A Cold Copper Moon (The Cooper Series Book 3) Read online

  Praise For The Cooper Series

  A Cold Cooper Moon

  Action doesn’t stop! From beginning to end, Cooper, a private detective specializing in finding missing persons, and his band of off-center friends, go in search of a man missing in the Florida Everglades. In the process, Cooper uncovers illegal operations spanning the globe from China through Cuban waters to Boston. In the midst of it all, Cooper’s increasingly detailed nightmares bring his son, kidnapped seven years ago, into vivid reality. A great read!

  David Harry Tannenbaum, author (Under David Harry), The Padre Puzzle series

  Praise for Cooper’s Moon and Blood Moon Rising

  The novel is so richly cinematic that I read it while simultaneously imagining each of the chapters and scenes playing out on the silver screen, the suspense high-tension from beginning to end.

  Jack Driscoll, Award-winning author, Lucky Man, Lucky Woman

  If you like vigorous adventure blended with high profile issues, this book – and most likely the series – is for you. (Conrath’s) elevated prose is raised to poetry.

  Dr Phil Jason, Reviewer, Florida Weekly

  Cooper, our protagonist, is the smoothest customer you’ll ever meet – complete with a sharp tongue and a sharper mind, not to mention his fir share of faults and demons. Relentless in pursuit of justice and closure, “Coop” is the best combination of DeMille’s Daniel “Mac” MacCormick (The Cuban Affair) and Connelly’s Harry Bosch. Pick it up. Buckle up. And read it like you stole it!

  Tristram Coburn, Publisher Tillbury Press

  Lovers of the genre will find much to keep them engrossed. Readers will root for Cooper in his search for victims and the identity of the ruthless and mysterious killers. The author successfully raises tension with gripping descriptions and emotional dialogue.

  Booklife Prize

  Also By Richard Conrath

  Cooper’s Moon

  Blood Moon Rising

  Copyright

  A Cold Copper Moon is a work of fiction. The names, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s creative imagination and, as such, are being used fictitiously. Therefore, any resemblance to persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. See Author’s Note.

  A Cold Copper Moon,

  Copyright © 2021 by Richard C. Conrath

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of any copyrighted materials. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture.

  Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing publishers to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Published by Gulf Shore Press, 2021, St. Petersburg, FL. Gulf Shore Books are available on Amazon and most book stores near you. If the bookstore does not have the book, you may order it through them.

