Penelope Detweiler, 23, whose father, H. Richard Detweiler, is president of Nesfoods International and who was to have been a bridesmaid, instead laid in Hahneman Hospital after having suffered multiple shotgun wounds at the hands of an unknown assailant in a downtown parking garage the previous day.
As the Right Reverend Wesley Framingham Kerr, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Philadelphia, united in marriage the daughter of financier Soames T. Browne and the son of Nesfoods International Chairman, C.T. Nesbitt III, police and private detectives scattered among the socially prominent guests in the church nervously scanned them and the church itself in a manner that reminded this reporter of Secret Service agents guarding the president.
It was reported that the police were present at the orders of Philadelphia Mayor Jerry Carlucci, himself a guest, who is reported to be grossly embarrassed both that Miss Detweiler was shot in what appears to have been a Mafia-connected incident, and that the Special Operations Division of the Philadelphia Police Department, which was organized with his enthusiastic support, and which he personally charged with solving the crime, has been so far unable to identify any suspects in the shooting. The presence of private detectives at the church, reportedly from Wachenhut Security, Inc., was taken by some as an indication that the Browne and Nesbitt families had little faith in the Philadelphia Police Department to protect them and their guests.
Mayor Carlucci, outside the church, refused to discuss that issue with this reporter, and a scuffle ensued during which a Ledger photographer was knocked to the ground and his camera damaged.
(See related stories, “No Clues” and “Gangland War Victim,” p.3a.)
* * *
“Oh, Jesus!” Matt said aloud.
His Honor must know about this. That’s going to have put him in a lovely frame of mind so that when Mr. Detweiler says, “Jerry, old pal, let me tell you about this blabbermouth cop of yours,” he will be understanding and forgiving.
He turned to page 3a and read the other stories.
“NO CLUES” SAY POLICE IN
POLICEMAN’S MURDER;
FUNERAL OF SLAIN OFFICER
SCHEDULED FOR TODAY
* * *
By Mary Ann Wiggins Ledger Staff Writer
Police Officer Joseph Magnella will be buried at three this afternoon, following a Mass of Requiem to be celebrated by John Cardinal McQuire, Archbishop of Philadelphia, at Saint Dominic’s Church. Internment will be in the church cemetery, traditional last resting place for Roman Catholic police officers slain in the line of duty.
Officer Magnella, 24, of a Warden Street address in South Philadelphia, was found shot to death beside his 23rd Police District patrol car near Colombia and Clarion Streets just before midnight two nights ago.
A Vietnam veteran, he was unmarried and made his home with his parents. He had been on the police force less than a year and was engaged to be married.
Police Captain Michael J. Sabara, deputy commander of the Special Operations Division of the Police Department, which has been charged by Mayor Jerry Carlucci with solving his murder, admitted that so far the police “don’t have a clue” as to who shot Magnella or why.
Mayor Jerry Carlucci, who was interviewed briefly as he left the Stanley Rocco & Sons Funeral Home, where he had gone to pay his respects, seemed visibly embarrassed at the inability of the police to quickly solve what he called “the brutal, cold-blooded murder of a fine young officer.” He refused to discuss with this reporter the murder of Anthony J. DeZego, an alleged organized crime figure, and the wounding of socialite Penelope Detweiler, which occurred the same night Officer Magnella was shot to death.
Several thousand police officers, both fellow Philadelphia officers and police from as far away as New York City and Washington, D.C., are expected to participate in the final rites for Officer Magnella.
* * *
GANGLAND WAR VICTIM WAS
“GOOD SON, HUSBAND AND
FATHER”
SAYS MOTHER OF
ANTHONY J. DEZEGO
* * *
By Tony Schuyler, Ledger Staff Writer
Anthony J. DeZego, who met his death on the roof of the Penn Services Parking Garage two nights ago, his head shattered by a shotgun blast, was described on the eve of his funeral as a “good son, husband and father” by his mother, Mrs. Christiana DeZego.
