“What’s wrong with your hand?” she asked.
That’s genuine concern in her voice.
“I believe you described it as a ‘puncture wound.’ ”
“And I also told you to stop at an emergency room on your way home. You mean you didn’t?”
“I seem to have forgotten that instruction. I must have had something else on my mind. Bleeding to death didn’t seem important at the time.”
“You’re bleeding now?”
More genuine concern.
He looked at his hand.
“No, but it looks unhealthy.”
“Matt, go to an emergency room, please. Right now. I’ll see you at work.”
“How about doing me a favor?”
“If you want me to come there, I will,” she said after a moment.
“What I want you to do is tell me now if you’re trying to . . . let me down gently.”
“Oh, God! If I was trying to dump you, kindly or otherwise, I would not have offered to come there.”
“You mean that?”
“You think last night was a one-night stand for me?”
“Oh, God, I hope not,” he said, and laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“I seem to have acquired your penchant for ‘Oh, God!’ ”
“Are you all right to drive with your hand?”
“Sure.”
“Then go to an emergency room and I’ll see you at work. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“And we won’t look in each other’s eyes. Agreed?”
“With great reluctance.”
“Oh, God!” she said, and then there was the hiss that told him she had pressed the End key on her cellular.
[TWO]
Matt pulled the Porsche into the Emergency Trauma Center of Hahnemann Hospital on North Broad Street and parked beside a Sixth District wagon in the area with the sign POLICE AND EMERGENCY VEHICLES ONLY.
A man of about his age, wearing hospital greens and what looked like twenty-four hours of beard growth, stopped him as he was walking toward the hospital entrance.
He pointed wordlessly at the sign.
“I’m on the job,” Matt said, and pushed his jacket away from the badge on his belt with his sore hand.
“What did you do to the hand?”
“Fell over a fence,” Matt said.
The man waved his hand in a signal for Matt to follow him inside.
“You’re a doctor?” Matt asked.
“No, I wear this stuff because I like pastel colors.”
The paperwork didn’t take long.
The doctor was waiting for him in a treatment room.
“That’s nasty,” the doctor said. “Puncture wounds can be bad news. How’d you do it?”
“Going over a fence,” Matt said. “The top of the fence— the twisted ends of the wire?”
The doctor nodded. “Your tetanus up to date?”
“I suppose so.”
“Suppose doesn’t count,” the doctor said, as he opened a glass door in a white cabinet.
“This is going to hurt,” the doctor said.
It did.
And so did the injection of an antibiotic “as a precaution” in the other buttock.
“I hope you can shoot right-handed, Sherlock,” the doctor said. “For the next three, four days, that paw is going to be tender.”
“I’m right-handed. You going to put a bandage on it?”
“You want a bandage?”
“What I don’t want is people asking, ‘What did you do to your hand, it looks ghastly?’ ”
“I could paint the area with some lovely lavender antiseptic.”
“Just a simple large Band-Aid, please.”
“Okay. Why not?”
“Thank you.”
“You mind if I ask a couple of questions, Sherlock?”
“Shoot.”
“Why were you jumping over a fence?”
“I was chasing a guy who drove a stolen car through a red light and clobbered a family in a minivan.”
“You get him?”
Matt nodded.
“Good for you.”
“You said two questions.”
“Why did the cops stand around with their thumbs up their ass while that girl was being raped and murdered?”
[THREE]
Matt’s gluteus maximus began to ache as he got on the Roundhouse elevator. The doctor had said that both the tetanus booster and the antibiotic would probably cause “mild discomfort.”
The mild discomfort left his mind when he walked into Homicide and found that Detective Lassiter had already reported for duty. She was sitting at a desk with a telephone to her ear.
She was wearing a skirt and a double sweater. It didn’t matter. Her naked form was engraved forever in Matt’s mind.
She looked at him, then away.
“Already at it, Mother?” he said.
She looked at him, nodded, and then quickly looked away again.
