Final Justice

by W. E. B Griffin

[ONE]

  J. Richard Candelle, a squat, gray-haired fifty-year-old black man who wore his frameless spectacles low on his nose, looked over them at Detective Tony Harris, backed against a laboratory table, shook his head, and announced, “Tony, I’m sorry, that’s the best I can do. There’s just not enough points.”

  The reality of identification through fingerprints is not nearly as simple, or as easy, as a thousand cops-and-robbers movies have made the public—and, in fact, a surprising number of law enforcement officers—think it is.

  Fingerprints are identified—and compared with others— through a system of point location, and the classification of these points. The more points on a print, the better. The more prints—prints of more than one finger, of the heel of the hand, or ten fingers and both heels—and the more classified points on each print, the easier it is to find similarly classified prints in the files.

  Presupposing having both to compare, comparing the print found on the visor hat left behind by the doer at the Roy Rogers restaurant with the print of the doer himself would be relatively simple and would just about positively identify the suspect.

  But establishing the identity of the doer by finding a match of his index-finger print among the hundreds of thousands of index-finger prints in the files of the Philadelphia police department, or the millions in the FBI’s files, was a practical impossibility.

  Except, if a print could be obtained with many “good” points, that could be point classified.

  J. Richard Candelle, Philadelphia’s fingerprint expert, had just not been able to detect enough points on the single index finger print he had to offer even a slight chance of matching it with a print in the files.

  “Fuck, that’s not good enough,” Harris said, bitterly.

  “I will elect not to consider that a personal criticism, and under these circumstances forgive your vulgarity.” Candelle, whose forensic laboratory skills were legendary, was a dignified man, befitting his part-time status as an adjunct professor of chemistry at Temple University.

  “It wasn’t a shot at you, Dick, and you know it,” Harris said.

  Candelle waited until he saw what he thought was a genuine look of regret on Harris’s face, and then went on:

  “I was here all fucking night, Tony. I had two fucking doughnuts for breakfast, my fucking feet hurt, and I have had every fucking white shirt in the Roundhouse in here making sure I was really doing my fucking best.”

  Harris looked at him.

  “Well, in that case, you fucking overworked old fart, I guess I better buy you some fucking lunch before you fucking expire of starvation, old age, and self-pity right here in the fucking lab.”

  “I think that would be an appropriate gesture of your gratitude, ” Candelle replied, smiled, and started to replace his laboratory coat with a sports coat.

  Using tweezers, Candelle picked up the crownless visor cap the doer had left behind in the Roy Rogers and replaced it in the plastic evidence bag.

  “You want me to hang on to this, Tony?”

  “No. Give it to me. Maybe I’ll take it to a psychic.”

  Candelle chuckled.

  “I really am sorry, Tony,” he said.

  Harris punched him affectionately on the arm.

  “We both are, Dick,” he said. “What do you feel like eating? ”

  They went to DiNic’s in the Reading Terminal Market on Twelfth Street and sat on stools at a counter. Both ordered roast pork sandwiches with sharp provolone cheese and roasted hot peppers and washed them down with beer.

  “I hate to reopen a wound,” Candelle said, “but I just had another unpleasant thought.”

  “Which is?”

  “It’s really a shame Luther Stecker retired.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “The State Police guy, in Harrisburg. Lieutenant.”

  “Oh, yeah. I don’t think he could have done anything you couldn’t,” Harris said. “I hadn’t heard he’d retired.”

  Candelle looked at his watch.

  “Today,” he said. “I was invited to his retirement party. Tonight. I decided Harrisburg was too far to drive for free beer.”

  “What makes you think he could have helped?”

  “He’s got a new machine, AFIS. It stands for Automated Fingerprint Identification System.”

  “And?”

  “It’s supposed to be able to get points off a week-old print on a dry falling leaf in a high wind.”

  “You’re serious?”

  Candelle nodded.

  “Harrisburg, here I come,” Tony said.

  “I told you, Stecker’s retiring today.”

