Final Justice

by W. E. B Griffin

  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.

  [SEVEN]

  “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-à-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?”

  “I was thinking of my place,” Colt said. “At the Ritz-Carlton. We could be alone, and get room service.”

  “You were planning to come along, Sergeant?” Olivia asked.

  “Absolutely,” Matt said.

  “I haven’t had my dinner,” Olivia said.

  “Then it’s settled,” Stan Colt said. He punched Matt affectionately on the shoulder. “I really appreciate this, Matt.”

  FOURTEEN

  [ONE]

  It was either a light rain or a heavy drizzle, and Deputy Commissioner Dennis V. Coughlin, holding an umbrella over his head with his right hand, stood at the gas charcoal grill in the backyard of 8231 Jeanes Street in Northwest Philadelphia wondering if he could trust the brand-new, state-of-the-art $129.95 electronic thermometer stuck in one of the two rolled-and-tied tenderloins of beef on the grill.

  It indicated that the interior temperature of the meat was 145 degrees Fahrenheit, which in turn meant, according to the instruction manual, that when permitted to rest for five minutes, the meat should be just a little more done than rare.

  Denny Coughlin didn’t think so. It didn’t look nearly that done to him.

  “To hell with it,” Coughlin muttered, and reached for the very long-handled, stainless-steel knife, part of a $79.95 Master Griller’s Kit—knife, fork, and grill-scraper—that had been another gift from Coughlin to Chief Inspector (Retired) August and Mrs. Olga Wohl, at whose grill he was standing.

  When he tried to cut the loin that was not electronically connected to the Interior Temperature Gauge, the perfectly tied-and-rolled meat rolled across the grill but remained uncut.

  “Shit,” Chief Inspector Coughlin muttered, laid the umbrella upside down on the grass, picked up the extra-long-handled fork from the Master Griller’s Kit, impaled the tenderloin with the sensor in it, sliced it halfway through, and examined it carefully.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said.

  The thermometer was telling the truth.

  He looked up in annoyance at the sky. It had suddenly begun to rain harder. Much harder.

  He looked back at the tenderloins. The flexible metal cord connecting the sensor impaled precisely in the center of one of them would have to be removed before he could move the meat to the platter.

  He touched it gingerly, and it didn’t seem to be that hot. He got a decent grip on it and gave it a tug. It remained impaled. He picked up the fork again, and using the fork to hold the meat in place, tugged harder. The sensor came free, suddenly, which caused Coughlin, in the moment in which he realized the goddamn thing was burning his fingers and let go of it, to throw both the sensor, the metal cord, and the Stainless Steel Easy-To-Read, Dishwasher-Safe Interior Temperature Indicating Device into the grass of Chief Wohl’s backyard.

  There were cheers, whistles, and applause from Chief Wohl’s back porch, where Chief Wohl, Chief Inspector of Detectives Matthew Lowenstein, Inspector Peter Wohl, Captain Frank Hollaran, and Mr. Michael J. O’Hara were standing— out of the rain—watching the Master Chef at work.

  After glancing momentarily at t
he porch, Commissioner Coughlin impaled the tenderloins, one after the other, and placed them on the platter—a stainless-steel plate with blood grooves resting in a depression in a wooden plate with handles; yet another culinary gift to the Wohls. Then he balanced the platter on his right hand, like a waiter, and sort of squatted to pick up the umbrella.

  Then he marched toward the porch under the umbrella and somewhat unsteadily climbed the stairs, to further whistles, cheers, and applause from the men standing on it.

  “You can all kiss my royal Irish ass,” Commissioner Coughlin announced.

  Five minutes later, Commissioner Coughlin, fresh from drying his face and hair, sat down to table with everybody, which now included Mrs. Olga Wohl, Mrs. Sarah Lowenstein, and Mrs. Barbara Hollaran, at a table heavily laden with what else they were going to eat.

  “I’ve got to get one of those little digital cameras and carry it with me,” Chief Lowenstein said. “I’d love to have pictures of the Master Chef at work.”

  “I already told you what you can do,” Coughlin said. “And, yes, Augie, thank you for asking, I will have a glass of that wine.”

  "I’ve got mine,” Mickey O’Hara said, holding up his camera. “But I’ve seen that Angry Irishman look in his eyes before and didn’t think I’d better.”

  Twenty minutes after that, as Sarah Lowenstein poured coffee and appropriate comments of approval were being offered vis-à-vis the chocolate cake Barbara Hollaran had prepared for the nearly ritual once-every-other-week supper at the Wohls’, Commissioner Coughlin’s cellular phone buzzed.

  He took it from his shirt pocket, said, “Hold one” before his caller had a chance to say anything, and handed the cellular to Hollaran, who quickly went into the kitchen.

  Hollaran returned almost immediately.

  “Commissioner, it’s Captain Quaire,” he said, formally.

  Coughlin nodded, and reached for the phone.

  “What’s up?” he asked, listened, and said, “I’ll get right back to you. Don’t do anything until I do.”

  He pushed the End button and, holding the cellular in his palm, looked thoughtfully at it a moment.

  “Mickey, this is out of school, okay?”

  "Sure,” O’Hara said.

  “What is it, Denny?” Chief Wohl asked.