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

by The Witness(lit)

  After three months on the job, he was paired with Officer Jesus Martinez, a slight, intense Latino who had been on the job for six months longer than Charley, and had learned the mannerisms of a successful middle-level drug dealer to near perfection.

  They were an odd couple, the extra large Irishman and the barely over the height and weight minimums Latino. Behind their backs, they were known by their brother Narcotics Bureau officers as Mutt & Jeff, after the cartoon characters.

  But they were good at what they did, and not only their peers understood this. Their lieutenant at the time, Dave Pekach, led them to believe that if they kept up the good work, he would do his very best to keep them in Narcotics even when their identities had become known on the street.

  That was important. They didn't tell the rookies at the time they were recruited, but what usually happened when under-cover Narcs became, inevitably, known on the street was that they were reassigned to a district. There, they picked up their police career where it had been interrupted. That is to say they now got to work a wagon and haul sick fat ladies down narrow stairways and prisoners down to Central Cell Room.

  The way to become a detective in the Philadelphia Police Department was not the way it was in the movies, where a smiling police commissioner handed a detective's badge to the undercover rookie who had just made a really good arrest. In Philadelphia, it doesn't matter if you catch Jack the Ripper with the knife in his hand, you wait until you have two years on the job, and then you take the examination for detective, and if you pass, when your number comes up, then, and only then, you get to be a detective.

  What Lieutenant Dave Pekach had offered them, instead of being sent to some damned district to work school crossings and turn off fire hydrants, was a chance to stay in Narcotics as plainclothes officers until they had their time in to take the detective exam.

  Charley and Jesus would have killed to convince Lieutenant Pekach what good undercover Narcs they were, what good plainclothes cops they could be, if that would keep them from going out to some damned district in uniform.

  And it almost came to that.

  Captain Richard F. Moffitt, off duty and in civilian clothing, had walked in on a robbery in progress in a diner on Roosevelt Boulevard.

  The doer, to Captain Moffitt's experienced eye, was a strung-out junkie, a poor, skinny, dirty Irish kid who had somehow got hooked on the shit and was, with a thirty-dollar Saturday Night Special.22 revolver, trying to score enough money for a hit, or something to eat, or probably both.

  "I'm a police officer," Captain Moffitt said gently. "Put the gun down, son, before somebody gets hurt."

  The doer, subsequently identified as a poor, skinny Irish kid who had somehow gotten hooked on a pharmacist's encyclo-pedia of controlled substances, and whose name was Gerald Vincent Gallagher, fired every.22 Long Rifle cartridge his pistol held at Captain Moffitt, and managed to hit him once.

  That was enough. The bullet ruptured an artery, and Captain Richard F. Moffitt died a minute or so later, slumped against the wall of the diner.

  The killing of any cop triggers a deep emotional response in every other policeman. And "Dutch" Moffitt was not an ordinary cop. He was a captain. He was the son of a cop. His brother had been a cop, and it was immediately recalled that the brother, a sergeant, had been shot to death while answering a silent alarm.

  And Captain Dutch Moffitt had been the commanding officer of Highway Patrol. Highway Patrol had been organized years before to do what its name implied. The first Highway Patrol-men had patrolled the highways throughout the city on motor-cycles. The breeches, boots, and leather jackets of Highway Patrol motorcyclists were still worn, although radio patrol cars now outnumbered motorcycles.

  Highway Patrol had become, beginning with the reign of Captain Jerry Carlucci (and later with the blessing of Inspector Carlucci, and Chief Inspector Carlucci, and Deputy Commis-sioner Carlucci, and Commissioner Carlucci, and now Mayor Carlucci), a special force.

  Although the Philadelphia Ledger, which did not approve of much that Mayor Carlucci did, was prone to refer to the High-way Patrol as "Carlucci's Commandos" and even as his "Jack-booted Gestapo," just about everyone else in Philadelphia recognized Highway Patrol and its officers, who rode two men to an RPC, and who did most of their patrolling in high-crime areas of the city, as something special.

  Getting into Highway was difficult. As a general rule of thumb, an officer had to have four or five years, good years, on the job. It helped to be about six feet and at least 175 pounds, and it helped if you had come to the attention of some-one who was (or had been) a Highway supervisor-that is, a sergeant or better-and he had decided that you were a better cop than most. An assignment to Highway was seen by many as a good step to take if you wanted to rise above sergeant elsewhere in the Police Department.

  Every police officer in Philadelphia reacted emotionally to the murder of Captain Dutch Moffitt-If the bad guys can get away with shooting a cop, what's next?-but it was taken as a personal affront by every man in Highway.

  The result was that eight thousand police officers, most es-pecially including every member of the Highway Patrol, were searching for Gerald Vincent Gallagher.

  He was found by two rookie cops, working undercover in Narcotics, whose names were Charley McFadden and Jesus Martinez. And it wasn't a question of just stumbling onto the dirty little scumbag, either. On their own time, not even get-ting overtime, they had staked out Pratt Street Terminal, where Charley McFadden had an idea the miserable pissant would eventually show up.

