The Investigators

by W. E. B Griffin

  “The entire Five Squad? That’s interesting. And so is ‘misprision.’ And what inference, if any, should I draw from ‘right now’?”

  “One of the charges that may be placed against one of these officers is rape,” Coughlin said.

  “ ‘May be placed’? Was there a rape? Can you prove it?”

  “There was a rape. An oral rape. We have a witness to the rape.”

  “ ‘May be placed’? I don’t understand that.”

  “I understand, Manny, that you took Vincenzo Savarese to Brewster Payne’s office, where Savarese begged Brewster to lean on his daughter to treat Savarese’s granddaughter?”

  “What we’re talking about here, Denny, is the Narcotics Five Squad,” Giacomo said. “Not Vincenzo Savarese.”

  “Shortly after Dr. Payne took Cynthia Longwood under her care,” Coughlin went on, “a message was left for her at University Hospital—”

  “I’m really disappointed in Dr. Payne. And/or Brewster Payne. If what you say is true, then either Payne told his son—which is the same thing as telling the police—or Dr. Payne clearly violated patient-physician—”

  “Let me finish, Manny,” Coughlin said.

  “I’m about to say, Chief Coughlin, that we are back on the record.”

  “Give me another ninety seconds on that, Manny, please.”

  Giacomo considered that.

  “Ninety seconds, no. We’re still off the record. We go back on at my option.”

  “Thank you,” Coughlin said.

  Coughlin reached in his pocket and took out a sheet of paper and read from it, slowly:

  “ ‘Miss Cynthia Longwood was stripped naked and orally raped, by a policeman under circumstances that were themselves traumatic.’ ”

  “Jesus!” Manny Giacomo said, and was immediately furious with himself for letting his surprise show.

  “Dr. Payne believes that having suffered a traumatic experience like that is consistent with Miss Longwood’s condition, which is, in Dr. Payne’s opinion, very close to serious schizophrenia. I’m not too good with medical terms, Manny, but what Amy means is that if the girl gets that far, she won’t come back soon, or at all.”

  “You’re saying that one of the Five Squad narcs did this to her?”

  “Yes, I am. And does Savarese know? He knows. He doesn’t have the name of the cop yet.”

  “Aren’t you presuming a lot, Denny? How do you know Savarese knows?”

  “We know that Joey Fiorello hired a private investigator—a retired detective—to see who the girl’s boyfriend was. His name is Ronald R. Ketcham. The retired detective told Fiorello that Ketcham wasn’t quite the respectable stockbroker he’s supposed to be; that he’s into selling drugs. He also told Fiorello that it was logical to presume that Ketcham’s girlfriend was also into ‘recreational’ drugs.

  “Shortly after that happened, Ketcham was snatched from the garage of his apartment. They took him to a deserted NIKE site in South Philadelphia, took his clothes away from him, and left him there in the dark overnight. The next day, they came back and asked him questions. He had no idea he was keeping company with Savarese’s granddaughter. He thought that the people who had snatched him were in the drug business.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re telling me.”

  “Last Thursday night, Ketcham went to the Howard Johnson motel on Roosevelt Boulevard to do a drug deal with a guy named Amos Williams. He had Savarese’s granddaughter with him. The Five Squad was apparently onto both of them. They busted Williams, and the people he had with him. One of the cops went into Ketcham’s room, stole twenty thousand dollars from him, handcuffed him to the toilet, and raped Savarese’s granddaughter.”

  “You can prove all that, I suppose?”

  Coughlin ignored the question.

  “Ketcham told Savarese’s thugs what happened. His assumption was that Williams thought he had given Williams to the Five Squad, and that Williams had sent the people to snatch him. You with me?”

  “I don’t know, keep talking.”

  “So Savarese left Ketcham in the NIKE site . . .”

  That I don’t believe. If Savarese thought this guy was responsible for his granddaughter getting raped—or just for getting her on “recreational” drugs—he just wouldn’t walk away and leave it at that.

