Final Justice boh-8

by W. E. B Griffin

  The Hon. Alvin W. Martin had to move quickly to get in that shot, but he made it.

  The cardinal, the mayor, and Mr. Colt, preceded by the fat photographer in the pageboy haircut, then entered the building. Lieutenant McGuire trotted after them, turned at the door, spotted Matt getting out of his car, and signaled for him to come along.

  “Are you going in there?” Matt asked Terry Davis.

  “That’s what I get paid for,” she said.

  When they reached the cardinal’s office, there was a delegation of faculty from West Catholic High School lined up to shake Mr. Colt’s hand and to welcome him back to his alma mater. The mayor didn’t manage to get in that shot, but he did manage to get in another shot in front of the cardinal’s desk, of the cardinal, the principal of West Catholic, Monsignor Schneider, and Mr. Colt.

  Then, after shaking hands a final time, Mr. Colt, again preceded by the fat photographer moving backward and frantically snapping pictures, left the cardinal’s office.

  Mr. Colt stopped when he saw Terry Davis.

  “Where’s the homicide detective?” he demanded.

  Terry pointed at Matt.

  Mr. Colt’s eyebrows rose in surprise, or disbelief, and then he moved on.

  As the procession went back through the lobby, Matt heard the engines of the Highway bikes roar to life.

  The mayor of Philadelphia shook Mr. Colt’s hand a final time, said he looked forward to seeing him a little later, and then walked back to the mayoral limousine.

  Mr. Colt paused as he was about to enter the limousine, spotted Terry Davis, and called: “He’s going to be at the hotel, right?”

  “Right, Stan,” Terry called back.

  Mr. Colt nodded, then got in the white limousine.

  The fans who had somehow learned that Mr. Colt would be staying at the Ritz-Carlton and had waited there in hopes of seeing him, and perhaps even getting his autograph, touching him, or perhaps coming away with a piece of his clothing, were disappointed.

  All they got was a smile and a wave, as-preceded yet again by the fat photographer running backward-Colt went quickly into the hotel and through the lobby to a waiting elevator.

  Stan Colt was sprawled on a couch in the sitting room of his suite, taking a pull from a bottle of beer from the Dock Street Brewery, when Lieutenant McGuire, Sergeant Payne, and Miss Terry Davis were ushered into his presence by the gray-haired, stylishly dressed woman Matt had seen carrying luggage from the Citation.

  The stylishly dressed young man from the airport was talking on a telephone on a sideboard.

  “With that out of the way, Terry, what’s next?” Stan Colt greeted them.

  “There’s a cocktail party at the Bellvue-Stratford-it’s right around the corner…”

  “I know where it is, sweetheart. I’m from here.”

  “… at six-thirty. Black tie. The limo will be here at six-fifteen. ”

  “Where the hell did that virginal white one come from?”

  “You want another color?” Terry asked.

  Colt pointed to the young man on the telephone.

  “That’s what Lex is doing,” he said. “Getting a black one.”

  “The cocktail party will be over at seven-thirty, which leaves the question of dinner open. I think you can count on at least one invitation.”

  “Let me think about that,” he said.

  He recognized Lieutenant McGuire for the first time.

  “You’re the security guy, right?”

  “I’m Lieutenant McGuire of Dignitary Protection, Mr. Colt.”

  Mr. Colt’s somewhat contemptuous shrug indicated he considered that a distinction without a difference.

  “And you’re the Homicide detective, right?”

  “I’m Sergeant Payne.”

  “But Homicide, right? You’re the guy that was in the gun battle in Doylestown Monsignor Schneider told me about?”

  Matt nodded.

  “No offense, but you don’t look the part.”

  “Perhaps that’s because I’m not an actor,” Matt said.

  “You look-and for that matter sound like-you’re a WASP from the Main Line.”

  “Do I really? Maybe that’s because I am indeed a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant who was raised in Wallingford; that’s not the Main Line, but I take your point.”

  Matt saw that Lieutenant McGuire was being made very uncomfortable by the exchange.