  And he had, and Charley and Jesus had chased the scumbag down the elevated tracks until Charles Vincent Gallagher had slipped, fallen onto the third rail, fried himself, and then been cut into many pieces under the wheels of a train.

  Once they'd gotten their pictures in the newspaper, of course, Jesus's and Charley's effectiveness as undercover Narcs came to an end. And at a very awkward time for them, as Lieutenant David Pekach, having been promoted to captain, had been transferred out of Narcotics, and his replacement, a real shit heel, in their judgment, immediately made it clear that he felt no obligation to honor Lieutenant Pekach's implied promise to keep them in Narcotics in plainclothes if they did a good job on the job.

  They had, however, also come to the attention of Chief In-spector Dennis V. Coughlin, who was arguably the most influential of the seven chief inspectors in the Department. Denny Coughlin saw in Charley McFadden something of himself. In other words, a good, hardworking Irish Catholic lad from South Philadelphia who was obviously destined to be a better than average cop. And Coughlin knew that once a rookie had worked the streets undercover, he regarded being put back in uniform as a demotion.

  So he arranged for Officer McFadden to be assigned, tem-porarily, to the 12th District, in plainclothes, to work on an auto burglary detail. Chief Coughlin felt no such kinship for Officer Martinez-for one thing, the little Mexican didn't look big enough to be a real cop, and for another, Coughlin was made vaguely uneasy by someone who had the same name as the Son of God himself-but fair was fair, and he arranged for Jesus Martinez to be similarly assigned.

  Then when Mayor Carlucci had set up Special Operations and given it to Peter Wohl, the problem of what to do with McFadden and Martinez was, as far as Denny Coughlin was concerned, solved. He sent them over to Special Operations. Peter Wohl was a smart cop; he'd figure out something useful for them to do.

  The subordination of Highway Patrol to the new Special Op-erations Division had been regarded by many, most, Highway guys as bullshit. It was wondered, aloud, why the mayor, who was a real Highway guy, had let the commissioner get away with it.

  Giving command of Special Operations (and thus, Highway) to Staff Inspector Peter Wohl made it even worse. Everybody knew what staff inspectors did. Not that locking up judges and city commissioners and other big shots like that on the take wasn't important, but it wasn't the same thing as being out on the street, one-on-one, with the worst scumbags in Philadel-phia.

/>   Wohl seemed to prove what a Roundhouse asshole he was when he was reliably quoted as saying that anyone who will-ingly got on a motorcycle wasn't playing with a full deck. Every Highway Patrolman had to go through extensive motor-cycle training ("Wheel School") and prove he could really ride a motorcycle, and they didn't like some Roundhouse po-litically savvy supercop making fun of that.

  That was all bad enough, but what really pissed people off, the straw that broke the fucking camel's back, so to speak, was Wohl's probationary Highway Patrolman idea. Wohl said that he would approve the transfer into Highway of outstanding young cops who didn't have four or five years on the job. He would put them to work under a Highway supervisor for six months. At any time during the six months, the supervisor could recommend, in writing, that the rookie be transferred out of Highway. But he had to give his reasons. In other words, if the rookie didn't screw up, he was in. He would get himself sent to Wheel School and if he got through that, he could go buy himself a pair of boots, breeches, and a crushed-crown brimmed cap.

  The first two probationary Highway Patrolmen were Officers Jesus Martinez and Charles McFadden.

  Officer Charley McFadden pulled open the top left-hand drawer of his dresser and took his Smith & Wesson Military & Police.38 Special caliber service revolver from under a pile of Jockey shorts and slipped it into his holster.

  Then he went down the stairs two at a time.

  "See you later, Mom!" he called at the bottom.

  "Ask Margaret if she'd like to come to supper," Agnes McFadden said. "If you can spare the time for your mother."

  "I'll ask," Charley said, and went out the door.

  He ran across Fitzgerald Street, down two houses, and up the steps to the porch. The door opened as he got there.

  Margaret was wearing her nurse suit. Sometimes she did, and sometimes she didn't. Charley wasn't sure exactly how that worked, but he did know that she was a real knockout in her starched white uniform. Not that she wasn't in regular clothes too, of course. But there was something about that white uni-form that turned Charley on.

  "Hi!" she said.

  "Hi!"

  She stood on her toes and kissed him. Chastely, but on the lips.

  She had an armful of books.

  "How come the books?"

  "Classes in the morning," she said. "Then I agreed to fill in at the emergency room from one to seven."

  "I get off at four," he said, disappointed.

  "I need the money," she said, and then corrected herself. "We need the money. And I'm getting double-time."

  They went down the stairs. Charley unlocked the door of his Volkswagen.

  "Good morning, Margaret!" Agnes McFadden called from the white marble steps in front of her door.

  "Morning, Mrs. McFadden."

  "Why don't you come to supper?"

  "I'd love to, but I can't. I'm working. Can I have a rain-check?"

  "Yeah, sure."

  Charley closed the door after her, and then went around the front and got behind the wheel.

  "So what are you going to do today?"

  "I got court," Charley replied. "Which means I get off at four."

