The Murderers

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Jesus,” Chad said. “Look at them!”

  “That was disgusting,” Penny said.

  “What was disgusting, love of my life?” Matt asked. There was a strain in his voice.

  “We’re not supposed to be in here,” Penny said.

  “Look,” he said. “Chad wanted to see the guns. If we had gone to Martha—if we had been able to find Martha in that mob downstairs—and asked her if we could look at the guns, she would have said ‘sure,’ and we would have come up here, and the Pinkerton guy wouldn’t have let us in without written authorization, whereupon I would have showed him my badge. OK?”

  “You think that damned badge makes you something special,” Penny said.

  “Penny, sometimes you’re a pain in the ass,” Matt said.

  “Hey!” Daffy said. “Stop it, you two!”

  “The cabinets are locked,” Chad said in disappointment.

  “They lock up the crown jewels of England, too,” Matt said. “Something about them being valuable.”

  “Are these things valuable?” Penny asked.

  “Some of the antiques are really worth money,” Matt said. “Museum stuff.”

  “But what did he do with all of them?” Penny asked.

  “Looked at them,” Matt said. “Just…took pleasure in having them.”

  “What the hell is this?” Chad asked, looking down into a glass-topped, felt-lined display case. “It looks like a sniper rifle, without a scope.”

  Matt went and looked.

  “That one I know,” he said. “The Great White Hunter showed me that one himself. It’s a .30 caliber—note that I did not say .30–06—Springfield, Model of 1900. When Roosevelt, the first Roosevelt, came back from Cuba and got himself elected President—”

  “What in the world are you talking about?” Penny demanded.

  “Turn your mouth off automatic, all right? I’m talking to Chad.”

  “Screw you!”

  “Before I was so rudely interrupted, Chad: When Roosevelt made the Ordnance Corps pay Mauser for a license to manufacture bolt actions based on the Spanish 7mm they used in Cuba, the Springfield Arsenal made a trial run. Twenty rifles, I think he said. One of them they gave to Roosevelt, who was then President. That’s it. Christ only knows how much it’s worth. Martha’s father told me it took him three years to talk Roosevelt’s daughter into selling it to him once he found out she had it.”

  “Are we finished here?” Penny asked.

  “Penny!” Daffy said.

  “We are not finished here, love of my life,” Matt said, not at all pleasantly. “You may be, but I have just begun to give Chad the tour.”

  “I want to go back downstairs. I’m bored up here.”

  “And I’m bored down there.”

  “You didn’t seem to be bored when you were sucking up to the Mayor.”

  “Have a nice time downstairs, Penelope,” Matt said. “Don’t let the doorknob hit you in the ass on your way out.”

  Penny extended her right hand, with the center finger in an extended upward position, the others folded, and walked out of the arms room.

  “You’re right, Matthew my boy,” Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV said. “On occasion, and this is obviously one of them, our beloved Penny can be a flaming pain in the ass.”

  “I suspect it may be that time of the month,” Matt said.

  Chad laughed.

  “The both of you are disgusting!” Daffy said. “I’m going with Penny.”

  “Mind what Matt said about the doorknob, darling,” Chad said.

  “You bastard!” Mrs. Nesbitt said, and marched out.

  “I am tempted,” Matt said, “to repeat the old saw that there would be a bounty on them, if they didn’t have—”

  “Don’t!” Chad interrupted, laughing. “I’m too tired to have to fight to defend the honor of the mother-to-be of my children.”

  Ten minutes later, as Matt, having successfully gotten through the lock on one of the pistol cabinets, was showing Chad a mint-condition, low-serial-numbered Colt Model 1911 self-loader, Inspector Peter Wohl came into the gun room, trailed by Mrs. C. T. Nesbitt IV and Miss Penelope Detweiler.

  “My God, she called the cops!” Matt said, the wit of which remark getting through only to Mr. Nesbitt.

  “I asked Penny if she knew where you were,” Wohl said. “Got a minute, Matt?”

  “Yes, sir. Sure. You know Chad, don’t you?”

  “Hello, Nesbitt. How are you?”

  “Inspector.”

