Closely Akin to Murder (19 page)

“Yeah,” the man said, “I knew I'd seen the name. You want Cooper, look for him out on Hayden Road. I don't have a number, but you can find him right across from the Salt Cellar Restaurant and catty-corner from a place called the Auto-Plex or some fool name like that.”

I babbled out my gratitude, hung up, and pulled out the map. Hayden Road was in Scottsdale, a suburb of Phoenix. It appeared to be a major thoroughfare, but surely I could find the restaurant and Auto-Plex without too much difficulty.

And I did, but across from the restaurant and catty-corner to the car shop was a sprawling green expanse with winding roads, well-tended shrubbery, and engraved marble slabs. If the joker from the VFW was to be believed, Rogers Cooper either worked at Green Acres Cemetery or was buried there. It wasn't much of a toss-up.

I drove around for a while, randomly searching for a gravestone with Cooper's name. There was no alphabetical order, but instead what seemed to be a first-come-first-served approach to the plots. The relentless sunshine had faded sprays of plastic flowers to near translucency, giving them an appropriately ghostly effect. A few framed photographs were bleached into blurs.

I finally acknowledged that my chances of happening on one particular grave were slim, at best. I found an office and asked the woman behind a desk for the location of Rogers Cooper. She consulted a file, took
out a photocopied map, and drew a tidy X on a rectangle near one corner.

I eyed the file. “Would that have information about the next of kin?” I asked.

She was a good deal less forthcoming than the Reverend Mother. “Yeah, but you can't look at it.”

I took the map and trudged back out to the car, wondering why carrots kept being dangled in front of me and then snatched away at the fateful second as if the entire citizenry of Arizona had entered into a conspiracy. The Mexicans were equally guilty. Just once, I thought as I drove toward the grave, it would be nice if someone simply handed me information that was accurate and comprehensive. It would also be nice if Caron voluntarily cleaned the bathroom and gave up speaking in capital letters, or if Peter stopped pressuring me to make a commitment.

My disposition was not sunny as I parked and went to find the mortal remains of Rogers Cooper. He was off by himself in a somewhat neglected corner, and no flowers or photos decorated his stone. He'd been born on December 12, 1916, and died on February 27, 1966. Neither Fran Pickett nor her mother was kneeling in the grass, sobbing into a handkerchief.

I wrote down the dates and found a shady bench to sit and think. Trixie had made a mistake when she claimed to have seen Cooper in a Mercedes; unless the car had been used for a casket, he'd not been behind the wheel of anything for a long while. His house had been burned down with whatever had been left inside it. There were no ashes to be sifted, no half-burnt letters or address books to be reconstructed.

And I didn't know if he was the person I'd been seeking, or was just a frustrated cowboy from the city.
At least Mrs. Cooper was not resting alongside him. I was too bruised from running into dead ends to deal with discovering that her first name had been Bea—and she was beyond answering my questions.

It occurred to me that I could determine if he'd been married when buried—if I could find a copy of his obituary. I took a final look at the headstone, then left him to rest in peace and drove out onto Hayden Road. I'd planned to go back to the hotel and call the local newspaper about their files (after all, it had worked so well in Acapulco), but I happened to spot a bookstore in a row of art galleries and souvenir shops. Its magnetic force was irresistible, as was the parking space directly in front of it. Rogers Cooper had been waiting since 1966; the particulars of his life and demise could wait a little longer while I replenished my reading material.

The Poisoned Pen, as the store was called, was exactly what I wished the Book Depot could be, but the limitations of the Farberville book-buying population precluded a store specializing in mystery fiction. After I'd found some paperbacks to keep me occupied on the flight home, I took them to the counter and asked for directions to the newspaper office.

“The
Arizona Republic
's downtown,” the woman said, spreading out a map. “If traffic is minimal
and
you don't get lost too often
and
you don't run into construction, it'll take about half an hour.”

After listening to complicated and confusing directions, I said, “Maybe I ought to call first. I don't want to drive all that way and be denied access to their morgue. If they have one, that is.”

