Final Justice

by W. E. B Griffin

  Her father, a midlevel executive with an insurance company, had spoken his mind. “You’re crazy. You have gone over the edge! You should be locked up for your own protection.”

  Her mother, a buyer for John Wanamaker & Company, had said more or less the same thing, then tried tears approaching hysteria, and said she was throwing her life and “the advantages Daddy and I have given to you” away.

  Olivia had dropped out of Temple and entered the Police Academy and graduated and did a year working a van in the Ninth District, and then a second year in the Central City Business District. Truth to tell, she hadn’t liked either job, and there had been a strong temptation to accept her father’s offer to go back to college, get her degree, and make something of herself.

  But that would have been admitting she’d made a mistake. And she hadn’t been quite prepared to do that. She had been on the job just over a year when a detective’s examination was announced. She took it, and passed it, ranking just high enough to get promoted—among the last few promoted from that list—eighteen months later.

  That had put her in Northwest Detectives. From the first day, she’d liked being a detective, even though she was aware she was conducting a lot of investigations—of recovered stolen automobiles, in particular—that none of her new colleagues on the squad wanted to do.

  It took her several years to pay off her car note and the furniture note, but that happened, too, about the time she realized she was no longer regarded by the squad as the “rookie broad,” but as one of them.

  She knew that she was not very popular with some of the wives and girlfriends of the guys on the squad—they seemed to suspect that the first order of business every day was to jump Detective Lassiter’s bones—but there was nothing she could do about that, even if it was unfair as hell, and untrue. She had no interest, that way, in any of the guys.

  She had taken the sergeant’s exam, placing so low on the list that her chances of promotion were about as good as those of her being taken bodily into heaven. Her ego had been a little damaged—she hadn’t thought she would do that badly—but it really hadn’t bothered her. She liked the squad, she liked Northwest Detectives, and a promotion would have meant not only leaving the Detective Bureau but almost certainly being put back in uniform. Since she had been on the job, she had compiled a long list of uniform sergeant’s jobs she really would have hated.

  The bottom line there was that she liked what she was doing and had no reason to feel sorry for herself. She had wondered idly about going someplace else as a detective, and had snooped around Special Victims and Major Crimes and Intelligence enough to know that she was better off with Northwest Detectives. The District Attorney’s Squad was a possibility to think of, and so was Special Operations, and for that matter even Homicide.

  Olivia thought of herself as a realist, and understood that her chances of getting assigned to Homicide—even in ten years—were practically nonexistent.

  But now this had been dumped in her lap, this detail— however long it lasted—to Homicide. There was no question at all that Opportunity Had Knocked, but there was a big question about how to deal with it. If she played it right, there was a chance—slim, but a chance—that it would help her get into Homicide. Maybe not now. But later.

  And if she screwed up somehow, in any way, she knew she could kiss any chances of getting into Homicide farewell forever.

  Olivia had just turned onto North Broad Street when her cell phone buzzed. She fumbled in her purse for it and finally pushed Answer.

  “Lassiter.”

  “D’Amata. You know who I am?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “I want you to start thinking of me as the senior Homicide investigator on this case,” D’Amata said. “Not just some ordinary Homicide schmuck.”

  “Okay. You want to tell me why?”

  “Because when I told our beloved leader, Sergeant Payne, that I wanted to go with you to take the Williamson mother’s statement, he said sure, but tell her to introduce you as ‘the senior Homicide investigator on the case.’ ”

  “He say why?”

  “Our orders, Detective Lassiter, are to keep the Williamsons stroked. I think it’s a good idea. Our leader is as smart as a whip.”

  “Okay. Whatever you say. I’m on North Broad, six blocks from City Hall, en route to Mother Williamson’s. You need the address?”

  “Yeah.”

  “404 Rockland. It’s just south of Roosevelt Boulevard.”

  “I know where it is. I’ll meet you there. On the street. Either I wait or you wait, okay? Payne wants us together.”

  “See you there.”

  Olivia pushed the End button and dropped the phone back into her purse.

  Sergeant Matthew Payne, she thought, was very likely going to cause some sort of problems for her vis-à-vis making the best of her opportunity to try to get into Homicide.

  She had known who Detective Payne was before he walked into Cheryl Williamson’s living room. She had seen him on television when there had been the shooting in Doylestown, covered with that poor girl’s blood, tears running down his cheeks. It had made her cry.

  And, purely as a matter of female curiosity, when she finally got her hands on the new sergeants list, she had looked to see who had scored well.

  Detective Payne of Special Operations had scored number one.

  The first time she had seen him in the flesh was when he walked into Cheryl Williamson’s living room. The first thing she’d thought was that he was even better looking than he’d looked on television, and the second thing was Christ, not now. I have never before been physically attracted to anyone on the job. Not now, please, God, and not a hotshot like this one.

  The one thing I could do for sure that would screw up my chances of getting into Homicide would be for me to get involved with their fair-haired boy. And I will not. Not. Not.

