Two civilians, a very large black man and a tall young white man, both very well dressed, were walking down Nineteenth Street, toward Market. They could have, Officer Daniels reasoned, just come out of the alley behind the Inferno.
Officer Daniels, sounding his horn, drove the van into the alley, blocking it, and jumped out of the van.
“Hold it right there, please!” he called out.
His order proved to be unnecessary. The two civilians had stopped, turned, and were looking at him with curiosity.
While a Pedestrian Stop was of course necessary, Officer Daniels made the snap judgment that it was unlikely that these two had anything to do with whatever—if anything—had happened at the Inferno. They hadn’t run, for one thing, and they didn’t look uncomfortable.
Officer Daniels had an unkind thought: This area was an unusual place to take a stroll after midnight, unless, of course, the two were cruising for women. Or men. Maybe they had just found each other.
“Excuse me, sir,” Daniels said. “May I please see some identification?”
The younger man laughed. Daniels glowered at him.
“We’re police officers,” the black man said. “What have you got?”
The younger one exhibited a detective’s badge.
“What’s going on here, Officer?” the black man asked.
Officer Daniels hesitated just perceptibly before replying: “Shooting and hospital case inside the Inferno.”
“Was the front door open?” the black man asked.
“No.”
“I’ll go block the front,” the black man said. “The rear door to this place is halfway down the alley. There’s usually a garbage can full of beer bottles, and so on.” He turned to the young white man. “You go with him, Matt.”
The young man sort of stooped, and when he stood erect again, there was a snub-nose revolver in his hand.
Officer Daniels looked dubiously at the black man.
“I told you to go with him,” the black man said to Officer Daniels, a tone of command in his voice. Then he started to trot toward Market Street.
Officer Daniels ran after the young white man and caught up with him.
“Who is that guy?” he asked.
“That is Sergeant Jason Washington. He just told me he used to walk this beat.”
“He doesn’t have any authority here.”
“You tell him that,” Matt said, chuckling as he continued down the alley.
The sound of dying sirens and the squeal of tires announced the arrival of other police vehicles.
The alley between the buildings was pitch dark, and twice Matt stumbled over something he hadn’t seen. There was more light when he reached the end of the alley, coming down what had been in Colonial times a cobblestone street but was now not much more than a garbage-littered alley.He found the Inferno Lounge’s garbage cans. As Jason had said they would be, they were filled to overflowing with kitchen scraps and beer bottles.
He went to a metal door and tried it. It opened.
If there was somebody in here, they’re probably gone. The door would ordinarily be locked.
He stepped to one side, hiding, so to speak, behind the bricks of the building, and then pulled the door fully open.
“Police officers!” he called.
There was no response.
He looked very carefully around the bricks. There was no one in sight, but he could see a corridor dimly illuminated by the lights burning in the kitchen, and beyond that, in the public areas of the bar, or restaurant, or whatever the hell this place was.
“Stay here,” he ordered Officer Daniels, and then entered the building and started down the corridor. Halfway down it, he saw a flight of stairs leading to the basement, and saw lights down there. It was possible that someone was down in the basement; he was pleased with himself for having told the wagon uniform to stay at the back door.
He went carefully through the kitchen, and then into the public area of the restaurant. There was banging on the closed front door of the place, and someone—not Jason, but to judge by the depth of his voice, not the young guy in the wagon, either—was calling, not quite shouting, “Police, open up.”
The door was closed with a keyed dead bolt. There were keys in it. It was hard to unlock. Matt had shoved his pistol in his hip pocket and used both hands to get it open.
There was a uniformed sergeant standing there, and two Highway Patrolmen. Behind them Matt could see Jason Washington looking for all the world like a curious civilian.
“What have you got, Payne?” one of the Highway Patrolmen said. Matt recalled having met him somewhere. He couldn’t recall his name.
“Nothing yet. I figured I’d better let you guys in.”
“How’d you get in?”
“Back door was unlocked. The wagon guy’s covering it.”
