W E B Griffin - Badge of Honor 04 - The Witness

by The Witness(lit)

  W E B Griffin - Badge of Honor 04 - The Witness

  ONE

  The Day After New Year's Day Reception given by Taddeus Czernick, who was the police commissioner of the City of Philadelphia was considered by Staff Inspector Peter F. Wohl as a lousy idea whose time had unfortunately come.

  New Year's Eve is not a popular festive occasion so far as the police of Philadelphia are concerned. For one thing, almost no police are free to make merry themselves, because they are on duty. On New Year's Eve all the amateur drunks are out in force, with a lamentable tendency to settle midnight differ-ences of opinion with one form of violence or another, and/or to run their automobiles through red lights and into one an-other, which of course requires the professional services of the Police Department to put things in order.

  New Year's Day is worse. Philadelphia greets the New Year with the Mummer's Parade down Broad Street. There are mas-sive crowds of people, many of whom have ingested one form of antifreeze or another, to control. Pickpockets and other thieves, who have been anxiously awaiting the chance to ply their trades, come out of the woodwork.

  For a very long time, the Day After New Year's Day was a day on which every police officer who did not absolutely have to be on duty stayed home, slept late, and tried to forget how he had spent New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

  But then, during the reign of Police Commissioner Jerry Carlucci, that all changed. Jerry Carlucci had decided that it behooved him to make some gesture to the senior commanders of the Department in token of his appreciation for their faithful service during the past year.

  He would, he decided, have a Commissioner's Reception at his home, and invite every captain and above in the Depart-ment. It would have been nice to invite all the white shirts, but there were just too many lieutenants; they would have to wait until they got themselves promoted. Since New Year's Day was out of the question, because everybody was working, the Day After New Year's Day was selected.

  By the time Commissioner Czernick had assumed office, following the election of Jerry Carlucci as mayor of the City of Brotherly Love, the Commissioner's Reception on the Day After New Year's Day had become a tradition.

  The wives, of course, loved it. Because their husbands had been working, they hadn't had the chance to do anything spe-cial on New Year's Eve. Now, through the gracious invitation of the commissioner, they had the opportunity to get all dressed up and meet with the other ladies in a pleasant atmosphere.

  If the senior officers of the Philadelphia Police Department, who had really looked forward to doing nothing more physi-cally exerting than walking from the bedroom to their chair in front of the TV in the living room, didn't like it, too bad.

  Marriage was a two-way street. It was not too much to ask of a husband that he put on either his best uniform (uniforms were "suggested") or his good suit and spend three hours in the company of his spiffed-up spouse, who had spent New Year's watching the TV.

  What wives thought of the affair was not really germane for Staff Inspector Wohl, who did not have one, had never had one, and had absolutely no desire to change that situation any-time soon.

  There was a Mrs. Wohl at the reception however, in the role of wife. She was Mrs. Olga Wohl, whose husband was Chief Inspector Augustus Wohl, Retired.

  Mrs. Wohl had actually said to Staff Inspector Wohl, "Peter, if you were married, your wife would be here with you. She would love it."

  Peter Wohl had learned at twelve that debating his mother was a no-win arrangement, so he simply smiled at her.

  "And you should have worn your uniform," Mrs. Wohl went on. "You look so nice in it. Why didn't you?"

  Wohl was wearing a nearly new single-breasted glen plaid suit, a light blue, button-down collar shirt, and a striped neck-tie his administrative assistant had told him was also worn by members of Her Britannic Majesty's Household Cavalry. He was a pleasant-looking thirty-five-year-old who did not much resemble what comes to mind when the term "cop" or "staff inspector" comes up.

  "It didn't come back from the cleaners."

  That was not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Staff Inspector Wohl's uniform was hanging in one of his closets. He had bought it when he had been promoted to lieutenant, and the epaulets were adorned with a golden bar. Now the epaulets carried the golden oak leaf (like an army major's) of a staff inspector, but the uniform still looked almost brand-new. He had seldom worn it as a lieutenant, or as a captain, and he rarely wore it now. He had last worn it six months before at the inspector's funeral Captain Richard F. "Dutch" Moffitt had earned for himself by getting killed in the line of duty. It would not have bothered Staff Inspector Wohl if his uniform remained in his closet, unworn, until the moths ate it down to the last button hole.

  "Well, you certainly have no one to blame but yourself for that."

  "You're right, Mother," he said, reaching for another shrimp.

  The food at the Commissioner's Day After New Year's Day Reception was superb. This was less a manifestation of either Commissioner Czernick's taste or his generosity toward his guests but rather of the high esteem in which Commissioner Czernick and the police generally were held by various citizens of the City of Brotherly Love.

  This, too, was a legacy from the reign of Jerry Carlucci as police commissioner. At the very first Commissioner's Recep-tion to which then Sergeant Wohl had gone (under the mantle of then active Chief Inspector Wohl), the food had been heavily Italian in flavor When the mayor's many friends in the Italian community had heard that Jerry was having a party for the other cops on the Day After New Year's Day, it seemed only right that they sort of help him out.

