Washington could now see how it worked when installed. The waist belt buckled in the back. On the front, connected to it with heavy chains, were handcuffs. Daniels could move his cuffed wrists no more than a few inches. Daniels’s ankles had smaller versions of the waist belt around them. A short length of chain connected the two ankle restraints together, so that he had to walk with small steps. Another chain ran up his back, split into two, then went over his shoulders and connected with the waist belt. His ability to bend was severely restricted. Washington wondered how he was going to sit down in the restraint.
When Sergeant Kenny led his shuffling prisoner through the door of the chief’s office, Washington said, “Time,” and punched one of the buttons on his Tag Heuer chronograph.
“I never saw anyone actually push the buttons on one of those fancy watches before,” Steve Cohen said in mock wonderment.
Washington held his wrist up so that Cohen could see the dial.
“It is also extremely useful when preparing soft-boiled eggs, Steve. One needn’t make wild guesses about whether three and a half minutes have passed or not.”
“I’m impressed.”
“And well you should be.”
Three minutes and forty seconds later, Sergeant Kenny came through the door, a very large Daphne police officer went in, and then Kenny walked to his office.
“He wants to take a leak,” Kenny said.
“Time,” Washington said, punched several buttons on his watch, and then said, “Splendid.”
Precisely five minutes later, Washington said, “Sergeant Kenny, will you please escort Mr. Daniels back to his cell, so that he may relieve the pressure on his bladder?”
“The more I think about how that guy gets his kicks, the more I’d rather have him piss his pants,” Kenny said.
“That, while a very interesting thought, would almost certainly, as Mr. Cohen would quickly tell us, violate Mr. Daniels’s civil rights,” Washington said.
“Let him have his leak, Kenny,” Cohen said.
It took seven minutes and twenty seconds for Mr. Daniels to be shuffled back and forth to his cell.
“Time,” Washington called, as Daniels shuffled through the door into the chief’s office.
Not quite ten minutes later, Washington said, “Matt, go tell the chief that if Mr. Bernhardt wishes to consult with his client…”
“Yes, sir,” Matt said, and left Kenny’s office.
“Jason, what does your screenplay have to say about Daniels wanting to talk privately with his lawyer?”
“I don’t think he will,” Washington replied. “But if he does, it can only accrue to our advantage. I don’t think he’s seen him since the chief got the search warrants. He would tell him that, I’m sure.”
Roswell Bernhardt, Esq., came into the room. The large Daphne police officer standing outside the chief’s office opened the door for him and he went inside.
“Time,” Washington said, and pushed buttons on his watch.
Matt appeared a minute or so later.
“You are prepared, I presume, Sergeant Payne? You’re on in eight minutes and fifteen seconds.”
“Yes, sir.”
Eight minutes later, Washington said, “Good luck, Matt.”
Matt, carrying a tape recorder and two microphones, walked across the room, waited for the Daphne uniform to open the door, then walked into the chief’s office.
And four minutes after that, came out again.
“You’re on, Steve,” Washington said.
“Yeah, but I’m not going to get canned if I give a lousy performance,” Cohen said, and walked across the room.
Five minutes after that, Chief of Police Charles Yancey came into Sergeant Kenny’s office.
“Am I going to be in the way here?”
“Of course not,” Washington said. “And it gives me the opportunity to tell you again how appreciative we all are for all your assistance.”
“This isn’t my first murder,” Yancey said. “But I’ve never been around a sleazeball, murdering pervert like this before. Or seen big-city cops at work.”
“We work exactly the same way as you do.”
“The hell you do. Kenny told me what you did-are doing. Is it going to work?”
“Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t. It largely depends on the interrogator.”
“And that young sergeant is that good?”
“We are about to determine that,” Washington said.
“Kenny told me about the run-in you had with the FBI. Does that happen all the time?”
“I don’t know about all the time. But it happens far too frequently, I’m afraid. They seem to be very concerned with their image.”
