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

by The Witness(lit)

  The odds are that no matter what you say now, you will later regret it.

  "Such a hypothetical person might even have a high rec-ommendation from a hypothetical governor, right?"

  Stillwell laughed.

  "Farnsworth, frankly, you've taken me be surprise."

  "I've noticed."

  "I'll need some time to think this over."

  "There isn't much time, Peter. I've scheduled a press con-ference for ten tomorrow morning, at which I will announce my acceptance of the governor's appointment. I'd like to be able to say, at that time, who my chief investigator will be."

  "Let me sleep on this," Wohl said. "I'll get back to you first thing in the morning."

  "Deal," Stillwell said, offering his hand. "I admire, within reason of course, people who look before they leap. Now let us go back in there and share the joy of Romeo and Juliet."

  ***

  Officer Charles McFadden, who, on his fifth cup of black cof-fee, was watching an Edward G. Robinson/Jimmy Cagney gangster movie on the Late, Late Show, was startled when the telephone rang. It was, according to the clock on the mantel-piece, a few minutes before three A.M.

  He got quickly out of the chair and went to the telephone.

  "Hello?"

  "Who is this?"

  "Who's this?"

  "This is Inspector Wohl. Who's that, McFadden?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Everything under control, McFadden?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Is Officer Payne there?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Put him on, please."

  "He's asleep, Inspector."

  "Then I suppose it will be necessary to wake him up, won't it?"

  "Yes, sir. Sir, is anything wrong?"

  "No. Not at all. The world, Officer McFadden, is getting, day by day, in every way, better and better. You might keep that in mind."

  "Yes, sir. Hold on, Inspector. I'll go wake Payne up."

  Officer McFadden had some difficulty in waking Officer Payne. Officer Payne had consumed pitchers of FOP beer like a sponge earlier on. He now smelled like a brewery.

  "Jesus Christ, Matt, wake up! Wohl's on the phone!"

  Officer Payne managed to get into a semireclining position in his bed.

  "What the hell is going on?" he demanded. He looked up at the time projected on the ceiling by the clock Amy had given him. "It's three o'clock in the morning, for Christ's sake!" he protested.

  "Wohl's on the phone."

  "What the hell does he want?"

  "I don't know. He sounds crocked."

  "Jesus!"

  Officer Payne, with some difficulty, finally managed to make it from a semireclining to a fully sitting-up position. Officer McFadden then removed the handset of the newly installed telephone and handed it to him.

  "Yes, sir?" Matt said.

  "Sorry to trouble you at this late hour, Officer Payne," Inspector Wohl said, his syllables sufficiently slurred to remind Officer Payne that Officer McFadden had said, "He sounds crocked."

  "No problem, sir."

  "But I have to have an answer to a certain question that has come up."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Allegations have reached me, Officer Payne, that you have had, on one or more occasions, carnal knowledge of a female to whom you are not joined in lawful marriage."

  What the hell is this all about?

  "Sir?"

  "And that, on the other hand, the lady in question is mar-ried. Not to you, of course."

  Christ, he knows about Helene! And he's crocked! And pissed, otherwise he would not be calling at three o'clock in the morning.

  "Sir?"

  "I am about to ask you a question. I want you to carefully consider your answer before giving it."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Officer Payne, have you been conducting an illicit affair with Mrs. Helene Stillwell?"

  Matt did not reply, because he was absolutely sure that what-ever answer he gave was going to get him up to his ears in the deep shit.

  "You do know the lady? Helene? The beloved wife of our beloved assistant district attorney?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Well, yes or no, Officer Payne? Have you been fucking Farnsworth Stillwell's wife or not?"

  "Yes, sir," Matt confessed.

  "Good boy!" Inspector Wohl said, and hung up.

  ***

  At 5:51 A.M., it was visually pleasant on the 5600 block of Sylvester Street, east of Roosevelt Boulevard not far from Ox-ford Circle. It had snowed, on and off, during the night, and the streets and sidewalks were blanketed in white. Here and there, light came from windows in the row houses as people began their day. Those windows, and the streetlights, seemed to glow as there came the first hint of daylight.

  Physically, it was not quite so pleasant. The reason it had stopped snowing was because the temperature had dropped; it was now twenty-six degrees Fahrenheit, six degrees below freezing. There was a steady northerly wind, powerful enough to move the recently fallen powder snow around.

  Officer Richard Kallanan, of the three-man Special Opera-tions team charged with protecting the residence and person of Mr. Albert J. Monahan, had found the wind and the blowing snow particularly uncomfortable during his turn on foot patrol around the Monahan residence. His ears and nose were per-haps unusually sensitive to cold. He had tried walking his route both ways, passing through the alley from Bridge Street to Sanger Street in a northeast direction, and then down Sylvester in a southwestern path, and the reverse. He could detect no difference in perceived cold.

