The Witness
Page 36
91. Q. (Captain Quaire) Is something bothering you, Payne?
A. Yes, sir. This guy’s stupid questions are bothering me. How do I know it was dropped by Mr. Stevens? Who else could have dropped it, the good fairy?
92. Q. (Detective Kramer) We’re just trying to clear this up as best we can, Payne.
A. I’m sorry I lost my temper.
93. Q. (Chief Inspector Coughlin) How long have you been discharged from the hospital, Officer Payne? I think that should be made note of in this interview.
A. I came here directly from the hospital. I don’t know how long. Maybe an hour.
94. Q. (Detective Kramer) The first time you saw the .45 automatic pistol you stepped on was when you found it in the snow. Is that correct?
A. Yes.
95. Q. You saw a pistol in the hand of the man subsequently identified to you as Charles D. Stevens, is that correct?
A. Correct.
96. Q. But you cannot positively identify the pistol you stepped on near Mr. Stevens after you shot him as the same pistol you saw earlier in his hand, is that correct?
A. Yes, that’s correct.
97. Q. Did you see Mr. Stevens fire the pistol you saw him holding in his hand?
A. Yes. He shot me with the pistol he held in his hand.
98. Q. Did Mr. Stevens say anything to you when you went to him in the alley after you shot him?
A. No.
99. Q. What happened after you stepped on the pistol?
A. Mickey O’Hara was there. He took a couple of pictures, and then Lieutenant Suffern showed up and handcuffed Mr. Stevens.
100. Q. Was Mr. Stevens conscious?
A. Yes.
101. Q. Could you tell anything of the nature of his wounds?
A. No.
102. Q. Did you attempt to render first aid to Mr. Stevens?
A. No.
103. Q. What happened to you then?
A. I was put onto a stretcher, loaded in a van, and taken to Frankford Hospital.
104. Q. Do you know what happened to Mr. Stevens at that time?
A. He was in the same van as I was. He was taken to Frankford Hospital with me.
105. Q. (Chief Inspector Coughlin) Considering your weakened physical condition, Officer Payne, do you feel up to answering any more questions at this time?
A. I would rather not answer any more questions at this time.
106. Q. (Detective Kramer) You understand, Officer Payne, that we will be asking you more questions when your physical condition permits?
A. Yeah.
107. Q. Thank you, Payne.
* * *
TWENTY-ONE
There was a Mercury station wagon with a Rose Tree Hunt Club decal in the rear window parked beside Matt Payne’s silver Porsche in the underground parking lot of the building on Rittenhouse Square when the convoy rolled in.
“My mother’s here,” Matt said.
“I thought she might be,” Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin said matter-of-factly, and then added, to Sergeant Holloran, “Francis, we can get him upstairs. You take the car around and park it in front.”
“Yes, sir. You want me to come up, Chief?”
Coughlin hesitated just perceptibly.
“Yeah. You might as well see the layout.”
The Highway Patrol RPC had dropped out, but otherwise, the convoy was the same as the one that had carried Matt to the Roundhouse. Malone’s car had led the way from the Roundhouse, followed by Coughlin’s Oldsmobile, and Jesus Martinez in a second unmarked Special Operations Ford.
Holloran stopped the car as near as he could get to the elevator. Charley McFadden got out and then turned to help Matt get out and onto his feet.
Coughlin got out of the front seat.
“You and me lock wrists, McFadden,” Coughlin ordered. “I don’t think Martinez could handle Matt.”
“Hey. I’m not a cripple. I can manage,” Matt said, standing on his good leg and waving the crutch. “I’ve got to learn to use this thing anyway.”
Coughlin looked doubtful, but finally walked to Martinez.
“Park that wherever you can find a place,” he ordered.
Matt, with Charley McFadden hovering around him, made his way to the elevator door, where Malone was waiting. He pushed the button to open the door, waited for Matt and McFadden to get in, and then joined them. When the door started to close, Matt leaned against the elevator wall, and then stuck his crutch into the opening, holding the door open.