  “Well, there ought to be somebody else out there who knows how to operate this wonder machine.”

  “Tony, if I thought there was, I’d suggest you go out there.”

  “Well, won’t the FBI have one?” Harris asked. “As a last desperate move, I’m going to send the goddamn hat to them.”

  “They probably have a half-dozen of them. But whether they have anybody who knows how to use one, get all that it is capable of from it, is another question.” He paused, then added, “There’s a question of experience, even art, in this.”

  “So we’re dead, huh?”

  Candelle shrugged.

  “It looks that way. I’m sorry. So what are you going to do now?”

  “We’re down to showing the artist’s sketches to everybody again. And we both know that’s not going to work. Everybody in the place saw somebody else.”

  “At the risk of repeating myself, Tony, I’m really sorry I couldn’t do more. Maybe the FBI’ll be able to.”

  “You’re sure nobody in the State Police could do us any good? Who’s taking Stecker’s place?”

  “I met the gentleman,” Candelle said. “He left me with the impression he would have trouble finding his posterior with both hands.”

  “Great!”

  Harris drove his Crown Victoria to the rear door of the Roundhouse.

  “You’re not coming in?” Candelle asked.

  “No. I’m going to go somewhere to try to figure out what to tell the Black Buddha,” he said.

  “I’ll do that for you, Tony,” Candelle said, “before I go home. I don’t want him calling me at the house to have one more shot at it.”

  “ ‘Turn over the stone under the stone’?”

  “We’re out of stones on this hat, Tony,” Candelle said. “And I think the Black Buddha’s more likely to accept that from me than you.”

  “Good luck!” Harris said. He held out his hand to Candelle. “Thanks a lot, Dick. I really appreciate all the effort.”

  “I’m just sorry it didn’t get us anywhere,” Candelle said, nodded, closed the car door, and walked toward the Roundhouse entrance.

  Tony started to drive out of the parking lot, but at the last moment pulled into a vacant space, took out his cellular telephone, and punched the key that automatically dialed directory information.

  “What city, please?”

  “Fuck it,” Tony said, and punched the End key.

  He backed out of the parking space, then left the parking lot, wondering what was the best way to get onto Interstate 76 this time of day.

  “Jason,” he said, aloud, “if you want the last goddamn stone under the stone turned over, I’ll damned well turn the sonofabitch over.”

  Ten minutes later, just as he turned onto I-76 West, his cellular buzzed.

  “Harris.”

  “Presumably you are aware of Professor Candelle’s—” Lieutenant Jason Washington’s unmistakable dulcet voice said.

  “I was there.”

  “And what are your plans now?”

  “I’m thinking, Jason.”

  “And may I inquire about what?”

  “No. Not now.”

  “May I dare to hope that when you feel comfortable in telling me, you will call?”

  “Don’t hold your breath, Jason. This is probably one more blind alley.”

  “Sometimes at th
e end of a blind alley, one finds a stone,” Washington began.

  “Thank you for sharing that with me, Lieutenant,” Tony interrupted. “I’ll write it down so that I won’t forget it.”

  “Good afternoon, Detective Harris,” Washington said, and the hiss that followed told Harris Washington had hung up.

  He tossed the cellular onto the seat.

  So he’s a little pissed that I won’t tell him.

  Better that than to tell him, get his hopes up, and then get kicked in the teeth again when this doesn’t work.

  [TWO]

  Matt arrived at the North Philadelphia Airport at half past two, to find that he was ahead of Lieutenant McGuire, but not of the Eighth District captain, who was supervising more than a dozen of his uniforms in setting up barriers to keep what looked like sixty or seventy—maybe more—of Stan Colt’s fans under control.

  Matt looked closer and saw that there were two barriers, one for the fans—a surprising number of whom were gray-haired adults—and a second for the press.

  He was wondering if he should at least identify himself to the Eighth District captain when Lieutenant McGuire arrived, got out of his car, waved at Matt, and then went to talk to the captain.

