The Witness

by W. E. B Griffin

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Mr. Stillwell,” Washington said, “this is Mr. Albert J. Monahan.”

  Stillwell smiled at Monahan and offered his hand.

  “I’m Farnsworth Stillwell, Mr. Monahan. I’m very pleased to meet you.”

  “Can you believe that?” Monahan said. “A Molotov cocktail? Right on South Street? What the hell is the world coming to?”

  What is this man babbling about? A Molotov cocktail is what the Russians used against German tanks, a bottle of gasoline with a flaming wick.

  “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,” Stillwell said.

  “As we drove away from Goldblatt’s,” Washington explained, “party or parties unknown threw a bottle filled with gasoline down—more than likely from the roof—onto a Highway car that was escorting us here.”

  “I will be damned!” Farnsworth Stillwell said.

  My God, wait until the newspapers get hold of that!

  “The bottle bounced off the Highway car, broke when it hit the street, and then caught fire,” Washington went on.

  “Was anyone hurt?”

  “I understand a car parked on South Street caught fire,” Washington said. “But no one was hurt. We went to the Roundhouse. I knew Central Detectives and the laboratory people would want a look at the Highway car.”

  “You could have called,” Stillwell said, and immediately regretted it.

  Washington looked at him coldly, but did not directly respond.

  “I’m going to explain to Mr. Monahan how we run the lineup, lineups,” Washington said. “And show him the layout. Perhaps you’d like to come along?”

  “Yes, thank you, Sergeant, I’d appreciate that,” Stillwell said. He smiled at Washington. Washington did not return it.

  “The way this works, Mr. Monahan,” he said, “is that the defense counsel will try to question your identification. One of the ways they’ll try to do that is to attempt to prove that we rigged the lineup, set it up so that you would have an idea who we think the individual is. Lead you, so to speak. You follow me?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “So we will lean over backward to make sure that the lineups are absolutely fair.”

  “Where do you get the other people?” Monahan said, “the innocent ones?”

  “They’re all volunteers.”

  “Off the street? People in jail?”

  “Neither. People being held here. This is the Detention Center. Nobody being held here has been found guilty of anything. They’re awaiting trial. The other people in the lineup will be chosen from them, from those that have volunteered.”

  “Why do they volunteer?”

  “Well, I suppose I could stick my tongue in my cheek and say they’re all public spirited citizens, anxious to make whatever small contribution they can to the criminal justice system, but the truth is I don’t know. If they had me in here for something, I don’t think I’d be running around looking for some way I could help, particularly if all I got out of it was an extra ice cream chit or movie pass. And, of course, most of the people being held here don’t volunteer. As for the ones that do, I can only guess they do it because they’re bored, or figure they can screw the system up.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Let’s say there’s a guy here who has a perfect alibi for the Goldblatt job; he was in here. So he figures if he can get in the lineup, and somehow look nervous or guilty and have you point him out, the guy who did the Goldblatt job walks away, and so does he; he has a perfect alibi.”

  “I’ll be goddamned,” Monahan said.

  “So it’s very important to the good guys, Mr. Monahan,” Washington said, “that before you pick somebody out you be absolutely sure it’s the guy. It would be much better for you not to be able to recognize somebody in the lineup than for you to make a mistake. If you did that, it would come out in court and put in serious question every other identification you made. You understand, of course.”

  “Yeah,” Monahan said thoughtfully, then added: “I’ll be damned.”

  Washington pushed open a door and held it open as Monahan and Still well walked through it.

  Stillwell found himself in a windowless, harshly lit room forty feet long and twenty-five wide. Against one of the long walls was a narrow platform, two feet off the floor and about six feet wide. Behind it the wall had been painted. The numbers 1 through 8 were painted near the ceiling, marking where the men in the lineup were to stand. Horizontal lines marked off in feet and inches ran under the numbers. Mounted on the ceiling were half a dozen floodlights aimed at the platform. There was a step down from the platform to the floor at the right.

  Facing the platform were a row of folding metal chairs and two tables. A microphone was on one table and a telephone on the other.

  There were a dozen people in the room, four of them in corrections officer’s uniforms. A lieutenant from Major Crimes Division had a 35-mm camera with a flash attachment hanging around his neck. There were two women, both holding stenographer’s notebooks.

  I wonder how it is that I was left sitting outside on that bench when everyone else with a connection with this was in here?

  Stillwell recognized Detectives D’Amata and Pelosi and then a familiar face. “The proceedings can now begin,” Armando C. Giacomo announced sonorously, “the Right Honorable Assistant District Attorney having finally made an appearance.”

  Giacomo, a slight, lithe, dapper man who wore what was left of his hair plastered to the sides of his tanned skull, walked quickly to Stillwell and offered his hand.

  “Armando, how are you?” Stillwell said.

  “Armando C. Giacomo is, as always, ready to defend the rights of the unjustly accused against all the abusive powers of the state.”

  “Presuming they can write a nonrubber check, of course,” Jason Washington said. “How are you, Manny?”

  “Ah, my favorite gumshoe. How are you, Jason?”

  Giacomo enthusiastically pumped Washington’s hand.

