The Investigators

by W. E. B Griffin

  “What did you do to your face, Calhoun?” Assistant District Attorney Anton C. Phebus asked.

  Calhoun touched his face gingerly. Under three days’ growth of beard on his right cheek was an angry red bruise.

  “There was this guy, six feet six, one of them Zulus,” Calhoun said. “Skinny as a rail. I don’t think he weighed 130 pounds,” Officer Calhoun explained. “I started to put cuffs on him, got one on him, and then he decided he didn’t want to be arrested . . .”

  He mimed the action, spilling a little beer in the process, of someone suddenly spreading his arms to avoid being handcuffed.

  “. . . and the loose cuff got me,” he finished.

  “And what did you do to him?” Phebus asked, chuckling.

  “He’s gonna sing soprano for a while. You wouldn’t believe how strong that skinny fucker was!”

  “Maybe he was on something,” Phebus suggested.

  “Maybe,” Calhoun said, considering this. “But I don’t think so. He was just strong, is all. And he took me by surprise.”

  “Aside from that,” Phebus chuckled, “how was the arrest?”

  “Zip,” Coogan offered.

  “Zip?” Phebus asked, surprised, and then looked at Calhoun. “Zip, like in zero?”

  “You told me to think, I thought,” Calhoun said. “What they had wasn’t worth the risk.”

  “Good boy,” Phebus said. “There’s always another day.”

  “So you keep saying,” Calhoun said.

  Phebus looked as if he intended to reply, but changed his mind.

  “Two things,” he said. “They’re going to let me prosecute Leslie, which means I can get—”

  “Who’s Leslie?” Coogan interrupted.

  “The junkie shit who popped Kellog,” Calhoun furnished, contemptuously.

  “Sorry,” Coogan said, flushing, aware he had just said something stupid.

  “Which means,” Phebus went on, “that I can finally get to listen to what’s on Kellog’s fucking tapes.”

  “There’s probably nothing on them,” Calhoun said. “Kellog wasn’t stupid.”

  “He was covering his ass,” Phebus said. “Which means he was scared. People who are scared do stupid things.”

  “Where are the tapes now?” Coogan asked.

  “We have them,” Phebus said. “But I just couldn’t go to the evidence room and ask for them. Before. Now that I’m prosecuting Leslie, I’ll be expected to look at them, listen to them.”

  Coogan nodded, then said, “You said ‘two things.’ ”

  Phebus did not reply directly. He looked at Calhoun and asked, “Calhoun, you planning to go to Harrisburg anytime soon?”

  “Should I?”

  “Get the wife and kid out of the city, why don’t you? Get them a little fresh air out in the country. See your wife’s family.”

  “Right.”>

  “What’s going to happen to Leslie?” Coogan asked.

  “Probably, I can get him convicted of first-degree murder. He’s going away for a while.”

  “Christ, we ought to give him a medal. He done us a favor,” Coogan said.

  “Like what?” Phebus asked sarcastically. “Calling all the attention he did to the Five Squad? Letting people listen to those tapes?”

  “Kellog won’t be making any more tapes,” Coogan said. “Will he?”

  “Who else is going to listen to those tapes?” Calhoun asked.

  “Nobody now, I don’t think. Special Operations made copies of them when they were looking for Kellog’s shooter.”

  “You don’t think they got anything off them, do you?” Calhoun asked.

  “Good question. I don’t know.”

  “We just saw one of those hotshots,” Calhoun said. “At the Roundhouse. The one that shot the serial rapist.”

  “Payne?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What was he doing?”

  “Beats the shit out of me. He was in the Roundhouse parking lot. I seen him twice, once when I went into Central Lockup and when I come out.”

  “He’s Inspector Wohl’s errand boy,” Phebus said. “There’s no telling what he could have been doing.”

  “Maybe he’s listening to Kellog’s tapes. Maybe he’s already listened to Kellog’s tapes. Maybe that son of a bitch Kellog said my name on those tapes. Maybe he was watching me,” Calhoun said.

