Kissing Arizona (3 page)

The lower half of her head was mostly missing.

‘Why, that's Lois Cooper,' Sarah said.

‘Well, yeah,' Leo said. ‘Delaney didn't tell you whose house this is?'

‘Didn't tell me anything,' Sarah said. ‘Just the address, and two victims.' The woman on the floor had waited on her years ago at the little Cooper's Glass & Paint on Grant Road. Sarah had been a rookie cop furnishing a first small apartment. And years later, furnishing her honeymoon house in Oro Valley, she would see Lois Cooper sometimes in the big new Cooper's Home Stores on Oracle, although by then she mostly managed the other big store on East Speedway.

Lois would have been in her fifties by now, Sarah figured. Her dark hair was streaked with gray, her figure thickened. Wearing her church clothes, probably, a good suit and even a hat, tumbled off to one side, the veil stuck in the gore. Purse right there, partly underneath her, still clipped shut. Not robbery, then. Very dressed, for Tucson, but she remembered hearing from someone that Lois Cooper was a traditional Catholic who took her observance very seriously.
Out all day Sunday in her church clothes? Came home and got shot.

‘So that must be Frank Cooper, is it? Did you know him?'

‘No,' Leo said, ‘but all the cars are here, so that must be Frank.'

‘OK, entry wound in the ear, no guesswork about the exit,' Leo was saying. ‘I don't understand about the angle yet, but work with what you got.'

‘Slug's probably in the middle of that mess there,' Jason said, pointing to the biggest cluster of bloody tissue clinging to the wall.

‘Everything still looks a little . . . sticky,' Leo said. ‘We don't know yet if anybody heard this train wreck, huh?'

‘No,' Sarah said. ‘Add it to a long list of things we don't know.'

‘And we can't learn much more about them here,' Leo said, ‘since we can't get close enough for a decent look. Let's go see what Greenberg says.'

When Sarah's plastic booties appeared by his shoulder Greenberg said, without looking up, ‘Step there and there and stand over there in the corner.' He turned, having glimpsed two other pairs of legs, and glared up at Leo and Jason. ‘Oh, what's this now, the whole herd? Step there and there – carefully! – and go stand by Sarah.' The three detectives obeyed him wordlessly, as most people did, because an argument with Greenberg was too exhausting to include in the average working day.

‘I need a few minutes of silent concentration,' the doctor said, ‘before I answer any more questions. Can't get this job done with people chattering over my shoulders! Why don't you sleuths go through that bedroom door and talk to the techies for a while. Come back in ten minutes or so.'

They walked into the master bedroom and almost collided with the backside of a female criminalist who was spreading black powder along the edge of a dresser. Her badge said her name was Diane.

‘Whoops!' she said. ‘Hang on while I finish this lift, will you? Only take a minute.'

‘No problem,' Sarah said, and stood still, scanning the room without moving.

Diane peeled off the print, looked at it critically and nodded. She pasted it into her little spiral notebook, noted the place and time, and said, ‘OK, guys. I'll go work in one of the other rooms for few minutes while you have a look. I'm not done in here yet, though, so please . . .' She rolled her pleading eyes at them.

‘Have no fear, dear,' Jason said. ‘We are highly skilled master detectives who watch a lot of TV, so we know not to touch things.'

‘Excellent plan,' Diane said, and rewarded him with a radiant smile. She fit the spiral notebook into its place in a complex basket of tools, made a mark on a list of tasks, and left carrying the basket.

They were in a sparsely furnished bedroom with white walls, gray carpet, blue drapes. A perfectly pieced and hand-quilted comforter in rosy colors, folded on the end of the bed, provided the one homey note. Otherwise the whole room looked as if it had been lifted, in a quick half-hour's decision-making, out of a store display.

Standing in one spot, Leo started a slow three-sixty turn, and the other two followed his example. Hardly less impersonal than a motel room, the bedroom had two forgettable prints on the wall. One family photograph on the dresser showed the Coopers about twenty years ago, with two grade-school-age children. Continuing the turn, Sarah saw plenty of closets and drawer space in a practical room with no books or memorabilia. One hard-looking armchair. Nobody sat in here having coffee and a chat. This was a room where you slept, got dressed quickly, and got out. It was too uncluttered to be the bedroom of a living couple.

