Final Justice

by W. E. B Griffin

  The Activities Sheet reported that by the time other police arrived at the scene, both Doer Number One and Doer Number Two had disappeared into the night and that a very poor-quality photograph had been taken of them as they left the scene by a citizen, and turned over to the Homicide Bureau.

  Both Commissioner Coughlin and Captain Hollaran were familiar with all the details in the report on Coughlin’s desk. They had been at the Roy Rogers before Officer Charlton’s body had been taken away by the coroner.

  There was a standing operating procedure that Commissioner Coughlin—who exercised responsibility for all the patrol functions of the department—would be immediately notified in a number of circumstances, whatever the hour. Those circumstances included the death of a police officer on duty.

  There was an unofficial standing operating procedure understood and invariably applied by the police dispatchers. Whenever a call came in asking to be connected with Deputy Commissioner Coughlin so that he could be notified of the death of a police officer on duty—or something of almost as serious a nature—Captain F. X. Hollaran was notified first.

  After he was notified of such an incident, Hollaran would wait a minute or two—often using the time to put on his clothing and slip his Smith & Wesson snub-nose into its holster—and then call Coughlin’s private and unlisted number to learn from Coughlin whether he wanted to be picked up, or whether he would go to the scene himself, or whether there was something else Coughlin wanted him to do.

  The procedure went back many years, to when Captain Denny Coughlin had been given command of the Homicide Bureau and Homicide detective Frank Hollaran had become— without either of them planning it—Coughlin’s right-hand man.

  As Coughlin had risen through the hierarchy, Hollaran had risen with him, with time out for service as a uniform sergeant in the Fifth District, as a lieutenant with Northeast Detectives, and as district commander of the Ninth District.

  Last night, when Hollaran had called Coughlin, Coughlin had said, “You better pick me up, Frank. It’s going to be a long night.”

  It had turned out to be a long night. The commissioner himself, Ralph J. Mariani, had shown up at the Roy Rogers minutes after Coughlin and Hollaran. He had immediately put Hollaran to work organizing the notification party. The mayor, who was out of town, was not available, so Mariani would be the bearer of the bad news.

  When finally the party was assembled, it consisted of Mariani, Coughlin, the police department chaplain, the pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church attended by the Charlton family, the First District captain, and Officer Charlton’s lieutenant and sergeant.

  Captain Leif Schmidt, the First District commander, telephoned Mrs. Charlton and told her that he had had a report her husband had been injured and taken to Methodist Hospital, and that he had dispatched a car to pick her up and take her there.

  Sergeant Stanley Davis, Officer Charlton’s sergeant, accompanied by police officer Marianna Calley, went to the Charlton home and suggested to Mrs. Charlton that it might be a good idea if Officer Calley, who knew the kids, stayed with them while she went to the hospital.

  The notification protocol had evolved through painful experience over the years. It was better to tell the wife at the hospital that she was now a widow, rather than at her home. There were several reasons, high among them being that it kept the goddamn ghouls from the TV stations from shoving a camera in the widow’s face to demand to know how she felt about her husband getting killed.

  It also allowed the notification party to form at the hospital before the widow got there. The mayor would normally be there, and the police commissioner, and other senior white shirts, and it was better for them to hurry to a known location than descend one at a time at the officer’s home, which sometimes might not have space for them all, and would almost certainly be surrounded by the goddamn ghouls of the Fourth Estate, all of whom had police scanner radios, and would know where to go.

  Telling the widow at the hospital hadn’t made the notification any easier, but it was the best way anyone could think of to do it.

  The third document on Deputy Commissioner Coughlin’s desk, which had been delivered to his office shortly before five the previous afternoon—just after Coughlin had left for the day—was in a sealed eight-by-ten manila envelope, bearing the return address “Deputy Commissioner (Personnel) ” and addressed “Personal Attention Comm. Coughlin ONLY.”

