Final Justice

by W. E. B Griffin

  Mickey took his digital camera—another $1,200 electronic device he considered necessary for the performance of his duties—from his trouser pocket, carefully removed the memory chip, replaced it with another $79.95 64-megabyte memory chip, and shoved the chip he had removed into the mouth—it reminded him of a feeding goldfish—of a device connected to the keyboard of his computer.

  He tapped some keys, which caused the JPG images on the memory chip to be transferred into his computer. The quick tapping of more keys brought the images up on the LCD monitor.

  He then removed the memory chip from the goldfish’s mouth, unlocked a drawer in his desk and unlocked a metal box in the drawer, dropped the memory chip into it, relocked it, closed the desk drawer, and relocked that.

  Mickey was thinking of writing a book—Casimir Bolinski said he was sure he could sell it for him “for big bucks, Mick, if you ever get off your lazy Irish ass and write a proposal”—and if he did, he would need the pictures.

  He tapped keys again and a photo-editing program came up on the LCD monitor’s screen. The first picture, of the two black guys coming out of the Roy Rogers, appeared.

  It was really a lousy picture, understandable in the circumstances.

  For one thing, he had thrown the viewfinder to his eye with such haste that the picture was cockeyed; the two doers appeared in the lower right quarter of the picture, and only from the waist up.

  Far worse, the camera’s internal light meter had detected the bright light coming from the door, decided that was the ambient light, and set the camera accordingly. The entrance to the restaurant appeared in near perfect clarity, but the two doers were not in the light from the door, and consequently they could hardly be seen. You could see it was two guys, but you couldn’t see any facial details.

  Mickey quite skillfully tried to fix it, using all of the capabilities of the photo-editing program. He “lightened” the two guys. That didn’t work. Neither did darkening the perfectly captured restaurant entrance. He tried everything else he could think of, but nothing worked.

  Finally he gave up. He cropped out the unnecessary background, typed keys that renamed “00001.JPG” to “Doers-XRR. JPG,” then pressed the Enter key. Then he pushed other keys, which ordered yet another electronic device necessary to the performance of his duties to print three copies, eight by ten inches, 1,200 dots per square inch. A $5,300 electronic device hummed and clicked as it began to execute the order.

  00002.JPG and 00003.JPG—the pictures of the body of Officer Kenneth J. Charlton, the poor bastard, lying dead at the entrance of the Roy Rogers—also required editing.

  He first made a copy of each as they had come from the camera, renaming them Chardwn1.JPG and Chardwn2.JPG respectively, and ordered three eight-by-ten copies of each at 1,200 dots per square inch.

  Then he went back to each picture in turn, cropped out unnecessary background, very carefully edited the picture so that Officer Charlton’s eyes appeared to be closed, not twisted in agony, and then made the pool of blood in which Charlton’s head was lying disappear. He then renamed these pictures Charbul1.JPG and Charbul2.JPG, ordered the printing of one eight-by-ten of each, and also sent the pictures by the Internet to O’Hara@PhillyBulletin.com.

  He did much the same thing with the other pictures—those of that poor dame in the kitchen and the young black kid— that he had made with the digital camera.

  Although a somewhat complicated process, doing everything took him less than ten minutes. He had a good deal of experience doing the same sort of thing, and of course he had, literally, the best equipment the Bulletin’s money could buy to do it with.

  Mickey knew that some people—just about any cop— would think what he should have done was simply turn the memory chip over to the cops, to assist them in their search for the murderers.

  Mickey had several problems with that. For one thing, if the cops had the memory chip, there was no way he could get copies of the pictures before the Bulletin went to bed at 3 A.M. For another, while Mickey thought it was important that the public get to see the bodies of Kenny Charlton and the Puerto Rican, Latina, whatever, lady lying where they had fallen, there were families involved, and there was no reason the families had to see how fucking gruesome it actually was. Seeing Daddy and Momma in the Bulletin lying dead was going to be bad enough.

