"Since I saw Penny in the hospital this morning," Matt said after having to think a moment.
Christ, was that only this morning?
"In other words, when you and that detective came to the house, you knew, or thought you knew, that Penny was a drug addict?''
"Yes, sir."
"In other words, then, when I allowed you, because I thought you were trying to find out who shot Penny, to paw through her drawers, you and that black detective were ac-tually looking for evidence to support your notion that Pen-ny's taking drugs?"
"No, sir," Matt said. "That's not so."
"Yes, it is, goddamn you! You took advantage of our friendship! That's despicable!"
"Dick, take it easy!" Brewster C. Payne said.
"You better get him out of here before I beat him up," H. Richard Detweiler said.
"Mr. Detweiler-" Matt said.
"Get out of my sight, goddamn you! I never want to see your face again!"
"You can believe this or not, Mr. Detweiler, but we're trying to help Penny," Matt said.
Detweiler stepped menacingly toward Matt.
"Goddamn you!"
Oh, Christ, I don't want to hit him! Matt thought.
His father stepped between them and kept them apart. He motioned with his head for Matt to leave.
Matt felt sick to his stomach. He fled the house and after some difficulty found his car. It was blocked in by several limousines, and he had to find their chauffeurs and get them to move them.
As he started down the drive he saw his father, obviously waiting for him. There was a temptation to pretend he didn't see him, but at the last moment he braked sharply and stopped and rolled down the window.
"You had better be sure of your facts," Brewster C. Payne said, leaning down to the window. "Dick Detweiler is look-ing for Dr. Dotson right now.''
"And if Dotson won't tell him, then what?"
"All I'm saying is that you had better be sure of your facts," his father said.
"There seems to be some doubt in your mind, Dad," Matt said.
"I know that you don't have very much experience as a policeman," his father said. "If you had, you wouldn't have run off at the mouth about any of this to Chad. A lot of damage has been done."
"To whom, Dad?" Matt's mouth ran away with him. "To Penny? Or to your cozy relationship with Nesfoods Interna-tional?"
"That," Brewster C. Payne said calmly, "was a despica-ble thing for you to say.''
"You think so?" Matt said, his mouth now completely out of control. "Then try this on for size: Our information, as we cops are prone to say, is that Penny Detweiler was not only a coke junkie but was fucking that guinea gangster who got himself blown away. Nice girl, our precious Penny."
Brewster C. Payne looked at Matt intently for a moment, then straightened, turned, and started to walk back to the house.
Matt drove down the driveway and, after one of the rent-a-cops had carefully examined him and the car, was passed out the gate.
A hundred yards down the road he pulled the car to the curb, got out, and took several deep breaths. The technique, alleged to constrain the urge to become nauseous, didn't work.
***
Matt took Lancaster Avenue, which is U.S. Highway 30, into Philadelphia, driving slowly, trying to think of some way he could explain, in the morning, his runaway mouth to Jason Washington. Then it occurred to him that he had to tell Peter Wohl, not Washington, and he had to tell him tonight, not wait until morning.
The worst possible, and thus the most likely, scenario was that the trouble I am going to cause for having confided, like a fourteen-year-old-which, it may be reasonably argued, I am, intellectually speaking-in Chad Nesbitt is going to start tonight. Mr. Detweiler will find Dr. Dotson. Dr. Dotson will either deny outright, or downplay, Penny's coke problem. Mr. Detweiler will then naturally construe Brewster C. Payne's best legal advice, to cool it, as being based on Brewster C. Payne's paternal loyalty to his son, Boy Cop, Ye Olde Blab-bermouth. He will then express his displeasure, his outrage, to the nearest official ear he can find. Which will be that of His Honor Mayor Jerry Carlucci, last seen in the striped tent on his lawn.
There was a cheese-steak joint at 49th and Lancaster. He pulled the Porsche to the curb and walked across Lancaster to it. There was a 19th District RPC at the curb, and two cops at the counter drinking coffee.
The cops looked at him with unabashed curiosity, remind-ing him that he was wearing formal evening wear.
Be not concerned, Officers. While my unbelievable stupid-ity has just brought down upon the Police Department gen-erally, and on two of its best, who have been both holding my hand to keep me out of trouble, and have so foolishly placed an entirely unjustified faith in my common sense, the completely justified wrath of a very powerful man, what you have here is not some rich kid in a monkey suit who will disturb the peace of this establishment, but, incroyable, one of you, a police officer, complete to gun, badge, and out in the Porsche, handcuffs and everything.
Matt walked to a pay phone mounted on the wall and fished change from his pocket. He had just received a dial tone when his eye fell on a stack on newspapers, apparently just delivered, on the counter. It was the Ledger. At first glance there seemed to be a three-column photograph of His Honor Mayor Jerry Carlucci just about in the act of either punching or choking someone.
Curiosity overwhelmed Matt. He hung the phone up and went to the counter. On closer examination the photograph on the front page of the Philadelphia Ledger was indeed of the mayor, and he did indeed look as if he were about to either choke someone or punch him out. The caption, simply "The Honorable Jerry Carlucci, mayor of the City of Philadelphia," provided no explanation.