  They were friends, Still well saw, the proof being not only their smiles, but that Washington had called him “Manny.” He remembered hearing that Giacomo was well thought of by the cops because he devoted the pro bono publico side of his practice to defending cops charged with violating the civil rights of individuals.

  “Aside from almost getting myself fried on the way over here, I’m fine. How about you?”

  “Whatever are you talking about, Detective Washington?” Giacomo asked.

  “Detective Washington is now Sergeant Washington,” Stillwell said.

  “And you stopped to celebrate? Shame on you!”

  “We was Molotov-cocktailed, is what happened,” Albert J. Monahan explained.

  “You must be Mr. Monahan,” Giacomo said. “I’m Armando C. Giacomo. I’m very happy to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” Monahan said.

  “What was that you were saying about a Molotov cocktail?”

  “They threw one at us. Off a roof by Goldblatt’s.”

  Giacomo looked at Washington for confirmation. Washington nodded.

  “Well, I’m very glad to see that you came through that all right,” Giacomo said.

  “I came through it pissed, is the way I came through it. That’s fucking outrageous.”

  “I absolutely agree with you. Terrible. Outrageous. Did the police manage to apprehend the culprits?”

  “Not yet,” Washington said.

  “Mr. Giacomo, Mr. Monahan,” Washington said, “is here to represent the people we think were at Goldblatt’s.”

  “And you’re friends with him?”

  “Yes, we’re friends,” Giacomo said solemnly. “We have the same basic interest. Justice.”

  Jason Washington laughed deep in his stomach.

  “Manny, you’re really something,” he said.

  “It is not nice to mock small Italian gentlemen,” Giacomo said. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

  Washington laughed louder, then
turned to Joe D’Amato: “Are we about ready to do this?”

  “Yeah. We have seven different groups of people.” He pointed toward the door at the end of the platform.

  Washington turned to Monahan: “If you’ll just have a chair, Mr. Monahan—”

  Detective Pelosi smiled at Monahan and put his hands on the back of one of the folding chairs. Monahan walked to it and sat down.

  Washington waved Giacomo ahead of him and headed for the door. Stillwell followed them.

  There were two corrections officers and eight other people in a small room. The eight people were all Hispanic, all of about the same age and height and weight. One of them was Hector Carlos Estivez.

  “Okay with you, Manny?” Washington asked.

  Armando C. Giacomo looked at the eight men very carefully before he finally nodded his head.

  “That should be all right, Jason,” he said, and turned and walked out of the room. Washington and Stillwell followed him.

  Giacomo sat down in a folding chair next to Monahan. Washington sat on the other side of him, and Stillwell sat next to Washington.

  “Okay, Joe,” Washington said.

  “Lights,” D’Amato ordered.

  One of the corrections officers flicked switches that killed all the lights in the room except the floodlights shining on the platform. The people in the room would be only barely visible to the men on the platform.

  “Okay,” D’Amata ordered. “Bring them in.”

  The door to the room at the end of the platform opened, and eight men came into the room and took the two steps up to the platform.

  “Stand directly under the number, look forward,” D’Amato ordered. The men complied.

  The Major Crimes lieutenant with the 35-mm camera walked in front of the men sitting in the chairs. He took three flash photographs, one from the left, one from the center, and one from the right.

  “You didn’t have to do that, Jason,” Giacomo said.

  “Oh, yes, I did, Manny.” Washington said. “I only get burned once.”

  I wonder what the hell that’s all about, Stillwell thought, and then the answer came to him: I will get copies of those photographs. If Giacomo suggests during the trial that Monahan was able to pick out Estivez because the other people in the lineup were conspicuously different in age, or size, or complexion, or whatever, I can introduce the pictures he’s taking.

  He remembered what Tony Callis had said about Washington having forgotten more about criminal law than he knew.

  “Number one, step forward,” D’Amato ordered when the photographer had stepped out of the way.

  “Number three,” Albert J. Monahan said positively.

  “Just a moment, please, Mr. Monahan,” Washington said.

  “Number three is one of them. I recognize the bastard when I see him.”

  “Mr. Monahan,” Washington said, “I ask you now if you recognize any of the men on the platform.”

  “Number three,” Monahan said impatiently. “I told you already.”

  “Can you tell us where you have seen the man standing under the number three on the platform?” Washington asked.

  “He’s one of the bastards who came into the store and robbed it and shot it up.”

  “You are referring to January third of this year, and the robbery and murder that occurred at Goldblatt’s furniture store on South Street?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “There is no question in your mind that the man standing under number three is one of the participants in that robbery and murder?”

  “None whatever. That’s one of them. That’s him. Number three.”

  “Mr. Giacomo?” Washington asked.

  Armando G. Giacomo shook his head, signifying that he had nothing to say.

  “Jason?” Joe D’Amato asked.

  “We’re through with this bunch,” Washington said.

  “Take them out,” D’Amata ordered.

  A corrections officer opened the door at the end of the platform and gestured for the men on the platform to get off it.

  That man didn’t show any sign of anything at all when Monahan picked him out, Stillwell thought. What kind of people are we dealing with here?