  “Jesus Christ, just when I think you’re getting some smarts,” Phebus said, “you start bouncing off the walls. If Special Operations was taking a close look at Five Squad, the word would be out.”

  “And what if we do hear some word like that?”

  “Then we shut down. As simple as that. If we don’t do something stupid here, or something stupid in Harrisburg, there’s nothing for Special Operations, Internal Affairs, this new thing—what the fuck do they call it? ‘Ethical Affairs’—or anybody else to find.”

  Calhoun didn’t reply.

  “If Prasko hadn’t made that stupid telephone call to Kellog’s widow, Calhoun,” Phebus went on, “Special Operations wouldn’t have been in on this at all. That beat cop would have caught Leslie the way he did, and that would have been the end of it. Nobody would have given a shit what might be on those tapes. Frankly, you and Prasko worry me more than Kellog ever did.”

  “It’s a shame they wasn’t both at home when that asshole picked the wrong house to rob,” Calhoun said. “Then Prasko wouldn’t have had to call to protect all our asses.”

  “What Prasko did was threaten her life,” Phebus said coldly. “He didn’t—”

  “He told her to keep her mouth shut about what she knew, or thought she knew, about us. What’s so wrong about that?”

  “Prasko knew Kellog’s wife was shacked up with a homicide detective. And he should have known the minute he made a threatening call, she was going to tell her boyfriend, the homicide detective, about it. That was fucking stupid!”

  Calhoun looked at him a moment and then shrugged, granting the point.

  “Let me worry about protecting our asses,” Phebus said. “You stay off the fucking telephone!”

  “Watch it,” Calhoun said, nodding his head toward the door.

  Sergeant Patrick J. Dolan of the Narcotics Unit had entered Allgood’s Bar.

  He walked directly to their table.

  “What do you know good, Tony?” he said to Phebus. “What are you doing in here? Homesick for Narcotics?”

  “How are you, Pat?” Phebus said, offering him his hand.

  “Say hello to Gladys for me,” Dolan said.

  “I’ll do that.”

  Dolan turned to Coogan and Calhoun.

  “You two are supposed to do the paper before you start bending your elbows,” Dolan said.

  “Give us a break, Sergeant,” Calhoun said.

  “Break, my ass. Finish your beer and come across the street.”

  “Right,” Calhoun said.

  “See you around, Tony,” Calhoun said as he got to his feet.

  Sergeant Dolan walked to the door, waited there until Coogan had finished his beer, then led Coogan and Calhoun across Hunting Park Avenue and into the Narcotics Unit.

  NINE

  Special Agent Jack Matthews, who had been sitting in one of the two armchairs in the outer office of SAC Walter Davis, got to his feet when Davis walked in, in the process of taking off his topcoat.

  Davis believed that an important key to leadership was to have one’s subordinates believe that you were concerned about them, and that a splendid way to do this was, under certain circumstances, to address them by their Christian and/or nicknames.

  Yesterday, he could not have told you this nice young man’s first name if his life depended on it. He remembered it now, most likely because of his late-afternoon conversation with him vis-à-vis the recruitment of Detective Payne of the Philadelphia Police Department.

  “Good morning, Jack,” Davis said with a smile.

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “You’re waiting to
see me, Jack?” Davis asked, now just a shade annoyed. He had told Matthews to let him know what happened, but he hadn’t really requested a first-thing-in-the-morning report, before he’d even had a chance to have a cup of coffee.

  “If you can spare me a few minutes, sir.”

  “A few, Jack,” Davis said, waving at him to indicate he had his permission to follow him into his office.

  Davis went behind his desk, took a quick glance at his In basket to see if anything interesting had come in overnight, then glanced up at Matthews.

  “Have a seat, Jack,” he said. “Tell me, how did it go?”

  “Well, sir, Payne doesn’t seem to be very interested in joining the Bureau. But . . .”

  “If at first you don’t succeed, et cetera. What exactly did he say?”

  Matthews smiled uneasily.

  “I don’t think you want to know, sir,” he said.

