Final Justice boh-8

by W. E. B Griffin

  “I’ve already checked with the FBI, Denny,” Washington said. “They have nothing. And I have very little faith in the efficacy of a teletype message to other police departments. They probably pay as little attention to them as we pay to theirs.”

  He met Coughlin’s eyes for a moment and then, when Coughlin said nothing, turned to Matt.

  “Sergeant Payne, I suggest that starting first thing in the morning, whenever she is not occupied with the Williamson family, you have Detective Lassiter make two telephone calls to every major city police department in the country. One to their Homicide bureau and the second to whatever they have elected to dub their sex crimes unit.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “While you’re at it, Olivia,” Amy said, “get their fax numbers, and tell them you’re going to fax them the DNA makeup of this guy. If they have any unidentified rapists where the only positive identification factor is the DNA, they can run theirs against ours to see if there is a match.”

  “I didn’t know that really worked,” Olivia said. “We can really do that?”

  “Sure,” Amy said. “DNA markers are a series of unique, really unique, identifiers, according to scientific standards used around the world. No two are alike; they’re much more difficult-almost impossible-to challenge in court.”

  “And as my contribution to the general fund of knowledge,” Washington said, “let me add that two months ago, in federal court right here in Philadelphia, a defense lawyer successfully challenged the scientific validity of fingerprints-the admission thereof as evidence-arguing that the standards for fingerprint identification vary from state to state, and even other countries. I’m really glad Amy brought that up.”

  “Good thinking, honey,” Coughlin said.

  “That’s my big sister,” Matt said with mock pride.

  “And as for you, Sergeant Payne,” Washington said quickly, to keep Amy from replying to the sarcasm, “whenever you can tear yourself from the supervision of the other detectives working this investigation, it would be useful for you to lend Detective Lassiter a hand in that endeavor. Perhaps fortune will smile on us.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  What he’s saying, Matt decided, is that the two people least likely to make any other substantial contribution to this investigation, Mother and me, will spend all day tomorrow-or for however long it takes-with a telephone stuck in our ears.

  Well, what the hell, sergeant or not, I am the rookie in Homicide, and that’s what rookies do, whatever jobs will release someone who knows what he’s doing to do it.

  Olivia thought: Well, however politely put, that was a kick in the teeth, wasn’t it, Sergeant Hotshot? You and the temporary employee from Northwest get to work the telephones, while the real detectives do their thing.

  And you really deserved a kick in the teeth to bring you down to size, so why do I feel sorry for you?

  The bartender began distributing drinks, starting with Doctor’s Specials for Dr. Payne and Detective Lassiter. She was surprised that the first martini glass was empty. She looked at the fresh one.

  I don’t need that. I don’t want that. I’m going to make a fool of myself.

  “How are you going to get home, Olivia?” Amy asked.

  “I’m riding with Matt… Sergeant Payne.”

  Like just now.

  “Are you all right to drive, Matt?” Amy asked.

  “Hey, fight with Peter all you want, but lay off me.”

  “I was thinking of Olivia,” Amy replied, “and what makes you think I’m fighting with Peter?”

  “Your claws are showing.”

  Washington stood up, holding his glass.

  “I am leaving before these adorable, loving siblings enter the violent stage,” he said. “But not before I take aboard sufficient liquid courage to face the unsheathed claws I fear I will myself find at home.”

  He took a healthy swallow of his drink.

  “You will drop by the lab, Frank?”

  “Just as soon as I drop the boss off,” Hollaran said.

  “I was going to say Frank could take Lassiter home,” Coughlin said, “but his going by the lab is important.” He looked at Matt. “You drive very carefully, Matt. I don’t want to hear on Phil’s Philly that you ran into a school bus.”

  “I’m all right, Uncle Denny,” Matt said.

  “Okay, Frank,” Coughlin said. “Let’s call it a night.”

  He stood up, finished his drink, and walked to the door. Hollaran followed him. Washington finished his drink and followed them.

