Two miles down I-95, he glanced in the mirror to see if it was clear to pass a U-Haul van, towing a trailer. It was not. There was a car in the lane beside him. It was painted blue-and-white, and there was a chrome-plated device on its roof containing flashing lights. They were flashing.
He dropped his eyes to the speedometer and saw that he was exceeding the speed limit by fifteen miles per hour. The police car, a Highway Patrol car, he realized with horror, pulled abreast of him, and the Highway Patrolman in the passenger seat gestured with his finger for Matt to pull to the side of the superhighway.
“Oh, Jesus!” Matt muttered, as he looked in the mirror and turned on his signal.
He had a flash of insight, of wisdom.
He broke the law. He would take his medicine. He would not mention that he was a fellow Police Officer, in the faint hope that he could beat the ticket. That way, there was a chance that it would not come to Staff Inspector Wohl’s attention that on his very first day on the job, he had been arrested for racing down I-95 somewhere between eighty and eighty-five miles per hour.
He stopped and went into the glove compartment for the vehicle registration certificate. The glove compartment was absolutely empty. Matt had a sudden, very clear, mental image of the vehicle registration. It, together with the bill of sale and the title and the other paperwork, was in the upper right-hand drawer of the chest of drawers in his room in the house in Wallingford.
He glanced in the mirror and saw that both Highway Patrolmen had gotten out of the car and were approaching his. He hurriedly dug his wallet from his trousers and got out of the car.
First one, and then three more cars in the outer lane flashed past him, so close and so fast that he was genuinely frightened. He walked to the back of the car and extended his driver’s license to one of the Highway Patrolmen.
“I don’t seem to have the registration with me,” Matt said.
“You were going at least eighty,” the patrolman said. “You had it up to eighty-five.”
“Guilty,” Matt said, wanly.
“You mind if we examine the interior of your car, sir?” the other Highway Patrolman said. Matt turned his head to look at him; he was at the passenger-side window, looking inside.
“No, not at all,” Matt said, obligingly. “Help yourself.”
He turned to face the Highway Patrolman who had his driver’s license.
“My registration is home,” Matt said.
“This your address, 3906 Walnut?”
“No, sir,” Matt said. “Actually, I just moved. I now live on Rittenhouse Square.”
“Look what I got!” the other Highway Patrolman said.
Matt turned to look. The other Highway Patrolman was holding Matt’s service revolver and his shoulder holster in his hand.
He didn’t get a really good look. He felt himself being suddenly spun around, and felt his feet being kicked out from under him, and then a strong shove against his back. Just in time, he managed to get his hands out in front of him, so that he didn’t fall, face first, against the Porsche.
“Don’t move!” the Highway Patrolman behind him said.
He felt hands moving over his body, around his chest, his waist, between his legs, and then down first one leg and then the other.
“He’s got another one!” the Highway Patrolman said, pulling Matt’s right trousers leg up, and then jerking the Chief’s Special from the ankle holster.
“I can explain this,” Matt said.
“Good,” the Highway Patrolman said.
Matt felt himself being jerked around again. A hand found his belt and pulled him erect. A handcuff went around his right wrist, and then his right arm was pulled behind him. His left arm was pulled behind him, and he felt the other half of the handcuff snapping in place. Then he was spun around.
“Have you a permit to carried concealed weapons, sir?” the Highway Patrolman said.
“I’m a policeman,” Matt said.
“This one’s brand new,” the second Highway Patrolman said, shaking the cartridges from the Undercover revolver into his palm.
“I just bought it today,” Matt said.
“You were saying you’re a policeman?” the Highway Patrolman asked.
“That’s right,” Matt said.
“Where do you work? Who’s your Lieutenant?”
“Special Operations,” Matt said. “I work for Inspector Wohl.”
“Where’s that?” the Highway Patrolman asked, just a faint hint of self-doubt creeping into his voice.
“Bustleton and Bowler,” Matt said.
