Final Justice boh-8

by W. E. B Griffin

  “I usually say it’s something we took away from the drug industry,” Matt said. “But the truth is, it’s mine.”

  “They must pay better, one way or another, in Philadelphia, ” the young man said.

  “My lieutenant borrowed my brand-new unmarked car,” Matt said. “So I drove this, instead of taking the train.”

  “If one of my sergeants had a brand-new unmarked, I’d do the same,” the young man said. “There’s a parking garage on the left.”

  Okay, that makes you a lieutenant. What’s a lieutenant doing sitting in an unmarked in the middle of Times Square?

  “It says full.”

  “Some of us can read,” the young man said. “Although I will admit we do have a number of people on the job who are literacy-challenged.”

  Matt pulled into the parking lot, nose to nose with a Mercedes. There was no room. He was blocking half the sidewalk.

  The attendant came out, waving his hands, “no.” He was wearing a beard and a turban.

  “I think sign language is going to be necessary,” the young lieutenant said, “and not because this fellow is aurally challenged.”

  He got out of the Porsche, took his badge from his pocket, and held it two inches from the bearded man’s face. Then he signaled with arm gestures that the attendant was to move the Mercedes elsewhere so the Porsche could take its space.

  The attendant waved his arms excitedly for a few moments, but then got into the Mercedes.

  The lieutenant signaled, like a traffic officer, for Matt to back the Porsche up far enough to give the Mercedes room to pass. The Mercedes went around him, onto the street, and the lieutenant signaled for Matt to pull in.

  Then he stood on the sidewalk waiting for Matt to get out of the car.

  They walked back up Broadway to West Forty-second Street and into Times Square Photo.

  Three people-two of them bearded and in turbans, the third a stout young woman whose flowing, ankle-length dress and gaudily painted wooden bead jewelry made Matt think of gypsies-descended, smiling broadly on them.

  What they lacked in language skills they made up for with enthusiasm, offering Matt and the lieutenant cameras, tape recorders, and other items for sale, cheap.

  “Get Whatshisname,” the lieutenant ordered.

  The three looked at him without comprehension.

  “Get Whatshisname!” the lieutenant ordered, considerably louder.

  Still no comprehension showed on the faces of the trio.

  The lieutenant put his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly.

  Almost immediately, another man in a neat turban and immaculately trimmed beard appeared. His suit and shirt were well-fitting, and he also wore a red vest with embroidered ducks in flight pattern.

  He hurried up to them.

  “Lieutenant Lacey,” he said in British-accented English, “what a pleasant surprise! How may I be of service to you or this gentleman?”

  “Tell him,” Lieutenant Lacey said to Matt.

  “Five months ago, you received a shipment of a dozen cameras from Kodak,” Matt began.

  “We receive shipments from Kodak virtually weekly,” the man said. “They make a splendid product, and because we sell so many of them, we are in a position to offer them at the lowest possible prices. And in your case, of course, as a friend of Lieutenant Lacey, there will be a substantial additional discount. Permit me to show you-”

  “I don’t want to buy a camera, I want to know who you sold it to,” Matt said, aware that Lieutenant Lacey was smiling at him.

  “I will make you an offer you cannot refuse!”

  “I have the serial number,” Matt said.

  “I gather this is an official visit, Lieutenant Lacey?” the man asked.

  Lacey nodded.

  “Sergeant Payne needs to know to whom you sold a particular camera.”

  “We are, of course, willing-I’ll say eager-to cooperate with the police in every way.”

  “Is there a problem?” Lieutenant Lacey asked.

  The man looked at Matt.

  “You say the camera was shipped to us five months ago?”

  Matt nodded.

  “You know the model?”

  Goddamn it, I don’t.

  “It’s a rather expensive digital,” Matt said.

  “That only narrows the field down a smidgen, I fear,” the man said.

  “If I saw one, I’d know it.”

  “That sort of item is updated as often as the sun rises,” the man said. “I rather doubt if it would still be in our inventory. You did say you have the serial number?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Then it will be a simple matter to go through our sales records and find it. We assiduously record the serial numbers of all our better merchandise.”

