The Victim boh-3

by W. E. B Griffin

  "Didn't," Wohl said, interrupting. "B.W."

  " 'B.W.,' sir?"

  "Before Wohl," Wohl explained. "And do I have the authority? I don't know. But until someone tells me in writing that I don't, I'm going to presume that I do."

  "Yes, sir," DeBenedito said.

  "I don't think length of service would be that important a criterion for getting into Highway," Wohl said. "I think doing an outstanding job should carry more weight."

  "Sir," DeBenedito said, "with respect, Highway is different."

  He saw in the look on Captain Sabara's face that that had been the wrong thing to say.

  "Cutting this short," Wohl said, a hint of annoyance in his voice, "based on Captain Sabara's recommendation of you, Sergeant, you are herewith appointed probationary evaluation officer for Officers Jesus Martinez and Charles McFadden, whose probationary period begins today. If you run into any problems, let Captain Pekach know. That will be all. Thank you."

  Captain Pekach had followed DeBenedito out of Wohl's office.

  "I want to introduce you to Martinez and McFadden," Pekach said. " I told them to wait in the roll call room."

  "I guess I said the wrong thing in there, huh?" DeBenedito had asked.

  "You're going to have to learn to know what you're talking about before you open your mouth," Pekach had replied. "I don't think you would have told the inspector that Highway was different if you knew he was the youngest sergeant ever in Highway, would you?"

  "Jesus, was he?"

  "Yeah, he was. He was also the youngest captain the Department has ever had,is the youngest staff inspector the Department has ever had, and if he doesn't shoot himself in the foot with Special Operations, stands, I think, a damned good chance to be the youngest full inspector."

  "Should I go back in there and apologize?"

  "No. Let it go. Peter Wohl doesn't carry a grudge. But if you're looking for advice, don't start this evaluation business with Martinez and McFadden thinking it's a dumb idea it was your bad luck to get stuck with. Give it your best shot."

  "Yes, sir," DeBenedito said. "They worked for you in Narcotics, didn't they, Captain?"

  "Yeah. And they both did a good job for me. But if you're asking if this was my idea, the answer is no. And if you're asking whether I think either of them can cut the mustard, the answer is, I don't know."

  ****

  Sergeant Nick DeBenedito, driving with great skill, drove up the ramps until he reached the fourth floor. Then he stopped by the stairwell.

  "Martinez," he ordered calmly, "you go up the stairs. I don't think we're still going to find anybody up there, but you never know. If you hear somebody going down the stairs, go and yell down at the district guy." He pointed to the side of the parking garage, where a line of windows were open.

  "Got it," Martinez said, then got out of the car and went to the stairwell. DeBenedito saw him take his revolver from his holster and carefully push the stairwell door open and go inside. Then DeBenedito stepped on the accelerator and started up the last ramp to the roof. As he drove, he drew his revolver.

  Jesus Martinez listened carefully inside the stairwell for any noise and heard none. Then he went up the stairs, taking them two at a time, until he reached the door opening onto the roof.

  He listened there for a moment, heard nothing, and then, standing clear of the door, pushed it open. He quickly glanced around. Sergeant DeBenedito was out of his car. He was holding his revolver in both hands, aiming at someone out of sight.

  Christ, Jesus Martinez thought in admiration, he's already got the son of a bitch on the ground!

  He trotted between the parked cars, staying out of what would be the line of fire if DeBenedito fired his revolver, until he could see who was on the ground.

  There was the body of a girl in a fancy dress, lying in a pool of blood, and a man in a tuxedo, lying facedown.

  "Put cuffs on him, Martinez," DeBenedito ordered.

  The man lying facedown moved his head to look at Jesus Martinez.

  "Hay-zus, tell him I'm a cop," Matt Payne said.

  "Sergeant," Martinez said, "he's a cop."

  DeBenedito looked at him, more for absolute confirmation than in surprise. He started to holster his gun.

  "Sorry," he said.

  Matt Payne got to his knees.

  "Is there a wagon on the way?"

  "Martinez, yell down for that wagon to get up here," DeBenedito ordered. Jesus ran to the edge of the roof and did so.

