"I saw that in the file," Amy said.
"Maybe he drives around looking through windows," Wohl thought aloud, "and when he finds a naked, or partially naked, woman, that turns him on."
"That might have been the trigger early on," Amy said. "I can't really say. But now that I'm almost certain this man is out of control, I don't really know what effect, if any, that would have."
"Ummm," Peter Wohl said, thoughtfully.
"If that's all, Inspector, it's very late."
"Actually," Peter Wohl blurted, "I had something else in mind."
It had, in fact, occurred to him two seconds before.
"Yes?" Amy said, impatiently.
"I really enjoyed our time together," Wohl plunged on, "and I hoped that you might have dinner with me sometime. On a nonprofessional basis."
"Oh, I see," she heard herself saying. "We could run through a long line of gangster-owned restaurants where fellow men of honor get free meals, is that it?"
There was a long pause, long enough for Amy to wonderwhat's wrong with me? Why did I say that?
"I beg your pardon, Doctor. I won't trouble you again."
Oh, God, he's going to hang up!
"Peter-"
There was no reply for a long moment, and then he said, "I'm here."
"I don't know why I said that. I'm sorry."
He didn't reply.
"I would love to have dinner with you," Amy heard herself blurting. " Call me. Tomorrow. I'm glad you called."
"So'm I," Peter Wohl said, happily. "Good night, Amy."
The line went dead.
She looked at herself in the mirror again.
Oh, God, she thought. It was Freudian. Sex is what that was all about!
SIXTEEN
At five minutes to eight, the nineteen police officers assigned to the day shift of the Fourteenth Police District gathered in the Roll Call Room of the district building at Germantown and Haines Streets, and went through the roll call ritual, under the eyes of Captain Charles D. Emerson, the Fourteenth District Commander, a heavyset, gray-haired man of fifty.
The officers formed in ranks, and went through the ritual, obviously based on similar rituals in the armed forces, of inspection in ranks. Trailed by the Sergeant, Captain Emerson marched through the three ranks of men, stopping in front of each to examine his appearance, the length of his hair, whether or not he was closely shaved, and the cleanliness of his weapon, which each officer held up in front of him, with the cylinder open. Several times, perhaps six, Captain Emerson had something to say to an officer: a suggestion that he needed a new shirt, or a shoe shine, or that he was getting a little too fat.
When the Inspection in Ranks was completed, the Sergeant stood before the men and read aloud from several items on a clipboard.
Some of the items he read were purely administrative, and local in nature, dealing with, for example, vacation schedules; and some had come over the police teletype from the Roundhouse with orders that they be read at roll calls. They dealt with such things as the death and funeral arrangements for two retired and one active police officers.
There were some items of a local nature, in particular the report of another burglary of the residence of a Miss Martha Peebles of 606 Glengarry Lane in Chestnut Hill, coupled with instructions that Radio Patrol cars and Emergency Patrol wagons on all shifts were to make a special effort to ride by the Peebles residence as often as possible.
"And we are still looking for Miss Elizabeth Woodham," the Sergeant concluded. "That's at the top of the list. You all have her description, and what description we have of the probable doer and his van. We have to get the lady back. Report anything you come across."
The day shift of the Fourteenth District was then called to attention, and dismissed, and left the Roll Call Room to get in their cars and go on duty.
Captain Charles D. Emerson walked over to Staff Inspector Peter Wohl, who had entered the room just as the roll call started.
"How are you, Peter?" he said, putting out his hand. "Or is this an occasion when I should call you Inspector?"
Staff Inspector Wohl had no authority whatever over the Fourteenth Police District, and both of them knew it. But hewas a Staff Inspector, and hewas the new commander of the new Special Operations Division, and no one, including Captain Emerson, had any idea what kind of clout went with the title.
"I hope I didn't get in the way, Charley," Wohl said, shaking Emerson's hand.
"Don't be silly. Distinguished visitors are always welcome at my roll calls."