“Where’s your ID?”
“In my jacket pocket,” Matt said.
The Highway Patrolman dipped into the pocket and found the ID.
“Jesus!” he said, then, “Turn around.”
Matt felt his wrists being freed.
“What’s this?” the second Highway Patrolman said.
“He’s a cop,” the first one said. “He says he works for Inspector Wohl.”
“Why didn’t you show us this when we pulled up beside you?” the second asked, more confused than angry.
Matt shrugged helplessly.
“You find anything wrong with the way we handled this?” the first Highway Patrolman asked.
“Excuse me?” Matt asked, confused.
“We stopped an eighty-five-mile-an-hour speeder, and found a weapon concealed under his seat. We asked permission to examine the car. We took necessary and reasonable precautions by restraining a man we found in possession of two concealable firearms. Anything wrong with that?”
Matt shrugged helplessly.
“Isn’t that what this is all about? You were checking on us?”
Matt suddenly understood.
“What this is all about is that this is my first day on the job,” he said. “And I decided I’d rather pay the ticket than have Inspector Wohl find out about it.”
They both looked at him. And both of their faces, by raised eyebrows, registered disbelief.
And then the taller of them, the one who had found the revolver under the seat, laughed, and the other joined in.
“Jesus H. Christ!” he said.
The taller Highway Patrolman, shaking his head and smiling with what Matt perceived to be utter contempt, handed him the Chief’s Special and then the cartridges for it. The shorter one looped the shoulder holster harness around Matt’s neck. Then, chuckling, they walked back to their car and got in.
By the time Matt got back in his car, they had driven off.
Officer Matthew Payne drove the rest of the way to his apartment more or less scrupulously obeying the speed limit.
It was after the change of watches when Peter Wohl returned to his office. The day-watch Sergeants had gone home; an unfamiliar face of a Highway Patrol Sergeant was behind the desk.
“I’m Peter Wohl,” Peter said, walking to the desk with his hand extended.
“Yes, sir, Inspector,” the Sergeant said, smiling. “I know who you are. We went through Wheel School together.”
Wohl still didn’t remember him, and it showed on his face.
“I had hair then,” the Sergeant said, “and I was a lot trimmer. Jack Kelvin.”
“Oh, hell, sure,” Wohl said. “I’m sorry, Jack. I should have remembered you.”
“You made a big impression on me back then.”
“Good or bad?” Wohl asked.
“At the time I thought it was treason,” Kelvin said, smiling. “You spilled your wheel, and I went to help you pick it up, and you said, ‘Anybody who rides one of these and likes it is out of his fucking mind.’”
“I said that?”
“Yes, you did,” Kelvin said, chuckling, “and you meant it.”
“Well, under the circumstances, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go around telling that story.”
“Like I said, that was a long time ago, and you’ll notice that I am now riding a desk myself. You don’t spill many desks.”
“I’ve found that
you can get in more trouble riding a desk than you can a wheel,” Wohl said. “Did anything turn up on the abduction?”
“No, sir,” Kelvin said. “Chief Coughlin called a couple of minutes ago and asked the same thing.”
“Did he want me to call him back?”
“No, sir, he didn’t. He asked that you call him in the morning.”
“Anything else?”
“Sergeant Frizell said to tell you that your driver took the vehicle and radio requisition forms home to fill out,” Kelvin said. When Wohl looked at him curiously, Kelvin explained. “Frizell said he didn’t like the typewriter here.”
Wohl nodded. He understood about the typewriters. It was generally agreed that the only decent typewriters in the Police Department were in the offices of Inspectors, full Inspectors, and up.
“He’s a nice kid,” Wohl said. “Just out of the Academy. He is—was?—how do you say this? Dutch Moffitt was his uncle.”
“Oh,” Kelvin said. “I heard that Chief Coughlin sent him over, but I didn’t get the connections.”