  FIRST EDITION

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020925880

  ISBN: 978-1-946937-04-9

  ISBN: (e-book): 978-1-946937-05-6

  Cover Design & Book Layout by Laideebug Digital

  Contents

  The Swamp

  I. The Zhi Zhu Nu

  1. Oceanside, Florida

  2. What Happened to Jack?

  3. What Dreams May Come

  4. Jack’s House

  5. The Pilot House

  6. The Search

  7. The Ten Thousand Islands

  8. Shark River

  9. The Body in the Swamp

  10. Under the Copper Moon

  11. Midnight Drive

  12. The Mission

  13. Medical Examiner's Office

  14. The House that Jack Built

  15. Detective Louise Delgado

  16. Donuts

  17. The Itsy-Bitsy Spider

  18. The ER

  19. The Fly Trap

  20. The News

  21. Back home

  22. Destination

  23. The Message

  24. Richie

  25. Call Wong

  26. The Visitor

  27. Chinatown

  28. The Godfather

  29. The Caller

  30. The Sister

  31. The New Boyfriend

  32. Snow

  33. The Friend

  34. Back to Miami

  35. The No-Plan Strategy

  36. The Visitor

  II. The Boy’s Story

  37. Eight Years Later

  38. No! No! No!

  39. Cooper’s Plan

  40. The Alternate Plan

  41. The Night Watchmen

  42. Did You Ever Try Boarding an Oil Rig?

  43. Jillie

  44. Run for your Life

  45. Back Home

  46. Back to Shark Island

  47. Shark Island

  48. Jillie and Henry

  49. Richie and Huck

  50. The Boy and the Man

  51. Huck And Richie

  52. The Mysterious Substance

  53. Another Rig… This Time…

  54. Back Home

  55. Henry and Jillie

  56. Thoughts of Escape

  57. The Plan

  58. The Visits

  59. Planning for War

  60. Dreaming about Maxie

  61. The Rig Near Shark River

  62. The Ponce de Leon Derrick

  63. Jillie and Henry

  64. The Inn and Tavern

  65. The Rig

  66. The Escape

  67. Into the World

  68. The Road

  69. Dr. Graham Bell

  70. Jillie and Henry

  71. The Night Visitor

  72. The Orphan

  73. Jillie and Henry

  74. What Are You Doing Here?

  75. Nearly Home

  76. Cleveland Wong

  77. Joe E Lewis

  78. Good Ol’ Joey Lewis

  79. Cleveland Wong

  80. Office Talk

  81. Muskingum of O.H.I.O

  82. The Call

  83. Back to Shark River

  84. The House on Main Street

  85. The Big Rig

  86. The Waiting Game

  87. Discovery

  88. Jillie and Henry

  89. The Mailbox

  90. What to Do Next?

  91. The Chase

  Part III

  92. The Watch

  93. I met a Man Who Wasn’t There

  94. Oh How I wish He’d Go Away!

  IV. The Battle in the Florida Straits

  95. Plan of Attack

  96. The Rain and the Fog

  97. The Go-Fast Boat

  98. On Board the Zhi Zhu Nu

  99. The Interview in the Rain

  100. Cleveland Wong and the Spider Woman

  101. The Phone Call

  102. Muskingum of O.H.I.O

  103. Home

  104. The Man

  105. Port Columbus

  106. The House on US 40

  107. Henry vs. Jillie

  108. Inside the House on US 40

  109. The Plan

  110. Maxie

  111. The Asp

  112. Henry

  113. The Other Man

  V. The Reckoning

  114. What Dreams May Come
>
  115. Maxie

  116. Crisis

  117. Maxie

  118. Wong

  119. What He Said

  120. Cooper's View

  VI. After The War

  121. Back Home

  122. That Same Night

  123. Winding Down

  124. The Full Copper Moon

  125. Under the Cold Copper Moon

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Coming Soon

  About the Author

  “Yesterday, upon the stair

  I met a man who wasn’t there!

  He wasn’t there again today,

  Oh how I wish he’d go away!”

  WILLIAM HUGHES MEARNS, ANTIGONISH, 1899

  As always—

  To my wife, Karyn

  The Swamp

  He was having trouble with the motors. They were catching on some seagrass. So he raised the twin Yamahas and cleaned out the propellers from the grass they had been hauling. Then he lowered the Yamahas back into the water and started them up again, the motors now back in tune, purring like a cat when you gentle its fur. I should have headed home hours ago, he thought, but he had stretched his luck, the fishing was too good.

  Then, thump, thump, thump. Not the sound from the Yamahas idling. Another sound, echoing off the water, maybe emanating from it. He could feel the noise in the sides of the Grady White, faint, but steady. Thump, thump, like the beating of drums—but the Seminoles had put those away decades ago—or like the loud thumping of a gator’s tail, but it was too steady for that, or like the throb of his heart against the sense of danger, but he knew better. He had been in these waters too long not to recognize familiar sounds, and this was not familiar. But he headed for it anyway, guessing in his guts that he shouldn’t.

  So, he idled his boat toward the thumping and it grew more distinct as he moved back into the sea grass at the southeastern edge of the Everglades. He watched the evening grow even darker as he did, knowing that he should be heading the other way, back toward the open water and safe harbor. But what the hell, it was just thumping, just a curious, persistent hammering in the water. Was it hammering now? And it was. And it was coming from the near distance, from some moving forms in the distance. Machinery? A boat? And voices carried quietly over the waters, but he couldn’t make them out. And What were they doing out here in the dark? In the Everglades with heavy equipment? He didn’t like it, but he realized too late that he shouldn’t be here because a single voice sounded an alarm, over the water, through the dark, and in his direction. Oh, he thought.

