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“Yes, one second, please.”
With that, she picked up the receiver from the phone on her desk and punched in an extension. She looked almost sick to her stomach as she did it, and Rachel momentarily felt bad for her. But in the end, of course, Upton went through with it. Because even she seemed to understand that sometimes the people we thought we knew well might very well be capable of the unthinkable. And in the case of Stanley Cooper, the request she was making to HR might very well help bring a killer to justice.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Stanley Cooper's home was a two-story lake house, a dwelling that would surely look regal and inviting if it had seen a caring hand in the last few years. As it stood, though, most of the lawn was overgrown and the wooden siding looked filthy, coated in grime and dust. The windows were in the same shape; they were clearly filthy, even from a distance of about fifty yards or so. If not for the pickup truck sitting at the end of the driveway, Rachel might have assumed the place had been abandoned.
They’d come to it by a roundabout series of roads that took them alongside Washington Lake, with the huge, towering firs and cedars looming along the sides of the secondary roads.
After taking several turns onto other secondary roads—each getting thinner and thinner, Sullivan finally needed Rachel to start reading out directions. Five minutes later, they were turning into a finely landscaped gravel driveway. It had led down a slight hill and curved around to the left, bringing them to Cooper’s residence.
“Man, when smart people have breakdowns, they sure do go very far in the opposite direction, eh?” Sullivan said.
Rachel felt that this was a line of very dangerous thinking and said nothing as Sullivan parked. They got out and walked across a sidewalk that had tall grass and weeds growing up through errant cracks in the surface. They climbed the porch stairs, and they creaked beneath their weight. Now that they were closer to those grimy window, Rachel found it akin to looking into murky water and not knowing what sort of creatures were swimming just by your ankles.
Rachel had ventured into some creepy houses during her time as an agent, but this one was right at the top of the list. She knocked on the front door and took note of the cobwebs in the corner of the door frame. One of them had trapped a particularly large fly. When several seconds passed without an answer, Sullivan stepped forward as knocked as well.
Rachel waited another twenty seconds and was about to suggest they leave and come back later when she heard shuffling, almost sliding footsteps approaching the door. When it was opened, it was practically flung inward. A man was holding onto it, leaning on the side, as he peered out to his visitors.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Are you Stanley Cooper?”
The man smiled and brushed some long, thinning hair out of his face. “The one and only.”
It took only those few words for Rachel to figure out that he was drunk—at 1:05 in the afternoon. He was somewhat good-looking, maybe pushing fifty. His hair was long and a bit tangly, some of it hanging down into his face. His eyes were dark with a rugged look to them, a fitting match for his thin face and chiseled chin. Several days' worth of stubble on his cheeks and chin had not yet made a complete beard.
“Mr. Cooper,” Sullivan said, stepping forward and nearly into the doorframe. “I’m Detective Paul Sullivan, and this is Special Agent Rachel Gift. We’d like to have a word with you.”
“Damn! A detective and a federal agent! Must be my lucky day.”
“I take it you’ve had a few drinks today, Mr. Cooper?” Sullivan said.
"A few for sure, yeah. Not a crime, is it? I haven't even left the house!"
“Not a crime at all, sir,” Rachel said, putting on her best cheerful tone. “Now, would you mind inviting us inside?”
Cooper smiled a bit but then seemed to think better of it. “You got a warrant?”
“We don’t need a warrant if we just want to talk.”
“Ah, good point!” He swayed a bit against the door and then sighed. “What are you here to talk about?”
“Well, we were speaking to someone you used to work with about half an hour ago,” Sullivan said. “She gave us your name…thought you could maybe help us out.”
Rachel admired this tactic. The man was clearly drunk, so making him think they were there for some sort of assistance rather than to accuse him or ask pointed questions was absolutely the best way to go.
“And who might that be?”
Rachel spoke up, already sensing that their window of opportunity might be closing. He was interested now and maybe even felt that he was needed. Might as well spring while the iron was hot. Besides…they had no idea how he might respond to a name from his past—especially the name of someone who he believed strongly disagreed with his beliefs and morals.
“Can’t we come in, Mr. Cooper?” she asked. “Just for a second?”
He sighed again and opened the door up wider. “May as well, I suppose. But don’t judge the place too harshly. I haven’t had guests in ages. Haven’t really kept the place in the best shape.”
As he ushered them in, Rachel saw that he wasn’t kidding. The downstairs was mostly one large area; the only part that was excluded from this was the kitchen, which was divided off from the rest of the floor by an L-shaped counter and bar.
“So who mentioned me?” Cooper asked.