  It was a cold sonofabitch in the alley, no matter which way he walked, and he was, therefore, understandably pleased when he turned onto Sylvester Street one more time and saw that there were now two substantially identical dark blue Plymouth RPCs at the curb, one house up from Monahan's house.

  Their relief had arrived.

  A couple of minutes early, instead of a couple of minutes late. Thank God!

  Kallanan picked up his pace a little, slapping his gloved hands together as he moved. As he passed the replacement RPC, he waved and glanced in the window. The side windows were covered with ice, and he could not make out any of the faces inside.

  Not that it would have mattered. Kallanan was a relative newcomer to Special Operations, transferred in from the 11th District, where he had spent six of his seven years on the job, and he had not yet had time to make that many new friends.

  He could see enough, however, to notice that two of the guys in the relief car were wearing winter hats, Renfrew of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police hats.

  They 're going to need them.

  When Kallanan reached his RPC, he knocked on the win-dow, and Officer Richard O. Totts, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, turned and reached into the back and opened the door for him. Kallanan glanced at the relief car, and gave its occupants a cheerful farewell wave. The driver, a black guy whose window was clear, waved back. Kallanan got in the backseat and pulled the door closed.

  "Jesus, it's cold out there," he said.

  "I think there's a little coffee left," Officer Duane Jones, who was behind the wheel, said. Totts handed a thermos bottle into the backseat. Kallanan unscrewed the top, which was also the cup, and as Duane Jones got the car moving, he emptied the thermos into it. There was not much coffee left in the ther-mos.

  "Hungry, Kallanan?" Jones asked.

  "What I would like is a cup of hot coffee. With a stiff shot in it. There's nothing in here."

  "I know a place," Totts offered.

  "I'm going to turn in the car first," Jones said. "I hear Pekach is a real sonofabitch if you get caught drinking."

  "Hey, we've been relieved," Kallanan said.

  "We're still in the goddamn car," Jones said. "You can wait."

  At 6:06 A.M., Special Operations Radio Patrol Car W-22 (Radio Call, William Twenty-Two) carrying Officers Rudolph McPhail, Paul Hennis, and John Wilhite turned right off Castor Avenue onto Bridge Street, and then right again on Sylvester
Street.

  "I don't see the car," Officer Wilhite, who was driving, said. "You don't suppose they took off without waiting for us?"

  "Shit, we're only a couple of minutes late," Officer Hennis said.

  "Hey, Monahan's house is all lit up," Officer McPhail said, from the backseat.

  The radio went off:

  "BEEP BEEP BEEP. 5600 block Sylvester Street. Report of shooting and hospital case. Civilian by phone.

  "BEEP BEEP BEEP. 5600 block Sylvester Street. Report of shooting and hospital case. Civilian by phone. "

  "Holy shit!" Officer Hennis said.

  Officer Wilhite picked up the microphone.

  "William Twenty-Two, in on that. On the scene. There is no other car in sight at this location."

  The three of them literally leaped out of the car and ran as fast as they could toward the residence of Albert J. Monahan.

  ***

  "Wohl," Staff Inspector Peter Wohl, his mouth as dry as the Sahara Desert, said into the phone at his bedside.

  "Inspector, this is Lieutenant Farr. We have a report of a shooting and hospital case at Monahan's."

  "What?"

  "We have a report of a shooting and hospital case at Mon-ahan's house."

  "Did they get Monahan?"

  "I think so."

  "On my way. Notify Captains Sabara and Pekach, Lieuten-ant Malone, and Sergeant Washington. Have them meet me there."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And check with the people sitting on Payne. Send a High-way car there, in any event."

  "Yes, sir."

  Wohl hung up without saying anything else, kicked the blan-kets off himself, and got out of bed.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  "Inspector," the Emergency Room physician at Nazareth Hos-pital said, "I don't know why this man died-I suspect he suffered a coronary occlusion, a heart attack-but I am sure that he wasn't shot. Or for that matter, suffered any other kind of a traumatic wound."

  Wohl looked at her in disbelief. She was what he thought of as a pale redhead, as opposed to the more robust, Hungarian variety. She was slight and delicate, with pale blue eyes. Prob-ably, he guessed, the near side of forty.

  "Doctor, we have an eyewitness who said she saw him being shot. His wife. She said she saw the gun, heard a noise, and then saw her husband fall down."

  He received a look of utter contempt.

  The doctor pulled down the green sheet that covered the now naked remains of Albert J. Monahan, leaving only the legs below the knees covered.