  “Could you give us a minute?”

  “Certainly,” Chad said. “I’ll be outside.”

  Wohl waited until they had gone and had closed the door behind them.

  “You ever see one of these?” Matt asked, holding the Model 1911 out to Wohl.

  “I just heard about you climbing out on the ledge at the Bellvue, you damned fool,” Wohl said.

  After a just-perceptible hesitation, Matt asked, “Who told you? Harris?”

  “Actually, it was the Mayor. Harris told the Mayor and the Mayor told me.”

  “The Mayor?”

  “The Mayor thinks it makes you a cop with great big balls,” Wohl said. “I wanted to make sure you understand that in my book it makes you a goddamned fool.”

  Matt didn’t reply for a moment.

  “Inspector—”

  “Just when I start to think that maybe you’ve started to grow up, you do something like that. Jesus H. Christ, Matt!”

  “Are you willing to listen to me telling you that ledge was eighteen inches wide?”

  “Be in my office at quarter to seven in the morning,” Wohl said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You and Staff Inspector Mike Weisbach are going to serve a warrant of arrest on Lieutenant Seymour Meyer.”

  “We are? All of a sudden? What happened? Who’s Weisbach?”

  “This is in the nature of a reward,” Wohl said. “I have been ordered by the Mayor to let you in on the arrest. He thinks your goddamned fool stunt on the ledge entitles you, because at two A.M., Paulo Cassandro and Meyer had an angry discussion, during which they mentioned names and specific sums and Meyer’s oral sexual proclivities, all of which were recorded by the microphone you put back in place.”

  “No crap? We got ’em?”

  “If it was up to me, tomorrow morning you’d be back on recovered stolen automobiles.”

  “Ah, come on, Inspector!”

  “If you had fallen off that ledge, Supercop, or if you had been seen up there, all the time and money and effort we spent trying to get Meyer would have gone down the toilet. The conversation we got, or one just as incriminating, would have been repeated in a day or two. Don’t you start patting yourself on the back. You acted like a goddamned fool, not like a detective with enough sense to find his ass with both hands.”

  He locked eyes with Matt until Matt gave in and shrugged his shoulders in chagrin.

  “Quarter to seven, Detective Payne,” Wohl said. “Have a nice night.”

  He walked out of the gun room.

  Matt replaced the Colt Model 1911 in its cabinet, and was trying to put the cabinet lock back in place when Chad, Penny, and Daffy came back in the room.

  “You are forgiven, Penelope,” Matt said. “Out of the goodness of my heart. It will not be necessary for you to grovel in tears at my feet.”

  “What was that business about a ledge at the Bellvue?” Penny asked.

  “Does he often call you a goddamned fool?” Chad inquired.

  “No comment,” Matt said, chuckling, trying desperately but not quite succeeding in making a joke of it.

  “What was that all about?”

  “He wants to see me at quarter to seven in his office, that’s all.”

  “That’s not what it sounded like, buddy.” Chad chuckled.

  “Tomorrow we’re going to play golf!” Penny said. “Tomorrow’s your day off. With Tom and Ginny.”

  “Tomorrow, like the man said, I will be in Wohl’s o
ffice at quarter to seven. We’ll just have to make our excuses to Tom and Ginny. Are they here?”

  “We are going to be at Merion at nine,” Penny said flatly.

  “Chad, how do you feel about an early round?” Matt asked.

  “Matt, I mean it!” Penny said.

  “Or what, Penny? This is out of my control. I’m sorry, but I’m a cop.”

  “You’re sorry? Your precious Inspector Wohl is not the only one who thinks you’re a goddamned fool!” Penny said.

  “Would you like the goddamned fool to take you home, Penny? I’ve had about all of you I can stand for one night.”

  “I’ll get home by myself, thank you very much,” Penny said.

  “Oh, come on, you two,” Daffy said.

  “Come on, hell!” Penny said, and walked out of the gun room.

  “You better go after her, Matt,” Daffy said.

  “Why? To get more of the same crap she’s been giving me all night?”

  “She’s really angry with you, Matt.”

  “Frankly, my dear,” Matt said, in decent mimicry of Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind, “I don’t give a damn.”

