Copp In Shock, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) (13 page)

Sanford had crashed on the bed again when I went back to look in on him. I did not consider that particularly surprising. It had been a long, hard day for both of us. He opened his eyes and showed me a defeated grimace. I said, "I'll bunk in the other room. We will need to straighten out this mess with John Terry at first light. So get yourself together. I'll go in with you in the morning."

I was not sure that he had heard or understood what I was saying. I knew that I should have tried to resolve all this here and now, but I was just too beat, myself, to attempt to bring all these pieces into focus.

I should have tried harder. Come sunrise, I was going to hate myself.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

i had never
been one to spend a lot of time in bed— sleeping. I had always resented unconscious time. Often, when working on a case, I would work several nights straight through with only an occasional brief respite to keep me running. But of course, this time, I had not been fully myself and I should have known that. I was still sound asleep on the couch when Chief Terry called me at a few minutes past eight.

He said, "Time to rise and shine, bud. You planning on sleeping all day?"

I groaned, "Oh, shit. I had wanted to get up early. Thought I had set the alarm." I was inspecting the alarm clock as I told him that. Hell, the alarm had been turned off. I growled, "Hold it just a second."

I dropped the telephone and hurried into the bedroom. My pigeon had flown the coop.

I went back to the phone and told Terry, "Well, I blew it. Sanford was in my bed when I got back last night.
Dammit
!—the guy was confused and wanting help. I should have called you immediately."

He asked, "He's not there now?"

"No. I believe that he sabotaged my alarm clock. So I have no idea—"

"I'm not surprised. Harley had a busy night. Why don't you get over here as quick as you can. We've got visitors."

I said, "I'll need ten minutes to get clear. Have the coffee ready."

"You got it," he replied as he hung up.

It was characteristic of this guy to waste no time crying over spilled milk. Some cops I have known would have been reading the riot act over my failure to apprehend a wanted suspect. There was none of that stuff in this guy.

I invaded the shower and tried to clear my head of the cobwebs. The hit at the airport had an almost surreal quality, and I was trying to put the events into a clear perspective that made some sense but the steaming water was doing little to accomplish that.

Had the gunmen at the airport been trying to kill me, or someone else? If me, who could have been that worried about my involvement in the problems here? If not me, that left only Janice Sanford and Tom Lancer, and a girl already dead, aboard that plane. So what the hell was it all about?

The gunmen had undoubtedly been launched by the same people who had hoped to silence Arthur Douglas... but why had he needed silencing? What could a small-town cop add to the mystery that would be worth the risk of a daring execution-style slaying in open view of a score of witnesses?

As for that business at the airport, what could have been the motive and why was it so important?

And maybe I had just missed the most obvious implication. Harley seemed to think that someone had been trying to kill him. So maybe that was true, and maybe the gunmen at the airport had expected Harley Sanford to be aboard.

And if Harley had been the target all along, as he seemed to have thought, how would that account for the gunmen at the hospital?

Whatever, I had to get moving, so I got out of there as quickly as possible. I was at the P.D. fifteen minutes later. There was something similar to a war conference underway in the Chief's office. Official brass from two different sheriff's departments and a contingent from the California Highway Patrol were discussing the crime spree in this placid mountain village.

Terry performed introductions all around. I had met one of the highway patrolmen briefly several years earlier but I did not immediately recall the circumstances. His name was Griffith and he reminded me that we had met at a police convention in Sacramento. He said, with a genial smile, "Figured you were dead or in jail years ago, Joe."

I gibed back with a smile, "That could apply to every man in this room. So what's new in your world?"

Griffith chuckled as he replied, "Same old, same old. Who tried to take your head off?"

Molly's patch job had fallen apart in the shower. I had tried to glue it back together but one end kept waving in the breeze every time I moved, so I ripped the whole thing off and tossed it into a wastebasket. I asked him, "Why do I have the feeling that you already have the answer to that?"

He grinned and said to the group at large, "
Copp
has always been good for a laugh when things get boring."

But no one else seemed to be laughing and certainly there was no hint of boredom in this particular crowd. Two of these guys were showing almost open contempt for my inclusion in this group. That was not particularly surprising. As a private eye I had long since been aware of open hostility from cops as soon as they knew my history. Which is not to be taken personally; very often cops from different official quarters do not get along well even with one another. I usually try to put the disrespect in perspective and try to take no offense. That can be difficult at times. I had this group pretty well sized up the moment I walked in there. To some cops, a private eye is scum, no matter how you may prove them wrong. I stopped trying long ago.

