Final Justice

FIFTEEN

I may have had more of these than I remember,” Mickey O’Hara said, interrupting Washington, and holding up his Old Bushmills on the rocks, "because the guy in the door looks just like Stan Colt.”

“Yes, he does, doesn’t he?” Washington agreed.

Mr. Colt, smiling, his hand extended, marched up to them.

“Hi,” he said. “You’re Matt’s boss, aren’t you? Lieutenant Washington?”

“Yes, I am,” Washington said. “And unless I err, you are Mr. Stan Colt?”

“Right!”

“I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Colt,” Washington said, adding: “This is Mr. Michael J. O’Hara, of the Bulletin.”

“No shit!” Mr. Colt exclaimed. “You’re Mickey O’Hara? Goddamn! You’re a goddamn legend!”

He enthusiastically pumped Mickey’s hand.

“Mr. O’Hara is indeed one of our more prominent journalists, ” Washington said, as Wohl, trailed by Matt, came into the bar.

“When you and Bull Bolinski got caught running numbers for Frankie the Gut, you took the fall for him, got expelled, and the Bull got to graduate, got to be All-American… you know. The Bull told me all about you.”

“You know Casimir?” Mickey asked.

“Hell, yeah, I know the Bull. We West Catholic guys got to stick together, you know. He always stays with me when he’s on the Coast.”

“I’ll be damned,” Mickey said. “I heard you were in town, raising money for West Catholic, but I didn’t know you went there.”

“You probably wouldn’t remember me. I used to be Stanley Coleman, I was a freshman and you and the Bull were juniors when you got shit-canned, but I sure remember you.”

“I’ll be damned,” Mickey said, and now returned Mr. Colt’s enthusiastic hand-pumping.

Wohl walked up, smiling a little lamely.

“Well, I see you’ve met Mr. O’Hara, Mr. Colt,” he said.

“Met him, shit! We go way back; we both got kicked out of West Catholic. Jesus, I’m glad you brought me in here!”

“Me, too,” Mickey said.

“Hey, bartender,” Mr. Colt called, and when he had his attention, made a circling motion with his hand, which the bartender correctly interpreted to mean that he should bring liquid refreshment to one and all.

“The usual, Inspector?” the bartender asked.

Wohl nodded.

“Detective?”

“Hey, he’s a sergeant,” Mr. Colt corrected him. “Give us both one of those Irish martinis.”

“And if I don’t want an Irish martini?” Matt asked, smiling.

“Drink it anyway, you’re an outnumbered WASP,” Colt said, and then frowned, remembering. “Hey, I still don’t have any money. I’ll pay you back.”

“Sure.”

“The Bulletin will pay,” Mickey announced. “Why don’t we get a table?”

They took a table. The bartender delivered a round of drinks.

“You hang out with these guys, right, Mickey?” Mr. Colt inquired.

“Yeah. What I want to know is what you’re doing with them.”

“Matt’s showing me around the police department, and doing a goddamn good job of it.”

“For a WASP,” Mickey said, “Matty’s a pretty good cop. I owe him big time.”

“How come?”

“A couple of years back, we were in an alley, and a really bad guy comes down it shooting at us with a. 45-”

“Jesus, Mickey!” Matt protested.

“-and Matty put him down,” O’Hara went on. “Took a bullet in the leg, but the bottom line was one dead bad guy.”

“No shit?”

“We call him the Wyatt Earp of the Main Line.”

“My friends don’t call me that,” Matt said, coldly.

“Or sometimes the Casanova of Center City,” O’Hara went blithely on.

“Yeah, I like his taste in women,” Mr. Colt said. “You should have seen the one he had with him tonight.”

“Curiosity overwhelms me,” Washington said. “To whom does Mr. Colt refer, Matthew?”

“Captain Quaire assigned Detective Lassiter to explain the Williamson job to him,” Matt said.

“You got something going with her, Matty?” O’Hara asked.

“No, I don’t.”

Mr. Colt winked broadly, held up his balled first with the thumb extended, and said, “Right.”

Washington and Wohl smiled.

“So what’s going on in here?” Mr. Colt inquired. “You’re just hanging out, or what?”

O’Hara looked at Wohl.

“You tell him, Peter,” he said.

Wohl’s smile vanished. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged.

“Mr. Colt…” he began.

“I can’t get you to call me ‘Stan’?”

“Stan, just about everybody in the department trusts Mickey to keep his mouth shut when he knows something we don’t want to be public knowledge,” Wohl said.

“There’s usually a little you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch — yours in the deal, Stan,” Mickey said. “You asked before if what we’re doing here is hanging out. No. What I’m doing is waiting to see if, or how well, the inspector is going to scratch my back.”