  You can say a lot of things, many of them unpleasant, about Jerry Carlucci, but nobody ever heard of him taking a dime. And on what he's making as commissioner, he can't afford to feed all them cops. Angelo, call Salvatore, and maybe Joe Fierellio, too, and tell them I'm gonna make up some pasta and a ham, and maybe some pastry, and send it out to Jerry Car-lucci's house, for the Day After New Year's Day cop party he's giving, and ask them maybe they want to get in on it.

  By the time Commissioner Carlucci's Second Annual Day After New Year's Day Reception was held, the Commissioner's many friends in the other ethnic communities of the City of Brotherly Love had learned what the Italians had done. The repast of the Second Reception had been multinational in scope. By the time of Commissioner Carlucci's last Day After New Year's Day Reception (three years before; two days after which he had to resign to run for mayor), being permitted to make a little contribution to the Commissioner's Day After New Year's Day Reception carried a certain cachet among the city's restaurateurs, fish mongers, pastry bakers, florists, and whole-sale butchers.

  "When did you start drinking that?"

  "Right after the waiter filled the glass."

  "I mean, start drinking champagne?"

  "As soon as I heard it was free, Mother."

  "Don't be a smarty-pants, Peter. It gives me a headache, is what I mean."

  "Then if I were you, I wouldn't drink it."

  A tall, muscular, intelligent-faced young man, who looked to be in his late twenties, walked up to them.

  "Good afternoon, Inspector," he said, and nodded at Olga Wohl. "Ma'am."

  "Hello, Charley," Wohl said. "Do you know my mother?"

  "No, I don't. I know Chief Wohl, ma'am."

  "Mother, this is Sergeant Draper. He's Commissioner Cohan's driver."

  "Nice to meet you," she said. "Are you having a nice time?"

  "Yes, ma'am. Inspector, when you have a minute, the com-missioner would like to have a word with you."

  "Which commissioner, Cha
rley?" Wohl asked. "Your com-missioner, or that one?"

  He raised his glass in the direction of half a dozen men gathered in a knot. One of them was the Hon. Jerry Carlucci. The others were Chief Inspector Augustus Wohl, Retired, Chief Inspector Matt Lowenstein, Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin, Captain Jack McGovern, and Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernick.

  "Mine, sir," Sergeant Draper said, a little chagrined. "Com-missioner Cohan is over thataway." He pointed with an inclina-tion of his head.

  "Tell him I'll be right with him."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Where, by the way," Olga Wohl asked as soon as Draper was out of earshot, "is your driver?"

  "I don't have a driver, Mother. I am a lowly staff inspec-tor."

  "You know what I mean. The Payne boy. Your father likes him."

  "Oh, you mean, my administrative assistant?"

  "You know very well what I meant. Shouldn't he be here?"

  "I believe Officer Payne is having dinner with his parents."

  "He should be here. He could meet people."

  "He already knows people."

  "I mean the right people."

  "He already knows the right people. He told me that he and his father were going to play golf with H. Richard Detweiler and Chadwick T. Nesbitt this morning."

  "Really?"

  Chadwick T. Nesbitt III and H. Richard Detweiler were chairman of the board and president, respectively, of Nesfoods, International, which had begun more than a century before as Nesbitt Potted Meats and was now Philadelphia's largest single employer.

  "Now if I were interested in social climbing, I probably could have talked myself into an invitation."

  "You don't play golf."

  "I could learn."

  "He's a policeman now, Peter. It doesn't matter who his family is."

  "Mother, I have no intention of telling them, but I'll bet you a dollar to a doughnut that if Jerry Carlucci or the com-missioner knew where Matt is, they would be delighted."

  Mrs. Wohl sniffed; Peter wasn't sure what it meant.

  "I'd better go see what Cohan wants," Wohl said. "Can I trust you to go easy on the booze?"

  "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Peter Wohl!"

  "I'll be right back," Wohl said. "I hope."

  Deputy Commissioner-Administration Francis J. Cohan was a fair-skinned, finely featured, trim man of fifty or so. He was dressed in a suit almost identical to Peter Wohl's, but instead of the blue button-down collar shirt and striped necktie, he wore a stiffly starched white shirt and a tie bearing miniature representations of the insignia of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

  "Happy New Year, Commissioner," Wohl said. "You wanted to see me, sir?"

  "Happy New Year, Peter," Cohan said, smiling and offer-ing his hand. "Yes, I did. Why don't we get ourselves a fresh drink and find a quiet corner someplace? What is that, cham-pagne?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "When did you start drinking that?"

  "As soon as I saw the bottles with 'Moet et Chandon' on them. This is first-class stuff."

  "It gives me a headache."

  "May I say I admire your taste in suits, Commissioner?"

  Cohan chuckled. "I noticed," he said. "Makes us look like the Bobbsey Twins, doesn't it?"