Maybe it wasn't? Sarah pulled out a couple of drawers and looked in the closet.

‘Only women's clothes,' she said. ‘Mr Cooper had his own room. Connection through the bathroom?'

She stepped into the bathroom, which like the bedroom was clean, neat and impersonal. ‘No connecting door in here,' she said. She came out and said again, ‘Not connected. Separate.'

‘OK, Sarah, I got the picture,' Jason said.

They went back into the hall and stood carefully in clean patches on the carpet, like good children in school. Frank Cooper lay in a heap. His limbs were tangled except for his right hand and arm, which lay stretched out toward the weapon that must have killed him. His face looked undamaged. The back half of his head was missing.

Still not looking up, the doctor said, ‘So?'

‘Looks like he stood sideways in the hall and ate his gun,' Leo said.

‘Sure does. And dropped his big blunderbuss –'he pointed to the .357 Magnum Smith & Wessen revolver lying near the dead man's outstretched right hand – ‘right at his feet when he fell. So convenient, right? No doubts about the weapon.' Greenberg's face wore a funny little sneer. Even for Moses Greenberg, Sarah thought, that's an exceptionally dubious face.

Jason said, ‘Sure looks like the same gun did them both, huh?'

‘Well, I'll wait till I hear what you geniuses dig out of the walls here before I venture an opinion on that. But yeah, the wounds certainly appear similar.'

Leo asked him, ‘You going to be able to autopsy pretty soon?'

‘With a scene like this one? Bet your ass. Nothing short of a massacre's going to take priority over these two.' The doctor squinted ironically up at them. ‘Any other questions you'd like to have answered?'

‘I'm curious about times of death,' Tobin said.

‘You are, huh?' Greenberg looked pleased. ‘Damn, I do like to see signs of intelligent life in the detective division.' He pointed to two places on either side of the body. ‘Step here and here very carefully, kiddies, and get out of my face. I might have something by tomorrow night, but probably not until Wednesday.'

They picked their way carefully back down the hall toward the other body. Sarah said, ‘Imagine that housekeeper opening the door into this hall and finding these bodies lying here. All alone in this house in the early morning. You wonder how she had the courage to make the call.' She looked at Leo. ‘Did she, by the way?'

‘You mean was she the one who called us? Um . . .' He looked at Jason. ‘Isn't that what they said, that she reported the bodies?'

‘I think so. She was kind of babbling by the time I got here, we were all thinking about getting her away before we had to carry her, so . . . I guess Delaney knows.'

‘Or we can check the tape downtown.' Leo frowned, all business now. ‘Let's get on with this.'

‘Does it seem to you,' Sarah said, looking down at Lois again just before they went out, ‘that she's a little . . . juicier than he is? Like her bowels and bladder voided somewhat later?'

‘Oh, please, can't we leave the juice to The Animal?' Jason said.

The living room looked even cleaner and more uncluttered after the grisly scene in the hall. Sarah walked back to Delaney, who as usual was talking on the phone. He finished his conversation with a few quiet monosyllables and said, looking at his notes, ‘Sarah, I think I'm going to ask . . .' A loud conversation was suddenly audible outside the open front door. Delaney stepped into the small foyer and looked out, saying, ‘What's going on?'

Sarah followed him and heard an assertive male voice telling Shelby, the officer at the tape, ‘Of course I can go in, this is my parents' house.' A tall, strong-looking man in hiking boots and good outdoor clothing stood on the sidewalk, carrying a handsome black leather camera case on a strap over his shoulder. His face was flushed and he held his shoulders a little high and his back stiff, like a soldier on parade. He brought a discordant note of controversy into a crowded space where many law enforcement professionals had been moving carefully and keeping their voices down.

Sarah thought, Well, after all he's not used to being stopped at this door, it must feel . . .

She took back that dollop of sympathy when the man leaned over Shelby and insisted, ‘I was told to come here at once and ask for a Sergeant Delaney. Find him for me right now, please.'