  “What Slayberg and I are going to do tomorrow, Matt,” D’Amata said, “is run down the known acquaintances and ring some doorbells. If anything turns up, we’ll let you know.”

  “Fine,” Matt said.

  That was really nice of him, Olivia thought. He picked up on Matt getting kicked in the teeth and was trying to make him feel better.

  D’Amata and Slayberg left.

  “You want to go, Mother?” Matt asked.

  She stood up, picked up her glass, met his eyes, and drained it.

  He shook his head in resignation and gestured toward the door.

  “You were lucky in there, Mother,” Matt said when they were in the Porsche.

  “I’m not your Mother, goddamn it!”

  “You were lucky, Mother,” Matt went on, “that your mouth didn’t run away with you any more than it did. Nobody likes a drunken woman. Last warning.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “With the additional warning to never say that to me again, the conversation is closed, Detective Lassiter,” Matt said. “Now, where do you live?”

  “Take me to City Hall. I’ll take a taxi.”

  “Commissioner Coughlin ordered me to take you home. Answer the question, Detective Lassiter.”

  “The 100 Block of Orchard Lane,” she said, icily, after a moment. “It’s east of the North Philadelphia Airport. Take I-95, and get-”

  “I know where the North Philadelphia airport is.”

  Matt put the Porsche in gear and backed away from the curb.

  “Take the next left, onto Knight’s Road,” Olivia said, as they were headed down Woodhaven Road.

  It was the first thing either of them had said since leaving Liberties.

  Matt wordlessly made the turn.

  Two minutes later, Olivia said, pointing across the median, "Orchard’s over there. You can make a U-turn at the stoplight. ”

  Matt saw that the stoplight at the intersection of Knight’s Road and Red Lion Road was green and that a Dodge Caravan, headed his way on the other side of the median, was the only traffic. It had just passed the stoplight.

  He touched the brake, flicked the turn signal lever, downshifted, and prepared to make the U-turn at the intersection, after the Caravan.

  A Pontiac Grand Am came out of nowhere down Red Lion, ran the red light, flashed past the nose of the Porsche, and then slammed into the side of the Dodge Caravan.

  Slammed hard into it. There was the sound of tearing metal as the Dodge was knocked, mostly sideward, across the street, coming to rest at an angle against the curb.

  “That sonofabitch ran the light!” Matt said.

  He braked sharply, stopped, turned on his flashers, and opened his door.

  “Call Radio,” he ordered, handing his cellular to Olivia.

  The driver’s door of the Grand Am opened and the driver got out. He was a young, tall, white male.

  “You stupid sonofabitch!” Matt muttered.

  “This is Detective Lassiter, badge 582. We are at Red Lion and Knights Road. We have a vehicular accident, auto-auto. Possible injuries, start in Fire Rescue, and a sector car.”

  There was a moment’s hesitation, then Olivia added, “No. We are not involved.”

  Thank God! Matt thought. Neither one of us could pass a Breathalyzer test right now.

  The young, tall, white male looked first at the Caravan and then at the Porsche stopped on Knight’s Road with its warning flashers blinking.
Then he sort of shrugged and took off at a lope down Orchard Lane.

  “Check on the people in the van,” Matt ordered, and jumped out of the Porsche and ran after the young, tall, white male.

  Now it’s leaving the scene of an accident, you dumb sonofabitch!

  And that Grand Am is probably stolen.

  “Stop!” he shouted. “I am a police officer.”

  The young, tall, white male kept running. Matt saw him turn off the street into a driveway.

  When Matt reached the lawn of the next house, he cut across it diagonally and at a full run encountered with his foot a wire supporting an ornamental tree on the lawn.

  He flew through the air and landed flat on the concrete driveway. He felt his face scrape against the concrete, and a stinging in both hands where they had struck the concrete.

  He shook his head and got to his knees.

  The young, tall, white male was running around the side of a garage.

  Matt ran after him.

  When he turned the corner of the garage, he saw the young, tall, white male about to top a five-foot hurricane fence.

