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

by The Witness(lit)

  Peter Wohl's personal automobile was a twenty-three-year-old Jaguar XK-120 drophead roadster. He had spent four years and more money than he liked to think about rebuilding it from the frame up.

  And even if I did drive it over there, he finally decided, when the day is over I will be back on square one, since I obviously cannot drive both the Jag and the Department's Ford back here at the same time.

  "Let me call you if I need a ride, Lieutenant," Wohl said. "If you don't hear from me, just forget it."

  "Yes, sir. I'll be here."

  Wohl hung up the official telephone and picked up the one he paid for and dialed a number from memory.

  "Hello."

  "Peter Wohl, Matt. Did I wake you?"

  "No, sir. I had to get out of bed to take a shower."

  "You sound pretty chipper this morning, Officer Payne."

  "We celibates always sleep, sir, with a clear conscience and wake up chipper."

  Wohl chuckled, and then asked, "Have you had breakfast?"

  "No, sir."

  "I'll swap you a breakfast of your choice for a ride to work. The Ford broke last night. They fixed it and took it to Bustleton and Bowler."

  "Thirty minutes?"

  "Thank you, Matt. I hate to put you out."

  "You did say, sir, you were buying breakfast?"

  "Yes, I did."

  "Thirty minutes, sir."

  THREE

  Officer Matthew M. Payne had just about finished dressing when Wohl called. Like Wohl, he was a bachelor. He lived in a very nice, if rather small, apartment on the top floor of a turn-of-the-century mansion on Rittenhouse Square. The lower floors of the building, owned by his father, now housed the Delaware Valley Cancer Society.

  A tall, lithely muscled twenty-two-year-old, Payne had grad-uated the previous June from the University of Pennsylvania and had almost immediately joined the Police Department. He was assigned as "administrative assistant" to Inspector Wohl, who commanded the Special Operations Division of the Phil-adelphia Police Department. It was a plainclothes assignment.

  He put the telephone back into its cradle and then walked to the fireplace, where he tied his necktie in the mirror over the mantel. He put his jacket on and then went back to the fireplace and took his Smith & Wesson "Undercover".38 Special five-shot revolver and its ankle holster from the mantelpiece and strapped it to his ankle.

  Then he left the apartment, went down the narrow stairs to the fourth floor, and got on the elevator to the parking garage in the basement.

  There he got into a new silver Porsche 911, his graduation present from his father, and drove out of the garage, waving at the Holmes Security Service rent-a-cop as he passed his glassed-in cubicle. For a long time the rent-a-cop, a retired Traffic Division corporal, was the only person in the building who knew that Payne was a policeman.

  There had been a lot of guessing by the two dozen young women who worked for the Cancer Society about just who the good-looking young guy who lived in the attic apartment was. He had been reliably reported to be a- stockbroker, a lawyer, in the advertising business, and several other things. No one had suggested that he might be a cop; cops are not expected to dress like an advertisement for Brooks Brothers or to drive new silver Porsche 911s.

  But then Officer Payne had shot to death one Warren K. Fletcher, thirty-one, of a Germantown address, whom the newspapers had taken to calling "the Northwest serial rapist" and his photograph, with Mayor Jerry Carlucci's arm around him, had been on the front pages of all the newspapers, and his secret was out.

  He was not an overly egotistical young man, but it seemed to him that after the shooting, the looks of invitation in the eyes of the Cancer Society's maidens had seemed to intensify.

  There were two or three of them he thought he would like to get to know, in the biblical sense, but he had painful proof when he was at the University of Pennsylvania that "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" was more than a cleverly turned phrase. A woman scorned who worked where he lived, he had concluded, was too much of a risk to take.

  Matt Payne drove to Peter Wohl's apartment via the Schuylkill Expressway, not recklessly, but well over the speed limit. He was aware that he was in little danger of being stopped (much less cited) for speeding. The Schuylkill Expressway was patrolled by officers of the Highway Patrol, all of whom were aware that Inspector Wohl's administrative assistant drove a silver Porsche 911.

  Wohl was waiting for him when Payne arrived, leaning against one of the garage doors.

  "Funny, you don't look celibate," Wohl said as he got in the car.

  "Good morning, sir."

  "Let's go somewhere nice, Matt. I know I'm buying, but the condemned man is entitled to a hearty meal."

  "I don't think I like the sound of that," Matt replied.

  "Not you, me. Condemned, I mean. They want me in the commissioner's office at ten. I'm sure what he wants to know is how the Magnella job is going."

  Officer Joseph Magnella, twenty-four, had been found lying in the gutter beside his 22nd District RPC (radio patrol car) with seven.22 bullets in his body. Mayor Carlucci had given the job to Special Operations. A massive effort, led by two of the best detectives in the department, to find the doers had so far come up with nothing.

  "Nothing came up overnight?" Matt asked softly.

  "Not a goddamned clue, to coin a phrase," Wohl said bit-terly. "I told them to call me if anything at all came up. No-body called."

