Ledger Staff Writer
Phila-Miss Penelope Detweiler, 23, of Chestnut Hill, was seriously wounded, ap-parently by a shotgun blast, in the Penn Services Park-ing Garage, on South 15th Street early last evening. She was taken to Hahneman Hospital where she is reported by a hospital spokesperson to be in "seri-ous but stable" condition.
Miss Detweiler, whose fa-ther, H. Richard Detweiler, is president of Nesfoods In-ternational, was en route to the Union League Club on South Broad Street for a social event when the shooting occurred. A family spokes-person theorized that Miss Detweiler had just parked her car when she found her-self in the middle of a "gangland Shootout."
Police Captain Henry Quaire refused to comment on the shooting, saying the case is under investigation, but he did confirm that Miss Detweiler had been found lying on the floor of the roof of the garage by Miss Amanda Chase Spencer, of Scarsdale, N.Y., and her escort, as they parked their car. The couple were also guests of Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick T. Nesbitt III at the Union League dinner to honor out-of-town guests for the wedding (tonight) of Miss Daphne Browne of Merion and Lieutenant C. T. Nesbitt IV, USMCR.
"It is absurd to think that Miss Detweiler was any-thing more than an innocent bystander," the Detweiler family spokesperson said. "It is a sad commentary on life in Philadelphia that something like this could happen."
Matt slid the Ledger across the table to Amanda and then became aware that the waitress was still standing there.
"Amanda, would you like to order?"
"I think I lost my appetite," she said.
"You have to eat."
"Can I get a breakfast steak?" she asked.
"Honey, anything your heart desires, we got it," the wait-ress said.
"They're running a special on me," Matt said. "I'm spe-cially marked down for the occasion."
"Breakfast steak, medium-rare, eggs sunny-side up, toast, tomato juice, and coffee," Amanda said.
"Twice," Matt said. "Thank you."
Matt turned to the Bulletin. It used two photographs on the front, placed side by side. One was the same photo the Ledger had used of Amanda. The other was of Anthony J. DeZego scowling at the camera from above a board that read PHILA POLICE DEPT and carried his name and the date. Under these the caption gave their names and read, "shooting victims."
MAFIOSO KILLED: SOCIALITE
WOUNDED
IN CENTER CITY
POLICE SEEKING CLUES
IN EARLY EVENING SHOOTING
By Michael J. O'Hara
A shotgun blast to the head killed Anthony J. "Tony the Zee" DeZego, a Philadelphia underworld figure, and a second blast critically wounded Penelope Detweiler, socialite daugh-ter of H. Richard Detweiler, president of Nesfoods Inter-national, shortly after seven last night on the roof level of the Penn Services Park-ing Garage on South 15th Street in downtown Phila-delphia.
Miss Detweiler is in "crit-ical but stable" condition at Hahneman Hospital. She was struck by "many" pel-lets from a shotgun shell, according to a hospital spokesman.
Off-duty Police Officer Matthew M. Payne discov-ered first Miss Detweiler, ly-ing in a pool of blood, and then DeZego's body when he went to park his car. Payne, who is special assistant to Staff Inspector Peter Wohl, commanding officer of the Police Department's Special Operations Division, last month shot to death Warren K. Fletcher, 31, of German-town, ending what Mayor Jerry Carlucci termed "the reign of terror of the North-west serial rapist."
Miss Detweiler, Payne, and Miss Amanda Spencer, of Scarsdale, N.Y., who was with Payne in his silver Porsche, were en route to the Union League Club on South Broad Street to attend a din-ner being given for out-of-town wedding guests by C. T. Nesbitt III, Nesfoods International chairman of the board, whose son is to marry Daphne Browne of Merion at seven-thirty to-night at St. Mark's Church, near the site of the shooting.
According to senior police officials, it is most likely that Miss Detweiler was an innocent bystander caught in the middle of a mob ex-change of gunfire, but this reporter has learned that police are quietly investi-gating the possibility that Miss Detweiler knew DeZego, and possibly may have gone to the parking garage to meet him.
In a surprise develop-ment last night, Police Commissioner Thaddeus Czernick announced that re-sponsibility for the investi-gation of the shooting had been assigned to Staff In-spector Peter Wohl and the Special Operations Division. Such an investigation would normally be conducted by the Homicide Division.
Commissioner Czernick also assigned to Wohl the in-vestigation of the murder of Police Officer Joseph Magnella, who was shot to death last night in North Philadel-phia. (See related story, Page 3A.) One theory ad-vanced for this unusual move was the reassignment of ace Homicide Detectives Jason Washington and An-thony J. Harris to Special Operations during the search for the North Phila-delphia serial rapist.
"They've got my name in here," Amanda said, "but not yours."