  “Stop, police officer!” Matt shouted.

  The young, tall, white male looked right at him and then dropped to the ground on the far side of the fence.

  “I’m going to get you, you sonofabitch!” Matt shouted, and ran toward the fence.

  It was his intention to leap the fence gracefully by vaulting over it with the use of his left hand on the parallel pipe at the top of the fence.

  Two problems arose. First, the parallel pipe at the top of the fence was perhaps an inch below the top of the fence itself. Second, the uppermost joints of the twisted wire of the fence were above it. One of them penetrated the heel of Matt’s hand, which he had planned to use for leverage.

  This caused (a) Matt’s passage over the fence to be considerably less graceful than he intended; (b) a puncture wound in the heel of Matt’s hand; and (c) Matt’s trousers to be torn from just below the knee almost to the cuff as they became ensnared in the twisted wire at the top of the fence.

  “Sonofabitch!” Matt cried, and got to his feet.

  He saw that he was between two lines of hurricane fence running behind the houses. The young, tall, white male was running between them. Matt ran after him.

  At the end of the parallel lines of hurricane fence there were a dozen garbage cans. The young, tall, white male leapt nimbly over the first two cans, but then his foot slipped between two of them and he sprawled onto the ground amid toppled garbage cans.

  Matt, breathing heavily, shoved the garbage cans to one side, then fell to his knees beside the young, tall, white male and pulled his arm behind his back. Then he put his knee on the small of the young, tall, white male’s back.

  He tried to catch his breath. He became aware that blood was dripping from his chin onto the white sweatshirt of the young, tall, white male.

  He heard the wail of a siren, and then the wail of a second siren.

  Matt felt the small of his own back for his handcuffs.

  I left the fucking things in the goddamn car!

  “You gonna let me up now?” the young, tall, white male asked.

  “Shut your fucking mouth!”

  The sound of one of the sirens died, and then the other. After what seemed like two and a half years, Matt saw the beam of a sweeping flashlight.

  “Over here!” he tried to shout, which told him he had not fully recovered his breath.

  The flashlight beam came closer.

  “My God, what happened to you?” Detective Lassiter asked.

  “You got cuffs?”

  Detective Lassiter sort of squatted on the ground, put her small flashlight in her mouth, opened her purse, and took from it a set of handcuffs.

  She moved to place the handcuffs on the wrist Matt was holding. The young, tall, white male, realizing what was happening, resisted. Before he was adequately restrained again, Detective Lassiter’s flashlight had been knocked from her mouth and had fallen to the ground, in such a position that it shone directly on the junction of her legs, which, covered with pale blue panties, was now, due to the displacement of her skirt, fully exposed.

  He heard the sound of a third siren dying.

  “Thanks,” Sergeant Payne said.

  “Happy to be of help,” Detective Lassiter said.

  “Put your foot on his neck,” Sergeant Payne ordered.

  Detective Lassiter complied, and Sergeant Payne got to his feet.

  “You’re bleeding,” Detective Lassiter said.

  “My, aren’t we observant?” Matt said, and took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped at his face.

  Matt started to pull the young, tall, white man to his feet.

  “Keeping in mind that there is nothing I would rather do right now than rub your face in the garbage, get up and behave,” Matt said.

  "Not quite ‘make my day,’ ” Olivia said, “But not bad, Sergeant.”

  I’ll be a sonofabitch, she’s laughing at me!

  Another flashlight beam appeared, and a moment later, another. One was held by a uniform, the other by a Highway Patrol sergeant. The latter flickered across Matt’s face.

  “Payne! What the hell happened to you?”

  “What the hell does it look like?” Matt snapped. He pointed to the uniform. “Put this gentleman in a car,” he ordered. “He has not been Mirandized.”

  “What did he do?” the Highway sergeant said as he stepped closer to Matt as if he thought he was going to need some help.

  Then, when his back was to the uniform and he could not be seen, he put something into Matt’s hand.