  Four Highway bikes arrived next, in a roar of engines, under a sergeant. McGuire pointed out where they should park, and when they had, the Highway sergeant took off his helmet and hung it on his handlebar. Matt then recognized him as the sergeant who had been on Knight’s Road the night before.

  The night before? That seems like two weeks ago.

  He walked over to Matt.

  “How’s the face?” he asked.

  “It’s sore, and I went to Hahnemann this morning and they gave me shots and now my ass hurts.”

  The sergeant chuckled.

  “You did get to see Detective Coleman at Northeast, right?”

  “Just came from there. I appreciate the help last night. All of it.”

  “I know guys on the job wouldn’t have done what you did,” the sergeant said. “They’d say, Fuck it, I’ve had a couple of drinks, why take the chance of getting my ass in a crack?”

  “I wasn’t being noble. I just did it.”

  “You were being a good cop,” the sergeant said. “Good cops take care of each other.”

  Detective Charley McFadden walked up to them.

  “What happened to your face?” he asked.

  “Where’s Man Mountain Martinez?” Matt asked, ignoring the question.

  “He took a dive onto a concrete driveway running down the guy in the hot Grand Am who smacked the van on Knight’s Road,” the Highway sergeant offered, helpfully.

  “That was you?” Charley asked.

  “Where’s Martinez?” Matt asked again.

  “He’ll be here in a minute.”

  “What have Mutt and Jeff got to do with this nonsense?” the Highway sergeant asked.

  “Sergeant,” Charley said, “that’s what I’ve been trying to get Sergeant Payne to explain.”

  A white Lincoln stretch limousine rolled up. McGuire signaled to the driver to put it behind the Highway bikes.

  “Our hero’s chariot, I guess,” the Highway sergeant said.

  “That’s a Classic Livery limo,” Matt said. “I wonder if we should tell our hero he’s being ferried around by the mob?”

  The Highway sergeant and McFadden, who knew that Classic Livery was one of Philadelphia mob boss Vincenzo Savarese’s legitimate businesses, chuckled.

  A black Cadillac, a black Crown Victoria, and a black Buick Park Avenue rolled onto the tarmac.

  “The mayor and the commissioner,” the Highway sergeant said. “I think that’s one of the cardinal’s cars, but there’s no one in it.”

  That mystery was immediately explained when both the Hon. Alvin W. Martin, mayor of the City of Philadelphia, and Monsignor Schneider climbed out of the Cadillac. Police Commissioner Ralph J. Mariani got quickly out of the passenger’s front seat of the Crown Victoria and walked up to them.

  “I guess I better start looking busy,” the Highway sergeant said, and started to walk back to the Highway bikes. As he passed the mayor and party, he saluted. Commissioner Mariani waved him over.

  A moment later, the Highway sergeant pointed to Matt, and a moment after that, started to walk quickly—almost trot—back to where Matt and McFadden were standing.

  “The commissioner wants to see you,” the Highway sergeant said.

  “Oh, shit,” Matt muttered, and walked over.

  “Good morning, Mr. Mayor, Commissioner, Monsignor,” Matt said.

  “My goodness,” Monsignor Schneider said, “what happened to your face?”

  “I lost my footing chasing a fellow last night, Monsignor.”

  “How was that, Sergeant?” the mayor asked.

  “I was chasing a car thief, sir.”

  “The one on Knight’s Road?” Commissioner Mariani asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, Sergeant,” the commissioner said. “But it was a little more than that, wasn’t it? The fellow ran a light, slammed into a family in a van, and sent them all to the hospital? And then left the scene?”

  "Yes, sir.”

  “I saw that in the paper,” the mayor said.

  “Did you catch him?” Monsignor Schneider asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You really do get around, don’t you, Sergeant?” the monsignor said, admiringly.

  “What’s with the hand?” the commissioner asked.

  “I bruised it on the driveway, sir.”

  “And still managed to catch this fellow?” the monsignor asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What did you do, walk up on it, Sergeant?” Mariani asked.