  Payne braked before turning onto Norwood Street.

  "How about The Country Club?" he asked.

  The Country Club was a diner with a reputation for good food on Cottman Avenue in the Northeast, along their route to Bustleton and Bowler.

  "Fine," Wohl said.

  Wohl bought a copy of the Ledger from a vending machine as they walked into the restaurant, glanced at the headlines, and then flipped through it until he found what he was looking for.

  "Somewhat self-righteously," he said, handing the paper to Matt, "the Ledger comments editorially on the incompetence of the Police Department, vis-…-vis the murder of Officer Mag-nella."

  The waitress appeared and handed them menus.

  "Breakfast steak, pink in the middle, two fried eggs, sunny side up, home fries, an English muffin, orange juice, milk, and coffee," Payne ordered without looking at the menu.

  "If you're what you say you are, where do you get the ap-petite?" Wohl said, and added, "Toast and coffee, please."

  "I have high hopes," Payne replied. "You have to eat, In-spector."

  "Who do you think you are, my mother?"

  "Think of the starving children in India," Payne said. "How they would love a breakfast steak."

  "Oh, Jesus," Wohl groaned, but after a moment added, "Okay. Do that twice, please, miss."

  Payne read the editorial and handed the newspaper back.

  "You didn't expect anything else, did you?" Payne asked.

  "I can ignore those bastards when they're wrong. But it smarts when they're right."

  "Harris and Washington will come up with something."

  "He said, not really believing it."

  "I believe it."

  "As a matter of fact, the longer they don't come up with something, the greater the odds are that they won't," Wohl said.

  The waitress delivered the coffee, milk, and orange juice, sparing Payne having to respond. He was grateful; he hated to sound like a cheerleader.

  Wohl ate everything put before him, but absently. He vol-unteered no further conversation, and Payne decided he should keep his mouth shut.

  They were halfway between The Country Club and Special Operations headquarters when Wohl decided to tell Payne about Lieutenant Jack Malone.

  "We're getting a new lieutenant this morning," he said. "And Lucci's being transferred out."

  "That sounds like bad news-good news."

  "Lieutenant Malone used to be Commissioner Cohan's driver. Cohan is behind the transfer."

  "Then it's good news-good new
s?'

  "Not necessarily," Wohl said. "Cohan sprung this on me at Commissioner Czernick's reception. Malone's had some personal problems, and in a manner of speaking has been working too hard. Cohan wants to take some of the pressure off him. He's had the Auto Squad in Major Crimes; that's where Lucci's going. It's a good job. Cohan's afraid that Ma-lone will think he's been shanghaied to us. Which means that I have-"

  "Has he?" Payne interrupted. "Been shanghaied to us?"

  "I used the wrong word. Punished would be better. He's been shanghaied in the sense that he didn't ask for the transfer, and probably doesn't like the idea, but I'm not really sure if he just needs some of the pressure taken off, or whether Cohan is sending him a message. Cohan made it plain that he expects me to put him to work doing something worthy of his talent."

  "What did he do?" Payne asked.

  Why the hell did I tell him any of this in the first place ?

  "He caught his wife in bed with a lawyer and beat them up."

  "Both of them?"

  "Yeah, both of them. But that's not why he's being sent to us, I don't think. The pressure began to affect his work."

  "I don't think I understand."

  And aside from that, the problems, personal or professional, of a lieutenant are really none of the business of a police offi-cer. But I started this, didn't I? And Payne is really more than a run-of-the-mill young cop, isn't he?

  "He's got a wild idea that Bob Holland is involved in auto theft," Wohl said.

  "Holland Cadillac?" Matt asked, a hint of incredulity in his voice.

  "Yeah."

  "Is he?"

  "I don't know. It strikes me as damned unlikely. If I had to bet, I'd say no. Why should he be? He's got a dealership on every other corner in Philadelphia. Presumably, they're making money. He sold the city the mayor's limousine. Hell, my father bought his Buick from him; he gives a police discount, what-ever the hell that is. And Commissioner Cohan obviously doesn't think so; he thinks that the pressure got to Malone and his imagination ran away with him."

  "He was at the club yesterday. I saw him in the bar with that congressman I think is light on his feet."

  "Holland?" Wohl asked, and when Payne nodded, he went on, "Which club was that?"

  "We played at Whitemarsh Valley."

  "So Holland has friends in high places, right? Is that what you're driving at?"

  "It would explain why the commissioner wants him out of the Auto Squad."

  "Yeah," Wohl agreed a moment later. "Well, if Holland is doing hot cars, that's now Lucci's concern, not Malone's."

  And I will make sure that Lieutenant Jack Malone clearly understands that.

  "What are you going to do with him?" Payne asked.

  "We now have a plans and training officer," Wohl said. "His name is Lieutenant John J. Malone."

  "What's he going to do?"

  "I haven't figured that out yet," Wohl said.