  "I told you, they're paying me double-time."

  "How come?"

  "Because it's less than twenty-four hours since my last over-time tour. I got overtime yesterday too."

  "You're not getting enough sleep," Charley said.

  "So tonight, after I meet you in the FOP at seven-fifteen, and we have dinner, I go to bed early."

  The Fraternal Order of Police, on Spring Garden Street, was just a couple of minutes walk from Hahneman Hospital on North Broad Street in downtown Philadelphia.

  "Yeah," he said. "This isn't a hell of a lot of fun, is it?"

  "Most people are broke when they get married, and have to go in debt. We won't be."

  "To hell with it. Let's get married and go in debt."

  She laughed and leaned over and kissed him again.

  They had breakfast in the medical staff cafeteria at Temple Hospital. The food was good and reasonable and there was a place to park the Volkswagen. As long as she was wearing a nurse's uniform and her R.N. pin, she could eat there. When she was in regular clothes, for some reason, they wouldn't let her do that.

  Charley sometimes felt a little uncomfortable when he was in his Highway uniform and they ate there. He had the feeling that some of the medical personnel had started believing the bullshit the Philadelphia Ledger had been printing about the cops generally, and Highway specifically. The Ledger had re-ally been on Highway's ass, with that "Carlucci's Commandos" and "Gestapo" bullshit, so it wasn't really surprising. People believe what they read.

  He thought that if he was really a Highway guy, maybe he wouldn't be so sensitive about it. Nobody in the world knew it but Margaret, but the truth was, he didn't like Highway. What he really wanted to be was a detective.

  If I was in here in plainclothes, nobody would give me a second look; they would think I was a doctor, or a pill sales-man, or something.

  When they finished breakfast, Charley got in the Volkswagen and drove to Highway headquarters at Bustleton and Bowler Streets in Northeast Philadelphia.

  There, he met his partner, Police Officer Gerald "Gerry" D. Quinn, who was thirty-three, had been on the job eleven years and in Highway for five years.

  The very first day he and Quinn had gone on patrol together, they had stopped a '72 Buick for speeding. It had turned out to be stolen. The case was finally coming up for trial today.

  They stood roll call, and then drew a car, Highway 22, a year-old Chevrolet with 97,000-odd miles on its odometer. If by some miracle the trial went off as scheduled, they could then go on patrol. They drove downtown to City Hall at the intersection of Broad and Market Streets and parked just out-side the southeast corner entrance.

  Just off the southeast stairwell is Court Attendance, an ad-ministrative unit of the Police Department, which tries to keep track of which police officer is to testify at what time in which courtroom. They checked in there, learned where they were supposed to go to testify, and then went to the stairwell itself, where a blind concessionaire brewed what most police agreed was the worst coffee in the Delaware River Basin. They shot the bull with other cops for a while, and then went upstairs to their courtroom to wait for their case to be called.

  ***

  The day began for Staff Inspector Peter Frederick Wohl at about the same time, a few minutes before six, as it had for Officer Charles McFadden.

  Wohl was wakened by the ringing of one of the two tele-phones on the bedside table in his bedroom in his apartment. His over-a-six-car-garage apartment had once been the chauf-feur's quarters of a turn-of-the-century mansion on the 800 block of Norwood Street in Chestnut Hill. The mansion itself had been divided into luxury apartments.

  "Inspector Wohl," he said, somewhat formally. The phone that had been ringing was the official phone, paid for by the Police Department.

  "Six o'clock, sir. Good morning."

  It was the voice of the tour lieutenant at Bustleton and Bow-ler. The voice was familiar, and so was the face he could put to it-that of a lieutenant newly assigned to Special Opera-tions-but he could not come up with a name.

  "Good morning," Wohl said, as cheerfully as he could manage. "How goes the never-ending war against crime?"

  The lieutenant chuckled.

  "I don't know about that, sir. But I can report your car is back from the garage. Shall I have someone run it over to you?"

  For the first time, Wohl remembered what had happened to his car, an unmarked nearly brand-new Ford LTD four-door sedan. The sonofabitch had just died on him. He had been stopped by the red light at Mount Airy and Germantown Av-enue on the way home from Commissioner Czernick's soiree, and when the light changed, the Ford had moved fifteen feet forward and lurched to a stop.

  When he tried to start it, the only thing that happened was the lights dimmed. The radio still worked, happily. He had called for a police tow t
ruck, and then asked Police Radio to have the nearest Highway or Special Operations car meet him.

  By the time the tow truck reached him, a Highway RPC, a Highway sergeant, and the Special Operations/Highway lieu-tenant were already there. The lieutenant had driven him home.

  Wohl sat up and swung his feet out of bed, hoping to clear his brain.

  "Let me think," he said.

  If they sent somebody over with his car, it would be some-one who should be out on the street, or someone who was going off-duty, and thus should not be doing a white shirt a favor.

  On the other hand, he was reluctant to drive his personal car over to Bustleton and Bowler for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that it might get "accidentally" bumped by a Highway Patrolman who believed Peter Wohl to be the devil reincarnate.