Badge of Honour 06 - The Murderers (4 page)

“This is Captain Samuels, of the Twenty-fifth District. Is Captain Talley around? He doesn’t answer his phone.”

“I think he’s probably in the can,” Sergeant Dolan said. “Just a second, here he comes.”

Samuels heard Dolan call, “Captain, Captain Samuels for you on Three Six,” and then Captain Robert F. Talley, the Commanding Officer of the Narcotics Bureau, came on the line.

“Hello, Fred. What can I do for you?”

“I’ve got some bad news, and a problem, Bob,” Samuels said. “They just found Officer Jerome Kellog’s body in his house. He was shot in the head.”

“Jesus Christ!” Talley said. “Self-inflicted?”

Talley, like most good supervisors, knew a good deal about the personal lives of his men, often more than he would have preferred to know. He knew in the case of Officer Jerome Kellog that he was having trouble, serious trouble, with his wife. And his experience had taught him the unpleasant truth that policemen with problems they could not deal with often ate their revolvers.

“No. Somebody shot him. Twice, from what I hear.”

“Do we know who?”

“No,” Samuels said. “Bob, you know the routine. He lived in my district.”

Talley knew the routine. In the case of an officer killed on the job, the body was taken to a hospital. The Commanding Officer of the District where the dead officer lived drove to his home, informed his wife, or next of kin, that he had been injured, and drove her to the hospital.

By the time they got there, the Commissioner, if he was in the City, or the senior of the Deputy Commissioners, and the Chief Inspector of his branch of the Police Department—and more often than not, the Mayor—would be there. And so would be, if it was at all possible to arrange it, the dead officer’s parish priest, or minister, or rabbi, and if not one of these, then the Departmental Chaplain of the appropriate faith. They would break the news to the widow or next of kin.

“And you can’t find his wife?” Talley asked.

“No. Bob, there’s some unpleasant gossip—”

“All of it probably true,” Talley interrupted.

“You’ve heard it?”

“Yeah. Fred, where are you? In your office?”

“Yeah. Bob, I know that you and Henry Quaire are pretty close—”

Captain Henry Quaire was Commanding Officer of the Homicide Unit.

“I’ll call him, Fred, and get back to you,” Talley said. He broke the connection with his finger, and started to dial a number. Then, sensing Sergeant Dolan’s eyes on him, quickly decided that telling him something of what he knew made more sense than keeping it to himself, and letting Dolan guess. Dolan had a big mouth and a wild imagination.

“They just found Jerry Kellog shot to death in his house,” he said.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Dolan said. “They know who did it?”

“All I know is what I told you,” Talley said. “I’m going to call Captain Quaire and see what I can find out.”

“You heard the talk?” Dolan asked.

“Talk is cheap, Dolan,” Talley said shortly. He walked across the room to his office, closed the door, and dialed a number from memory.

“Homicide, Sergeant Hobbs.”

“Captain Talley, Sergeant. Let me talk to Captain Quaire. His private line is always busy.”

“Sir, the Captain’s tied up at the moment. Maybe I could help you?”

“I know what he’s tied up with, Hobbs. Tell him I need to talk to him.”

“Captain, Chief Lowenstein’s in there with him.”

“Tell him I’d like to talk to him,” Talley repeated.

“Yes, sir. Hang on a minute, please.”

Sergeant Hobbs walked through the outer office to the office of the Commanding Officer and knocked at it.

The three men inside—Captain Henry Quaire, a stocky, balding man in his late forties; Chief Inspector of Detectives Matt Lowenstein, a stocky, barrel-chested man of fifty-five; and Lieutenant Louis Natali—all looked at him with annoyance.

“It’s Captain Talley,” Sergeant Hobbs called, loud enough to be heard through the door.

“I thought we might be hearing from him,” Chief Lowenstein said, then raised his voice loud enough to be heard by Hobbs. “On what, Hobbs?”

“One Seven Seven, Chief,” Hobbs replied.

Lowenstein turned one of the telephones on Quaire’s desk around so that he could read the extension numbers and pushed the button marked 177.

“Chief Lowenstein, Talley. I guess you heard about Officer Kellog?”

“Yes, sir. Captain Samuels of the Twenty-fifth called. He’s—”

“Having trouble finding the Widow Kellog?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Detective Milham, who’s working a job, has been asked to come in to see Captain Quaire and myself to see if he might be able to shed light on that question. If he can, I will call Captain Samuels. And for your general fund of information, Detective Milham was not up for the Kellog job. Does that answer all the questions you might have?”