  But the rest of this is probably true. Savarese wanted me to get an investigator for him. Jesus Christ, I’m glad I didn’t do that!

  “. . . and told Joey Fiorello to have the private investigator find out what cops were at the Howard Johnson motel when they busted Amos Williams. They gave the guy a bullshit story why they wanted to know, and the guy went to Mike Sabara and told him he smelled something fishy.”

  “How did you know that person or persons unknown had left the boyfriend in the NIKE site?”

  “We’re still off the record, right, Manny?”

  “I’ll tell you when we go back on.”

  “Amy Payne called Peter Wohl and told him about the message at the hospital. Peter brought it to me. I put out a Locate, Do Not Detain on Ketcham. Danny the Judge read it. When a South detective went to Justice and told him he had found a guy named Ketcham wearing only an overcoat locked up in the NIKE site, Danny called me.”

  “That’s why everything is going on here?”

  Coughlin nodded.

  “You don’t have any authority in one of those sites, you know. They’re federal property.”

  Coughlin ignored that.

  “Ketcham positively identified one of the Five Squad as the guy who raped the granddaughter, and gave us a sworn statement to the effect. Plus, that the same guy had stolen twenty thousand dollars from him.”

  “I wonder how convincing a witness Mr. Ketcham would be,” Giacomo said.

  “I went to Hanging Harriet McCandless—Tony Callis did—and got her to overturn the magistrate’s decision to grant bail to Amos Williams and one of his thugs, a scumbag named Baby Brownlee. Jason Washington got them to give statements saying they had more cocaine at the time of their arrest than Five Squad turned in as evidence, and more cash, and in the case of Brownlee, a gold Rolex that until a couple of hours ago seemed to have disappeared.”

  “Same question, Denny. I wonder what sort of witnesses Mr. Williams and Mr. Brownlee would make against fine police officers? Frankly, I would be prone to ask them, several times, so the jury would be sure to hear their answer, whether the police or the district attorney had offered them anything—like immunity from prosecution—in exchange for their agreeing to say these terrible things about these fine police officers.”

  “Baby Brownlee’s gold Rolex showed up this morning in a safe-deposit box in Harrisburg, the only key to which was in the hands of another fine pure-as-the-driven-snow police officer assigned to the Narcotics Unit’s Five Squad. And there was some fifty thousand-plus in cash in the same box.”

  “I presume you think you can prove the watch in question is actually Mr. Brownlee’s?”

  “He bought it at Bailey, Banks and Biddle. They made a record of the serial number.”

  “Very interesting story, Denny. Is that all of it?”

  “Not quite,” Coughlin said. “I had breakfast with Savarese this morning.”

  “Did you really?”

  “I told him that we didn’t want to subject his granddaughter to the humiliation of having to testify against her rapist, and that what we proposed to do was have him plead guilty to enough charges of violating the civil rights—”

  “Violating somebody’s civil rights? Whose civil rights?” Giacomo interrupted.

  “Williams’s and Brownlee’s, for sure. Probably some others. We picked up everybody they arrested within the last ten days when their bail was revoked, and reinterviewed them. We’re prepared to go further back, if necessary.”

  “Why would you believe that an attorney would recommend that this guy cop a plea like that? It seems to me that, in this case, there is very little chance that the victim would ever testify
against him.”

  “Savarese put it another way,” Coughlin said. “He said he didn’t think there could be a trial if there was no one around alive to try.”

  “He has a point,” Giacomo said. “You didn’t think that simple observation about life in general could in any way be construed as a threat against anyone, did you?”

  “Manny, he as much as told me he’s going to kill this guy just as soon as he finds out who he is.”

  “Not in so many words, right?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  “If Mr. Savarese is, in your opinion, so prepared to cause the unlawful deaths of others, in particular those who have in some way caused harm to members of his family, why do you suppose he didn’t do something dreadful to Mr.—Ketcham, you said?—”

  “Ronald R. Ketcham,” Coughlin furnished.

  “—when he had the opportunity?”

  “Peter Wohl thinks Savarese wanted him to starve to death,” Coughlin said.

