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

      
"What do you think of Judith?"

      
"She's okay, I guess. A bit prim. Nothing wrong with her a little poverty wouldn't cure. Judith doesn't know what it's like down in the trenches. Born rich and that makes a bitch—and that's no pitch." Susan laughed, and it had a touch of bitterness. "But it's her karma."

"How rich?" I wanted to know.

      
"Old money on her mother's side. Judith inherited quite a lot. She owns that house."

      
"What house?"

      
"The house she kicked her dad out of."

      
I didn't know how to respond to that. While I was thinking about it, Susan added, "And of course she owns the theater."

      
"What theater?" I asked stupidly.

      
"The dinner theater. Not the building, that's hotel property, but she leases it. She owns the damned theater."

      
Well, I didn't know how to respond to that either. And Susan was apparently
 
getting bored with me. She said, "Look, you stay as long as you like but I've got to get out of here. Can't stand this smoke in here. This is your last chance. I'm leaving."

I sighed and said, "Goodnight, Susan."

But I felt more like saying "good grief" and, yeah, I felt a bit like Charlie Brown—I just couldn't seem to get this one right.

One by one and two by two the cast of
La
Mancha
got up and did their numbers with the band while I sat in a near stupor from the tug of war inside my brain. Trying to make sense of it,
dammit
. Trying to make sense of...

Too many issues that may or may not be related were clouding the picture, I was sure of that. What did I have? I had the Mafia, for Christ's sake, I had United States Marshals and the FBI, I had a nationally sensitive trial and the Witness Protection Program, nervous politicians and compromised cops—a dead cop now—a rich judge's rich daughter and Jimmy
DiCenza
and the Minnesota Supreme Court—good grief, Charlie Brown, I had a pot running over, and buried in all that I had a bunch of talented kids with impossible dreams and maybe a bit too much reach for the grasp.

I took a leaf from Susan's book and decided to control my own body
, ordered
the brain to get off its ass and do its work, and I even tried to remember things I'd never known that I knew.

But none of it was working, not in full light, and I knew that I had to do better than that before the sheriffs came knocking at my door again.

I knew, too, that the sheriffs could be coming fearsome quick now. From somewhere outside my dark gloom I heard sirens clattering about the premises and everybody in the room heard them too. The band took another "short break" and went down to converse soberly with their friends in the audience. The bartender closed the bar and shortly thereafter a waiter came in from one of the banquet rooms at the far side of the building to announce to the hushed room, "There are cops all over out there. They've found another murder. Some guy got shot in his car."

Several patrons got up and left immediately but the gang from
La
Mancha
seemed to be huddling even closer now. I fingered the bloodstained notebook inside my coat pocket and wondered if I should try to stash it somewhere, went to the men's room and concealed it behind a towel rack, got back to my table just a few steps ahead of the sheriffs.

We were in for a long one, I knew that. They went from table to table, taking down names and checking IDs, asking the same questions table by table. I showed them my driver license and told them I'd been on the premises all evening, hadn't heard or seen anything unusual or suspicious. Thought I'd gotten away with it until a sergeant came over a few minutes later and asked me, "Aren't you Joe
Copp
, the private investigator?"

I admitted it.

He told me, "Captain
Waring
would like some words with you."

I asked, "Where is he?"

"At the murder scene. Come on. Let's go."

Well, so what the hell, I was moving up in the world. You don't usually get a captain responding to a homicide. This, of course, was not your ordinary homicide—this was one of their own, suspended or not.

Waring
was familiar, I'd seen the face before, very smooth guy with a military haircut dressed out like a Wall Street banker. He was standing beside
Lahey's
car with one

arm on the roof and a very sad face. He gave me a contemptuous look and asked me, "That your car over there?"

      
He pointed to it and I replied, "That's mine, yeah."

      
"How long has it been there?"

      
I looked at my watch, did a fast calculation, told him, "Long enough for the engine to go cold. Check it out."

      
"Already did. You've been around all evening?"

"Since just before intermission for
La
Mancha
, yeah." I peered inside the car. "That
Lahey
in there?"

      
"What's left of him," the captain replied. He looked even sadder and asked, "Why do cops always put the barrel of the gun in their mouths? Why is that?"

      
I shrugged, told him, "It's hard to miss, that way."

      
"Guess it is," he said.

      
"That the way you're reading it? He did himself?"

      
"Seems obvious, doesn't it,"
Waring
said. "The sergeant had a bad day. It's his own gun. Why do you suppose he came here to do it?"

      
I said, "He came here to talk to me." I told the captain about it, then added, "I don't think he did himself. He wasn't despondent. Mad as hell but not despondent. He was still working the case."