  When he had finished, he picked up his telephone with one hand, and with the other slid out a shelf on his desk to which a list of telephone numbers was affixed under celluloid. He found what he wanted and punched it in.

  “First District, Corporal Foley.”

  “Mickey O’Hara, Jerry. Did they pick up the Roy Rogers doers yet?”

  “Not yet, Mick. They’re still looking.”

  “You’re sure, Jerry?”

  “Jesus, yeah, I’m sure. I thought they would have something by now. Every cop in Philadelphia’s down here looking for them.”

  "Thank you, Jerry.”

  He dropped the telephone into its cradle, looked at the gray monitor before him, a cursor blinking on it, and then tapped the balls of his fingers together as he searched for the lead sentence of what he was about to write. He wanted to get it right.

  After a moment, it came to him.

  CE

  Slug—Massive Manhunt Begins for Roy Rogers Murderers

  By Michael J. O’Hara

  Bulletin Staff Writer

  Photos by Michael J. O’Hara

  Philadelphia April 27—Philadelphia police began a massive manhunt just before midnight, confident they would quickly apprehend the two young black men eyewitnesses say first shot to death Mrs. Maria Manuela Fernandez, kitchen supervisor of the Roy Rogers restaurant at South Broad and Snyder Streets, during a robbery and then shot Police Officer Kenneth J. Charlton, of the First District, who responded to the call, killing him instantly. Amal al Zaid, a maintenance worker at the restaurant, told this reporter Mrs. Fernandez, a single mother of three, was shot without warning by one of the robbers as she was on the telephone reporting the robbery to police authorities, and then ambushed Officer Charlton as he entered the restaurant a few minutes later.

  Five minutes and 250 words later, Mickey gave the computer screen a quick read, cursed the goddamn sci-fi movie typeface, then inserted a missing comma and pushed the Send key.

  Then he turned to the printer, picked the photographs from the tray, put the ones intended for the cops into a large manila envelope, and, carrying the ones from which he had deleted the blood, walked out of his office and across the city room to the city editor.

  “These the pics?” the city editor asked.

  “I thought you should see them in color,” Mickey said. “I appended them to my piece, but they’ll look black-and-white on the El Cheapo network.”

  The city editor examined the photographs.

  “No blood,” he said. It was both a question and a statement.

  “You noticed, did you, you perceptible sonofabitch?”

  “Nice work, Mickey,” the city editor said.

  Mickey O’Hara held up his hands in a what are you going to do? gesture, then walked out of the city room.

  He got in his car, which was parked in a slot marked with a RESERVED FOR MR. O’HARA sign, and drove to the Roundhouse, where he parked in a slot marked with a RESERVED FOR INSPECTORS sign, and then entered the building.

  The uniforms behind the plate-glass window pushed the solenoid that opened the door to the lobby.

  One of the uniforms, a corporal, called: “I thought you’d be out at the Roy Rogers, Mickey.”

  Mickey waved the manila envelope in his hand.

  “Been there, done that,” he said, and walked across the lobby to the elevator. He rode it to the first floor, and then walked down the corridor until he came to a door marked HOMICIDE.

  He pushed it open, then made his way past a locked barrier by putting his hand behind it and pushing the hidden solenoid switch.

  There was only one detective in the room, a younger
man who looked like he needed both a new razor and a month’s good meals.

  “Got you minding the store, have they, Fenson?”

  “What can I do for you, O’Hara?” the detective asked.

  “Washington’s the lieutenant?”

  “This week at least,” Fenson said.

  Lieutenant Jason Washington had taken the examination for promotion to captain. It was universally expected that he would pass.

  “I hear the results of the sergeant’s exam will be out tomorrow,” he said. “The lieutenant’s and captain’s should be right after that.”

  “Can you imagine him in a uniform, addressing some uniform roll call in a district?” Fenson asked.

  “No, I can’t,” O’Hara admitted. “Is Washington here?”

  “He’s out at the Roy Rogers scene. What can I do for you?”