“Who are you?” the uniformed sergeant asked.
“He’s Detective Payne of Special Operations,” Jason answered for him. “And I am Sergeant Washington. Nothing, Matt?”
“Nothing on the floor. There’s a basement, I didn’t get down there.”
“I think we should have a look,” Washington said, and moving with a quick grace, suddenly appeared in front of the two Highway Patrolmen and the uniformed sergeant. “Lead on, Matthew!”
Matt turned and walked quickly back through the bar, the restaurant, and the kitchen to the corridor, then started down the stairs. Washington stopped him with a massive hand on his shoulder.
“Announce your arrival,” he said softly. “You don’t know what you’re going to find down there, and if the proprietor, for example, is down there, you want to be sure he knows the man coming down the stairs is a police officer.”
“Police!” Matt called.
“Down here!” a male voice called.
The stairs led to a narrow corridor, and the corridor to a small office.
The first thing Matt saw was a somewhat stocky man in his forties sitting behind a battered desk, in the act of taking a pull from the neck of a bottle of Seagram’s VO. There was a Colt Cobra revolver lying on the desk.
The next thing Matt saw, as he entered the office, was a young female, white, sitting in a chair. Her head was hanging limply back. Her eyes were open and her head, neck, and chest were covered with blood. She was obviously dead. On the floor, lying on his side in a thick pool of blood, was the body of a heavy man. His arm was stretched out, nearly touching the desk.
Matt looked at the man behind the desk.
“What happened here?”
“I was held up,” the man said.
“By who?”
Matt looked at the office door and saw that Jason Washington and one of the Highway Patrolmen had stepped inside the office.
“Two white guys.”
“Are you all right?”
“I was shot in the leg,” the man said.
Matt crossed to him and saw that he had his right leg extended, and that the trouser leg between the knee and the groin was soaked in blood.
“Can you describe the men?” Matt asked.
“There was two of them,” the man said. “One was a short, stocky sonofabitch, and the other was about as big as I am.”
“How were they dressed?”
“The little fucker was in a suit; the other one was wearing a zipper jacket.”
“Mustaches, beards, anything like that?”
The man shook his head.
Jason Washington turned to the Highway Patrolman standing beside him.
“Get out a flash on that,” he said softly. “And tell Police Radio that Sergeant Washington and Detective Payne of Special Operations are at the scene of what appears to be an armed robbery and double homicide.”
SIX
“That was interesting,” Sergeant Edward McCarthy of the Homicide Unit said to Detective Wallace J. Milham as he walked up to a desk where Milham was trying to catch up with his paperwork. Milham looked at McCarthy with mingled curiosity and annoyance at hav
ing been disturbed.
“Radio just told me we have a double homicide at the Inferno Lounge,” McCarthy said. “No names on the victims yet, but the report came from Police by radio. A Ninth District van, relaying a message from none other than Sergeant Jason Washington of Special Operations, who is apparently on the scene.”“I wonder what that’s all about.” Milham chuckled. “That neighborhood, and especially that joint, is not the Black Buddha’s style. Who’s got the job?”
“You’re the assigned detective, Detective Milham,” McCarthy said.
“Give me thirty seconds,” Milham said. “Let me finish this page.”
“Take your time. The victims aren’t going anywhere,” McCarthy said, and added, “I’m going to see if I can find the Captain.”
Captain Henry C. Quaire, Commanding Officer of the Homicide Unit, was located attending a social function—the annual dinner of the vestry of St. John’s Lutheran Church—in the Bellvue-Stratford Hotel with his wife when Sergeant McCarthy reached him.“Where are you, Mac?”
“In the Roundhouse.”
“Pick me up outside. I’ll be waiting for you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Preoccupied with his concern about what his wife would say when he told her she would have to drive herself home—a dire prediction of tight lips and a back turned coldly toward him in their bed when he finally got home, a prediction that was to come true—Captain Quaire neglected to inquire of Sergeant McCarthy whether or not he had gotten in touch with Chief Inspector Matthew Lowenstein. The Chief liked to be notified of all interesting jobs, no matter what the hour, and a double willful killing would qualify by itself. With Washington somehow involved, he would be even more interested.