  "There's a body, white male, head blown away, over by the stairwell," Payne said, pointing. "I think the doer, doers, were long gone when I drove up here."

  "You look familiar," DeBenedito said. "I know you?"

  "My name is Payne," Matt said. "I work for Inspector Wohl."

  Oh, shit!DeBenedito thought. And then he knew who this guy in the tuxedo was. He was the rookie who had blown the brains of the Northwest Philly serial rapist all over his van.

  FIVE

  "What the hell happened here?" Sergeant DeBenedito asked Matt Payne as he dropped to one knee to examine the woman on the floor.

  She was unconscious but not dead. When he felt his fingers on her neck, feeling for a heartbeat, she moaned. DeBenedito looked impatiently over his shoulder for the wagon.

  If we don't get her to a hospital soon, she will be dead.

  "She was on the ground, the floor, when I drove up here," Matt said. "When I saw she was shot, I sent my date down to call it in. Then I found the dead guy."

  "Any idea who they are?"

  "Her name is Detweiler," Matt said. "Penny-Penelope- Detweiler. I guess she was up here with her car-"

  "Brilliant," DeBenedito said sarcastically.

  "She was going the same place we were," Matt said. "She's a bridesmaid-"

  "A what?"

  "A bridesmaid. There's a dinner at the Union League."

  "Who is she?"

  "I told you. Her name is Detweiler," Matt said, and then finally understood the question. "She lives in Chestnut Hill. Her father is president of Nesfoods."

  "But you don't know the other victim?"

  "No. I don't think he was with her. He's not wearing a dinner jacket."

  "A what?"

  "A tuxedo. The dinner is what they call 'black-tie.'"

  RPW 902 came onto the roof.

  Officer Howard C. Sawyer saw DeBenedito and the victim and quickly and skillfully turned the van around and backed up to them. Officer Thomas Collins, riding shotgun in 902, was out of the wagon before it stopped, first signaling to Sawyer when to stop and then quickly opening the rear door.

  "This one's still alive," DeBenedito said. "There's a dead one-" He stopped, thinking, I don't know if the other one is dead or not; all I have is this rookie's opinion that he's dead.

  "The other oneis dead, right?" he asked, challenging Matt Payne.

  "The top of his head is gone," Matt said.

  DeBenedito looked at Officers Sawyer, Collins, Payne, and Martinez.

  What I have here is four fucking rookies!

  The victim moaned as Sawyer and Collins, as gently as they could, picked her up and slid her onto a stretcher.

  The second officer in an RPW, the one said to be "riding shotgun," was officially designated as "the recorder"; he was responsible for handling all the paperwork. According to Department procedure, the recorder in an RPW would ride with the victim in the back of the wagon en route to the hospital to interview her, if possible, and possibly get a "dying declaration," what would be described in court as the last words of the deceased before dying. A dying declaration carried a lot of weight with jurors.

  Sergeant DeBenedito didn't think Officer Collins looked bright enough to write down his own laundry list.

  He made his decision.

  "Take her to Hahneman, that's closest," he ordered, referring to Hahneman Hospital, on just the other side of City Hall on North Broad Street. "Martinez, you get in the back with the girl and see what you can find out. You know about 'dying d
eclarations'?"

  "Yeah," Martinez said.

  "And you, Payne, take the stairs downstairs and seal off the building. Nobody in or out. Got it?"

  "Got it," Matt said, and started for the stairwell.

  DeBenedito started for his car, and then changed his mind. He still didn't know for sure if the second victim was really dead.

  One look at the body confirmed what Payne had told him. The top of the head was gone. The face, its eyes open and distorted, registered surprise.

  On closer inspection the victim looked familiar. After a moment Sergeant DeBenedito was almost positive that the second victim was Anthony J. DeZego, a young, not too bright, Mafia guy known as Tony the Zee.

  Now he walked quickly to the Highway car and picked up the microphone.

  "Highway 21."

  "Highway 21," police radio responded.

  "I got a 5292 on the roof of the Penn Services garage," DeBenedito reported. "Notify Homicide. The 9^th District RPW is transporting a second victim, female Caucasian, to Hahneman."

  DeBenedito glanced around the roof and saw an arrow indicating the location of a public telephone.

