The Murderers

by W. E. B Griffin

  The Mayor had a thought.

  I think Mickey O’Hara’s going to be at the Peebles place, but I don’t know. And Mickey’s just about as good as I am, getting his hands on things he’s not supposed to have. I want him to get this straight from me, not from somebody else, and then have him call me and ask about it. And the time to get it to him is now.

  He pushed the switch that lowered the sliding glass partition between the passenger’s and chauffeur’s sections of the limousine, and slid forward off the seat to get close to the opening.

  There was a passenger-to-chauffeur telephone in the limousine, but after trying it once to see if it worked, the Mayor had never used it again. He believed that when you can face somebody when you’re talking to them, that’s the best way.

  The very large black man on the passenger side in the chauffeur’s compartment, who carried a photo-identification card and badge in a leather folder stating he was Lieutenant J. K. Fellows of the Philadelphia Police Department, had turned when he heard the dividing glass whoosh downward.

  “Mayor?”

  “Get on the radio and see if you can get a location on Mickey O’Hara,” the Mayor ordered.

  Lieutenant Fellows nodded, and reached for one of the two microphones mounted just under the dashboard.

  As the Mayor slid back against the cushions, his jacket caught on the butt of his revolver. With an easy gesture, as automatic as checking to see that his tie was in place, he knocked the offending garment out of the way.

  Jerry Carlucci rarely went anywhere without his pistol.

  There were several theories why he did so. One held that he carried it for self-protection; there was always some nut running loose who wanted to get in the history books by shooting some public servant. The Department had just sent off to Byberry State Hospital a looney-tune who thought God had ordered him to blow up the Vice President of the United States. A perfectly ordinary-looking guy who was a Swarthmore graduate and a financial analyst for a bank, for God’s sake, who had a couple of hundred pounds of high explosive in his basement and thought God talked to him!

  The Mayor did not like to think how much it had cost the Department in just overtime to put that fruitcake in the bag.

  A second theory held that he carried it primarily for public relations purposes. This theory was generally advanced by the Mayor’s critics, of whom he had a substantial number. “He’s never without at least one cop-bodyguard with-a-gun, so what does he need a gun for? Except to get his picture in the papers, ‘protecting us,’ waving his gun around as if he thinks he’s Wyatt Earp or somebody.”

  The only person who knew the real reason the Mayor elected to go about armed was his wife.

  “Do you need that thing?” Angeline Carlucci had asked several years before, in their bedroom, as she watched him deal with the problem, Where does one wear one’s revolver when wearing a cummerbund?

  “Honey,” the Mayor had replied, “I carried a gun for twenty-six years. I feel kind of funny, sort of half-naked, when I don’t have it with me.”

  Mayor Carlucci had begun his career of public service as a police officer, and had held every rank in the Philadelphia Police Department except policewoman before seeking elective office.

  Mrs. Carlucci accepted his explanation. So far as she knew, her husband had never lied to her. If she thought that there were perhaps other reasons—she knew it did not hurt him with the voters when his picture, with pistol visible, at some crime site, was published in the papers—she kept her opinion to herself.

  “Mary One,” Lieutenant Fellows said into the microphone of the Command Band radio.

  The response from Police Radio was immediate.

  “Mary One,” a pleasant, female-sounding voice replied.

  “We need a location on Mickey O’Hara,” Lieutenant Fellows said.

  “Stand by,” Police Radio said, and Lieutenant Fellows hung the microphone up as the dividing glass whooshed back into place.

  Police Radio, in the person of thirty-seven-year-old Janet Grosse, a civilian with thirteen years on the job, was very familiar with Mr. O’Hara, as well as with what the Mayor’s bodyguard—she had recognized Lieutenant Fellows’s voice—wanted. He wanted a location on Mickey O’Hara, that and nothing more. He expected her to be smart enough not to go on the air and inquire of every radio-equipped police vehicle in Philadelphia if they had seen Mickey, and if so, where.

  Janet had the capability of doing just that, and if it got down to that, she would have to, the result of which would be that the police frequencies would be full with at least a dozen reports of the last time anyone had seen Mickey’s antenna-festooned Buick. While he didn’t know every cop in Philadelphia, every cop knew him.

