“You’re not going to be involved?”
“No. I was just there this morning to see—for my boss— what the triumphal visit will involve. I’m with Special Operations, and we usually provide the bodies needed.”
“I’m sorry, too,” she said.
“We will solve that problem when you come back,” he said. “I really want to see more of you.”
“So what do you do in Special Operations?” she said, obviously changing the subject.
“Today, for example, I think I proved that a cop who’s been spending more money than a cop makes came by it entirely honestly.”
“Internal Affairs?”
“No. This was unofficial, before Internal Affairs got involved. Now there won’t be an Internal Affairs investigation. A good thing, because just being involved with Internal Affairs makes people look bad.”
Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick T. Nesbitt IV and a freshly bathed Penelope in her nightgown appeared in the kitchen at this point, and Detective Payne resumed his preparation of Wild Turkey shrimp over wild rice.
At 10:45 Matt said that he would be happy to deliver Terry to the airport to catch the red-eye to the coast.
At 11:17, as he closed the trunk of the Porsche after having taken Terry’s luggage from it, and she was standing close enough to him to be kissed, a uniform walked up and said, “You’re going to have to move it, sir. Sorry.”
Matt took out his badge and said, “Three sixty-nine,” which was police cant for “I am a police officer.”
The uniform walked away. Matt looked at Terry, saddened by the lost opportunity.
Terry stood on her toes and kissed him chastely on the lips.
“Thanks,” she said, then quickly turned and entered the airport. She turned once and looked back at him, and then he lost sight of her.
He got back in the Porsche, and on the way to Rittenhouse Square decided that, all things considered, today had been a pretty good day.
[THREE]
The Hon. Alvin W. Martin, Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, a trim forty-three-year-old in a well-cut Harris plaid suit, smiled at Police Commissioner Ralph J. Mariani and waved him into his City Hall office.
“Thank you for coming so quickly, Ralph,” he said. “Have you had your coffee?”
The mayor gestured toward a silver coffee service on a sideboard.
“I could use another cup, thank you,” Mariani said. He was a stocky Italian, balding, natty.
“I was distressed, Ralph,” the mayor said, “to hear about the trouble at the Roy Rogers.”
“Very sad,” Mariani said. “I knew Officer Charlton. A fine man.”
“And Mrs. Fernandez, who paid with her life for calling 911.”
“A genuine tragedy, sir,” Mariani said.
“I’m going to the funeral home at three this afternoon,” Martin said. “I should say ‘homes.’ Officer Charlton’s first, and then Mrs. Fernandez’s. I think it would be a good idea if you went with me.”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
“I feel sure the press will be there,” the mayor said. “I’d really like to have something to tell them.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have much news, Mr. Mayor,” Mariani said. “We’re working on it, of course. And it’s just a matter of time until we nail those animals, but so far . . .”
“When you say you’re working on it, what exactly does that mean?”
“That we’re applying all our resources to the job.”
“Who’s in charge of the investigation?”
“Lieutenant Washington, of Homicide, sir.”
The mayor knew Lieutenant Jason Washington, which was not the same thing as saying he liked him. The mayor thought of Washington as a difficult man who was not able to conceal—or perhaps didn’t want to conceal—his contempt for politicians.
Mayor Martin had sought Lieutenant Washington out shortly after taking office. The police department always provides a police officer, sometimes a sergeant, but most often a lieutenant, to drive the mayoral limousine, serving simultaneously, of course, as bodyguard.
He’d toyed with the idea of having a white officer—a very large, happy, smiling Irishman who would look good in the background of news photos came to mind—but before he could make the appointment, he’d seen Washington striding purposefully though the lobby of the Roundhouse, and asked who he was.
That night he had mentioned the enormous lieutenant to his wife, Beatrice, at supper.
“I thought you knew Jason,” Beatrice said. “He’s Martha’s husband.”
The mayor knew his wife’s friend, Martha Washington. Beatrice, as the mayor thought of it, was “into art and that sort of thing,” and Martha Washington was both a very successful art dealer and a painter of some repute.
“No, I don’t,” the mayor confessed. “How do you think he’d like to be the mayor’s driver?”
“I don’t think so,” Beatrice had said. “I can’t imagine Jason as a chauffeur—yours or anyone else’s.”
“You’re going to have to get used to being the mayor’s wife, precious.”
Mayor Martin had taken the trouble to meet Washington socially, which had proven more difficult to do than he thought it would be.
The mayor had arranged for the Washingtons to be invited to a friend’s cocktail party, and when they sent their regrets, to a second friend’s cocktail party, which invitation they also declined with regret. On the third try, he finally got to meet them, and Alvin W. Martin’s first impression of Jason Washington that night was that he was going to like him, possibly very much, and that he would look just fine in the background of press photos.
Washington was an imposing man, superbly tailored, and erudite without rubbing it in your face. The mayor, studying Washington’s suit with the eye of a man who appreciated good tailoring, wondered how he could afford to dress that well on a detective’s salary. He decided the artist wife picked up the tab.
He finally managed to get him alone.