  “Yes, sir. I was taking . . . a detective—we were working on the Williamson job—home. And it happened right in front of us.”

  “And how is that going?” Schneider asked. “The Williamson ’job,’ I think you said?”

  “Well, sir, we have a pretty good psychological profile of the doer that should help us find him, and we have some pretty good evidence to put him away once we do—”

  “For example?” the monsignor interrupted.

  “With all respect, Monsignor, I’m not supposed to talk about details of an ongoing investigation.”

  “And that’s a good rule, and I’m pleased to see you’re paying attention to it,” Commissioner Mariani said. “But I’d like to know, and I think the mayor would, and neither the mayor nor me is about to ask Monsignor Schneider to give us a moment alone. I’m sure he understands why.”

  “My lips are sealed, Sergeant,” the monsignor said.

  “Yes, sir,” Matt said. “There was sperm at the scene, sir. They are already doing the DNA. Once we catch this fellow, get another DNA sample from him, and match it, it’ll prove conclusively that he was at the scene.”

  “The certainty of a DNA match is on the order of several million to one, Monsignor,” Commissioner Mariani pronounced.

  “Absolutely fascinating,” the monsignor said. “I was just telling the commissioner and the mayor, Sergeant, that when I last spoke with Stan, he made it pretty clear that while he’s here—and we don’t have him occupied—he’d like to spend some time watching the police—specifically you, Sergeant— at work. I confess I hadn’t thought about what you just said about your having to be closemouthed about details of an ongoing investigation.”

  “I don’t think that would be any problem with Mr. Colt,” the mayor said. “Do you, Commissioner?”

  “The problem, Mr. Mayor,” Mariani replied, “would be making sure that Mr. Colt understood that whatever he saw, or heard, when he was with Sergeant Payne couldn’t go any further.”

  “I don’t think that would be a problem at all,” Monsignor Schneider said. “I’m sure Stan would understand. After all, he’s played a detective on the screen so often.”

  The commissioner smiled. A little wanly, Matt thought.

>   A Traffic Unit sergeant walked up to them, saluted, and said, “Commissioner, Mr. Colt’s airplane’s about to land.”

  [THREE]

  Lieutenant Ross J. Mueller of the Forensic Laboratory of the Pennsylvania State Police in Harrisburg rose to his feet and extended his hand when Tony Harris was shown into his office.

  “What can we do for you, Detective?” he asked, smiling cordially.

  Mueller was a very large, muscular man who wore a tight-fitting uniform and his hair in a crew cut. Tony remembered what Dick Candelle had said about him probably having trouble finding his ass with both hands.

  “Thank you for seeing me, sir,” Tony said, “but I really hoped I could see Lieutenant Stecker.”

  Mueller looked at his watch.

  “At the end of this tour—in other words, in an hour and five minutes—Lieutenant Stecker will hang up his uniform hat for the last time, and enter a well-deserved retirement. I’m taking his place. Now, how can Headquarters help Philadelphia?”

  “Sir, I’m working a homicide. . . .”

  “In what capacity?”

  “Sir?”

  “As the lead detective? One of the investigators? In what capacity?”

  “I’m the lead detective on the job, sir.”

  “And you’re here officially?”

  “Yes, sir, I’m here officially.”

  “I thought perhaps that was the case. I don’t recall hearing that you were coming.”

  “Sir, I just got in the car and came out here.”

  “You didn’t check with your supervisor so that he could make an appointment for you?”

  “No, sir, I did not.”

  “And who is your supervisor?”

  “Lieutenant Jason Washington, sir.”

  “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” Lieutenant Mueller said, writing Washington’s name on a lined pad.

  If you don’t know who Jason Washington is, Herr Storm Trooper, you really can’t find your ass with both hands.

  “Could you give me his phone number, please?” Lieutenant Mueller asked.

  Tony gave him, from memory, the number of the commanding officer of the K-9 Unit of the Philadelphia police department. It was in his memory because he had noticed that it was identical, except for the last two digits, which were reversed, to that of the Homicide Unit.