  “Mr. Monahan,” Giacomo said. “I see that you’re wearing glasses.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Before this is all over, I’d be grateful if you would give me the name of your eye doctor.”

  “You’re not going to try to tell me I couldn’t see that bastard? Recognize him?”

  “I’m just trying to do the best job I can, Mr. Monahan,” Giacomo said. “I’m sure you understand.”

  “No, I don’t,” Monahan said. “I don’t understand at all.”

  NINETEEN

  Lieutenant Jack Malone had just carefully rewrapped the aluminum foil around the remnants of his dinner—two egg rolls and beef-and-pepper—and was about to shoot it, basketball-like, into the wastebasket under the writing desk in his room in the St. Charles Hotel when his telephone rang.

  He glanced at his watch as he reached for the telephone. Quarter past seven. Sometimes Little Jack would telephone him around this hour. His first reaction was pleasure, which was almost immediately replaced with something close to pain:

  If it is Little Jack, he’s liable to ask again why I’m not coming home.

  “Peter Wohl, Jack,” his caller said. “Am I interrupting anything?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Sorry to bother you at home, but I want to talk to you about something.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Have you had dinner?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Would you mind watching me eat? I’ve got to get something in my stomach.”

  “Not at all.”

  “You know Ribs Unlimited on Chestnut Street?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Can you meet me there in—thirty, thirty-five minutes?”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll be there.”

  “At the bar, Jack. Thank you,” Wohl said, and hung up.

  What the fuck does Wohl want? Is this going to be one of those heart-to-heart talks better held in an informal atmosphere? Has word finally got to him that I was watching Holland’s body shop?

  “Malone, you disappoint me. A word to the wise should have been sufficient. Get Bob Holland out of your mind. In other words, get off his case.”

  Malone pushed himself out of bed and started to dress. He really hated to wear anything but blue jeans and a sweater and a nylon jacket, because sure as Christ made little apples, if I put on a suit and shirt, I will get something—slush or barbecue sauce, something—on them and have to take them to the cleaners.

  “But on the other hand,” he said aloud as he took a tweed sports coat and a pair of cavalry twill trousers from the closet, “one must look one’s best when one is about to socialize with one’s superior officer. Clothes indeed do make the man.”

  When he got outside the hotel, he saw that the temperature had dropped, and frozen the slush. He decided to walk. It wasn’t really that close, but if he drove, he might not be able to find a place to park when he came back, and he had plenty of time. Wohl had said thirty, thirty-five minutes.

  Now I won’t soil my clothes, I’ll slip on the goddamn ice and break my fucking leg.

  Ribs Unlimited, despite the lousy weather, was crowded. There was a line of people waiting for the nod of the headwaiter in the narrow entrance foyer.

  Malone stood in the line for a minute or two, and then remembered Wohl had said “in the bar.”

  The headwaiter tried to stop him.

  “I’m meeting someone,” Malone said, and kept walking.

  He found an empty stool next to a woman who was desperately trying to appear younger than the calendar made her, and whose perfume filled his nostrils with a scent that reminded him of something else he hadn’t been getting much—any—of lately.

  When the bartender appeared, he almost automatically said “Ortleib’s” but at the last
moment changed his mind.

  “John Jameson, easy on the ice,” he said.

  Fuck it, I’ve been a good boy lately. One little shooter will be good for me. And one I can afford.

  Wohl appeared as the bartender served the drink.

  “Been waiting long?”

  “No, sir, I just got here.”

  “What is that?”

  “Irish.”

  “I feel Irish,” Wohl said to the bartender. “Same way, please. Not too much ice.”

  A heavyset man appeared, beaming.

  “How are you, Inspector?”

  “How are you, Charley?” Wohl replied. “Charley, this is Lieutenant Jack Malone. Jack, Charley Meader, our host.”

  “You work with the inspector, Lieutenant?” Meader said, pumping Malone’s hand.

  “Yes, sir,” Malone said.

  “I’ve got you a table in the back anytime you’re ready, Inspector,” Meader said.

  “I guess we could carry our drinks, right?” Wohl said. “When I get mine, that is.”

  “Whatever you’d prefer,” Meader said, and waited until the bartender served Wohl.

  “House account that, Jerry,” he said.

  “Very kind, thank you,” Wohl said.

  “My pleasure, Inspector. And anytime, you know that.”

  He patted Wohl on the shoulder and shook hands with both of them.

  “Whenever you’re ready, Inspector, your table’s available,” Meader said. “Good to see you. And to meet you, Lieutenant.”

  Wohl waited until he was gone, then said, “There was once a Department of Health inspector who led Charley Meader to believe that he would have far less trouble passing his inspections if he handed him an envelope once a week when he came in for a free meal.”

  “Oh,” Malone said.

  “Charley belongs to the Jaguar Club,” Wohl went on. “You know I have a Jaguar?”

  “I’ve seen it.”

  “1950 SK-120 Drophead Coupe,” Wohl said. “So he came to me after a meeting one night and said he had heard I was a cop, and that he didn’t want to put me on the spot, but did I know an honest sergeant, or maybe even an honest lieutenant. He would go to him, without mentioning my name, and tell him his problem.”