end, jumps into production and finance with a small firm that's doing sexploitation
pics
."

"Porno."

"No. There's a difference. The Russ Meyer sort of thing but without Russ' special touch. These are just . . . you know, drive-in movie stuff. They'd get a PG rating today, and even the thirteen-year-olds would turn up their noses at them. These were grinders. Five days on a sound stage, a day in the cutting room and into the drive-ins next week. He made piles of money, needless to say. But it wrecked his marriage."

"Problems with the casting couch."

"Probably. The problem was always there. Now it was being fed by an inexhaustible supply. The stories are, as they say, legend."

"What stories?"

"In the business, I mean.
 
There was no gossip-column interest in Bernie back then."

"What stories?"

"Oh ... that he had a different girl for lunch every day in the office ... a girl comforting him from beneath the desk while he's conducting business . . . similar attention in his car on the freeway, hand jobs beneath the table in fancy restaurants. Those kind of stories."

      
"The American Dream, eh?"

      
"I think it was more like a nightmare. I've known the man for ten years, worked with him on six pictures, and that is not the Bernie Wiseman I've known."

      
"Tell me about that one."

      
"Kind, generous, compassionate. Those stories have become legend too, by the way. Gifts to repay a kindness, never forgets a favor, never turns on or forgets a friend."

      
"How about wives?"

"Well, he's just had one since I've known him. Lord knows he tried to get along with Justine. But she can be something of a wildcat."

      
"How heavy was he into alimony?"

      
"Pretty heavy, I gather. Joked about it sometimes. Like Carson, just smiled and went on. He's been paying Justine a very generous allowance for the past two years."

      
I said, "She's still not mourning."

      
"Well . . . perhaps not—"

      
"Definitely not."

      
He
restoked
his pipe. "Sad. They were very cozy once. I think it came apart for good in Mexico. Did she tell you? He blamed her for the accident with the horse. Very irrational, it was the first time I'd ever seen that in Bernie. He could get fixed on something and you'd have a devil of a time dissuading him, but usually he would yield if you could show him exactly where he was wrong. Not that time. I guess he died blaming her . . ."

      
"Are we sure he died?"

      
Franklin gave me a startled look. "I understood there was no question of that."

      
"There wasn't much left to identify," I said.

      
"But the medical records, dental charts . . ."

      
"Why would he blame Justine? She wasn't even there, was she? Were you there?"

      
"I was, yes. It was my picture—my script, that is. No, Justine wasn't there. They were already separated. He actually thought she had put a contract out on him. But it was just a freak accident. The horse stumbled and rolled over him."

      
"So why would he think—?"

      
"Oh, there was some question about... they found brambles or something wedged beneath two of the
horses's
shoes, enough to make it very touchy at times. The location manager couldn't figure it out because he said that kind of vegetation didn't even grow in that area and they were local horses. Bernie built that inconsistency into a murder plot, and, of course, he blamed Justine."

      
"Why 'of course'?"

      
"They were having a bitter wrangle over the divorce settlement. He'd been worried about a loophole in the marriage contract and—"

      
"What loophole?"

      
"I don't know all the details. But he seemed to think that she would profit more from his death than from any divorce settlement."

      
"How much, would you say, was at stake there?"

      
"Millions. Bernie had a beautiful incentive program at UT. Bonuses, you know, profit sharing. And he's turned nothing but smashes for several years now."

      
"How did your picture do? The one in Mexico."

      
He smiled. "That was Bonaparte's Reprise."

      
Not bad. It had taken a couple of Oscar nominations and was a top grosser last year. I'd seen it myself and I rarely go to movies. I asked the writer, "Do you usually go on location with your pictures?"

      
"Depends on where the location is. Actually, for Bonaparte, I'd just flown down with Bernie for a weekend visit. I did change a couple of scenes while I was there but. . . well, of course, the accident was very demoralizing for everyone. Delayed the shooting for a week. I was doing another script for Paramount at the time. Bernie was down there for several months recuperating, but I was there for only a few days."

      
"Why did he stay so long? With an injury like that I'd want to get back home with the best medical attention possible."

      
"Not Bernie. He really liked it down there and had confidence in the doctors. And of course he had this fixation about Justine, a paranoid fixation. I do believe he was afraid to come home until he was on his feet again."

      
"And he never got on his feet again."

      
"Well, but there was some hope for a while, some possibility that the damaged nerves would mend themselves, regenerate."

      
"That never happened."

      
"Never happened."

      
I said, "Could we talk a bit about Melissa? Did she make porno movies?"

      
"Did Justine tell you that?"

      
"Yes. Have you seen them?"

      
"I scripted one of them."

      
"Why?"

      
"Why not? It was fun. Pay was lousy but, I admit, it stirred my fantasies."