“They always-between you and me, a couple of cops- seem to look down their noses at us.”
“Odd,” Washington said. “I seem to have heard that before somewhere.”
Yancey smiled at him.
“You want to go get a cup of coffee while you’re waiting?”
“You’re very kind, but I’d rather stay here.”
“Hell, I’ll get it,” Yancey said.
He hadn’t made it out of the administrative area when the door to his office opened and Matt Payne-carrying the tape recorder and microphones-and Steve Cohen came out.
Cohen walked to Washington.
“Mr. Daniels asked to confer with counsel, privately,” he said.
“How did it go, Steve?”
“Matt did a hell of a good job, and I’m not saying that for any reason but giving credit where due.”
“I expected nothing less,” Washington said. “What are they going to talk about, would you think?”
“Probably my refusal to offer more of a deal than life without the possibility of parole.”
“You didn’t tell me about that.”
“You didn’t ask,” Cohen said. “The boss wants this guy off the streets permanently. I told her I had the feeling that there are unsolved rapes, maybe even murder-rapes, all over the country that are going to surface now that we’ve caught this guy.”
“Detective Lassiter spent fruitless hours on the telephone…”
“Calling big-city departments. I don’t think she would have gotten around to Daphne anytime soon.”
“I grant your point.”
“Well, anyway, Eileen said we couldn’t count on that, and she decided we have enough to go with here with no deal except life without parole.”
“Eileen’s tough,” Washington said, admiringly.
“Personally, I’d like to see the sonofabitch strapped to the gurney,” Cohen said. “But that’s emotional. The interests of the people are best served by ensuring that he’s behind bars permanently, rather than taking a chance that he’ll walk, or get out in ten years.”
“Isaac ‘Fort’ Festung,” Washington said. “He was sentenced to life and he’s walking around France eating grapes.”
“Yeah.”
“Any developments there?”
“The goddamn French are still dragging their heels. I think it has more to do with giving us the finger than anything else.”
“Anyone but Eileen would have probably given up,” Washington said. “She’s as tenacious as she is tough.”
He smiled.
“What’s funny?” Cohen asked.
“I just remembered ‘appealing to a higher jurisdiction,’ ” Washington said.
Cohen laughed.
When the Hon. Eileen McNamara Solomon had been on the bench, a just-convicted felon, facing a long prison term, had jumped up from his seat in her courtroom, run to a window, crashed through it and jumped to his death in the interior courtyard of City Hall.
When asked by the press how she felt about this lamentable incident, Judge Solomon had replied, “I can only presume he was appealing to a higher jurisdiction.”
Matt came into Kenny’s office.
“I forgot one thing before I went in there,” he said. “The minute I opened my mouth, my back teeth b
egan to float.”
Cohen laughed.
“That happens to me,” he said. “Usually ten minutes into a thirty-minute concluding statement.”
“Your bladder problem aside, Matthew,” Washington said, “how would you assess your chat with Mr. Daniels?”
“I don’t know,” Matt said.
“You ‘don’t know’?” Washington asked, incredulously.
“I think he knows we have him,” Matt said. “But what his reaction to that will be, I have no idea. He may decide to take his chances. What has he got to lose?”
Washington grunted noncommittally.
Three minutes later, Roswell Bernhardt, Esq., came out of the chief’s office and said that in exchange for a written guarantee that the City of Philadelphia would not seek the death penalty, his client was prepared to make a full statement, cooperate fully with the investigation, and waive extradition.
At five-thirty-five, Mr. Walter Davis walked up the marble steps of the Rittenhouse Club and entered the building through its revolving door. He stopped long enough to check the Members Board, and to see that the brass nameplate reading MARIANI, R had been slid to the left, so that it was now under the IN heading.
He found Commissioner Mariani in the paneled bar with First Deputy Commissioner Coughlin, which didn’t surprise him. But with them at one of the round tables was Brewster Cortland Payne II, Esq., which did.
