Copp In Shock, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) (14 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The body was
lying just off the third green on the golf course. It had been there awhile, crumpled facedown near the top of a shallow sand trap. He'd been shot in the head and had apparently rolled down a hill into the bunker from a few yards above.

      
A revolver lay beside the body.

      
A note tucked inside a pocket of his pants appeared to be a suicide message.

      
The note said, simply, "I'm just too tired," and was unsigned.

      
Chief Terry had tears in his eyes. He said quietly, "That poor woman. Now she has another to bury."

      
That was exactly what he said, with no apparent concern for Harley himself. People do not always say precisely what is in their minds at such a time, but it struck me a little odd that all the sympathy had gone to the widow and none for the victim. But it was also no time to split hairs.

      
I told him, "I want to go with you to notify Janice."

      
He said, "Let's go right now, before she can hear it from someone else."

      
Other officers were on the scene. We left immediately,

and Terry was still brushing moisture from his cheeks as we sped away.

I was not buying this as a suicide. Not yet, anyway, and certainly not until all the other shootings had been reasonably explained. I wanted to try to find out where Sanford had been during the long hours since Cindy Morgan's death. If it could be shown that Harley Sanford had indeed been guilty of the murder of Cindy and/or the attempted murder of Arthur Douglas, then maybe something could be built of a suicide theory. At the moment, I was not buying it.

And I knew for sure, now, that I would have to make that trip to Lake Tahoe as soon as possible. There was no way to avoid the implications of a string of violence that probably began at least as early as the questionable death of Martha's first husband, George Kaufman.

I had to consider my own shooting, in L.A., as another link in the chain of violence, which had intensified dramatically after my return to the area, and of course that included also the Los Angeles shooting of Martha. All of the violence that had erupted around this family over the past couple of years had to be connected in some weave of cause and effect.

Sanford's connection to a criminal element was beyond question. "Sammy and Clifford," the small-time hoods who invaded Martha's apartment, acting on Sanford's orders by his own admission, makes that connection quite clear. That same or a similar connection certainly had figured in the torching of the Kaufman Gallery—but how, why, for what effect?

And of course I had to believe that somehow it was all tied into the mysterious safety-deposit key that Martha had worn to her death. As an initial item of business, I would need to find what lay inside that box.

The criminal connection undoubtedly figured strongly in much of the intrigue of the past twenty-four hours or so, and probably from the beginning.

Who else would have killed Martha Kaufman and tried to kill me, either directly or indirectly? Who else had wanted to kill Arthur Douglas, twice? Who else had killed Cindy Morgan and who else had attacked an airplane and tried to snuff out three lives in a single stroke? And finally, now, what was really behind the death of Harley Sanford? Events such as these do not occur in a vacuum; it would be ridiculous for any cop to conclude that these were no more than a series of random events.

So, yes, I had to look into the Tahoe connection, if only to satisfy myself that nothing was there to account for all this violence.

And, of course, there had been the almost cryptic warning by Griffith following the meeting in Terry's office. Maybe he had just been shooting in the dark, as cops often do, but it could have been more than that.

So Tahoe was definitely on my schedule.

Not right away, though.

Someone had just tried to kill Janice Sanford again, this time with a heavy overdose of a narcotic drug.

The count was getting furious. And so was I.

The paramedics worked
with a professional and swift calm to stabilize the O.D. victim. You can't say too much about these people, who often are the only difference between life and death, and who are paid far too little for their efforts. Janice was quickly stabilized and en route to the hospital within minutes. I rode in the ambulance with her while Chief Terry stayed behind to await his investigating officers and see to the police reports. As I jumped into the ambulance, Terry showed me a dour grimace and growled, "This has gone too far, bud. We've got to put a cap on this crap!"

"Show me how," I growled back.

It was a quick run in to the hospital. Janice had been semiconscious the whole while but not lucid enough to explain the circumstances except to say that "they" had injected her "full of drugs." We had found her in a bathrobe staggering along the drive beside her house, apparently trying to get into her car. While waiting for the paramedics, Terry had discovered that her telephone line had been cut. Only her indomitable will had kept her functional and attempting to find help.

Both Terry and I felt that only our fortuitous visit to notify Janice of her husband's death had foiled the attempt on her life. Maybe this is a hell of a way to put it, but Janice was alive only because her husband was not.

I stood by in the emergency waiting room while the medics attended her. Terry arrived as I was being briefed by the attending physician. Janice was then out of danger. We also discussed Harley's death. The doctor advised that Janice not be told about that at this time.