Shelby opened his mouth to explain that he couldn't leave his place at the tape, but Delaney walked down the front steps saying, ‘Mr Cooper? I'm Sergeant Delaney.' He stepped off on to the gravel and walked down to the tape, where the tall young man stood glowering at Shelby. ‘I'm sorry I can't let you come in here just now. It's a crime scene until we're finished. You know about your parents?'

‘Yes, Rosa told me. And Phyllis, I checked with her because I couldn't believe . . . What the hell's going on here, who are all these people?' A TV truck had just arrived and two more squad cars; the whole street was filling up with cars.

‘I'm very sorry for your loss,' Delaney said. ‘I know this is a terrible shock. But just for now . . . do you mind walking down this row of cars here to the RV that says Tucson Police Department? Right there, yes. And this officer –' he signaled Ollie Greenaway who was still putting markers in the yard –'will let you in and stay with you until we . . . till one of my detectives comes over there to talk to you.'

‘Are you serious?' Cooper kept getting redder and angrier, his bright blue eyes glaring out of his ruddy face. ‘Both my parents are dead in this house and you're telling me I can't go in and see them? You want me to go and sit in a . . .
trailer
?' He spat out the last word. Sarah thought he might be going to explode in a minute and walked toward him, ready to help subdue him if need be.

But Delaney as usual got cooler and quieter as the opposition heated up. He had summoned two officers out of the street, the angry young man was surrounded by large men with guns now, and began to look aware of his narrowing options.

‘I know this is a very hard time for you,' Delaney said. ‘We want to help you all we can and I'm sure you agree the best way to do that is to complete this investigation as quickly as possible. And to find out what happened to your parents, we need to get all the evidence collected while it's still fresh.' He talked soothingly beside the yellow crime-scene tape, doing his stolid blinking thing, and the man gradually calmed down.

‘So, if you'll just wait for us over there for a few minutes . . . there you go.' Delaney nodded around at everybody as if he was relieved to see they all agreed, and in a few more seconds Tom Cooper was walking toward the department's modified RV with his three-man escort. He almost balked at the doorway, waved his hands and shook his head, but Ollie had the door open and was helping him up the step with a hand under his elbow.

Delaney walked back inside and told Sarah, ‘I want you to do the inside interviews. Besides this piece of work that was just here – he's the son, Tom – there's a daughter, uh . . . Nicole.' He was flipping through his notes. ‘I'm told she's on her way. You'll need to get Tom's stats and his whereabouts yesterday and today till now. Same for the daughter. It seems they both work in the family business, Cooper's Home Stores. Family whereabouts first, and then who hates who and why, and anything they'll tell you about employees, money –' he spread his hands – ‘fights . . . the whole ball of wax.'

‘Sure.' Something about this set-up was making him nervous, he was telling her things he knew very well she didn't need to be told.

‘There's the manager at the Oracle Road store, a woman named Phyllis Waverly who seems to be kind of the Big Cahuna of the employees. She says she can't get away from the stores right now, somebody has to be in charge, but she'll try to get to the station by afternoon if you can see her then. Try to see her today – sounds like she'll know what's been going on. There's a housekeeper we took to the ER, you know about her?'

‘Leo told me, yes.'

‘OK. Her name is, uh, Rosa Torres. She found the bodies so you need to see her as soon as you can, but it may not be today – she started to tell us about finding the bodies and just totally lost it, they were sedating her in the ambulance as they drove away. Here's her number and the manager's number at the store. No sign of forced entry, by the way. Rosa used her key on the front door like always, and Jason did a quick check of the other doors and windows, didn't find anything unlocked or broken. Oscar and Ray have started the neighborhood canvass.'

The department command post was a modified RV fitted out with a couple of desks in front, plenty of communications gear, photography equipment and computers. They'd kept the galley but the dining table was gone. In the back, though, instead of a bedroom there was a private space with a booth, table and chairs, which worked well for interviews. The digital recorders were very sensitive and picked up any background noise, so the vehicle had to be parked at some remove from a crime scene, in a quiet spot. They'd parked it in the driveway of an empty house with a For Sale sign.