  TEN

  Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin looked at Chief Inspector August Wohl (Retired) and then at Inspector Peter Wohl, shrugged, and said, “OK. I’ll call him.”

  He leaned forward on Peter Wohl’s white leather couch for the telephone. He stopped.“I don’t have his home phone,” he said.

  “I’ve got it,” Peter Wohl said. “In my bedroom.”

  He pushed himself out of one of the two matching white leather armchairs and walked into his bedroom.

  “I don’t like this, Augie,” Denny Coughlin said.

  “It took place on his watch,” Chief Wohl said. “He was getting the big bucks to make sure things like this didn’t happen.”

  “Big bucks!” Coughlin snorted. “I wonder what’s going to happen to him?”

  “By one o’clock tomorrow afternoon, he will be transferred to Night Command. Unless the Mayor has one of his Italian tantrums again, in which case I don’t know.”

  Peter Wohl came back in his living room with a sheet of paper and handed it to Coughlin.

  “How did I wind up having to do this?” Coughlin asked.

  “Peter’s not senior enough, and the Mayor likes you,” Chief Wohl said.

  “Jesus,” Coughlin said. He ran his finger down the list of private, official, home telephone numbers of the upper hierarchy of the Philadelphia Police Department, found what he was looking for, and dialed the number of Inspector Gregory F. Sawyer, Jr.

  Inspector Sawyer was the Commanding Officer of the Central Police Division, which geographically encompasses Center City Philadelphia south of the City Hall. It supervises the Sixth and Ninth police districts, each of which is commanded by a captain. The Sixth District covers the area between Poplar Street on the north and South Street on the south from Broad Street east to the Delaware River, and the Ninth covers the area west of Broad Street between South and Poplar to the Schuylkill River. Its command is generally regarded as a stepping-stone to higher rank; both Chief Wohl and Chief Coughlin had in the past commanded the Central District.

  “Barbara, this is Denny Coughlin,” Chief Coughlin said into the telephone. “I hate to bother you at home, but I have to speak to Greg.”

  Chief Wohl leaned forward from his white leather armchair, picked up a bottle of Bushmills Irish whiskey, and generously replenished the glass in front of Denny Coughlin.

  “Greg? Denny. Sorry to bother you at home with this, but I didn’t want to take the chance of missing you in the morning. We need you, the Commanding Officer of the Sixth, Sy Meyer, a plainclothesman of his named Palmerston, and a Sixth District uniform named Crater at Peter Wohl’s office at eight tomorrow morning.”

  “What’s going on, Denny?” Inspector Sawyer inquired, loudly enough so that Chief Wohl and his son could hear.

  “There was an incident,” Coughlin began, visibly uncomfortable with having to lie, “involving somebody who had Jerry Carlucci’s unlisted number. He wants a report from me by noon tomorrow. I figured Wohl’s office was the best place to get everybody together as quietly as possible.”

  “An incident? What kind of an incident?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t hear about it myself until I saw the Mayor tonight. I guess we’ll all find out tomorrow.” He paused. “Greg, I probably don’t have to tell you this, but don’t start your own investigation tonight, OK?”

  “Jesus Christ! I haven’t heard a goddamned thing.”

  “Don’t feel bad, neither did I. Eight o’clock, Greg.”

  “I’ll be there,” Inspector Sawyer said.

  “Good night, Greg.”

  “Good night, Denny.”

  Coughlin put the telephone back in its cradle and picked up his drink.

  “Why the hell is my conscience bothering me?” he asked.

  “It shouldn’t,” Chief Wohl said. “Not your conscience.”

  Officer Charles F. Crater, who lived with his wife Joanne and their two children (Angela, three, and Charles, Jr., eighteen months) in a row house at the 6200 block of Crafton Street in the Mayfair section of Philadelphia, was asleep at 7:15 a.m. when Corporal George T. Peterson of the Sixth District telephoned his home and asked to speak to him.Mrs. Crater told Corporal Peterson that her husband had worked the four-to-twelve tour and it had been after two when he got home.