“Under the circumstances, Stan, I’m going to have to ask you not to repeat, to anyone, what I’m about to tell Mickey and you.”

“You got it. My lips are sealed,” Mr. Colt said. He looked at Matt, held up his right hand with the three center fingers extended, and added, “Boy Scout’s Honor.”

“Tony Harris went to Harrisburg,” Wohl said. “The State Police were able to get a hit from the print on the visor cap using the AFIS.”

“I’m terribly sorry to interrupt, old sport,” Mr. Colt interrupted in his British accent, “but I haven’t the foggiest fucking idea what you are talking about.”

Wohl turned his head to look at Colt, and for a moment Matt thought Colt was about to be either frozen with a Wohl glance, or perhaps even treated to an example of Wohl sarcasm, but Wohl surprised him by smiling.

“Well, dear boy, we certainly can’t have that, now can we?” Wohl said, in a British accent very nearly as good as the actor’s. Then he dropped the accent and added, “There was a double homicide in connection with an armed robbery of a Roy Rogers restaurant on South Broad, the guys who did it got away, and we just found out, using a fingerprint we previously thought was useless, who they are.”

“You got a match?” Mickey asked. “I thought the lab- Candelle himself-said there wasn’t enough?”

“We’ve identified one of them. The fat guy. And in Known Associates on his sheet is a guy who lives two doors away from him in the Paschall Homes Project in Southwest Philly who fits the description of the other one.”

He stopped and looked at Washington.

“You brought the pictures for Mick?”

Washington nodded and went into his suit jacket, coming out with two Philadelphia Police mug shots. He handed them to O’Hara.

“Can you make either of them, Mick?” Wohl asked.

O’Hara looked carefully at both and then shook his head.

“As much as I’d like to, no,” O’Hara said. “It was dark, and as you may recall, the bastards took a shot at me.”

“No shit?” Mr. Colt inquired, awe in his voice.

“Anyway, the D.A. doesn’t think what we have is enough to convict them for sure. We need more-the weapon, for example. So we’re not going to arrest them right now.”

“Instead?”

“We’re going to keep them under surveillance until we can develop more. That’s the reason that Jason and I were still in Homicide when you called. We had everybody and his brother in there, setting up the surveillance…”

“And that’s why I was ever so politely booted out of there, right?” Mr. Colt inquired.

“Excuse me?” Wohl asked.

“When that captain sent Matt’s girlfriend to explain that other job to me…” He paused and made a pumping motion with his fist. “That was to get me out of Homicide, right?”

“I think one could reasonably draw that assumption, Mr. Colt,” Washington said.

“I would have been in the way, right?”

“And been privy to things we would rather not be known to the public,” Washington replied.

“Well, what the hell, we had a nice dinner, right?” Mr. Colt said.

“Very nice,” Matt said.

“Can I ask you a question, Mickey?” Mr. Colt inquired, and then went on without waiting for an answer. “How come you were at this Roy Rogers? Just a coincidence? You went there for a hamburger or whatever?”

“No. I responded to a possible armed-robbery-in-progress call, and I got there just as these bastards were leaving.”

“Explain that? You’ve got a police scanner? Right?”

“He has a battery of police scanners,” Washington said. “With which he eavesdrops on police communications in the tristate area. You may have noticed all the antennae.”

“That Buick Whatchamacallit outside is yours? I saw all the antennas.”

“It’s a Rendezvous,” Mickey said. “Yeah, that’s mine.”

“If you want to really see the police department at work, Mr. Colt,” Washington said, “perhaps Mr. O’Hara would be good enough to let you ride around with him. He responds to every interesting call, which usually means a call where violence is likely to be found.”

“Be glad to have you, Stan,” Mickey said.

“Jeez, I’d like that.”

“Then we’ll do it,” Mickey said.

“There’s a problem there,” Wohl said. “We really have to make sure you have a police officer with you, Stan.”

“Why, and what’s wrong with Matt?”

“Because the commissioner says so,” Wohl said. “And what’s wrong with Matt is that he’s been on the job all day and it’s getting close to midnight.”

“What about the other detective?” Mr. Colt asked. “The little one?”

He held out his hand to indicate Detective Martinez’s diminutive stature.

“Who’s he talking about?” Wohl asked Matt.

“Hay-zus,” Matt said. “McFadden relieves him at midnight.”

“Another Mick, Stan,” O’Hara said. “Good guy. You’ll like him.”

“Inspector, I would venture to suggest that Mr. Colt would be safe in the capable Gaelic hands of Detective McFadden,” Washington said.

“You mind if I ask if you always talk like that?” Mr. Colt asked.

