W E B Griffin - Badge of Honor 04 - The Witness

by The Witness(lit)

"Between Pelosi and D'Amata we have a pretty good idea who they are," Lowenstein said.

  "Good idea or names?"

  "Names. On almost all of them, anyway."

  "Witnesses?"

  "There were twenty-odd people in Goldblatt's," Lowen-stein replied.

  "That's not what I asked."

  "We have one good witness," Lowenstein said carefully.

  "A Goldblatt employee. Worked like sort of a doorman. Al-bert J. Monahan. Pelosi showed him pictures and he positively identified all of them."

  "A moment ago you said there were twenty-odd people in Goldblatt's."

  "They don't want to get involved. In other words, they're scared. That press release and the way the press swallowed it, hook, line, and sinker, made things worse."

  "So if you catch these guys, you have one witness?"

  "There's no question of `if' we catch them, Tommy," Lowenstein said. "The question is how, and what we do with them."

  "Let's cut to the chase," the district attorney said.

  "Okay. Two things bug me about this job," Lowenstein said. "First, something that's been building up the last couple of years. Witnesses not wanting to get involved. A lot of scum-bags are walking around out there because witnesses suddenly have developed trouble with their memories."

  Callis nodded. "They're afraid. I don't know what to do about it."

  "In a minute, I'll tell you. The second thing is I don't like the idea of a bunch of schwartzer thugs dressing up like Ar-abs-"

  "Americans of African descent, you mean, of course, Chief?" Callis interrupted softly.

  "-and announcing they're not really stick-up artists-in this case, murderers-but soldiers in some liberation army."

  "And blaming the Jews for all their troubles?"

  "Yeah. Blaming us Jews for all their troubles," Lowenstein said. "That bothers me personally, but I'm here as the chief inspector of Detectives of the City of Philadelphia. Okay?"

  "No offense, Matt."

  "I called Jason Washington last night-" Lowenstein said, and then interrupted himself. "I tried to call you, Peter, but all I got was your answering machine. Then I called your driver, and all I got there was a smart-ass message on his answering machine. So I gave up and called Washington without checking with you. I hope you're not sore. I thought it was necessary."

  "Don't be silly," Wohl said. "But if you are referring to Officer Payne, he is my administrative assistant, not my driver. Only full inspectors and better get drivers."

  "I don't think it will be too long, Chief," Callis said, "be-fore Peter is a full inspector, do you?"

  "What about Washington, Chief?" Wohl asked.

  "He has a relationship with Arthur X," Lowenstein went on. "I asked him to call him."

  Arthur X, a Negro male, thirty-six years of age, 175 pounds, who shaved his head, and wore flowing robes, had been born Arthur John Thomlinson. He had replaced Thomlinson with X on the basis that Thomlinson was a slave name. Arthur X was head of the Philadelphia Islamic Temple, which was estab-lished in a former movie palace on North Broad Street.

  He had converted an estimated three thousand people to his version of Islam. The men wore suits and ties, and the women white robes, including headgear that covered most of their faces.

  "And?" Tommy Callis asked.

  "He told Jason he never heard of the Islamic Liberation Army."

  "Did Jason believe him? Do you?"

  "Yeah."

  "Why?1:

  "He and Jason have an understanding. He doesn't lie to Jason, and Jason doesn't lie to him. Jason said he had the feeling that Arthur didn't like their using the term 'Islamic' That's his word."

  "He didn't volunteer who he thought these people might be, by any chance?"

  "Jason didn't ask. He said if he asked, and Arthur told him- Jason said he didn't think Arthur knew, but he certainly could find out-then we would owe him one. I told you, Tommy, we already know who they are."

  "So why did you have Washington call Arthur X?"

  "To make sure that when we go to pick these scumbags up, we wouldn't be running into the Fruit of Islam screaming re-ligious and/or racial persecution."

  The Fruit of Islam was a group, estimated to be as many as one hundred, of Arthur X's followers, all at least six feet tall, who served as Arthur X's bodyguard.

  "So when are you going to pick these people up?" Tommy Callis asked.

  "That's what I wanted to talk to you about," Lowenstein said. "I want to do it like Gangbusters."

  "I don't know what that means, Matt," Callis said care-fully.

  "I want warrants issued for all the people that Mr. Monahan has identified from photographs. I want them-this is where Peter and the Highway Patrol come in-picked up all at one time, say tomorrow morning at six. I then want Mr. Monahan to pick them out of a lineup, one at a time, as soon as possible, after the arraignment, before the preliminary hearing. I want them charged with first degree murder and armed robbery. Then I want to run them past a municipal court in the Round-house who is not going to release them on their own recogni-zance or on two-bit bail. I want you to run them past the Grand Jury just as soon as that can be arranged, and then I want them on the docket just as soon as that can be arranged. Unless there is some reason not to, I want them all tried together, and I want one of the best assistant DAs in the Homicide Unit, pref-erably the head man, to prosecute. I would not be unhappy if you could find the time to prosecute yourself, Tommy."