“Captain wants to see you, Sergeant,” Detective Alonzo Kramer, a stocky, ruddy-faced, forty-three-year-old, said, pointing to Captain Quaire’s office.
Matt could see through the glass enclosure that Lieutenant Gerry McGuire, the commanding officer of Dignitary Protection, was with Quaire.
I wonder what that’s about?
Oh, shit! Stan Colt! I forgot all about that!
Quaire saw Matt coming and waved him into his office. “Good morning,” Matt said, politely.
“What happened to your face?” Quaire asked.
“I took a slide on a concrete driveway last night chasing a guy.”
Quaire gestured give me more with both hands.
“I almost had Lassiter home. . . .”
“From where?” Quaire asked, smiling.
“From Liberties. Lieutenant Washington had us meet him there. And afterward, I took her home. She had to give her unmarked back to Northwest.”
“And what happened? Detective Lassiter didn’t do that to your face, did she, Sergeant?” Captain Quaire asked, mock seriously. He looked to see if Lieutenant McGuire shared his sense of humor. From his smile, it was obvious that he did.
“No, sir,” Matt said. “As we came down Knight’s Road, off Woodhaven, a fellow in a stolen Grand Am ran the Red Lion stoplight, rammed into a Dodge Caravan, and took off running.”
“I saw that in the overnights,” McGuire said. “I thought Highway bagged that guy. You got involved in that?”
“I saw it. I had to.”
Quaire made another give me more gesture with his hands.
“It happened right in front of us. Lassiter called it in, then checked the people in the van, and I started chasing the guy.”
“And he gave you trouble?” Quaire asked, now seriously. “The face?”
“No, sir. While I was chasing him, I took a dive over a wire and scraped my face on a driveway. Then I tried going over a fence, and bruised my hand.”
“But you got the guy?”
“Yes, sir. Eighth District locked him up. But I’m going to have to go to Northeast Detectives to give a Detective Coleman a full statement. He only got the initial details for the affidavit3last night.
“Why didn’t you give your statement last night?” Quaire asked.
“I wanted to get some antiseptic on my face.”
“So why didn’t you do the paperwork last night, after you went to the emergency room and got some antiseptic on your face?”
“I didn’t go to the emergency room last night. I went to Hahnemann this morning.”
Quaire nodded.
“Consider yourself as of right now on temporary assignment to Dignitary Protection,” he said, and added, to McGuire: “Getting Sergeant Payne to Northeast Detectives Division to give his statement is now your responsibility, Lieutenant.”
“Thanks a lot,” McGuire said.
“Captain, can’t I get out of that?” Matt asked.
"Ask Lieutenant McGuire,” Quaire said. “You a
re now working for him.”
“I’m working the Williamson job,” Matt said.
“You are now working the Stan Colt job, Sergeant Payne,” McGuire said. “Mr. Colt, who will arrive at approximately three-fifteen, told Monsignor Schneider, who told the cardinal, who told the commissioner, who told me, that he’s really looking forward to working with you.”
“What does that mean?”
Quaire and McGuire smiled at each other.
“I think,” McGuire explained, smiling broadly, “that when the monsignor—who apparently is one of your biggest fans— spoke with Mr. Colt, he told him about your many heroic exploits. I think Mr. Colt heard that when Harrison Ford was preparing to make the movie Witness he came here to spend time with a real, live Philadelphia homicide detective . . .”
“Jesus Christ!” Matt said.
“. . . and has apparently decided that what was good enough for Harrison Ford is good enough for him.”
“Harrison Ford is an actor. Colt is a goddamn joke!”
“Don’t let the monsignor hear you say that,” Quaire said. “Much less the commissioner.”
“And for that matter, I have one day on the job in Homicide. I am hardly an experienced—”
“Lie down, shut up, and take this like a man, Matt,” Quaire said. “You’re dead. The commissioner has spoken.”
“It’s a dirty job, Sergeant, but someone has to do it,” McGuire said, smiling broadly.