  My God, that’s probably exactly what Savarese intended to do.

  “What do you want from me, Denny?”

  “I want—what the hell, you’d have his name in a couple of minutes anyway—Officer Herbert Prasko to roll over on the Five Squad. In exchange for which, he’ll get a twenty-year plea bargain, which means probably seven years in a federal prison.”

  “Why should I encourage him to do that?”

  “Because otherwise you know that Savarese will have him killed.”

  “I know nothing of the kind!”

  Who do I think I’m fooling?

  “Come on, Manny!” Coughlin said.

  “You’ve got the deal lined up?”

  “The U.S. Attorney has been very helpful.”

  “Why?”>

  “Because—I’m guessing—he thinks he’d have a hard time convicting Savarese on an unlawful-abduction charge. And maybe because he thinks he’ll look good in Washington if he put a local cop away on a civil rights charge. And the FBI will get the credit for uncovering that travesty of justice.”

  “Very interesting,” Giacomo said.

  “That’s it, Manny,” Coughlin said.

  The two men looked at each other. First Coughlin shrugged, and then Giacomo.

  “Let’s go back on the record, Counselor,” Coughlin said

  Giacomo shrugged again.

  “I presume, Mr. Giacomo,” Coughlin said, “that you are here to represent one or more of the police officers we arrested last night and this morning on charges of misprision in office?”

  “That’s right, Chief Coughlin.”

  “I advise you herewith that I am about to arrest one of those officers, specifically Officer Herbert J. Prasko, Badge Number 5292, on additional charges.”

  “What would those charges be?”

  “That Officer Prasko, at gunpoint, stole twenty thousand dollars, more or less, from Mr. Ronald R. Ketcham, of Philadelphia, who then occupied Room 138 at the Howard Johnson motel on Roosevelt Boulevard in this city, such acts constituting armed robbery in the first degree.”

  “Anything else, Chief Coughlin?”

  “That Officer Prasko, in Room 138 of the Howard Johnson motel on Roosevelt Boulevard in this city, forced Miss Cynthia Longwood, of Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, by threatening her life, to disrobe, and thereafter did force Miss Longwood to take his penis into her mouth, where he therein ejaculated, such acts constituting Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse.”

  They looked at each other.

  “Do I understand, Mr. Giacomo, that you are representing Officer Prasko?”

  “I am willing to represent Officer Prasko if that is his desire. I have not yet had the chance to confer with Officer Prasko.”

  “I will take you to him now, Counselor,” Coughlin said.

  He pushed himself out of the armchair, walked to the door, and opened it.

  “Where’s Prasko, Danny?”

  “In the interview room, upstairs,” Danny said.

  Coughlin waved Giacomo ahead of him toward the stairs that led up to South Detectives.

  Officer Prasko, who was handcuffed to the metal chair in the interview room, smiled when he saw Armando Giacomo come into the room.

  “Boy, am I glad to see you, Mr. Giacomo,” he said.

  “Officer Prasko, I am Chief Inspector Coughlin,” Coughlin said. “I am placing you under arrest for armed robbery and rape.”

  “What?”

  “Before we go any further, Officer Prasko, this is Mr. Armando C. Giacomo, who is an attorney, and who has been sent by the Fraternal Order of Police to render such assistance to you as may be mutually agreeable.”

  “I know Mr. Giacomo,” Officer Prasko said.

  “Chief, may I have a minute alone with Officer Prasko?” Giacomo asked.

  “Certainly,” Coughlin said.

  He walked to the door.

  “Chief Coughlin!” Giacomo called. Coughlin turned.

  Very discreetly, Manny Giacomo indicated the one-way mirror on the wall, and shook his head, “no.”

  “When we’re through, I’ll knock at the door,” Giacomo said.

  Denny Coughlin, very discreetly, signaled—by holding his balled fist, thumb extended upward, at waist level—that he understood Mr. Giacomo did not wish anyone looking into the room through the one-way mirror, and that he agreed to grant the wish.