  Tommy Callis thought that over a minute.

  "You have one witness."

  "He's a good one. Credible."

  "One," Callis repeated.

  "You're suggesting those thugs would get to him?"

  "What have they got to lose? It's already murder one. And he could get sick, or drop dead or something."

  "That's where Peter comes in again. Right now, I've got a couple of Northwest Detectives on Mr. Monahan. That's just to be sure. Just as soon as this thing starts, I want Peter to conspicuously protect Mr. Monahan."

  "Meaning what?"

  "A Highway car parked around the clock in front of his house. If he insists on going to work, Highway will take him back and forth, and park in front of Goldblatt's while he's working."

  "He could still have a heart attack, or something."

  "And he could get struck by lightning," Lowenstein said. "Anything's possible. I think it's more possible that we could come up with a couple, maybe six, eight, ten more witnesses."

  "Explain that to me, Matt."

  "Peter will also put Highway people on the other wit-nesses."

  "What for?" Callis asked, without thinking.

  "To protect them, of course. We are dealing with dangerous people here. While the witnesses, if they are to be believed, can't identify the doers, the doers don't know that."

  "Christ, Matt, I don't know," Callis protested.

  "Once they come to understand that they are in some danger whether or not they testify, they may decide that the only way they can really protect their asses is by making sure these scumbags are put away. An assistant DA, with good persuasive skills, might be able to jolt their memories a little. I also thought I would ask Peter to have Washington have a word with the witnesses."

  "The Afro-American witnesses, you mean?"

  "All of them. Jason is a formidable sonofabitch, in addition to being very persuasive."

  "You're suggesting, 'Here is this big black good guy, who will protect me from the bad black guys'?" Callis asked.

  "Why not?" Lowenstein said. "And I'm going to suggest to Peter that when we make the arrests, it might be a good idea to use black Highway guys. A couple of them, anyway, at each site."

  "Yeah," Wohl said thoughtfully. "Good idea."

  Callis thought about that a moment.

  "I presume Commissioner Czernick thinks this is a good idea?" he asked, finally.

  "I haven't had the opportunity to discuss this with the com-missioner," Lowenstein said.

  "What?" Callis asked disbel
ievingly.

  "Commissioner Czernick is a very busy man," Lowenstein said. "And besides, he won't fart unless The Dago tells him to. Or authorize anything that's not in the book. If I went to Tad Czernick, he would check with The Dago before he said anything. And I know, and so do you, Tommy, that the mayor would rather not know about this until it was over."

  Callis looked at his watch. "My God, and it's only quarter after eight!"

  "The early bird gets the worm," Lowenstein said.

  "You haven't said much about this, Peter."

  "I haven't had anything to say."

  "Well, what do you think about this?"

  "If Special Operations is called upon by Chief Lowenstein to assist the Detective Division, we would of course do so."

  Callis picked up his coffee cup and found that it was empty.

  He held it up impatiently and Sergeant Mahoney quickly went to take it from him.

  He tapped his fingertips together impatiently for a moment, said "Christ!" and then picked up one of the two telephones on his desk.

  "Ask Mr. Stillwell to come in here, please," he said. "Tell him it's-just ask him to come in right away, please."

  Wohl glanced at Lowenstein, whose eyebrows rose in sur-prise. When he saw Wohl looking at him, he gave a barely perceptible shrug.

  Farnsworth Stillwell was an assistant district attorney. Gen-erally speaking, there were three kinds of assistant district at-torneys, young ones fresh from law school, who took the job to pay the rent and gain experience, and left after a few years; the mediocre ones who had just stayed on because the hoped-for good offer had not come; and the ones who stayed on be-cause they liked the job and were willing to work for less than they could make in private practice.

  Farnsworth Stillwell did not fall into any of the three cate-gories. He came from a wealthy, socially prominent family. He had gone from Princeton into the Navy, become a pilot, and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and some other medals for valor flying off an aircraft carrier off Vietnam. He had been seriously injured when he tried to land his damaged aircraft on returning to his carrier after a mission.

  There had been six months in a hospital to consider what he wanted to do with his future now that a permanently stiff knee had eliminated the Navy and flying. He had decided on public service. He'd gone to law school, found and married a suitable wife, and then decided the quickest way to put himself in the public eye was by becoming an assistant district attorney.

  He was, in Peter Wohl's judgment, smart-perhaps even brilliant-in addition to being competent. He was tall, thin, getting gray flecks in his hair, superbly tailored, and charming. Wohl had come to know him rather well in the latter stages of the Judge Findermann investigation, and during the prose-cution. There had been overtures of friendship from Stillwell. Without coming out and saying so, Stillwell had made it clear that he thought that he and Wohl, as they rose in the system, could be useful to each other.

  Obviously, Stillwell was going places, and Wohl was fully aware of the political side of being a cop, particularly in the upper ranks. But he had, as tactfully as he could manage, re-jected the offer.