Mariani waved Davis over. The men shook hands. Davis sat down. A waiter appeared and Davis ordered a scotch, rocks. The others held up their hands in a silent gesture meaning they didn’t need another one just now, thank you.
Davis wondered how long they had been here. He sensed that the drinks on the table were not the first round.
“We’re having a little celebration, Walter,” Mariani said. “I’m glad you were free to join us. I didn’t give you much notice.”
“It’s always a pleasure, you know that. What are we celebrating? ”
As if I didn’t know.
“Mr. Homer C. Daniels has agreed to waive extradition.”
“And he is?”
As if you don’t know.
“You don’t know?”
“I’m not sure,” Davis said.
“He’s the man who tied the Williamson girl to her bed with plastic ties, committed obscenities on her body, and then killed her.”
“And you’ve got him?”
“The Daphne, Alabama, police have him. He was apprehended by one of those civilian neighborhood watch outfits, apparently in the act of trying to break into some other young woman’s apartment. He’s a dealer in fancy cars, from Las Vegas.”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised, Walter,” Coughlin said, “if he’s been doing this sort of thing all over the country.”
“A civilian neighborhood watch outfit? If this wasn’t so serious, that would be almost funny. You’re sure he’s the doer, Ralph?”
“We’re sure. We sent Sergeant Payne down there to check him out. Payne said everything fit, but just to make sure, I sent Jason Washington down there, and Eileen Solomon sent Steve Cohen. Not only does everything fit, but he gave Payne a statement and, as I said, has agreed to waive extradition. ”
“Washington and Cohen are in Alabama?” Davis asked.
“I thought you would have heard, Ralph,” Mariani said, innocently. “Washington said the FBI had been there to offer their assistance.”
Davis shook his head, “no.”
“But whatever assistance we can provide, Ralph,” he said. “All you have to do is ask.”
“Thanks, Walter,” Mariani said. “We appreciate that.”
He smiled at Davis and went on:
“So what I’m celebrating is that an hour ago Eileen Solomon called to tell me that she had just spoken with the Attorney General of Alabama, who told her-in case Daniels changes his mind about waiving extradition-that the governor of Alabama would authorize his extradition just as soon as we place the request before him. And just a few minutes ago the homicide detective… Joe D’Amata, I think you know him?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“… called Denny from the airport to say he and the others, including several lab people, are indeed going to be aboard the five-fifty flight to Alabama. Joe’s carrying the request-for-extradition packet with him in case it’s needed.”
“You apparently have this pretty well sewed up,” Davis said.
“It looks that way, Walter. And what Denny and Brewster are celebrating is young Payne’s faultless performance- starting with his finding this fellow down there- on his first time out as a homicide supervisor.”
Mr. Davis’s scotch rocks was served.
He raised his glass to Brewster Cortland Payne II.
“To Sergeant Payne,” he said. “And at the risk of making Denny angry, Brewster, you know how much I would like to have your son working for the Bureau. And the offer is still open.”
“So is Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo and Lester’s, Walter, but the police department seems to have him firmly in its clutches.”
“Before Steve and Matt get into the wine and become incoherent, ” Washington said, “I think an analysis of where we are and where we have to go would be in order.”
Mr. Cohen gave Lieutenant Washington the finger.
They were sitting in upholstered chairs around two tables pushed together in the Bird Cage Lounge at the Grand Hotel.
Perhaps understandably, they were the object of some curiosity on the part of other guests. There were two enormous black men who looked like brothers, one of them in police uniform. There was a second uniformed police officer, a small man. There was an attractive young woman in the otherwise all-male ensemble, but she seemed to be sitting as far away as was possible in the circumstances from the only young man in the group. And finally, there was a dignified man in a double-breasted gray suit and finely figured necktie sitting beside a man with wildly unruly red hair, who was wearing an open-collared yellow polo shirt and a yellow-and-red plaid jacket.