  Coughlin closed the door to the interview room and walked into the adjacent room. Captain David Pekach, Sergeant Jason Washington, and Detective Tony Harris were sitting on chairs looking through the mirror.

  “Out,” Coughlin ordered.

  Captains, sergeants, and detectives do not question the orders of chief inspectors.

  They left the room.

  “I’m a little disappointed to see Giacomo,” Captain Pekach said. “I thought even he drew a line someplace.”

  “Would you like me to represent you on the charges that have been laid against you, Officer Prasko?” Giacomo asked.

  “Yes, sir. Very much. Thank you.”

  “You understand that we now have an attorney-client privilege? Everything that you tell me in confidence will not go any further than me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very well. Just a quick answer. We can get into details later. What about the original charge? Essentially that you diverted evidence to your personal use?”

  “That’s bullshit, Mr. Giacomo. What that is is a couple of nigger drug dealers trying to take me down, take the whole Five Squad down.”

  “And the second charge, that you robbed a man of twenty thousand dollars at gunpoint?”

  “I don’t know what the hell that’s all about.”

  “And the rape?”

  “Jesus, I’m a married man, Mr. Giacomo.”

  “Now, listen to me carefully, Officer Prasko,” Giacomo said. “I’m a pretty good attorney, and with just a little luck, I could probably convince a jury that what you are is an honest cop with a good record.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And that the allegations made by the drug dealers—who would believe a drug dealer against someone like yourself?—were simply an attempt by them to get back at you for arresting them.”

  “That’s what it is, Mr. Giacomo.”

  “Even though the police have in their possession the gold Rolex one of your crooked pals stole from Baby Brownlee.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Let me talk,” Giacomo said reasonably. “Please don’t interrupt my chain of thought.”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry.”

  “I could probably even manage to convince a jury—especially after we marched all your character witnesses to the stand—your parish priest would stand up for you, wouldn’t he, Officer Prasko?”

  “Absolutely. I’m sure Father—”

  Giacomo held up his hand to silence him.

  “I could probably convince a jury that Mr. Ketcham was doing the same thing the drug dealers were doing. I mean, after all, what’s the difference between them excep
t the color of their skin, right?”

  “Ketcham is the man they say I stole money from?”

  “Yes, he is. They say you stole twenty thousand dollars from him. So does he. He also says you handcuffed him to the toilet in his motel room and then raped his girlfriend.”

  “That’s absolute bullshit!”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about that. I’m sure I could convince a jury that an outstanding police officer such as yourself isn’t capable of committing the crimes the police say you did.”

  “That’s a weight off my shoulders to hear you say that, Mr. Giacomo.”

  “What you have to worry about, you despicable asshole, is what Vincenzo Savarese is going to do to you.”

  “Huh?”

  “The girl you made suck your cock, you contemptible pervert, is Vincenzo Savarese’s granddaughter. The only reason you’re alive at this moment is that the cops got lucky and got to you before Savarese did.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Giacomo.”

  “You stupid piece of shit!” Giacomo, his face red with fury and disgust, shouted. “You’re not even smart enough to know when to stop lying, are you?”

  Armando C. Giacomo stormed out of the interview room, slamming the door behind him.

  He walked directly to the Coke machine against the wall and fed it some money.

  Coughlin walked over to him.

  “That was quick,” Coughlin said.

  “I’m very good, Denny. You know that. I presume you have a stenographer on call?”

  “Over there, reading the Daily News,” Coughlin said, nodding toward a middle-aged Latin woman sitting in a chair.

  “I’m going to give that piece of slime a couple of minutes to ruminate on what his alternatives are, and then I will go in and offer him your deal. I would be very surprised if he declined it.”

  “Thank you, Manny.”

  “Between you, me, and the Coke machine, Denny, it posed a problem of personal morality for me.”

  “How’s that?”

  “My personal inclination was to get him off—and I really think I could have—and then let Vincenzo . . . what would almost certainly have transpired, transpire. Six years in a federal country club doesn’t strike me as a fair payback for what he did to that girl. I know her.”