The Vigilantes

by W. E. B Griffin

  Denny Coughlin had gone on to groom Peter Wohl, son of Augustus Wohl, Chief Inspector (Retired). And then Peter Wohl—indeed among the best and brightest, having at twenty graduated from Temple University, then entered the Police Academy and, later, become the youngest staff inspector on the department—had been in recent years Matt Payne’s rabbi.

  And, more or less completing the circle, the elder Wohl had in his time been the rabbi of an up-and-coming police officer—a young man by the name of Jerry Carlucci.

  “If I didn’t know better, Matt,” Mayor Carlucci now said, his face and tone suggesting more than a little displeasure, surprising Payne, “I’d say you were on the street working all night.” He paused to make eye contact with the white shirt he’d mentored decades earlier, then went on: “But I do know that must not be the case, because we’d all agreed that the Wyatt Earp of the Main Line would stay the hell out of sight for a certain cool-down period.” He looked again at Denny. “Or am I mistaken?”

  Mariana, Quaire, and Washington—the direct chain of command also somewhat directly responsible for seeing that Payne drove a desk so as to stay out of the news—looked a little ill at ease.

  Payne saw that Howard Walker was more than a little interested to see Denny Coughlin in the mayor’s crosshairs.

  But Coughlin, while deeply respectful of Carlucci, and cognizant of Carlucci’s iron fist and occasional temper, was not cowed by him. Over the years he’d learned a lot from his rabbi, and one of the most important lessons was to make a decision, then come hell or high water to stand by that decision.

  Time and again, Carlucci had told him: “One’s inability to be decisive gets people killed. Make up your goddamn mind—based on the best available information, or your gut, or better both—and move forward.”

  Denny Coughlin now said evenly, almost conversationally, “Jerry, I had the same initial reaction earlier this morning. But in light of what we’re dealing with, I decided to end the cool-down period as of today. Matt’s been all over the paperwork on these pop-and-drops, and if we have any chance of quickly figuring out who’s doing what—and we need to, or it’s likely going to get ugly very fast—we need to be able to put him back on the street.”

  Carlucci looked thoughtfully at Coughlin a long moment, then at Payne, then back at Coughlin. He grunted and put down his china mug with a loud thunk.

  “For the record, Denny, color me not completely convinced. Maybe it’s because I recently spent so much time trying—key word ‘trying’—to dissuade the media that we have a loose cannon in our police department.” He exhaled audibly. “But I do know better than to micromanage the people in whom I have absolute trust.”

  With a deadly serious face, he looked at Payne.

  “Just try not to add to the goddamn body count. Got that, Marshal? I don’t want to have to answer any more questions from the damned press about you.”

  Payne nodded. “Yessir. Duly noted, sir.”

  Carlucci met his eyes and added, “That doesn’t mean that I don’t support you in what were righteous shootings. You were doing your job, and you did it well.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Okay, everybody have a seat,” Carlucci then said. “Let’s hear what you’ve got on the pop-and-drops, Matt.”

  “Yes, sir,” Payne said. “But, as you noticed, Tony and I have been up all night. I can’t speak for Tony, but I could use some caffeine.”

  “I’ll get ’em,” Harris said, heading across the room as the others sat down at the conference table.

  [FOUR]

  Sergeant Matt Payne drained his second cup of coffee, then made a grand sweeping gesture at one of the banks of TVs.

  On its screens were images of the first five dead fugitives—both their Wanted sheets and crime-scene photos from where they’d been “dropped”—as well as detailed maps and lists of data showing where the bad guys had lived, where they had committed their crimes, and, ultimately, where they had been found dead.

  He looked at Mayor Jerry Carlucci and said, “And that is essentially what I put together from the files of the first five pop-and-drops. There’s no question that they were targeted killings by the same doer. But the new ones from last night don’t quite fit the profile.”

  “ ‘Targeted killings’?” the mayor repeated.

  Payne nodded. “Today’s buzzword for ‘assassination.’”

