The Murderers boh-6

by W. E. B Griffin

  “My place or yours, doctor person?”

  She didn’t reply directly.

  “We left my car at the Detweilers’s.”

  “Give me the keys. I’ll have someone run me out there, and I’ll drop it by-where? The hospital? Your place?”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier if you took it to your place? When I leave the hospital, I’ll catch a cab out there. It’ll probably be after eleven.”

  “Done,” he said, putting his hand out for the keys.

  “You’re headed for the hospital now?” he asked. She nodded. “You want a ride?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Wherever you need to go is right on my way.”

  “I’ll catch a cab,” she said.

  “You’re sure?”

  She nodded.

  Their eyes met, and held. Somewhat hesitantly, Wohl moved his face closer to hers.

  “Don’t push me, Peter,” Amy said, and then moved her face closer to his and kissed him on the lips.

  Then she quickly walked away from him, out the door and onto Rittenhouse Square. He started to follow her, then changed his mind.

  He went to the receptionist’s desk and asked to use her telephone.

  “Of course,” she said with a smile that suggested she did not find him unattractive.

  He smiled at her and dialed a number from memory.

  “Inspector Wohl,” he said as he watched Amy get into a cab. “Anything for me?”

  “Chief Lowenstein’s been trying to reach you all afternoon, sir,” the tour lieutenant reported.

  “Anything else?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I’ll call Chief Lowenstein and get back to you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Wohl broke the connection with his finger and dialed Chief Lowenstein’s private number.

  “Lowenstein.”

  “Peter Wohl, Chief.”

  “Where are you, Peter?”

  “Center City. Rittenhouse Square.”

  “With Matt Payne?”

  “I just left him.”

  “How is he?”

  “His sister gave him a pill she said will knock him out until tomorrow.”

  “I really feel sorry for him,” Lowenstein said, and then immediately added: “I need to talk to you, Peter.”

  “I’m available for you anytime, Chief.”

  “Why don’t you let me buy you a drink at the bar in the Warwick?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Ten minutes, Peter,” Lowenstein said. “Thank you.”

  FIFTEEN

  Chief Inspector of Detectives Matthew Lowenstein was sitting, with an eight-inch black cigar in his mouth, on a stool at the street end of the bar in the Warwick Hotel when Inspector Peter Wohl got there.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Chief.”

  “What will you have, Peter?” Lowenstein asked, ignoring the apology.

  “I would like a triple scotch, but what I’d better have is a beer,” Wohl said.

  “Bad day for you?” Lowenstein asked, chuckling, and got the bartender’s attention. “Give this nice young man one of these. A single.”

  “Thank you,” Peter said.

  “I turned in my papers this morning,” he said. “You hear about that?”

  Wohl nodded.

  “Carlucci came out to the house and made me a deal to stay.”

  Wohl’s face was as devoid of expression as he could make it.

  “The deal,” Lowenstein said, “is that I have his word that you will bring me in on anything interesting his personal detective squad, now called Ethical Affairs Unit, comes up with, and I get to define the term ‘interesting.’ You have any problem with that, Peter?”

  “I had a problem with keeping you out of the Cazerra investigation. That wasn’t my idea, Chief.”

  “So Carlucci told me. I asked you, do you have any problems with the new arrangement?”

  “None at all.”

  “Tell me what interesting things you have heard today, Peter.”

  “How about yesterday, Chief?”

  “Start with yesterday.”

  “I had lunch with Armando C. Giacomo, Esquire, at the Rittenhouse Club. Weisbach and I did. Mr. Paulo Cassandro really doesn’t want to go to jail. As a public-spirited citizen, he is willing to testify against Cazerra in exchange for immunity from prosecution.”

  Lowenstein snorted.

  “Giacomo is pissing in the wind. He knows he has nothing to deal with. And if he did, he would have gone to the District Attorney with it. Why you?”

  “I thought that was interesting. Weisbach told him that, offhand, the only thing he could think of that we were interested in was the Inferno doer, or doers. And/or the Kellog doer.”