“Chief Coughlin also sent over the two Narcotics plainclothesmen who found Gerald Vincent Gallagher,” Wohl said. “Until I decide what to do with Payne, I’m going to have him follow them around, and make himself useful in here. He’s not really my driver.”
“You’re entitled to a driver,” Kelvin said. “Hell, Captain Moffitt had a driver. It may not have been authorized, but no one said anything to him about it.”
“Did Captain Sabara? Have a driver, I mean?”
“No, sir,” Kelvin said. “After Captain Moffitt was killed, and Sabara took over, he drove himself.”
“Every cop driving a supervisor around is a cop that could be on the streets,” Wohl said. “Matt Payne is nowhere near ready to go on the streets.”
Kelvin nodded his understanding.
“Jason Washington called. Homicide detective? You know him?”
“Special Operations,” Wohl corrected him. “He transferred in today.”
“He didn’t mention that,” Kelvin said. “He called in and asked that you get in touch when you have time to talk to him.”
“Where is he?”
“He said he was having dinner in the Old Ale House.”
“Call him, please, Jack, and tell him that when he finishes his dinner, I’ll be here for the next hour or so.”
“Yes, sir,” Kelvin said. “Captain Sabara left word that he’s going to work the First and Second District roll calls for volunteers, and then go home. Captain Pekach left word that he’s going to have dinner and then ride around, and that he’ll more than likely be in here sometime tonight.”
Wohl nodded. “Payne was supposed to have Xeroxed some stuff for me. You know anything about it?”
“Yes, sir. I left it on your desk. I’d love to know where he found that Xerox machine. The copies are beautiful.”
“Knowing Payne, he probably waltzed into the Commissioner’s office and used his,” Wohl said. He put out his hand again. “It’s good to see you, Jack,” he said. “And especially behind that desk.”
“I’m glad to see you behind your desk, too, Inspector.”
He meant that, Wohl decided, flattered. It wasn’t just polishing the apple.
Wohl went into his office and examined the Xeroxed materials. Kelvin was right, he thought, the copies were beautiful, like those in the Xerox ads on television, not like those to be expected from machines in the Police Department.
He took the original file back out to Sergeant Kelvin and told him to have a Highway Patrol car run it back to Northwest Detectives, and to make sure that it wound up in Lieutenant Spanner’s hands, not just dumped on the desk man’s desk in the squad room.
Then he sat down and took one of the Xerox copies and started, very carefully, to read through it again.
Fifteen minutes later, he sensed movement and looked up. Jason Washington was at the office door, asking with a gesture of his hand and a raised eyebrow if it was all right for him to come in.
Wohl gestured that it was. Washington did so and then closed the door behind him.
“How was dinner?” Wohl asked.
“All I had was a salad,” Washington said. “I have to watch my weight.”
“What’s on your mind, Jason?”
“Is that the Xerox you said you would get me?”
Wohl nodded, and made a gesture toward it.
Washington took one of the files, then settled himself in an armchair.
“I saw the Flannery girl,” he said.
“How did that go?”
“Not very well, as a matter of fact,” Washington said. “She wasn’t what you could call anxious to talk about it again. Not to anyone, but especially not to a man, and maybe particularly to a black man.”
“But?”
“And,” Washington said, “I told you Hemmings was a good cop. It was a waste of time. I didn’t get anything out of her that he didn’t. And then I talked to him. He’s pissed, Peter, and I can’t say I blame him. Putting me on this job was the same as telling him either that you didn’t think he had done a good job, or that he was capable of doing one.”
“That’s not true, and I’m sorry he feels that way.”
“How would it look to you, if you were in his shoes?” Washington asked reasonably.
“When I was a new sergeant in Homicide, Jason,” Wohl replied, “Matt Lowenstein took me off a job because I wasn’t getting anywhere with it. The wife in Roxborough who ran herself over with her own car. He put the best man he had on the job, a guy named Washington.”