Quaire chuckled. Matt glared at McGuire, who didn’t seem to notice.
“Mr. Colt,” McGuire went on, “will arrive by private jet at North Philadelphia Airport at three-fifteen. He will be met by the commissioner—or possibly the mayor, if he can get free; or both—Monsignor Schneider, myself, four Highway Patrol bikes, two of my people, representatives of the media, and of course you. Following what that good-looking press agent— What’s her name?”
“Terry Davis,” Matt furnished, automatically.
Jesus, Terry! She certainly dropped off my radar screen in a hurry after Olivia, didn’t she?
“—what Miss Terry Davis,” McGuire went on, “refers to as a ‘photo op,’ Mr. Colt and party will proceed—escorted by the Highway bikes—to the office of the cardinal, where there will be another photo op as the cardinal welcomes Mr. Colt back to Philadelphia . . .”
“He’s just a movie actor,” Matt said, shaking his head. “A lousy movie actor!”
“Who is about to raise several million dollars for West Catholic High School,” Captain Quaire said. “Which pleases the cardinal, and whatever pleases the cardinal pleases the commissioner.”
“. . . following which,” McGuire went on, “we will proceed to the Ritz-Carlton. Highway’s responsibility—the bikes— will end there. They’ll provide bikes to escort his limo to the events, but aside from that, it’s up to me to protect Mr. Colt from his hordes of fans, and you to keep him happy.”
“What makes him happy is young girls,” Matt said.
“Excuse me, Sergeant?” Quaire asked, coldly.
“Mr. Colt apparently likes young girls,” Matt said. “Very young girls.”
“Did you get that from one of the magazines in a supermarket checkout lane, or do you have another source of information? ” Quaire asked, sarcastically.
“Terry Davis told me,” Matt said. “I think she wants us to be prepared for that.”
“Oh, God!” Quaire said. “She wasn’t pulling your leg, Matt?”
“No, sir. I’m sure she was serious.”
“That should make this interesting for you, Gerry,” Quaire said.
“I don’t know how to handle something like that,” Matt said.
“We’ll just have to sit on him around the clock,” McGuire said. “If something like that gets in the papers, we’ll be held responsible.”
“He wants to see how real cops work,” Quaire said. “Show him. Everything from school crossing guards up. Keep him busy.”
“He’s going to want to see what he thinks is interesting,” Matt said. “Narcotics, Major Crimes, Homicide . . .”
“Vice,” McGuire said, chuckling.
“I wouldn’t be laughing if I were you, Gerry,” Quaire said. “And I don’t want him around here.”
“With all respect, sir, how do I tell him no?” Matt said.
Quaire thought that over before replying.
“If it happens, Matt, it happens. You know how I feel about it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re going to get some help from Special Operations?” Matt asked.
McGuire nodded.
“Sure.”
“Do we know who?”
“Somebody special you wanted?”
“Detectives McFadden and Martinez,” Matt said.
“Mutt and Jeff?” Quaire asked. “Dignitary Protection isn’t quite their specialty, is it?”
Detective Jesus Martinez, who was of Puerto Rican ancestry, and who was five feet eight inches tall and weighed just over one hundred thirty pounds, and Detective Charles T. McFadden, who was six feet two and outweighed Martinez by a hundred pounds, had been partners since they had graduated from the Police Academy.
The first assignment for nearly all academy graduates was to a district, and almost always to a district wagon, where for their first year or so on the job, they learned the nuts and bolts of being a police officer on the street by responding with the wagon to assist other officers in everything from hauling Aunt Alice to the hospital after she’d fallen in her bathtub, to hauling drunks and other violators of the peace and dignity of the City of Brotherly Love to the district lockup.
Almost routinely, however, two brand-new police officers were assigned to work undercover in the Narcotics Division. McFadden and Martinez were chosen for the assignment in the hope that few drug dealers would suspect either the small, intense Latino or the large, open-faced South Philadelphia Irishman of being police officers when they tried to make a buy of controlled substances.