  “Why am I getting the feeling, Sergeant,” Colt asked, “that you would rather be somewhere else?”

  “You’re perceptive?”

  Colt chuckled.

  “You want to tell me what you’d rather be doing?”

  “I was working a Homicide before the commissioner assigned me to sit on you.”

  “ ‘Sit on’ me? That sounds a little erotic. Kinky. You know?”

  “It means that my orders are to see that you don’t do anything while you’re here that will embarrass in any way anybody connected with this charitable gesture of yours.”

  “For example?”

  “Payne!” Lieutenant McGuire said, warningly.

  “Let me put it this way, Mr. Colt,” Matt said. “As long as you’re in Philadelphia, the virtue of chastity will have to be its own reward for you.”

  Terry Davis giggled.

  “You telling me, I think, that I don’t get to fool around?” Colt asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Not even a little?”

  “Not even a little.”

  “You understand who I am?”

  “That’s why you don’t get to fool around, even a little.”

  Colt turned to Terry Davis.

  “You think this is funny, don’t you?”

  “You’re the one who said you wanted to hang out with a real, live Homicide cop.”

  “And I do. I do. And I really like this guy! This is better than I hoped for.” He turned to Matt. “I am going to get to watch you work, right?”

  “The commissioner said I was to show you as much about how Homicide works as I think I can.”

  “Which means what?”

  “I will show you everything I can, so long as doing so doesn’t interfere with an investigation.”

  “And you make that call?”

  “Right.”

  “And what if I complain to him?” Colt asked, pointing to McGuire. “He’s a lieutenant, right? And you’re a sergeant?”

  “The lieutenant’s job is to protect you,” Matt said. “Mine is to ensure your chastity.”

  Colt was now smiling.

  “That may be harder than you think,” he said. “You think you can stay awake twenty-four hours a day?”

  “No. But there’s two detectives in the corridor who’ve also been assigned to the Chastity Detail.”

  Colt glanced at the stylishly dressed young man who had just hung up the telephone.

  “Well?” he asked, curtly.

  “You’ll have a black limo in the morning, Stan, but not tonight. It’s the best I could do.”

  “Not good enough, Alex,” Colt snapped. “Call somebody else, for Christ’s sake. I don’t want to arrive at this place looking like Tinkerbell.” Then he had another thought. “You going to the cocktail party, Sergeant Payne?”

  Matt looked at McGuire, who nodded, and then nodded himself.

  “You must have a police car. Any reason I can’t ride with you?”

  “No.”

  “Will there be room for everybody?” Alex asked.

  “Who’s everybody?” Matt asked.

  “Me, Jeanette, Terry, and Eddie.”

  Jeanette, Matt decided, must be the gray-haired woman.

  “Eddie’s the character with the pageboy?” he asked.

  “My personal photographer,” Colt furnished.

  “No,” Matt said.

  “Eddie goes everywhere with me,” Colt said. “They all do.”

  “They don’t go everywhere with you when you’re with me,” Matt said. “Your call, Mr. Colt.”


  “You’re a real hardass, Payne,” Colt said, admiringly. “I’m going with Payne. The rest of you can go in the wedding limo.” He turned to Matt. “And after this party thing, you’ll show me stuff, right?”

  “If you like,” Matt said.

  “We’re here,” Sergeant Payne said to Mr. Colt after they had rolled up to the Broad Street entrance of the Bellvue-Stratford Hotel, third in line behind Lieutenant McGuire’s unmarked and the white Lincoln limo. Behind them were three unmarked cars, one belonging to Dignitary Protection and the other two to Detectives Martinez and McFadden.

  Matt had taken a leaf from the uniforms who had kept Colt’s fans from leaving the North Philadelphia Airport and had ordered McFadden and Martinez to keep Eddie the photographer, and anybody else, from following Matt’s car when it left the hotel.

  “Don’t get your balls in an uproar. I’m waiting for Eddie to get out of the limo.”

  Eddie the photographer got quickly out of the limo, sort of knelt, and prepared to photograph Mr. Colt’s arrival at the Bellvue-Stratford.

  “Come on, Payne,” Colt said.

