“Not Cuban. The white doesn’t fit, but not Cuban. Very few Muslims, make-believe or otherwise, among the Cubans. Or for that matter, Latinos.”
Both Washington and Harris fell silent for what seemed like a very long time, but was probably no more than sixty seconds.
Finally Washington raised his head and looked at Officer Foster H. Lewis.
“What are you thinking?” Harris asked.
“I am thinking I have a task for Officer Lewis.”
“Yes, sir?”
“I want you to check with the corporal. Get his sheets on unmarked cars for yesterday. Check the incoming mileage against the outgoing today.”
Tiny Lewis realized he had absolutely no idea what Washington wanted. As he was trying to frame a reply that might just possibly make him look like less of an ignorant asshole than he felt himself to be, Washington correctly read the expression on his face.
“What I’m looking for, Foster,” he said patiently, “is a discrepancy between the mileage recorded when the driver of the unmarked car turned it in yesterday, and the mileage recorded when the car was taken out today.”
“Unscrew the speedometer cable. Takes ten seconds,” Harris said.
“Do you understand now, Foster?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tiny, then contact everybody who took an unmarked RPC out of here this morning,” Harris said. “Ask them if there was any indication that it hadn’t sat out there in the snow and ice all night.”
“Unless somebody here is driving the car he took to Goldblatt’s.”
“Sergeant,” Tiny said hesitantly.
“Come on, Foster, pay attention!”
“I went out to warm up my car when I got here. Did either of you drive it last night?”
“I gather somebody had?” Jason Washington asked softly.
“Bingo!” Harris said.
Washington reached for the telephone.
“Lieutenant Lomax, please,” he said when his party answered. “Sergeant Washington is calling.”
Tiny Lewis understood enough of the one side of the conversation he heard to know that Lieutenant Lomax had told Sergeant Washington that it would be best to leave the car where it was; that if that was going to be impossible, that next best was to have it towed to the nearest police garage; and that in no event should the car be driven or entered again.
Sergeant Washington returned the phone to its cradle.
“Officer Lewis,” he said, “you will now go stand by the hood of the car until a police wrecker comes to haul it off. If you somehow could convey the impression that it has a mysterious malady, fine. But in no event let anyone touch it, much less get inside.”
“Yes, sir.”
Assistant Special Agent in Charge (Criminal Affairs) Frank F. Young came into the morning Senior Staff Conference ten minutes late.
“Sorry to be late, Chief,” he said as he took a chair at the table that butted against Special Agent in Charge Walter F. Davis’s desk and made a vague but unmistakable gesture of dismissal to Special Agent F. Charles Vorhiss, who had been filling in for him.
Davis waited until Vorhiss had left the room before replying, “It’s all right, Frank, we know what difficulty you have getting up before noon.”
Not quite sure whether Davis was cracking witty or had some other agenda, Young said, “I was just having the most fascinating conversation with Agent Matthews, who was out carousing until the wee hours.”
“With the cops, you mean?”
“In the FOP,” Young said.
“We were, just coincidentally, talking about the police,” Davis said, and slid a copy of the Philadelphia Ledger across the desk to him. “Have you seen this?”
“No,” Young said, and since he suspected he was expected to, he read the front-page story.
* * *
ASSASSINS GET PAST
POLICE TO MURDER
WITNESS AGAINST ILA
By Charles E. Whaley
Ledger Staff Writer
Albert J. Monahan, 56, was shot to death before his wife’s eyes early this morning at his home in the 5600 block of Sylvester Street according to a highly placed police official who declined to be identified.
Monahan was shot with a small-caliber weapon, according to the same police official, when he opened his door to an assassin who had somehow gotten past three officers of the “elite” Special Operations Division that was charged with his round-the-clock protection.
Staff Inspector Peter F. Wohl, commanding officer of the Special Operations Division, which was formed, reportedly at the orders of Mayor Jerry Carlucci, late last year to combat the growing crime in Philadelphia, was “not available to the press” for comment.
Monahan, who was employed by Goldblatt & Sons Credit Furniture & Appliances, Inc., was scheduled to appear before the Grand Jury next Monday. Assistant District Attorney Farnsworth Stillwell was to seek an indictment for murder against six men for a shooting death during a robbery at the South Street furniture store. Monahan reportedly had positively identified seven men presently being held in the Detention Center as being involved.
“Prosecution now seems unlikely,” the police official said, “with the death of Mr. Monahan, and Mr. Stillwell off the case.” He was apparently referring to the appointment, announced today, of Stillwell to the staff of the state attorney general in Harrisburg. (See “Governor Names Stillwell As Corporate Crime Prosecutor,”).
Police have thrown up a barrier of silence around the incident. Police Captain Michael J. Sabara, deputy commander of Special Operations, the only senior police official willing to speak officially to the press at all, would say only that “the incident is under investigation and no information can be released at this time.”
Sabara also refused to discuss rumors circulating throughout the Police Department that the Justice Department is investigating Officer M. M. Payne, Inspector Wohl’s administrative assistant. During the arrest of the eight men charged in the Goldblatt robbery, Payne shot to death one of the alleged bandits, Charles David Stevens. It has been said the Justice Department is investigating allegations that Payne, who has something of a reputation for being too quick to use his pistol, exceeded Police Department criteria governing the use of force. If the allegations are true, Payne could be charged with violating Stevens’s civil rights, a federal offense.
