Final Justice

by W. E. B Griffin

  Captain Henry C. Quaire was commanding officer of the Homicide unit.

  “My Martha called Whatshername.”

  “Gladys,” Washington furnished.

  “Gladys and Henry will be there,” Pekach said.

  “Why am I not surprised?” Washington said.

  Gladys Quaire regarded an invitation to 606 Glengarry Lane as the Philadelphia equivalent of an invitation to watch the races at Ascot from the Royal Enclosure.

  Pekach chuckled, then said goodbye.

  [FOUR]

  When Dr. and Mrs. Benjamin Solomon drove through the gate at Glengarry Lane, the macadam road to the house was lined with various models of Ford Crown Victoria automobiles. They were in Ben’s Cadillac, as Eileen was wearing what she thought of as her Doctor’s Wife hat.

  But she could not leave her D.A.’s hat very far behind. In the new Ford Crown Victoria that followed the Cadillac into what was still known as the Peebles Estate, Detective Albert Unger of the District Attorney’s Squad pushed his microphone button as he rolled past the gate.

  “Radio, D-One.”

  “Go, D-One.”

  “At 606 Glengarry Lane in Chestnut Hill until further notice.”

  “Got it.”

  Philadelphia provides an unmarked detective-driven police car to its district attorney. The detective, of course, also serves as bodyguard to the D.A. Usually, this made sense, and it was nice to be picked up at the house and dropped off by a car. But sometimes—now, for example—it didn’t.

  There were going to be at least thirty—knowing Martha, probably more—police officers at 606 Glengarry Lane, all of them armed, and many senior enough to be accompanied by their own armed drivers. The person of the district attorney was going to be about as safe as it could be. And if something happened that required the immediate presence of the district attorney, any of the white shirts’ unmarked cars would be available to take her there with siren howling.

  But, because he went where she went, poor Al Unger would just have to hang around the car waiting for the radio to go off while the D.A. was at the party. He wouldn’t be alone. Deputy Commissioner Coughlin’s driver and the drivers of the other senior white shirts would also have to hang around waiting for their radios to go off. Martha Peebles Pekach would ensure, of course, that the caterer’s waiters would make sure they were fed.

  Eileen was not surprised—the weather was wonderful— that the party was being held outside the stables. Alexander Peebles’s polo ponies were long gone, and the grass field where they had once played was ideal for an outside party.

  Tables had been set up, and waiters moved among them serving drinks and steaks and Italian sausage from charcoal stoves.

  Their hostess and her husband greeted them as they walked on the field.

  “Sorry to be late, Ben had to work,” Eileen said, hugging Martha Peebles.

  “You’re here, that’s all that matters,” Martha Peebles said. She kissed Dr. Solomon. “I put you with the Paynes,” Martha went on, gesturing toward one of the tables.

  “Guess who I got a postcard from?” Captain Pekach said.

  “When you get a minute, I’ve got something to tell you about that,” Eileen said.

  “In a couple of minutes,” Pekach said.

  Eileen saw Ben smiling, and she saw why. Amelia A. Payne, M.D., was sitting with her parents. Ben not only would have someone to talk to—he really had little in common with the cops, or for that matter with Brewster C. Payne—and he and Amy Payne both liked each other and shared a disdain for some of their fellow healers at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and many of UP’s bureaucratic procedures, about which they could—and almost certainly would—talk at length.

  Deputy Commissioner Coughlin and Brewster C. Payne got to their feet as the Solomons approached the table.

  The men wordlessly shook hands. Eileen sat down beside Patricia Payne, and Ben sat down across the table beside Amy.

  “Where’s the birthday boy?” Eileen asked—and before Patricia could answer, dealt with the waiter. “Irish rocks for me. Diet Coke over there.” She pointed at her husband, then added: “Make it a double. I’ve been a good girl all day.”

  “One for me, too, please,” Patricia Payne said. “Not a double.”

  “Where is Sergeant Payne?” Eileen asked.

  Amelia A. Payne snorted.

  “I guess you’re thrilled, huh?” Eileen asked.

