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

by The Witness(lit)

  After a long time, it stopped ringing.

  Three minutes later, he pushed open the bathroom door, which took considerably more effort than he thought it would.

  Lari was standing there.

  "I thought you would probably try something stupid like that," she said. "Put your arm around my shoulders."

  Using Lari as a crutch, he made his way back to the bed. She watched him get in and then rearranged the thin sheet over him.

  "Does this mean I don't get a gold star to take home to Mommy?"

  "I'd have gotten you a crutch if you had asked for one," she said. "If that was uncomfortable, it's your own fault."

  "Uncomfortable, certainly, but far more dignified."

  Finally, he got her to smile. He liked her smile.

  "You should start feeling a little drowsy about now," she said. "That should help the pain."

  "I don't suppose I could interest you in waltzing around the room with me again?"

  "Not right now, thank you," she said, and smiled again, and left, taking the bedpans with her.

  He lowered the head of the bed, and then shut the television off. He was feeling drowsy, but the leg still hurt.

  The telephone rang again. He picked it up.

  "Dad?"

  "No, not Dad," Helene's voice said.

  "Oh. Hi!"

  "That went far more smoothly than one would have thought, didn't it?"

  "I guess."

  "It's a good thing I didn't know who he was taking me to see. I just ten minutes ago saw the Bulletin."

  "I've seen it," he said. "It's not a very good likeness."

  "Oh, I think it is. I thought it rather exciting, as a matter of fact. Not as exciting as being in the room with you like that, but exciting."

  "Jesus!"

  "If I thought there was any way in the world to get away with it, I'd come back. Would you like that?"

  "Under the circumstances, it might not be the smartest thing to do."

  "'Faint heart ne'er won fair maiden,'" she quoted.

  Matt was trying to find a reply to that when he realized that she had hung up.

  "Jesus H. Christ!" he said, and put the phone back in its cradle.

  He recalled the pressure of her breast against his arm, and her fingers at the back of his neck. And other things about Helene.

  He looked down at his middle.

  "Well," he said aloud. "At least that's not broken."

  ***

  Martha Washington was sitting on the narrow end of the grand piano in the living room looking out the window when she heard the key in the door and knew her husband had come home.

  She looked at her watch, saw that it was a few minutes after three, and then turned to look toward the door. She didn't get off the piano.

  "Hi!" she called.

  Jason came into the living room pulling off his overcoat. He threw it onto the couch. When it was wet, as it was now, that tended to stain the cream-colored leather, but Martha decided this was not the time to mention that for the five hundredth time.

  "How come I get hell when I set a glass on there, and you can sit on it?" he greeted her en route to the whiskey cabinet.

  "Because I don't drip on the wood and make stains," she said.

  He turned from the whiskey cabinet and smiled. That pleased her.

  "How's Matt?" she asked.

  "Apparently he was lucky; he's not seriously hurt. I haven't seen him."

  "Why not?"

  "Because when I went to the hospital this morning it looked like Suburban station at half past five. Even Farnsworth Stillwell-and his wife-were there. I thought I'd have a chance to go back, but I haven't."

  "Are you going to tell me what happened? That picture of Matt in the paper was horrifying!"

  "From what I have been able to piece together, he wasn't even supposed to be there, but he showed up when they were getting ready to go, and Wohl sent him with Mickey O'Hara. They were in an alley behind the bastard's house, waiting for the detectives and the cops to go in, when the sonofabitch showed up in the alley, shooting. He was a lousy shot, fortunately-"

  "He got Matt!"

  "With a ricochet, it hit a brick wall first. If it had hit Matt first, he'd be-a lot worse off."

  "He was covered with blood in the newspaper."

  "Minor wound, scratch, really, in the forehead. The head tends to bleed a lot."

  "The radio said the man died," Martha said. "Poor Matt."

  " 'Poor Matt' ?"

  "It will bother him, having taken someone's life."

  "The last one he shot didn't bother him that I could see."

  "That you could see."

  Jason's face wrinkled as he considered that.

  "Touch‚," he said, finally.

  "I got him a box of candy. I didn't know what else to get him."

  "You could have given him the picture of the naked lady. I know he'd like that."

  She looked at him a minute, smiled, and said, "Okay. I will."

  "Really?"

  "Why not?" she asked.

  "You're not thinking of taking it to the hospital?"

  "Are we going to the hospital? "

  "Yeah. Well, I thought maybe if you took off early and were here when I came home, you might want to go up there with me."

  "I was about to go without you," she said. "You didn't call all day."

  "I was busy," he said, and then added, "I found Tony."

  "Oh?"

  "In a bar in Roxborough. Specifically, in the back of a bar in Roxborough."

  "Oh, honey!"

  "I was right on the edge of taking him to a hospital. God, he looked awful. But I managed to get him to go home. I put him to bed. I just hope he stays there."