  Matt saw what it was. Three round pellets of a very strong brand of English mints.

  “Chew those slowly and try not to breathe on anybody. I already gave some to your friend.”

  “Thanks,” Matt said. “I owe you.”

  “So what did this critter do?”

  “For openers, first running a red light and then leaving the scene of an accident,” Matt said. “Give me thirty seconds and I can think of a lot more. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Grand Am is hot.”

  “You sure you’re all right? You look like hell,” the Highway sergeant said.

  There were four city vehicles on Knight’s Road: a Highway car, a patrol car, a sergeant’s car from the Eighth District, and a Fire Department Fire Rescue vehicle.

  Two paramedics were loading the passengers of the Caravan into the Fire Rescue truck.

  “I think the little boy’s got a broken arm,” the Eighth District sergeant said. “You’re Detective Lassiter?”

  “She’s Lassiter. My name is Payne.”

  “You’re on the job?”

  No, you stupid fuck, I’m a concerned citizen who gets his rocks off chasing tall, young, white males through people’s backyards.

  “Sergeant, Homicide,” Matt said.

  “You want to go in with them? Or in your own car?”

  “Go where?”

  “You look pretty beat up, Sergeant,” the Eighth District sergeant said. “You better have a doctor look at your face.”

  “I’m all right,” Matt said. “I scraped it, that’s all.”

  “No, you’re not,” Detective Lassiter said. “Let the medics look at it.”

  It was the paramedic’s professional judgment that while he had really done a job on his cheek, there wasn’t much that could be done for it except clean it up and get some antiseptic on it.

  “I live right around the corner,” Detective Lassiter said. “And I’ve got alcohol and hydrogen peroxide.”

  “That’ll do it,” the paramedic said.

  Matt met Olivia’s eyes for a long moment.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Can we find out if the Grand Am is hot?” Matt asked.

  “He’s running it now,” the Eighth District sergeant said, nodding toward a uniform in a patrol car.

  Less than a minute later, th
e uniform got out of the car and announced that the Grand Am had been reported stolen.

  “Can you take him and hold him on that?” Matt asked. “I’ll come by later and do the paper.”

  The District sergeant shook his head, “no.”

  “You know better than that, Sergeant. You’re the arresting officer and you need to make the statement to the detective at Northeast.”

  The Highway sergeant stepped between them. “I’ll get all of Sergeant Payne’s necessary information and make sure the detective has it, Sergeant. Besides, we helped him to make the pinch back there, and I want to make sure Highway gets in on the paperwork. You know how it is.”

  The Eighth District sergeant looked at him for a moment, then walked away.

  The Highway sergeant turned to Matt.

  “Let me have your badge and payroll numbers. And I better have hers, too. Tell me what happened and how you hurt yourself so the Northeast Detective can document it if you need to go out IOD, ^2 and make sure you touch base with the assigned detective so you agree with the statement before he puts it on the ’49.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Matt said. “I owe you two now.”

  “You better let me drive,” Olivia said.

  “Why?”

  “It looks like you scratched your hand, too. You’ll get blood all over your pretty leather gear shifter.”

  He walked around the rear and got in the passenger seat of the Porsche.

  Detective Lassiter opened the door of her second-floor apartment, reached inside, flicked on the lights, and then motioned Sergeant Payne inside ahead of her.

  “The first aid stuff’s in the bathroom,” she said. “The bedroom’s just the other side of the living room.”

  He walked across the living room to the bedroom, noticing as he passed through it to the bathroom that it was not messy, and that a white comforter covered her bed.

  Intimate feminine apparel was hanging from the shower curtain rod. When she came into the bathroom, she snatched it off and threw it behind the shower curtain.

  She took bandages, swabs, Mercurochrome, and bottles of hydrogen peroxide and alcohol from a cabinet and then turned to him and started cleaning his face.

  “That’s pretty nasty,” she said. “You sure you don’t want to go to the emergency room?”

  “I’m sure,” he said.