“I’d really like to get together with you, Jason. You don’t mind if I call you ‘Jason,’ do you?”
“Not at all.”
“I’m in the process of selecting a driver. Would you be interested?”
“With all possible respect, Mr. Mayor, absolutely not.”
“Actually, it would entail more than just driving the limo,” the mayor had said. “I really need someone around who can explain the subtleties of the police department to me.”
“I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding such a person, Mr. Mayor.”
“And, specifically, I need input from someone knowledgeable about what I might be able to do for our fellow blacks in the police department.”
“I can tell you that, Mr. Mayor, in a very few words: Really support a meaningful pay raise; get it through the City Council. Policemen often have a hard time making ends meet.”
“I was speaking specifically of black police officers.”
“There are two kinds of police officers, Mr. Mayor. The bad ones—a small minority—and all the others. And all the others are colored blue.”
“That’s a little jingoistic, isn’t it, Lieutenant?”
“Simplistic, perhaps, Mr. Mayor, and perhaps chauvinistic, but I don’t think jingoistic, which, as I understand the word, carries a flavor of belligerence I certainly didn’t intend.”
“Let me be very frank,” the mayor said. “When I asked around for the name of an outstanding black officer to whom I could turn with questions regarding the police department generally, and black officers in the department specifically, your name immediately came up. You have a splendid reputation. And I wondered how it is you’re a lieutenant.”
“ ‘Only’ a lieutenant? Is that what you mean?”
“All right, if you want to put it that way. You don’t think race had anything to do with you having been a policeman twenty-three years before being promoted to lieutenant?”
“Mr. Mayor, I’ve spent most of my career in Homicide . . ."”<
br />
“You’ve been described to me as one of the best homicide investigators anywhere.”
Washington ignored the compliment, and continued:
“. . . where, because of the extraordinary amount of overtime required, most detectives make as much as inspectors and some as much as chief inspectors. I was a little late reaching my present rank because I never took the examination until I had assurance, in writing, that should I pass and be promoted, I would not be transferred from Homicide.”
Aware that his temper was rising, the mayor said, “I wasn’t aware that you could make deals like that.”
“They aren’t common.”
“Frankly, the more you reject the idea, the more it appeals to me. I need someone who will tell me how things are, rather than what they think I want to hear. And I was under the impression that police officers serve where their superiors decide they can be of the most value.”
“That’s true, of course,” Washington had replied. “But it is also true that police officers my age with twenty years or more of service can retire at any time they so desire.”
The mayor suddenly saw the headline in the Bulletin: ACE HOMICIDE LIEUTENANT RETIRES RATHER THAN BECOME MAYOR’S DRIVER.
“Well, I’m disappointed, of course,” the mayor had said. “But I will certainly respect your wishes. You will be available, won’t you, if I need an expert to explain something to me?”
“I’m at your service, Mr. Mayor,” Washington had said.
Mayor Martin now looked across his desk and asked, “And what does Lieutenant Washington have to say about why these people haven’t been arrested? It’s been two days, Commissioner.”
Mariani replied, “I talked to him last night, Mr. Mayor. He says he’s doing everything he can think of to do, and that something’s bound to turn up. Right now, we don’t even know who the doers are.”
“There were no witnesses?”
“There were witnesses, sir. Mickey O’Hara of the Bulletin even took a picture of the doers as they left the restaurant. He was one of the first to reach the scene. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a very good photograph.”
“We have a picture of these people?” the mayor asked, incredulously.
“Not a very good picture, Mr. Mayor.”
“I can see the story in the Bulletin,” the mayor said, unpleasantly. “Even with a photo provided by the Bulletin, police are unable to identify, much less arrest—”
"O’Hara wouldn’t write a story like that,” Mariani said. “He understands our problem.”
“You have more faith in the press than I do, obviously,” the mayor said. “And none of the witnesses can come up with a description of these people?”
“We put police artists on the job immediately, Mr. Mayor. The result of that has been a number of pictures none of which look like any other picture. Everybody saw something else.”
“The bottom line, then, is that you don’t have a clue as to who these people are.”
“We’re doing our best, sir.”
“That’s really not good enough, Commissioner,” the mayor said. “I need something for the press, and I need it by three this afternoon.”
“What would you like me to say, sir?”
“How about forming a task force?”
“We have one in everything but name now, sir. A cop has been killed. Washington can have anything he asks for. It’s just going to take some time, I’m afraid.”
“A cop and a single mother of three,” the mayor said. “We don’t want to forget her, do we?”
“We’re not forgetting her, sir. But when a police officer is killed, it sort of mobilizes the entire department.”
“Just for the record, Commissioner, the entire police department should be mobilized whenever any of our citizens is brutally murdered.”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
“What about Special Operations, Commissioner?”
“Sir?”
“Supposing I announce this afternoon that I have ordered that the Special Operations Division take over the investigation? ”
“Sir, it’s a homicide,” the Commissioner said.
“You don’t think it’s a good idea, I gather?”
“Mr. Mayor, it won’t accomplish anything that’s not already been done. If I call Inspector Wohl . . .”