  “I’ll catch up with you inside,” Matt said. “I’ve got to park the car.”

  “No, first you let Eddie take our picture, and then you park the car.”

  “I don’t think so,” Matt said.

  “If you don’t let him take our picture now, I’ll tell him I changed my mind, and he gets to go with us when we leave here.”

  “That’ll be hard to do after McFadden handcuffs him to that brass rail.”

  “Hey… It’s Matt, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I’m meeting you halfway, Matt. He’s shot two hundred pictures since we got here, and the only one that’ll do me any good is this one.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The real press doesn’t give a shit about one more picture of me shaking hands with a mayor, or even a cardinal. But Stan Colt with a real Homicide sergeant, that’s news. Come on. Get out and smile.”

  “I don’t want my picture in the goddamn newspapers.”

  “Tough shit. Either now, or he follows us around all night.”

  He paused, then did a very creditable mimicry of Matt: “Your call, Sergeant Payne.”

  Matt got out of the car.

  “Look serious, but think of pussy,” Mr. Colt whispered to Sergeant Payne as, following Eddie the photographer’s hand signals, he moved Matt where Eddie wanted them.

  Inside the Grand Ballroom of the Bellvue-Stratford, Sergeant Payne hurried to answer Commissioner Mariani’s summons, a crooked finger.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Colt just told the mayor how grateful he is for the opportunity to, quote, hang out, unquote, with you.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “What are you going to do with him?”

  “I thought I’d show him Liberties Bar and, if nobody from Homicide is there, take him to Homicide.”

  “And if somebody from Homicide is in Liberties?”

  “Hope I can get them talking about closed cases.”

  Commissioner Mariani nodded.

  When they saw that Sergeant Payne and Mr. Colt had gotten into the Crown Victoria, two white-capped Traffic Unit uniforms stopped traffic moving in both directions on South Broad Street, and then one of them gestured to Sergeant Payne, who then made a U-turn that saw him headed toward City Hall.

  The traffic uniforms then blew their whistles and gestured, restoring traffic to its normal flow, and incidentally effectively preventing anyone from following Matt’s unmarked car.

  “Thanks, guys!” Detective McFadden called to the uniforms, and gave a thumbs-up gesture.

  Detectives McFadden and Martinez then got into their unmarked cars and drove off. The members of the press who were cleverly prepared to follow them, did so. They followed Martinez to the Ritz-Carlton front door, where he parked his car and went inside to await the return of Sergeant Payne and Mr. Colt, or the arrival at midnight of Detective McFadden, whichever came first.

  The members of the press who followed Detective McFadden drove deep into South Philadelphia, where he pulled the unmarked half onto the curb in front of a row house on Fitzgerald Street, then went inside to catch a couple of hours’ sleep before relieving Hay-zus at the Ritz-Carlton.

  “Aren’t I going to stand out like a sore thumb in this?” Mr. Colt inquired of Sergeant Payne, indicating his dinner jacket. “Maybe we could stop by the hotel and let me change?”

  “Not at all,” Matt said. “We’re going to Liberties Bar, and the last time I was there, my boss was there, dressed just like that.”

  “You’re bullshitting me, right?”

  “Boy Scout’s Honor,” Matt said.

  “Were you a Boy Scout?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I was.”

  “Me, too,” Colt said. “Well, what the hell.”

  He pulled open his black bow tie.

  There were no members of the Homicide Division in Liberties Bar.

  “We can wait a couple of minutes and see if somebody shows up,” Matt said.

  “I will have one of three drinks I allow myself a day,” Colt said. “This will be number two; I had a beer at the hotel.”

  “You allow yourself three drinks a day?” Matt asked.

  “If I have more than that, I get in trouble,” Colt said. “Sometimes, I have four, if like I have one at lunch and a beer in the afternoon, then I might have two at night, but never any more than that.”

  They had a drink. Matt ordered a scotch on the rocks, Colt-at Matt’s suggestion-a Bushmills martini, aka an Irish Doctor’s Special.

  When the bartender delivered them, he looked closely at Colt.