“Always, I’m afraid,” Wohl said, chuckling. He looked at his watch. “Put the arm out for him, Matt. Have him meet us here.”

“Have him meet us at D’Allesandro’s,” Mr. Colt said. “This drink is my third and last one for the day, and I’m determined to have a cheese steak. You’re all invited, of course.”

Washington and Wohl looked at each other.

“Far be it from me to reject Mr. Colt’s generous invitation, ” Washington said. “And not only because it will afford me a splendid answer to Martha’s inevitable question when I finally get home.”

“Where the hell have you been, what have you been doing, and with whom?” Wohl asked.

“ ‘Actually, my precious, I was having a cheese steak at D’Allesandro’s with Mr. Stan Colt, the movie star.’ That should for once strike her dumb.”

At five past one, Mr. Stanley Colt having had his cheese steak, and having been transferred into the capable hands of Detective Charles McFadden, Matt got in his unmarked Crown Victoria and started home.

He smiled at the memory of Mr. Colt’s response to Inspector Wohl’s instructions to Detective McFadden: “He is not to get out of Mickey’s car without your permission. If he gives you any trouble, cuff him, and turn him over to Dignitary Protection at the Ritz-Carlton. Trouble is defined to include any gesture toward a member of the opposite sex beyond a friendly smile.”

“That’s not going to be a problem. I can get laid anytime. But doing this, wow!”

He had just turned onto Walnut Street and was headed west toward Rittenhouse Square when his cellular went off.

Jesus, now what?

“Payne.”

“Can you talk?” Detective Olivia Lassiter inquired.

“Yeah.”

“They have a positive ID on one of the doers in the Roy Rogers job-”

“I heard,” Matt interrupted. “And they’re running an around-the-clock surveillance, which is why they threw us out of Homicide.”

There was a silence.

“How’s your hand?” Olivia asked after a long moment.

He looked at it.

“Fine,” he said. “I had just about forgotten about it.”

“Oh.”

Another silence.

“I thought maybe you needed the bandage changed,” she said, finally.

“No. It looks fine.”

“Oh.”

Jesus Christ, Matthew, you are the dumbest sonofabitch in Philadelphia!!!

“Where are you, Mother?”

“I’m not your mother.”

“Where are you, Not My Mother?”

“In the Starbucks at Twelfth and Market.”

“What are you doing there? I thought you went to Homicide?”

“I hung around Homicide for a while, made a few more calls. Then I came here and waited until I thought you’d probably put Colt to bed. Then I called.”

“I’m at Nineteenth and Walnut. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“No.”

“For Christ’s sake, I’ll take you home.”

“If you come here, somebody who knows one or both of us will see us.”

“Then go stand in the dark around the corner on Twelfth and Filbert. I’ll pick you up there and take you home.”

There was a long pause again, before she asked, “If I took a cab to Rittenhouse Square, how could I get in the building this time of night?”

Another pause, this one on Matt’s part, and shorter.

“When you get out of the cab, I’ll be waiting for you in the lobby.”

And one final pause before she said, “The way you were talking before, I thought you didn’t want me to come over there.”

"Oh, baby!”

The chiefs of police of Daphne and Fairhope, Alabama, were privately not at all happy with the Jackson’s Oak Citizens’ Community Watch, Inc.

Daphne and Fairhope are small, prosperous, primarily residential communities in Baldwin County on Mobile Bay in South Alabama. They lie across Mobile Bay from the city of Mobile, and about thirty miles from the Gulf of Mexico.

Baldwin County, which is larger than the state of Rhode Island, is similarly prosperous, both because of its fertile fields and its seashore on the Gulf of Mexico-known, despite the valiant efforts of the local chambers of commerce, as the Redneck Riviera-which is famous for its spectacular snow-white beaches, and which attracts affluent tourists throughout the year.

There is not much crime-certainly not as that term is interpreted in Philadelphia-in Baldwin County or in Daphne or Fairhope. But to fight what there is, there is a nice tax base to support law enforcement and the various fire departments.

The police cruisers of the Daphne and Fairhope police departments are state-of-the-art vehicles, equipped with the latest communication systems, video recorders, computers, and speed-detection radar. They are generally replaced annually, and the “old” vehicles sold to less prosperous communities.

The Daphne chief of police was not happy with the Jackson’s Oak Citizens’ Community Watch, Inc., because he thought it was unnecessary, potentially dangerous, and enjoyed the opposite of respect from his sworn officers. The Fairhope chief of police was not happy with JOCCWI (sometimes referred to privately within the law enforcement community as “Jabberwocky”) because he feared it would be contagious and Fairhope would get one like it.