  “Not really,” Amy said, “truth to tell.”

  “Matt went into the house for something. He’ll be back,” Patricia said.

  “Is it safe to say you’re thrilled?” Eileen asked Patricia.

  “Mixed emotions,” Patricia replied. “Proud? Sure. Happy for Matt. Sure. But the badge the mayor pinned on him was his father’s.”

  “Ouch,” Eileen said. “They kept it all these years?”

  “I had it. I thought it was the right—”

  “It was,” Eileen said, firmly.

  “Mother Moffitt showed up at the ceremony,” Amy said. “To cast her usual pall on things.”

  “Amy!” Patricia Payne said.

  “Dave got another postcard from our fugitive,” Coughlin said, obviously to get off the subject of Mother Moffitt.

  “He told me,” Eileen said. “There was something today . . . I’ll tell you later, when I tell Dave.”

  “Am I permitted to ask? ‘Our fugitive’?” Brewster Payne said.

  “Isaac ‘Fort’ Festung,” Eileen said.

  “Oh, that chap.”

  “That despicable sonofabitch,” Coughlin said, and added, immediately, “Forgive the French.”

  A waiter handed the district attorney a drink. She waited until Patricia Payne had hers, then touched glasses and took a healthy sip.

  “To Sergeant Payne,” she said.

  “Thank you,” Patricia Payne said.

  “Denny, ‘despicable sonofabitch’ is an apt description of Fort Festung, so an apology for your language is not necessary, ” Eileen said. “But if you’re asking for a general pardon for our French brothers, I’m not about to forgive them.”

  There were chuckles and smiles.

  “She’s even stopped buying French perfume,” Dr. Solomon said.

  “See if you can enlist Patricia in your cause, Eileen,” Brewster Payne said.

  “What they should have done when he showed up in France—he entered France illegally, by the way, and was using a phony name, also illegal—was deport him on the next plane.”

  “Didn’t that have something to do with the death penalty?” Patricia asked.

  “That was their first excuse, but when that didn’t wash— we didn’t have the death penalty at the time of his trial; there was no way I could have sentenced him to death, as much as I might have liked to—they said they wouldn’t let us extradite because he’d been tried in absentia.”

  “I thought the legislature took care of that, and guaranteed him a new trial if he asked for one.” Brewster C. Payne said.

  “They did. And we so informed the French. Now they’re giving us some nonsense about the statute of limitations,” Eileen said. “We’re appealing that. We expect a decision on that tomorrow, and if it goes our way, we’re back to Step One. In other words, we start asking all over again for his extradition. ”

  She stopped, suddenly becoming aware that two men were seeking her attention.

  “And there’s Dave Pekach waiting for me to tell him what I just told you,” she said, nodding at Pekach, who was standing at the edge of the field. “Excuse me.”

  She got to her feet and turned to a waiter, “Medium rare,” she ordered. “One piece of Italian sausage, a sliced tomato. No potatoes. I’ll be back in five minutes, or less.” She pointed at her husband. “That handsome gentleman will have the same.”

  She stood up, and walked to Pekach, and followed him into the stable. They walked almost to the end of it.

  “Did I interrupt something important?” Pekach asked. “You and Denny Co
ughlin looked pretty serious.”

  “We were talking about Saint Isaac,” Eileen said. “What did the new postcard say?”

  “The usual. ‘Having fine time, wish you were here. Best regards, Isaac.’”

  “The arrogant sonofabitch!” the district attorney said, and then went on: “I had a call—Tony Casio did—from the State Department today. . . .”

  “I have the feeling I’m about to hear something I shouldn’t,” Matt Payne said, coming into the passageway from inside one of the stalls.

  “What the hell were you doing in there?” Pekach asked, curiously.

  “I’m gone,” Matt said. “Sorry.”

  “Stay,” Eileen said. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t hear this. Maybe you should.”

  “What were you doing in there?” Pekach pursued.

  Matt looked between them and decided that when you don’t know what the hell to say, tell the truth.

  “You remember the scene in The Godfather, the wedding, where everybody handed the bride an envelope? As a tribute to the Godfather, not because they gave a damn about the bride?”