  “Of course I want to know. What exactly did he say, Jack?”

  “He said that some of his best friends are FBI agents, but he wouldn’t want his sister to marry one.”

  My God, what an insulting, outrageous thing to say! With obvious racial overtones!

  “That remark, Matthews, was in particularly poor taste, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Sir, the way he said it . . . sort of took the bite out of it. But . . .”

  “Well, perhaps it’s a good thing this attitude of his came out so soon. There is no room in the Bureau for racial prejudice, Matthews, no room for a racist.”

  “Sir, Payne isn’t a racist. I know that.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well, I know him, sir. And he’s very close to a sergeant named Jason Washington. . . .”

  “I know Washington. Unless I’m wrong, he’s Payne’s supervisor.”

  “Yes, sir, he is. But Payne is also very close to Officer Lewis, who is also black.”

  “I believe the preferred term is ‘African American,’ Matthews,” Davis said. “And I am personally acquainted with an African American lieutenant named Lewis, who told me his son is also a policeman. Would that, do you think, be the Officer Lewis with whom Payne is so friendly?”

  “Yes, sir. Lewis’s father is a lieutenant.”

  “Well, there, under those circumstances, I don’t think we can be assured that Detective Payne is color-blind, can we?” Davis said.

  Matt, you really pissed the old fart off with that crack.

  “Sir, with respect, I cannot agree that Payne is any way a bigot,” Matthews said.

  Davis glowered at him for a moment.

  “Did he offer any explanation for his contempt for the FBI?”

  “I don’t think he holds us in contempt, sir—”

  “That’s what it sounds like to me!”

  “Sir, that’s really why I came to see you first thing.”

  “What is?”

  “Sir, Payne told me he had had an unpleasant encounter with two special agents. Two days ago.”

  “An ‘unpleasant encounter’? What sort of an ‘unpleas ant encounter’? Who were the agents?”

  “Payne told me their names were Leibowitz and Jernigan.”

  “I don’t have anybody with those names.”

  “Yes, sir, I know.”

  “Payne must be mistaken. We don’t have agents by those names, and if any of our people were going to be dealing with a Philadelphia police department officer, I would know about it. That’s standard operating procedure.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Possibly, your friend Payne had this ‘unpleasant encounter’ with some other federal officer. A postal inspector, a Secret Service agent.”

  “Sir, Payne insists he saw FBI credentials.”

  “What was the nature of this ‘unpleasant encounter’? Did he say?”

  “Yes, sir. He said the agents were investigating a kidnapping that didn’t happen.”

  “A kidnapping?”

  “Yes, sir. Payne said that there was no kidnapping.”

  “Was there or wasn’t there?”

  “Payne said the FBI agents believed there was a kidnapping; he knew for sure there was not.”

  “Do you think your friend Payne was pulling your leg, Matthews? He has a strange sense of humor.”

  “No, sir. I feel sure he wasn’t.”

  “But there are no agents with those names.”

  “Not here, sir. I was going to ask for permission to check with the Bureau—”

  “Do that right now,” Davis ordered, pointing to one of his telephones. “Call the Bureau, tell them you’re calling for me, and see if there are agents with those names.”

  “Yes, sir,” Matthews said, and picked up the handset.

  “There are several possibilities,” Davis went on. “One, that your friend is pulling your leg. Two, that someone is in possession of fraudulent credentials, which is a felony, you know. Three, that these people are legitimate FBI agents of another jurisdiction, operating in our area of responsibility—”

  “Sir,” Matthews interrupted him. “I checked that with ASAC Williamson. Neither of those names is familiar to him.”

  Glenn Williamson, a well-dressed man of forty-two, who took especial pains with his full head of silver-gray hair, was the Philadelphia FBI office’s assistant special agent in charge for administration. As such, he would be aware not only of the names of every FBI agent assigned to Philadelphia, but of the names of FBI agents assigned to other offices who might be working temporarily in Philadelphia’s area.