  And Mickey would be monitoring his police band radios and would learn that they were looking for him. Fellows had said the Mayor wanted a location on him, not that he wanted Mickey to know he wanted to know where he was.

  Janet thought a moment and then threw a switch on her console which caused her voice to be transmitted over the Highway Band. Only those vehicles assigned to Highway Patrol, plus a very few in the vehicles of the most senior white shirts, were equipped with Highway Band radios.

  “William One,” she said.

  William One was the call sign of Inspector Peter Wohl. Janet knew that his official vehicle—an unmarked new Ford, which he customarily drove himself—was equipped with an H-Band radio.

  There was no answer, which did not surprise Janet, as she had a good hunch where he was, and what he was doing, and consequently that he would not be listening to his radio. Neither was she surprised when a voice came over the H-Band:

  “Radio, this is Highway One. William One is out of service. I can get a message to him.”

  Highway One was the call sign of the vehicle assigned to the Commanding Officer of the Highway Patrol, which was a subordinate unit of the Special Operations Division.

  I thought that would happen. William One, Highway One, and just about every senior white-shirt not on duty is in Chestnut Hill tonight. Wohl is having Highway One take his calls.

  “Highway One, are you in Chestnut Hill?”

  “Right.”

  “Is Mickey O’Hara there, too?”

  “Right.”

  Bingo! I am a clever girl. Look for a gathering of white-shirts where the free booze is flowing, and there will be Mickey O’Hara.

  “That will be all, Highway One. Thank you,” Janet said. She switched to the Command Band.

  “Mary One.”

  “Mary One.”

  “The gentleman is in Chestnut Hill at a party,” Janet reported. “Do you need an address?”

  “That was quick,” Fellows said, laughter in his voice. “No, thanks, I’m sure we can find him with that. Thank you.”

  “Have a good time,” Janet said, and sat back and waited for another call.

  “Mayor, Mickey’s already at the party.”

  Mayor Carlucci nodded.

  “When we get there, find him. Give me a couple of minutes to circulate, and then ask Mickey if he has a moment for me,” the Mayor said, “and bring him over.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  There were uniforms—white hats from the Traffic Division, not policemen from the Fourteenth District, which included Chestnut Hill—directing traffic on Glengarry Lane in Chestnut Hill. The mayoral limousine was quickly waved to the head of the line of cars waiting to pass through the ornate gates of the five-acre estate. As the Cadillac rolled past, each uniform saluted and got a wave from the Mayor in return.The long, curving drive to the turn-of-the-century Peebles mansion was lined with parked cars, and there a cluster of chauffeurs gathered around a dozen limousines—including three Rolls Royces, Jerry Carlucci noticed—parked near the mansion itself.

  If is wasn’t for what’s going to be on the front page of every newspaper in town tomorrow, the Mayor thought, tonight would be a real opportunity. Now all I can hope for is to minimize the damage, keep these people from wondering
whether they’re betting on the wrong horse.

  There was a man in a dinner jacket collecting invitations just outside the door. He didn’t ask for the Mayor’s, confirming the Mayor’s suspicion that he looked familiar, and was probably a retired police officer, now working as a rent-a-cop for Wachenhut Security, or something like that.

  The reception line consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Brewster Cortland Payne II, Miss Martha Peebles, and Mr.—Captain—David Pekach.

  “Mrs. Carlucci, Mr. Mayor,” Payne said. “How nice to see you.”

  Payne and Pekach were wearing dinner jackets.

  Probably most everybody here will be wearing a monkey suit but me, the Mayor thought. But it couldn’t be helped. I couldn’t have shown up at Tony Cannatello’s viewing wearing a monkey suit and looking like I was headed right from the funeral home to a fancy party.

  “We’re happy to be here, Mr. Payne.”

  “You know my wife, don’t you? And Miss Peebles?”

  “How are you, Angeline?” Mrs. Patricia Payne said. “I like your dress.”

  Patricia Payne and Martha Peebles were dressed similarly, in black, off-the-shoulder cocktail dresses. The Peebles woman had a double string of large pearls reaching to the valley of her breasts, and Mrs. Payne a single strand of pearls.

