The Investigators

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Oh, I think you know the name, Mr. Savarese,” Coughlin said. “And a good deal about Mr. Ketcham. I’m sure Joey Fiorello told you everything Phil Chason found out about him.”

  “I don’t know either of those names, either, I’m afraid.”

  “I thought we were speaking man-to-man,” Coughlin said.

  Savarese took a bite of his eggs Benedict, chewed them, and then dabbed delicately at his mouth with his napkin.

  “Has it occurred to you, Inspector,” Savarese said, “that if you—the police department—had not been so efficient—more efficient, frankly, than I would have believed—the problem would have been solved?”

  “Mr. Savarese, I know that you take pride in your reputation as a man of honor,” Coughlin said.

  Savarese raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  “I also like to think of myself as an honorable man,” Coughlin said.

  “And you are so regarded by me.”

  “I have taken an oath—a vow before God—to uphold and defend the law.”

  “Someone once said, ‘The law is an ass.’ ”

  “I think that’s often true,” Coughlin said. “But when that is true, what we should do is change the law, not ignore it.”

  “Man-to-man, you said,” Savarese said. “Man-to-man, taking into account what it says in the Bible about an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth, what do you think should happen to an animal who did what this animal did to my granddaughter? Who took from her her innocence, her dignity, her sanity . . .”

  “When I consider that question I have to remind myself that in the Bible it also says, ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’ ”

  “That’s avoiding the question,” Savarese said.

  “I can’t let myself think about things like that,” Coughlin said.

  “Is there justice, would you say,” Savarese asked, “in permitting an animal like this one to escape any punishment at all for the terrible things he did, because to punish him according to the law would mean bringing even greater pain and humiliation to the innocent person he violated?”

  “Man-to-man, no, Mr. Savarese,” Coughlin said.

  Savarese held up both hands, palms upward.

  “Thank you for your honesty,” he said.

  “I was hoping, Mr. Savarese, that you would decide, perhaps to save your granddaughter the risk of any further pain, that my assurance that this animal will be behind bars for a very long time would be enough punishment.”

  He looked into Savarese’s eyes and was surprised at the cold hate he saw in them, and even more that he felt frightened by it.

  And then the hate in Savarese’s eyes seemed to diminish.

  “Forgive me,” Savarese said.

  “Pardon me?”

  “For a moment, I thought I heard a threat,” Savarese said. “And for a moment, I forgot that you are an honorable man, incapable of even thinking of using my granddaughter as a pawn.”

  “One of my concerns, as a man, and a police officer, is to spare your granddaughter any further pain,” Coughlin said.

  “Yes, I believe that, and you have my gratitude,” Savarese said. “It seems to me that what this amounts to is the dichotomy between your belief that ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,’ and my belief that that vengeance, as limited as we both know it will be, is not nearly enough.”

  Coughlin shrugged.

  “I will do, Mr. Coughlin, what I believe is both my right and my duty to do, and I’m sure you will do the same.”

  “Mr. Savar—”

  Savarese held up his hand to shut him off.

  “I don’t think, on this subject, that we have anything else to say to each other,” Savarese said. “Why don’t we just finish our breakfast?”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Officer Timothy J. Calhoun was sitting with his wife on the couch in the living room watching the Today show on the tube when he heard the siren.

  Police sirens were a part of life in Philadelphia. Out here in the sticks, you seldom heard one.

  And this was more than one siren. Two. Maybe even three.

  He took his sock-clad feet off the coffee table, then put his coffee cup on the table and stood up, slipping his feet into loafers.

  “What is it?” Monica Calhoun asked.

  “Probably a fire,” Tim said. “Right around here someplace. Them sirens is getting closer.”

  He walked to the front door and opened it and looked up and down the street. He could see neither a fire nor police nor fire vehicles, and pulled the door closed.

  Just as he did, he heard one siren abruptly die. He knew that meant that whoever was running the siren had gotten where he was going.