  There was something about the sonofabitch that he just didn't like. He couldn't put his finger on it, and vacillated between thinking that he just didn't like politicians, or archetypical WASPs, (and that consequently he was making a mistake) and a gut feeling that there was a mean, or perhaps corrupt, streak in Stillwell somewhere. Whatever it was, he knew that he did not want to get any closer to Farnsworth Stillwell, professionally or personally, than he had to.

  He wondered now, as they waited for Stillwell to show up in Callis's office, what Matt Lowenstein thought of him.

  "You wanted to see me, boss?" Stillwell called cheerfully as he strode, with an uneven gait, because of his knee, into Callis's office.

  Then he saw Lowenstein first, and then Wohl, D'Amata, and Pelosi.

  "Chief Lowenstein," he said. "How nice to see you. And Peter!"

  He went to each and pumped their hands, and then turned to D'Amata and Pelosi.

  "I'm Still Stillwell," he said, putting out his hand.

  "Joe D'Amata, of Homicide," Lowenstein offered, "and Jerry Pelosi of Central Detectives."

  "Sit down," Callis ordered, tempering it with a smile. "Matt's got a wild idea. I want your reaction to it."

  "Chief Lowenstein is not the kind of man who has wild ideas," Stillwell said. "Unusual, perhaps. But not wild."

  Nice try, Wohl thought, somewhat unkindly, but a waste of effort. Matt Lowenstein wouldn't vote Republican if Moses were heading the ticket.

  "Tell the man about your unusual idea, Matt," Callis said.

  Lowenstein laid out, quickly but completely, what he had in mind.

  "What do you think of the chief's idea, Peter?" Stillwell asked.

  Covering your ass, Still?

  "We know what we think about it," Callis said. "What we want to know is what you think about it."

  Thank you, Mr. District Attorney.

  "All right. Gut reaction. Off the top of my head. I love it."

  "Why?" Callis asked.

  "'District Attorney Thomas J. Callis announced this after-noon that he will bring the six, eight, whatever it is, members of the gang calling themselves the Islamic Liberation Army before the Grand Jury immediately, and that he is confident the Grand Jury will return murder and armed robbery indict-ments against all of them.'"

  "You were listening when Lowenstein said they have just the one witness?"

  "Yes. And I was also listening when he said he thought other witnesses might experience a miraculous return of mem-ory. "

  "You want to put your money where your mouth is?" Callis asked.

  "Am I going to be allowed to take part in this?"

  "It's yours, if you want it," Callis said.

  "I've got a pretty heavy schedule-"

  "Meaning you really don't want to get involved, now that you've had ten seconds to think it over?"

  "Meaning, I'll have to have some help with my present cal-endar."

  "No problem," Callis said. "That can be arranged."

  Callis, Wohl thought unkindly, but with a certain degree of admiration, has just pulled a Carlucci. If this works, he will take, if not all, at least a substantial portion of the credit. And if it goes wrong, that will be Farnsworth Stillwell's fault.

  Or Matt Lowenstein's fault. Or mine.

  Probably the latter. When you get to the bottom line, Farns-worth Stillwell is smarter than either Lowenstein or me. Or at least less principled. Or both.

  "Keep me up-to-date on what's going on," Callis said. "And later today, Still, I'll want to talk to you about the municipal court judge."

  "Right, Chief," Stillwell said. "Gentlemen, why don't we go into the conference room and work out some of the de-tails?"

  "Thank you, Tommy," Lowenstein said.

  Callis grunted. When he gave his hand to Peter Wohl, he said, "You'd better hope your people can protect Mr. Monahan, Peter. For that matter you'd better hope he doesn't have a heart attack."

  ***

  When Officer Matthew Payne walked into the Special Operations Office, the sergeant had given him the message that In-spector Wohl had called in at 7:12 to say that he would not be in until later, time unspecified.

  Officer Payne sat down at his desk and opened the Bulletin. He had just started to read Mickey O'Hara's story about the robbery and murder at Goldblatt & Sons Credit Furniture & Appliances, Inc., when, startling him, the newspaper was snatched out of his hands.

  Officer Charles McFadden was standing there, looking very pleased with himself.

  "Jesus Christ, Charley!"

  "Gotcha, huh?"

  "Why aren't you out fighting crime?"

  "Need a favor."

  "Okay. Within reason."

  "Be my best man," Charley said.

  "I have this strange feeling you're serious."

  "Margaret's going to call her mother this morning; we're going to get married
in six weeks."

  "Yeah, sure, Charley. I'd be honored."

  "Thank you," Charley said very seriously, shook Matt's hand enthusiastically, and walked out of the office.

  When he was gone, Matt picked up and read the Bulletin and then the Ledger. Both carried stories about the robbery of Goldblatt's. The Ledger story was accompanied by a photo-graph of a press release from the Islamic Liberation Army, claiming responsibility. Mickey O'Hara's story in the Bulletin hadn't mentioned the Islamic Liberation Army.