  And he decided, too late, to turn the boat and urge the Yamahas on, because he heard the roar of another boat, churning the water. He knew it was a fast boat because he could see it outlined against the feeble light of the night sky, but he couldn’t get his boat going fast enough because the roar was on him like a swarm of disturbed bees. Only there was no way to escape them. Like jumping into the water to avoid the sting. He saw it bearing down on him now, two men standing and pointing, fire erupting from their hands as they pointed, and he felt the boat slip from his control, his hands losing the wheel, and his legs giving way as he felt the pelting on his body. Like sleet or hail from an icy sky. And a darkness spread through his brain, the night perhaps? No, he realized. Something much worse than that…

  Part One

  The Zhi Zhu Nu

  Chapter One

  Oceanside, Florida

  Monday Morning, November 28

  I love the big window in my office. It overlooks a wide street lined with palms and live oaks. With buttonwoods thrown in to fill the spaces left by storms. And the oaks don’t lose their leaves. This is Florida. Paradise. With heat and sun and all the birds that fly here from the north where there is no heat and sun. I grew up in Cleveland and would watch the birds swarm and head south and wished I could join them. After all, who wants to be in Cleveland in the winter? When the ‘lake effect’ turns off the sun, and grey, ugly clouds push in from Lake Erie. And the night. There are few stars in the night sky in Cleveland, Ohio. It’s just cold, damn cold...and windy, raw and windy.

  Up the street a man was leaving the police station. He passed an adult video store with a sign over it that read, Shhh. Don’t tell Mama. I’ve never been in there. Honestly. Next to the video store is a compounding pharmacy where I get my drugs—legal ones I mean. Between the pharm and the video store is a pawnshop. You can’t see through the front window—it’s darkened—but go in and you’ll find Jorge, sitting behind a cage, his hand on a gun. You won’t see his gun though.

  As the walker got closer, he looked less like a him and more like a her: short hair, jeans, shirt, sleeves rolled up. She stopped across the street from my office, looked up at my window—there’s wording on it—in big black letters:

  COOPER INVESTIGATIONS

  Then she crossed the street and walked toward the bakery below me.

  I wondered why she was alone in this neighborhood. It’s dangerous for a young woman—for anyone actually. That’s why I’m here. The rent’s cheap. Maybe that’s why she was dressed like a guy. Or maybe she was just lost.

  I rented this space a few weeks ago figuring it was about time I put Cooper Investigations on firmer ground. Get an office, for Chrissake, Cooper! Tony DeFelice, a cop friend of mine from Miami PD, had said. Nobody’s gonna trust a private dick, don’t got an office. So I’m listening to someone coming up the stairs to my office. There’s a small entryway at the top of the stairs—and just one door: Cooper Investigations painted in black across a smoked glass pane. I could make out a woman’s form through the window.

  “Hello?” the woman said, opening the door and looking through the reception area into my office. I closed my computer and went out to meet her. She was young—late twenties, maybe early thirties, brown hair, marks on her face—acne maybe—but pretty, despite that.

  “Mr. Cooper?” she said, standing now just inside the door, tentative. And when I nodded, she introduced herself. “Cynthia Hayward,” she said, extending her hand. She stared at the empty desk in reception.

  “That’s where my secretary will be when I find one,” I lied. She nodded.

  I led her into my office and pointed to a wicker chair next to my desk.

  “Coffee?”

  She looked around.

  “My coffee pot’s in the bakery downstairs,” I said.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “You don’t have much furniture, do you?” Observant.

  “I just opened this office. I’m getting new furniture,” I lied again, looking around at the bare walls. “I practice minimalism.”

  She smiled, then settled into the chair, moving around in it, trying to get comfortable. After she found the right spot, we stared at each other for a few moments, me leaning back, waiting, she studying me. I hadn’t shaved. It had been a long night. It’s been a month since I closed a missing persons case. I should say several cases: one about a young woman who showed up in the Ohio River with missing body parts; another, about a coed from the University of Miami who turned up on a Russian trawler in the Caribbean—she was still alive. Her boyfriend wasn’t so lucky—I found him in a bathtub in an apartment in Sunrise (near Miami), dead—some of his body parts missing. There’s a lot of money in that business—selling arms and legs on the black market—even skin. So that was really three missing persons, wasn’t it? I saved one. One out of three. Is that a good result?

  “I need you to find someone,” she said and put her hand up to her mouth as if to think about what she had just said. I hoped she didn’t know my record.

  I waited.

  “My father disappeared four days ago.”

  “Four days ago? Thanksgiving.”

  She nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Jack Hayward?” I said. There was a story about him in the Herald.