Coughlin walked quickly to the door and then stopped.
“You got room for one more?” he asked.
“The more the merrier,” Matt said.
Coughlin got in. The door closed.
Sergeant Carter was on the third-floor landing when the door opened.
He saluted Coughlin.
“Good morning, Chief,” he said, and then nodded at Malone. “Lieutenant.”
“Carter, isn’t it?” Coughlin said, offering his hand.
“Yes, sir. I was here, checking the arrangements, and Mrs. Payne—she and your father are in your apartment, Payne—said you would be coming. So I thought I had better wait.”
“Everything seems to be all right. The rent-a-cop in the garage is one of ours, isn’t he?”
“Yes, sir. And we have a man in the lobby, downstairs, in a Holmes uniform.”
“I see a problem,” Matt said. “Getting up those stairs.”
They all turned to look at the flight of stairs leading up to the attic apartment. They were steep and narrow.
“We could put a rope around your neck and haul you up,” McFadden said cheerfully. “Or you could get on my back and I could carry you up piggyback.”
“Or,” Matt said, handing McFadden the crutch, “I can do this.”
He sat down on the stairs, and then, using his arms and one good leg, started pushing himself up the stairs.
Thirty seconds later, he turned to see how far he had to go and found himself looking at the hem of a woman’s slip and skirt. He craned his neck and identified the woman.
“I didn’t know shrinks made house calls,” he said.
“Only when the patient is an unquestioned danger to himself,” Amelia Payne, M.D., said without missing a beat. “To judge by the way you did that, you’ve had some practice scuttling along like a crab.” She turned and called, “Sound the trumpet. Our hero is home.”
“Amy!” Patricia Payne said.
Matt got to his feet, and leaned against the wall at the head of the stairs.
“Where’s your crutch?” Patricia Payne asked.
“Here,” McFadden said, coming up the stairs and handing it to him. He stuck it under his arm and made it to the couch. His mother leaned over and kissed him.
“You all right?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “Hi, Dad.”
“How are you doing?” Brewster C. Payne said.
“If Amy didn’t guzzle it down, there was a bottle of Scotch here.”
“And I brought one,” Brewster Payne said. “And a drink seems like a fine idea.”
“That would depend on what they’re giving him,” Amy said.
“The Mayo Clinic has been heard from,” Matt said.
“Let me see it, Matt,” Amy said firmly.
He fished in his pocket and handed her the bottle of capsules from the hospital pharmacy.
Denny Coughlin and Jack Malone were now standing at the head of the stairs. Patricia Payne went and kissed Coughlin on the cheek, and then Coughlin introduced Malone.
“What is that stuff they gave him, Amy?” Coughlin asked.
“Just an antibiotic, Uncle Denny,” Amy said. “I’m very sorry to report that alcohol is not contraindicated.”
Brewster Payne laughed. “You and Lieutenant Malone will have a little taste, Denny?”
“Not for me, thank you,” Malone said.
“I will, thank you.”
“I still have the bottle of Jameson’s you gave me, Uncle Denny,” Matt said.<
br />
“I’ll have a little of that, then, please,” Coughlin said.
“So will I,” Patricia Payne said. “In fact, I’ll even make them.”
Sergeant Carter and Jesus Martinez appeared at the head of the stairs. Martinez was wearing an electric blue suit, a shirt with very long collar points, and a yellow necktie. But what caught everyone’s attention was that he held a pump shotgun in each hand.
“Hay-zus,” Matt said. “Why don’t you put those in that closet?” He pointed. “I guess everybody’s met Sergeant Carter. Does everybody know Hay-zus Martinez?”
Patricia Payne made a valiant, but failed, effort to conceal her surprise at Officer Martinez.
“Matt’s spoken of you often, Mr. Martinez,” she said when he turned from putting the shotguns in a tiny closet at the head of the stairs. “I’m glad you’ll be looking out for him.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Martinez said.