"The Ledger never mentions a cop's name unless they can say something nasty about him," Matt said.
"Really?" Amanda said, not sure if he was serious or not. She put her hand on the Bulletin. "What does that one say?''
"About the same thing," Matt said.
"Through?" Amanda asked, and slid the Bulletin away from Matt's side of the table.
He saw her eyes widen when she got to the place in the story about him. She glanced at him, then finished the story.
"You never told me about that," she said.
"Yes I did," Matt said. "You said if you had a car like mine and somebody dinged it, you'd kill him. And I said somebody did and I had."
The waitress appeared with a stainless-steel coffee pot. Amanda waited until she had poured the coffee and left.
"I thought you were just being a wiseass," she said.
"You should have seen what he did to my car," Matt said. "He was lucky I didn't get really mad."
"Matt, stop!."
"Sorry," he said after a moment.
And a moment after that Amanda reached out and caught his hand. They sat that way, holding hands and looking into each other's eyes, until the waitress delivered breakfast.
NINE
There was a fence around the Browne place in Merion, field-stone posts every twenty-five feet or so with wrought-iron bars between them. The bars were topped with spear points, and as a boy of six or seven Matt had spent all of one after-noon trying to hammer one loose so that he would have a spear to take home.
There was also a gate and a gate house, but the gate had never in Matt's memory been closed, and the gate house had always been locked and off-limits.
When he turned off the road, the gate was closed, and he had to jump on the brakes to avoid hitting it. And the door to the gate house was open. A burly man in a dark suit came out of it and walked to the gate.
A rent-a-cop, Matt decided. Had he been hired because the Princess of the Castle was getting married? Or did it have something to do with what had happened at the parking ga-rage ?
The rent-a-cop opened the left portion of the gate wide enough to get through and came out to the Porsche.
"May I help you, sir?"
"Would you open the gate, please? Miss Spencer is a guest here."
The rent-a-cop looked carefully at both of them, then smiled, said, "Certainly, sir," and went to the gate and swung both sides open.
Matt saw that a red-and-white-striped tent, large enough for a two-ring circus, had been set up on the lawn in front of the house. There were three large caterer's trucks parked in the driveway. A human chain had been formed to unload folding chairs from one of them and set them up in the tent, and he saw cardboard boxes being unloaded in the same way from a second.
Soames T. Browne, in his shirt sleeves, and the bride-to-be, in shorts and a tattered gray University of Pennsylvania sweatshirt that belonged, Matt decided, to Chad Nesbitt, were standing outside the castle portal when Matt drove up. The rent-a-cop had almost certainly telephoned the house. Matt saw another large man in a business suit standing just
inside the open oak door.
"I'll see you later," Matt said, waving at the Brownes with his left hand and touching Amanda's wrist with his right.
Amanda kissed his cheek and opened her door.
Soames T. Browne came around to Matt's side. Matt rolled the window down.
"Morning."
"Daffy said Amanda was probably with you," Browne said. "You should have called, Matt."
"Matt had to work-" Amanda said.
"Sure he did," Daffy snorted.
"-and I waited for him."
"Come in and have some coffee, Matt," Soames T. Browne ordered. "I want a word with you."
"I can't stay long, Mr. Browne."
"It won't take long," Browne said.
Matt turned the ignition off and got out of the car. There was a breakfast room in the house, on the ground floor of one of the turrets, with French windows opening onto the formal garden behind the house. Soames Browne led Matt to it, and then through it to the kitchen, where Mrs. Soames T. Browne, in a flowing negligee, was perched on a stool under a rack of pots and pans with a china mug in her hand.
"Good morning," Matt said.
She looked over him to Amanda.
"We were worried about you, honey," she said.
"I was with Matt," Amanda said.
"That's what we thought; that's why she was worried," Daffy said.
"We should have called. I'm sorry," Matt said.
"We were just going to do something about breakfast," Mrs. Browne said. "Have you eaten?"
"We just had breakfast, thank you," Amanda said.
"I didn't know Matt could cook," Daffy said sweetly.
"Coffee, then?" Mrs. Browne asked.
"Please," Amanda said.
"Do you know how Penny is, Matt?" Soames T. Browne asked.
"As of midnight she was reported to be 'critical but sta-ble,'" Matt said.
"How do you know that?"
"My boss told us," Matt said.
"That was seven hours ago," Soames T. Browne said.
"Would you like me to call and see if there's been any change?''
"Could you?"
"I can try," Matt said. He looked up the number of Hahneman Hospital in the telephone book and then called.
"I'm sorry, sir, we're not permitted to give out that infor-mation at this time."
"This is Officer Payne, of the police."
"One moment, please, sir."
The next voice, very deep, precise, that came on-line sur-prised Matt: "Detective Washington."
