Copp On Fire, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp, Private Eye Series) Read Online Free Page A

mind."
    "I'd like to meet the lady."
    "Don't worry, you will. Soon as we run her down. Hasn't lived at her DMV address for more than six months. Wiseman's place is in Bel Air, and apparently he lived alone. The housekeeper knows Melissa Franklin but not much about her. But we'll run her down."
    I glanced at Ken Forta as I asked Johnson, "Is there any question about the car bomb? Could it have been accidental?"
    "We wondered about that after we got your report—but the explosives were fixed to the frame of the vehicle and wired to a timer. It blew straight up through the floorboards, the gas tank exploded too. Made a mess, Joe. We were lucky to get ID on the victims."
    "How good is that ID?"
    "Good enough. Wiseman had hired the car for the
    day but he took it as your same Albert Moore. That corroborates your report. He wanted to pay cash but he also wanted to use his own driver, so the agency insisted on a cash or credit security deposit equal to the replacement value of the vehicle. So the guy calling himself Albert Moore shows up with a credit bond drawn on United Talents under the signature of Bernard Wiseman. In other words, the studio is guaranteeing the security of the vehicle but it's checked out to Albert Moore."
    "And the driver?"
    "The driver is Albert Moore. We've verified his chauffeur's permit with DMV."
    "No—you see, Abe—Albert Moore is—"
    "I know, I know." Johnson waved me off. "But there really is an Albert Moore—or was —and he really was a chauffeur on United Talents' payroll, drove a limo every day almost identical to the Starway vehicle. Moore rented the limo and United Talents guaranteed the security. Maybe it sounds too cutesy but it would work to keep Wiseman's name out of the record if things had gone okay. So what do you think was going on, Joe? Why did Wiseman go to all that trouble to conceal his identity?"
    "Seems obvious. I get it a lot. Bashful clients, I mean. As for the rented limo, same logic. He didn't want to use a car that could be traced to his true identity ... I'd like to see the remains."
    "Be my guest, but even his own mother wouldn't recognize . . ."
    "So how'd you ID?"
    "Mostly medical and dental records, but there were other bits to nail it down."
           "Any chance it was not Bernie Wiseman in that car?"
           "I'm satisfied it's him," Johnson said. "He left the studio with Moore at noon yesterday and hasn't been seen since." He opened a folder, produced an eight-by-ten color photo, handed it to me. "That your man?"
           I couldn't be sure. The man pictured in that studio still seemed a bit younger and thinner than the one I'd faced in that limo outside my office. The hair and style looked the same. I tried to visualize the face in the photo with dark glasses covering the eyes, still couldn't be sure.
           "Was Wiseman physically handicapped?"
           "Paralyzed from the waist down."
           "It's him."
           "Sure?"
           "No."
           "Pretty sure?"
           "Almost."
           "What are you making, Joe?"
           "Find out what the head of United Talents would gain by staging his own death."
           "Okay. On the surface I'd say nothing. He's been riding the top of the wave around here lately. Worth much more alive than dead."
           "You sure?"
           "No, but it figures."
           I stood up, looked at Forta , told Johnson: "I'd figure it some more. You asked about the wild and woolly? I can pick my own, pal, that's how it is. I would not pick this one."
           We chatted a bit more as Johnson escorted Forta
    and me outside. I learned that the arson team was still at work in the bombed-out building and that they were saying nothing pending their final conclusions; Johnson was a bit irritated about that because he had two homicides connected with that one too—derelicts who'd been buried under the debris in the alleyway. The three of us hoo-hooed a bit about