“The public libraries have back issues on microfilm. Would you like directions to the nearest branch?”

I wrote down the information, paid for the books,
and thanked her. It was tempting to linger in the genteel milieu and swap stories about the frustrations of dealing with the publishing industry, but I stoically returned to the car and drove to the library.

The back issues were on microfilm, as avowed by the sagacious proprietress of The Poisoned Pen. I scrolled to the issue most apt to have Rogers Cooper's obituary, tried the following one, and found it amidst lengthier accounts of more prominent citizens. Rogers, aged 50, had died at his residence from a self-inflicted injury. He had been a master sergeant in the army and served in Europe and Korea. After his retirement from the military, he'd owned an appliance store in Phoenix. He'd been a member of the VFW and a Mason. He was survived by his wife, Beatrice; a stepdaughter, Franchesca; and a brother, James F. Cooper, of Flagstaff.

“Self-inflicted injury,” I said under my breath, provoking a dirty look from a pink-haired woman across the table. This injury had occurred less than two months after Fran and Ronnie had been snatched into the hostile clutches of the Mexican legal system. I scrolled backwards, searching for an article about his suicide.

It merited only a few sentences. Police officers had been called to the residence on Old Madrid Road by Mrs. Beatrice Cooper, who'd discovered the body upon returning home from a trip. The coroner had declared the death to have resulted from a single gunshot wound to the head. A handgun registered to Cooper had been found at the scene, along with a note. There was no evidence of an intruder.

Well, I'd found Fran's stepfather and knew his present whereabouts. I also knew where the family had been living thirty years ago, as well as Bea's legal
name at that time. A librarian steered me to a collection of telephone directories from around the state. I wasn't especially surprised when I failed to find a listing for Beatrice Cooper—or James F. Cooper—in any of them.

The Reverend Mother at the convent had said she'd had no communication with Bea after the Christmas trip to Acapulco, so there was no reason to consider a plan to break into her office and rifle her files. The idea of breaking into the office at Green Acres Cemetery did not appeal; being nailed by a night watchman would lead to unpleasant complications with the local constabulary. And it was obvious I had no talent for such activities.

That left Trixie at the top of my list. She'd known Rogers Cooper to some extent, but not well enough to remember his wife's name. The sale of the property must have taken place sometime after Fran left to join her father in Acapulco in the middle of December of 1965 and before her stepfather's death at the end of February. If the latter had been delighted by the sale, his euphoria had faded when the proceeds went to bribe Mexican judges and wardens. Could his suicide have been motivated by Fran's involvement in the crime? It didn't make much sense, I decided. She hadn't disgraced
his
family name and there'd been no publicity in the United States. Her failure to return home could have been explained with a vague story about a new boarding school.

Trixie's partner Maisie might have better recollections of Bea Cooper. I mentally rearranged my list to reflect this, waved at the pink-haired woman, and left the library. I read one of my new paperbacks over a sandwich and a glass of iced tea, then drove out Old
Madrid Road to the Tricky M (aka the Cooper homestead). Rather than listen to the radio, I entertained myself imagining Caron's reaction if I announced we were going to live on a ranchette in the Arizona desert, where we could have cowettes and sheepettes to mow the lawn. If Maisie's memory was no better than Trixie's, the opportunity to tease Caron might arise within twenty-four hours, I thought as my grin wavered. Ronnie would be forced to rely on a private investigator—or concede and pay the extortionist. Peter would be sympathetic but privately pleased.

As I drove past the model home, I saw movement behind a window. I slowed to a crawl to look more carefully, but if someone was inside, he or she had moved out of view. It might have been a workman, but was more likely to be teenagers up to some nefarious enterprise. I didn't park and go inside to investigate, since Trixie seemed capable of dealing with a trespasser without so much as ruffling her hair.

It was a good thing I was in the only car on the broad street, because I slammed on the brakes.

“Damn!” I howled. “How could I have been so stupid?”