  TEN

  [ONE]

  Matt more or less obeyed the speed limits crossing New Jersey. It was a temptation not to, but he was driving the Porsche, and from painful experience he had come to believe that so far as the New Jersey State Police were concerned, ticketing a Porsche often was the high point of their tour, giving them great joy and satisfaction.

  As he came out of the Lincoln Tunnel, he looked at his watch. It was half past two, which explained why his stomach was telling him he was hungry. He turned uptown, and ten minutes later turned onto West Forty-second Street toward Times Square. Just before he got there, he saw Times Square Photo.

  Now the question was finding someplace to park, someplace where the parking attendants might not find great joy and satisfaction in seeing how deeply they could scratch the glistening silver paint of a Porsche.

  He moved through the crowded streets, and a few minutes later found himself entering Times Square again from the north. The only parking places he had found had SORRY, FULL signs in front of them.

  He noticed, at first idly and then with great interest, an automobile—a somewhat battered black Ford Crown Victoria—parked on the right curb between Forty-third and Forty-fourth Streets, right beside a sign reading NO PARKING NO STOPPING AT ANY TIME. There were several antennae mounted on it, and it rode on black heavy-duty tires. The fenders were battered, and there were no wheel covers.

  If that’s not an unmarked car, my name is not Sherlock Holmes.

  Matt pulled the Porsche to the curb in front of the Ford, then backed up until their bumpers almost touched.

  The Ford’s horn blew imperiously, and the driver put his arm out the window and gestured for him to move on.

  Matt instead got out of the car.

  Now he could see the driver and the man sitting beside him. The driver was heavyset and looked to be in his forties. His ample abdomen held his tweed sports coat apart and strained the buttons of his shirt. The man beside him was younger. He was wearing a leather jacket and a black turtle-neck sweater. Matt thought he was in his mid-twenties.

  Matt found his leather w
allet with the badge and photo ID and took it out. He decided that standing on the sidewalk and speaking to the young man in the passenger seat would be safer than speaking to the driver, and went to that side of the car. The other choice would most likely have seen him rolled through Times Square under the wheels of a bus.

  The young man rolled the window down.

  “I’m Sergeant Payne, and—”

  “Get in,” the older man said, pointing to the rear seat.

  Matt got in.

  “Let me see that,” the older man said, and Matt handed him his badge and photo ID.

  “What can we do for you, Sergeant Payne?” the older man said, and then passed the ID to the younger one.

  “I’m on the job, working a homicide,” Matt said.

  “You’re not trying to tell me they kill people in the City of Brotherly Love?” the younger one said.

  The older one chuckled.

  “The doer left his camera at the scene,” Matt said. “Kodak tells me they shipped it to Times Square Photo.”

  “Take the next right. It’s right around the corner,” the older one said.

  “I called them before I came here,” Matt said. “They spoke just enough English to make it clear they are not very cooperative. ”

  “Welcome to New York,” the younger one said. “Only a few of us speak English, and even fewer are cooperative.”

  The older one chuckled.

  “The doer—”

  “By ‘doer,’ you mean ‘the suspected perpetrator’?” the younger one interrupted.

  “Right. He’s a real sicko—”

  “By which you mean he’s ‘psychiatrically challenged,’ right?” the younger one asked. “Has difficulty accepting the common concept of right and wrong as the modus operandi for his life?”

  “Yeah, you could put it that way,” Matt said. “I want to get this guy before he does it to another young woman.”

  “A noble thought,” the young one said. “How could we be of assistance?”

  “It would help me a hell of a lot if one of you would go into the store with me. I really need to have a look at their sales records.”

  “Presumably, Sergeant,” the young one said, “this fishing expedition of yours has been cleared by the New York police department’s Office of Inter-Agency Cooperation?”

  Oh, shit!

  “No. I haven’t cleared anything with anybody. I just got in my car and drove here. This happened early today, and right now this is our best lead. I just acted on my urge.”

  The young man considered this a moment.

  “Charley, take us out of service for ten minutes. I’m going to take a little walk with Sergeant Payne.”

  “Right, Lieutenant,” the older one said, reaching for an under-the-dash microphone.

  Lieutenant?

  The young one got out of the passenger seat, then opened the rear door and motioned Matt out. Then he walked to the Porsche and got in.

  Matt carefully watched the traffic and then quickly got behind the wheel.

  “Do all the sergeants in Philadelphia get wheels like this?” the young man asked. Before Matt could reply, he ordered, “Two blocks down and make a right.”

  Matt got into the flow of traffic.

  “I usually say it’s something we took away from the drug industry,” Matt said. “But the truth is, it’s mine.”

  “They must pay better, one way or another, in Philadelphia, ” the young man said.

  “My lieutenant borrowed my brand-new unmarked car,” Matt said. “So I drove this, instead of taking the train.”

  “If one of my sergeants had a brand-new unmarked, I’d do the same,” the young man said. “There’s a parking garage on the left.”

  Okay, that makes you a lieutenant. What’s a lieutenant doing sitting in an unmarked in the middle of Times Square?

  “It says full.”

  “Some of us can read,” the young man said. “Although I will admit we do have a number of people on the job who are literacy-challenged.”