Janice's condition seemed to relieve the chief of considerable anxiety, but he was mad as hell. So was I. I had known these people so very briefly, and I could not say that I had even liked Harley Sanford, but I was definitely taking the whole thing personally and I knew that Terry was too, even if his earlier reaction to Harley's death had seemed to be more centered on Janice's pain then on the death of an old friend.

The Chief and I went in for a brief visit with the patient. We stayed only a moment because she was in no condition to explain what had happened to her. She did not even ask about her husband but she did ask about Tom Lancer. She was receiving good care and seemed to be okay, so we left her and went to look in on the other victims.

Arthur Douglas had taken a "turn for the worse" and we were not allowed to question him. Terry left instructions that he wanted to speak with his officer at the first reasonable opportunity.

This small hospital seemed to be developing a "police wing" to accommodate the rash of crime victims. Douglas had remained in the intensive care ward under constant police guard, which was straining the capabilities of this limited police department. As an added precaution, both Janice and Tom Lancer were being cared for in rooms adjacent to the other victim to enable the police guard to keep tabs on all three.

It was shortly before eleven o'clock. Lancer was not in his room at the moment, receiving some kind of follow-up treatment for his arm wound preparatory to his release from the hospital. Terry was in a sweat to get back to his office so I suggested that he go on without me. I wanted a shot at Lancer on my own, anyway.

I followed the Chief outside and spoke to him through his car window as he was firing up. I asked him, "What did you learn about the shooters at the airport?"

      
"More or less what we expected to find," he replied. "These guys were professionals, like the other two here at the hospital yesterday. These two even advertised in a magazine."

      
"That's a bit different approach."

      
"Not anymore."

      
"Little bit different pedigree, though."

      
"The mobs come in all shapes and sizes now," he reminded me. "There are even Asian gangs working territories around the country now."

      
"These weren't Asians."

      
"I didn't say they were. The effect is the same. I think it's worse now than ever before. I don't know about you, bud, but I am sick and tired of these people coming in here and shooting up my town."

      
I said, "Sure, tell me about it. All it means is that it can happen here as easy as in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. A few lousy bucks will buy your dirty work anywhere these days. So Mammoth has come of age, that's all. You don't have to like it, but... "

      
"Bullshit. I'll never like it and I'll never go for it. Take book on that."

      
"Where'd these guys come from?"

      
"Believe it or not, they came from a little town in Texas. The Jeep was stolen from a military installation out of Hawthorne."

      
"Where's that?"

      
"It's in Nevada,
dammit
."

      
"Near Tahoe?"

      
"Not really. It's just northeast of here, out in the middle of nowhere."

      
"Casino action?"

      
"Has a couple of small casinos but the ammunition depot is the lifeblood there. Is that the end of your interrogation?"

I said, "Hey, pal, don't get testy with me. I'm on your team."

"I know, I know," he growled, and went on without further comment or apology.

He was getting pissed, yeah. But that did not change anything and it did not fix anything.

I wanted that talk with Tom Lancer. And then I wanted to look in on the action at Tahoe. Sure, I knew that it could not change or fix anything but I was pissed, too.

Lancer had been
reexamined and fitted with a new dressing when I returned to his hospital room. He had gotten lucky with no vital wound from the gunshot. Loss of blood had been the most dangerous effect, and Janice's quick work with a pressure bandage had undoubtedly minimized the damage. He was getting ready to go home when I found him.

He lived alone in a section convenient to the airport, near Lake Crowley. He showed me a smile and asked, "Can I get a ride home?"

I said, "Sure, I've wanted a chance to talk to you anyway. My van is over at the police station. How soon can you leave?"

"They're checking me out now. Probably five minutes."

"Hang tight," I told him. "I'll go get the van. Meet me out front."

      
The pilot replied, "The talk all over the hospital is about their shooting here yesterday. Lot of nice things said about you, Joe. The business at the airport last night is hardly more than a footnote around here."

      
I said, "That's only because they were not personally involved in that one. It's hardly a footnote, pal."

      
"I hear that. It'll never be a footnote to me."

      
I hoofed it on down to the P.D. and picked up my van from the parking lot without bothering to check in. I noticed that Chief Terry's car was not in his parking space.

      
Lancer was waiting for me outside the hospital entrance.
 
"Good timing," he said.

      
He looked none the worse for his adventure other than a bandaged arm supported by a sling. His color was good and he looked well considering the circumstances of his night.