  Nice chest, the Mayor thought, vis-à-vis Miss Peebles. Nice-looking woman. She’d be a real catch for Dave Pekach even without all that money.

  And then, slightly piqued: Yeah, of course I know your wife. I’ve known her longer than you have. I carried her first husband’s casket out of St. Dominic’s when we buried him. And as long as we’ve known each other, isn’t it about time you started calling me “Jerry”?

  “How is it, Patricia,” Angeline Carlucci spoke truthfully, “that you still look like a girl?”

  The Mayor had a sudden clear mental image of the white, grief-stricken face of the young widow of Sergeant John X. Moffitt, blown away by a scumbag when answering a silent alarm at a gas station, as they lowered his casket into the ground in St. Dominic’s cemetery.

  A long time ago. Twenty-five years ago. I was Captain of Highway when Jack Moffitt got killed.

  Angie’s right. She does look good. Real good. She’s a Main Line lady now, a long way from being a cop’s widow living with her family off Roosevelt Boulevard.

  “I’m so glad you could come,” Martha Peebles said to Angeline Carlucci.

  “Oh, Jerry wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” Angeline said.

  “No, I wouldn’t,” the Mayor agreed. “Thank you for having us, Miss Peebles.”

  “Oh, Martha, please,” she said as she took his hand.

  Then the Mayor put his hand out to Captain Pekach.

  “Don’t you look spiffy, Dave,” he said.

  “Mr. Mayor.”

  “There’s a rumor going around that some unfortunate girl who doesn’t know what she’s getting into has agreed to marry you. Anything to it?”

  Martha Peebles giggled. Dave Pekach looked at her and smiled uneasily at the Mayor but didn’t reply.

  A waiter in a white jacket stood at the end of the reception line holding a tray of champagne glasses. Angeline took one. The waiter, seeing the indecision on the Mayor’s face, said, “There is a bar in the sitting room to your left, Mr. Mayor.”

  “A little champagne will do just fine,” the Mayor said, and took a glass. “But thank you.”

  NINE

  It took the Mayor five minutes to work his way through the entrance foyer to the bar in the sitting room, and another five to find somebody he could leave Angie with and then to reach his destination.

  In descending order of importance, he wished to have a word with Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin, Chief Inspector Matthew Lowenstein, and Inspector Peter Wohl. It would have been his intention to first find Denny or Matt and then send Fellows to fetch the others, but luck was with him. The three were standing together in a corner of the sitting room—not surprising, birds of a feather, et cetera—and there was a bonus. With them were Chief Inspector (Retired) August Wohl, Detective Matthew M. Payne, and Mr. Michael J. O’Hara of the Bulletin.Chiefs Coughlin, Lowenstein, and Wohl were in business suits. Inspector Wohl and Detective Payne were in monkey suits. Mr. O’Hara was wearing a plaid sports coat of the type worn by the gentlemen who offer suggestions on the wagers one should make at a racetrack.

  Not surprising, the Mayor thought. Dave Pekach works for Peter Wohl, and Peter would have probably rented a monkey suit for this if he didn’t have one, and he probably has his own, because he’s a bachelor, and doesn’t have a family to support and can afford a monkey suit. And Detective Payne not only is also a bachelor with no family to support, but doesn’t have to worry about living on a detective’s pay anyway. His father—what was the way they put it? His adoptive father, he adopted him when he married Patty Moffitt—is Brewster Cortland Payne II.

  The Mayor handed Inspector Wohl his champagne glass.

  “Get rid of this for me, will you, Mac?” he asked, as if he thought anybody in a monkey suit had to be a waiter. “Get me a weak scotch, and get my friends another round of whatever they’re drinking.”

  “Good evening, Mr. Mayor,” Peter Wohl said, as the others laughed.

  “My God, my mistake!” the Mayor said in mock horror. “What we have here is a cop in a monkey suit. I would never have recognized him.”

  “Two, Jerry,” Chief Wohl said. “Three counting Dave Pekach. The Department’s getting some class.”