  Coughlin tried and failed to get his fingernail under the flap, and finally took a small penknife from his desk drawer and slit it open.

  It contained a quarter-inch-thick sheaf of stapled-together paper. Coughlin glanced at the first page quickly and then handed it to Hollaran.

  “I think this is what they call a dichotomy,” Coughlin said. “The good news is also the bad news.”

  Hollaran took the sheaf of xerox paper and looked at the first three pages. It was unofficially but universally known as “The List.”

  It listed the results of the most recent examination for promotion to sergeant. Two thousand seven hundred and eighty-two police officers—corporals, detectives, and patrolmen with at least two years’ service—had taken the examination. Passing the examination and actually getting promoted meant a fourteen percent boost in basic pay for patrolmen, and a four percent boost for corporals and detectives.

  A substantial percentage of detectives earned so much in overtime pay that taking the examination, passing it, and then actually getting promoted to sergeant—who put in far less overtime—would severely reduce their take-home pay. Many detectives took the sergeant’s examination only relatively late in their careers, as a necessary step to promotion to lieutenant and captain, because retirement pay is based on rank.

  The examination had two parts, written and oral. Originally, there had been only a written examination, but there had been protests that the written examination was “culturally biased” and an equally important oral examination had been added to the selection process.

  Passing the written portion of the examination was a prerequisite to taking the oral portion of the examination, and a little more than five hundred examinees had failed to pass the written and been eliminated from consideration.

  Oral examinations had begun a month after the results of the written were published, and had stretched out over four months.

  Six hundred eighty-four patrolmen, corporals, and detectives had passed the oral portion of the sergeant’s examination and were certified to be eligible for promotion.

  That was not at all the same thing as saying that all those who were eligible for promotion would be promoted. Only fifty-seven of the men on The List—less than ten percent—would be “immediately”—within a week or a month—promoted. A number of factors, but primarily the city budget, determined how many eligibles would be promoted and when. The eligibles who weren’t promoted “immediately” would have to wait until vacancies occurred—for example, when a sergeant was retired or promoted.

  What that translated to mean was that if an individual ranked in the top 100, or maybe 125, on The List, he or she stood a good chance of getting promoted. Anyone ranking below 125 would almost certainly have to forget being promoted until The List “expired”—usually after two years— and a new sergeant’s examination was announced and held.

  The first name on The List in Hollaran’s hand—the examinee who had scored highest—was Payne, Matthew M., Payroll No. 231047, Special Operations.

  “Why am I not surprised?” Hollaran asked, smiling, and then added, unctuously, “Detective Payne is a splendid young officer, of whom the department generally, and his godfather specifically, can be justifiably proud.”

  “Go to hell, Frank,” Detective Payne’s godfather said, and then added, “What he needs is a couple of years—more than a couple: three, four years—in uniform, in a district.”

  “You really didn’t think Matt would ask for a district assignment? In uniform?” Hollaran asked, chuckling.

  When Police Commissioner Ma
riani had announced the latest examination for promotion to sergeant, he had added a new twist, which, on the advice of other senior police officials and personnel experts, he believed would be good for morale. The five top-ranking examinees would be permitted to submit their first three choices of post-promotion assignment, one of which would be guaranteed.

  Deputy Commissioner Coughlin had at first thought it wasn’t a bad idea. And then he had realized it was almost certainly going to apply to Matthew M. Payne, and that changed things. Matty’s scoring first—which meant that there would be no excuse not to give him the assignment he had chosen— made it even worse.

  “I had lunch with him last Thursday,” Coughlin said. “I told him, all things considered, that he stood a pretty good chance of placing high enough on The List. . . .”

  “How prescient of you, Commissioner,” Hollaran said, smiling.

  “How do you think you’re going to like the last-out shift in Night Command, Captain?”