Chief Terry said, almost as though to lighten up an overcharged atmosphere, "I want it known right up front here that this guy saved my butt yesterday afternoon, so I expect him to be accorded all the respect that I demand for myself. If anybody here can't handle that, there's the door."

I took it by that comment that Terry had been getting some static about me from these guys.

One of the sheriff's people, a guy named Armstrong, was trying to put a good face on the discussion. He smiled at Terry and said, "I have no problem with that."

Another cop said, "Me neither."

At least no one got up and walked out.

But it seemed that the conference had sputtered to an end. I had the feeling that these people had come just to get a day out of the office anyway; and it would probably look good in the political arena. What could these guys accomplish, after all, except to embellish public relations between police agencies. The individual patrolman or detective out on the streets is the man who makes the crucial difference every time, not the brass. At the bottom line, police work usually comes down to an individual cop on the beat face-to-face with a criminal. You cannot get more basic than that, and the individual cop has to know that he cannot depend on anyone except himself in a moment of crisis. Any cop who forgets that is in extreme jeopardy. There are a lot of badass people out on these streets—anywhere, everywhere.

I stepped outside for a breath of air as the meeting broke up. Griffith came out and shook my hand again. He said, "Terry there is a good man. He seems to be in your corner at the moment but don't give this guy too much slack. Watch yourself, Joe."

I said, "Thanks. I always try to keep my back to the wall but I have seen this guy under fire and I respect him. Beyond that, yeah, I hardly know the man. Were you trying to tell me something I ought to know?"

He chuckled and lowered his voice as he replied, "I just said it."

I said, "No, I think you didn't."

"How long since you've been to Tahoe?"

"Is that a suggestion?"

"I've heard things. Maybe you should."

I said, "Thanks, it's on my schedule."

He showed me a cryptic smile and went on.

So what the hell was that about? Some of these people often end up a bit paranoid, so I was not particularly impressed by the apparent warning.

But a jaunt to Tahoe was definitely looming larger in

my immediate future. If, that is, I had any future left.

      
For the moment, however, I wanted a private conversation with John Terry regarding his old pal, Harley Sanford.

      
I had to call it that way.

      
The guy had simply been too tolerant of his leading citizen's possible involvement in the violence of yesterday.

Terry met me
outside and said, "Let's go find some breakfast."

      
When we got into his car I asked him, "What was so hot on your mind when you called me a while ago?"

      
"No, you first. What's this about Harley?"

      
I told him, "I gave it to you. He was in my bed when I got home last night. I figured he would keep until morning. He didn't."

      
"So what was on his mind?"

      
"He seemed stunned that he might be a murder suspect. He was confused and scared. He didn't admit to anything but he also didn't deny anything."

      
"That sounds typically Harley. But what was your sensing of what he said?"

      
I said, "My sensing was that the guy was scared out of his skull. Where are we going?"

      
We were moving slowly along Old Mammoth Road. The Chief replied, "They have a good breakfast at The Swiss Cafe. It's just down the street. Like waffles?"

      
"Whatever," I said. "What is your startling news about Sanford? You said something on the phone about him having a busy night. What was that?"

"Waffles first," he said.

I could tell that he wasn't just stalling me but was working at something inside his own head. I allowed him to nurse it until we were seated in the restaurant. But that took a while too. This guy had a lot of friends. We had to run the gamut of interested queries on the big news around town, and he was not one to be churlish with the local folks. As soon as we got that all settled down and breakfast ordered, he told me, "I talked to Harley last night, too. He said that someone had been trying to kill him and that he was afraid to show himself until I could guarantee his safety."

"What time was that?"

"That was close to midnight. I tried to convince him that we needed to straighten out his problems but he was hitting me about the same way he was hitting you, from what you told me."

I said, "Well, maybe I'm nuts but I really felt that the guy didn't know anything about the shootings. He was in a hell of a sweat. He was crying. I went in the other room to give him a chance to pull it together. When I came back he was bundled into bed again. I figured, what the hell, the guy would keep through the night. I was pretty well bombed out, myself. I've been wondering all morning why I didn't call you on the spot. But I can tell you this much, I felt no fear of this guy. I don't often tuck myself into bed with a murderer just down the hall from me. I've had to rethink this whole scenario. I can tell you this—"

I did not get the chance to tell him "this," whatever it was.

Terry's beeper summoned him at that point.

      
He excused himself and went to the telephone in the lobby.

      
I got about three good bites of a gorgeous Belgian waffle before he returned, with all illusions of a leisurely breakfast gone for sure.

      
"Let's go," he said urgently. "I'll tell you about it in the car."

      
It was not done, yet, in Mammoth.

      
Harley Sanford was dead.