  “Yeah,” Pekach said. “So?”

  “I felt like the bride,” Matt said. “Out of respect to you and Martha and/or my parents and/or Denny Coughlin, everybody was coming to the table and saying, ‘Congratulations, Sergeant.’ And then Amy would snort. So I came to hide in here.”

  “You should have waited until Ben and I finally got here,” Eileen said. “Our congratulations would have been absolutely sincere.”

  He looked at her for a moment.

  “Thank you,” he said, and then added: “Like I said, I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop and I’m gone.”

  “You’re not interested in Fort Festung?” Eileen asked.

  “I’m becoming fascinated—”

  “Okay. Stay. Latest bulletin,” Eileen said. “Tony Casio . . .”

  “He’s Eileen’s fugitive guy,” Pekach explained.

  “. . . had a call from the State Department this afternoon. The French are going to rule on the statute of limitations tomorrow, and their ‘legal counsel,’ read FBI guy, heard that it’ll go our way.”

  “Which leaves us where?”

  “We start the extradition business all over again. If the decision comes down tomorrow in our favor, we start the extradition process again tomorrow.”

  “And this time?” Pekach asked.

  “The French can stall only so long, David,” Eileen said. “We’ll get him.”

  Pekach looked at her a long moment but didn’t say anything.

  “Okay, birthday boy,” Eileen said. “Back to the table. And smile nice when somebody says ‘congratulations.’ ”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Matt said.

  [FIVE]

  At just about the time the last of the unmarked Ford Crown Victorias was leaving the Peebles Estate—somewhere around 1:15 A.M.—Homer C. Daniels, a six-feet-one-inch, 205-pound, thirty-six-year-old Caucasian male, who had once been a paratrooper and still wore his light brown hair clipped close to his skull, was standing in the shadow of a tree in the 600 block of Independence Street in Northeast Philadelphia, in the area known as East Oak Lane.

  He was looking up at the second-story windows on the right side of what had been built as a single-family home— not quite large enough to be called a mansion—not quite a century before. It had been empty for a while after World War II, and then had been converted to a “multifamily dwelling” with two apartments on the ground floor, two on the second, and a third in what had been the servants’ quarters on the third.

  Daniels, who was wearing a black coverall, thought of himself as a businessman rather than a truck driver, although in each of the past several years he had driven a Peterbilt eighteen-wheel tractor-trailer rig 150,000 miles all over the country.

  For one thing, he was a partner in Las Vegas Classic Motor Cars, Inc., the company that owned the Peterbilt. And he almost always had the same partner’s interest in the truck’s cargo, and sometimes he owned all of the cargo.

  Las Vegas Classic Motor Cars, Inc., as the name implied, dealt with what they referred to as the “Grand Marques” of automobiles, ranging from the “vintage”—such as Duesenbergs and Pierce-Arrows, no longer manufactured—to the “contemporary”—such as Ferrari, the larger Mercedes-Benz, and Rolls Royce.

  As a general rule of thumb, if an automobile was worth less than $75,000, Las Vegas Classic Motor Cars, Inc., was not interested. A boat-tailed Dusey, in Grand Concourse condition and worth, say, $1,250,000, had the opposite effect.

  They bought and sold some cars themselves, and accepted some cars on consignment. Often they would buy a “decent” classic, and spend up to $100,000 rebuilding it from the frame up to Grand Concourse condition before offering it for sale. They also provided “frame up” restoration for owners of classic cars, and had earned an international reputation for the quality of their work.

  Cars of this sort were genuine works of art, and as one would not entrust a Rodin sculpture or an Andy Warhol painting of a tomato can to the Acme Trucking Company, or even the United Parcel Service, one could not move, for example, a Grand Concourse-condition 1954 Mercedes-Benz 300SL “Gull Wing” coupe worth $275,000 to or from Las Vegas without taking the appropriate precautions.

  Dragging such a motorcar along behind a car or truck on one of the clever devices available from U-Haul was obviously out of the question. So was loading such a vehicle on a flatbed trailer, chaining it in place, and covering it with a tarpaulin.