  Carlucci made a sour face. “Let’s stick with ‘targeted killings,’ in the statement and elsewhere. Or even just ‘murders by perps unknown.’ At least for now.”

  He looked around the ECC conference table, and everyone nodded agreeably.

  “You said,” Carlucci went on, “that with the exception of one of the first five, all were dropped by the same doer at the district PD closest to the critter’s Last Known Address. And all had the same MO?”

  Payne pointed to one of the TVs. “Yes, sir. That’s shown on Number 8. All were bound at their ankles and wrists. All shot either in the chest or head. And all with the same doer’s fingerprints. Which makes us”—he glanced at Tony Harris—“believe that we will find he’s also responsible for at least two of the three dropped last night. He left prints everywhere. Prints and piss.”

  Carlucci cocked his head. “Did you say piss?”

  When Payne explained about the “gallons” of piss all over the lawyer’s office, Carlucci shook his head and said, “If I’d known, I might have contributed. Never did like that Gartner.”

  Matt chuckled.

  Carlucci went on, “So, piss and prints. Could be the doer’s just careless or stupid—or worse.”

  “Or maybe he wants to get caught?” Harris offered.

  Payne raised an eyebrow. “Maybe. He’s damn sure leaving ample opportunity for that to happen. Just a matter of time . . .”

  “So,” Carlucci said, “again, all we have for sure is one doer linked to the first five pop-and-drops—”

  “That’s correct,” Payne said.

  “—and maybe at least two of last night’s three—the two who were shot—if we find that the prints on them match those prints on the first five. Same for the third, even though he wasn’t shot.”

  “Exactly,” Payne said.

  “Strangled and beaten,” Carlucci then wondered aloud. “What could be the significance of that?”

  Payne shrugged. “Maybe the doer ran out of bullets.”

  Carlucci snorted.

  “Let’s hope so,” he said. “If not, then we have two or more goddamn doers to collar. So when do you get the prints that were taken last night back from IAFIS? Before noon, in time for the statement?”

  IAFIS, the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, was the largest biometric database in the world. It held the fingerprints and other information collected from local, state, and federal law-enforcement agencies on more than fifty-five million people. Law-enforcement agencies could access it at any time and run a search with the fingerprints they lifted from a crime scene. It wasn’t uncommon, provided the submitted print or prints were clean, to get a response in a couple hours as to whether there was a match in the database.

  Payne shook his head. “We’re still waiting for Forensics to process the prints that were lifted. You know what their motto can sometimes be . . .”

  “Enlighten me,” Carlucci said dryly.

  “ ‘If we wait until the last minute to do it, it’ll only take a minute.’”

  There suddenly was a cold silence in the room, and Payne then realized from the furious look on Walker’s face that, given difference circumstances—say, the absence of Walker’s three immediate bosses—he would have reamed the hotshot Homicide sergeant a new one.

  Nice job, Payne ol’ boy, Matt thought. Forensic Sciences belongs to Walker.

  Screw it. Maybe this will get them moving faster.

  Payne remembered one night at Liberties Bar when, more than a couple of stiff Irish whiskeys under both their belts, Coughlin had let slip that he was not a fan of W
alker’s. Walker, who spoke with a cleric’s soft, intelligent voice, cultivated a rather pious air. Coughlin felt that Walker used all the bells and whistles of Science & Technology as smoke and mirrors to disguise his incompetence.

  “But Ralph said he had his reasons for asking me to give Walker the job. And, write this down, Matty, never argue with your boss. Still, I’d love to know what angle Walker is working on Ralph.”

  Mayor Carlucci guffawed, breaking the tension.

  “I’m going to have to remember to use that line back at City Hall. Nothing gets done there, not even in the last minute. It’s always late, if at all.”

  There were the expected chuckles.

  “Okay,” Carlucci said, “then I won’t ask about NCIC. If we don’t have prints to run, we don’t have a name to run.”

  The National Crime Information Center—also maintained by the FBI and available to law enforcement at any time, day or night—had a database containing the critical records of criminals. Additionally, NCIC tracked missing persons and stolen property. Its data came not only from the same law-enforcement agencies that provided IAFIS, but also from authorized courts and foreign law-enforcement agencies.