The term “driver” wasn’t an accurate description of what a driver did. In military parlance, a driver was somewhere between an aide-de-camp and a chief of staff. His function was to relieve his chief of details, sparing him for more important things.

During Harry’s thirty-day temporary assignment, Lowenstein had done nothing to make Harry think he had made a favorable impression on him. He had been genuinely surprised when Lowenstein asked him how he felt about “sticking around, and not going back to East.”

Since that possibility had never entered Harry’s mind, he could not—although he himself had a well-earned reputation for being able to think on his feet—think of any excuse he could offer Lowenstein to turn down the offer.

Over the next eleven months, as he waited for his name to appear on the promotion list to sergeant—he had placed sixteenth on the exam, and was fairly sure the promotion would come through—he told himself that all he had to do was keep his nose clean and all would be well. He had come to believe that Lowenstein wasn’t really as much of a sonofabitch as most people thought, and when his promotion came through, he would be reassigned.

He would, so to speak, while greatly feeling the threat of evil, have safely passed through the Valley of Death. And he knew that he had learned a hell of a lot from his close association with Lowenstein that he could have learned nowhere else.

McElroy learned that his name had come up on a promotion list from Chief Lowenstein himself, the morning of the day the list would become public.

“There’s a vacancy for sergeant in Major Crimes,” Lowenstein had added. “And they want you. But what I’ve been thinking is that you could learn more staying right where you are. Your decision.”

That, too, had been totally unexpected, and by then he had come to know Lowenstein well enough to know that when he asked for a decision, Lowenstein wanted it right then, that moment.

“Thank you, Chief,” Harry had said. “I’d like that.”

McElroy now had his own reputation, not only as Lowenstein’s shadow, but for knowing how Chief Lowenstein thought, and what he was likely to do in any given situation.

His telephone often rang with conversations that began, “Harry, how do you think the Chief would feel about…”

He did, he came to understand, really have an insight into how Lowenstein thought, and what Lowenstein wanted.

Usually, Harry went wherever Lowenstein went. This morning, however, he sensed without a hint of any kind from Lowenstein that he would not be welcome in Captain Henry Quaire’s office when the Chief went in there to discuss the murder of Officer Jerome H. Kellog with Quaire and Lieutenant Natali.

He got himself a cup of coffee and stationed himself near the entrance to the Homicide Unit, where he could both keep an eye on Quaire’s office and intercept anybody who thought they had to see the Chief.

Chief Lowenstein came suddenly out of Quaire’s office and marched out of Homicide. As he passed Harry, he said, “I’ve got to go see the Dago.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Dago was the Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, the Honorable Jerry Carlucci.

They rode down to the lobby in the elevator, and out the door to where Harry had parked the Chief’s official Oldsmobile, by the
CHIEF INSPECTOR DETECTIVE BUREAU
sign at the door.

The police band radios came to life with the starting of the engine, and there was traffic on the command band:

“Mary One, William Five, at the Zoo parking lot,” one metallic voice announced.

“A couple of minutes,” a second metallic voice replied.

“Mary One” was the call sign of the limousine used by the Mayor of Philadelphia, “William” the identification code assigned to Special Operations.

“Who’s William Five?” Sergeant McElroy asked thoughtfully.

“Probably Tony Harris,” Lowenstein said. “Washington is William Four. But what I’d really like to know is why Special Operations is meeting the Mayor, or vice versa, in the Zoo parking lot. I wonder what wouldn’t wait until the Mayor got to his office.”

“Yeah,” McElroy grunted thoughtfully.

“Well, at least we know where to wait for the Mayor. City Hall, Harry.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did Weisbach call in this morning?”

“No, sir.”

“When we get to City Hall, you find a phone, get a location on Weisbach, call him, and tell him to stay wherever he is until I get back to him.”

“Yes, sir.”

He knew that Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernich habitually began his day by waiting in Mayor Carlucci’s office for his daily orders, and he wanted to see Mayor Carlucci alone.

Lowenstein walked quickly to the side of the long black Cadillac, reaching it just as Lieutenant Jack Fellows pulled the door open. He saw that his presence surprised Fellows, and a moment later, as he came out of the car, Mayor Carlucci as well.

“’Morning, Matt,” Carlucci said. He was a tall, large-boned, heavyset man, wearing a well-tailored, dark blue suit, a stiffly starched, bright-white shirt, a dark, finely figured necktie, and highly polished black wing-tip shoes.

He did not seem at all pleased to see Lowenstein.

“I need a minute of your time, Mr. Mayor.”