JOCCWI had been formed by a group of concerned citizens as their response to what they regarded as the Daphne police department’s inability to rid the community of drug addicts, petty thieves, Peeping Toms, and other disturbers of the domestic tranquillity.

There was a thread of justification in their complaints. So far as the chief knew, if there were those in Daphne using hard drugs, they did so in their homes and purchased them elsewhere. If a stranger appeared in either Fairhope or Daphne who looked remotely as if he might be using-much less selling-hard drugs, a cop trailed him until a search of his/her person was legally justified, or he/she left town, whichever came first.

There was cannabis sativa, of course. And on any given pleasant evening, the chief knew, the young and sometimes not-so-young might go to the beach and smoke a joint or two. Or they might go outside the clubhouse of the Lake Forest Golf and Country Club and take a couple of puffs. If his officers saw them, they were arrested.

There was more validity to the petty-theft charge. There were more than two hundred boats, power and sail, in the marina of the Lake Forest Yacht Club. Just about every one of them had something aboard-from radar sets and depth meters or “fish finders” on a forty-foot Hatteras to oars in a row-boat-that was both quickly removable and easily sold, no questions asked, in any one of a hundred places from Biloxi, Mississippi, in the west to Pensacola, Florida, in the east.

Most of these thefts could be prevented by the boats’ owners taking reasonable measures. And the only way to stop the thefts completely would be to station officers not only at the marina but in boats guarding access to it. That was out of the question.

Easily removable things, from radar detectors to hubcaps to entire wheels, were stolen from cars, too, as the founders of JOCCWI contended. And sometimes expensive lawn furniture-or even a new garden hose-bought from Home Depot would vanish from a back lawn overnight.

Sometimes the thieves were caught, sometimes they were not. It was obviously impossible for the police to be everywhere all the time.

The Peeping Tom allegation also had some merit. There were a lot of good-looking young women, married and not, in the condominiums adjacent to the Yacht Club, and on the fringes of Lake Forest, a huge area of small to medium-sized homes. It was not a gated community. It was easily possible for someone with an interest in watching young women undress to go into Lake Forest and hide behind one of its many trees with binoculars. And hard as hell to catch them at it.

Among the other disturbers of the peace JOCCWI wished to control were high school kids racing around in Pop’s-or their own-car in the middle of the night. The chief had his officers spend a lot of time trying to stop that-he had had more than his fill of picking up dead kids who’d missed a turn and hit a tree-but he knew he hadn’t stopped it all.

On the surface, having a number of responsible citizens roaming through the area at night in their own cars, looking for something amiss, and when finding it, reporting it to the police by cell phone seemed at first-even to the chief-to be not so bad an idea.

And among the founders of JOCCWI were the pillars of the community. They were lawyers, executives, schoolteachers, businessmen, dentists, and retired members of the armed forces, including two full colonels, three lieutenant colonels (one of them a former Green Beret), a number of other commissioned officers, and nearly a dozen retired master chief petty officers, sergeants major, and other high-ranking former noncoms.

They showed the chief what they intended to do, and how they intended to do it, and he frankly had felt more than a little admiration for their plan.

The night the concerned citizens went into action, the chief and the mayor went to their headquarters, a rented former concession stand at the Yacht Club, to wish them well.

They learned that the organization now had a name, Jackson’s Oak Citizens’ Community Watch. It was taken from Jackson’s Oak, a tree in Daphne under which Andrew Jackson had allegedly stood shortly before moving west to fight the Battle of New Orleans.

That’s when the chief and the mayor saw that the retired Green Beret, who would serve as watch commander that night, had a Colt. 45 semiautomatic pistol in the small of his back. And so did Dr. Smiley, the dentist who would command the first four-hour tour. Other members of JOCCW (without the “I” for “Incorporated”) were also armed, with everything from pistols to shotguns.

As tactfully as he could, the chief had suggested to the retired Green Beret that perhaps firearms weren’t really such a good idea. All that JOCCW was supposed to do was keep an eye open and call the police if they saw something that looked suspicious.

“How the hell can you go on guard without a weapon? Jesus Christ, Charley!”

The next morning, the mayor, the chief, the (part-time) municipal judge, and the (part-time) city attorney conferred vis-a-vis the armed members of JOCCW patrolling the city.

Legally, there didn’t seem much that could be done about it. Under the laws of Alabama, any law-abiding citizen over twenty-one could apply to the Baldwin County Sheriff for a permit to carry a handgun concealed about the person, on or in a vehicle. The permit could not be denied without good cause.

They agreed that the sheriff of Baldwin County, who is an elected official and wished to be re-elected ad infinitum, was not about to tell the pillars of the community who had organized JOCCW that he’d changed his mind, and they could no longer go about armed.

