“Inspector Wohl,” Wohl said.
“Matt, boss.”
“What have you got?”
“A forensic-evidence team is on its way here—here being the safe-deposit vault of the First Harrisburg Bank and Trust—to see if they can lift some prints from, and in any case, photograph box 421 and its contents.”
“In other words, you served the search warrant?”
“We didn’t need to; it was an unauthorized box, still under the control of the bank. The defense can’t claim that the accused had a right to privacy by keeping something in a box that wasn’t under his control. The lady let us into it. And a Harrisburg police stenographer is about to type up her statement, which ties Calhoun to it with a big red bow.”
“Good job!”
“The difficult takes a little time, the impossible a little longer.”
“What’s in the box?”
“What looks like thirty, forty thousand dollars. Maybe more. I’m going to wait until they take pictures and maybe lift some prints before I count it. But a whole great big bunch of money! And a wristwatch that looks like something a drug dealer, or a pimp, would have on his wrist.”
“A Rolex, maybe?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Have you got the serial number? It’s on the back of the case.”
“No, but I can get it in thirty seconds.”
“Get it,” Wohl ordered.
A minute later, Matt had read the serial number to him over the phone.
“Mr. Marcus Brownlee,” Wohl said, “has given us a sworn statement that his Rolex watch was taken from him at the time of his arrest, but never made it from the place of his arrest to either the evidence room or personal property at Central Lockup. Tiny just got the serial number of said timepiece from Bailey, Banks and Biddle—”
“And it matches?”
“It matches.”
“Who is Marcus Brownlee?” Matt asked.
“Didn’t McFadden fill you in?”
“I didn’t hear that name.”
“One of the drug guys the Five Squad busted at the Howard Johnson motel,” Wohl explained.
“Then we have them.”
“It’s not quite that simple,” Wohl said. “I’ll fill you in later. What I want you to do now, once you work the box, is get Calhoun and the watch—the money would be nice, too, but that can wait—back to Philadelphia.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Be damned careful with the chain of evidence on this one, Matt, if I have to tell you that. And make sure Mutt and Jeff do.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where’s Calhoun now?”
“McFadden and Martinez have him at Harrisburg Police Headquarters.”
“Have them bring him to South Detectives at Twenty-fourth and Wolf,” Wohl ordered. “We’re using the First District detention cells downstairs as our own Central Lockup.”
“I don’t understand,” Matt said.
“I’m not trying to shoot you down, Matt—right now you’re at the head of my good-guy list for tying Calhoun to the box—but right now you don’t have to understand. Just do what I told you. I’ll fill you in later.”
“Yes, sir, ” Matt said. “One question: Do we let Calhoun know we got into the box? Or about the watch?”
Wohl thought that over for fifteen seconds, which seemed longer.
“Yeah, let him know. I’d rather he spend the time riding back here wondering what’s going to happen to him knowing we have his ass than trying to convince himself he shouldn’t be worried, we don’t have anything.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You stay there and keep your eye on the Reynolds woman.”
The phone went dead in Matt’s ear when he was halfway through saying, “Yes, sir.”
“Okay,” the Hon. Jerome H. Carlucci said, looking around his conference table. “Where are we? Who wants to start?”
Present were Thomas J. Callis, Philadelphia’s district attorney; Taddeus Czernich, police commissioner; Chief Inspector of Detectives Matthew Lowenstein; Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin; Inspector Peter Wohl; Staff Inspector Michael Weisbach; and Lieutenant J. K. Fellows.
In the wings, so to speak, in case they were needed, were Captain Michael Sabara and Detective Tony Harris (physically in the mayor’s outer office); Captain David Pekach and Lieutenant John J. Malone of the Highway Patrol (sitting in their cars in the courtyard of City Hall); and Lieutenant Daniel Justice, Jr., and Sergeant Jason Washington (within two rings of a telephone at the 1st District/South Detectives).
