Badge of Honour 06 - The Murderers (18 page)

The long, curving drive to the turn-of-the-century Peebles mansion was lined with parked cars, and there a cluster of chauffeurs gathered around a dozen limousines—including three Rolls Royces, Jerry Carlucci noticed—parked near the mansion itself.

If is wasn’t for what’s going to be on the front page of every newspaper in town tomorrow
, the Mayor thought,
tonight would be a real opportunity. Now all I can hope for is to minimize the damage, keep these people from wondering whether they’re betting on the wrong horse
.

There was a man in a dinner jacket collecting invitations just outside the door. He didn’t ask for the Mayor’s, confirming the Mayor’s suspicion that he looked familiar, and was probably a retired police officer, now working as a rent-a-cop for Wachenhut Security, or something like that.

The reception line consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Brewster Cortland Payne II, Miss Martha Peebles, and Mr.—Captain—David Pekach.

“Mrs. Carlucci, Mr. Mayor,” Payne said. “How nice to see you.”

Payne and Pekach were wearing dinner jackets.

Probably most everybody here will be wearing a monkey suit but me
, the Mayor thought.
But it couldn’t be helped. I couldn’t have shown up at Tony Cannatello’s viewing wearing a monkey suit and looking like I was headed right from the funeral home to a fancy party
.

“We’re happy to be here, Mr. Payne.”

“You know my wife, don’t you? And Miss Peebles?”

“How are you, Angeline?” Mrs. Patricia Payne said. “I like your dress.”

Patricia Payne and Martha Peebles were dressed similarly, in black, off-the-shoulder cocktail dresses. The Peebles woman had a double string of large pearls reaching to the valley of her breasts, and Mrs. Payne a single strand of pearls.

Nice chest
, the Mayor thought, vis-à-vis Miss Peebles.
Nice-looking woman. She’d be a real catch for Dave Pekach even without all that money
.

And then, slightly piqued:
Yeah, of course I know your wife. I’ve known her longer than you have. I carried her first husband’s casket out of St. Dominic’s when we buried him. And as long as we’ve known each other, isn’t it about time you started calling me “Jerry”?

“How is it, Patricia,” Angeline Carlucci spoke truthfully, “that you still look like a girl?”

The Mayor had a sudden clear mental image of the white, grief-stricken face of the young widow of Sergeant John X. Moffitt, blown away by a scumbag when answering a silent alarm at a gas station, as they lowered his casket into the ground in St. Dominic’s cemetery.

A long time ago. Twenty-five years ago. I was Captain of Highway when Jack Moffitt got killed
.

Angie’s right. She does look good. Real good. She’s a Main Line lady now, a long way from being a cop’s widow living with her family off Roosevelt Boulevard
.

“I’m so glad you could come,” Martha Peebles said to Angeline Carlucci.

“Oh, Jerry wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” Angeline said.

“No, I wouldn’t,” the Mayor agreed. “Thank you for having us, Miss Peebles.”

“Oh, Martha, please,” she said as she took his hand.

Then the Mayor put his hand out to Captain Pekach.

“Don’t you look spiffy, Dave,” he said.

“Mr. Mayor.”

“There’s a rumor going around that some unfortunate girl who doesn’t know what she’s getting into has agreed to marry you. Anything to it?”

Martha Peebles giggled. Dave Pekach looked at her and smiled uneasily at the Mayor but didn’t reply.

A waiter in a white jacket stood at the end of the reception line holding a tray of champagne glasses. Angeline took one. The waiter, seeing the indecision on the Mayor’s face, said, “There is a bar in the sitting room to your left, Mr. Mayor.”

“A little champagne will do just fine,” the Mayor said, and took a glass. “But thank you.”

Chiefs Coughlin, Lowenstein, and Wohl were in business suits. Inspector Wohl and Detective Payne were in monkey suits. Mr. O’Hara was wearing a plaid sports coat of the type worn by the gentlemen who offer suggestions on the wagers one should make at a racetrack.

Not surprising
, the Mayor thought.
Dave Pekach works for Peter Wohl, and Peter would have probably rented a monkey suit for this if he didn’t have one, and he probably has his own, because he’s a bachelor, and doesn’t have a family to support and can afford a monkey suit. And Detective Payne not only is also a bachelor with no family to support, but doesn’t have to worry about living on a detective’s pay anyway. His father—what was the way they put it? His
adoptive father,
he adopted him when he married Patty Moffitt—is Brewster Cortland Payne II
.

The Mayor handed Inspector Wohl his champagne glass.