  When Payne pulled into the parking lot, it was half past seven. The cars of Captain Mike Sabara, Wohl's deputy, and Captain Dave Pekach, the commanding officer of Highway Pa-trol, were already there. Payne wondered if Wohl had sent for them-the normal duty day began at eight-or whether they had come in early on their own.

  Once inside the building, Wohl, Sabara, and Pekach went into Wohl's office and closed the door. Payne understood that his presence was not desired.

  He told the sergeant on the desk that if the inspector was looking for him, he had gone to park his car and to get the inspector's car.

  When he came back and sat down at his desk, Wohl's phone began to ring.

  "Inspector Wohl's office, Officer Payne."

  "My name is Special Agent Davis of the FBI," the caller said. "Inspector Wohl, please."

  "I'm sorry, sir, the inspector is tied up. May I have him call you back?"

  "I wonder if you would please tell him that Special Agent in Charge Davis wants just a moment of time, and see if he'll speak to me?"

  There was a tone of authority in Davis's voice that got through to Matt.

  "Hold on, please, sir," he said, and walked to the closed door. He knocked and then, without waiting, opened it.

  "Sir, there's a Special Agent Davis-'Special Agent in Charge' is actually what he said-on twenty-nine. He said he wants 'just a moment of your time.' You want to talk to him?"

  "For your general information, Officer Payne, Special Agent in Charge Davis is the high priest of the FBI in Philadelphia," Wohl said. "Yes, of course, I'll talk to him." He picked up the telephone, pushed one of the buttons on it, and said, "Hello, Walter. How are you?"

  Payne closed the door and went back to his desk

  ***.

  When he got out of bed, at quarter past seven, John J. "Jack" Malone almost immediately learned that among a large number of other things that had gone wrong recently in his life he could now count the plumbing system of the St. Charles Hotel, where he resided. Specifically, both the hot and cold taps in his bath-room ran ice-cold.

  While he fully understood that the St.Charles was not in the league of the Bellevue-Stratford or the Warwick, neither was it a flea bag, and considering what they were charging him for his "suite" (a bedroom, a tiny sitting room, and an alcove containing a small refrigerator, a two-burner electric stove, and a small table), it seemed to him that the least the bastards could do was make sure the hot water worked.

  There was no question that it was not working. That, until he just now had been desperately hoping, it was not just the time required to get hot water up from the basement heater to the tenth floor. The damned water had been running full blast for five minutes and it was just as ice-cold now as it had been when he first turned it on.

  A shower, under the circumstances, was clearly out of the question. Shaving was going to be bad enough (he had a beard that, even with a hot-towel preshave soak, wore out a blade every time he sawed it off); he was not going to stand under a torrent of ice water.

  At least, he consoled himself, he had nobly kept John Jame-son in his bottle last night. He had not so much as sniffed a cork for forty-eight hours, so he would not reek of old booze when he presented himself to Staff Inspector Peter Wohl and announced he was reporting for duty. All he would smell of was twenty-four hours worth of flaking skin plus more than a little nervous sweat. It was possible that a liberal sprinkling of cologne would mask that.

  Possible or not, that was his only choice.

  He had slept in his underwear, so he took that off, rubbed his underarms briskly with a stiff towel, and then patted him-self there and elsewhere with cologne. The cologne, he was painfully aware, had been Little Jack's birthday gift to Daddy. Little Jack was nine, Daddy, thirty-four.

  Three weeks before, the Honorable Seymour F. Marshutz of the Family Court had awarded Daddy very limited rights of visitation (one weekend a month, plus no more than three lunch or supper visits per month, with the understanding that Jack would give Mrs. Malone at least three hours notice, preferably longer, of his intention to exercise the lunch/supper privilege) in which to be Daddy.

  He tore brown paper from around three bundles from the laundry before he found the one with underwear in it, and then put on a T-shirt and boxer shorts. Then he went to the closet for a uniform.

  The uniform was new. The last time he'd worn a uniform, he had been a cop in the 13th District. He'd worn plainclothes as a detective in South Detectives, and then when he'd made sergeant, he'd been assigned as driver to Chief Inspector Fran-cis J. Cohan, another plainclothes assignment. When Chief Cohan had been made deputy commissioner-Operations, as sort of a reward for a job well done, Cohan had arranged for Jack Malone to be assigned to the Major Crimes Division, still in plainclothes. When he'd made lieutenant, four months before, he had gone out and bought a new uniform, knowing, that sooner or later, he would need one. As commanding officer of the Auto Squad, it was up to him whether or not to wear a uniform; he had elected not to.

  Sooner had come much quicker than he expected. Captain Charley G
aft, who commanded Major Crimes, had called him up yesterday and told him he was being transferred, immedi-ately, to Special Operations, and suggested he use the holiday to clean out his desk in Major Crimes.

  "Can I ask why?"

  "Career enhancement," Captain Gaft replied, after a just barely perceptible hesitation.

  That was so much bullshit.

  "I see."

  There had been a tone in his voice that Captain Gaft had picked up on.