DeZego, 34, was a truck driver for Gulf Sea Food Transport at the time of his death in what police suspect was a gangland killing. Police Captain Michael J. Sabara, Deputy Commander of Special Operations, which is investigating the early-evening murder, refused to comment on DeZego’s alleged ties to organized crime but said the shooting was “not unlike a Mafia assassination.” He said that DeZego had a criminal record dating back to his teens and had only recently been released from probation.
His most recent brush with the law, according to Captain Sabara, had been a conviction for “possession with intent to distribute controlled substances.”
DeZego had recently purchased for his family (a wife and two sons) a home four doors down from that of his mother in South Philadelphia. His late-model Cadillac, found abandoned by police at Philadelphia International Airport the morning after the shooting, was returned to his family yesterday.
Salvatore B. Mariano, DeZego’s brother-in-law and president of Gulf Sea Food Transport, said that DeZego was “a reliable employee and would be missed at work.” He refused to speculate on how DeZego could afford a new home and a Cadillac on ordinary truck driver’s wages and dismissed as “nonsense” that DeZego had ties to organized crime.
DeZego will be buried at three P.M. this afternoon, following a Requiem Mass at St. Teresa of Avalone Roman Catholic Church.
The investigation into his murder is “proceeding well,” according to Captain Sabara, who declined to offer any further details. He confirmed that the investigation is being conducted by ace homicide detective Jason Washington.
“Nothing would please us more than to see Mr. DeZego’s murderer face the full penalty of the law,” Sabara said.
* * *
“You want to buy that newspaper, Mac? Or did you think you was in a library?” a counterman with sideburns down to his chin line demanded.
“I want to buy it,” Matt said. “Sorry.”
He laid a dollar bill on the counter and turned back to the telephone and dialed Peter Wohl’s home number.
After the fourth ring there was a click. “This is 555-8251,” Wohl’s recorded voice announced. “When this thing beeps, you can leave a message.”
“Inspector, this is Matt Payne. I have to talk to you just as soon as possible—”
“This soon enough?” Wohl’s cheerful voice interrupted.
Matt was startled.
“Have you seen the papers? The Ledger?”
“No. But I’ll bet you called me to tell me about them,” Wohl said dryly.
“There’s a picture of the mayor on the front page. About to punch a photographer. And several bullshit stories putting him and us down.”
“I’d like to see them,” Wohl said. “Is that why you called me at quarter to one?”
“No, sir. Sir, I’ve fucked up.”
“Another run-in with Sergeant Dolan?”
“No, sir. It’s something else.”
“Where are you?”
“At 49th and Lancaster. At a pay phone.”
“If you don’t think—which, ergo sum, you’ve called, so you don’t—this will wait until morning, come over here. Bring the Ledger with you.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll be right there.”
When he went outside, one of the two cops who had been at the counter was on the sidewalk. The other one was across the street, by the Porsche. Matt walked back across Lancaster Avenue.
“Nice car,” the cop said.
“Thank you.”
“You been drinking?”
“I had a couple of drinks,” Matt said.
“Wedding, huh?”
“Yes, sir.�
��
“Well, you always take a couple of drinks at a wedding, don’t you? And you made it across the street in a straight line,” the cop said.
“Yes, sir.”
“You open to a little friendly advice?”
“Sure.”
“Dressed up like that, driving a car like this, this time of night, with a couple of drinks in you, maybe stopping in a neighborhood like this isn’t such a good idea. You know what I mean?”
“I think so,” Matt said. “Yes. I know what you mean.”
“Good night, sir,” the cop said. “Drive careful.”
He walked back across Lancaster Avenue, got in the 19th District RPC, and drove off.
He had no idea I’m cop. Obviously I don’t look like a cop. Or act like one. But I know that, don’t I, that I don’t act like a cop?
As Matt swung wide to turn off Norwood Street in Chestnut Hill and to enter into the driveway that led to Peter Wohl’s apartment, the Porsche’s headlights swept across a massive chestnut tree and he thought he could see a faint scarring of the bark.
He thought: I killed a man there.
Warren K. Fletcher, 34, of Germantown, his brain already turned to pulp by a 168-grain round-nosed lead bullet fired from Officer Matt Payne’s .38-caliber Chief’s Special snub-nosed revolver, a naked civilian tied up with lamp cord under a tarpaulin in the back of his van, had crashed the van into that chestnut tree, ending what Michael J. O’Hara had called, in the Philadelphia Bulletin, “The Northwest Philadelphia Serial Rapist’s Reign of Terror.”