“Get rid of this for me, will you, Mac?” he asked, as if he thought anybody in a monkey suit had to be a waiter. “Get me a weak scotch, and get my friends another round of whatever they’re drinking.”

“Good evening, Mr. Mayor,” Peter Wohl said, as the others laughed.

“My God, my mistake!” the Mayor said in mock horror. “What we have here is a cop in a monkey suit. I would never have recognized him.”

“Two, Jerry,” Chief Wohl said. “Three counting Dave Pekach. The Department’s getting some class.”

As Mayor Carlucci had risen through the ranks of the Police Department he had had Chief Inspector Wohl as his mentor and protector. The phrase used was that “Wohl was Carlucci’s rabbi.” It was said, quietly of course, but quite accurately, that Chief Wohl had not only helped Carlucci’s career prosper, but had on at least two occasions kept it from being terminated.

And Inspector, and then Chief Inspector, and then Deputy Commissioner and ultimately Commissioner Carlucci had been rabbi to Chiefs Coughlin and Lowenstein as they had worked their way up in the hierarchy. Detective Payne, it was universally recognized, had two rabbis, Chief Coughlin and Inspector Wohl.

Payne’s relationship with Wohl was the traditional one. Wohl saw in him a good cop, one who, with guidance and experience, could become a good senior police official. His relationship with Chief Dennis V. Coughlin was something different. Coughlin had been John Francis Xavier Moffitt’s best friend since they had been at the Police Academy. He had been the best man at his wedding, and he had gone to tell Patricia Moffitt, pregnant with Matt, that her husband had been killed. Just about everyone—including Jerry Carlucci—had thought it certain that after a suitable period, the Widow Moffitt would marry her late husband’s best friend. You didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to tell from the way he looked at her, and talked about her, how he felt about her.

Patty Moffitt had instead met Brewster Cortland Payne II, an archetypical Main Line WASP, in whose father’s law firm she had found work as a typist. He had been widowed four months previously when his wife had died in a traffic accident returning from their summer cottage in the Poconos.

Their marriage had enraged both families. Having lost a mate was not considered sufficient cause to marry hastily, and across a vast chasm of social and religious differences. It was generally agreed that the marriage would not, could not, last, and that was the reason many offered for Denny Coughlin never having married: he was still waiting for Patty Moffitt.

The marriage endured. Payne adopted Matthew Mark Moffitt and gave him his name and his love. Denny Coughlin never married. He and Brewster Payne became friends, and he was Uncle Denny to all the Payne children.

The Mayor shook everybody’s hand. A waiter appeared. The Mayor gave him his champagne glass and asked for a weak scotch. Inspector Wohl and Detective Payne both took champagne from the waiter’s tray.

“How ya doing, Mayor?” Mickey O’Hara asked.

“Take a look at this,” the Mayor said as he took a newspaper clipping from his pocket and handed it to O’Hara, “and make a guess.”

O’Hara read the story, then handed it back to the Mayor, who handed it to Chief Wohl.

“You all better read it,” the Mayor said.

Rumors began almost immediately to circulate that an unnamed Homicide Unit detective, who is allegedly involved with Officer Kellog’s estranged wife, is a prime suspect in the killing.

Although a large number of his fellow police officers called to pay their last respects to Officer Kellog at the John F. Fluehr & Sons Funeral Home this afternoon, including more than a dozen middle-ranking police supervisors, none of the police department’s most senior officers were present.

Their absence fueled another rumor, that Officer Kellog was not to be accorded the elaborate funeral rites, sometimes called an “Inspector’s Funeral,” normally given to a police officer killed in the line of duty.

Capt. Robert F. Talley, Commanding Officer of the Narcotics Unit, who made a brief appearance at the funeral home visitation, accompanying Officer Kellog’s widow, refused comment.

Captain Quaire, when asked if the denial to Officer Kellog of an “Inspector’s Funeral” suggested that his death was not in the line of duty, said that as far as he knew, no decision had been made in the matter. He stated that Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernich was the official who authorized, or denied, an official police funeral, and that all questions on the subject should be referred to him.

Commissioner Czernich’s office, when contacted, said the Commissioner was out of the office, and they had no idea when he would be available to answer questions from the press.

Kellog will be buried tomorrow in Lawnview Cemetery, in Rockledge, following funeral services at the Memorial Presbyterian Church of Fox Chase.

