Copp In Shock, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) (11 page)

It was a shocker when it occurred to me that her life had been reduced to this paltry inventory. There was a finely drawn gold necklace, which I had no memory of, a gold cigarette lighter engraved with the name Martha Kaufman, a simple gold wedding band inscribed, "Martha and Joe Forever"—which hit me like a ton of bricks, and the memory of placing it on her hand was like a knife twisted into my heart—and, finally, as though it had been carefully woven for my personal attention, a wide gold bracelet with a large cameo design. The bracelet had an almost antique quality. I kept working it through my fingers as though some rare secret was awaiting my discovery. And suddenly it revealed itself. I was twisting a gold clasp that adorned the underside when suddenly it sprang open. Inside was concealed a thin metal key with no identifying marks. It appeared to be a safety-deposit-box key. It would have fit unobtrusively inside a videocassette case or some similar common object, so maybe now I knew what had been the object of the search in Arthur Douglas's apartment—and/or the interest in Martha's condo.

      
For God's sake!

      
Had this "bauble" been the reason for Martha's death?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

i was feeling
guilty because I had done such a lousy job of pulling the pieces of this puzzle together. So many markers had been there from the very beginning but I had not been thinking like a cop. I should have known right from the start that something was sour with this whole thing. Martha's death had not been an incidental, unrelated event. Someone had killed her for an important purpose. Violent death is always the result of a chain of events that are related to cause and effect. Any cop knows that. Doesn't take a great brain to figure it out. Even the most casual drive-by shooting is wound somehow into a complex series of events that culminate in a violent death. So I was not too proud of the way I had conducted myself during the events of this day. Like I said, I had not been thinking like a cop—I had been thinking like a victim, I guess.

I should have known immediately that the burglary of Martha's condo was directly related to her murder. One of the things that had thrown me off early on was the family connection with Harley Sanford. This was greatly compounded by the possible involvement of Sanford in the shooting of Officer Douglas and later the death of Cindy Morgan. Then the apparent disappearance of Sanford following the discovery of the girl's body in his car added a bizarre twist to the chain of events. The torching of the Kaufman Gallery, although occurring out of sequence, was almost like a footnote to the entire improbable scenario, which actually could have begun with the questionable death of George Kaufman two years earlier.

This retrospection was interrupted by Lancer's announcement over the P.A.: "Touchdown in ten minutes."

That roused Janice. She showed me a wan smile and said, "I needed that nap—thanks."

I discreetly slipped Martha's bracelet into my coat pocket and said to Janice, "Are you fully awake?"

"I think so."

"I have been wondering about the relationship between Martha and her family."

"What do you mean?"

"I am curious why we'd never met until today."

She gave me an embarrassed smile. "Things had not been good between Martha and her father for quiet some time. He was devoted to her, but I'm afraid that he always treated Martha like a personal possession. It had not been good between them since her estrangement from George Kaufman. Harley took that as a personal affront."

"Things were tight between George and Harley?"

"Not that so much. George was handpicked by Harley to be Martha's husband. I always felt that Martha looked at the marriage as more of a convenience for Harley than for her own personal happiness. Frankly, I could never blame Martha for feeling that way. It was about as close to a shotgun wedding as you could find."

"So what did this do to your relationship with Martha?"

She sighed and said, "I have never been proud of the way I caved in to my husband on this matter. I have always been a terrible coward when it comes to going against my husband's wishes. What this says about me I cannot defend. I guess I've always had an old-school attitude about marriage. Of course that has always made it very easy for Harley to dominate me. I'm not proud of that either. But no more. Maybe Martha would be alive today if I hadn't been such a pushover." She was weeping without embarrassment.

I couldn't let her give herself such a bad rap. I reached over and tried to comfort her. "Martha is dead, Janice, because of events far beyond your ability to influence them." I produced the bracelet and showed her the hidden key. "I have a feeling that this is why Martha died. Have you ever seen this before?”

With hardly a glance at the bracelet she said, "Yes, I gave it to her myself when she was eighteen. It belonged to my mother. How could that have had anything to do with Martha's death?"

Obviously she had not noticed the safety-deposit key. I gave her a closer look at the key and said, "Not the bracelet, Janice. The key. Do you recognize this?"

"Yes, I have one just like it.
 
Not the same key, I'm sure, but they all look alike."

"Safety-deposit?"

"Yes."
 
She took the key and inspected it more closely. "Looks just like mine."

"Your bank in Mammoth?"

"Yes."

I said, "It could be important. Did you know that Martha had a safety-deposit box?"

"No, I didn't.
 
But Martha had been in business on her own since her separation from George. She has been totally self-sufficient for the past few years."

"Did Harley help her start the gallery?"

"No. Not that he wouldn't, but she wouldn't have allowed it.
 
Martha was not like me, Joe.
 
She was fiercely independent of her father after she got out of that disastrous marriage. She would not have given Harley another opening like that. Anyway, I know that Martha started that gallery with her own money. She didn't need Harley's money. George's life insurance, while not particularly lavish, left her quite comfortable. For the first time in her life she didn't need her father for anything. I think that's what disturbed him so."

I became aware of a rapid descent at about the time that Lancer reported, "Let's get buttoned down. Beginning our approach." He added, "Joe, would you like to come up front for a better view?"

Janice said, "Why don't you, Joe? I've seen this many times."

I thanked her and went on forward to join the pilot.