  Matt pulled into the parking lot, nose to nose with a Mercedes. There was no room. He was blocking half the sidewalk.

  The attendant came out, waving his hands, “no.” He was wearing a beard and a turban.

  “I think sign language is going to be necessary,” the young lieutenant said, “and not because this fellow is aurally challenged.”

  He got out of the Porsche, took his badge from his pocket, and held it two inches from the bearded man’s face. Then he signaled with arm gestures that the attendant was to move the Mercedes elsewhere so the Porsche could take its space.

  The attendant waved his arms excitedly for a few moments, but then got into the Mercedes.

  The lieutenant signaled, like a traffic officer, for Matt to back the Porsche up far enough to give the Mercedes room to pass. The Mercedes went around him, onto the street, and the lieutenant signaled for Matt to pull in.

  Then he stood on the sidewalk waiting for Matt to get out of the car.

  They walked back up Broadway to West Forty-second Street and into Times Square Photo.

  Three people—two of them bearded and in turbans, the third a stout young woman whose flowing, ankle-length dress and gaudily painted wooden bead jewelry made Matt think of gypsies—descended, smiling broadly on them.

  What they lacked in language skills they made up for with enthusiasm, offering Matt and the lieutenant cameras, tape recorders, and other items for sale, cheap.

  “Get Whatshisname,” the lieutenant ordered.

  The three looked at him without comprehension.

  “Get Whatshisname!” the lieutenant ordered, considerably louder.

  Still no comprehension showed on the faces of the trio.

  The lieutenant put his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly.

  Almost immediately, another man in a neat turban and immaculately trimmed beard appeared. His suit and shirt were well-fitting, and he also wore a red vest with embroidered ducks in flight pattern.

  He hurried up to them.

  “Lieutenant Lacey,” he said in British-accented English, “what a pleasant surprise! How may I be of service to you or this gentleman?”

  “Tell him,” Lieutenant Lacey said to Matt.

  “Five months ago, you received a shipment of a dozen cameras from Kodak,” Matt began.

  “We receive shipments from Kodak virtually weekly,” the man said. “They make a splendid product, and because we sell so many of them, we are in a position to offer them at the lowest possible prices. And in your case, of course, as a friend of Lieutenant Lacey, there will be a substantial additional discount. Permit me to show you—”

  “I don’t want to buy a camera, I want to know who you sold it to,” Matt said, aware that Lieutenant Lacey was smiling at him.

  “I will make you an offer you cannot refuse!”

  “I have the serial number,” Matt said.

  “I gather this is an official visit, Lieutenant Lacey?” the man asked.

  Lacey nodded.

  “Sergeant Payne needs to know to whom you sold a particular camera.”

  “We are, of course, willing—I’ll say eager—to cooperate with the police in every way.”

  “Is there a problem?” Lieutenant Lacey asked.

  The man looked at Matt.

  “You say the camera was shipped to us five months ago?”

  Matt nodded.

  “You know the model?”

  Goddamn it, I don’t.

  “It’s a rather expensive digital,” Matt said.

  “That only narrows the field down a smidgen, I fear,” the man said.

  “If I saw one, I’d know it.”

  “That sort of item is updated as often as the sun rises,” the man said. “I rather doubt if it would still be in our inventory. You did say you have the serial number?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Then it will be a simple matter to go through our sales records and find it. We assiduously record the seria
l numbers of all our better merchandise.”

  “Then we have no problem here?” Lieutenant Lacey asked.

  “None whatever. I am delighted to be of service. I will return momentarily.”

  He headed for the back of the store.

  “Good luck, Sergeant,” Lacey said.

  “Thanks very much, Lieutenant,” Matt said.

  “No thanks are required. I wasn’t in here with you. I never ever saw you. I would never act in a case like this without the full authority—in writing—of the New York Police Department’s Office of Inter-Agency Cooperation to do so.”

  He turned and walked out the door.

  The turbaned man who spoke the Queen’s English returned to where Matt stood a few minutes later, trailed by two turbaned men, each of whom held two large cardboard boxes in his arms.

  He gestured rather imperiously for the men to place the boxes on a glass display case.

  “The sales records are filed, Sergeant, to comply with IRS requirements, sequentially, or perhaps I should say chronologically. I have brought you the records for the last six months. If there is anything else I can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask.”

  Not quite an hour and a half later, Sergeant Payne found the sales slip he was looking for, near the top of the left stack of sales slips in Box Three.

  The sales slips had been stored in the manner in which they had come out of the sales registry machines—that is to say, fan-folded. Each stack contained 250 sales slips. They had been placed in the storage boxes eight stacks high, six stacks to a box.

  By the time Matt found what he was looking for, his feet hurt from standing, his stomach was in audible protest for being unfed, and his eyes watered.

  And what he found wasn’t much.

  A Kodak Digital Science DC 410, Serial Number EKK84240087, had been sold for cash three and a half months previously to Mr. H. Ford, 400 Lincoln Lane, Detroit, Michigan. Mr. Ford’s signature, at the bottom, acknowledging receipt of the camera in good working condition, was barely legible.