The Witness

by W. E. B Griffin

  “I’m missing something here?”

  “A brilliant gumshoe like you? I just can’t believe that, Peter.”

  “I’m not much good at games, either, Farnsworth.”

  “Okay. The facts and nothing but the facts, right, Sergeant Friday? I am going to be the deputy attorney general for corporate crime.”

  “Well, in that case, congratulations,” Peter said, and put out his hand.

  “And you are going to be the new chief investigator for the deputy attorney general for corporate crime,” Stillwell went on.

  “I am?”

  “Starting at a salary that’s ten, maybe twelve thousand more than you’re making now.”

  He means this! He’s absolutely goddamn serious! And he’s looking at me as if he expects me to get down on one knee and kiss his ring.

  “Farnsworth, why would you want me to work for you?”

  “Very simple answer. I don’t know the first goddamn thing about corporate crime. And you do. There doesn’t seem to be much question that you are the best white-collar crime investigator in Philadelphia. Your record proves that. If you can do that in Philadelphia, you certainly can do it elsewhere in Pennsylvania. I want the best, and you’re it.”

  There is a certain element of truth in that, he understands, with overwhelming immodesty.

  “When did all this come up?”

  “Yesterday and today. What absolutely perfect timing, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Perfect timing for what?”

  “This Islamic Liberation Army thing is just about to blow up in our faces.”

  “Is it? I’m a little dense. The doers are in jail. We have a witness. And you’re going to prosecute.”

  “I would hate to think you were being sarcastic, Peter.”

  “Like I said, sometimes I’m dense. You tell me. Why is it going to blow up in our faces?”

  “Armando C. Giacomo, for one thing. More important, whatever shadowy faces in the background have come up with the money to engage Mr. Giacomo’s professional services.”

  “I don’t think you’re saying that anytime a sleaze-ball, or a group of sleaze-balls, comes up with the money to hire Giacomo, the DA’s office should roll over and apologize for having them arrested in the first place.”

  He saw in Stillwell’s eyes that he was becoming annoyed, at what he perceived to be his naiveté.

  Fuck you, Farnsworth!

  “I heard—I have some contacts in the FBI, the Justice Department—that the Coalition for Equitable Law Enforcement has filed a petition demanding an investigation of Officer Payne, alleging that he violated the civil rights of Charles David Stevens.”

  “The what?”

  “The Coalition for Equitable Law Enforcement. It’s one of those lunatic bleeding heart groups. One of the more articulate ones, unfortunately.”

  “That shooting was not only justifiable use of force, it was self-defense.”

  “The allegation will be investigated. It will get in the papers. Arthur Nelson—in both the Ledger and over WGHA-TV—will be overjoyed with the opportunity to paint Officer Payne as a trigger-happy killer murdering the innocent. He will gleefully point out that Mr. Stevens’s unfortunate demise was the second notch on Payne’s gun.”

  “The bottom line will be—if it gets as far as a Grand Jury—”

  “It will,” Stillwell interrupted.

  “—that the shooting was justified.”

  “I am surprised that I have to remind you, of all people, Peter, that all it will take is one juror—during the ILA trial I mean—to come to the conclusion that since the police were so willing to murder in cold blood one of the alleged robbers, they are entirely capable of coming up with manufactured evidence and a perjuring witness, that they have not, in the immortal words of Perry Mason, proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  Wohl took a long pull on his drink, but didn’t reply.

  “I would rate the chances of a conviction in the ILA case as no better than fifty percent,” Stillworth said. “And that is if we can get Monahan into court. I don’t like those odds, Peter. I don’t want to be thought of as the assistant district attorney who was unable to get a conviction of the niggers who robbed Goldblatt’s and killed the watchman or whatever he was.”

  “You want to be governor, right?”

  “Is there something wrong with that? Wouldn’t you like to be police commissioner?” Wohl met his eyes. “The police commissioner is an appointive post. I don’t think it’s impossible, some years down the pike, that the mayor of Philadelphia would want to appoint to that position someone who both had earned a reputation state-wide as a highly successful investigator of corporate crime, and who also had been a respected police officer in Philadelphia for many years.”

  The odds are that no matter what you say now, you will later regret it.

  “Such a hypothetical person might even have a high recommendation from a hypothetical governor, right?”

  Stillwell laughed.

  “Farnsworth, frankly, you’ve taken me be surprise.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “I’ll need some time to think this over.”

  “There isn’t much time, Peter. I’ve scheduled a press conference for ten tomorrow morning, at which I will announce my acceptance of the governor’s appointment. I’d like to be able to say, at that time, who my chief investigator will be.”

  “Let me sleep on this,” Wohl said. “I’ll get back to you first thing in the morning.”

  “Deal,” Stillwell said, offering his hand. “I admire, within reason of course, people who look before they leap. Now let us go back in there and share the joy of Romeo and Juliet.”

  Officer Charles McFadden, who, on his fifth cup of black coffee, was watching an Edward G. Robinson/Jimmy Cagney gangster movie on the Late, Late Show, was startled when the telephone rang. It was, according to the clock on the mantelpiece, a few minutes before three A.M.

  He got quickly out of the chair and went to the telephone.