It was a spectacular sight. You don't capture the full beauty of this area from the ground. I had never seen it this way, and even under these unhappy circumstances I was almost transfixed by the view from the cockpit. The moon was still high and bright in the sky, illuminating the snowcapped peaks. Lancer masterfully dropped the jet toward the mountain valley and we were suddenly surrounded by numerous shimmering lakes dotting the mountain basins below.

Poor bastards, as Chief Terry was wont to say. None of us had an inkling of the terror that was awaiting us in this tranquil setting.

"This will be
a straight-in approach," Lancer told me with cool confidence. "This is not a controlled airport, so there won't be anyone around at this time of night. I notified the mortuary of our time of arrival, so the hearse should be waiting at the field."

"There's no FAA here?"

"No. There's a remote radio access to the flight-service station at Riverside, but that's a trunk line setup with limited hours and even then it may be subject to delay."

"Straight-in approach to what? Where the hell's the airport?"

Lancer said, "Good question. This is slick. Watch this, it's a pilot-controlled lighting system." He quickly keyed the mike button five times. High-intensity strobe lights, like a thousand Roman candles, blazed alive and created a perfect runway configuration like a highway to heaven.

Moments later, Lancer was expertly threading the needle, softly massaging the craft into the illuminated pathway. Just before touchdown he quickly keyed the mike again, dimming the runway lights and activating the runway-end identifier lights. An instant later, we were setting down and he hit the thrust-reversers. I could feel the G-forces as the hurtling aircraft went into a smoothly controlled deceleration.

I had noticed a stationary Jeep alongside the runway

with two standing figures silhouetted behind the windshield as Lancer taxied into the turn at the end of the landing roll. This was no hearse and I could see no reason for these guys to be out here. I yelled, "This looks like unexpected company and these don't look like lovers, pal."

Lancer was busy executing his turn onto the taxiway but he had caught it, too. He said, "Shit, I think those guys have guns."

It was like a prophecy. I couldn't hear the gunfire but I could see the flashes from two high-powered rifles laying in on us—and this was no prophecy. These bastards were shooting at us.

Lancer yelled, "Hell, we're taking fire!"

So we were. A volley of heavy bullets smacked through the windshield and shredded the interior cabin walls behind us. Lancer was no dummy; I got the idea very quickly that this guy had been in combat situations before. He was maneuvering to get clear when the nose wheel exploded and sent us into a shuddering skid. He said coolly, "Christ, if they hit a fuel tank...!" He instantly killed the engines as the plane collapsed onto the forward gear.

I heard Janice yell out in alarm. We were sitting ducks! Those bastards were no more than fifty yards away from us. Lancer sprung a .45 automatic from his seat pocket at the same instant I
unholstered
my Beretta and said, "I have to get Janice out of here."

Lancer yelled, "I'll try to cover you. Use the escape hatch." He already had his gun extended through the small window opening beside the pilot's seat. He was blasting away when I rushed back to lead Janice out.

I released her seat belt and said, "We're getting out of here."

She hesitated and glanced toward the rear of the cabin. "Martha..."

"Not now." I unlatched the release lever on the emergency exit and pulled Janice out of the seat. "Keep close," I warned her.

Lancer was plenty sharp, okay. He was keying the mike to turn the blinding strobe lights on and off while we made our escape from the plane. Brave guy. He knew that the plane could go up in a ball of flame at any moment. Meanwhile, he was keeping the shooters busy with his return fire from the cockpit.

This was heroic shit. I had the greatest admiration for this guy as he maintained his post, braving almost certain death. I carried Janice clear and deposited her in a shallow ditch beside the runway. "Stay down!" I told her, and went back to support Lancer.

Maybe it hadn't been conscious on his part at the time but what had saved our butts from the opening gunfire was the way Lancer had positioned the craft away from the line of fire. The shooters had not calculated the length of the Citation's shorter landing roll and they were not in the proper position to target their fire effectively. They had really expected the plane to utilize much more of the runway and they were tucked in for a duck shoot directly opposite their position. Lancer defeated their plan when he unexpectedly wheeled around for his return to the hangar area. Off balance and firing at a difficult angle, they missed their chance.

      
When Lancer hit the strobes again, this must have blinded them momentarily and his surprise return fire added to their confusion.

It was a continuing hot firefight. I was really firing more for show than for effect as I sprinted back to the emergency exit. Luckily, the return fire now seemed disorganized and largely ineffective.

My strongest instinct was to go after those guys, but the pressing worry was the vulnerability of the plane to explosion and Lancer's imminent danger. His pistol had suddenly fallen silent. All of this action had spanned a minute at most. Life and death are often measured by such brief moments totally out of context with ordinary time; to a burning man, a split second must seem like an eternity. A fight like this can be similar. In the recounting of such events, real time has no measure.

I dived back into the plane and yelled at Lancer. "Let's get out of here!" I went to the rear and fought Martha's body clear of the restraining harness and yelled again, "Tom, let's go!"

He replied painfully, "I'm hit!"

I slid the body bag off the plane and Lancer was right behind me. He'd taken a shoulder hit and was losing blood fast. I ordered him, "Wrap that up with something," and pushed him in the direction of the ditch. To the credit of this guy, he used his good arm to help me drag the body clear. Just in time—one of the shooters had just closed on the disabled plane and was trying to get an angle for a close shot.

I got there first.

I rolled under the plane and fired once at point-blank