Inspector Wohl motioned with his hand to indicate that he thought Staff Inspector Weisbach was the man to bring the mayor—and for that matter, everybody else—up-to-date. Mike Weisbach first shook his head, then inclined it toward the head of the table. Peter Wohl followed his eyes and saw that the mayor was looking at him impatiently.
He started to stand up. The mayor waved him back into his seat.
“Yes, sir,” Wohl said. “The entire Five Squad has been arrested, and are presently being held in the detention cell of the First District.”
“What are we charging them with?”
“Right now, with misprision in office, specifically the theft, under cover of office, of evidence,” Wohl said. “Mr. Callis will, of course, add other charges later when we decide who’s going to be charged with what.”
“Does he mean the rape, Tony?” Carlucci asked.
“What Denny and Matt and I have been thinking, Jerry,” Callis said, pointing vaguely at Coughlin and Lowenstein, “is that once Prasko understands we have them for the theft of evidence—and simple grand larceny—once, in other words, he understands that they’re going down on that, we can let Prasko know we know about the rape, and get him to testify against the others, in exchange for his being allowed to plead guilty to violating the civil rights of Williams and Brownlee—and probably half a dozen others.”
“He plea-bargains to a federal rap and gets what?” Carlucci said.
“I talked to the U.S. Attorney just before I came over here, Jerry. Nothing’s set in cement, but he thinks he can find a judge willing to go along with five years on each charge, sentences to be served consecutively, so figure at least four charges, so twenty years.”
“Which means he’d really do what?” Carlucci asked coldly.
“He’d probably be out in six, seven years,” Callis said.
“You and Denny and Matt decided that between you?” Carlucci asked. “What about him?” He pointed at Police Commissioner Czernich. “Was he involved in your discussion? The last I heard was that he’s the police commissioner. You didn’t think you had to discuss that with him?”
The translation of that was that Jerry Carlucci did not like what he had heard, and because he did not like it, neither would Commissioner Czernich.
“I’m not sure,” Czernich began, understanding his role and taking his cue, “that I could—”
“Well, Tony?” Carlucci interrupted him.
“Would I be wasting my breath to tell you why we think that’s the way to go?” Callis asked.
“Try me. Find out.”
“The priority here is to put the Five Squad away. Do we agree on at least that much?”
The mayor shrugged.
“Unless we can have somebody on the Five Squad turn state’s witness, all we have on them is the testimony of drug dealers in the one case we really know about, what happened at the Howard Johnson motel last Thursday. Juries are funny, Jerry. If the defense brings in weeping cops’ wives and scared-looking kids in the courtroom, what a lot of jurors might decide is that ‘fuck the drug dealers, they got what was coming to them.’ ”
Carlucci’s face tightened, but he didn’t say anything.
“They’re going to look like good cops to the jury, Jerry,” Lowenstein said. “I went over their arrest records last night. Lots of good busts, lots of convictions. A couple of them got hurt. All that will have to be made available to the defense, and it can’t help but impress
a jury.”
“On that subject,” Mike Weisbach said. “The defense—”
“The goddamn FOP!” the mayor exploded. “I am unable to believe that one cop in five hundred wants his FOP dues used to defend scumbags like these!”
“They call that, Jerry, ‘innocent until proven guilty,’ ” Callis said.
Carlucci glowered at him.
“In this case, it’s moot,” Weisbach said. “ ‘Armando C. Giacomo for the defense, your honor.’ Manny does it pro bono; it won’t cost the FOP a dime.”
“Jesus!” the mayor said.
“When did you find that out?” Coughlin asked.
“About thirty minutes ago,” Weisbach said. “He called Sabara—I guess he heard they were picked up by Special Operations—and Mike passed him on to me. He wants to know where he can speak with them at half past ten.”
“How the hell did Giacomo get involved so quickly?”
“I think he calls the FOP and makes himself available when he has some free time,” Callis said. “All that does is reinforce my argument that unless we can get at least one of the Five Squad to roll over, the testimony of a couple of drug guys like Williams and Brownlee probably isn’t going to be enough.”