  “And how did the dapper little dago react to that?”

  “He didn’t say no.”

  “You think either one was a mob hit, Peter?”

  “I didn’t until Giacomo didn’t say no.”

  “Interesting.”

  “I thought so. And then Jason Washington called me this morning. One of his informants said that the Inferno was a mob hit, and gave him a name. Frank-Frankie-Foley.”

  There was a just-perceptible pause as Lowenstein searched his memory.

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Neither has Washington. Or Harris. Or me. Or Intelligence or Organized Crime.”

  “Who’s the informant?”

  “Washington said that what this guy has given him in the past-which wasn’t much-was reliable. I think he would have said something if there was a mob connection.”

  “Huh!” Lowenstein snorted.

  “Going back even further than yesterday, the day Kellog was shot, that night, his widow showed up at Washington’s apartment. Did you hear about that?”

  “Tell me about it,” Lowenstein said.

  Which means either that you did hear about it or didn’t hear about it, but if you did, you want to hear my version of it anyway.

  “She told Washington (a) her husband was dirty, (b) the entire Narcotics Five Squad is dirty, and (c) that they did her husband.”

  “What did Washington think about it?”

  “He said he believes she thinks she’s telling the truth.”

  “So what are you going to do with this? All of this?”

  “I told Washington to give the Frankie Foley name to Homicide. By now, they probably have it.”

  “And the Five Squad allegations?”

  “Before Ethical Affairs popped up, I was going to have a quiet word with a staff inspector I know pretty well, and ask him to please keep me out of it.”

  Lowenstein chuckled. “A staff inspector named Weisbach?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And now?”

  “This is the first time I’ve really thought hard about it. It seems to me the lines of authority are fuzzy. Dirty cops on the Narcotics Five Squad would seem to be Ethical Affairs’ business. Somebody on the Narcotics Five Squad doing Officer Kellog would seem to belong to Homicide.”

  “Are you asking me?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s Washington’s role going to be in Ethical Affairs?”

  “I have been ordered to give Weisbach whatever support he needs. So far as I’m concerned, that means he gets the Special Operations Investigation Section, which means he gets Washington.”

  “Why don’t you leave it that way? Let Washington run that down independently of Homicide? If he’s investigating corruption, and comes across something that looks like the Kellog homicide, he can pass it along.”

  “That’s fine with me.”

  “And I will have a word with Henry Quaire and suggest that he have Wally Milham run down this-what was the name? — Frankie Foley lead. Assisted by Detective Payne.”

  “Can I ask why?”

  “I think there may be something to it. Gut feeling.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “I just told you: gut feeling. Write this down, Peter: When you d
on’t have a clue, go with your gut feeling.”

  “Thank you, Chief,” Wohl said, smiling.

  “And I would like Milham to come up with something, to prove to Carlucci that a detective can have a very active sex life and still be a good detective.”

  “I’ve known that all along,” Wohl said.

  “I’ll bet you have.” Lowenstein laughed. “I think that when we finally get the true story of Mr. Atchison’s recent tragedy, it will turn out that money was involved. Insurance on the wife, maybe. Business problems with the partner. If that’s so, that means he would not have the dough to hire a professional hit man. And the mob only does that sort of thing for adequate compensation. And I don’t think they’d be interested in doing a contract hit for somebody like Atchison in the first place.”

  Wohl nodded his head in agreement.

  “And following that lead will be instructional for Payne,” Lowenstein went on. “He will learn that most homicides are solved wearing out shoe leather, not by brilliant reasoning. Or, in this case, by an anonymous tip that takes a hell of a lot of legwork to come up with what’s necessary to make it stand up in court.”

  “Who do you think did Officer Kellog?”

  “If I had to bet, I’d bet on Washington’s gut feeling. He thinks the widow’s telling the truth. I hope to hell the Narcotics Five Squad is not involved, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was a Narcotics connection.”

  “Neither would I,” Wohl said, somewhat sadly.

