Read Copp In The Dark, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) Online
Authors: Don Pendleton
I surrendered the hundred bucks and went on up, hit the judge's doorbell several times but got no response, picked the lock and let myself in.
The entire apartment seemed to be in darkness except for a small lamp in the foyer casting muted light halfway into the living room. Judith sat in there in the semi- darkness, slumped onto a large leather recliner and obviously in a very down mood.
"What are you doing here?" she asked unemotionally.
"Looking for the light," I told her. "Go tell him I'm here."
"The judge is not in," she said in a muffled voice.
"Doorman says he is."
"Well, he went out again."
"So what are you doing, Judith?"
"Just thinking."
"Should've started that a long time ago," I said. "I just came from a heart to heart talk with Jimmy
DiCenza
. He told me some wild things. I wish you'd been the one who told me, kid."
“Told you what?"
"You never wondered why he sent Craig to you?"
She made an empty gesture with her hand as she replied, "Life is too complicated, Joe. We never know who to believe or what to believe, never know what's right and what's not. I stopped wondering long ago. And I'm not ashamed of anything I've ever done. What's your problem?"
I told her, "I'm not here to shame you. But I'd sure like to hear your version of the truth."
She showed me a sad little smile and asked, “The truth about what?"
"Who is Mary Todd
Bemson
?"
"Where'd you get that?"
"I picked it up. Who is she?"
A tear popped out of her eye and she replied, "Mary Todd
Bernson
was my mother."
"Maiden name."
"Yes."
"Did you know that Craig came to. you by way of Vincent
DiCenza
?"
She sighed. “I’ve considered the possibility. Especially since... all this craziness began."
"Did he steal money from you?"
"No."
"What did Craig steal from you?"
"I guess he stole my dad," she whispered.
"You've known about your dad?"
"Wondered," she said quietly. "But I never knew for sure until... you should see his closet."
"I have, but what about it?"
"Did you see all the women's clothing?"
"Yes. Figured he had a live-in girlfriend."
She said, "So did I, until I looked closer. How odd. All the clothing in that closet was made for the same person."
I said, "That's uh ..."
"He cheated me, Joe! He cheated my mother! Oh God, how could he ... ?"
"Don't leap to conclusions, Judy."
"... my own father, the great and wonderful and super respectable judge of all that's holy and noble ..."
"Look, uh, you told me that you theater people take pride in your liberal attitude toward—"
"This isn't the theater, this is real, this is where people live. I never knew this man, Joe. Never knew him. Neither did Mother. We were married to a drag queen!"
"Maybe not," I told her, bleeding for her and wanting to protect her but knowing I couldn't. "Look at it from his point of view, try to understand what he tried to turn away from and give up for your sake, for her sake. Your mother has been dead a long time, Judy. Think of what the man has been living with."
"That's all I can think of," Judith replied bitterly. She got to her feet, gave me a sidewise look, asked me, "Can I go now?"
I said, "
Dammit
, kid, let's get square with each other."
"Too late for that," she told me. "None of it matters anymore anyway."
"Matters to me," I said.
"Not to me." She stepped past me and went on out.
I stood there for a moment trying to get myself together, lit a cigarette, wandered on through the living room and into the study, following a light source that turned out to be a small hi-intensity lamp on the judge's desk. He was there, too, but not as the judge. He wore a flowing pink negligee over other flimsy feminine things, slumped in his chair and staring emptily at a sheet of paper in the portable typewriter.
The judge was not in, right.
The judge was dead.
He'd sucked up the barrel of his own little
snubnosed
revolver and bought peace the way
Lahey
had. The note in the typewriter simply read, "I am most regretful for the policeman and his family—but I do, please believe me, regret it all."
I picked up his phone and called San Bernardino, got through to the homicide bureau, asked the guy there, "Does Captain
Waring
come in this early?"
"Not usually," was the reply, "but I think he's here this morning. Who's calling?"
I told him who was calling and he said "oh" and a moment later
Waring
came on. I told him what I'd found and I told him why I thought I'd found it and I read him the note.
"Sounds like a confession,"
Waring
commented. "But what do you want me to do? You need to call LAPD."