  The solution was to ship such a vehicle within a trailer, and for a while Las Vegas Classic Motor Cars, Inc., had done just that. Then it had occurred to the partners that contracting for the transport, “direct, sole cargo” of vehicles, was costing them a lot of money. They crunched the numbers, and concluded the expense of buying and operating their own truck was justified.

  They bought the Peterbilt, had a trailer specially modified— essentially the installation of padding and means to hold the vehicles immobile while being transported—and hired a professional truck driver.

  That had proved to be a disaster. The driver had hit something—he said—on the road, causing him to lose control, go into a ditch, and turn over. The devices installed to keep the 1939 Packard Le Baron bodied convertible in place had not been strong enough to hold the massive car when the trailer had turned over, and massive damage had resulted.

  The partners had suspected that what had really happened—truck drivers like to “make miles”—was that the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. The insurance company had similar suspicions, and although they had—finally—paid up, they had immediately informed the partners that their rates in the future would regrettably have to be raised significantly.

  That was when the idea of Homer driving the rig had come up. For one thing, Homer had been an over-the-road tractor-trailer driver immediately after leaving the service. For another, Homer and his wife had finally had enough of each other, and it wouldn’t be much of a hardship for him to spend a week or ten days away from Vegas.

  And other benefits came to mind. If there was a motor vehicle in Saint Louis, say, of interest to Las Vegas Classic Motor Cars, Inc., and Homer was there—or near there—with the truck, he could both have a good look at it—without the cost of an airplane ticket to get there and back—make a recommendation to the partners, and if they decided to make the deal, just load the new acquisition on the truck right then and there.

  And then there was the restoration business. Homer could look at a car someone wanted to have Las Vegas Classic Motor Cars, Inc., restore, quote the owner a price, and if a deal was struck, just load the car right then and there and haul it back to Vegas.

  The original trailer, of course, was shot. They bought another, and really customized it. The new trailer was heated and air-conditioned, and would hold three cars, instead of two—five, if they were all Porsches, which happened several times. In addition, cabinets were built for tools, and there was what loo
ked very much like an old-timey railroad sleeper compartment, which held a toilet, a bed, a shower, a tiny desk for Homer’s computer, and a closet for Homer’s clothes.

  When Homer was trying to make a deal for, say, a 1940 Buick Limited spares-in-the-fenders convertible touring sedan worth, say, 150 large, he should look like a businessman, not a truck driver. And if he was going coast-to-coast—for that matter, anywhere overnight—and needed some sleep, he could just pull into a truck stop, go in the back, get a couple of hours of shut-eye, and then get back on the road without the hassle of having to find a motel where he could park the rig, and then pay fifty, sixty bucks—sometimes more—for just using the bed for a couple of hours.

  The whole arrangement—traveling all over the country included—had proven ideal for Homer’s hobby, which was to find some young bitch who looked like the bitch he had wasted ten years of his life on, who lived by herself, and then being very careful about it, when everything fell into place, get into her apartment, scare the living shit out of her—a man in a black ski mask waving a Jim Bowie replica knife with a polished, shiny twelve-inch blade in her face did that very nicely—cut her clothes off with the knife, tie her to her bed, and take before-during-and-after slipping the salami to her pictures with his digital camera.

  This was the fourth time Homer had stood in the shadow of a tree looking up at the apartment of Miss Cheryl Anne Williamson, who at twenty-three looked very much like Mrs. Bonnie Dawson Daniels had looked when she was that age. That is to say, she was tall, slender, blonde, had very fair skin, and even, Homer thought, that deceptive look of sweetness and innocence that Bonnie had.

  Deceptive because Bonnie the Bitch was anything but sweet and innocent.

  The first time Homer had stood in the shadow of the tree, he had followed Cheryl home from Halligan’s Pub, where he had seen her cock-teasing the guys at the bar. It had been immediately apparent to Homer that Cheryl had not gone to the bar to maybe meet somebody she could get to know really well, maybe even someday marry, much less to get laid.