  "Okay, 21," police radio responded.

  DeBenedito tossed the microphone on the seat and trotted toward the telephone, searching his pockets for change.

  He dialed a number from memory.

  "Homicide."

  "This is Sergeant DeBenedito, Highway. I got a 5292 on the roof of the Penn Services Parking Garage behind the Bellevue-Stratford. Top of his head blown off. I think he's a mob guy called Tony the Zee."

  "Anthony J. DeZego," the Homicide detective responded. " Interesting."

  "There was a second victim. Female Caucasian. Multiple wounds. Looks like a shotgun. Identified as Penelope Detweiler. Her father is president of Nesfoods."

  "Jesus!"

  "She's being transported to Hahneman."

  "This is Lieutenant Natali, Sergeant. We got the 5292 from radio. A couple of detectives are on the way. When they get there, tell them I'm on my way. You're sure it's Tony the Zee?"

  "Just about. And the ID on the girl is positive."

  "I'm on my way," Lieutenant Natali said, and the phone went dead.

  DeBenedito dialed another number.

  "Highway, Corporal Ashe."

  "Sergeant DeBenedito. Pass it to the lieutenant that I went in on shots fired at the parking garage behind the Bellevue. The dead man is a mob guy, Tony the Zee DeZego. Shotgun took the top of his head off. There's a second victim, white female, transported to Hahneman. Name is Detweiler. Her father is president of Nesfoods."

  "I'll get it to Lieutenant Lucci right away, Sergeant," Corporal Ashe said.

  Sergeant DeBenedito hung up without saying anything else and went back on the roof to have another look at Tony the Zee.

  I wonder who blew this scumbag guinea gangster away?thought Sergeant Vincenzo Nicholas DeBenedito idly. The previous summer he had flown to Italy with his parents to meet most, but not all, of his Neapolitan kinfolk.

  Then he thought: Damn shame that girl had to get in between whatever happened here, on her way, all dressed up, to a party at the Union League.

  And then he had another discomfiting thought: Was the nice little rich girl from Chestnut Hill just an innocent bystander? Or was she fucking around with Tony the Zee?

  ****

  Matt Payne pulled open the door to the stairwell and started down, taking the stairs two and three at a time.

  He wanted to see what had happened to Amanda Spencer, and he also desperately needed to relieve his bladder. He had been startled to hear the scream of the tires on the Porsche when she had turned it around and driven off the roof. He had had several thoughts: that she was naturally frightened and logically was therefore getting the hell away from the scene; then he was surprised that she could drive the Porsche, and he modified this last thought to"drive the Porsche so well" when he saw her make the turn, then head down the ramp as fast as she could.

  Between the third and second floors he startled a very large florid-faced cop wearing the white cap cover of Traffic who was leaning against the cement-block wall. The Traffic cop pushed himself off the wall to block Matt's passage and looked as if he were about to draw his pistol.

  "I'm a cop," Matt called. "Payne, Special Operations."

  He fished in his pocket and came out with his badge.

  "What the hell is going on up there?" the Traffic cop asked.

  "A couple of people got shot. With a shotgun. One is dead, and the van is taking a woman to the hospital."

  The Traffic cop got out of the way, and Matt ran down the stairs to ground level. He pushed open the door and found himself on 15^th Street. Ten yards away, he saw the nose of his Porsche sticking out of the garage and onto the sidewalk. There were a half dozen police cars, marked and unmarked, clustered around the entrance and exit ramps, half up on the sidewalk. A Traffic sergeant was in the narrow street, directing traffic.

  When he reached the exit ramp, Amanda was talking to a man with a detective's badge hanging out of the breast pocket of a remarkably ugly plaid sport coat. When she saw him, Amanda walked away from the detective and up to Matt.

  "How is she?"

  "She's alive," Matt said. "They're taking her to the hospital. We' ve got to move the Porsche."

  As if on cue, the emergency patrol wagon pulled up behind the Porsche and Officer Howard C. Sawyer impatiently sounded the horn. Matt jumped behind the wheel and pulled the Porsche out of the way, onto the sidewalk.

  The EPW came off the exit ramp, turned on its siren and flashing lamps, and when the Traffic sergeant, furiously blowing his whistle, stopped the flow of traffic, bounced onto 15^th Street, turning left.

