Copp In The Dark, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) (8 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

I had a whole new angle on the situation now and a lot to think about but I still was not sure that I had all I could get from Judith White. She was plenty sharp, had one of those blessed female minds that can cut straight through all the crap and trivia to instinctively seize and size an issue at its naked core. Also I was beginning to like this woman quite a bit.

So I talked her into walking over to the hotel coffee shop with me, primarily because I didn't want to be interrupted by the official police but also because I felt that a public atmosphere could help her to relax and open up a bit more.

On the way over I asked her, "Okay to call you Judy?"

"I prefer Judith," she replied—then added, with a little
 
smile, "Except in intimate moments. I couldn't expect Cary Grant to say, 'Judith, Judith, Judith,' could I."

So Judith it was, for the moment—with maybe a hint of Judy in the future—but at least it was a start in the right direction. Over coffee and Danish I learned that she was older than she looked—thirty-two—and had once dreamed of starring on Broadway herself. She'd landed a role in a national touring company straight out of Pasadena City College, had later toured Europe and Japan, then decided that was not the way she wished to spend the rest of her life.

"I gave it five years," she told me, "and during that time I saw too many middle-aged people, fine talents all, who'd given it their lives and everything else—home, family, even self-respect. I settled for less, and I believe in the end I will have more."

"And less is ... ?"

"What I'm doing now. I still have the creative outlet, the fun, the excitement, but it's not burdened now with the dream."

"Dreams are important," I suggested.

"Reality dreams are important," she countered. "Most theater dreams are totally unreal, especially if they're all aimed toward Broadway. I try to tell the kids who come through here to relax and enjoy it—hey, people are paying to watch them perform. If you'd perform without pay— and you're no performer if you wouldn't—then hey, you've made it, you've arrived, enjoy it."

I guessed, "Craig couldn't do that."

      
"Well that's just it, that's what so sad, Craig did do that, but to a fault. Craig seemed to live for that moment, that moment
on the stage
when the dream was working. Craig's problem, you see, was that he often could not or would not turn it off when the curtain came down."

"Give me an example."

"He was into American Indian mysticism—barely into it, I'd guess, Craig was no scholar. But he'd picked up this shamanistic idea that the dream time is the real life and the real life is the dream. He—"

"Sort of fits the
La
Mancha
theme, doesn't it?"

"Pretty close, yes, pretty close. But the Indians still went out and hunted the buffalo and killed it and ate it because they knew that real or not they still had to feed themselves to keep the dreams alive. But you're right—I've often thought that Craig was so right for
La
Mancha
because he was really playing himself up there on that stage."

I said, "
La
Mancha
is a story within a story."

"It's a story within a story within a story," she corrected me. "And it's also a dream within a dream within a dream. The prisoner Cervantes is a defeated and dying old man who invents the fictional Alonso
Quijana
as an inept, ineffectual and perhaps demented old country gentleman who transforms himself into Quixote, an inept, ineffectual and certainly demented knight who sees the world
exacdy
as he chooses to see it, all other evidence to the contrary— but then that illusion is seen as a transforming vision of human life as it ought to be, not so much by Quixote or
Quijana
as by those who are moved and transformed by his insanity. The play ends with the other prisoners singing "The Impossible Dream" to Cervantes as he is being led away for judgment before the Inquisition. It's powerful stuff, and that is why the play has captured the hearts of so many people all over the world."

"But Craig was no Cervantes."

"No. Craig, I'm afraid, was too lightweight for that. Craig, I would say, was the demented knight."

"Acting out what?"

"His dementia."

"And that took the form of...?"

"One of the boys who was in the play is very shy. He's a bit overweight and has a so-so talent but hell make it in community theater if he sticks it out. Well, this boy fell

crazy in love with one of the girls in the chorus. Talked about her all the time, I gather, among the other guys, but he was too shy to even ask the girl for a date. So Craig- Quixote intervened.
 
He didn't play John Alden, he played God.