  “Then we have no problem here?” Lieutenant Lacey asked.

  “None whatever. I am delighted to be of service. I will return momentarily.”

  He headed for the back of the store.

  “Good luck, Sergeant,” Lacey said.

  “Thanks very much, Lieutenant,” Matt said.

  “No thanks are required. I wasn’t in here with you. I never ever saw you. I would never act in a case like this without the full authority-in writing-of the New York Police Department’s Office of Inter-Agency Cooperation to do so.”

  He turned and walked out the door.

  The turbaned man who spoke the Queen’s English returned to where Matt stood a few minutes later, trailed by two turbaned men, each of whom held two large cardboard boxes in his arms.

  He gestured rather imperiously for the men to place the boxes on a glass display case.

  “The sales records are filed, Sergeant, to comply with IRS requirements, sequentially, or perhaps I should say chronologically. I have brought you the records for the last six months. If there is anything else I can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask.”

  Not quite an hour and a half later, Sergeant Payne found the sales slip he was looking for, near the top of the left stack of sales slips in Box Three.

  The sales slips had been stored in the manner in which they had come out of the sales registry machines-that is to say, fan-folded. Each stack contained 250 sales slips. They had been placed in the storage boxes eight stacks high, six stacks to a box.

  By the time Matt found what he was looking for, his feet hurt from standing, his stomach was in audible protest for being unfed, and his eyes watered.

  And what he found wasn’t much.

  A Kodak Digital Science DC 410, Serial Number EKK84240087, had been sold for cash three and a half months previously to Mr. H. Ford, 400 Lincoln Lane, Detroit, Michigan. Mr. Ford’s signature, at the bottom, acknowledging receipt of the camera in good working condition, was barely legible.

  He then had a very hard time making the previously charming English-speaking proprietor understand that he would like, at the very least, a photocopy of the sales slip and would really like to have the sales slip itself.

  Then he had an inspiration.

  “What I really would like to have are several digital images of you. First in the act of separating that sales slip from the fanfold,” Matt said. “And then another of you initialing the sales slip.”

  “And you have a camera?”

  “No. But I thought if I bought one…”

  “How interesting! I just happen to have a splendid, latest-model, state-of-the-art Kodak-a DC910 with fast-charge lithium batteries-that I could let you have at a substantial discount.”

  “The pictures, you understand, would be useless to me unless I had the actual sales slip itself?”

  “You do have a credit card?”

  “Of course.”

  “Of course you do. And nothing would give me greater pleasure than to cooperate with the police in this investigation. ”

  A total of $967.50 and fifteen minutes later, Matt put a Ziploc bag in his briefcase. It held the original sales slip and a flash memory card holding images of the propri
etor tearing the sales slip free from the others in the fanfold stack; initialing the sales slip; of himself initialing the sales slip; of himself and the proprietor each holding a corner of the sales slip; and a final shot of himself putting the sales slip in the Ziploc bag.

  Counsel for the defense, he thought, would, considering the pictures, have a hard time raising doubt in the minds of a jury that he had acquired the real sales slip.

  And he could give the Kodak DC910, with fast-charge lithium batteries, to his mother. She had expressed admiration for the camera he had given Amy, and it seemed only just that his mother get one that cost twice as much as Amy’s.

  Now all he had to do was find Mr. H. Ford, of 400 Lincoln Lane, Detroit, Michigan.

  He walked back down through Times Square to the parking lot, and got into the Porsche. On his cellular telephone, he established contact with a Detroit directory assistance operator, who regretted to inform him they had no listing for a Mr. H. Ford at 400 Lincoln Lane in Detroit.

  Matt had been prepared to be disappointed.

  “Have you got a special listing for the Homicide Bureau, maybe Homicide Unit, something like that, of the Detroit police department?”

  “Just the basic police department number.”

  “Give me that, please.”

  “Homicide, Sergeant Whaley.”