Wohl chuckled. He knew the roll call ritual had been a bit more formal than usual, because of his presence.
"Bullshit, Charley," Wohl said, smiling at him.
"What can I do for you, Peter?" Emerson smiled back.
"You want the truth?"
"When all else fails, sometimes that helps."
"I'm covering my ass, Charley. This Peebles woman has friends in high places."
"So Commissioner Czernick has led me to believe," Emerson said, dryly. "He's been on the phone to me, too."
"So now both of us can tell him, if he asks, and I think he will, that you and I are coordinating our resources to bring Miss Peebles's burglar to the bar of justice."
Emerson chuckled.
"That's all, Peter?"
"I have the Woodham job. The Northwest rapist. Did you hear?"
"Czernick must like you."
"Czernick, hell. Carlucci."
"Ouch."
"I was hoping… maybe something turned up here?"
"I can't think of a thing, Peter. But come on in the office, and we' ll call in the watch commander and whoever and kick it around over a cup of coffee."
"Thanks, but no thanks. I've got another roll call to make. Special Operations' first roll call. But call me, or better Jason Washington or Tony Harris-use the Highway Commander's number to get them-if you think of anything, will you?"
"They're working for you?" Emerson asked, surprised.
"Somewhat reluctantly."
"You must have some clout to get them transferred to you."
"I think the word is 'rope,' Charley. As in 'he now has enough rope to hang himself.' "
Captain Emerson's eyebrows rose thoughtfully. He did not offer even apro forma disagreement.
"Say hello to your dad for me when you see him, will you, Peter?" he said.
****
Fifteen minutes later, Wohl walked into the Roll Call Room at Bustleton and Bowler. He had arrived just in time for the roll call. Captains Pekach and Sabara, and Detectives Washington and Harris, were already in the room, and ultimately, sixteen other police officers came into the room and formed into two ranks.
The sixteen newcomers were a Sergeant, a Corporal, a Detective, and thirteen Police Officers who had reported for duty to the Special Operations Division that morning, and been directed to the Roll Call Room by Sergeant Frizell when they walked in the door.
"Form in ranks," Captain Sabara called, unnecessarily, as the last of the newcomers was doing just that. Then he turned to Wohl, and asked, rather formally, "You want to take this, Inspector?"
"You go ahead, Mike," Wohl said.
Sabara nodded, and moved in front of the formation of policemen.
"Let me have your attention, please," Sabara said. "You all know me, and you probably know Inspector Wohl and Captain Pekach, too, but in case you don't, that's Captain Pekach, the High Commander, and that's the boss. Special Operations now has Highway, in case that wasn't clear to everybody.
"Welcome to Special Operations. I think you'll find it, presuming you can cut the mustard, a good assignment, an interesting job. And we're going to put you right to work.
"You all have read the papers," Sabara said, "and know that a woman named Elizabeth J. Woodham was abducted at knifepoint by a doer we think is the man who has been raping women all over Northwest Philadelphia. Let me tell you, we have damned little to go on.
"Getting Miss Woodham back alive from this c
ritter is the first priority of business for Special Operations. For those of you who don' t know them, the two gentlemen standing beside the Inspector are Detectives Washington and Harris. They came to Special Operations from Homicide and the Inspector has put them in charge of the investigation. They report directly to his office, and if they ask you to do something in connection with this investigation, you can take it as if it came from either me or the Inspector himself.
"We have some cars, and we're getting more. They have the J-Band, of course, and they have-or will have, Sergeant Frizell will talk to you about that-the Highway Band and the Detective Band, and when the Roundhouse gets around to assigning one to us, will have a Special Operations Band. From now until we get this lady back, forget about eight-hour shifts."
He paused, looked thoughtful for a moment, then gestured toward Washington.
"Detective Washington will now tell you what we've got, and what we' re looking for."
Wohl saw, except on one or two faces, an expression of interest, perhaps even excitement.