Quaire also said that the Homicide Unit was “actively involved” in the investigation of the murders of Mrs. Alicia Atchison and Anthony J. Marcuzzi in a downtown restaurant shortly after midnight last night, but the police as yet have been unable to identify, much less arrest, the two men who were identified by Gerald N. Atchison, Mrs. Atchison’s husband, and the proprietor of the restaurant, as the murderers.

“I don’t care if they go after me,” the Mayor said, “but putting in the paper that his widow has been messing around, that’s pretty goddamned low. Did you hear those rumors?”

O’Hara nodded.

“Did you write about them?” the Mayor asked. “Or feel your readers had the right to know that the widow was carrying on with some cop?”

O’Hara shook his head.

“There you go, Mick,” the Mayor said with satisfaction. “In that one goddamn story, that sonofabitch writes that the widow is a tramp…”

“That’s a little strong, Jerry,” Chief Wohl protested.

“What do you call a married woman who sleeps with another man?” the Mayor asked sarcastically. “And while we’re on that subject, Lowenstein, how is it that neither you nor Quaire told Detective Milham to keep his pecker in his pocket?”

Chief Lowenstein’s face colored.

“Jerry, I don’t consider that sort of thing any of my business,” he said.

“Maybe you should,” the Mayor snapped. “I don’t know if I’d want a detective around me whose wife divorced him for carrying on with her sister, and the next thing you know is playing hide-the-salami with a brother officer’s wife. It says something about his character, wouldn’t you say?”

Lowenstein’s face was now red.

Chief Wohl touched Lowenstein’s arm to stop any response. The worst possible course of action when dealing with an angry Jerry Carlucci was to argue with him.

“Take it easy, Jerry,” Chief Wohl said.

Matt Payne glanced at Chief Coughlin. Coughlin made a movement with his head that could have been a signal for him to leave the group. He was considering this possibility when his attention was diverted by the Mayor’s angry voice:

“Who the hell are you to tell me to take it easy?”

“Well, for one thing, I’m bigger than you are,” Chief Wohl said with a smile, “and for another, smarter. And better-looking.”

Carlucci glowered at him.

“Matty,” Chief Coughlin said. “Your girlfriend’s looking daggers at you. Maybe you better go pay some attention to her.”

Matt looked around but could not find Penny Detweiler. He wasn’t surprised. Coughlin was telling him a lowly detective should not be here, where he would be privy to what looked like a major confrontation between senior white-shirts and the Mayor of Philadelphia.

“Excuse me,” he said.

“You’ve been doing some good work, Payne,” the Mayor said. “It hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

Carlucci waited until Matt was out of earshot.

“You know what that young man did? Not for publication, Mickey?”

“No,” O’Hara replied with a chuckle. “What did that young man do, not for publication?”

“Peter here’s been running a surveillance operation,” Carlucci began.

“Surveilling who?” O’Hara interrupted.

“I’ll get to that in a minute. Anyway, they had a microphone mounted on a window, and it got knocked off. The window was on the thirteenth floor, I forgot to say. So what does Payne do? He goes to the room next door to the one where the mike fell off, goes out on a ledge, and puts it back in place. How’s that for balls, Mickey?”

“I hadn’t heard about that,” Chief Coughlin said, looking at Peter Wohl.

“Neither had I,” Peter said.

“He knew what had to be done, and he did it,” the Mayor said approvingly. “That’s the mark of a good cop.”

“Or a damned fool,” O’Hara said. “It was that important?”

“What the hell could be that important? He could have killed himself,” Coughlin said.

“The way it turned out, it was that important,” Carlucci said. “If he hadn’t put the mike back, we wouldn’t have got what we got after he put it back. Tony Harris told me that when he gave me the tapes this morning.”

“Which is what?” Coughlin asked.

“Enough, Tony Callis tells me, to just about guarantee a true bill from the grand jury and an indictment.”

The Hon. Thomas J. “Tony” Callis was the District Attorney for Philadelphia County.

“Of who?” O’Hara asked.

“Not yet, Mickey, but you will be the first to know, trust me. The warrants are being drawn up. Peter, I think you should let Payne go with you when you and Weisbach serve them; he’s entitled.”

When I and Weisbach serve them?
Wohl thought.
What the hell is that all about?

“Serve them on who?” O’Hara asked.

“I told you, Mickey, you’ll be the first to know, but not right now. For right now, you can have this.” The Mayor reached in his pocket and handed O’Hara a folded sheet of paper. “I understand the first of these will be given out first thing in the morning. You don’t know where you got that,” he said.

O’Hara unfolded the sheet of paper. It was a press release.