He would, he decided, try to get on a phone while waiting for McCarthy to pick him up. That idea went out the window when he stepped off the elevator and saw Mac’s car waiting for him outside on South Broad Street.
“I don’t suppose you got in touch with the Chief?” he asked as he got in the car.
McCarthy turned on the flashing lights and the siren and made a U-turn on Broad Street.
“I didn’t have to,” McCarthy replied. “I got a call from Radio, saying the Chief was going in on this, and would somebody call his wife and tell her he was delayed.”
“Who are the victims? Do we know yet?”
“I’m praying that it was a family dispute,” McCarthy said.
Quaire chuckled. Sergeant McCarthy was not referring to a disagreement between husband and wife, but to one between members of Philadelphia’s often violent Mafia.
“Who’s assigned?” Quaire asked.
“Wally Milham. You didn’t say anything…”
“Sure. He was up, he got the job. I don’t think he had anything to do with Kellog.”
“I wonder who did that.”
“Nothing’s turned up?”
“Not a thing.”
By the time Detective Milham pulled up in front of the Inferno Lounge, there were nine police vehicles, including three unmarked cars, parked on Market Street. Without consciously doing so, he picked out the anomaly. The three unmarked cars were battered and worn. Therefore, none of them belonged to Sergeant Jason Washington, whose brand-new unmarked car had been the subject of much conversation in the Homicide Unit.Wally wondered if McCarthy had been pulling his chain about Washington being in on this; or if someone had been pulling McCarthy’s chain.
There was a uniformed cop standing at the door who recognized Milham and let him in. Inside the Inferno, Milham saw three detectives whom he knew: David Rocco of the Central Detective Division; John Hanson of the Major Theft Unit; and Wilfred “Wee Willy” Malone, a six-foot-four-inch giant of a man assigned to the Intelligence Unit. That explained the three unmarked cars.
Rocco and Hanson gave him a wave. Wee Willy looked at him strangely. Wally wondered if he had heard about Kellog; that he had been interviewed and that they were checking his guns at Ballistics.
“We’re glad you’re here,” Rocco said. “Sergeant Washington is with the victims, protecting the scene until the arrival of the hotshots—one of which presumably is you, Wally—of Homicide.”
“If you less important people would learn not to walk all over our evidence, that wouldn’t be necessary,” Wally replied, and then, not seeing Washington: “Where’s the Black Buddha?”
“Oh, shit,” Hanson said, and laughed and then pointed. “There’s a stairway off the corridor in back. There’s an office downstairs.”
Wally found the stairs and went down them. Washington heard him coming, and turned with an impatient look on his face until he recognized him.
“Good morning, Detective Milham,” Washington said.
“Hello, Jason. What have we got?”
“Have you the acquaintance of Detective Payne?”
“Only by reputation,” Milham said, and offered the young detective his hand.
“Detective Payne and myself, by pure coincidence,” Washington went on, “were taking the air on Nineteenth Street when the first police vehicle to respond to the call—Officers Adolphus Hart and Thomas Daniels, in Wagon Nine Oh One, they are upstairs—arrived. In the absence of anyone more senior, I took charge of the scene, and being aware that the front door of the premises was steel and locked, ordered Detective Payne to attempt to enter the building from the rear, and sent Officer Daniels with him. Detective Payne was able to gain entrance. He left Officer Daniels to guard the rear door, proceeded through the building, and opened the front door, which was locked from the inside, and admitted me. With Detective Payne leading the way, we searched the building, and came upon the scene of the crime.
“We found Mr. Gerald Atchison, one of the proprietors of this establishment, sitting behind the desk. Mr. Atchison told us he was in the bar upstairs when he heard the sound, a popping noise, of what he now presumes was gunfire. When he went to investigate, he encountered in the corridor upstairs two white males, armed—a flash has gone out with their descriptions—who fired upon him, striking him in the leg. He drew his own pistol…”
Jason paused.