There is, he thought, except in the most jaded, cynical cops, an element of little boy playing cops and robbers, a desire to get involved in something more truly coplike than handing out speeding tickets and settling domestic disputes, in being sent out to catch a bona fide bad guy, to rescue the damsel in distress from the dragon.
And Mike Sabara has just told them that's what we want them to do, and the proof stands there in the person of Jason Washington. There is still an element of romance in the title "Detective, " and an even greater element of romance in the persona of a homicide detective, and Washington is literally a legend among homicide detectives; sort of real-life Sherlock Holmes. They are in the presence of what they dreamed of being themselves, and maybe still do, and they know it.
Washington spoke for about five minutes, tracing the activities of the serial rapist from the first job, before anyone even thought of that term. He didn't waste any words, but neither, Wohl thought, did he leave anything even possibly important out.
"And since we have, essentially, nothing to go on," Washington concluded, "we have to do it the hard way, ringing doorbells, digging in garbage cans, asking the same questions over and over again. Tony Harris has the only idea that may turn something up that I can think of, so I'll turn this over to him."
Tony Harris, Wohl thought, does not present anything close to the confident, formidable presence Washington projects. He's a weasel compared to an elephant. No. That's too strong. A mangy lion, the kind you see in the cages of a cheap circus, compared to an elephant. Where the hell does he get his clothes? Steal them from a Salvation Army depository? Did the Judge really give his ex-wife everything? Or is Tony trying to support two women, and taking the cost out of his clothing budget?
But almost as soon as Tony started to speak, Wohl saw that the interest of the newcomers-who had almost audibly been wonderingWho the hell is this guy? began to perk up. Within a minute or two, they were listening to him with as rapt attention as they had given Washington. Who the hell is this guy? had been replaced withThis sonofabitch really knows what he's talking about!
Tony delivered a concise lecture on sexual deviation and perversity, went from there to the psychology of the flasher, the molester, the voyeur, the patron of prostitutes, and the rapist, and then presented a profile of the man they were looking for that differed from the one Wohl had got from Dr. Amelia Alice Payne only in that he didn't mention "the slippery slope" or "invincibility."
And then he told them what they were looking for, and how he wanted them to look for it: "What I've come up with is a list of minor sexual offenders, white males who have misdemeanor arrests for any of a long list of weird behavior, I'm still working on coming up with names.
…"
He stopped and looked at Wohl.
"Inspector, I used to work with Bart Cumings in South Detectives," he said, indicating the Sergeant among the newcomers. "Could I have him to work with me on the files?"
"You've got him," Wohl said, smiling at Sergeant Cumings. He saw Officer Matt Payne enter the Roll Call Room, look around, and then head for him.
I'll bet I know what Payne wants, Wohl thought. And I'll bet Sergeant Cumings will be out of that uniform by tomorrow morning. If he waits that long to get out of it.
In the Police Department rank structure, the step up from police officer was either to detective or corporal, who received the same pay. There was no such rank as "detective sergeant," so a detective who took and passed the sergeant's examination took the risk of being assigned anywhere in the department where a sergeant was needed, and that most often meant a uniformed assignment. After a detective had been on the job awhile, the prospect of going back in uniform, even as a sergeant, was not attractive. Very few uniformed sergeants got much overtime. Divisional detectives, counting their overtime, always took home more money than captains. Homicide detectives like Tony Harris and Jason Washington, for example, for whom twenty-four hour days were not at all unusual, took as much money home as a Chief Inspector.
Some detectives, thinking of retirement, which was based on rank, took the Sergeant's exam hoping that when they were promoted they would get lucky and remain assigned to the Detective Division. Wohl felt sure that Sergeant Cumings was one of those who had taken the gamble, and lost, and wound up as a uniformed sergeant someplace that was nowhere as interesting a job as being a detective had been. That explained his volunteering for Special Operations. If he had been a crony of Harris in South Detectives, that meant he had been a pretty good detective.