  He looked at his drink. It was empty. He idly moved the glass so that ice cubes spun inside.

  “Another, Peter?” Lowenstein asked.

  “I shouldn’t, but I will,” Wohl said, and held up the glass to attract the bartender.

  When he was to think about it afterward, with more than a little chagrin, Matt Payne realized that if he hadn’t been three quarters of the way into the bag, he never would have gone to Homicide at all that night.

  At the time, he hadn’t been thinking too clearly. The only thing he had been sure about was that he hadn’t wanted one of Amy’s pills. Pretending to swallow it while she watched was easier than arguing with her about it.

  What he would do, he originally thought, was have a couple of drinks, enough to make him sleepy, and then fall in bed.

  But by the third Famous Grouse, he thought that maybe it would be a good idea to go to the Fraternal Order of Police bar. By the fifth drink, it seemed to be a splendid idea. So he went down and got in the Porsche.

  By the time he got to Broad and Market, going to the FOP bar seemed less a splendid idea. Everybody in the place would have heard about Penny; everybody he knew would be offering sympathy, and he didn’t want that.

  He drove around City Hall, and headed down South Broad Street, headed for Charley McFadden’s house. Charley was working days, he would get him out of bed, and they would have a couple of drinks someplace.

  Five blocks down South Broad, he realized that would also be a bad idea, an imposition. Charley would, out of pity, get out of bed and be a good guy. Not fair to Charley.

  Dropping in on Peter Wohl was similarly a bad idea. For one thing, Peter lived way the hell out in Chestnut Hill. More importantly, he might have-probably did have-company, spelled A-m-y, and not only would he be an unwelcome guest, but they would correctly surmise that he had not swallowed Amy’s pill.

  And then he thought of Wally Milham. Milham was working midnight to eight. And Milham’s personal life was nearly as fucked up as his own. The Mayor had gotten up on a moral high horse at Martha Peebles’ party because Milham had gotten involved with his wife’s sister, and, worse, was using this as a basis to suspect that Milham was somehow involved in the Kellog shooting.

  Milham, Matt reasoned, would not only be up and awake, but might welcome some company.

  Matt made an illegal U-turn on South Broad Street and headed for the Roundhouse.

  Matt had been to Homicide often enough to know how to get past the wooden barrier. There was a little button on the inside of the barrier, which activated the solenoid that opened the gate.

  There were half a dozen detectives in the room, one of whom looked up, registering surprise, when he saw Matt. And then he gestured with his finger across the room to where Wally Milham sat at a desk before a typewriter.

  Matt walked over to him. It was a moment before Milham became aware that he was standing there.

  “Well, I expected you, but not so soon,” Wally Milham said.

  “Excuse me?”

  Milham pushed a memorandum across his desk. Matt picked it up.

  CITY OF PHILADELPHIA MEMORANDUM TO: SERGEANT ZACHARY HOBBS FROM: COMMANDING OFFICER, HOMICIDE UNIT S UBJECT: INFORMANT’S TIP

  1. We have an informant’s tip on the Inferno job concerning an individual named Frank, or Frankie, Foley. The informant, whose information in the past has been reliable, identifies this subject as a “mob-connected hit man.”

  2. Neither Records, Intelligence or Organized Crime has anything on him.

  3. Assign Detective Milham to investigate this lead, instructing him to continue his investigation, making daily reports to you, until such time as further information is developed, or until he is convinced there is nothing to it.

  Detective Payne, of Special Operations, will be working in the Homicide Unit for an indefinite period. When he reports for duty, assign him to assist Detective Milham.

  Henry C. Quaire

  Captain cc: Chief Inspector Lowenstein

  82-S-1AE (Rev. 3/59) RESPONSE TO THIS MEMORANDUM MAY BE MADE HEREON IN LONGHAND

  “I didn’t expect you for a couple of days,” Milham said. “I heard about…I thought the funeral was today.”

  “It was,” Matt said.