The laws regarding longarms were similarly not very comforting to the mayor et al. No licenses were required to own longarms. Citizens had to pass a firearms safety program to get a hunting license, unless they were veterans of an armed force, or over the age of sixty-five. Many, perhaps 75 percent, of the members of JOCCW met both of the latter two requirements.

Finally, the city attorney suggested that since the members of JOCCW were all reasonable men, if they were aware of the legal ramifications-primarily tort lawsuits for hundreds of thousands of dollars-for shooting someone without full justification, they might lose their enthusiasm for carrying weapons.

This was brought tactfully to the attention of one of the two retired full colonels-a Marine who’d fought all over the Orient from Guadalcanal to Khe Sanh-who listened attentively, thanked the city attorney for his interest, and said it wasn’t a problem.

“That potential difficulty occurred to Bob Skinner,” the colonel said. J. Robert Skinner, Esq., one of the founders of JOCCW, was an attorney, specializing in corporate liability. “We expected to be incorporated within the week. If somebody sues JOCCWI-‘I’ for ‘Incorporated’-the corporation treasury will be empty, or nearly so.”

The chief, therefore, was concerned but not surprised when his bedside telephone rang at 1:30 A.M. (2:30 A.M. Philadelphia time) and the police dispatcher somewhat excitedly told him, “Chief, we just got a call from Jabberwocky. Request assistance at the Yacht Club Condominiums. Shots fired.”

“I’m on my way. Call the mayor.”

Christ, it was inevitable. I’m only surprised that it didn’t happen long before this.

Dear Jesus, please don’t let them have shot some kid, or some guy trying to sneak into his own house.

When the chief turned off Highway 98 into the drive of the Lake Forest Yacht Club, he saw that three Daphne police cruisers and one each from the Fairhope police department, the Baldwin County sheriff’s patrol, and the Alabama state troopers had beat him to the scene.

When he got out of the car, the wail of sirens he heard told him that additional law enforcement vehicles were on the way.

Then he saw there had been a vehicular collision just inside the brick gate posts. A Chevrolet Impala on its way out of the complex had slammed into the side of a Mercedes sports utility vehicle sitting sideward in the road. He recognized the Mercedes to be that of Chambers D. Galloway, retired chief executive officer of Galloway Carpets, Inc., and a founding member of JOCCWI, who lived in one of the big houses overlooking the beach and Mobile Bay.

The chief shouldered his way through the spectators and law enforcement officers.

“Who was shot?” he demanded, before he saw a very large man wearing black coveralls lying facedown on the ground, his wrists handcuffed behind him.

“Nobody was shot,” the retired Green Beret said, just a little condescendingly.

“I was told ‘shots fired’!”

“I didn’t try to hit him, Charley. At that distance, I could have easily popped him. But I knew that Galloway could intercept him at the gate-I’d already alerted him and others- but I figured, what the hell, if I let off a couple of rounds into the air, he might give up back there.”

He pointed into the condominium complex.

“Why?… What did he do to attract your attention?”

“He had a ski mask on and he was trying to pry open a window with a knife… great big sonofabitch. It’s still in his car-I looked… For some reason, I got a little suspicious. So I alerted the shift, told them to block the entrances, and then I shined my light on this clown and asked him, ‘Excuse me, sir. May I ask what you’re doing?’ At that point, he took off running.”

“Chambers Galloway stopped him?” the chief asked, just a little incredulously.

And then the chief saw Chambers Galloway. The tall, ascetic septuagenarian was standing beside the state trooper, chatting pleasantly, looking more than a little pleased with himself.

Mr. Galloway was wearing a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows and shoulder and a matching brimmed cap. He held a twelve-bore Belgian Browning over-and-under shotgun, the action open, crooked over his right arm. He could have been standing in a Scottish field, waiting for the beaters to start the pheasants flying.

As the chief looked, a flashbulb went off, and then a second and a third. The chief saw Charley Whelan, of the Mobile Register, standing atop his Jeep Cherokee in such a position that he could get Mr. Chambers D. Galloway; the prone, handcuffed man in black coveralls; and most of the police officers and their vehicles in his shot.

In a sense, Mr. Whelan was Mobile’s Mickey O’Hara. He was considerably younger, and far less well paid, but he was the crime reporter for the Register.

And he had a police frequency scanner both on his desk in the city room of the Register and in his Cherokee. He had been in the city room-the Register had just gone to bed- when he heard the call announcing that shots had been fired at the Lake Forest Yacht Club.

He almost didn’t go to the scene. No matter what he found at the Yacht Club, it was too late to get it in the morning’s paper. But on the other hand, it might be an interesting story. Shots were rarely fired on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, which was not true of other areas in Mobile.