  When Matt got out of the car, the detective was waiting for him.

  "You're the boyfriend?" he asked, and then without waiting for a reply asked, "You found the victim? You're a cop? That's your car?"

  Matt looked at Amanda when the detective said the wordboyfriend. She shrugged her shoulders and looked uncomfortable.

  "My name is Payne," Matt said. "Special Operations. That's my car. We saw one of the victims on the ground when we drove onto the roof."

  "You're Payne? The guy who blew the rapist away?"

  Matt nodded.

  "There's a Highway sergeant up there," Matt said. "He sent me to seal the building."

  "It's been sealed," the detective said, gesturing up and down the street. "I'm Joe D'Amata, Homicide," he said. "You have any idea what went down?"

  "Twovictims," Matt said. "I found a white male with his head blown off next to the stairwell. Looks like a shotgun." He looked at Amanda. "Did Miss Spencer tell you who the female is?"

  "I was about to ask her," the detective said.

  "She's Penny Detweiler," Amanda said.

  "You know her? You were with her?"

  "We know her. We weren't with her. Or not really."

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  "There's a dinner party. There's a wedding. She was supposed to be at it."

  "A dinner party or a wedding?" D'Amata asked impatiently. "Which?"

  "A wedding dinner party," Matt said, feeling foolish, and anticipated D'Amata's next question. "At the Union League."

  D'Amata looked at Payne. Ordinary cops do not ordinarily go to dinner at the Union League. He remembered what he had heard about this kid. There had been a lot of talk around the Department about him. Rich kid. College boy from Wallingford. But it was also said that his father, a sergeant, had been killed on the job. And there was no question he'd blown away the serial rapist. There had been a picture of him in all the papers, with Mayor Carlucci's arm around him. The critter had tried to run him down with a van, and then the kid had blown the critter's brains out. The critter had had a woman, a naked woman, tied up in the back of the van when it happened. If the kid hadn't caught him when he did, the woman would have been another victim. The critter had tortured and mutilated his previous victim before he'd killed h
er. A real scumbag loony.

  "The Union League," Detective D'Amata said as he wrote it down.

  "Her parents are probably there now," Matt Payne said. "Somebody's going to have to tell them what happened."

  "You mean, you want to?"

  "I don't know how it's done," Matt confessed.

  Detective D'Amata looked around, found what he was looking for, and raised his voice: "Lieutenant Lewis?"

  Lieutenant Foster H. Lewis, Sr., of the 9^th District, who had only moments before arrived at the crime scene, looked around to see who was calling him, and found D'Amata.

  "See you a minute, Lieutenant?" D'Amata called.

  Lieutenant Lewis walked over.

  "Lieutenant, this is Officer Payne, of Special Operations. He and this young lady found the victims."

  Lieutenant Lewis looked carefully at Officer Matthew Payne, who was wearing a dinner jacket Lieutenant Lewis would have bet good money was his and hadn't come from a rental agency. He knew a good deal about Officer Matthew W. Payne.

  There was a vacancy for a lieutenant in the newly formed Special Operations Division. Lewis had thought-before he'd heard that Foster, Jr., was being assigned there-that it might be a good place for him to broaden his experience and enhance his career. So far all of his experience had been in one district or another.

  An old friend of his, a Homicide detective named Jason Washington, had been transferred, over his objections, to Special Operations, and he'd had a long talk with Washington about Special Operations and its youthful commander, Staff Inspector Peter Wohl.

  In the course of that conversation the well-publicized heroics of Wohl's special assistant had come up. To Lewis's surprise, Jason Washington had kind words for both men: "Peter Wohl's as smart as a whip and a straight arrow. A little ruthless about getting the job done, not to protect himself. And the kid's all right too. Denny Coughlin dumped him in Wohl's lap; he didn't ask for the job. I think he's got the making of a good cop; the last I heard, it wasn't illegal to be either rich or well connected."

  "I'm surprised, Officer Payne," Lieutenant Lewis said, "that Inspector Wohl hasn't told you that it is Departmental procedure for an officer in civilian clothing at a crime scene to display his badge in a prominent place."