  “It’s a question of what I can do for you,” O’Hara said. “Can you get Washington on the horn and tell him I’ve got a picture of the doers? A lousy picture, I admit, but a picture. ”

  He laid it on the detective’s desk.

  “You’re sure this is them? And you’re right, it’s a lousy picture.”

  “I’m sure,” O’Hara said. “I took it.”

  “Washington called a couple of minutes ago and said he was coming in,” the detective said.

  Mickey O’Hara used the gentlemen’s rest facility, then sipped on a paper cup of tepid coffee.

  Eight minutes after that, an enormous—six feet three, 225 pounds—superbly tailored, very black man came into Homicide. Known behind his back as “The Black Buddha,” Lieutenant Jason Washington regarded himself—and was generally regarded by others—as the best homicide detective in Philadelphia, and possibly the best homicide detective between Bangor, Maine, and Key West, Florida.

  “Michael, my friend, how are you?” he greeted O’Hara with obvious sincerity, plus a warm smile and a friendly pat on the shoulder.

  “Hey, Jason,” O’Hara said. “I have a lousy picture of the doers.”

  He pointed to the photograph lying on the detective’s desk. Washington picked it up, examined it carefully, then looked at O’Hara.

  “I concur in your judgment of the quality,” he said. “And the source, Mickey?”

  “I went in on the robbery-in-progress call,” O’Hara said. “When I got there, these two were leaving. I took that picture. ”

  “And you believe these were the doers?”

  “Yeah, that’s them,” O’Hara said. “They match the description I got from one of the employees.”

  “The camera zeroed in on the light in the doorway,” Washington said. “Pity.”

  “Its twelve hundred dots to the inch. Maybe the lab’ll be able to salvage more than I could,” Mickey said.

  “Detective Fenson,” Washington said. “Didn’t you think, considering Mr. O’Hara’s reputation as one of the more skilled photographers of the dark side of our fair city, that it behooved you to get this photograph to the lab as quickly as possible?”

  “That’s a pretty bad picture, Lieutenant.”

  “But a picture nevertheless, Detective Fenson,” the Black Buddha said softly. “I constantly try to make the point that no stone should ever be left unturned.”

  Fenson picked up the picture and walked out of the room.

  “I am grateful for the photograph, Mickey,” Washington said. “Even if others may not be. I have a feeling that this case isn’t going to be as easy to close as everyone else seems to feel it will be.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Intuition,” Washington said. “Nothing concrete.”

  “Your intuition is . . . what? Legendary?”

  “That has been said,” Washington said, smiling, then added, “I just have the feeling, Mick. I really hope I’m wrong.”

  “I got a couple of shots of the bodies, too,” O’Hara said, and handed him the manila envelope.

  Washington looked at them, then raised his eyes to O’Hara.

  “I presume that these will shortly appear in the Bulletin?”

  “I cleaned them up some,” O’Hara said. “But yeah, they will.”

  Washington took O’Hara’s meaning.

  “Thank you, Mickey.”

  O’Hara gave a deprecating shrug.

  “Buy you a cup of decent coffee, Jason?”

  “Café Royal? In the Four Seasons?”

  “Why not? The Bulletin’s paying.”

  “Then I accept your kind offer,” Washington said.

  TWO

  [ONE]

  Office of the Deputy Commissioner (Patrol)

  Police Administration Building

  Eighth & Race Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  Thursday, 7:45 A.M.

  When Deputy Commissioner (Patrol) Dennis V. Coughlin, a tall, heavyset, ruddy-faced man who still had all of his curly silver hair and teeth at age fifty-nine, walked into his office on the third floor of the Police Administration Building, he saw that there were three documents on his desk demanding his immediate attention.

  They were in the center of his leather-bound desk blotter, held in place by a heavy china coffee mug bearing the logotype of the Emerald Society, a fraternal organization of police officers of Irish heritage.

  Denny Coughlin had joined “The Emerald” thirty-seven years before, right after graduation from the Police Academy and coming on the job, and had twice served as its president.