“Matthew, give Detective Milham the pistol, please.”
Matt turned to a filing cabinet. Carefully placing his fingers on the checkered wooden handles, he picked up a Colt Cobra revolver and extended it to Milham. Wally took a plastic bag from his jacket pocket and held it open until Matt dropped the revolver into it.
“…which Mr. Atchison is licensed by the Sheriff of Delaware County to carry,” Washington went on, “and a gun battle during which Mr. Atchison suffered the wound to his leg ensued. Mr. Atchison fell to the floor. He lay there he doesn’t know how long.”
“It’s starting to hurt,” Atchison said.
“A police wagon is outside, Mr. Atchison,” Washington said. “In just a moment, you will be transported to a hospital. Have I reported the essence of your discussion with Detective Payne accurately?”
“A short fucker and big one did this,” Atchison replied.
“After he knows not how long he laid on the floor, Mr. Atchison reports that he recovered sufficiently to become aware that his assailants were no longer present. He then descended the stairs to the office, where he found the bodies of his wife and his business partner. He thereupon sat down at his desk, called Police Emergency to report what had happened, and then took a drink of whiskey against the pain of his wound. Am I still correct, Mr. Atchison?”
“I knew they were dead,” Mr. Atchison said.
“Yes, of course, you could see that,” Washington said, and then continued: “I then instructed a Highway officer to report to Police Radio that I had come upon evidence of a double homicide. I then secured the scene of the crime, pending the arrival of someone from the Homicide Unit. No one but Detective Payne and myself have entered the scene. And unless there is some other question you would like to ask of either of us, Detective Payne and myself will now be on our way. Barring stringent objections, we will prepare statements regarding our involvement in thi
s incident, and have them at Homicide Unit before noon tomorrow. Do you have any questions, Wally?”
“No, Jason,” Milham said, smiling. “That covers everything neatly.”
The day Wally had reported for duty as a Homicide detective, during his “welcome aboard” interview with then Lieutenant Quaire, Quaire had pulled a Homicide Investigation binder from the file and handed it to him.
“Don’t let him know I showed you this, Milham, his ego is bad enough as it is, but this is what you should try for.”
“What is it, sir?”
“It’s a real Homicide report, Detective Jason Washington’s, of a homicide in the course of an armed robbery, but it’s also a textbook example of what a completed Homicide binder should be. Everything is in it, in the right sequence, there’s no ambivalence, there’s no duplication, there’s no procedural errors, no spelling or grammatical mistakes, and if there are any type-overs, I can’t find one.”
“That being the case, Wally, I leave this matter in your capable hands. Shall we be on our way, Matt?”
“I got to get medical attention,” Mr. Atchison said. “My goddamned leg is starting to hurt.”
“We regret the delay, Mr. Atchison,” Washington said. “But I am sure that you are even more interested than we are in apprehending the people who murdered your wife and business associate, and it was necessary for me to put what information I have regarding this tragic incident in the hands of the police officer who will be in charge of the investigation.”
“Yeah. I want those bastards caught. And fried.”
“Good night, sir,” Washington said. “Thank you for your patience.”
He turned, and met Wally Milham’s eyes. Then he wrinkled his nose, as if smelling something rotten.
“Good night, Detective Milham,” he said, and took Matt’s arm and propelled him out of the room.
There were well over a dozen police vehicles of all kinds, among them Chief Inspector Matthew Lowenstein’s Oldsmobile sedan, parked on the street and on the sidewalk in front of the Inferno Lounge, when Captain Quaire and Sergeant McCarthy arrived.Captain Thomas Curran of the Central Detective Division was standing on the sidewalk with Staff Inspector Michael Weisbach and Captain Alexander Smith of the Ninth District, but neither Chief Lowenstein nor his driver was anywhere in sight.
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