Matt recalled Chad asking him what it was like to have killed a man. And he remembered [what he had replied: “I haven’t had nightmares or done a lot of soul-searching about it. Nothing like that.”
It was true, of course, but he suddenly understood why he had said that: It hadn’t bothered him because it was unreal. It hadn’t happened. Or it had happened to somebody else. Or in a movie. It was beyond credibility that Matthew M. Payne, of Wallingford and Episcopal Academy, former treasurer of Delta Phi Omicron at, and graduate of, the University of Pennsylvania, had been given a badge and a gun by the City of Philadelphia and had actually taken that gun from its holster and killed somebody with it.
He drove down the driveway. There was a Buick Limited parked in front of one of Peter Wohl’s two garages. There was nothing on the car to suggest that it was a Department car, and he wondered who it belonged to.
He got out of the Porsche and climbed the stairs to Wohl’s door and knocked.
A silver-haired, stocky man in his sixties, jacketless, his tie pulled down, wearing braces, opened the door.
“You must be Matt Payne,” he said, offering one hand. The other held a squat whiskey glass. “I’m Augie Wohl. Peter’s taking a leak. Come on in.”
Matt knew that Peter Wohl’s father was Chief Inspector August Wohl, retired, but he had never met him. He was an imposing man, Matt thought, just starting to show the signs of age. He was also, Matt realized, half in the bag.
“How do you do, sir?” Matt said.
“Let me fix you a little something,” Chief Wohl said. “What’s your pleasure?”
“I’m not sure that I should,” Matt said.
“Oh, hell, have one. You’re among friends.”
“A little Scotch then, please,” Matt said.
He followed Wohl’s father across the room to Wohl’s bar. It was covered with takeout buckets from a Chinese restaurant. Chief Wohl reached over the bar, came up with a fifth of Johnnie Walker and a glass, and poured the glass half full. He added ice cubes from a plastic freezer tray and handed it to him.
“Dilute it yourself,” he said cheerfully. “There’s soda and water.”
“Thank you,” Matt said.
Peter Wohl, in the act of closing his zipper, came out of his bedroom.
“What we have here is obviously the best-dressed newspaper boy in Philadelphia,” he said. “Have you and Dad introduced yourselves?”
He’s not feeling much pain, either, Matt decided.
“Yes, sir.”
“And I see he’s been plying you with booze,” Wohl went on. “So let me see what The Ledger has to say, and then you can tell me how you fucked up.”
Matt handed him the newspaper, which Wohl spread out on the bar, and then read, his father looking over his shoulder.
“It could be worse,” Chief Wohl said. “I think Nelson is being very careful. Nesfoods takes a lot of tomato soup ads in his newspapers.”
“So how did you fuck up, Matt?” Peter Wohl asked.
Matt told him about his confrontation with H. Richard Detweiler, fighting, he thought successfully, the temptation to offer any kind of an excuse for his inexcusable stupidity.
“You’re sure, son,” Chief Wohl asked, “that Detweiler’s girl has a drug problem?”
“If Washington has the nurse in Hahneman, Dad—” Peter Wohl said.
“Yeah, sure,” Chief Wohl said. “What about the girl’s relationship with DeZego? How reliable do you think that information is?”
“It’s secondhand,” Matt said. “It could just be gossip.”
“You didn’t tell her father about that, anyhow, did you, Matt?” Peter Wohl asked.
“No, sir, I didn’t,” Matt said. But that triggered the memory of his having told his father. And, shamed again, he felt morally obliged to add that encounter to everything else.
“Well, fortunately for you,” Chief Wohl said, looking at Matt, “Jerry tried to belt the photographer. Or did he belt him? Or just try?”
“The paper said ‘a scuffle ensued,’” Peter Wohl said.
“It was more than that,” Chief Wohl said, went to the bar and read, somewhat triumphantly from the newspaper story: “…‘a scuffle ensued during which a Ledger photographer was knocked to the ground and his camera damaged.’” Don’t you watch television? A cop is supposed to get the facts.”