McFadden and Martinez quickly proved themselves to be very adept at what they were assigned to do. But their superiors realized it was only going to be a matter of time until they became known to the drug trade generally—in other words, their appearance in court to testify against the drug dealers— and would lose their usefulness.
At this point, it was expected the young officers would be assigned to a district and start driving the district wagon.
Something else happened: McFadden and Martinez had— on their own, off-duty—joined the citywide search for the junkie who had shot Captain Dutch Moffitt, of Highway Patrol, to death. In the belief that Gerald Vincent Gallagher would be somewhere in the area, they staked out the Bridge and Pratt Street terminal of the subway.
When Gallagher had finally shown up, he refused to obey their order to halt and had run off down the subway tracks. McFadden and Martinez—already known as “Mutt and Jeff,” after the cartoon characters—had chased him, ignoring the danger, down the tracks until Gallagher fell against the third rail and then got himself run over by a subway train.
In the movies, or in cops-and-robbers programs on TV, with the mayor and assorted big shots beaming in the background, the commissioner would have handed them detective badges and congratulations for a job well done. But this was real life, and promotions to detective in the Philadelphia police department came only after you had taken, and passed, the civil service examination. Martinez and McFadden hadn’t been on the job long enough even to be eligible to take the examination.
And their sudden celebrity—their faces had been on the front pages of every newspaper in Philadelphia, and on every TV screen—had of course completely destroyed their usefulness as undercover Narcotics officers.
It had looked as if their reward for catching the junkie who’d shot Captain Dutch Moffitt—something the rest of the police department hadn’t been able to do for an embarrassingly long period—was going to be reassignment to driving a wagon in a district.
It didn’t seem fair, but
who said a cop’s life was fair? Life’s a bitch, and then you die.
At the same time, Cadet Matthew M. Payne, Captain Moffitt’s nephew, had been about to graduate from the Police Academy. In the opinion of then-Chief of Patrol Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin, the chances that Matt Payne would last six months on the job—much less that the police department would be his career—ranged from zero to zilch.
Coughlin believed that Matt—whom he had known from the day of his birth—had reacted to (a) the death of his uncle and (b) his failure of the U.S. Marine Corps’ Pre-Commissioning Physical Examination by applying for the police department to (a) avenge his uncle and (b) prove his manhood.
It was understandable, of course, but the bottom line was that a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, who had been raised not only in wealth but as the adopted son of a Philadelphia Brahmin, was very unlikely to find happiness walking a police beat. Worse, he was liable to get hurt.
Sergeant Dennis V. Coughlin had knocked at the door of his best friend’s pregnant wife to tell her that Sergeant Jack Moffitt had been killed responding to a silent alarm at a gas station in West Philadelphia.
Chief Inspector Coughlin had no intention of knocking at the door of Mrs. Patricia Moffitt Payne to tell her that her son—Jack’s son, his godson—Matt, had been killed in the line of duty.
And all of this had coincided with the formation, at the “suggestion” of the then-mayor of the City of Philadelphia, the Hon. Jerome H. “Jerry” Carlucci, of the Special Operations Division of the police department.
Mayor Carlucci, who boasted that he had held every rank in the Philadelphia police department except for policewoman, had not been at all bashful about making suggestions about the department to then-Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernich.
Mayor Carlucci had also “suggested” to Commissioner Czernich that he consider Staff Inspector Peter F. Wohl, then assigned to Internal Affairs, to be the commanding officer of the new Special Operations Division. Commissioner Czernich had immediately seen the wisdom of the suggestions, and issued the appropriate orders.
Peter Wohl was then the youngest staff inspector—ever— in the department. It was well-known that his father, Chief Inspector (Retired) August Wohl, had been Jerry Carlucci’s rabbi as the mayor had risen through the ranks. But it was also well-known that Peter Wohl was a hell of a good cop, an absolutely straight arrow, and smarter than hell, so the cries of nepotism were not as loud as they might have been.
Final Justice Page 30