  “Hello?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “This is Inspector Wohl. Who’s that, McFadden?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Everything under control, McFadden?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is Officer Payne there?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Put him on, please.”

  “He’s asleep, Inspector.”

  “Then I suppose it will be necessary to wake him up, won’t it?”

  “Yes, sir. Sir, is anything wrong?”

  “No. Not at all. The world, Officer McFadden, is getting, day by day, in every way, better and better. You might keep that in mind.”

  “Yes, sir. Hold on, Inspector. I’ll go wake Payne up.”

  Officer McFadden had some difficulty in waking Officer Payne. Officer Payne had consumed pitchers of FOP beer like a sponge earlier on. He now smelled like a brewery.

  “Jesus Christ, Matt, wake up! Wohl’s on the phone!”

  Officer Payne managed to get into a semireclining position in his bed.

  “What the hell is going on?” he demanded. He looked up at the time projected on the ceiling by the clock Amy had given him. “It’s three o’clock in the morning, for Christ’s sake!” he protested.

  “Wohl’s on the phone.”

  “What the hell does he want?”

  “I don’t know. He sounds crocked.”

  “Jesus!”

  Officer Payne, with some difficulty, finally managed to make it from a semireclining to a fully sitting-up position. Officer McFadden then removed the handset of the newly installed telephone and handed it to him.

  “Yes, sir?” Matt said.

  “Sorry to trouble you at this late hour, Officer Payne,” Inspector Wohl said, his syllables sufficiently slurred to remind Officer Payne that Officer McFadden had said, “He sounds crocked.”

  “No problem, sir.”

  “But I have to have an an
swer to a certain question that has come up.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Allegations have reached me, Officer Payne, that you have had, on one or more occasions, carnal knowledge of a female to whom you are not joined in lawful marriage.”

  What the hell is this all about?

  “Sir?”

  “And that, on the other hand, the lady in question is married. Not to you, of course.”

  Christ, he knows about Helene! And he’s crocked! And pissed, otherwise he would not be calling at three o’clock in the morning.

  “Sir?”

  “I am about to ask you a question. I want you to carefully consider your answer before giving it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Officer Payne, have you been conducting an illicit affair with Mrs. Helene Stillwell?”

  Matt did not reply, because he was absolutely sure that whatever answer he gave was going to get him up to his ears in the deep shit.

  “You do know the lady? Helene? The beloved wife of our beloved assistant district attorney?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, yes or no, Officer Payne? Have you been fucking Farnsworth Stillwell’s wife or not?”

  “Yes, sir,” Matt confessed.

  “Good boy!” Inspector Wohl said, and hung up.

  At 5:51 A.M., it was visually pleasant on the 5600 block of Sylvester Street, east of Roosevelt Boulevard not far from Oxford Circle. It had snowed, on and off, during the night, and the streets and sidewalks were blanketed in white. Here and there, light came from windows in the row houses as people began their day. Those windows, and the streetlights, seemed to glow as there came the first hint of daylight.

  Physically, it was not quite so pleasant. The reason it had stopped snowing was because the temperature had dropped; it was now twenty-six degrees Fahrenheit, six degrees below freezing. There was a steady northerly wind, powerful enough to move the recently fallen powder snow around.

  Officer Richard Kallanan, of the three-man Special Operations team charged with protecting the residence and person of Mr. Albert J. Monahan, had found the wind and the blowing snow particularly uncomfortable during his turn on foot patrol around the Monahan residence. His ears and nose were perhaps unusually sensitive to cold. He had tried walking his route both ways, passing through the alley from Bridge Street to Sanger Street in a northeast direction, and then down Sylvester in a southwestern path, and the reverse. He could detect no difference in perceived cold.

  It was a cold sonofabitch in the alley, no matter which way he walked, and he was, therefore, understandably pleased when he turned onto Sylvester Street one more time and saw that there were now two substantially identical dark blue Plymouth RPCs at the curb, one house up from Monahan’s house.

  Their relief had arrived.

  A couple of minutes early, instead of a couple of minutes late. Thank God!

  Kallanan picked up his pace a little, slapping his gloved hands together as he moved. As he passed the replacement RPC, he waved and glanced in the window. The side windows were covered with ice, and he could not make out any of the faces inside.

  Not that it would have mattered. Kallanan was a relative newcomer to Special Operations, transferred in from the 11th District, where he had spent six of his seven years on the job, and he had not yet had time to make that many new friends.

  He could see enough, however, to notice that two of the guys in the relief car were wearing winter hats, Renfrew of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police hats.

  They’re going to need them.

  When Kallanan reached his RPC, he knocked on the window, and Officer Richard O. Totts, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, turned and reached into the back and opened the door for him. Kallanan glanced at the relief car, and gave its occupants a cheerful farewell wave. The driver, a black guy whose window was clear, waved back. Kallanan got in the backseat and pulled the door closed.

  “Jesus, it’s cold out there,” he said.

  “I think there’s a little coffee left,” Officer Duane Jones, who was behind the wheel, said. Totts handed a thermos bottle into the backseat. Kallanan unscrewed the top, which was also the cup, and as Duane Jones got the car moving, he emptied the thermos into it. There was not much coffee left in the thermos.