"This is Matt Payne, Mr. Washington."
"What can I do for you, Matt?"
"I'm trying to find out how Penelope Detweiler is. They put me through to you."
"For Wohl?"
"For me. She's a friend of mine."
"I heard that. I'll want to talk to you about that later. At six o'clock they changed her from 'critical' to 'serious.' "
"That's better?"
Washington chuckled.
"One step up," he said.
"Thank you," Matt said.
"You at Bustleton and Bowler?"
"No. But I'm headed there."
"When you get there, don't leave until we talk."
"Yes, sir."
"Don't call me sir, Matt. I've told you that."
The phone went dead. Matt hung it up and turned to face the people waiting for him to report.
"As of six this morning they upgraded her condition from 'critical' to 'serious,' " he said.
"Thank God," Soames T. Browne said.
"Mother, I'm sure Penny would want us to go through with the wedding," Daphne Browne said.
"Why did this have to happen now?" Mrs. Soames T. Browne said.
Matt started to say, Damned inconsiderate of old Precious Penny, what? but stopped himself in time to convert what came out of his mouth to "Damned shame."
Even that got him a dirty look from Amanda.
"What do you think, Matt?" Soames T. Browne said.
"It's none of my business," Matt said.
"Yes it is, you're Chad's best man."
"Chad's on his way to Okinawa," Matt said. "It's not as if you could postpone it for a month or so."
"Right," Daffy Browne said. "I hadn't thought about that. We can't postpone it."
"I think Matt is absolutely right, Soames," Mrs. Browne said.
"That's a first," Matt quipped.
"What did you say, Matthew?" Mrs. Browne asked icily.
"I said, you're going to have to excuse me, please. I have to go to work."
"You will be there tonight?" Daffy asked.
"As far as I know."
"I wanted to ask you, Matt, what happened last night," Soames T. Browne said.
"I don't really know, Mr. Browne," Matt said.
And then he walked out of the kitchen. Amanda's eyes found his and for a moment held them.
***
Peter Wohl leaned forward, pushed the flashing button on one of the two telephones on his office coffee table, picked it up, said "Inspector Wohl" into it and leaned back into a sprawling position on the couch, tucking the phone under his ear.
"Tony Harris, Inspector," his caller said. "You wanted to talk to me?"
"First things first," Wohl said. "You got anything?"
"Not a goddamn thing."
"You need anything?"
"How are you fixed for crystal balls?"
"How many do you want?"
Harris chuckled. "I really can't think of anything special right now, Inspector. This one is going to take a lot of door-bell ringing."
"Well, I can get you the ringers. I had Dave Pekach offer overtime to anybody who wants it."
"I don't have lead fucking one," Harris said.
"You'll find something," Wohl said. "The other reason I asked you to call is that I have sort of a problem."
"How's that?"
"You know a lieutenant named Lewis? Just made it? Used to be a sergeant in the 9th?"
"Black guy? Stiff-backed?"
"That's him."
"Yeah, I know him."
"He has a son. Just got out of the Police Academy."
"Is that so?" Harris said, suspicion evident in his voice.
"He worked his way through college in the radio room," Wohl said.
"You don't say?"
"The commissioner assigned him to Special Operations," Wohl said.
"You want to drop the other shoe, Inspector?"
"I thought he might be useful to you," Wohl said.
"How?"
"Running errands, maybe. He knows his way around the Department."
"Is that it? Or don't you know what else to do with him?"
"Frankly, Tony, a little of both. But I won't force him on you if you don't want him."
Harris hesitated, then said, "If he's going to run errands for me, he'd need wheels."
"Wheels or a car?" Wohl asked innocently.
Harris chuckled. "Wheels" was how Highway referred to their motorcycles.
"I forgot you're now the head wheelman," he said. "A car.''
"That can be arranged."
"How does he feel about overtime?"
"I think he'd like all you want to give him."
"Plainclothes too," Harris said. "Okay?"
"Okay."
"When do I get him?"
"He's supposed to report here right about now. You get him as soon as I can get him a car and into plainclothes."
"Okay."
"Thanks, Tony."
"Yeah," Harris said, and hung up.
***
Detective Jason Washington was one of the very few de-tectives in the Philadelphia Police Department who was not indignant or outraged that the murders of both Officer Joseph Magnella and Tony the Zee DeZego had been taken away from Homicide and given to Special Operations.
While he was not a vain man, neither was Jason Washing-ton plagued with modesty. He knew that it was said that he was the best Homicide detective in the department (and this
really meant something, since Homicide detectives were the crŠme de la crŠme, so to speak, of the profession, the best detectives, period) and he could not honestly fault this as-sessment of his ability.
W E B Griffin - Badge of Honor 03 - The Victim Page 15