  “Sergeant, my name is Payne. I’m a sergeant in Homicide in Philadelphia.”

  “What can we do for Philadelphia?”

  “I’m working a job where the doer left his camera at the scene. I traced it to the store where it was sold. According to their records, it was sold to a Mr. H. Ford of Lincoln Road in Detroit.”

  “And you’re beginning to suspect there is maybe something a little fishy about the name and address, right?”

  “To tell you the truth, yes, I am.”

  “Okay. So?”

  “Maybe he once went to Detroit,” Matt said. “Have you got any open cases of murder, or rape, or murder/rape where the doer tied the victim to a bed and then cut the victim’s clothes off with a large knife?”

  “Nice fellow, huh? That all you got?”

  “This happened last night.”

  “You do know about the NCIC in Philadelphia?”

  “We have inside plumbing and everything,” Matt said. “And I don’t mean to in any way undermine your faith in the FBI, but sometimes we suspect they don’t give us everything out of their databases, including stuff we’ve put in.”

  “I can’t think of any job like that offhand,” Sergeant Whaley said. “But I’ll ask around. You said your name was Payne?”

  Matt spelled it for him and gave him Jason Washington’s unlisted private number in the Roundhouse.

  “I’ll ask around, and if I turn up anything, I’ll give you a call.”

  “Thank you very much,” Matt said.

  He pushed the End button, put the key in the ignition, and started to drive out of the parking lot.

  The attendant jumped in front of the car, waving his arms.

  It was necessary for Matt to dig out the credit card again, and sign a sales slip for $35.00 worth of parking before he could put the Porsche in gear and head downtown toward the Lincoln Tunnel.

  He looked at his watch; it was quarter past five.

  When he came out of the New Jersey exit of the Lincoln Tunnel, it looked very familiar and he wondered why. He rarely went to New York City, and when he did, he almost never drove, preferring the Metroliner, a really comfortable train on which one did not have to keep one eye open for the New Jersey State Police for being in violation of speeding and/or drinking laws.

  It was a moment before he understood.

  He saw it at least once a week, on television. The opening shot on The Sopranos was from the inside of New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano’s GMC Suburban as he came out of the tunnel.

  Another segment of the TV show came to his mind. A New Jersey detective on the pad from the mob got caught at it, and jumped off a bridge.

  That made him think of Captain Patrick Cassidy, whose sudden affluence-including his new Suburban-he had found to be completely legitimate.

  If it had gone the other way, would Cassidy have taken a dive off the Benjamin Franklin Bridge? And would I have been at least tangentially responsible?

  His reverie was interrupted by the tinkling of his cell phone.

  “Payne.”

  “Where are you, Matthew?” Lieutenant Jason Washington’s deep, rich voice demanded.

  “I just came out of the Lincoln Tunnel on my way back.”

  “And what developed in New York?”

  “The camera was sold to an H. Ford of Lincoln Road in Detroit,” Matt said.

  “Well, one never knows. There is a credible legend that Jack the Ripper was the King’s brother.”

  “So I have heard. I’ve got the original sales slip, with a signature on it, in a Ziploc.”

  “How did you get that?”

  “I explained how important it was to the proprietor, and then bought a nine-hundred-dollar camera, after which he gave it to me.”

  “There’s a slim chance, if he signed it, we might get a print.”

  “Yeah.”

  Shit, I didn’t even think about that. Oh, Jesus! If there are prints on there, they’ll be the proprietor’s and mine. There’s no excuse for such stupidity.

  “You’re going to have to come to the office anyway, to get a property receipt for the sales slip, so I’ll leave the keys to your car in the FOP mug on my desk,” Washington said.

  “You mean I’m getting it back?”

  “You had doubts? I’m your lieutenant, Matthew. You can trust me,” Washington said, and added, “I’m driving Martha’s car, less because of spousal generosity than because she wanted to ensure my presence at a cultural event at the Fine Arts at seven-thirty.”

  “Have fun.”

  “If fortune smiles upon me, I may even be afforded the privilege of physical proximity to our beloved mayor.”