  “Hungry, Kallanan?” Jones asked.

  “What I would like is a cup of hot coffee. With a stiff shot in it. There’s nothing in here.”

  “I know a place,” Totts offered.

  “I’m going to turn in the car first,” Jones said. “I hear Pekach is a real sonofabitch if you get caught drinking.”

  “Hey, we’ve been relieved,” Kallanan said.

  “We’re still in the goddamn car,” Jones said. “You can wait.”

  At 6:06 A.M., Special Operations Radio Patrol Car W-22 (Radio Call, William Twenty-Two) carrying Officers Rudolph McPhail, Paul Hennis, and John Wilhite turned right off Castor Avenue onto Bridge Street, and then right again on Sylvester Street.

  “I don’t see the car,” Officer Wilhite, who was driving, said. “You don’t suppose they took off without waiting for us?”

  “Shit, we’re only a couple of minutes late,” Officer Hennis said.

  “Hey, Monahan’s house is all lit up,” Officer McPhail said, from the backseat.

  The radio went off:

  “BEEP BEEP BEEP. 5600 block Sylvester Street. Report of shooting and hospital case. Civilian by phone.”

  “BEEP BEEP BEEP. 5600 block Sylvester Street. Report of shooting and hospital case. Civilian by phone.”

  “Holy shit!” Officer Hennis said.

  Officer Wilhite picked up the microphone.

  “William Twenty-Two, in on that. On the scene. There is no other car in sight at this location.”

  The three of them literally leaped out of the car and ran as fast as they could toward the residence of Albert J. Monahan.

  “Wohl,” Staff Inspector Peter Wohl, his mouth as dry as the Sahara Desert, said into the phone at his bedside.

  “Inspector, this is Lieutenant Farr. We have a report of a shooting and hospital case at Monahan’s.”

  “What?”

  “We have a report of a shooting and hospital case at Monahan’s house.”

  “Did they get Monahan?”

  “I think so.”

  “On my way. Notify Captains Sabara and Pekach, Lieutenant Malone, and Sergeant Washington. Have them meet me there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And check with the people sitting on Payne. Send a Highway car there, in any event.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Wohl hung up without saying anything else, kicked the blankets off himself, and got out of bed.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “Inspector,” the Emergency Room physician at Nazareth Hospital said, “I don’t know why this man died—I suspect he suffered a coronary occlusion, a heart attack—but I am sure that he wasn’t shot. Or for that matter, suffered any other kind of a traumatic wound.”

  Wohl looked at her in disbelief. She was what he thought of as a pale redhead, as opposed to the more robust, Hungarian variety. She was slight and delicate, with pale blue eyes. Probably, he guessed, the near side of forty.

  “Doctor, we have an eyewitness who said she saw him being shot. His wife. She said she saw the gun, heard a noise, and then saw her husband fall down.”

  He received a look of utter contempt.

  The doctor pulled down the green sheet that covered the now naked remains of Albert J. Monahan, leaving only the legs below the knees covered.

  “There is no wound,” she said. “Gunshots, as you probably know, make at least entrance wounds. So do knives. Will you take my word that I have carefully examined the body? Or would you like me to turn him over?”

  “What about the head?”

  “I checked the head.”

  “Doctor, what about a very small caliber wound? A .22. That’s less than a quarter of an inch in diameter?”

  “Closer to a fifth
of an inch, actually,” the doctor said dryly. “Let me tell you what happened: The cops in the van brought this man in here. They said he had been shot. A superficial examination showed no wound. But—there was time; he was dead on arrival—and though I had no obligation to do so, I checked for a wound. I was thinking .22. We get a lot of them in here. There is no puncture wound of any kind. Sorry.”

  “And you think he had a heart attack?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. The autopsy will come up with the answer, I’m sure.” She picked up the green sheet. “Seen enough?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  She pulled the sheet up over Albert J. Monahan.

  More than enough. I’m going to remember this one a long time. This one I’m responsible for. The phrase is “dereliction of duty.”

  Jesus H. Christ, what’s going on around here?

  A Highway Patrolman pushed open the swinging door.

  “You said to tell you when Washington got here, Inspector.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Wohl said.

  She responded with a just perceptible nod of her head.

  When he stepped into the corridor he saw Jason Washington walking down it toward him, and Tony Harris turning off into a side corridor.

  “What’s he doing here?” Wohl snapped.

  “He’s going to talk to the widow,” Washington said evenly. “He knows the hospital priest. The chapel is down that way. Or do you mean, ‘what’s he doing here’? The answer to which is that until I hear differently from you, he works for me. I am under the assumption that means I say where and when.”

  “I’m sorry,” Wohl said after a moment. “I’m on edge. I picked last night to tie one on.”

  “You look like hell,” Washington said.

  “I have just been informed that there are no puncture wounds in the body—”

  “There have to be,” Washington interrupted him.

  “—the doctor says she thinks he probably had a heart attack.”

  “Wilhite told me that Mrs. Monahan told him she saw him being shot. By a cop.”

  “He’s one of those who came on duty?”

  Washington nodded.