  There was still the sound of two sirens.

  Monica joined him at the door.

  “You didn’t see anything?”

  He shook his head, “no.”

  The sound of the sirens grew very loud, and then, one at a time, died suddenly.

  Monica opened the door.

  “Jesus, they’re right here!” she said.

  There was a Harrisburg black-and-white in the driveway, and what looked like an unmarked car with two guys in it at the curb, and as Tim watched two uniforms jump out of the car in the driveway, a second Harrisburg black-and-white came screeching around the corner and pulled its nose in behind the black-and-white in the driveway.

  “What the fuck?”

  The first uniform reached the door.

  “Timothy J. Calhoun?”

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “Timothy J. Calhoun?”

  “Yeah, I’m Calhoun.”

  “Timothy J. Calhoun, I have a warrant for your arrest for misprision in office,” the first cop said. “You are under arrest!”

  “Timmy!” Monica wailed. “What’s going on?”

  “Turn around, please, and put your hands behind your back,” the first uniform said, as the second uniform put his hands on his shoulders and spun him around.

  “Timmy!” Monica wailed again.

  “You have the right to remain silent . . .” The first cop began very rapidly to give him his rights under the Miranda decision.

  “It’s some kind of mistake, baby,” Tim said.

  What did the uniform say? Misprision? What the fuck is misprision?

  “Do you understand your rights as I have outlined them to you?” The first cop asked.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Timmy said. “Look, I’m a cop, I don’t know what the hell is going on here.”

  “You’re being arrested for being a dirty cop, Calhoun,” a voice—somehow familiar—said.

  The uniform who had spun him around to cuff him now spun him around again.

  Jesus Martinez, onetime plainclothes narc, was standing there looking at him with contempt.

  “What the hell is going on here, Jesus?”

  “You’re on your way to the slam, big time,” Martinez said. “I’ll need your badge and your gun.”

  “Timmy, for Christ’s sake,” Monica wailed. “Why are they doing this to you?”

  One more uniform and two guys in civilian clothing came around the side of the house. Tim recognized the big guy first. Charley McFadden, who had also been a plainclothes narc—the other half of Mutt & Jeff, which is what everybody had called the two of them.

  The other wasn’t nearly as familiar, and it took a moment for Tim to recognize him.

  It’s that hotshot from Special Operations, Payne. The guy who shot the serial rapist. The last time I saw him was in the Roundhouse parking lot.

  “I’m really sorry about this, Timmy,” McFadden said. “Jesus, how could you be so stupid?”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Tim said.

  “He didn’t do anything!” Monica wailed. “Charley, he’s a good cop! You know that!”

  “I know he’s not a good cop, Monica,” Charley said. “He’s dirty, and he got caught.”

  “Charley, what are they talking abou
t?” Monica asked.

  “Call the FOP in Philly and tell them I was just arrested,” Tim said.

  “Where are they taking you?”

  “He’ll be in the detention cell in Harrisburg police headquarters for a while, Mrs. Calhoun,” Matt Payne said. “They can contact him there.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Monica snapped.

  “My name is Payne. I’m a detective assigned to the Special Operations Division. I’m sorry about this, Mrs. Calhoun.”

  “Yeah, you look like you’re sorry!”

  “I’m going to be at the bank,” Matt said to Charley McFadden. “As soon as I have the safe-deposit box, I’ll meet you at police headquarters.”

  “Right,” McFadden said.

  “Have you got his gun and his badge?”

  “Not yet,” Martinez said.

  “If you would give me the key to the safe-deposit box, Calhoun, you’d save everybody a lot of time and inconvenience.”

  “I don’t know nothing about no safe-deposit box.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Matt said.

  He looked at the Harrisburg uniforms.

  “Take him away, please,” he said.

  Mrs. Timothy J. Calhoun, holding her balled fists to her mouth, watched with horror and disbelief as her husband was led down the path and loaded into the backseat of the Harrisburg black-and-white.