“Where do we stand legally, Steve?” Washington asked.
“Joe D’Amata’s in the air right now,” Cohen said. “He’s got the warrant for Daniels’s arrest and the request-for-extradition packet, in case Daniels changes his mind about waiving extradition-”
“And if he does?” Washington interrupted.
“Eileen has talked to the Alabama attorney general,” Cohen replied. “He told her the governor will sign the extradition order as soon as he gets it. If we have to go that route, I’ll have to go to Montgomery, which raises the question ‘How do I get there’?”
“Mr. Cohen,” Chief Yancey said, “if you have to go, we can get you there in probably a little less than three hours. It’s a straight shot up I-65. The troopers would be happy to carry you.”
“The state troopers?”
Yancey nodded. “We do it all the time. We call it a handoff. A car would pick you up here, then go as far as he usually patrols up I-65. Another trooper car would meet you there. And maybe another one before you got to Montgomery. But they’ll get you there, and be happy to do it.”
“Well, that would really solve that problem,” Cohen said. “But let’s hope it doesn’t prove necessary.”
“Kenny?” the chief asked.
“I’ll set it up, in case we need it,” Sergeant Kenny said.
“Okay, that settles that,” Cohen said. “Now, where was I? Okay. With Joe on the airplane are two lab technicians, we don’t know who yet, and two detectives, ditto. They’re going to change planes in Atlanta, fly to Pensacola, pick up a rental car, probably two rental cars, and then drive here, to the world-famous $37.50 No-Tell Motel, where Matt and Olivia are staying.”
“I had a call from Peter Wohl, Steve,” Washington said. “We know who the detectives are. Mutt and Jeff.”
“Really?” Matt asked. “What are they going to do when they get here? And what about Stan Colt?”
“All I know is Inspector Wohl said that’s who he’s sending,
and what they’re going to do is sit on Daniels’s truck as long as it’s here, and when we locate a truck, or trucks, large enough to haul Daniels’s truck-with contents-back to Philadelphia, they’re going to ride back with it.”
“When are you going to search the truck?” Chief Yancey asked.
“Where we are legally with that, Chief,” Cohen said, “is that Matt has statements from Fats Gambino and you, Fats’s stating that he saw Daniels lock the truck and trailer in his locked and guarded lot, and the truck has been there, under guard, since then. Yours states that the keys in your possession believed to be those to the truck and trailer were taken from Daniels at the time of his arrest and have never left police possession since that time. Tomorrow, the lab technicians will make an examination to see if anyone has forced any locks, and be prepared to testify they saw no evidence of such. I don’t know for sure, but what they will do then is probably see what prints and whatever they can get from the exterior of the truck-stuff that might get lost between here and Philadelphia-and then conduct a cursory search of the interiors of the truck and tractor. If they don’t find a body-which is not entirely out of the question here-or something else spectacular, they will seal both tractor and trailer as well as they can, and supervise the loading of it onto whatever we finally get to haul it back to Philadelphia.”
“That seems like a hell of a lot of work,” Yancey said. “Taking everything to Philadelphia.”
“It is,” Cohen agreed. “My boss is concerned-and so am I-about preserving the chain of evidence. We’ve got three jurisdictions here. Philadelphia; Daphne-Baldwin County; and because the truck is in Mobile, Alabama-Mobile County. But I think it’s under control. Legally, the search will be executed by the Mobile police, using the search warrant the Mobile County judge issued. Matt and I-and to cover all the bases, Mutt and Jeff, too-will be there. And if you can send somebody-”
“I think Sergeant Kenny and I can find time to be there,” Yancey interjected.
“Then any of us, or all of us, can testify under oath that Philadelphia police and Daphne police witnessed the search- and had control of the evidence-from the time the Mobile police exercised their search warrant-and put Daniels’s keys in the locks.”
Final Justice boh-8 Page 46