  “—without checking in with Williamson. I won’t have that, Matthews. That’s a clear violation of standard operating procedure, having other people’s agents running around like loose cannons in your area of responsibility.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Two minutes later, Special Agent Matthews was informed that the FBI agents he was asking about were more than likely Howard C. Jernigan and Raymond Leibowitz.

  “They’re with the Anti-Terrorist Group, working out of the Bureau. But they go all over, of course,” he was told.

  “Thank you very much,” Matthews said. “We may have to get back to you.”

  “Well?” Davis asked.

  “According to the Bureau, sir, there are agents named Jernigan and Leibowitz. They’re assigned to the Anti-Terrorist Group working out of headquarters.”

  “What?” Davis exclaimed, but before Matthews could repeat what he had told him, he picked up his telephone and issued an order to his secretary: “Helen, would you please ask Mr. Towne, Mr. Williamson, and Mr. Young to come in here immediately?”

  He put the telephone back in its cradle and looked at Matthews.

  “There is very probably a very reasonable explanation for all of this, Matthews,” he said. “Which we shall probably soon have.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “When this meeting is over, I want an official report of your meeting with Detective Payne. If what I suspect has happened is what has happened, I’m going to the assistant director with this, and I want everything in writing.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good morning,” Amelia Payne, M.D., said as she entered Cynthia Longwood’s room.

  “What’s good about it?” Cynthia replied, tempering it with a smile.

  “I’ve been wondering the same thing. It’s still raining and I didn’t get enough sleep. When I was in medical school, and an intern, they told us when we entered practice, we could expect to get some sleep. They lied.”

  “When were you an intern? Last year?”

  “I will take that as a compliment. I don’t look old enough to have been a doctor very long?”

  “Not even in your doctor suit,” Cynthia said, making reference to the stethoscope hanging around Amy’s neck and her crisp white smock, onto which was pinned a plastic badge reading, “A. A. Payne, M.D.”

  “When I finish here, I’m going to make what they call rounds. We take medical students with us. I wear my doctor suit so that the visiting firemen don’t mistake me for o
ne of them.”

  “Visiting firemen?”

  “Visiting distinguished practitioners of the healing arts,” Amy said. “Who, when I offer an opinion, take one look at me and decide I couldn’t possibly be an adjunct professor of psychiatry, and therefore are dealing with an uppity young female who doesn’t know her place.”

  Cynthia giggled.

  “You don’t look old enough to be a doctor, much less a professor.”

  “I’m getting perilously close to thirty,” Amy said. “I got my M.D. at twenty-two.”

  “Twenty-two?” Cynthia asked incredulously. “I thought it took six years after you got out of college to be a doctor.”

  “When I got my M.D., I already had a Ph.D.,” Amy said. “I was what you could call precocious.”

  “You’re a genius?”

  “So they tell me.”

  “I’m impressed,” Cynthia said.

  “On one hand, that’s good,” Amy said. “I’m smart and I am a good doctor. Statement of fact. Keep that in mind when you get annoyed with me.”

  “Am I going to be annoyed with you?”

  “If you extend my temporary appointment as your physician, if you want me to try to help you, we can count on that happening sooner or later.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because what we’re going to have to do is get your problem out in the open, and you’re not going to like that.”

  Cynthia considered that.

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “It’s your call, Cynthia. First, you’re going to have to face the fact that something happened in your life that’s made you ill. Next, that you can’t deal with it yourself and need help. And finally, whether or not you really believe that Amy Payne—Dr. Amy Payne—can help you.”

  “When do I have to decide?”

  “First answer that will annoy you: right now. Putting off decisions is something you can’t do. That sort of thing feeds on itself.”

  Cynthia considered that for fifteen seconds.

  “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

  “Okay,” Amy said. “Your mother and father are outside.”

  “Oh, God!”

  “I called her last night and asked her to bring you some clothes, your makeup, et cetera. You’re going to have to deal with them. You don’t have to tell them anything that makes you uncomfortable—tell them I said that, if you like—but I think it would help them, and you, if you told them you think I can help.”