* * *
“Jesus!” Young said. “I wonder how that happened?”
“How about gross incompetence?” Glenn Williamson, A-SAC (Administration), asked rhetorically.
“I would think it’s a case of having underestimated the opposition,” SAC Davis said. “What do we have on the ILA? Did you check with Washington?”
“There’s three of them,” A-SAC (Counterintelligence) Isaac J. Towne said. “One in New York, one in Chicago, and one in Berkeley, California. There is no known connection between the three, and no known connection between any of them and anyone in Philadelphia.”
“Have we got anybody in with them?”
“In all three. That’s where we got what I came up with.”
“Any of them ever into anything like this?”
“They’re mostly into protest marches,” Towne said. “Talk and protest marches.”
“I’d like to help Wohl if I could,” SAC Davis said.
“There was something I heard—” Towne said, stopped, and then went on. “I heard that Wohl was going with Farnsworth Stillwell. As his chief investigator.”
“Really?” Davis asked.
“He might as well,” Young said. “I’ll bet Carlucci throws him to the wolves.”
“You think that ‘unnamed police official’ was Carlucci?”
“I think it was somebody close to Czernich. Maybe even Czernich himself.”
“Not Czernich,” Davis said. “Czernich wouldn’t do that, unless Carlucci told him to. But somebody close to Czernich—”
“If Carlucci isn’t behind it, and finds out who the big mouth is, he’s in more trouble than Wohl.”
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“I don’t think anyone’s in more trouble than Wohl,” Davis said. “How good was your source about Wohl going with Stillwell?”
“I just heard it. I can’t even remember where. Maybe on one of those radio talk shows driving to work.”
“See what you can find out for sure, Isaac, will you please?” Davis said.
“Yes, sir,” Towne said.
“I’ll tell you what I can see,” Davis said. “Armed robberies of banks, with witnesses afraid to testify because of this case, because of what happened to Mr. Monahan.”
“You really think so, Chief?” Young asked.
“I think it’s a credible possibility,” Davis said. “I think this could be a dry run for something like that.”
“Well, there goes our bank robbery solution rate,” A-SAC Williamson said.
“I wasn’t trying to be funny, Glenn,” Davis said.
“Chief, neither was I,” Williamson said. “I’m very much afraid you’re absolutely right.”
“I hope not,” Davis said.
It was evident to the others that Davis did not violently object to being told he was absolutely right.
“This isn’t exactly on the same subject—” Young said.
“But?” Davis prodded.
“I told you the reason I was late was because I was talking with Jack Matthews. He heard something last night that might, just might, affect one of our ongoing investigations.”
“Which one?”
“Bob Holland.”
“Oh, Jesus, that’s all we need! We’re getting pretty close to the end of that, aren’t we?”
“At the cost of I don’t like to think how much money and man-hours,” A-SAC Williamson said, “I have been assured that we are beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel.”
“Well, spit it out, Frank, what did young Matthews hear?”
“Nothing specific. But what he did hear made him think he should bring me in on it. He went drinking with young Payne, his bodyguard, and another young cop—”
“What the hell is that all about?” Williamson interrupted. “He went out drinking with the cops? I’ve been telling my people to maintain a polite, cordial, but distant—”
“I sent him,” Davis said, annoyance in his voice. “Okay, Glenn? Go on, Frank.”
“Well, toward the end of the evening, when Matthews mentioned that he was working on interstate auto theft, he said the ears of both Payne and one of the cops—Mc-Something—perked up, and they started asking all sorts of questions about how the Bureau runs a car theft investigation. From the nature of their questions, Jack thought that they could be talking about Bob Holland’s operation.”
“What kind of questions?” A-SAC Towne asked.
“Why don’t we go to the source?” SAC Davis said. He picked up his telephone. “Carolyn, would you please ask Special Agent Matthews to come in here?”
“Who’s that?” Officer Robert Hartzog said into the microphone of the new intercom on the wall of Matt Payne’s kitchen.
“Inspector Wohl.”
“Be right there, Inspector,” Hartzog said. He then went down the stairs two at a time.
Wohl appeared a moment later at the head of the stairs, carrying Hartzog’s shotgun.
“I told him to take a couple of laps around Rittenhouse Square,” Wohl said, resting the shotgun against the closet door. “And how are you this morning, Casanova?”
“I heard about what happened,” Matt said. “I’m sorry.”
“For me or Monahan?”
“Both.”
‘I’m sorry for Malone and Monahan, and for me. I’m even sorry for you. Everybody’s sorry for someone else.”
“Why are you sorry for me?” Matt asked.
“I would desperately like to have a cold beer,” Wohl said, as if he hadn’t heard the question. “For purely medicinal purposes.”
“Help yourself,” Matt said, gesturing toward the kitchen. “Bring me one too, please.”
“You want a glass?” Wohl called the kitchen.
“Absolutely. A good beer, like a decent wine, needs to breathe.”