  “I’ll go stoke the fire under them for those prints,” Walker then offered lamely. He stood and went over to use one of the phones at the other conference table.

  Bingo, Payne thought. That’ll get ’em moving faster.

  Ralph Mariana then spoke up: “Jerry, what should be done about Frank Fuller?”

  Payne put in: “I’ve had an unmarked sitting on Fuller’s Old City office.”

  “That’s fine, Matt,” Mariana said, “but I meant what should be done about his now-infamous rewards.”

  Carlucci, his face showing a mixture of anger and frustration, said, “I’ve spoken with Fuller privately about that bloodthirsty reward system of his. I’ve tried to dissuade him, suggesting that it’s encouraging criminal activity. He said he didn’t care, that he’d spend his last dime on lawyers defending that eye-for-an-eye thing—”

  “The law of talion,” Payne offered.

  Carlucci shot Payne a look of mild annoyance for the interruption, then went on: “—especially, he said, after what happened to his wife and child.”

  “What happened to his family?” Mariana asked.

  Quaire offered: “I had that case in Homicide. It never got solved, primarily because, we believe, the doers involved killed each other before we could get statements, let alone bring charges. Anyway, the wife and the girl, a ten-year-old, I believe, made a wrong turn at the Museum of Art and wound up a half-mile or so north in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time. Cut down in a crossfire of single-aught buckshot.”

  “Jesus!” Mariana said, shaking his head. “That’s tragic.”

  The table was silent a moment.

  Carlucci then said, “But I have no choice but to denounce him, or at least what he’s accomplishing with his reward.”

  Denny Coughlin cleared his throat.

  “You have something, Denny?” Carlucci said. “Say it.”

  “Just a point, Jerry. Giving credit where it’s due, Matt did bring up that for us to condemn the reward system would be somewhat hypocritical.”

  Carlucci made an unpleasant face.

  “You can’t be a little pregnant,” Payne said.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Carlucci asked, looking at Payne.

  “We can’t say that Five-Eff’s paying out ten-grand rewards—”

  “ ‘Five-Eff ’?” Carlucci interrupted.

  Payne nodded. “Francis Franklin Fuller the Fifth long ago had his name boiled down to simply Four-Eff.”

  “You said ‘Five,’” Carlucci challenged.

  Payne looked around the table, and all eyes were watching him with more than a little curiosity. He thought there may have been a trace of wariness in Coughlin’s.

  Payne raised an eyebrow, then said, “Francis can be pompous, as you well know, and when he annoys me, I call him Five-Eff, short for Fucking Francis Franklin Fuller the Fifth.”

  Carlucci guffawed again. A couple others followed his lead by chuck-ling. Coughlin shook his head.

  “All right,” Carlucci said, “as he’s come to annoy the hell out of me, I’ll now say: How does my denouncing Five-Eff make me pregnant?”

  Payne grinned. He knew Carlucci understood what he’d meant by the analogy.

  “My point is, sir, that our department has partnerships with other agencies that offer rewards. The FBI Violent Crimes Task Force, for example.”

  He gestured with his thumb in a southerly direction. The FBI’s office, at 600 Arch Street, across from the Federal Reserve Bank, was damn near outside the back door of the Roundhouse.

  “And I’m sure you’ll recall that we have our own tips hotline,” Payne went on, “that, through the Citizens Crime Commission, pays out rewards that go from five hundred bucks or so on up to thousands. And when a cop gets murdered, the FOP administers rewards for info that leads to catching the doers. So we already do what Five-Eff does. We just don’t, as was pointed out to me”—he exchanged glances with Coughlin—“encourage the killing of the critters.”

  Carlucci started nodding. “All right. I take your point. We can massage that in the message, so to speak. Now, let’s boil all this down to what I’m going to say.”

  “Thirty seconds, Mr. Mayor,” Corporal Kerry Rapier said from behind the control panel.

  Jerry Carlucci scrunched up his face and assumed a serious expression.