  Milham looked at Matt intently for a moment, then suddenly stood up. He took his coat from the back of the chair he had been sitting on and shrugged into it.

  “Come on, Payne,” he said.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Out,” Milham said, and gestured toward the door.

  “You drive over here?” Milham asked when they came out of the back door of the Roundhouse.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’d you park?” Milham asked.

  Matt pointed at the Porsche.

  “Nice wheels,” Milham said. “Leave it, we’ll pick it up later.”

  “Whatever you say,” Matt replied.

  They got in Milham’s unmarked three-year-old Ford, left the parking lot, went south on Eighth Street, crossed Market and turned right on Walnut Street to South Broad, and then left.

  “How much have you had to drink?” Milham asked.

  “I had a couple.”

  “More than a couple, to judge from the smell,” Milham said. “That wasn’t really smart, Payne.”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “I mean coming into Homicide shitfaced,” Milham said. “Lucky for you, Hobbs and Natali went out on a job-a stabbing, two Schwartzers fighting over a tootsie in the East Falls project-and Logan, who was on the desk, either didn’t smell you or didn’t want to. It could have gone the other way. If it had, Lowenstein would have heard first thing in the morning that you showed up drunk. I get the feeling he would love to tell that to the Mayor.”

  “Oh, shit!” Matt said.

  “I think you were lucky, so forget it. But don’t do it again.”

  “Sorry,” Matt said.

  “We’re going to a bar called Meagan’s,” Milham said, changing the subject somewhat, “where you are going to have either coffee or a Coke.”

  Milham handed Matt a clipboard, then turned on the large, specially installed light mounted on the headliner. Matt saw that the clipboard held a pad of lined paper and a Xerox of a page from the telephone book. On closer examination, there were two Xerox pages. There was also a pencil-written list of what looked like bars.

  “There are ninety-seven Foleys in the phone book,” Milham said. “We may have to check every one of them out. Just because the
re’s no Frank or Francis listed doesn’t mean there’s nobody at that address named Frank or Francis. In the morning, I’ll check driver’s licenses in Harrisburg, and see if they have a Frank or Francis matching one of these addresses. Right now, I’m working on a hunch.”

  “What kind of a hunch?”

  “A hunch hunch. There are eleven Foleys in the phone book in a six-block area in South Philly. There are twelve bars in that six-block area. A couple of them will probably still be open. One-Meagan’s-I know stays open late. We will ask, ‘Is this the place where Ol’ Frankie Foley drinks?’”

  “What about this tip? Where did it come from? Is it any good?”

  “We are probably on a wild-goose chase, but you never know until you know. As to where it came from, I don’t know. Not from someone inside Homicide. Who knows? Lowenstein thinks it’s worth checking out, that’s all that matters.”

  Meagan’s Bar, on Jackson Street, turned out to be an ordinary neighborhood bar. There were half a dozen customers, two of them middle-aged women, sitting at the bar, each with a beer in front of them. There was a jukebox, but no one had fed it coins. A television, with a flickering picture, was showing a man and a peroxide blonde in an apron demonstrating a kitchen device guaranteed to make life in the kitchen a genuine joy.

  The bartender, a heavyset man in his fifties, hoisted himself with visible reluctance from his stool by the cash register and walked to them, putting both hands on the bar and wordlessly asking for their order.

  “Ortleib’s,” Milham ordered.

  “I think I better have coffee,” Matt said.

  “No coffee,” the bartender said.

  “One more, and then I’ll drive you home,” Milham said.

  “What the hell,” Matt said. “Why not?”

  When the bartender served the beer, Milham laid a five-dollar bill on the bar.

  “Where are we?” he asked the bartender.

  “What do you mean, where are you? This place is called Meagan’s.”

  “I mean where, where. What is this, Jackson Street?”

  “Jackson and Mole streets.”

  “Doesn’t Frank Foley live around here?”

  “Frank who?”

  “Frankie Foley. My cousin. I thought he lived right around here, on South Mole Street.”