  Matt chuckled.

  “I am at the moment en route to meet with Tony, Mickey, and the witness from the Roy Rogers,” Washington went on. “If there are developments, call me between now and seven-thirty. ”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Otherwise, after ten, call me to report your progress or lack thereof. But do not call me while I am at the Fine Arts unless what you have to say is really important.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And drive carefully, always adhering to the posted speed limits of the Garden State, Matthew.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The line went dead.

  Harris, Amal al Zaid, and Michael J. O’Hara were sitting in the rearmost banquette of the Roy Rogers restaurant at Broad and Snyder Streets when Amal saw an automobile pull to the curb outside.

  “Get those wheels,” he blurted in something close to awe. “That’s an SL600!”

  “What’s an SL600?” Tony Harris asked, looking. “You mean the Mercedes?”

  "V-12 engine,” Amal al Zaid said. “Six liters!”

  A large black man in a dinner jacket got out of the Mercedes SL600.

  "V-12?” Tony asked. “No shit? What’s one of those worth?”

  "V-12,” Amal al Zaid confirmed. “That’s worth at least a hundred thousand bucks!”

  “Jesus,” Tony said.

  “More like a hundred and a quarter, kid,” Mickey O’Hara said. “Well, I guess that’s his coming-out present to himself.”

  “Excuse me?” Amal al Zaid asked.

  “What did he get, Tony? Ten to fifteen?” Mickey asked.

  Tony Harris shrugged.

  “Or was it fifteen to twenty?” Mickey mused. “Well, whatever, he’s out, obviously. Who said ‘crime doesn’t pay’?”

  Tony Harris raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

  Amal al Zaid nearly turned around on the banquette to follow the guy in the tuxedo who had gotten out of the Mercedes-Benz SL600.

  “It looks like he’s coming in
here!” Amal al Zaid said.

  “Why would a heavy hitter hood like that come in a dump like this?” O’Hara asked rhetorically.

  Lieutenant Jason Washington walked through the restaurant, slid onto the banquette seat beside O’Hara, quickly shook hands with O’Hara and Harris, and then smiled cordially at Amal al Zaid.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said. “I really appreciate your time.”

  Amal al Zaid said nothing.

  “I’m Lieutenant Washington,” Jason said, oozing charm.

  He had told Tony Harris to ask the witness to meet them in the Roy Rogers in the belief he would be more comfortable there than he would have been, for example, in the Homicide unit in the Roundhouse.

  Amal al Zaid said nothing.

  “Actually, I’m Detective Harris’s-Tony’s-supervisor.”

  “You’re a cop?” Amal al Zaid asked, incredulously.

  “I realize that dressed like this-I’m going to sort of a party with my wife…” He paused, and then asked, “What did Mr. O’Hara tell you about me?”

  “He said you just got out,” Amal al Zaid said.

  “Actually, sir,” Tony Harris said. “The phrases Mr. O’Hara used were ‘fifteen to twenty’ and ‘heavy hitter hood.’ ”

  Washington came out with his badge and photo ID, and showed it to Amal al Zaid.

  “Mr. O’Hara is an old friend,” he said. “Despite a well-earned reputation for a really weird sense of humor.”

  “I’m weird?” O’Hara asked. “You’re the first man in recorded history to walk into a Roy Rogers in a waiter suit.”

  “It’s not a waiter suit, you ignoramus.”

  “It looks like a waiter suit to me,” Mickey said. “What about you-Double-A Zee?”

  Amal al Zaid giggled and nodded his head in agreement.

  “Are you going to take our order, or is there something else Double-A Zee and I can do for the cops?” Mickey asked.

  Amal al Zaid giggled again.

  “Do you mind if he calls you that?” Washington asked.

  Amal al Zaid shook his head, “no.”

  “Can I call you that?”

  “Sure.”

  “Thank you,” Washington said. “Okay, Double-A Zee, let me tell you where we are in finding the people who murdered Mrs. Martinez and Officer Charlton.” He paused.

  Amal al Zaid looked at him expectantly.