“‘Just the facts, ma’am.’” Peter Wohl chuckled, mimicking Sergeant Friday on Dragnet.
“Carlucci is going to be far more upset about that picture being on every other breakfast table in Philadelphia, son,” Chief Wohl said, “than about you telling Detweiler his daughter has a drug problem.”
“That was pretty goddamn dumb,” Peter Wohl said.
“Yes, sir, I know it was. And I’m sorry as hell,” Matt said.
“He was talking about Jerry Carlucci,” Chief Wohl said.
“But the shoe fits,” Peter Wohl said, “so put it on.”
Matt glanced at him. There was a smile on Peter Wohl’s face.
He’s not furious, or even contemptuous, Matt realized, very surprised. He doesn’t even seem very annoyed. It’s as if he expected this sort of stupid behavior from a rookie. Or maybe from a college boy.
“Jerry never learned when not to use his fists,” Chief Wohl said, then chuckled. “My God, the gorilla suit!” He laughed. “You ever tell Matt about Carlucci and the gorilla suit?”
Wohl, chuckling, shook his head.
“You tell him,” he said, and walked to the bar.
“Well, this was ten, maybe twelve years ago,” Chief Wohl began. “Jerry had Highway. I had Uniformed Patrol. Highway was under Uniformed Patrol then. I kept getting these complaints from everybody, the DA’s office, a couple of judges, Civil Liberties, everybody, that Highway was taking guys to Bustleton and Bowler and working them over before they took them to Central Lockup. So I called Jerry in and read the riot act to him. I was serious, and he knew I was serious. I told him that the first time I could prove that he, or anybody in Highway, was working people over at Bustleton and Bowler, he would be in Traffic the next morning, blowing a whistle at Broad and Market…” He paused, glancing over his shoulder. “If you’re making one of those for Matt, my glass has a hole in it too.”
“None for me, thanks,” Matt said about two seconds before Peter Wohl handed him a fresh drink.
“Ssh,” Peter Wohl said, “you’re interrupting the old man.”
“So
he stopped for a while,” Chief Wohl went on. “Maybe for a week. Then I started hearing about it again. So I went to the sergeant in Central Lockup. I was serious about this and told him the next time they got a prisoner from Highway that looked like he’d been worked over, I wanted to hear about it right then. So, sure enough, two or three nights later, about eleven o’clock at night, I get this call from Central Lockup.”
Peter Wohl handed his father a drink.
He looked at it, and then at Matt.
“Don’t worry about getting home, son,” he said. “I’ll drive you myself.”
“The hell you will.” Peter Wohl laughed. “He stays here and you’re getting driven home. The one thing I don’t need is either or both of you running into a bus.”
“You’re not suggesting that I’m drunk, are you?”
“It’s not a suggestion at all,” Wohl said. “It’s one of those facts you were talking about before.” He went to the telephone and dialed a number.
“This is Inspector Wohl,” he said. “Would you put out the word to have the nearest Highway car meet me at my house, please?”
“I’m not sure I like that,” Chief Wohl said.
“I would rather have you pissed at me than Mother, okay?” Wohl said. “Finish the gorilla story.”
“Where was I?”
“You got a call from Central Lockup,” Peter furnished.
“Yeah. Right. So what happened, Matt, was that I got in my car and went down there. They had a bum, a real wiseass, in one of the cells, and somebody in Highway had really worked him over. Swollen lips. Black eye. The works. And I knew Jerry Carlucci had been out at Bustleton and Bowler. So I thought I had him. So I went into the cell with this guy and asked him what had happened. ‘Nothing happened,’ he said. So I asked him where he got the cut lip and the shiner. And he said, ‘From a gorilla.’ And I said ‘Bullshit’ and he said a gorilla beat him up, and if I didn’t like it, go fuck myself. And I asked, where did the gorilla beat him up, and he said ‘Bustleton and Bowler’ and I said there weren’t any gorillas at Bustleton and Bowler, and he said ‘The hell there wasn’t, one of them came into the detention cell there and kicked the shit out of me.’”
The Victim Page 26