  “I know, but something has come up, and I have to talk to him,” Corporal Peterson replied. “It’s important, Mrs. Crater.”

  Two minutes later, sleepy-eyed, dressed in a cotton bathrobe under which it could be seen that he had been sleeping in his underwear, Officer Crater picked up the telephone.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Charley, do you know where Special Operations Headquarters is?”

  “Frankford and Castor?”

  “Right. Be there at eight o’clock. See the Sergeant.”

  “Jesus,” Crater said, looking at his watch. “It’s quarter after seven. What’s going on?”

  “Wait a minute,” Corporal Peterson said. “Charley, the Sergeant says to send a car for you. Be waiting when it gets there.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Hold it a minute, Charley,” Corporal Peterson said.

  Sergeant Mario Delacroce came on the line.

  “Crater, you didn’t get this from me,” he said. “All I know is that we got a call from Central Division saying to have you at Special Operations at eight this morning. What I hear is that Special Operations has got some operation coming off on your beat, and they want to talk to you.”

  “What kind of an operation?”

  “Charley, Central Division don’t confide in me, they just tell me what they want done. There’ll be a car at your house in fifteen minutes. Be waiting for it. You want a little advice, put on a clean uniform and have a fresh shave.”

  “Right,” Charley Crater said.

  He put the telephone back in its cradle.

  “What was that all about?” Joanne Crater asked, concern in her voice.

  “Ah, those goddamned Special Operations hotshots are running some kind of operation on my beat, and they want to talk to me,” Charley said.

  “Talk to you about what?”

  “Who knows?” Charley said. “They think their shit don’t stink.”

  “I really wish you’d clean up your language, Charley.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Honey, I got to catch a quick shave and get dressed. Have I got a fresh uniform?”

  “Yeah, there’s one I picked up yesterday.”

  As he went up the stairs to his bedroom, Officer Crater had a very unpleasant thought: Maybe it has something to do with…Nah, if it was something like that, I’d have been told, before I went off last night, to report to Internal Affairs.

  But what the hell does Special Operations want to ask me about?

  Nine months before, a building contractor from
McKeesport, Pennsylvania, had telephoned the Eastern Pennsylvania Executive Escort Service, saying the service had been recommended to him by a client of the service. After first ascertaining that the building contractor did indeed know the client, and that he understood the price structure, Mrs. Osadchy dispatched to Room 517 of the Benjamin Franklin Hotel one of her associates, who happened to be an employee of the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, whose husband had deserted her and their two children, and who worked on an irregular basis for the Eastern Pennsylvania Executive Escort Service to augment her income.

  When she reached the building contractor’s room, it was evident to her that he was very drunk, and when his behavior was unacceptably crude, she attempted to leave. The building contractor thereupon punched her in the face. She screamed, attracting the attention of the occupants of the adjacent room, who called hotel security.

  The on-duty hotel security officer, a former police officer, was contacted as he stood on the sidewalk, chatting with Officer Charles F. Crater, of the Sixth District, who was walking his beat.

  Officer Crater, ignoring the hotel security officer’s argument that he could deal with the situation alone, accompanied him to the building contractor’s room, where they found the building contractor somewhat aghast at the damage he had done to the face of the lady from the Eastern Pennsylvania Executive Escort Service, and the lady herself in the bathroom, trying to stanch the flow of blood from her mouth and nose, so that she could leave the premises without attracting horrified attention to herself.

  The lady did not look like what Officer Crater believed hookers should look like. She was weeping. She told Officer Crater that her name was Marianne Connelly, and that her husband had deserted her and their two children, and that she had to do this to put food in their mouths. He believed her. She told him that if anyone at the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society heard about this, she would be fired, and then she didn’t know what she would do. He believed her.

  The building contractor said that he didn’t know what had come over him, that he was a family man with children, and if this ever got back to McKeesport, he would lose his family and probably his business.

  The hotel security officer suggested to Officer Crater that no real good would come from arresting the building contractor, since there were no witnesses to the assault, and the lady from the Eastern Pennsylvania Executive Escort Service wouldn’t humiliate herself, and set herself up to surely get fired, by going to court to testify against him.