  Then she watched until it drove out of sight.

  “I’ll need the gun and the badge, Mrs. Calhoun,” Detective Martinez said.

  “And if you know where the key to the box is, Monica,” Charley McFadden added.

  “You’re supposed to be his friend, Charley!” Monica said. “How could you do this to him?”

  “He done it to himself, Monica,” Charley said. “Let’s go get his gun and badge.”

  “You stay here! I’ll go get it.”

  “I can’t let you do that, Monica,” Charley said. “I’ll have to go with you.”

  When Harrison J. Hormel, Esq., first among equals of the assistant district attorneys of Philadelphia, arrived at work, he heard the sound of an electric razor coming from the office of the Hon. Thomas J. “Tony” Callis, the district attorney of Philadelphia.

  He looked at his watch. It was 8:35, a good hour or hour and a half earlier than Callis’s usual appearance.

  He turned and knocked at the unmarked private door to Callis’s office. When there was no answer, he tried the knob, and it turned, and he was able to push the door slightly open.

  Callis, in a sleeveless undershirt, his suspenders hanging loose, was standing at the washbasin in his small private bath.

  Hormel walked to the door. Callis saw his reflection in the mirror and took the electric razor from his face.

  “What’s up, Harry?” he asked.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  “It’s a long story,” Callis said. “One I’m not really ready to pass on right at this moment.”

  “What’s the big secret?”

  “I’ll give you a thumbnail, but no questions, okay?”

  “You’re the boss.”

  “Dirty cops. Lots of them.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I said no questions. The arrests are not finished yet. There’s an incredible amount of ifs in this one, Harry. If this happens, then that will. If that doesn’t happen, then this will. You follow?”

  Hormel shook his head, “no.”

  “I’ve been up since half past three,” Callis said. “Coughlin sent a Highway Patrol car for me. What I need now is to finish my shave, put on a clean shirt, have a couple of cups of coffee and thirty minutes to settle my thoughts.”

  “Since when is Denny Coughlin investigating dirty cops?”

  “Since Carlucci—who they got out of bed at six thirty, by the way—told him to.”

  “And he’s found some, I gather?”

  “There’s going to be a meeting in Carlucci’s office at half past nine. There’s a couple of things supposed to happen before then.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Jesus, Harry, don’t you understand ‘no questions’?”

  “Sorry, I’m just trying to be useful. You say Coughlin sent a Highway car after you?”

  “Nice try,” Callis said. “Yeah, Coughlin sent a Highway car for me. Period, that’s all I can give you now. When the meeting is over, I’ll probably be able to tell you what’s going on.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now let me finish my shave and get a fresh shirt.”

  “Nothing I can do right now?”

  “Not a thing,” Callis said.

  Harry had almost made it to the door when Callis had another thought, tangentially connected with the Five Squad.

  “Harry?” he called.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Tell Phebus I’ll want to see him sometime this morning. I don’t give a damn what else he’s got on his plate, I want him around here this morning where I can lay my hands on him in ten seconds. Capisce?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If he asks why, tell him I want to know what’s going on with the Leslie case.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Assistant District Attorney Hormel went immediately to the office of Assistant District Attorney Anton C. Phebus. He had not yet come to work.

  He walked back down the corridor thirty minutes later and found that Mr. Phebus had come to work, and to judge by the briefcase in his hand was about to leave it.

  “Where are you headed?”

  “For a conference with the Goddamned Nun.”

  “What does she want?”

  “Haven’t the faintest. Some deal, certainly. She’s determined to see that Leslie gets no more than a slap on the wrist.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to postpone it.”

  “Why?”>

  “Because Tony said he wants you around here all morning where he can lay his hands on you in ten seconds.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “He said he wants to talk to you about the Leslie case. He’s in his Mr. Super-DA-Man role. Coughlin, he announced like a happy child, had sent a Highway car for him in the middle of the night, and he’s on his way to a meeting in the mayor’s office.”