The explanation came in the story below the picture.
SOCIALITES MARRY UNDER
HEAVY POLICE GUARD:
HEIRESS' SHOOTING
CONTINUES TO BAFFLE POLICE
By Charles E. Whaley,
Ledger Staff Writer
Phila-The wedding of so-cialites Daphne Elizabeth Brown and Chadwick T. Nesbitt IV went on as sched-uled at 7:30 p.m. at St. Mark's Church last evening, minus one bridesmaid, and with a heavy force of police and private security person-nel evident at the church.
Penelope Detweiler, 23, whose father, H. Richard Det-weiler, is president of Nesfoods International and who was to have been a brides-maid, instead laid in Hahneman Hospital after having suffered multiple shotgun wounds at the hands of an unknown assailant in a downtown parking garage the previous day.
As the Right Reverend Wesley Framingham Kerr, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Philadelphia, united in marriage the daughter of fi-nancier Soames T. Browne and the son of Nesfoods Inter-national Chairman, C.T. Nesbitt III, police and private detectives scattered among the socially prominent guests in the church nervously scanned them and the church itself in a manner that re-minded this reporter of Secret Service agents guarding the president.
It was reported that the police were present at the orders of Philadelphia Mayor Jerry Carlucci, him-self a guest, who is reported to be grossly embarrassed both that Miss Detweiler was shot in what appears to have been a Mafia-connected incident, and that the Spe-cial Operations Division of the Philadelphia Police De-partment, which was orga-nized with his enthusiastic support, and which he per-sonally charged with solv-ing the crime, has been so far unable to identify any suspects in the shooting. The presence of private de-tectives at the church, re-portedly from Wackenhut Security, Inc., was taken by some as an indication that the Browne and Nesbitt families had little faith in the Philadelphia Police De-partment to protect them and their guests.
Mayor Carlucci, outside the church, refused to discuss that issue with this reporter, and a scuffle ensued during which a Ledger photographer was knocked to the ground and his camera damaged.
(See related stories, "No Clues" and "Gangland War Victim," p.3a.)
"Oh, Jesus!" Matt said aloud.
His Honor must know about this. That's going to
have put him in a lovely frame of mind so that when Mr. Detweiler says, "Jerry, old pal, let me tell you about this blabbermouth cop of yours," he will be understanding and forgiving.
He turned to page 3a and read the other stories.
"NO CLUES" SAY POLICE IN
POLICEMAN'S MURDER;
FUNERAL OF SLAIN OFFICER
SCHEDULED FOR TODAY
By Mary Ann Wiggins
Ledger Staff Writer
Police Officer Joseph Magnella will be buried at three this afternoon, follow-ing a Mass of Requiem to be celebrated by John Cardinal McQuire, Archbishop of Philadelphia, at Saint Dom-inic's Church. Internment will be in the church cemetery, traditional last resting place for Roman Catholic police officers slain in the line of duty.
Officer Magnella, 24, of a Warden Street address in South Philadelphia, was found shot to death beside his 23rd Police District pa-trol car near Colombia and Clarion Streets just before midnight two nights ago.
A Vietnam veteran, he was unmarried and made his home with his parents. He had been on the police force less than a year and was engaged to be married.
Police Captain Michael J. Sabara, deputy commander of the Special Operations Division of the Police De-partment, which has been charged by Mayor Jerry Carlucci with solving his murder, admitted that so far the police "don't have a clue" as to who shot Mag-nella or why.
Mayor Jerry Carlucci, who was interviewed briefly as he left the Stanley Rocco & Sons Funeral Home, where he had gone to pay his respects, seemed visibly em-barrassed at the inability of the police to quickly solve what he called "the brutal, cold-blooded murder of a fine young officer." He refused to discuss with this reporter the murder of Anthony J. DeZego, an alleged orga-nized crime figure, and the wounding of socialite Penelope Detweiler, which oc-curred the same night Officer Magnella was shot to death.
Several thousand police officers, both fellow Phila-delphia officers and police from as far away as New York City and Washington, D.C., are expected to partic-ipate in the final rites for Of-ficer Magnella.
GANGLAND WAR VICTIM
WAS "GOOD SON, HUSBAND AND
FATHER"
SAYS MOTHER OF
ANTHONY J. DEZEGO
By Tony Schuyler,
Ledger Staff Writer
Anthony J. DeZego, who met his death on the roof of the Penn Services Parking Garage two nights ago, his head shattered by a shotgun blast, was described on the eve of his funeral as a "good son, husband and father" by his mother, Mrs. Christiana DeZego.
DeZego, 34, was a truck driver for Gulf Sea Food Transport at the time of his death in what police suspect was a gangland killing. Po-lice Captain Michael J. Sabara, Deputy Commander of Special Operations, which is investigating the early-evening murder, refused to comment on DeZego's al-leged ties to organized crime but said the shooting was "not unlike a Mafia assassi-nation." He said that DeZego had a criminal record dating back to his teens and had only recently been re-leased from probation.
