Smart as hell and being dynamite on the witness stand were two desirable characteristics for anybody in Homicide.
And then there was the fact that everybody in Homicide knew that Payne had had two good shootings. The first had been the serial rapist in Northwest Philadelphia who’d tried to run Payne down in his van. That bastard had already had his next intended victim trussed up like a Christmas turkey in the back of his van when Payne had interrupted his plans with a bullet in his head.
The second was when they were rounding up the doers in the Goldblatt amp; Sons Furniture job, and Wohl had put Payne and Mickey O’Hara in an alley to keep them out of the line of fire, while Highway and Special Operations uniforms went in the front. One of the doers had appeared in the alley with a. 45 semiautomatic. Payne had taken a hit in the leg, but he’d downed the bad guy anyway.
And then there was the third incident, just six months ago. Payne had run down-good detective work-a lunatic terrorist they wanted. The FBI had been looking for him without coming close for years. Payne knew the critter was going to be in the parking lot of a diner in Doylestown. He had no authority in Doylestown, and didn’t think the Doylestown cops would know how to handle the terrorist, so he’d called an FBI guy he knew-one of the good ones, for a change- and the FBI guy had gone to Doylestown.
When they’d tried to put the collar on the lunatic, he’d let loose with an automatic carbine, wounding a bystander woman and killing the woman who’d led Payne to the lunatic.
There’d been a hell of an exchange of gunfire, handguns against an automatic carbine. The FBI guy had actually put the critter down, but Payne had been involved up to his eyeballs and hadn’t blinked.
If things were perfect, a cop would never have to take his pistol out of his holster, but things aren’t perfect, and all cops-including Homicide detectives-admire the cops who do it right when they have to take out their weapons.
And then finally Captain Quaire was aware that at Dave Pekach’s wife’s party for Payne last night, Payne had sat at a table with Deputy Commissioner Coughlin, District Attorney Eileen McNamara Solomon, Chief Inspector of Detectives Matthew Lowenstein, and Inspector Wohl, making it clear he had friends in high places.
“Welcome aboard, Matt,” Quaire said.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Would you have any objection to being assigned to Lieutenant Washington’s squad?”
“No, sir.”
“So be it,” Quaire said. “You’re a bright young man. Do I have to remind you that you’re the new kid on the block, and that most of the people here have been in Homicide longer than you’ve been on the job?”
“I don’t mean to sound flippant, sir, but that’s not the first time that’s been pointed out to me.”
“And in a situation like that, what are you going to do?”
“Keep my eyes open and my mouth shut, sir.”
“Don’t go too far, Matt, with the mouth shut. You’re a sergeant, and you’ll be expected to act like one.”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
What I’m doing here is wasting my time, and his. Before he walked in here this morning, he was coached on what to expect and how to behave by Peter Wohl, who was a very young detective here. Or by Denny Coughlin. Or by the Black Buddha. Maybe even by Matt Lowenstein. Or Tony Harris. Or, more likely, all of the above.
“When is this business with Stan Colt going to happen?” Quaire asked.
“I think he’s coming on Friday, sir. I haven’t had the time to check with Lieutenant McGuire.”
“You better check with him soon, for the obvious reasons. ”
“I’ll do it right now, sir.”
“And let me know.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, Matt. Go to work,” Captain Quaire said. “Glad you’re going to be with us.”
“Thank you, sir.”
At 9:25 A.M., as Jack Williamson drove his Chrysler 300M northward on I-95 toward Bucks County-coincidentally, just beyond and to the left of the Industrial Correction Center, and just shy of the Philadelphia Police Academy-his cellular telephone buzzed.
Williamson was a tall, rather good-looking, well-dressed twenty-nine-year-old whose business card identified him as Senior Sales Consultant for Overbrook Estates, which offered custom-built executive homes on quarter-acre lots in Overbrook Estates, a new gated community in Beautiful Bucks County starting in the mid-$250Ks.