"You call them for me," I suggested. "I called you because it's your case and because you told me yesterday that it's closed."
"I
mis
-spoke," he told me. "I was referring to the case against the deputy marshals."
"Well, you can close it for real now," I said.
"Maybe. But your judge did not kill Alfred Johansen."
"How can you be sure of that?"
"Because we have the man who did it. Or rather we have his remains in our morgue. It's shaping up as a classic contract job. The
hitman
himself was hit after the fact, and you know why."
I knew why, sure. And it was classical, all right. When would these suckers ever learn that their payoff usually comes as a bullet to the brain?
I asked
Waring
, "How do you know you have the right man?"
"We have the physical evidence—address found on the body, the knife, bloodstained handkerchief that was used to wipe the knife and a
bloodmatch
with the victim. We have the right man."
I sighed and told him, "I want to come in and talk to you."
"Any time," the captain said.
"
Lahey
was killed in the line of duty."
"Well see."
I said, "No, bullshit, we won't see. He was killed while investigating these murders, suspended or no, so the man died on duty."
"Come in and talk to us, Joe."
I could do that. Sure, I could do that now. And it was time to come in from the dark.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The problem for me throughout had been too many actors upon the stage, too many playwrights behind the scenes, and too many stories within stories—and I'm speaking not of La
Mancha
but of
Copp
in the Dark. La
Mancha
was designed that way.
Copp
in the Dark, I think, just happened that way. In
Man of La
Mancha
Craig who was really
Alfie
portrayed Cervantes who portrayed
Quijana
who fantasized himself as Quixote. Elaine Suzanne whose real name is Somoza portrayed an ugly female prisoner transformed by Cervantes into
Aldonza
, a sexy barmaid who in turn is transformed by Quixote into
Dulcinea
, the fairest of them all, and every actor in the play is portraying multiple roles. It is a transformational play and, in the end, the audience itself is transformed by the power of its message.
On the
threatrical
stage, it is powerful stuff.
Offstage, however, down here where most of us are staggering about in the dark much of our lives anyway, this kind of confusion only compounds the darkness and often results in tragedy.
We'd had plenty of that, all right, while
Copp
was in the dark—and that was not just because I was in the dark but because everyone was to one extent or another.
Craig
Maan
, the gifted actor with the power to transform audiences, was in reality Alfred "
Alfie
" Johansen, son of a Minnesota Supreme Court justice and supposed student of chemical engineering who instead had majored in drama and thus had conned his father the judge out of nearly three years of an expensive college education.
But that was not the whole con.
Alfie
also was a closet gay and sometimes transvestite who'd fallen in with a shady crowd while still a student in Chicago. Caught in an FBI sweep of Chicago organized crime elements and sure to be exposed and scandalized at home,
Alfie
had thrown himself on the mercy of the FBI agent in charge of the operation and promised to deliver incriminating evidence on other crime figures while working undercover as an informant for the FBI.
The deal was struck and
Alfie
delivered—for awhile— and somehow he became entangled with the West Coast operations of
Vin
DiCenza
who was already on trial in Los Angeles. Through this contact he had picked up hints that
DiCenza
already had Judge White in his pocket, and he relayed this information to his contact in the FBI.
The FBI then actively entered that angle and helped engineer an "in" for
Alfie
close to
DiCenza
. I believe that it was at this point that
Alfie
began to sniff a jackpot somewhere for himself and he began playing a double- agent role, trying to play both ends against the middle in the hope of parlaying a grand slam for himself.
Apparently,
DiCenza
was not all that comfortable in his accommodation with Judge White. He was no dummy so of course he knew about the judge's daughter, undoubtedly knew of her connection with his own son—(perhaps this was even his hold on the judge)—and he had
Alfie
under his wing, a gifted actor. I believe it began as
Alfie's
idea that he be positioned in close association with the judge's daughter "to keep an eye on things." The wily
DiCenza
, well schooled in Mafia
symbology
, quickly picked up on that idea but with a different slant: he would position
Alfie
next to the daughter and then
tell Judge White that he had done so
as a not-so-subtle
message that the judge had best keep in line and deliver.