  Corporal Rapier said, “In five, four, three, two . . . ,” then pointed to Mayor Carlucci. On the monitor, Mayor Carlucci was perfectly framed in a tight shot of his face, with Mariana and Coughlin looking over his shoulders.

  Carlucci said: “Good afternoon, citizens of the great city of Philadelphia. Thank you for letting me into your homes today. I respect your time, and will be brief.

  “While it saddens me to have to appear here today to address a rash of murders, I must tell you that I am very proud to be speaking to you from the Roundhouse in the company of some of the finest law-enforcement officials anywhere.

  “As you may be aware, in the last month, five known criminals—all fugitives guilty of sexual offenses—have been killed and brought to the door of the Philadelphia Police Department. And last night, three more murdered men were left at the door of an organization that offers rewards for the capture of criminals.

  The City of Philadelphia and our police department are grateful for any help in keeping our communities safe. We encourage citizens—who can remain anonymous—to provide tips that lead to the arrest and conviction of criminals. Simply call 911, or 215-686-TIPS. Depending on the case, there are cash rewards for information that leads to a criminal’s conviction.

  “While we do applaud the removal of any criminal at large in our free society, we cannot condone any such act that results in death. That is murder, and those responsible will be prosecuted to the fullest.”

  He paused to let that point sit with the various audiences.

  “Since I have served both as your police commissioner and now as your mayor, crimes have declined in our fair city. Major crimes, such as homicides, by as much as half. While we are not where we would like to be—one robbery or murder or rape is one too many—we are committed to crime prevention and criminal apprehension. It is what we are well trained to do. And I believe the statistics prove that we do it exceptionally well.

  “Now, in response to last night’s criminal activity, today I am pleased to announce that Police Commissioner Mariana has formed a special task force to capture the armed and dangerous perpetrator. Operation Clean Sweep will be led by Homicide Unit Sergeant M. M. Payne—”

  Carlucci paused as his image was replaced for a three-second count by one of Matt Payne and Carlucci. Payne, in a crisp Brooks Brothers two-piece suit and tie, was shaking hands with Carlucci. Their left hands held up a plaque that at the top was emblazoned with the words VALOR IN THE LINE OF DUTY
.

  “—whose name you may recognize as one of our highly decorated officers. He could not be here in person, as he already is fully immersed in the investigation.”

  Carlucci now gestured to the white shirts behind him and went on: “Sergeant Payne will be fully supported not only by the Philadelphia PD, but by any other state and federal agencies whom we partner with in such initiatives as the FBI Violent Crimes Task Force.

  “And of course Operation Clean Sweep will have the full force of all departmental assets, which are legion.”

  He motioned to the panel of TVs.

  Corporal Rapier worked the control panel, and each screen instantly was replaced with images of nearly everything in the department’s arsenal. There was a pair of the Aviation Unit’s Bell 206 L-4 helicopters hovering over a grassy field, their floodlight beams lighting up a suspect, his hands up, as uniforms on the ground converged. Members of the Special Weapons and Tactical (SWAT) Unit were rescuing a hostage. A Marine Unit’s twenty-four-foot-long Boston Whaler, its light bar on the aluminum tower pulsing red and blue, was screaming up the Delaware River. And more dramatic imagery of the police department in action.

  “You have my word that our dedicated police department will apprehend the perpetrator, and soon.

  “Again, thank you for your time and for your confidence. May God bless you and keep you safe.”

  At least long enough for us to catch the damned murderer, Carlucci thought as he stared somber-faced at the camera as the boom swung, pulling back from him.

  Payne was standing with Harris and Walker behind Corporal Rapier and the control panel.

  As he heard Corporal Rapier say, “And . . . we’re clear, off the air,” Payne felt his telephone vibrate.

  He looked at its screen and saw the call was from the uniform he’d stationed in the unmarked in Old City.

  He answered it: “Payne.”

  Then, after a moment, he said loudly: “What? Oh, shit!”

  He felt eyes on him and looked up to see that everyone was indeed looking at him. Particularly Carlucci.