      
"What case?"

      
"The multiple murder case from last night, the one he was suspended from—or weren't you involved in that?"

      
"Don't get smart with me, Joe," the captain said but not in an angry way. But his interest in me seemed to have quickened a bit. "What are you doing here?"

      
"I'm on a case," I told him.

      
"Who's the client?"

      
I jerked my head toward the theater. "Them," I said. "All of them, the kids in the cast. They took up a collection and hired me to find out what's happening to them."
      
"What is happening to them?"

"Don't have that figured out yet," I replied. "That's why I'm here tonight."

"That case has been closed." "What case has been closed?"

"The murder case you were talking about. The case that
Lahey
couldn't let go of. It's closed. It's best you go on home now and just let it stay that way."

I showed him a sympathetic smile and said, "Yeah, but I've got these clients, see, and they don't want it closed." "You want a court order?"

"I'd take one of those, sure. And, uh, include
Lahey's
murder in there, why don't you."

The guy spun on his heel and walked away. Nobody else seemed interested in me, so I went away too, got in my car and drove off clean. Why?

Why did they let me off clean? I threw that into the pot and pointed the car toward San Antonio Heights.

Maybe Judith could start my pot to boiling, I thought. Or cool it down forevermore.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

She had company—a big Mercedes in the driveway and lots of lights showing inside the house.

      
Judith answered the doorbell, and I thought for a moment she wasn't going to let me in. "You were supposed to call," she said, sounding a bit embarrassed.

      
"Tried that," I told her. "Didn't work."

      
"When?"

      
"At one o'clock."

      
"I told you after one, Joe."

      
I looked at my watch. "That's what it is now. So am I coming in?"

      
She said, "I'm not alone."

      
"I can see that," I told her. "Still want to come in."

      
"Just a minute," she said and closed the door but not all the way. I heard her speaking to someone inside, then she threw the door wide and invited me in with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.

      
I recognized him instantly from the portraits I'd seen earlier, a suavely handsome man of obvious culture, rather slightly built but a leonine head with every hair in place and looking good—youthful appearance, an almost gentle

face, soft eyes, about a head shorter than me—not exactly what you would envision as a "hanging judge" but a guy I would like to see on the bench if my life were at stake.

"Sorry if I'm intruding. Your Honor," I said without any introduction. "Things are happening fast and I really need to talk with your daughter. And with you too," I added, "if that's okay."

He waved off both the apology and the explanation, told me, "I was just leaving, Mr.
Copp
."

"Stay awhile," I suggested. "You could find it very interesting."

He exchanged glances with Judith, smiled at me, returned to his chair.

I told Judith, "Art
Lahey
is dead."

She seemed to be shocked by that news, maybe a little dazed. "You mean the police sergeant?"

"That's the one I mean, yeah." I told the judge, "He reacted negatively to the habeas corpus for your two marshals, had a fight with his superiors, got suspended.
 
A few hours later he got dead. I wonder why, Your Honor."

The judge looked at me with a level stare and replied, "That's unfortunate. Of course, it's impossible to predict every implication of every decision one makes but... I'm truly sorry to hear it. How did it happen?"

I said, "His captain thinks he sucked up a gun barrel and pulled the trigger on himself. I don't think so. I had a long talk with
Lahey
minutes before he died and he did not sound like a despondent or depressed or desperate man to me.
 
I believe he was murdered."

"That is the risk every police officer assumes," the judge said in a somewhat sympathetic voice. "Brave men. They live in constant jeopardy. It's too bad."

"I believe," I said, "that it has something to do with the
DiCenza
case."

The judge held up a hand and said, "Please, Mr.
Copp
, you must understand that I cannot and will not discuss that case with anyone, nor do I want to hear any reference or any allusion to the defendant in the case."

"Not even," I said, "with your daughter's life hanging in the balance? I respect your protocols, sir, but you must know that you cannot isolate yourself within a bubble and let the whole world go crash for the sake of your protocols."

He got to his feet and turned to his daughter, kissed her coolly on the cheek, and flat walked out the door. I couldn't believe it.

I looked at Judith and said, "Well maybe he can."

"He always could," she replied quietly.

And that was all we had to say about the judge, for the moment. She flung herself into my arms and we didn't have a lot to say about anything for quite a long while. I even forgot about
Lahey
, and
DiCenza
, and all the dead kids. I forgot about everything—and that, I guess, illustrates the power of
eros
. Earlier I called it anesthesia. Sometimes, maybe, it is more like sanctuary. Whatever it is, apparently we both needed it desperately.