  "Does Inspector Wohl know?"

  He shook his head no.

  "Well, maybe with all this-"

  "He won't find out? You underestimate Peter Wohl."

  "What's going to happen?"

  "Drunks don't really reform until they hit bottom. Tony's pretty close to the bottom. Maybe I should have left him there and let him face Wohl. Maybe that would straighten him out."

  "You know you couldn't do that."

  "No," he agreed.

  "The picture's in the spare bedroom."

  "You really want to take it to the hospital?"

  "If it will make him feel better, why not?"

  ***

  When Jason and Martha Washington got off the elevator car-rying the oil painting of the naked voluptuous lady, Jason found that Officer Matthew M. Payne had, in addition to the two uniformed cops guarding his door, other visitors, none of whom he was, in the circumstances, pleased to see.

  Chief Inspector Matt Lowenstein and Staff Inspector Peter Wohl were standing in the corridor outside Matt's room, in conversation with a tall, angular man wearing a tweed jacket, a trench coat, gray flannel slacks, loafers, and the reserved collar affected by members of the clergy.

  Lowenstein had seen them; there was no option of getting back on the elevator.

  "Chief," Jason said.

  "I'm glad you're here. I was about to suggest to Inspector Wohl that we try to find you," Lowenstein said, then changed his tone of voice from business to social: "Hello, Martha. It's been a long time."

  "How are you, Chief Lowenstein?" Martha asked, giving him her hand.

  "Reverend Coyle, may I introduce some other friends of Matt Payne's? Detective and Mrs. Jason Washington."

  "That's Sergeant Washington, Chief," Wohl corrected him. "How are you, Martha?"

  "Christ," Lowenstein said. "That's right, I forgot. Well, let me then be among the last to congratulate you, Jason."

  "I'm very pleased to meet you," the Reverend H. Wadsworth Coyle said, enthusiastically pumping their hands in turn.

  "Reverend Coyle," Lowenstein said, "has been telling us that he was Matt's spiritual adviser at Episcopal Academy-"

  "Yes, indeed," Coyle interrupted him. "And just as soon as I heard of this terrible, terrible acciden
t, I-

  "-so perhaps you had better explain what that picture is you're carrying," Lowenstein concluded.

  Wohl looked amused.

  "Inspector Wohl has one very much like this, Reverend." Martha Washington replied, "which Matt admires. He asked me to see if I could find him one as much like it as possible, and I have. I thought it might cheer him up."

  Wohl no longer looked amused, but Lowenstein did.

  "Very nice," the Reverend Coyle said, not very convinc-ingly.

  "They gave him something, for the pain, I suppose," Wohl said. "He's sleeping. We're waiting for him to wake up. But I think you could stick your head in, maybe he's just dozing."

  "Martha," Lowenstein said, "your husband is not the silent gumshoe of legend. Why don't you stick your head in? That way, if Mart's asleep, he'll stay that way."

  "Perhaps the both of us?" the Reverend Coyle said.

  "Go on, Reverend," Lowenstein said. There was something in his eyes that kept Jason from challenging the "suggestion" not to go in.

  As Mrs. Washington, trailed by Reverend Coyle, disap-peared into Matt's room, Lowenstein took a paper from his pocket and handed it to Washington.

  ISLAMIC LIBERATION ARMY

  There Is No God But God,

  And Allah Is His Name

  PRESS RELEASE:

  Allah has taken our Beloved Brother Abu Ben Mohammed into his arms in Heaven. Blessed be the Name of Allah!

  But the cold-blooded murder of our Beloved Brother Abu Ben Mohammed by the infidel lack-eys of the infidel sons of Zion, who call them-selves police, shall not go unpunished!

  Death to the murderers of our Brother!

  Death to those who bear false witness against the Brothers of the Islamic Liberation Army in their Holy War against the infidel sons of Zion, who for too long have victimized the African Brothers (Islamic and other) and other minori-ties of Philadelphia.

  Death to the Zionist oppressors of our people and the murderers who call themselves police!

  Freedom Now!

  Abdullah el Sikkim

  Chief of Staff

  Islamic Liberation Army

  Washington read it, and then looked at Lowenstein.

  "Sent by messenger to Mickey O'Hara at the Bulletin," Lowenstein said. "And to the other papers, and the TV and radio stations."

  "The question, obviously, is, who sent this?" Washington said. "And the immediate next question is, is it for real, or are we dealing with kooks?"

  "I think we have to work on the presumption that there's something to it," Wohl said.

  "What's something?"

  "The first question that occurred to me was who did we miss, maybe how many, when we picked up those people this morning?" Wohl went on.

  "There were eight people in the store; eight people Mr. Monahan identified from photographs; the eight people we had warrants for."