  Coughlin peeled off the double-breasted jacket of his well-tailored dark blue suit as he walked toward his closet, exposing a Smith & Wesson snub-nosed .38 Special revolver worn, butt forward, on his right side.

  Except for those rare times over the years when he wore a uniform, Denny Coughlin had slipped that same pistol’s holster onto his belt every morning for thirty-three years, since the day he had reported on the job as a rookie detective.

  He hung his jacket carefully on a hanger in his closet, closed the door, and turned to his desk.

  Captain Francis Xavier Hollaran, an equally large Irishman who at forty-nine still had all of his teeth but not very much left from what had once been a luxurious mop of red hair, entered the room carrying a stainless-steel thermos of coffee.

  “I went by Homicide,” he greeted the commissioner. “Nothing that’s not in there.”

  Hollaran indicated with a nod of his head the documents on the green blotter on Coughlin’s desk.

  “It’s only nine hours,” Coughlin replied. “They’ll get something soon.” He paused, then added, “Jesus Christ, won’t they ever learn?”

  “Wolf, wolf, boss,” Frank Hollaran said. “You answer so many calls like that that are false alarms, you get careless.”

  “And dead,” Coughlin said, more than a little bitterly.

  Two of the documents on the green blotter under the Emerald Society mug detailed the events surrounding the death on duty of Officer Kenneth J. Charlton of the First District. (In Philadelphia, “districts” are what are called “precincts” in many other major police departments.)

  One was an “Activities Sheet,” which listed every move detectives of the Homicide Bureau had made in the case, including a listing of every interview conducted. The Activities Sheet was a “discoverable document,” which meant it would have to be made available to the defense counsel of anyone brought to trial in the case. Attached to it was a teletype message known as a “white paper,” which was a less formal, less precise report. As an unofficial, internal memorandum, the white paper was not “discoverable.” The two documents together presented the details of the case as it had so far developed.

  According to them, Officer Charlton had, at 11:26 the previous evening, responded to a radio report of a robbery in progress at the Roy Rogers restaurant at South Broad and Snyder Streets in South Philadelphia. That was a fact and was listed on the Activities Sheet. It was also a fact that Officer Charlton had not waited for backup to arrive before going into the restaurant.

  The white paper theorized that Officer
Charlton had been close to the scene when the call came, and had probably decided that he would have backup within a minute or two, but that waiting for it before entering the restaurant would give the robbers a chance to escape. It was further theorized that the doers had probably seen his patrol car coming. Charlton had been on the job seventeen years, and if he had used his siren and flashing lights at all, he was experienced enough to have turned them off before getting close to the scene. One of the doers had then ducked behind the cashier’s counter, waited until Officer Charlton started to come behind the register, then grabbed him and held him while the other doer had shoved a pistol under Charlton’s body armor and fired and shot him in the spine.

  After the doer who had grabbed Charlton had paused long enough to fire two shots at Charlton’s body, both doers had then fled from the restaurant. An autopsy might be able to determine if the first shot had killed Charlton, or whether he had still been alive when the second doer had shot him twice again.

  It was splitting legal hairs.

  Under Paragraph 250l(a) of the Criminal Code of Pennsylvania, Criminal Homicide is defined as the act of intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently causing the death of another human being.

  Paragraph 2502(b) of the Criminal Code of Pennsylvania further defines Criminal Homicide to be Murder of the Second Degree when the offense is committed by someone engaged as the principal, or an accomplice, in the perpetration of a felony. Armed robbery is a felony.

  So if it was determined that Officer Charlton died immediately as a result of being shot by Doer Number One at the cash register, Doer Number Two was guilty of the crime of Murder in the Second Degree because the act occurred while he was an accomplice in the commission of a felony.

  If Officer Charlton was still alive when Doer Number Two shot him twice again, killing him, then Doer Number Two was guilty of Murder in the Second Degree because he was the principal, and Doer Number One was guilty as the accomplice.