“If Manny Giacomo talks to any of these guys at half past ten, at ten forty-five, Vincenzo Savarese will have their names,” Lowenstein said.
“He’d get the names eventually anyway,” Coughlin said. “But I’d much prefer later than sooner. Maybe I can talk to him.”
“Don’t hold your breath, Denny,” the mayor said.
“I think it’s worth the effort. When I spoke to Savarese this morning, he made it pretty clear he intends to whack the guy who raped his granddaughter.”
“It would be nice, wouldn’t it, if we caught him doing that?” Carlucci said. “This scumbag would get what he deserves, and we’d have Savarese on premeditated murder.”
“The philosophy of that aside, Jerry,” Lowenstein said, “Savarese wouldn’t whack Prasko. And he would be in church with the archbishop when one of his thugs did.”
Wohl saw that Carlucci was going to angrily respond to that, and jumped into the conversation:
“There was some good news from Harrisburg,” Wohl said. “Matt Payne got into the safe-deposit box they were using. Got a statement that Calhoun, Timothy J., was the only one with access to the box, in which there was probably forty thousand dollars—maybe more—and a gold Rolex that Baby Brownlee says was stolen from him last Thursday night.”
“And?” the mayor asked.
“That may be enough to convince Calhoun that the thing for him to do is roll over,” Wohl said. “I told Payne to get Calhoun back here as soon as he can, and to take him directly to Jason Washington.”
“Who is where right now? Washington, I mean?” Carlucci asked.
“South Detectives,” Coughlin said.
“Doing what?”
“Trying to pick the right moment to let Prasko know what he did to the girl, and what Savarese is going to do to him unless he can hide out in some nice safe federal prison.”
“I thought we had the guy he locked up in the NIKE site? An eyewitness to the rape? What happened to him?”
“I told Washington to wait until we saw what happened in Harrisburg,” Wohl said. “Then we let Prasko know we have the money, maybe a rolled-over Calhoun and Ronald R. Ketcham, who saw him rape the girl.”
“You made that decision? By yourself, Inspector?”
“Yes, sir,” Wohl said. “By myself.”
“When I was a policeman, I respected the chain of command,” Carlucci said. “You should have discussed that with Coughlin and Lowenstein. And then they should have discussed it with the commissioner.”
“Yes, sir,” Peter said.
“Just for the record, Mr. Mayor,” Coughlin said, “if Inspector Wohl had come to me—and I wouldn’t have expected him to—I would have told him I thought it was the way to go.”
Carlucci visibly debated whether to respond to Coughlin and then changed the subject.
“When is the Harrisburg scumbag due here?”
“An hour, I’d say,” Wohl replied. “I told Matt to send him back with McFadden and Martinez, and to worry about sending the evidence later.”
“Send the evidence? Or bring it?”
“Payne’s still working on the terrorist thing for the FBI,” Coughlin said. “I don’t know when he’s coming back to Philadelphia.”
“But the bottom line here is that what we’re hoping for is that you can get a couple of these scumbags to roll over, right?”
“That’s right,” Callis said. “In my judgment, that’s the way to put these dirty cops away.”
“And you’re the district attorney, right?”
“Yes, I am, Mr. Mayor.”
“And since all the decisions have already been made, what that boils down to is that the commissioner and I are about as useful as teats on a boar hog, right?”
“Let me think about that,” Lowenstein said.
Carlucci glowered at him.
“ ‘Teats on a boar hog’? Is that what you said, Mr. Mayor? God, I wish I had your colorful command of the language, Mr. Mayor!”
Carlucci’s scowl changed into a smile.
“Screw you, Matt,” he said. “Get out of here. All of you get out of here.”
They all started to get to their feet.
“It’s a good thing we’re all friends,” the mayor said. “And that you know me well enough to know what I’m pissed at is not you. You’ve done a good job, all of you, and I’m grateful. The commissioner and I are grateful, isn’t that so, Tad?”
“Absolutely, Mr. Mayor,” Commissioner Czernich said.