  "There is no wound," she said. "Gunshots, as you proba-bly know, make at least entrance wounds. So do knives. Will you take my word that I have carefully examined the body? Or would you like me to turn him over?"

  "What about the head?"

  "I checked the head."

  "Doctor, what about a very small caliber wound? A.22. That's less than a quarter of an inch in diameter?"

  "Closer to a fifth of an inch, actually," the doctor said dryly. "Let me tell you what happened: The cops in the van brought this man in here. They said he had been shot. A superficial examination showed no wound. But-there was time; he was dead on arrival-and though I had no obligation to do so, I checked for a wound. I was thinking.22. We get a lot of them in here. There is no puncture wound of any kind. Sorry."

  "And you think he had a heart attack?"

  "Your guess is as good as mine. The autopsy will come up with the answer, I'm sure." She picked up the green sheet. "Seen enough?"

  "Yes, thank you."

  She pulled the sheet up over Albert J. Monahan.

  More than enough. I'm going to remember this one a long time. This one I'm responsible for. The phrase is "dereliction of duty. "

  Jesus H. Christ, what's going on around here?

  A Highway Patrolman pushed open the swinging door.

  "You said to tell you when Washington got here, Inspec-tor."

  "Thank you, Doctor," Wohl said.

  She responded with a just perceptible nod of her head.

  When he stepped into the corridor he saw Jason Washington walking down it toward him, and Tony Harris turning off into a side corridor.

  "What's he doing here?" Wohl snapped.

  "He's going to talk to the widow," Washington said evenly. "He knows the hospital priest. The chapel is down that way. Or do you mean, 'what's he doing here'? The answer to which is that until I hear differently from you, he works for me. I am under the assumption that means I say where and when."

  "I'm sorry," Wohl said after a moment. "I'm on edge. I picked last night to tie one on."

  "You look like hell," Washington said.

  "I have just been informed that there are no puncture wounds in the body-"

  "There have to be," Washington interrupted him.

  "-the doctor says she thinks he probably had a heart at-tack."

  "Wilhite told me that Mrs. Monahan told him she saw him being shot. By a cop."

  "He's one of those who came on duty?"

  Washington nodded.

  "Where is he, where are they, all of them, the three going off duty, now?

  "At Bustleton and Bowler."

  "I want them separated," Wohl said.

  "Sergeant Carter was on the scene. I told him to keep the two groups-the three going off and the three coming on- apart. Or do you mean separated from each other?"

  "I would be happier with separated from each other, but I suppose it's too late for that now.

  "You think they really had something to do with this?"

  "I honest to God don't know what to think. But something, goddammit, went wrong."

  "Well, let's go get you a fried egg sandwich."

  "What?"

  "You need something in your stomach. Besides black cof-fee. The only food, in my experience, that hospital cafeterias can't screw up is a fried egg sandwich."

  "I'll eat later."

  "I told Tony to come to the cafeteria after he's talked to Mrs. Monahan. Before I go charging off anywhere, I want to hear what Tony says."

  Wohl looked at him.

  "Peter, come on. What you have to do is calm down."

  "Okay," Wohl said after a moment. "You're probably right."

  "A little Sen-Sen might be in order too," Washington said. "And I hope you have an electric razor in your car."

  "That bad, huh?"

  "What was the occasion?

  "Stillwell got me alone at Dave Pekach's-Martha Pee-bles's-house. There was a little party. They're going to get married. Anyway, he told me that he's getting appointed a state assistant DA. He offered me a job as his chief investigator."

  "You've lost me somewhere," Washington said as they en-tered the cafeteria. "Go find a table. I'll get it."

  Wohl sat down at a table, then spotted a soft drink machine. He went to it and deposited coins and got a can of 7-Up, which he drank down quickly. The cold produced a sharp pain in his sinus.

  He remembered, as he pressed his fingers against his fore-head, the telephone call he had made to Matt Payne sometime during the evening.

  "Oh, shit!" he said aloud.

  He deposited more coins and carried a second can of 7-Up back to the table.

  Washington appeared carrying a tray with two mugs of cof-fee and four fried egg sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper on it.

  Wohl took one. When the waxed paper was open his mouth salivated.

  Jesus Christ, of all the times to tie one on!

  "What, if anything, I think I have to ask, has been done about notifying anybody else?" Washington asked. "Specifi-cally, the commissioner?"

  "Mike Sabara called Lowenstein and Coughlin. I told him to ask Lowenstein to notify the commissioner, and I told him to tell both of them that I am trying to find out what the hell happened."

  "Then you're not in as bad shape as you look," Washington said.

  "Oh, yes, I am," Wohl said.