“We’re about to have a drink. Can we offer you something?”
“No, ma’am, thank you.”
“Officer Martinez, Amy,” Coughlin said, “was with Charley McFadden when they caught the man who was responsible for what happened to Dutch Moffitt.”
“I know who he is,” Amy said, not very pleasantly. “Are those shotguns really necessary?”
“Probably not, Miss Payne,” Malone said. “It’s one of those cases where it’s better to take the extra precaution.”
“It’s Doctor Payne,” Amy said.
“Sorry.”
“Ease off, Amy,” Matt said sharply.
Patricia Payne came out of the kitchen with two glasses. She handed one to Denny Coughlin and the other to Matt.
“Thank you,” Matt said, and took a sip, and then turned and set the glass on the chair at the end of the couch.
The red light on his telephone answering machine was blinking. He shifted on the couch and stretched to push the button that would play his messages.
“Matt—” Brewster Payne said, stopping him.
“Dad?”
“There’s some pretty unpleasant stuff on there,” Brewster C. Payne said. “The only reason I didn’t erase them was because I thought they would be of interest to Denny. Maybe you’d better wait until your mother and Amy have gone.”
“Don’t be silly, Brewster,” Patricia Payne called from the kitchen. “I’m not a child, and I’ve already heard them.”
“What are you talking about, Dad?” Amy asked.
Holloran appeared at the head of the stairs.
“Sorry, Chief, I had trouble finding a place to park.”
“Push the button, Matt,” Patricia Payne ordered. “Get it over with.”
There were, it was later calculated when the tape was transcribed, forty-one messages on the tape, all that the thirty-minute tape would hold. Four of the messages were from people known to Matt Payne. One was a recorded offer to install vinyl siding at a special price good this week only. One was a cryptic message, a female voice saying, “You know who this is, call me after nine in the morning.” Matt recognized the voice to be Helene Stillwell’s, but had the presence of mind in the circumstances to shrug and shake his head and smile, indicating he had no idea who it might be.
The other thirty-five messages recorded on his machine were from persons unknown to him.
The voices were different (later voice analysis by police experts indicated that four individuals, three males and one female, had telephoned several times each) but the gist of the messages was that Matt Payne, variously described as a motherfucker, a honky, a pig, and a cocksucker (each noun coming with various adjectival prefixes, most commonly “fucking,” “goddamn,” and “motherfucking”), was going to be killed for having murdered Abu Ben Mohammed.
Patricia Payne, except to pass drinks around, stayed in the kitchen while the tape played. Amy, after the first thirty seconds or so, came and sat beside Matt on the couch, took a notebook from her purse, and made notes.
The policemen in the apartment looked either at the floor or the ceiling, and seemed quite uncomfortable. Sergeant Holloran’s and Officer McFadden’s faces quickly turned red with embarrassment and stayed that way, even after the tape suddenly cut off in midsentence and began to rewind.
“Nice friends you have, Matthew,” Amy Payne broke the silence. “You ever hear what happens to people who roll around with the pigs in the mud?”
“I wonder how they got the number?” Matt asked. “I’m not in the book.”
“There are ways to get unlisted numbers,” Denny Coughlin said absently. “I’ll want to take that tape with me, Matt, and see what the lab boys can make of it.”
“Well, the thing to do is have Matt’s number changed,” Brewster C. Payne said.
“Some of that was spontaneous,” Amy said thoughtfully. “But some, maybe most, seemed to me to be rehearsed, perhaps even read.”
“What did you say, Amy?” Coughlin asked.
“If you know what to listen for, Uncle Denny,” Amy said, “you sometimes can hear things in people’s voices. I said, I think that some of those people called and said whatever came into their minds, but others, I think, seemed to be reading what they said, or at least had a good idea of what they were going to say before they said it. Oddly enough, those are the ones who sounded awkward or hesitant.”