So he got in the Cherokee and raced across the I-10 bridge, which connects Mobile with the eastern shore.

And when he saw what was happening, he was glad he’d come.

This was hilarious. Half the cops on the eastern shore had gathered at the scene of a captured Peeping Tom. And the actual capture of this dangerous lunatic had been made by an old fart with a shotgun, who looked as if he was about to bag a couple of quail.

Charley Whelan got off the roof of his Cherokee, tried and failed to get the Peeping Tom’s name from the chief, got the old fart’s name and another picture of him, and then drove back to Mobile, this time exceeding the speed limit by only fifteen miles per hour.

The city editor was still there, and Charley made quick prints of the images in his digital camera and showed them to him.

“Well, it’s too late for today’s rag,” the city editor said. “Put it on the Atlanta wire; those big papers close later than we do. We’ll run it tomorrow.”

Charley sat down at his computer terminal and quickly typed,

Daphne, ALPossible Peeping Tom Bagged ByCommunity Watcher, 72

Shown here with his shotgun and his as yet unidentified quarry handcuffed on the ground is retired business executive Chambers D. Galloway, 72, a member of Daphne’s Jackson Oak Citizens’ Community Watch, Inc., who made a middle-of-the-night citizen’s arrest of the man after he was seen peeping into the windows of a resident of the Lake Forest Yacht Club Condominiums, whom police declined to identify.

Four Daphne police cars, two Fairhope police cars, a Baldwin County deputy sheriff, and an Alabama state trooper converged on the scene to take the suspect off Mr. Galloway’s hands. The accused peeper will be held in the Daphne police jail while the investigation continues.

Mobile Register Photos By Charles E. Whelan

When the pictures and the story reached the Associated Press in Atlanta, the night man there also thought the yarn-and especially the pictures of the old guy with the shotgun-was funny, good human interest, and pushed the National button. This caused the photos and story to be instantly sent to newspapers all over the United States, which of course included those in Philadelphia.

The device that electronically chimed “Be It Ever So Humble” when the doorbell of the residence of Sergeant Matthew Payne was pushed had two controls. One provided a selection of the numbers of bars of music to be played, from Six to All, and the other was a volume control.

Detective Payne, who had few visitors to his home, and used the device primarily as a backup alarm clock, had set both controls to the maximum choices offered.

A full rendition of “Be It Ever So Humble” played at maximum volume in the small confines of the apartment had so far never failed to wake Sergeant Payne from the deepest sleep.

And so it did the following morning at 6:05 A.M. when the Wachenhut security guard, a retired police officer who both liked the young cop in the attic and was grateful for the bottle of Wild Turkey he’d been given for Christmas, rode the elevator up, laid a copy of the just delivered Bulletin on the floor outside the door to the attic, and pushed the doorbell.

Half awake, Sergeant Payne had just identified the sound, glanced through half-opened eyes at the time displayed on the ceiling, and decided he had a good half hour to get leisurely out of bed, when a female voice quite close to him brought him suddenly to full wakefulness.

“What the hell is that?” Detective Olivia Lassiter had asked, as much in alarm as curiosity.

Matt opened his eyes fully.

Olivia had been so startled by the music that she had suddenly sat up on the bed and not thought about pulling the sheet up to modestly cover her exposed bosom.

Jesus, she has beautiful breasts!

“That’s the newspaper,” he said.

“The newspaper?”

“The security guy rings the doorbell when he brings the paper up,” Matt explained.

Olivia saw where his eyes were directed and pulled the sheet up over her chest.

“The cow, so to speak, is already out of the barn,” Matt said.

“What time is it?” Olivia asked, ignoring him.

Matt pointed at the ceiling. After a moment’s confusion, Olivia looked at the ceiling.

“My God, I’ve got to get out of here!” she said.

“Why?”

“Because I have to go home and change my clothes,” she said. “Something I didn’t think about last night.”

“Okay. I’ll take you, and we can get some breakfast someplace. ”

“I’m going to take a cab,” she said. “I should have taken one last night and gone home.”

“So we won’t be seen together, and someone will suspect what’s going on?”

“Exactly.”

“That cow, I have to tell you, is really out of the barn.”

“What does that mean?”

“Mr. Colt somehow got the idea-you saw that-that you and I have become something more than professional associates…”

“And?”

“… and decided to share this perception with Mickey O’Hara, Peter Wohl, and Jason Washington.”

“My God, I hope you denied it!”

“Of course,” Matt said, “whereupon Stan showed his acceptance of my denial in the following manner.”