Told the boy that he'd overheard the girl talking about him, that she was crazy about him and that she couldn't understand why the boy wasn't showing any interest in her. Well, I'm sure he was kindly motivated and thought it would give the boy the courage to make a move. Instead, the boy asked Craig to make the move for him. Craig did, apparently, but the girl said the same thing that Priscilla said, speak for yourself.

"So Craig made a date with her, then went back and told the boy that it was all set up. So the boy goes and blows a hundred and fifty dollars for a limousine and shows up at the girl's door at the appointed hour bearing flowers and candy. Predictably, she is very disappointed by this turn of events and slams the door in the boy's face. We heard about this from the girl herself. Never saw the boy again. He was too humiliated to come back, even quit the show by telephone."

I said, "A good deed gone astray."

"Worse than that," Judith assured me. "I called Craig on that. He just smiled at me and said, 'He had it all for awhile, didn't he?' That's what I mean about confusing dreams with reality. That boy didn't have anything except a false hope that turned to ashes very quickly. But Craig saw it as something else."

"He saw it as ... ?"

"As something experienced in the mind, something that was very real in the mind for awhile. Something very joyous, a dream come true."

      
"But only in the mind." "Right."

      
"Like Quixote's mind when he attacks a windmill and believes that he has vanquished a dragon."

      
"
Exacdy
."

      
"But that works in the play. It worked in the novel."

      
"It works," she told me, "because Quixote never knows that he's a dream and because Alonso never awakens from it. But what will become of Cervantes when he finally faces the Inquisition? You see, the play ends without answering that question."

      
"What happens to the dream," I asked soberly, "when the dreamer disappears?"

      
"Exactly," she said. "Does it have a life of its own? No. The dream vanishes with the dreamer."

      
"And those left behind," I mused aloud, "have to sort it all out."

      
"If that is what you are trying to do," she said quietly, "then good luck."

      
"Maybe Craig himself was a dream."

      
"Then who was the dreamer?"

      
"Maybe," I said, "a kid from Minnesota. Ever hear the name Alfred Johansen?"

      
"Sure," she said immediately. "He's in the play but he uses the stage name Johnny
Lunceford
. He and Craig are best friends. He's the Padre in the play but he also understudies Craig in the title role."

      
I didn't know if I was glad or sad over that news. I just knew that the stage of possibilities was becoming very, very crowded.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

We talked a bit more and Judith named the three actors who'd followed Craig
Maan
from the theater on the night he was killed. The four were close friends and apparently the only thing Craig had said at the theater before he walked out was, "That's it, I'm sorry but I'm out of it and I'm out of here."

The three had followed him outside to find out what was wrong and none of them had returned.

Judith knew nothing about a secret marriage between Craig and Elaine and doubted that the story was true. As far as she knew, Craig had not dated any of the girls in the show and did not seem to be particularly interested in any.

I saw sheriff’s cars parked outside the theater as I was walking Judith back from the coffee shop so I did my thanks and goodbye outside and went on to my car.
 
That didn't change anything because Art
Lahey
was parked alongside and waiting for me.

"Get in," he said, without a greeting of any kind.

So I got into his car and we drove away without another word between us.

      
He headed east along Foothill Boulevard then turned north. It seemed that we were traveling toward the murder scene. "What's up?" I finally asked him.

      
"Just shut up," he replied.

      
So I just shut up and let it develop his way. After a moment he glanced at me and asked, "Did you get anything from Miss White?"

      
"It seems," I said, "that the victim quit the show and walked out with two minutes notice. Three of his friends followed to see what was wrong. None of them returned. She had to patch the show up with those that were left."

      
Lahey
grunted then asked me, "Which victim?"

      
"How many victims do we have?" I countered.

      
"Well see," he said.

      
"I was talking about Craig
Maan
. The other three are Sanchez, Peterson and Stein."

      
"What about Miss Suzanne?"

      
I replied, "I gave you that last night."

      
"Give it again."