He cursed-for having forgot to do so earlier-as he reached for the earphone and jammed it in place, and then pushed the button on the microphone, which he was supposed to have clipped to his jacket, but now held somewhat awkwardly in his right hand.
“Jack Williamson,” he said.
“This is your mother.”
Oh, shit. Now what does she want?
“What can I do for you, Mother? On my way to work, where I’m already twenty-five minutes late?”
“I’m worried about Cheryl.”
“Can we talk about this later?”
“She doesn’t answer her phone…”
Probably because she knows it’s you calling.
“… and not even the answering machine answers.”
“Maybe it’s full.”
“And she’s not at work. I called there, too.”
And just possibly, Mother Dear, she told them to tell you she was out.
“Mother, she probably had car trouble or something.”
“No. She doesn’t answer her cell phone, either. Jack, I’m really worried.”
“Mother, what exactly is it you’d like me to do?”
“I want you to go by her apartment and see if she’s all right.”
“Mother, I’m on my way to work, and I’m already late.”
“Jack, she’s your sister. Your only sister.”
He didn’t reply.
“If only your father were still alive…” Mrs. Williamson began.
“Okay, okay. Don’t start that. I’ll go.”
“You’ll call me?” his mother asked.
Jack detected a triumphal tone in her voice.
Score another one for Momma Dear.
“I’ll call.”
He looked for, found, and took the next exit ramp-Exit 23-and a block onto Willets Road pulled to the side, clipped the cellular’s hands-off microphone to his shirt, then picked the phone up and held down the 5 key, which caused the cellular to automatically dial Cheryl’s number.
There was no answer, which meant she wasn’t there. He hung up, then held down the 6 key, which caused the cellular to automatically dial Cheryl’s cellular number. After five rings, a recorded female voice announced that the party he was attempting to reach was either not available at this time or out of the local calling area.
He cursed again, dropped the phone onto the seat, put the 300M in gear, and headed down Willets, deciding the best way to get to Cheryl’s-all the fucking way across North Philly-was to take Roosevelt Boulevard and then Adams Avenue, into the East Oak Lane section of Philadelphia.
When he got to Cheryl’s door, he could hear the chimes inside playing the first few bars of “Be It Ever So Humble,” but there was no answer. Which meant that Cheryl was already probably at work.
He decided that when he got back to the car, he would call her at her office, and turned to leave.
Then nature called, and he was a long way from Overbrook Estates.
He felt around the top of the door frame for her spare key, and when he didn’t find it, turned over the floor mat in front of the door, and when it wasn’t there either, took a last shot and, standing on his toes, ran his hands over the trim above the windows next to Cheryl’s door. He knocked a key off, failed to catch it, and it bounced off the floor and went over the edge of the walkway.
“Jesus H. Christ!” he said, and went down the stairs and two minutes later managed to find the key in the grass.
He unlocked the door and entered the apartment. There were, he remembered, two toilets, one with a bathtub off Cheryl’
s room, and another, just a water closet and a washbasin, off the kitchen. He went to the latter and relieved himself.
He was on the walkway checking to make sure the door was locked when a female voice asked, “Is everything all right?”
Now what the hell?
Jack found himself facing Mrs. Joanne McGrory.
“I’m Cheryl’s brother,” he said. “Jack Williamson.”
And as soon as you satisfy your goddamn curiosity and go away, so you can’t see what I’m doing, I will put the goddamn key back where it belongs.
“I’m Joanne McGrory. Next door.”
“I’m pleased to meet you,” Jack said.
“I’m pleased that everything is all right,” Joanne McGrory said. “After the mirror, I was worried.”
“Excuse me?”
“Our mirror came crashing off the wall, and I thought maybe something happened in there, too.”
“Everything’s fine in there.”
“I called the cops, but they wouldn’t go inside.”
“You called the cops? Why?”
“Well, if you were in bed in the middle of the night and your mirror came crashing down off the wall, what would you do?”