“Oh, God!”
“It’s true,” Matt said.
Wohl came into the living room with two bottles of Tuborg, glasses sitting upside down on their necks.
“And there is a way to get the beer from the bottle to the glass,” Matt said, demonstrating. “One pours the glass approximately half full by decanting against the side of the glass, and then, at the precise moment, allowing the incoming liquid to fall into the middle, thus providing the proper head.”
He looked at Wohl, smiling. Wohl did not return the smile.
“You’re going to be investigated by the FBI, for the Justice Department, for violating the civil rights of Charles David Stevens.”
“I know. The FBI told me last night.”
“They were here already?” Wohl asked, surprised.
“They sent a young FBI agent, Jack Matthews, to tell me. On the QT.”
“How nice of the FBI,” Wohl said. “I wonder why they are being so friendly?”
“I’ve been wondering the same thing myself.”
“I wouldn’t worry about this, Matt.”
“You know the joke?”
“What joke?”
“The doctor about to perform major surgery looks down at the patient and says, ‘I wouldn’t worry about this,’ and the patient looks up and says, ‘if I wasn’t lying here, I wouldn’t be worried either.’”
“Well, I mean it. It’s a defense tactic, a sleazy one, but that’s all it is.”
“I was worried about it,” Matt said. “But I just got off the telephone with Colonel Mawson. He said he’s going to sue the—what is it?—Coalition for Something?”
“Equitable Law Enforcement.”
“He’s going to sue them for ninety-nine million dollars, the minute the FBI actually shows up here. I think he’s delighted it happened.”
Wohl smiled.
“I had a few too many drinks last night.”
“The Tuborg will fix that,” Matt said.
“I shouldn’t have made that early morning call.”
“Why don’t we both forget it? I just hope, among other things, that the knowledge won’t make it awkward for you with Stillwell. How the hell did you find out, anyhow?”
“Why should it be awkward for me?”
“In Harrisburg, I mean.”
“I’m not going to Harrisburg.”
“That’s not what it said on the radio. The radio said you had been appointed chief investigator to Stillworth, who was just appointed to some bullshit position with the attorney general.”
“The radio is wrong. Never believe what you hear on the radio. For that matter, never believe what you read in the newspaper, especially the Ledger.”
“Really?”
“Dave Pekach proposed to Martha Peebles. Surprising no one at all, she accepted. She had a few of his friends, Mike Sabara and his wife, Jack Malone, and me, plus Mr. and Mrs. Farnsworth Stillwell in for a little intimate supper.”
“And that’s where you found out?” Matt asked. “Christ, how?”
“Your paramour—is that the word?”
“For the sake of discussion only, it will do.”
“Your paramour, as I said, was there. She sounded very much like a lady who left erotic messages on your answering machine. Being the clever fellow I am, I put two and two together. And being the horse’s ass I seem to be when I’m drinking, I—I called you.”
“Christ, does anybody else know?”
“I don’t think so. But that wasn’t the smartest thing you ever did, Matt.”
“You ever hear that a stiff prick has no conscience?”
“How deep are you in with her?”
“It happened just once,” Matt said. “She was at a party downstairs. She saw my gun and got turned on by it. She was a little drunk.”
“Are you going to pursue it?” Wohl asked, and then, before Matt coul
d reply, asked, “What do you mean she got turned on by your gun?”
“It was a little frightening. She wanted to know if it was the gun I used on the serial rapist. It aroused her.”
“Well, are you going to pursue it?”
“What do you do to get out of something like this?”
“You thank God the lady’s leaving town. In the meantime, don’t answer your telephone.”
“Anything like this ever happen to you?”
“You mean a gun fetishist?”
“I mean a married woman.”
“Yeah. Once. It was very painful.”
Matt picked up his glass and leaned back in the leather armchair, looking thoughtfully into his beer.
I wonder why I told him that? Wohl thought. I damned sure never told anybody else.
“I don’t want to sound like I didn’t know what I was doing, but I didn’t actually seduce her,” Matt said.
“No man has ever seduced a mature woman,” Wohl said. “And probably very few virgins have ever been seduced. The way it works is that they decide who they want to have take them to bed, and then they arrange to be seduced.”
Matt looked up at him.
“You really believe that?”
I don’t know if I do or not. It sounds plausible. But what I was really trying to do was cheer him up. More than that, to point him onto Ye Olde Straight and Narrow.
Why the hell am I doing that? What the hell am I doing here, anyway? I could have told him about the FBI investigation on the phone.
The answer, obviously, is that I am very fond of this kid. He is, I suppose, the little brother that I never had. So what’s wrong with that?
“It sounds plausible,” Wohl said with a grin.
“So I’m not on your shit list?”
“You’re not on mine, but I’m apparently on everybody else’s.”
“They’re not blaming you for what happened?”
“It’s a question of who had the responsibility. That’s spelled WOHL.”
“You couldn’t be expected to sit outside his house yourself,” Payne argued. “If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s Jack Malone’s.”
“Malone works for me,” Wohl said. “Whatever he does, or doesn’t do, is my responsibility.”
The Witness Page 45