“I told Hemmings that story,” Washington said. “I don’t think it helped much.”
After a moment, Wohl said, “Thank you, Jason.”
Washington ignored that.
“You read that file?”
“I was just about finished reading it for the third time.”
“The one time I read it,” Washington said, “I thought I saw a pattern. Our doer is getting bolder and bolder. You see that, something like that, too?”
“Yes, I did.”
“If we get the abducted woman back, alive, I’ll be surprised.”
“Why?”
“That didn’t occur to you?” Washington asked.
“Yes, it did, but I want to see if we reached the same conclusion for the same reasons.”
“The reason we don’t have a lead, not a damned lead, on this guy is because we don’t have a good description on him, or his van. And the reason we don’t is that, until the Flannery thing, he wasn’t with the victims more than fifteen, twenty minutes, and he did what he did where he found them. In the Flannery job, he put her in his van, but in such a way that it didn’t give us any better picture of him than we had before. He never took that mask off—by the way, it’s not a Lone Ranger-type mask; the Lone Ranger wore one that just covered his eyes.”
“I picked up on that,” Wohl said.
“That was the one little mistake that Dick Hemmings made, and when I mentioned it to him, he admitted it right away; said that he’d picked up on that, too, and doesn’t know why he put it in the report the way he did.”
“Go on, Jason.”
“In the Flannery job, he put her in his van and drove away with her. I think that convinced him he can take his victims away, and keep them longer. That’s what he’s really after, I think, having them in his power. That’s more important to him, I think, than the sexual gratification he’s getting; there’s been no incident of him reaching orgasm except by masturbation.”
“I agree,” Wohl said, “that he’s after the domination; the humiliation is part of that.”
“So he now knows he can get away with taking the women away from their homes; he proved that by taking the Flannery woman to Forbidden Drive. And since that was so much fun, he took the next victim away, too. Maybe to his house, maybe someplace else, the country, maybe.”
“And the longer he keeps them, the greater the possibility…that his mask will fall off, o
r something….”
“Or that the victim will look around and see things that would help us to find where she’s been taken,” Washington continued. “And this guy is smart, Peter. It is going to occur to him sooner or later, if it hasn’t already, that what he’s got on his hands is someone who can lead the cops to him; and that will mean the end of his fun.”
Not dramatically, but matter-of-factly, Jason Washington drew his index finger across his throat in a cutting motion.
“And he might find that’s even more fun than running around in his birthday suit, wearing a mask, and waving his dong at them,” Washington added.
“That’s the way I see it,” Wohl said. “That’s why I wanted you over here, working on it. I want to catch this guy before that happens.”
“Dick Hemmings, if you’d have asked him, could have told you the same thing.”
“It’s done, Jason, you’re here. So tell me what we should be doing next.”
“Tony Harris has come up with a long list of minor sexual offenders,” Washington said. “If I were you, Peter, I’d get him all the help he needs to ring doorbells.”
“I don’t know where I can get anybody,” Wohl said, thinking aloud.
“You better figure out where,” Washington said. “That’s all we’ve got right now. Tony’s been trying to get a match, in Harrisburg, between the names he’s got and people who own any kind of a van. So far, zilch.”
“Sabara’s got some people coming in,” Peter said. “Probably some of them will be here in the morning. I’ll put them on it. And maybe I could get some help from Northwest Detectives, maybe even tonight.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Washington said. “I think they’re glad you’ve taken this job away from them.”
“I didn’t take it away from them,” Wohl flared. “It was given to me.”
“Whatever you say.”
“Jason, it’s been suggested to me that we might find a psychiatric profile of the doer useful.”
“Don’t you think we have one?” Washington said, getting to his feet. “Whose suggestion was that? Denny Coughlin’s? Or Czernick himself?”
Wohl didn’t reply.
“I’m going home,” Washington said. “It’s been a long day.”
“Good night, Jason,” Wohl said. “Thanks.”
Special Operations Page 22