  The last-out—midnight to eight A.M.—shift in Night Command was universally regarded as the department’s version of purgatory for captains. Those who occupied the position usually had seriously annoyed the senior brass in one way or another. There was no relief from the midnight-to-morning hours; the occupant was required to be in uniform at all times while on duty, and he was the only captain in the department to whom the department did not issue an unmarked car.

  Some Night Command captains took their lumps and performed their duties without complaint, while waiting until they were replaced by some other captain who had annoyed the hierarchy, but many heard the message and retired or resigned.

  “Come on,” Hollaran said, not awed by the threat. “Matt took the exam, grabbed the brass ring, and he’s a good cop and you know it.”

  “. . . and would be given his choice of assignment,” Coughlin went on, ignoring him. “And that he should seriously consider a couple of years in uniform.”

  “And?”

  “He said his three choices were going to be Special Operations, Highway, and Homicide.”

  “Somehow, I can’t see Matt on a motorcycle,” Hollaran said.

  “And Highway’s under Special Operations, and he’s been in Special Operations too long as it is,” Coughlin said.

  “Which leaves Homicide,” Hollaran said.

  “Which, since he knows he can’t stay in Special Operations forever, is really what he wants. He’s got the system figured out.”

  “And that surprises you? With you and Peter Wohl as his rabbis?”

  Coughlin flashed him an annoyed look.

  Hollaran suddenly smiled.

  “You’re having obscene thoughts again, Frank?” Coughlin asked. “Or something else amuses you?”

  “The Black Buddha,” Hollaran said. “Wait till he finds out the empty sergeant’s slot in Homicide will be filled by brandnew Sergeant Payne.”

  Coughlin smiled, despite himself.

  “They’re pretty close,” Coughlin said. “Which makes their situation even more uncomfortable for both of them.”

  “They’ll be able to handle it,” Hollaran said.

  [TWO]

  At 9:05, Detective Matthew M. Payne—a six foot tall, lithely muscled, 165-pound twenty-six-year-old with neatly cut, dark, thick hair and dark, intelligent eyes—arrived in the parking lot behind the Roundhouse, at the wheel of an unmarked, new Ford Crown Victoria.

  He was neatly dressed in a tweed jacket, gray flannel slacks, a white button-down-collar shirt, and striped necktie, and when he finally found a place to park the car and got out of the car, carrying a leather briefcase, he looked more like a stockbroker, or a young lawyer, than what comes to mind when the phrase “police detective” is heard.

  There seemed to be proof of this when he entered the building and had to produce his badge and identification card before the police officer guarding access to the lobby would pass him into it.

  But as he was walking toward the elevator, he was recognized by a slight, wiry, starting-to-bald thirty-eight-year-old in a well-worn blue blazer. He was not a very imposing-looking man, but Matt—and others—knew him to be one of the best homicide detectives, in the same league as Jason Washington.

  “As I live and breathe, the fashion plate of Special Operations, ” Detective Anthony C. Harris greeted him. “What brings you here from the Arsenal down to where the working cops work?”

  “Hey, Tony!” Payne said, smiling as they shook hands. He looked quickly at his watch. “Got time for a cup of coffee?”

  Harris shook his head.

  “Guess who wants me to take a look at the Roy Rogers scene,” Harris said.

  “South Broad? That one? I saw Mickey’s piece in the Bulletin.”

  Harris nodded.

  “I thought they’d have them by now,” Payne said. “Mickey said ‘massive manhunt.’ ”

  “It would help if we knew who we’re looking for,” Harris said. “No one’s picked anybody out of the mug books, and there’s no talk on the streets.”

  “I thought there were a bunch of witnesses?”

  “There were. I have just been looking at police artist sketches. To go by them, twenty-five different people shot Kenny Charlton.”

  Payne picked up on the use of Charlton’s first name. “You knew him?”

  “One of the good guys, Matt,” Harris said, just a little bitterly. “With a little bit of luck, right after I get a positive ID on these two bastards, they’ll resist arrest.”