He winked broadly, mimicking Colt, and demonstrated the balled-fist, thumb-up gesture Colt had used.

“That sonofabitch!”

“Honey, he thought he was being funny.”

“His being funny blew my chances of getting in Homicide, ” she said, bitterly.

“Realistically, honey, there doesn’t seem to be much chance of that,” Matt said.

“Thanks a lot!”

“Well, there doesn’t,” he insisted. “At least right now.”

“I’m going to take a shower,” she snapped. “And then a cab.”

He watched her enter the bathroom.

After a moment, he reluctantly concluded that-however delightful an idea it was on the surface-there was not room in the shower for the both of them.

And besides, she’s already pissed that our shameful secret has become public knowledge.

He swung his legs out of bed, got fresh underwear, and went down the stairs to get the newspaper.

He started to read it as he climbed the stairs back to his apartment, and just as he reached the top, he saw that the picture that Eddie the photographer had taken of him and Stan Colt outside the Bellvue-Stratford was on page one of the Bulletin.

There was a rather lengthy caption:

Stan Colt, movie detective, in Philadelphia to raise money for West Catholic High, found time in his busy schedule to meet with the real thing. He is shown here arriving at the Mayor’s Reception at the Bellvue-Stratford with Sergeant M. M. Payne of the Phila. PD Homicide Unit. Payne will be showing Colt what police work is really like whenever Colt has a spare minute. (The full schedule of the Colt Fund-raising Visit can be found on page 2 of Section Four of today’s Bulletin.)

Matt remembered that Colt had said that the picture was the only one that would get printed.

Olivia was toweling herself by the side of the bed, which he found to be an interesting sight.

“I’m famous,” he said, showing her the newspaper.

Olivia glanced at it very quickly.

“Put your clothes on. You can drive me home,” she said.

“Oh, thank you, thank you!”

“I have three choices: putting on wet underwear, getting in a cab without my underwear, or you.”

“With or without underwear?”

“My God! Get dressed.”

The Swedish philosopher/theologian Emmanuel Swedenborg believed that there is sometimes an unspoken communication between loved ones. That one loved person knows what the other loved one is thinking.

This may or may not have had anything to do with what Detective Olivia Lassiter said to Sergeant Matthew Payne when he pulled to the curb in front of her apartment.

“You wait in the car. I know what you’re thinking.”

Sergeant Payne had in fact been thinking, all the way from Rittenhouse Square, that there was something wonderfully erotic having Olivia sitting beside him, with nothing beneath her dress but Olivia, and that with just a little bit of luck he might get lucky when they got to her apartment and they went inside while she changed clothing.

“What am I going to do out here?” he asked.

“That’s up to you. You’re not coming in,” Detective Lassiter said, and got out of the car.

He watched her enter the apartment, shrugged, and then reached for the Philadelphia Bulletin, which had his picture on the front page, and which he had dropped onto the floor.

When he saw the picture, he smiled, remembering what Stan Colt had said when he got out of the car to pose for Eddie the photographer: “Look serious, but think of pussy!”

Then he started looking through the rest of the Bulletin. Ten minutes later, on page 4 of Section Three, “Living Today,” he saw a picture of an old geezer with an over-and-under crooked over his arm standing with a bunch of cops and with half a dozen patrol cars of various law enforcement agencies in the background.

Then he read the caption, and then looked very carefully at the picture again, at the handcuffed man in black coveralls on the ground.

“Jesus Christ!” he said aloud, and reached for his cellular.

“Police department,” a female voice with a thick southern accent announced.

“I’d like to speak to whoever’s handling the case of that Peeping Tom you bagged last night.”

“So would everybody else from New Orleans to Destin,” the woman replied.

“My name is Matthew Payne. I’m a sergeant in Homicide in Philadelphia…”

“Yeah, I bet you are.”

“Excuse me?”

“How do I know that?”

“Because I just told you. Now get me some supervisor on the phone, and right now.”

“You don’t have to bite my head off!”

A male voice with an equally heavy accent next came on the line.

“Can I help you?”

“With whom am I speaking. Please?”

“I’m Sergeant Kenny.”

“Sergeant, I’m Sergeant Payne. Philadelphia Homicide.”

“So Barbara-Anne said. How can I help you?”

“That Peeping Tom you bagged last night? Was there a knife involved? A great big knife?”

There was no response.

“Hello?” Matt asked after what seemed like a long time.

“What can I do for you?” a new southern-accented male voice inquired.

“Was I just talking to you?”

“No. You were talking to Sergeant Kenny. I’m the chief. How can I help you?”

“Chief, my name is Payne. I’m a Philadelphia Homicide sergeant.”

“So Sergeant Kenny said. What can we do for you, Sergeant?”