  "There was probably, almost certainly," Lowenstein said, "a ninth man. Who drove the van."

  "Muhammed el Sikkim is a guy named Randolph George Dawes," Washington said. "Little guy." He held up his hand at shoulder level. "Who is this Abdullah el Sikkim? His brother?"

  "Dawes has two brothers," Lowenstein said. "One of them is nine years old. The other one's in Lewisburg."

  "He could be the one guy we missed, the one driving the van," Wohl said. "Or he could be any one of any number of people we don't know about."

  "Well, whoever he is, he's guilty of plagiarism," Washing-ton said. "A lot of this," he dropped his eyes to the sheet of paper and read, "'infidel sons of Zion, who for too long have victimized the African Brothers (Islamic and other) and other minorities of Philadelphia,' and some more of it too, I think, is right out of the first press release."

  "He also used the phrase 'death to' more than once," Lowenstein said.

  "He says 'murderers,' not 'murderer,'" Wohl injected. "Does that mean he doesn't know Matt shot Dawes?"

  "It was all over the papers, and TV too," Washington said. "I can't see how he can't know. Are we taking this as a bona fide threat to Matt?"

  "It seems to me the first thing we have to do is find this Abdullah el Sikkim," Lowenstein said. "Did you get anything out of the ones we arrested about more people being involved? "

  "I'm letting them stew until after supper," Washington re-plied. "I'm going to start running them through lineups at half past six."

  "Why haven't you done that already?" Lowenstein de-manded.

  "Because I think I will get more out of them after they have been locked up, all alone, all day," Washington explained. "The adrenaline will have worn off. They may even be a little worried about their futures by half past six. That's the way I called it, but I could go down there right now, Chief, if you or Inspector Wohl think I should."

  "You're a sergeant now, Jason, a supervisor, but since you don't have anybody but Tony Harris to supervise, I guess it's your job." Wohl said. "I won't tell you how to do it."

  Washington met his eyes.

  "Are you going to tell Matt about this?" he asked.

  "The question we wanted to ask you," Wohl said, "for quotation, I think I should tell you, at a five o'clock meeting with the commissioner, was, do we take this thing seriously? Are they really going to try to kill Matt, and/or the witnesses, which right now is Monahan, period?"

  "So you asked us if we thought it should be taken seri-ously," Lowenstein said. "Why the hell are we letting these scumbags get to us, the three of us, this way?"

  "And the next question was going to be," Wohl went on, "did Monahan go ahead and make a positive ID of these people after the threat was made? Obviously, since you're not going to run the lineup until half past six, that can't be answered."

  "The reason the three of us are upset by this," Washington said thoughtfully, "is that as much as we don't want to believe it, as incredible as this whole Islamic Liberation Army thing sounds, we have a gut feeling that these people are perfectly serious. They are just crazy enough, or dumb enough, to try to kill Matt and Monahan."

  Lowenstein took a fresh cigar, as thick as his thumb and six inches long, from his pocket. He bit off the end, and then took a long time lighting it properly.

  "Harry will be back in a minute," he said finally. "I sent him to have a talk with Hospital Security. He's a retired Inter-nal Affairs sergeant. I want whatever he can give us to keep this under control."

  Detective Harry McElroy was Chief Inspector Lowenstein's driver.

  "I want to get plainclothes people to guard Matt," Wohl said. "A lot of uniforms are going to signal these idiots-and the public-that we're taking them seriously."

  "You mean you don't want us to look scared," Lowenstein said. "OK. Good point. But protecting Monahan is something else. You did intend, Peter, to put Highway on him and his wife twenty-four hours a day?"

  "Special Operations will continue to provide two police of-ficers to guard Mr. Monahan and his wife around the clock," Wohl said, and then when he saw the look on Lowenstein's face went on: "To take the ACT people off that job-they are police officers, Chief-as a result of this 'press release' would both signal the Liberation Army that we're afraid of them, and send the message to the ACT cops that I don't have any faith in them."

  "I hope your touching faith is justified, Peter," Lowenstein said. "If they get to Monahan, either kill him, or scare him so that he won't testify, this whole thing goes down the tube, the scumbags go free, and the whole police department, not just you, will have egg all over its face."

  "I intend to protect Mr. Monahan," Wohl said, a little sharply. "I'm even thinking about shotguns."

  "You have enough ex-Stakeout people who are shotgun qualified?" Lowenstein asked.

  Unlike most major city police departments, which routinely equip police officers with shotguns, Philadelphia does not. Only the specially armed Stakeout unit is issued shotguns.

  "I've got people finding out," Wohl said.

  "I'll call the range at the Police Academy, Peter," Lowenstein said. "Have ten of your peopl
e there in an hour. The Range Training Officers will be set up to train and certify them in no more than two hours."

  "Thank you," Wohl said, simply.