      
I said, "She did the show last night. I was there. She was on stage practically the whole time. She slipped me a note to meet her at the stage door after the show. I did, and we went looking for
Maan
. She—"

      
"That was about what time?"

      
"Shortly after eleven o'clock."

      
"And
Maan
was last seen at... ?"

      
"It's an eight-thirty curtain."

      
"So about three hours later you found him dead."

      
"About that, yeah."

      
"You called it in immediately."

      
"Yeah. Well, within a couple of minutes. The girl was

overcome so I took her back to the car. Then I went straight back inside and called it in."

      
"The log shows the call received at eleven thirty-three."

      
"Sounds like it," I said.

      
"So you had just met her for the first time about thirty minutes earlier."

      
"That's right."

      
"Even so, you made a pitch on her behalf and took responsibility for her, took her away."

      
I said, "It seemed the thing to do, Art. She was a client, sort of."

      
"So you said. You took her to your own doctor. Why not to the emergency room?"

      
"You know how that goes. We'd have been there all night. My doctor was
closeby
, and it took five minutes."

      
"What medication did the doctor give her?"

      
"Think she said it was
seconal
. I still have a couple of the pills at home, probably, in the clothes I was wearing last night. What's this all about, Art?"

      
"Just shut up."

      
I said, "Fuck you, don't ask me a thousand questions you've already asked and then tell me to shut up. Where are we headed?"

      
"Well see."

      
But I already knew, I thought, where we were headed. We were near Rancho Cucamonga by then and approaching the apartment complex where I'd found the body of Craig
Maan
.

      
But I was in for a bit of a surprise. We went on past the scene of that crime and whipped around a corner to another section of the complex.

      
It looked very much the same as the other. Yellow tape was strung about the outside of the building and there were cops all over the place.

      
I asked
Lahey
, "What the hell is this?"

      
"Guess," he said.

      
"That's all I've done for three days," I told him.

      
"Then you shouldn't mind a few minutes more," he growled.

      
But I did. I minded it all to hell.

      
Four more murder victims were at that scene. And I recognized them all.

      
All were nude, three guys and a gal, and if you could believe the evidence, they'd all died in the midst of a sexual orgy. Blood was everywhere throughout that small apartment, spattered onto the walls and even the ceilings though all four bodies lay in a heap on a large waterbed. Drug paraphernalia were scattered about, as were small plastic packets of a white powder that looked like cocaine. A video camera was positioned on a tripod near the bed with the power still on and the monitor displaying the hellish scene, although the VCR to which the camera was attached was not now functioning.

      
All four victims had been repeatedly slashed and stabbed.

      
I identified them as Elaine Suzanne, Peter Stein who played Pedro, Jesus Sanchez who played
Sancho
— Quixote's faithful manservant—and James Peterson, one of the Muleteers.

      
I asked
Lahey
, "Is there a tape in that VCR?"

      
"Seems to be," he replied. "Well let the forensics people check it out. Don't you touch a damned thing in here."

      
I was not about to touch a damned thing in there, didn't want my prints left on any of it.

      
"How long dead?" I asked him.

      
"Don't know yet. The call came down just before I picked you up. Hasn't been time for the coroner to respond. What would you say?"

      
I'm no forensics expert but I'd seen enough stiffs in my time to guess. "Quite awhile. Can we get out of here?"

      
"Lost your stomach for it, Joe?"
Lahey
asked quietly.

      
"Never developed one," I told him.

      
We went outside and stood in the grass to await the forensics team.
Lahey
went over to talk with one of the uniformed deputies, jotted some details in his notebook, then came back to tell me, "Next door neighbor reported it. Leaving for work, saw the door ajar, remembered hearing strange sounds during the night, investigated. I'm going to go talk to her. Want to come along?"

      
I growled, "Thanks, yeah," and went along.

      
Glad I did.

      
It seemed to be a favored area for the impossible dream people.

      
I recognized this girl too. And I'd finally found my whisperer.