“Mrs. McGrory, you’re telling me the police were here last night?”
“Yes, they were,” Joanne McGrory said. “I called them, thinking that something might have happened to Cheryl.”
“And what did they do? Say?”
“They said they couldn’t go into her apartment.”
Jesus H. Christ, is my imagination running away with me? Is something really wrong here?
Jack Williamson put the key back in the lock and reentered the apartment. He’d already been in Cheryl’s kitchen and living room, so he went to her bedroom and opened the door.
Oh, my God!
Holy Christ, what happened in here?
She’s buck fucking naked and she’s tied to the bed!
He walked to the bed and looked down at Cheryl. Her eyes were open, but sightless.
Oh, my God, she’s dead!
He turned. Mrs. McGrory was coming into the bedroom.
“I think you’d better get out of here,” he said.
“Well, excuse me. I’m just trying to be neighborly.”
“Get the fuck out of here, goddamn it!” Jack said, waited until she had fled, and then looked for Cheryl’s telephone.
It wasn’t on her bedside table. It was on the floor, and he could see the cord had been broken.
Jesus, I’ll have to use the cell phone in the car.
What the hell am I going to tell Mother?
As he went through the living room, he remembered that Cheryl had a second phone, mounted on the kitchen wall. He went to it, then stopped.
Maybe it’s got fingerprints on it.
I better use my cell phone in the car.
Fuck it!
He took the handset from its cradle with his handkerchief and, using his ballpoint pen, punched in 911.
“Police department, operator 178,” a male voice answered on the second ring.
“Jesus!”
“May I help you, sir?”
“I’m… my sister’s apparently been murdered,” Jack Williamson said.
“And where are you, sir?”
“In her apartment. Second floor, right, 600 Independence Street. I let myself in, and found her-”
“And your name, sir?”
“Williamson, Jack Williamson.”
“You just stay where you are, please, Mr. Williamson. I’ll get police officers over there right away.”
“Jesus Christ, she’s tied to the goddamn bed!”
“Help will be there very shortly, Mr. Williamson.”
Officer Roland Stone was twelve blocks from Cheryl’s apartment-near the intersection of Godfrey Avenue and Howard Street-when his radio went off.
“3514.”
“3514,” Stone replied.
“3514, take 600 Independence Street, second-floor apartment, right. Meet the complainant, report of a 5292. Use caution-the complainant is on the scene and states it is a possible homicide.”
“3514, I have it,” Stone said, and flipped on the light bar on the roof and the siren as he turned left onto Water Street.
“35A-Andy,” Police Radio called next, to alert the supervisor-a sergeant-in the area.
“35A, I copied. I’m en route,” Sergeant John J. Haley responded. He was three blocks away from Cheryl Williamson’s apartment. This meant Haley had heard the initial call to 3514, and there was no need for the Police Radio operator to repeat the information.
Without really thinking about it, Sergeant Haley oriented himself with regard to where he was-at Franklin Street and Sixty-fifth Avenue North-and where he was going, took a quick look, made a U-turn, and stepped hard on the accelerator. He used neither the light bar nor the siren. They wouldn’t be necessary.
When he got out of his car at the curb in front of 600 Independence and started inside, a white, middle-aged woman was standing on the walkway just off the porch.
“Up there,” she said, gesturing inside. “Second floor, on the right.”
Haley took the porch stairs, and then the interior stairs, two at a time.
The door to Cheryl Williamson’s apartment was ajar.
There was a white, late twenties male sitting on a couch, his head bent.
“Police,” Sergeant Haley said.
“In there,” the man on the couch said, gesturing toward an interior door.
“What’s happened here?”
“Some fucking perverted cocksucker killed my sister, that’s what happened here.”
Sergeant Haley went into Cheryl’s bedroom, stayed only long enough to determine that the naked female in the bed was dead-he had seen enough bodies to make that determination with certainty; he didn’t feel for a pulse-and then stepped backward into the corridor and then went into the living room.