I was still berating myself as I
parked between Trixie's pickup truck and a gaudy pink convertible that looked as though it had been purloined from Elvis's automobile museum. I gave myself a moment for absolution, then rapped on the trailer door and went inside without waiting for an invitation that might not be forthcoming.

Trixie sat behind her desk, a brown cigarette smoldering in her hand. Her lips tightened as she saw me, but she quickly produced a smile. “Did you come back for a tour, Claire? You're in luck because I can give you a great deal on one of our prime lots that'll be within spittin' distance of the pool.”

“Not today,” I said as I studied the other woman in the room. She stood in a doorway, motionless and without any of Trixie's phony congeniality. Her complexion was smoother and rosier than that of her partner, and her dark blonde hair was styled in a flip reminiscent of a sixties high school yearbook. She was taller and more slender, too, although her silk blouse strained across the noticeable contours of her chest. Despite her efforts, there were fine lines visible beneath her heavy makeup and a subtle capitulation to the force of gravity that made it clear she had celebrated more birthdays than I.

For a moment, I felt a surge of exhilaration that I'd found Fran Pickett, but it ebbed as I realized the woman had small, close-set blue eyes. Ronnie had been quite specific that Fran's were large and hazel, and one can only do so much with tinted contact lenses. “You must be Maisie” I said.

“That's right,” she said, apparently willing to remain in the doorway for the duration of my visit.

I looked back at Trixie. “When I drove by the model home, I thought I saw someone inside it.”

She stubbed out the cigarette. “Yeah, I sent the lazy son of a bitch over to take care of the dust and cobwebs. We don't have a parade of potential buyers, but we need to be prepared if one shows up. Are you sure I can't give you a short tour? There's not a lot to see, but we can go down to the barn where we're planning to fix up the stalls and put in a riding ring. If you don't mind a short hike, the hill behind it has a superb view of the Gila River.”

“I'm not interested,” I said as I sat down across from her and took out my notes. Rather than continue, I waited in silence, my expression mildly antagonistic.

Trixie began to fidget with a letter opener. “Did you ever find that box number you were looking for earlier?”

“No, but I did find Rogers Cooper. In his way, he was extremely helpful. That's why I'm here.”

She dropped the letter opener and lit another cigarette. “I don't understand what you mean, Claire. Was he the fellow with a wife named Bea?”

“His wife's name was Beatrice,” I said. “It took me longer than it should have to realize that ‘Bea' is a nickname for Beatrice—and so is ‘Trixie.' You're Fran Pickett's mother, aren't you?”

“Look at the time!” squealed Maisie, having miraculously uprooted her feet. “I told Grover down at First Federal that I'd be there at three to finish filling out the loan applications. Trixie, I'll stop by the model home and make sure everything's okay. Nice to have met you, Claire. I hope you'll reconsider buying a ranchette here at the Tricky M.” Before we could respond, she wiggled her fingers at us and sailed out the door.

I turned back to the woman across the desk, not sure if I should think of her as Bea or Trixie. Both facets had played important roles in the case, so I at last settled on Beatrice.

“You're Fran Pickett's mother, aren't you?” I repeated. “Is your last name still Cooper?”

“A while back I thought about reverting to my maiden name, but it was too much trouble. Everybody in the real estate business has always known me as Trixie Cooper. I'd have been forced to get new business cards and send letters to all my previous clients.”

She seemed eager to steer the conversation away from Fran, so I humored her for the moment. “I found your late husband's grave in Green Acres Cemetery. You didn't buy the property from him—you inherited it. Why didn't you tell me the truth?”

“I didn't know why you were asking,” she said in a low voice, “and I was afraid you were a reporter. After Oliver's death, reporters from Los Angeles showed up, wanting to do interviews with his daughter and ex-wife. They didn't seem to know the details of his death, and I sure as hell didn't want to answer any questions about it. Rogers was furious that they'd dared set foot on our porch. He was a pious man who likened Hollywood to Sodom and Gomorrah. He forbade Fran from so much as mentioning her father. The child support
checks went straight into a savings account for college.”

“Why tell me Cooper's name at all?”