“Here, you mean,” Carlucci said, on the edge of unpleasantness, gesturing around at the traffic circling City Hall.

A citizen recognized His Honor and blew his horn. Carlucci smiled warmly and waved.

“Yes, sir,” Lowenstein said.

Carlucci hesitated a moment, then got back in the limousine and waved at Lowenstein to join him. Fellows, after hesitating a moment, got back in the front seat. The Mayor activated the switch that raised the divider glass.

“OK, Matt,” Carlucci said.

“A police officer has been shot,” Lowenstein began.

“Dead?” the Mayor interrupted. There was concern and indignation in the one word.

“Yes, sir. Shot in the back of his head.”

“Line of duty?”

“His name is Kellog, Mr. Mayor. He was an undercover officer assigned to the Narcotics Unit. He was found in his home about an hour ago.”

“By who?”

“When he didn’t show up for work, they sent a Twenty-fifth District car to check on him.”

“He wasn’t married?”

“Separated.”

“Has she been notified?”

“They are trying to locate her.”

“Get to the goddamned point, Matt.”

“The story is that she’s moved in with another detective.”

“Oh, Jesus! Do you know who?”

“Detective Wallace J. Milham, of Homicide.”

“Isn’t he the sonofabitch whose wife left him because she caught him screwing around with her sister?”

Mayor Carlucci’s intimate knowledge of the personal lives of police officers was legendary, but this display of instant recall surprised Lowenstein.

“Yes, sir.”

“Is what you’re trying to tell me that this guy, or the wife, is involved?”

“We don’t know, sir. That is, of course, possible.”

“You realize the goddamned spot this puts me in?” the Mayor asked rhetorically. “I show up, or Czernich shows up, to console the widow, and there is a story in the goddamned newspapers, and the day after that it comes out—and wouldn’t the
Ledger
have a ball with that?—that she’s really a tramp, shacked up with a Homicide detective, and they’re the doers?”

“Yes, sir. That’s why I thought I’d better get to you right away with this.”

“And if I don’t show up, or Czernich doesn’t, then what?” the Mayor went on. He turned to Lowenstein. “So what are you doing, Matt?”

“Detective Milham is on the street somewhere. They’re looking for him. A good man, Joe D’Amata, is the assigned detective. Lou Natali’s already on his way to the scene, and probably Henry Quaire, too.”

“You ever hear the story of the fox protecting the chicken coop?” Carlucci asked nastily. “If you haven’t, you can bet that the
Ledger
has.”

“Henry Quaire is a straight arrow,” Lowenstein said.

“I didn’t say he wasn’t. I’m talking about appearances. I’m talking about what the
Ledger’s
going to write.”

“I don’t think Wally Milham has had anything to do with this. I think we’re going to find it’s Narcotics-related.”

“A man who would slip the salami to his wife’s sister is capable of anything,” the Mayor said. “I have to think that maybe he did. Or the wife did, and if he’s shacked up with her…”

“So what do you want me to do, give it to Peter Wohl?”

“Wohl’s got enough on his back right now,” the Mayor said.

You mean running an investigation of corruption that I’m not even supposed to know about, even though I’m the guy charged with precisely that responsibility?

“What’s the name of that mousy-looking staff inspector? Weis-something?”

“Mike Weisbach?”

“Him. He’s good, and he’s a straight arrow.”

You used to think I was a straight arrow, Jerry. What the hell happened to change your mind?

“What are you going to do? Have him take over the investigation?”

“The Commissioner’s going to tell him to
observe
the investigation, to tell you every day what’s going on, and then you tell me every day what’s going on.”

The Mayor pushed himself off the cushions and started to crawl out of the car, over Lowenstein. He stopped, halfway out, and looked at Lowenstein, whose face was no more than six inches from his.

“I hope, for everybody’s sake, Matt, that your Homicide detective who can’t keep his pecker in his pocket isn’t involved in this.”

Lowenstein nodded.

The Mayor got out of the limousine and walked briskly toward the entrance to City Hall. Lieutenant Fellows got quickly out of the front seat and ran after him.

Lowenstein waited until the two of them disappeared from sight, then got out of the limousine, walked to his Oldsmobile, and got in the front seat beside Harry McElroy.

“You get a location on Weisbach?”

“He’s in his car, at the Federal Courthouse, waiting to hear from you.”

Lowenstein picked a microphone up from the seat.

“Isaac Fourteen, Isaac One.”

“Fourteen.”

“Meet me at Broad and Hunting Park,” Lowenstein said.

“En route.”