Looking at the guy who said he was the brother, Sergeant Haley squeezed the transmit switch on his lapel microphone.
“35A.”
“35A,” Police Radio responded.
“35A, notify Northwest Detectives, and Homicide. We have an apparent homicide. White female, no obvious cause of death, but there are signs of a possible rape. Hold myself and 14 car out at the scene.”
Jack Williamson looked up at Sergeant Haley.
“She is dead, right?”
“I’m afraid so.”
They both could hear the growing scream of Officer Stone’s patrol car approaching.
EIGHT
In the radio room-"room” doesn’t do justice to the large area in which Police Radio is housed-in the Roundhouse, the radio operator who had taken Sergeant Haley’s call then pressed a button on his console that automatically dialed the number of the desk man at the Northwest Detectives Division.
Detective units operate on what is known as “The Wheel.” It’s actually a roster of the names of the detectives on duty at the moment, and it’s designed to equitably distribute the workload. In most detective divisions, there is a detective assigned to “man the desk.” The “desk man” answers the telephone. When a job comes in, the desk man assigns it to the detective “next up” on the wheel.
When the phone rang in the Northwest Detectives Division, it was answered by Detective O. A. Lassiter, who was not the desk man but was filling in for Detective Len Ford, who was in the men’s room “taking a personal,” as a bathroom break is referred to on Police Radio. It also happened that Detective Lassiter was next up on the wheel.
Detective Lassiter was twenty-five years old, with 115 pounds distributed attractively around her five-foot-seven-inch frame. She had dark black hair, green eyes, long attractive legs, and had what her fellow detectives agreed- privately, very privately-were a magnificent ass and bosom.
“This is Police Radio, operator number 178,” the Police Radio operator began, then went into the details of the call he’d received from Sergeant Haley.
> Detective Lassiter wrote them down on a lined tablet and finally said, “Okay, we got it,” then raised her voice to call out to Lieutenant Fred C. Vincent, “Hey, Lieutenant, we got one.”
“What kind of job is it, Lassiter?” Vincent asked.
“Homicide, possible rape, white female, twenty-three years old. Her brother found her inside her apartment, tied to the bed. He’s still at the scene.”
“You better take somebody with you,” Vincent said. “I’ll get over there as soon as I can.”
“Yes, sir,” Detective Lassiter said, and then, raising her voice, called out, “Charley, you loose enough to go with me?”
“What’s the job?” Detective Charley Touma, a plump forty-four-year-old, asked.
“That’s not an answer, Charley, that’s another question,” Lieutenant Vincent answered for Detective Lassiter.
“I am at your disposal, Detective Lassiter,” Touma said. “What’s the job?”
“Homicide, possible rape, young white female,” Detective Lassiter said, as she opened the drawer of her desk, took from it her Glock 9-mm semiautomatic pistol, and slipped it into its holster.
Lieutenant Vincent was pleased that Detective Touma would be working with Detective Lassiter. Touma was a good man, a gentle man. The job was probably going to be messy, and although he knew he wasn’t supposed to let feelings like this intrude in any way in official business, the truth was that Lieutenant Vincent looked upon Detective Lassiter as, if not a daughter, then as a little sister.
Immediately after talking to the desk man at Northwest Detectives, the Police Radio operator pushed the button that automatically dialed the number of the man on the desk in the Homicide Unit, which was, physically, almost directly under him in the Roundhouse.
Detective Joe D’Amata, a slightly built, natty, olive-skinned forty-year-old, who was next up on the Homicide wheel, answered the phone: “Homicide, D’Amata.”
“This is Radio,” the operator said, and then proceeded to repeat almost verbatim what he’d reported to Detective Lassiter at Northwest Detectives. And Detective D’Amata, as Detective Lassiter had done, carefully wrote everything down, then said, “Got it, thanks.”
He looked around for Lieutenant Jason Washington and saw that he was in his office talking with-almost certainly telling him the way things worked-Sergeant Matt Payne.
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