  As Mayor Carlucci had risen through the ranks of the Police Department he had had Chief Inspector Wohl as his mentor and protector. The phrase used was that “Wohl was Carlucci’s rabbi.” It was said, quietly of course, but quite accurately, that Chief Wohl had not only helped Carlucci’s career prosper, but had on at least two occasions kept it from being terminated.

  And Inspector, and then Chief Inspector, and then Deputy Commissioner and ultimately Commissioner Carlucci had been rabbi to Chiefs Coughlin and Lowenstein as they had worked their way up in the hierarchy. Detective Payne, it was universally recognized, had two rabbis, Chief Coughlin and Inspector Wohl.

  Payne’s relationship with Wohl was the traditional one. Wohl saw in him a good cop, one who, with guidance and experience, could become a good senior police official. His relationship with Chief Dennis V. Coughlin was something different. Coughlin had been John Francis Xavier Moffitt’s best friend since they had been at the Police Academy. He had been the best man at his wedding, and he had gone to tell Patricia Moffitt, pregnant with Matt, that her husband had been killed. Just about everyone—including Jerry Carlucci—had thought it certain that after a suitable period, the Widow Moffitt would marry her late husband’s best friend. You didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to tell from the way he looked at her, and talked about her, how he felt about her.

  Patty Moffitt had instead met Brewster Cortland Payne II, an archetypical Main Line WASP, in whose father’s law firm she had found work as a typist. He had been widowed four months previously when his wife had died in a traffic accident returning from their summer cottage in the Poconos.

  Their marriage had enraged both families. Having lost a mate was not considered sufficient cause to marry hastily, and across a vast chasm of social and religious differences. It was generally agreed that the marriage would not, could not, last, and that was the reason many offered for Denny Coughlin never having married: he was still waiting for Patty Moffitt.

  The marriage endured. Payne adopted Matthew Mark Moffitt and gave him his name and his love. Denny Coughlin never married. He and Brewster Payne became friends, and he was Uncle Denny to all the Payne children.

  The Mayor shook everybody’s hand. A waiter appeared. The Mayor gave him his champagne glass and asked for a weak scotch. Inspector Wohl and Detective Payne both took champagne from the waiter’s tray.

  “How ya doing, Mayor?” Mickey O’Hara asked.

  “Take a look at this,” the Mayor said as he took a newspaper clippin
g from his pocket and handed it to O’Hara, “and make a guess.”

  O’Hara read the story, then handed it back to the Mayor, who handed it to Chief Wohl.

  “You all better read it,” the Mayor said.

  * * *

  MORE UNSOLVED MURDERS;

  NO ARRESTS AND ‘NO COMMENT’

  BY CHARLES E. WHALEY

  PHILADELPHIA LEDGER STAFF WRITER

  Capt. Henry O. Quaire, commanding officer of the Homicide Unit of the Philadelphia Police Department, refused to comment on rumors circulating through the police department that a homicide detective is under investigation for the brutal murder of Police Officer Jerome H. Kellog. Chief Inspector Matthew Lowenstein, who heads the Detective Bureau of the Police Department, was “out of town on official business” when this reporter attempted to contact him.

  Kellog, 33, who was assigned to the Narcotics Unit, was found Friday morning in his home at 300 West Luray Street in the Feltonville section, dead of multiple gunshot wounds to the head. His death has been classified as “a willful death,” which is police parlance for murder.Rumors began almost immediately to circulate that an unnamed Homicide Unit detective, who is allegedly involved with Officer Kellog’s estranged wife, is a prime suspect in the killing.

  Although a large number of his fellow police officers called to pay their last respects to Officer Kellog at the John F. Fluehr & Sons Funeral Home this afternoon, including more than a dozen middle-ranking police supervisors, none of the police department’s most senior officers were present.

  Their absence fueled another rumor, that Officer Kellog was not to be accorded the elaborate funeral rites, sometimes called an “Inspector’s Funeral,” normally given to a police officer killed in the line of duty.

  Capt. Robert F. Talley, Commanding Officer of the Narcotics Unit, who made a brief appearance at the funeral home visitation, accompanying Officer Kellog’s widow, refused comment.