“Who is?”
“The commanding officer of Special Operations, sir.”
“Okay.”
“If I call him right now and give him the job, he’ll say ‘Yes, sir,’ and then he’ll call Lieutenant Washington and ask him how he can help. I don’t know this for a fact, but I’ll bet Wohl has already done that.”
“Let’s do it anyway,” the mayor said. “Make it official. And tell this Inspector . . . Wohl, you said?”
“Yes, sir.”
“To light a fire under Washington.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, Inspector Wohl was once a homicide detective. . . ."”
“So much the better.”
“A rookie homicide detective. Jason Washington, as a very experienced, very good, homicide detective, was charged with bringing Detective Wohl up to homicide speed—”
“Commissioner,” the mayor interrupted somewhat sharply, “I’m getting the feeling you’re dragging your feet, for reasons I can’t imagine. So I repeat, call this Inspector Wohl and tell him he is now in charge of this investigation task force, and I expect results.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll do so immediately.”
“There’s one more thing,” the mayor said. “The cardinal called me at home last night.”
“Yes, sir?”
“About the visit of Stan Colt. The cardinal said that Colt being here may raise a half million dollars or more for West Catholic High School.”
“It probably will, sir.”
“The cardinal wants to make sure Mr. Colt’s visit goes smoothly. And in this case, I want what the cardinal wants.”
“So do I, Mr. Mayor. After the cardinal called me about Mr. Colt coming here, I gave Mr. Colt ‘Visiting Dignitary’ status for his trip. He will be under the care of the Dignitary Protection Unit.”
“So he told me,” the mayor replied. “What he called me about was the assignment to Colt’s visit of a particular detective. Apparently this detective made a very good impression on Monsignor Schneider—who’s doing the nuts and bolts of Colt’s visit for the cardinal—when they met at some sort of preliminary meeting. I’d like this done.”
“Certainly, sir. You have the detective’s name?”
“Payne,” the mayor said. And then he read the commissioner’s face. “You know him? Is there going to be some problem with this?”
“We published the sergeant’s examination ratings yesterday, ” the commissioner said. “Detective Payne ranked number one.”
“In other words, he’s a very bright detective?”
“And a very good one.”
“And now he’s a sergeant?”
“He will be whenever the promotion ceremony is held.”
“And when will that be?”
“Whenever you decide, Mr. Mayor.”
“How about . . .” He checked his calendar. “I’m free from nine-fifteen until ten tomorrow morning.”
“Sir, we have the funds to promote the top twenty-one men on the list immediately. It would be difficult to get all twenty-one in on such short notice.”
The mayor gave him a look that was mingled curiosity and exasperation.
“We could promote the top five,” Commissioner Mariani said. “You will recall, sir, we offered the top five examinees their choice of assignment.”
“And you can get all five in here tomorrow morning?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sure I can.”
“Good. We’ll get him in here and promote him, and the others, and then assign Sergeant Payne to Dignitary Protection. ”
“But there’s a small problem there, too, I’m sorry to say. Payne is entitled to his choice of assignment.”
“Commis
sioner, why don’t you suggest to Detective Payne that the Dignitary Protection Unit would be a fine choice of assignment?”
“He wants to go to Homicide, sir.”
“How do you know that?”
“Deputy Commissioner Coughlin told me, sir. He’s Detective Payne’s godfather.”
“Figuratively speaking, or literally?” the mayor asked, sarcastically.
“Both, sir.”
The mayor exhaled in exasperation.
“Then I suggest you suggest to Deputy Commissioner Coughlin that he suggest to Detective Payne that Dignitary Protection would be a fine choice—indeed the only choice— for Detective Payne to make.”
“Mr. Mayor, the prize—the choice of assignment—has been widely publicized. If we don’t make good on the promise . . .”
“What?”
“I’m afraid the Fraternal Order of Police would—”
“Jesus Christ!” the mayor exploded. “How about this, then, Commissioner? We promote Payne. Sergeant Payne is assigned to Homicide, and then temporarily assigned to Dignitary Protection for Stan Colt’s visit?”
“That would work fine, sir.”
“Then please see that it’s done,” the mayor said. “I’ll look for you here about quarter to three. Thank you, Commissioner. ”
FIVE
[ONE]
Inspector Wohl and Detective Payne were alone in Wohl’s office at the Arsenal. Payne’s laptop was on Wohl’s coffee table, and Payne was bent over it, using it as a notebook, as he reported to Wohl on his investigation of the sudden affluence of Captain Cassidy.
Wohl held up his hand to Detective Payne to stop; he was about to answer his cellular phone.
He picked the cellular up from his desk and answered it. “Wohl.”
Then he slipped the cellular into a device on his desk, which activated a hands-off system.
“Are you there, Inspector?” Jason Washington’s deep, resonant voice came from the speaker.
“Just putting the phone in the whatchamacallit, Jason.”
“Lieutenant Washington reporting for duty, sir.”
“Do I have to tell you this wasn’t my idea, Jason?”
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