  “What’s that all about?”

  “He said something about dirty cops, but what I think it is, is that he thinks Carlucci is liable to ask him about the Leslie case.”

  Anton C. Phebus, who was not a stupid man, felt a sudden pain in the pit of his stomach.

  “Okay,” he said. “I hear and obey.”

  As soon as Hormel had left his office, he called the Goddamned Nun’s office and left a message for her to the effect that an emergency situation had arisen that would preclude his meeting with her as scheduled. He would call her later in the day and attempt to schedule another meeting at a mutually convenient time.

  Then he dialed the home telephone number of Officer Joe Grider. Mrs. Grider informed him that Joe hadn’t come home yet.

  He dialed the home number of Officer Herbert Prasko, and there was no answer. He remembered that Prasko’s wife had a job, which would explain why nobody answered the phone, particularly if Prasko, like Grider, had worked until the wee hours and then had a couple of belts afterward. There wasn’t much sense—unless all you wanted to do was sleep—in going home if the old lady was out working.

  There was one way of finding out for sure, of course. Call the Narcotics Unit and talk to somebody and find out what had happened the previous night. He dialed the number of the Narcotics Unit, but changed his mind and hung up before it was answered.

  He was letting his imagination run away with him. He had thought this whole thing through very carefully. Nothing had gone wrong because nothing could go wrong.

  “Well, good morning!” Vice President James C. Chase of the First Harrisburg Bank & Trust Company cried cheerfully when he saw Lieutenant Paul Deitrich and Detective Matt Payne walk into his outer office. “You wanted to see me?”<
br />
  “We’d appreciate a few minutes of your time, Mr. Chase,” Deitrich said.

  “Anytime, Paul, you know that,” Chase said. “Come on in.”

  They went into the inner office.

  “Actually, Matt,” Chase said, “I was hoping to catch you before you went across the floor. Our Mr. Hausmann is back from Boston, and we’re going to have to find you another desk somewhere.”

  “I won’t be needing a desk anymore, Mr. Chase,” Matt said.

  Chase picked up on something in Matt’s voice, or perhaps his demeanor.

  “That sounds, forgive me, a little ominous, Matt. Is something wrong?”

  “I’m afraid so, sir,” Matt said. “I’m afraid I was right when I thought I saw someone I recognized going into the safe-deposit area yesterday, Mr. Chase.”

  “But Adelaide, Mrs. Worner, had no record—”

  “We just arrested him, Mr. Chase,” Matt said. “On charges of misprision of office as a Philadelphia police officer. We have reason to believe that Mrs. Worner has been making a safe-deposit box available to him off the records.”

  “That’s hard to accept,” Chase said, somewhat coldly. “Paul?”

  “We could, of course, be wrong, Mr. Chase,” Deitrich said. “But I don’t think so.”

  “To what end? You’re not trying to tell me Adelaide could possibly have any involvement with a call girl ring in Philadelphia?”

  “We believe the box is being used to hold money—and maybe drugs—acquired illegally by Philadelphia police officers,” Matt said.

  “And maybe drugs?” Chase quoted, horrified. “And you’ve come equipped with a search warrant, is that what you’re telling me?”

  “No, sir,” Deitrich said. “We don’t have a search warrant, Mr. Chase. We can get one, but we’re hoping that won’t be necessary.”

  “Well, certainly—as I’m sure you understand, Lieutenant—I can’t permit you access to a safe-deposit box without one.”

  “We’re hoping that we can get Mrs. Worner to show us which box it is, and give us the key to it, without our having to get a search warrant,” Matt said.

  “If she has been up to what you’re suggesting, Matt, why would she do that? I must tell you, I find this entire—”

  “I don’t think Mrs. Worner really knew what she was doing, Mr. Chase,” Deitrich said. “I don’t know how familiar you are with her personal situation . . .”