“Peter, as soon as you hear something, let me know, will you?”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
“And pass my ‘well done’ down the line, will you?”
“Yes, sir.”
They shuffled out of his office.
“I’m going to try to see Manny,” Coughlin said. “Be fore he sees the Five Squad.”
“And ask him what?” Lowenstein asked.
“To hold off on giving Savarese the names of the Five Squad.”
“Good luck,” Lowenstein said.
“At least hold off for a while. Until we get somebody to roll over. Or know nobody is,” Coughlin said.
“You know, I got a guy in my office, Phebus,” Tony Callis said. “He used to be a sergeant in Narcotics. Do you think he’d be useful? I mean, they see one of their own. . . . They just might listen to him.”
“I don’t see how it could hurt,” Wohl said. “But . . . could you send him out to South Detectives and tell him Washington’s in charge?”
“Sure,” Callis said. “I know he’s in the office. I left word that I wanted to see him about the guy who shot Officer Kellog. That can wait. I’ll have Phebus at South Detectives in thirty minutes.”
TWENTY-FIVE
“My arm is going to sleep,” Officer Timothy J. Calhoun said to Detective Charles McFadden. He moved his right arm, which was held by handcuffs to the strap on the rear of the front seat of the unmarked Plymouth.
McFadden was sitting beside him. Martinez was driving. They were on U.S. 222, five miles out of Harrisburg, headed for the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
“What do you want me to do?” McFadden asked. “I can’t take the risk of you doing something stupid, Timmy.”
“He already did a lot stupid,” Jesus said from the front seat.
“Like what?” Calhoun asked, trying to ignore Martinez.
McFadden went along with him. He felt a little sorry for him, and Jesus could be a real prick. Timmy had enough on his back without Jesus digging at him.
“Like jumping out of the car, for example,” Charley said.
“I wouldn’t do that, Charley,” Calhoun said.
“I can’t take that chance,” McFadden said.
“Cuff me behind my back,” Calhoun said.
“Fuck you, Cal
houn,” Martinez said. “Just sit there and shut up.”
“Ease off, Jesus,” Charley said.
“When they get you in the slam, Calhoun,” Martinez said, “and some sweaty two-hundred-fifty-pound lifer starts shoving his schlong up your ass, you’ll look back on your fucking arm going to sleep as the good old days.”
“Just drive the car, will you, Jesus?” Charley said.
“I could be wrong,” Martinez said. “Maybe he’ll like getting fucked in the ass.”
“Put your left hand behind your back, Timmy,” Charley said. “Jesus, let me have your cuffs.”
“Why?”>
“Because I’m going to cuff Calhoun behind his back.”
“Fuck him, let his arm go to sleep. Let his arm turn black and fall off.”
“Give me your goddamn cuffs, goddamn it!”
Martinez grunted as he shifted around on the seat trying to get his handcuffs out from where he carried them, in the small of his back. He finally succeeded and laid them on the back of the seat.
McFadden placed one of them on Calhoun’s left wrist, and then freed his right wrist from the handcuff shackling him to the front seat. Then he put Calhoun’s right wrist behind his back and clipped the handcuff to it.
Calhoun slumped back against the seat.
“Thanks, Charley.”
“Okay,” McFadden said.
Ninety seconds later, Calhoun announced: “Charley, I got to go to the toilet.”
“Fuck you!” Martinez said. “Crap in your pants, you dirty cocksucker!”
“What the hell is the matter with you, Martinez?” Calhoun asked. “What did I ever do to you?”
“You were born, is what you did to me,” Martinez said, and then seemed to warm to the subject. “I don’t like dirty cops, is what’s the matter with me,” Martinez said. “And you know—you’re a goddamn narc—what that shit does to people, and you were selling it. Stealing it from drug people, and then selling it! Probably to kids! You are the lowest of the fucking low, Calhoun!”
“Ease off, Jesus,” Charley said.
“Fuck you, ease off! What I would like to do to this miserable shitheel is shoot him with a .22 in both knees, and make him crawl to jail.”
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