It was three o'clock and we were sprawled across the big bed in Judith's upstairs bedroom, totally spent in that sweet exhaustion that comes only in the wake of a perfect and prolonged mingling of sexual energies. She was lying atop me with both arms curled about my neck, golden head on my shoulder and soft lips at my ear, and she was quietly
 
weeping.

I told her, "Makes me nervous when the lady cries

afterward, never know if it's tears of joy, guilt or disappointment."

      
She kneed me gently in the groin and replied, "It's sure not disappointment, dummy. Did you ever consider sheer exhaustion as a cause?"

      
"That bad, eh?"

      
"That good," she corrected me, snuggling closer for direct emphasis. And after a moment, "Joe ... ?"

      
"Yes ma'am?"

      
"Life is too complicated."

      
"Agreed."

      
"Let's run away. Tahiti. Somewhere very basic."

      
"I hear New Zealand is nice."

      
"Let's go to New Zealand then."

      
"Don't think my Visa could stand it. How about
 
Catalina or San Diego?"

      
"I'm serious," she said with a pout.

      
"
So'm
I."

      
That seemed to have ended that line of conversation. After a brief silence, she withdrew to a position with her forearms supporting her weight on my chest, looked at me very soberly and said, "I can't figure out my dad."

      
"Have you really tried?"

      
"Yes. For years. I believe the man is totally devoid of passion."

      
I slapped her lightly on the bottom and told her, "Well I guess you take after your mother."

      
"I didn't mean that kind of passion," she said, still very serious. "I mean, he never has any emotions. Never laughs, never cries, never gets angry, never gets glad. He's just..."

      
"A judge," I suggested.

      
"A cold fish," she decided.

      
That's no way to talk about your dad," I told her. "I had the impression that you two had a very good relationship. Don't uh, judge him too harshly in this present matter. He's doing what he has to do."

      
She said, "It isn't that. It's everything else. He was the same way with my mother. She died of cancer, and it wasn't a terribly prolonged death, she died six weeks after the diagnosis. I never saw him cry, Joe. Never saw him look saddened, or frightened, or even regretful. He just remained aloof from the whole thing, never once made himself vulnerable to it."

      
"You didn't see him in his private moments," I reminded her. "Some men go to the closet to weep."

      
She shook her head. "Not my dad."

      
She got up then and went into the bathroom, leaving me with thoughts of the judge in the case. After a moment I heard water running in the shower, and I knew that another idyll had ended.

      
Over breakfast I casually asked Judith, "Why didn't you tell me that you own the theater?"

      
She replied, just as casually, "I don't remember you asking about it."

      
I said, "Not in so many words, maybe."

      
"Do you go around telling people that you own the Joe
Copp
Detective Agency? Anyway, I don't own the theater. I have the production contract."

      
"Do you have a boss?"

      
"No."

      
Then you own it. Also, you didn't tell me that you brought Craig
Maan
home with you for a week."

      
"What is this?" she asked teasingly. "Kiss and tell time? You want to give me a list of all the women you've taken home with you? But it wasn't like that with Craig. I let him use the maid's quarters until he could find a place." She showed me a wicked look. "Of course, I won't say that it could not have been like that with Craig, at first, if he'd shown any inclination."

      
"But he didn't."

      
"No. Who've you been talking to?"

      
"Everyone I could find," I admitted. "I heard you kicked him out. Why?"

      
"Well, not because he wouldn't play house with me. He just took too many liberties around here."

      
"What kind of liberties?"

      
"Snooping, stealing, those kind of liberties."

      
"Tell me about it."

      
"No big deal," she said, trying to dismiss the whole thing.

      
"No, it could be important," I persisted.

      
"He stole money from me. Okay?"

      
"Not okay. Why didn't you fire him?"

      
"He didn't steal from the theater. He stole from me. I try to keep the perspectives separated."

      
"You said he was snooping. Tell me about that."

      
She said, "Joe ..."

      
I said, "Tell me."

      
"He was too interested in my dad. Okay?"

      
"Not okay. Why shouldn't he be interested in your dad? I'm interested in your dad."

      
"It wasn't like that. He actually rummaged through my things, dug out old photo albums, kept bugging me to introduce him to Daddy. Hey, I didn't need that. And I don't need this, Joe."

      
I told her, "Come on, snap out of that, this could be important. The guy was a con artist. He was trying to set something up when he got himself killed. I need to know what was going on."

      
"Why don't you just let it go?" she cried.

      
"Let it go? Let it go? Come on, Judy, you can't let something like this go! Five people are dead, six now, and the sixth was a cop investigating the other five deaths! I can't let this go!"

      
"Well why not? Leave well enough alone! You're just going to dig up all kinds of trash, that's all! Let's just go away and forget about it!"

      
"You're serious about going away?"