“Interesting,” Coughlin said, not very convincingly. “I’d rather not have that number changed, Brewster. Maybe we can get Mall another line—that will lake a day or two, probably—”
“No, it won’t,” Payne said.
“What won’t?”
“Getting Matt another line. I think I know who to call.”
“What I was saying, Brewster, is that I would like to leave that line as it is, and record what calls come in.”
“Oh, I see what you mean.”
“Have you got a spare tape for the machine, Matty?”
Matt considered that a minute, then replied, “No. I don’t think so.”
“Let’s lake it apart and see what we need,” Coughlin said.
Matt opened the telephone recorder and removed the tape cassette and handed it to Coughlin.
Brewster C. Payne reached for the telephone and dialed a number.
Mr. Arnold, please,” he said. “Brewster Payne calling.” There was a brief pause, and then he went on: “Jack, for reasons I would rather not get into, I need another telephone line installed in my son’s apartment, in the Delaware Valley Cancer Society Building on Rittenhouse Square, right away.” There was another pause. “No, I don’t mean first thing tomorrow. In the next hour or so is what I had in mind.”
Matt saw Denny Coughlin smiling.
“No, I am not kidding,” Brewster Payne went on. “You told me, Jack, to call you if I ever needed something. This is that call.” There was one last pause. “Two hours would be fine, Jack. His name is Matthew M. Payne and it’s the apartment in the attic. Thank you very much.”
He turned somewhat triumphantly from the telephone.
“Two hours, Denny.”
“You are an amazing man,” Coughlin said.
“How kind of you to recognize that,” Payne said smugly.
Patricia Payne groaned.
“I wonder where we can get one of these?” Coughlin said, examining the tape cassette.
“I bought that in the electronics store on Walnut and 15th,” Matt said.
“Okay. We’ll take Officer Martinez with us when we go, and he can bring it back. Until we get another tape in there, just don’t answer the phone. Better yet, take it off the hook.”
He picked up his drink and drained it.
“Patty, Brewster,” he said. “Matt’s in good hands. You have nothing to worry about”
“Good try, Denny,” Patricia Payne said. “But not a very successful one.”
“Let’s go,” Coughlin said. He looked al Matt Payne. “I’ll check in with you later, Matty.”
“Thank you, Uncle Denny.”
“Have you got any special orders
for me, Chief?” Sergeant Carter said.
“No. You know what to do. Do it.”
“Carter, why don’t you and I take a run past Mr. Monahan’s house?” Malone said.
“He’s al Goldblatt’s, sir. I checked.”
“I want to check the arrangements at his house,” Malone said tartly. “I know where he is.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Payne,” Malone said. “Mr. Payne.”
“It was nice to meet you, Lieutenant,” Patricia Payne said, “and you too, Sergeant Carter. Thank you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Carter said.
In a few moments everyone but the Paynes and Charley McFadden had gone down the steep stairway.
“Are you hungry, Matt?”
“I think there’s some ribs in the refrigerator,” Matt said.
“There’s more ribs in the refrigerator than you know,” she said. “I stopped off at Ribs Unlimited—I know how you like their ribs—on my way here and got you some.”
“Then take yours home with you or give them to Amy.”
“Why don’t I heat them all up, and we can have lunch? I haven’t had anything to eat, either.”
“I’ve got to get back to the office,” Brewster Payne said.
“Can you drop me at Hahnemann, Dad?” Amy asked.
He nodded.
At the head of the stairs, Amy turned and pointed her finger at Matt.
“For once in your life, Matt, do what people tell you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, then, the three of us can eat the ribs,” Patricia Payne said with forced cheerfulness.
“Four,” Charley McFadden said. “Hay-zus will be back in a couple of minutes.”
“The four of us, then,” she agreed.
The telephone rang. Matt reached to pick it up, then stopped.
They all watched it wordlessly until, after seven rings, it stopped.
I have the strangest feeling that was Helene, Matt thought.
Charley McFadden suddenly got up from his chair and started down the stairs.