  "Did you ever notice, sir, that when a man goes someplace and sees someone else with a suit like his, he thinks, 'Well, he certainly has good taste,' but if a woman sees somebody with a dress like hers, she wants to go home?"

  "Don't get me started on the subject of women," Cohan said, and put his hand on Wohl's arm and led him to the bar. "Sometimes I think the Chinese had the right idea. Just keep enough for breeding purposes and drown the rest at birth."

  Commissioner Cohan ordered a fresh Scotch and water. "And bubbly for my son here. You'd better give him two. Those look like small glasses, and this may take some time."

  The bartender served the drinks.

  "Tad Czernick said he has a little office off the hall; that we could use that," Cohan said. "Now let's see if we can find it."

  I sense, Peter Wohl thought, that while this little chat is obviously important-Czernick knows about it-it doesn't con-cern anything I've either done wrong or have not done.

  Commissioner Czernick's home office was closet-sized. There was barely room for a desk, an upholstered "executive" chair, and a second, straight-backed, metal chair. Wohl thought, idly, that it was probably used by Czernick only to make or take telephone calls privately. There were three tele-phones on the battered wooden desk. Cohan sat in the upholstered chair.

  "Have you got room enough to turn around and close the door?" he asked.

  "If I suck in my breath."

  Wohl closed the door behind him and sat down, feeling something like a schoolboy, in the straight-backed chair.

  "Peter, the sequence in which this happened was that I was going to talk to you first, then, if you were amenable, to Tad, and if he was amenable, then to the mayor. It didn't go that way. I got here as the mayor did. He wanted to talk to me. I had to take the opportunity; he was in a good mood. So the sequence has been reversed."

  Which means that I am about to be presented with a fait accompli; Carlucci has apparently gone along with whatever Cohan wants to do, and whether I am amenable or not no longer matters.

  "You're aware, I'm sure, Peter, that the great majority of FBI agents are either Irish or Mormons?"

  "I know one named Franklin D. Roosevelt Stevens that I'll bet isn't either Irish or Mormon," Peter said.

  Cohan laughed, but Peter saw that it was with an effort. "Okay," Cohan said. "Strike 'great majority' and insert 'a great many.' "

  "Yes, sir. I've noticed, come to think of it."

  "You ever hear the story, Peter, about why is it better to get arrested by an Irish FBI agent than a Mormon FBI agent?"

  What the hell is this, a Polish joke?

  "No, sir. I can't say that I have."

  "Let's say the crime is spitting on the sidewalk, and the punishment is death by firing squad. You know they really do that, the Mormons in Utah, execute by firing squad?"

  "Yes, sir. I'd heard that."

  "Okay. So here's this guy, spitting on the sidewalk. If the Mormon FBI guy sees him, that's it. Cuff him. Read him his Miranda and stand him up against the wall. The law's the law. Spitters get shot. Period."

  "I'm a little lost, Commissioner."

  "Now, the Irish FBI agent: He sees the guy spitting. He knows it's against the law, but he knows that he's spit once or twice himself in his time. And maybe he thinks that getting shot for spitting is maybe a little harsh. So he either gets some-thing in his eye so he can't identify the culprit, or he forgets to read him his rights."

  "And therefore, be nice to Irish FBI agents?"

  "What follows gets no further than Czernick's closet, okay?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "You know Jack Malone, don't you?"

  "Sure."

  Before Chief Inspector Cohan had been named a deputy commissioner, Sergeant John J. Malone had been his driver. Wohl now remembered that Malone had been on the last lieutenant's list. He couldn't remember where he had been assigned. If, indeed, he had ever known.

  "And?"

  "What do I think of him? Good cop. Smart. Straight ar-row. "

  "Not always smart," Cohan said.

  "Oh?"

  "Assault is a felony," Cohan said carefully. "A police of-ficer who is found guilty of committing any crime, not just a felony, is dismissed. A Mormon FBI guy would say, `That's the law. Fire him. Put the felon in jail.' "

  But you're Irish, right?

  "You may have noticed, Peter, that I'm Irish," Cohan said.

  "Who did he hit?"

  "It's not important, but you'd probably hear anyway. A law-yer named Howard B. Candless."

  Wohl shrugged, signaling he had never heard of him.

  "Jack did quite a job on him," Cohan said. "Knocked a couple of teeth out. Caused what the medical report said were 'mult
iple bruises and contusions.' They kept Candless in the hospital two days, worrying about a possible concussion."

  "Why?" Wohl asked. "That doesn't sound like Malone."

  "And when he was finished with the lawyer, Jack had a couple too many drinks and went home and slapped his wife around."

  "On general principles?"

  "Jack is a very simple guy. He believes that when a woman marries one man, she should not get into another man's bed."

  "Jesus Christ!"

  "They kept her in the hospital overnight; long enough to make Polaroid pictures of her bruises and contusions. That's important."