And if he could work here, in civilian clothes, he would be, Wohl knew, very pleased with the arrangement. He wondered if Cumings would ask permission to wear plainclothes, and decided he probably would not. He was an experienced cop who had learned that if you ask permission to do something, the answer was often no. But if you did the same thing, like working in an investigative job in plainclothes without asking, probably no one would question you.
Wohl decided that whether Cumings asked for permission to work in civilian clothes, or just did it, it would be all right,
"Anyway, what we need you guys to do," Tony Harris went on, "is check these people out. Very quietly. I don't want anybody going where these people work and asking their boss if they think the guy could be the rapist. You work on the presumption of innocence. What you will look for is whether or not he fits the rough description we have-hairy and well spoken. And we look for the van. We've already run these people through Harrisburg for a match with a van and come up with zilch. But maybe his neighbor's got a van, or his brother-in-law, or maybe he gets to bring one home from work. And that'sall you do! You hit on something, you report it to Washington or me, and now Sergeant Cumings. Unless there's no way you can avoid it, I don't want you talking to these people. You just thin out the list for us. Anybody got any questions about that?"
"You mean, we find this guy, we don't arrest him?" a voice called out.
"Not unless he's got the schoolteacher in the van with him," Harris said, "with her life clearly in danger. Otherwise, you report it, that's all. We're dealing with a real sicko here, and there's no telling what he'll do if he figures he's about to get grabbed."
"Like what, for example, he hasn't already done?" a sarcastic voice called.
Wohl looked quickly to spot the wiseass, but was not successful.
Harris's face showed contempt, not anger, but Wohl suspected there was both, and Harris immediately proved it.
"Okay," Harris said, "since you apparently can't figure it out yourself. We bag this guy, a hairy guy who speaks as if he went past the eighth grade, and who has a van. We even get one or more of the victims to identify him. But we don't have Miss Woodham, all right? So, if he doesn't figure this out himself, and he's smart, he gets a lawyer and the lawyer says,'Just keep denying it, Ace. Nobody saw you without your mask, and I'll confuse them when I get them on the stand
… make them pick you out of a line of naked hairy men wearing
masks, or something!' That's how he would beat the first rapes, unless we can get what we professional detectives call 'evidence.' "
The identity of the wiseass was now clear. At least four of the newcomers had turned around to glower contemptuously at him.
"And we seem to have forgotten Miss Woodham, haven't we?" Harris went on. "Who is the reason we're all out looking for this scumbag in the first place. Now just for the sake of argument, let's say he's got her tied up someplace, like a warehouse or something. Some place we can't connect him to. So our cowboy says,"Where's the dame?" and our guy says"What dame?" and our cowboy says,"You know what dame, Miss Woodham, " and our sicko says,"Not only did I not piss all over the one lady, I never heard of anybody named Woodham. You got a witness?" So the latest victim, the one we're trying to find, cowboy, starves or suffocates or goes insane, wherever this scumbag has her tied up. Because once our sicko knows we're on to him, he's not going to go anywhere near the victim. Does that answer your question, smartass?"
Harris handled that perfectly, Wohl thought.
"You think she's still alive?" another newcomer asked, softly.
"We won't know that until we find her," Harris said. "That's all I've got, Captain."
Sabara turned to Wohl.
"Have you got anything, Inspector?"
"Going along with what Harris said, Captain," Wohl said. "About not making the man we're looking for any more disturbed than he is, what would you think about putting as many of these officers as it takes in plainclothes? And in unmarked cars?"
"I'll find out how many unmarked cars there are and set it up, sir," Sabara said.
"If necessary, Mike, take unmarked cars from Highway."
"Yes, sir. Anything else, sir?"
Wohl shook his head and turned to face Matt Payne, who was now standing beside him.
"Inspector, Chief Coughlin called," Matt said, surprising Peter Wohl not at all. "He wants you to call him right away."
"Okay," Wohl said, and walked out of the Roll Call Room toward his office.
As he passed Sergeant Frizell's desk, Wohl told him, "Call Chief Coughlin for me, please."
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