“This a long shot, Chief, but that Peeping Tom you bagged last night may be a man we’re looking for in connection with a homicide here.”

“You don’t say?”

“Can you tell me if there was a knife involved? Did your guy have a great big knife?”

“Sergeant, I don’t know for sure you’re who you say you are, and even if I did, I’m not sure if I could answer that question. This is an ongoing investigation, and there’s some things we don’t want to get out, you understand.”

Which means, of course, that he did have a knife, otherwise you would have said “no.”

“How about a camera? A digital camera? Could you tell me that?”

“What part of I’m-Not-Going-To-Answer-Any-Questions-About — This-Investigation don’t you understand, Sergeant?” the chief asked.

“Certainly, Chief, I understand. But if you don’t think it would interfere with your investigation, could you tell me if the window he was peeping through was that of a young woman? And was he just looking, or maybe trying to open the window?”

There was a long pause.

“No, I don’t think I’d better get into that,” the chief said, finally.

This sonofabitch isn’t going to tell me a goddamn thing!

“Chief, I’ll probably be in touch with you again,” Matt said, politely. “In the meantime, if you’ll give me your police teletype address, I’ll have the department confirm who I am.”

“That sounds like a good idea, Sergeant,” the chief said, and gave it to him.

“I’ll get that out as soon as I get to the Round… police headquarters,” Matt said. “And thank you for taking the time to talk to me, Chief. I can imagine how busy you are.”

“My pleasure,” the chief said, and hung up.

“You don’t look so happy, boss,” Captain Frank Hollaran said as Deputy Commissioner Dennis V. Coughlin slipped beside him into the front seat of the car.

“Have you seen the Bulletin?” Coughlin asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“And Matty’s picture on the front page with Stan Colt?” Coughlin asked, and then went on without waiting for a reply. “I don’t like it, Frank. I understand why Matty’s showing that guy around, and from the perspective of Mariani and the mayor, it may be a great idea, but I don’t think it belongs in the newspapers.”

“I guess you haven’t seen the Ledger?” Hollaran asked.

“Same picture?”

“And worse,” Hollaran said, and indicated the newspaper on the seat between them. “The editorial page, Commissioner. ”

" ’Commissioner’? The editorial page? That sounds ominous, ” Coughlin said, as he flipped through the paper looking for the editorial page.

Ten seconds later, he said, “Oh, shit!”

And ten seconds after that, “Those bastards!”

NO WONDER MURDERERS REMAIN FREE

This newspaper received a publicity photo (below) of movie star Stan Colt and Homicide Sergeant M. M. Payne, getting out of a police car at the Mayor’s Reception for Colt at the Bellvue-Stratford last night. The press release went on to say that while Colt is in town raising money for West Catholic High School, his alma mater, Sergeant Payne is showing him how things really are in the Philadelphia police department.

The way things really are in the police department are that there are two open unsolved recent cases of brutal murder, and one can only guess how many “old” unsolved murders on the books.

One of the new open cases is that of a young woman who very probably was raped and murdered in her apartment while police officers chatted with her neighbors.

The second is that of a single mother of three who was murdered in a fast-food restaurant during a robbery. When the police finally responded to that call for help, the murderers killed the responding officer.

At last report the Philadelphia police department doesn’t have a clue as to the identity of the murderers.

Perhaps they would if Sergeant Payne were spending his time doing what the taxpayers hired him to do, investigate homicides, rather than spending it showing a movie star how things really are.

And it’s not only Sergeant Payne. Earlier yesterday, Payne was seen taking into Colt’s hotel an attractive young woman later identified as Detective Olivia Lassiter. Presumably, she was showing Colt how things really are in the Philadelphia police department.

And it’s not only the junior officers. At midnight, Inspector Peter Wohl, Commanding Officer of the Special Operations Division, who is supposed to be heading up the Mayor’s Task Force to solve the murders at the fast-food restaurant, and Homicide Lieutenant Jason Washington were seen showing how things really are in the Philadelphia police department by feeding Stan Colt beer and cheese steak sandwiches at D’Allesandro’s.

But maybe that’s the way things really are in the police department.

And maybe it’s time for a change in the police department, starting at the top with the commissioner, who permits this sort of thing to happen.

Or maybe in City Hall itself. After all, one of the primary responsibilities of Mayor Alvin W. Martin is the supervision of the police department.

And ten seconds after that, the radio went off.

"C-2, go,” Halloran said to his microphone.

"C-2, meet the commissioner at the Roundhouse.”

“Radio, we are en route. Estimate ten minutes.”

“I guess somebody else has been reading the morning’s papers,” Deputy Commissioner Coughlin said.