  “Anybody ever tell you you look a lot like Stan Colt?”

  “Yeah. Lots of people.”

  “Any of the guys from Homicide been in?” Matt asked.

  “Earlier,” the bartender said.

  Colt looked at Matt.

  “You get stuck with the tab,” he said. “Alex has my dough, and you didn’t want him to come.”

  Matt laid a bill on the bar.

  “I’ll get that back to you.”

  “My pleasure,” Matt said. “Alex is not here.”

  Colt took a sip of his drink.

  “I like this,” he said.

  “Good.”

  “So what’s the plan now? You ‘sit on’ me here? Nobody from Homicide shows up? Eventually I get sleepy? And-”

  “Finish your drink, we’ll take a run past Homicide,” Matt said.

  “Good,” Stan Colt said.

  “Nice,” Stan Colt said, vis-a-vis Detective Olivia Lassiter, who was sitting at a desk with a phone to her ear.

  “Very,” Matt agreed.

  He saw that Captain Quaire and Lieutenant Jason Washington were in Quaire’s office.

  “Detective Lassiter, this is Mr. Colt,” Matt said.

  Olivia gave him her hand and a smile, but didn’t say anything.

  “What’s going on in there?” Matt asked.

  Olivia shrugged. “They both came in about an hour ago.”

  She started to add something to that, but then directed her attention to the telephone: “Good evening, Lieutenant. Thank you for taking my call. My name is Lassiter, Philadelphia Homicide, and I’m working a job…”

  Matt took Colt’s arm and propelled him toward the coffee machine.

  “And she’s a Homicide detective, too?” Colt asked.

  Matt nodded.

  “She’s been on that phone most of day,” Matt said. “Calling every police department in the country, looking for a similar job to one we’re working on here.”

  “The one you were working on before you were told to sit on me?”

  Matt nodded. “It’s a rape murder. Real sicko. Ties young women up, cuts off their clothes with a large knife, and then… jerks off.. onto them.”

  “Jesus!”

  “And then takes their picture. This time, he killed the victim. ”


  “And you don’t know who he is?”

  “We haven’t a clue. If we ever find him-that’s what Lassiter is doing on the phone; other detectives are looking down other streets-we can probably get a conviction. But first we have to find him.”

  Colt’s face was serious as he absorbed this.

  “I have to check in with my boss,” Matt said, pointing at Quaire’s glass-walled office. “I’ll be right back.”

  “I’ll talk to her,” Colt said. “Take your time.”

  And then he saw something on Matt’s face.

  “Do I detect that your interest in the lady detective is not entirely professional?”

  “I’ll be right back,” Matt said, and walked to Captain Quaire’s office and knocked on the door.

  Quaire waved him in.

  “I’ve got Stan Colt out there, sir.”

  “I can see. Now, can you get him out of here?”

  “I’ll try…”

  “Tony went to Harrisburg,” Washington explained, “and talked Lieutenant Stecker, their print expert, into going late to his retirement party. He and Tony are still at the State Police lab running the print through the AFIS. Presuming the doer’s prints are on file, and we get a match from the machine, Tony will contact us.”

  “So get Mr. Colt out of here, and the sooner the better,” Captain Quaire ordered. “If there’s a match, everybody and his brother will be in here, and he shouldn’t.”

  “He seems to be stricken with Detective Lassiter,” Washington said. “May I suggest you take both of them someplace while she at great length explains how we are working the Williamson job?”

  “Can I send her in here so you can tell her that?”

  “Make it quick,” Quaire said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Matt walked to Olivia and told her the boss wanted to see her.

  When she was out of earshot, Colt asked, “What was that all about?”

  “I just got permission from the captain for her to tell you what’s going on with the Williamson job.”

  “That’s the guy who…?” Colt asked, moving his hand in a pumping motion.

  “Cheryl Ann Williamson is the victim,” Matt said. “But yeah.”

  Olivia came out of Quaire’s office looking more than a little unhappy.

  “Where are we going to do this?”

  “Could we do it over dinner?” Stan Colt asked in his most charming manner.

  “You mean in a restaurant?”