  I’m a cop, a detective—hell, I think I’m going to be a sergeant—and I don’t know if he means that or not.

  Harris, too, was quick to pick up on things on other people’s faces. The subject was changed.

  “So what’s new with you, Matt?” he asked.

  “A famous movie star is coming to Philadelphia,” Matt said.

  “I thought all movie stars were famous,” Harris said. “Which one?”

  “They haven’t told me yet,” Matt said. “I’m on my way to the auditorium for the preliminary meeting with Gerry McGuire of Dignitary Protection. And just for the record, there are also infamous movie stars.”

  “Score one for the fashion plate,” Harris said. “Don’t let this go to your head, but the Black Buddha and I miss you, Matt, now that we’re back with the police department . . .”

  Both Jason Washington and Tony Harris, over their bitter objections, had been transferred to the Special Operations Division when it was formed, and only recently—after they had trained other Special Operations detectives to Inspector Peter Wohl’s high standards—had been allowed to return.

  “Fuck you, Tony!”

  “. . . and we don’t see much of you. Why don’t you—not today, wait till we get the Charlton doers—come by when you have the time and buy us lunch?”

  “Yeah. I will.”

  “Give my regards to the movie star,” Harris said, touched Payne’s arm, and walked across the lobby to the exit.

  Matt walked across the lobby toward the auditorium.

  The Dignitary Protection Unit, as the name suggests, is charged with protecting dignitaries visiting Philadelphia. Philadelphia’s own dignitaries—the mayor, for example, and the district attorney—are protected by police officers, but those officers are not under the Dignitary Protection Unit.

  Staffing the unit poses a problem. Sometimes there are several—even a dozen—dignitaries requiring protection, and sometimes only one or two, or none at all.

  What has evolved is that only a few men—a lieutenant, two sergeants, and half a dozen detectives—are assigned full time to Dignitary Protection.

  When needed, additional detectives—who don’t wear uniforms on duty, and thus already have the necessary civilian clothing—are temporarily reassigned from their divisions, then returned to their regular duties after the visiting dignitary has left town.

  Over time, most of the detectives placed on temporary duty with Dignitary Protection had come from the Special Operations Division, as had uniformed off
icers of the Highway Patrol, which was part of Special Operations. Special Operations had citywide authority, for one thing, which meant that its officers knew more about the back alleys and such of the entire city than did their peers who spent their careers in one district. That was useful to Dignitary Protection.

  And the department had yet to hear a complaint from any visiting dignitary that en route from Pennsylvania Station or the airport to his hotel his car had been preceded and trailed by nattily uniformed police officers mounted on shiny motorcycles with sirens screaming and blue lights flashing.

  But the Roman Emperor spectacle was really a pleasant byproduct of the fact that Highway Patrol officers were the elite of the department. It was hard to get into Highway, hard to stay there if you didn’t measure up, and while there you could count on being where the action—heaviest criminal activity— was.

  The dignitary in his limousine, in other words, was protected by four—or eight, or even twelve—of the best-trained, best-equipped streetwise uniforms in the department.

  Consequently, Dignitary Protection had gotten in the habit of requesting temporary personnel from Special Operations first, because the commanding officer of Special Operations almost always gave Dignitary Protection whatever it asked for, without question.

  There had been a lot of talk that the smart thing to do would be to simply transfer the unit—if dignitary protection wasn’t a special operation, what was?—to Special Operations.

  That hadn’t happened, for a number of reasons never really spelled out, but certainly including the fact that Inspector Peter Wohl, the commanding officer of Special Operations, probably could not have won an election for the most popular white shirt in the department.

  For one thing, at thirty-seven, he was the youngest inspector in the department. For another, he already had, in the opinion of many inspectors and chief inspectors, too much authority. And in the course of his career—especially when he had been a staff inspector in Internal Affairs, again the youngest man to hold that rank—he had put a number of dirty cops, some of them high ranking, in the slam.