His most recent brush with the law, according to Captain Sabara, had been a conviction for "possession with intent to distribute controlled substances."
DeZego had recently pur-chased for his family (a wife and two sons) a home four doors down from that of his mother in South Philadel-phia. His late-model Cadil-lac, found abandoned by police at Philadelphia Inter-national Airport the morn-ing after the shooting, was returned to his family yes-terday.
Salvatore B. Mariano, DeZego's brother-in-law and president of Gulf Sea Food Transport, said that DeZego was "a reliable employee and would be missed at work." He refused to specu-late on how DeZego could af-ford a new home and a Cadillac on ordinary truck driver's wages and dis-missed as "nonsense" that DeZego had ties to orga-nized crime.
DeZego will be buried at three p.m. this afternoon, following a Requiem Mass at St. Teresa of Avalone Ro-man Catholic Church.
The investigation into his murder is "proceeding well," according to Captain Sabara, who declined to offer any further details. He confirmed that the investiga-tion is being conducted by ace homicide detective Ja-son Washington.
"Nothing would please us more than to see Mr. De-Zego's murderer face the full penalty of the law," Sabara said.
"You want to buy that newspaper, Mac? Or did you think you was in a library?'' a counterman with sideburns down to his chin line demanded.
"I want to buy it," Matt said. "Sorry."
He laid a dollar bill on the counter and turned back to the telephone and dialed Peter Wohl's home number.
After the fourth ring there was a click. "This is 555-8251," Wohl's recorded voice announced. "When this thing beeps, you can leave a message."
"Inspector, this is Matt Payne. I have to talk to you just as soon as possible-"
"This soon enough?" Wohl's cheerful voice interrupted.
Matt was startled.
"Have you seen the papers? The Ledger?"
"No. But I'll bet you called me to tell me about them," Wohl said dryly.
"There's a picture of the mayor on the front page. About to punch a photographer. And several bullshit stories putting him and us down."
"I'd like to see them," Wohl said. "Is that why you called me at quarter to one?''
"No, sir. Sir, I've fucked up."
"Another run-in with Sergeant Dolan?"
"No, sir. It's something else."
"Where are you?"
"At 49th and Lancaster. At a pay phone."
"If you don't think-which, ergo sum, you've called, so you don't-this will wait until morning, come over here. Bring the Ledger with you."
"Yes, sir, I'll be right there."
When he went outside, one of the two cops who had been at the counter was on the sidewalk. The other one was across the street, by the Porsche. Matt walked back across Lancaster Avenue.
"Nice car," the cop said.
"Thank you."
"You been drinking?"
"I had a couple of drinks," Matt said.
"Wedding, huh?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, you always take a couple of drinks at a wedding, don't you? And you made it across the street in a straight line," the cop said.
"Yes, sir."
"You open to a little friendly advice?"
"Sure."
"Dressed up like that, driving a car like this, this time of night, with a couple of drinks in you, maybe stopping in a neighborhood like this isn't such a good idea. You know what I mean?"
"I think so," Matt said. "Yes. I know what you mean."
"Good night, sir," the cop said. "Drive careful."
He walked back across Lancaster Avenue, got in the 19th District RPC, and drove off.
He had no idea I'm cop. Obviously I don't look like a cop. Or act like one. But I know that, don't I, that I don't act like a cop?
***
As Matt swung wide to turn off Norwood Street in Chest-nut Hill and to enter into the driveway that led to Peter Wohl's apartment, the Porsche's headlights swept across a massive chestnut tree and he thought he could see a faint scarring of the bark.
He thought: I killed a man there.
Warren K. Fletcher, 34, of Germantown, his brain already turned to pulp by a 168-grain round-nosed lead bullet fired from Officer Matt Payne's.38-caliber Chief's Special snub-nosed revolver, a naked civilian tied up with lamp cord under a tarpaulin in the back of his van, had crashed the van into that chestnut tree, ending what Michael J. O'Hara had called, in the Philadelphia Bulletin, "The Northwest Philadelphia Serial Rapist's Reign of Terror.".
Matt recalled Chad asking him what it was like to have killed a man. And he remembered what he had replied: "I haven't had nightmares or done a lot of soul-searching about it. Nothing like that."
It was true, of course, but he suddenly understood why he had said that: It hadn't bothered him because it was unreal. It hadn't happened. Or it had happened to somebody else. Or in a movie. It was beyond credibility that Matthew M. Payne, of Wallingford and Episcopal Academy, former treasurer of
Delta Phi Omicron at, and graduate of, the University of Pennsylvania, had been given a badge and a gun by the City of Philadelphia and had actually taken that gun from its hol-ster and killed somebody with it.
He drove down the driveway. There was a Buick Limited parked in front of one of Peter Wohl's two garages. There was nothing on the car to suggest that it was a Department car, and he wondered who it belonged to.
W E B Griffin - Badge of Honor 03 - The Victim Page 27
