Special Operations

FIFTEEN

At quarter to one, Officer Charley McFadden pulled Matt Payne's Porsche 911T to the curb before a row house on Fitzgerald Street, not far from Methodist Hospital, in South Philadelphia.

"It happens that way sometimes," Charley said to Matt. "Sometimes you can go out and find who you're looking for easy as hell. And other times, it's like this. We'll catch the bastard. Hay-zus will turn up something."

"Yeah," Matt said.

"And you got the fag tour, right?" Charley said. "So it wasn't a complete waste of time, right?"

"It was… educational," Matt said, just a little thickly.

"And we wasn't in all of them," McFadden laughed. "Maybe half."

"There seem to be more of those places than I would have thought possible," Matt said, pronouncing each syllable carefully.

"You all right to drive?"

"Fine," Matt said.

"You're welcome to sleep on the couch here," Charley offered.

"I'm all right," Matt insisted.

"Well, drive careful, huh? You don't want to fuck up a car like this."

"I'll be careful," Matt said, and got out of the car and walked around the back.

"We'll get the bastard," Charley McFadden repeated. "And what the hell, we were on overtime, right?"

"Right," Matt said. "Good night, Charley. See you in the morning."

He started the engine, returned to South Broad Street, and pointed the nose toward Willy Penn, surveying the city from atop City Hall.

Matt had asked Charley McFadden about "that woman you introduced me to in the FOP" five minutes after they had picked up the Porsche, and were headed into West Philadelphia.

"She works for the district attorney," Charley said. "They call her the shark."

"Why?"

"Well, she likes cops," Charley said. "Young cops in particular. What did she do, grab your joint?"

"No. Nothing like that," Matt said. "I was just curious, that's all."

"I'm surprised," Charley said. "She looked pretty interested, to me."

"She seemed to know a good deal about the police, about police work."

"As much as any cop," Charley had said.

Matt reached City Hall, and drove around it, and up North Broad to Spring Garden and into the FOP parking lot.

The place was still crowded. He made his way to the bar and ordered a scotch and soda. He had a good deal to drink, some of the drinks paid for by either the proprietors of the bars they visited, or put in front of him by the bartender, who had then said, "The tall fellow at the end of the bar," or something like that.

He saw Lorraine Witzell at the far end of the bar, with three men standing around her.

Well, it was dumb coming here in the first place.

And then fingers grazed his neck.

"I was beginning to think you'd found something more interesting to do," Lorraine Witzell said, as she slid onto the bar stool behind, which action caused first one of her knees and then the other to graze his crotch.

"May I buy you a drink?" Matt said, very carefully.

Lorraine Witzell looked at him and smiled.

"You can, but what I think would make a lot more sense, baby, would be for Lorraine to take you home and get some coffee into you. You can take me for a ride in your Porsche some other time. It'll be safe in the parking lot here."

"I'm all right to drive," Matt insisted, somewhat indignantly, as Lorraine led him across the FOP bar and up the stairs to the street.

Peter Wohl walked to his car, and stood outside the door until he saw Dr. Amelia Payne's Buick station wagon come out of the alley beside the Delaware Valley Cancer Society Building and drive past him.

He raised his hand in a wave, but Dr. Payne either did not see it, or ignored it. He shrugged and got in the car, started it up, and reached for the microphone in the glove compartment, realizing only then that was the wrong radio. He put the microphone back, and fumbled around on the seat for the microphone that would give him access to the Highway Band.

He became aware that a car had pulled parallel to him and stopped. He turned to look, and found a pair of Highway Patrolmen looking at him from the front seat of an unmarked Highway car.

He waved and smiled. There was no response from either cop, but the car moved off.

They either didn't recognize me, or they did and aren't in a particularly friendly mood toward the sonofabitch who took Highway away from Good Ol' Mike and gave it to Dave Pekach.

He picked up the microphone, and as he did, smiled.

"Highway One, this is S-Sam One."

"Highway One," Pekach came back immediately. Wohl was not surprised that Pekach was up and riding around. Not only was he new to the job, and conscientious, but Pekach was used to working nights; it would take him a week, maybe longer, to get used to the idea that the Commander of Highway worked the day shift.

"I'm on Rittenhouse Square, David. Where are you? Where could we meet?"

Wohl chuckled. The brake lights on the unmarked Highway car flashed on, and the car slowed momentarily. In what he was sure was an involuntary reflex action, the driver had hit the brakes when he heard the New Boss calling Highway One. He was sure he could read the driver's mind:I thought that was him. Now what's the bastard up to?

"I'm on the expressway about a mile from the Manayunk Bridge," Pekach said. "You name it."

"You know where I live?"

"Yes, I do."

"I'll meet you there," Wohl said, and laid the microphone down.

Pekach, in full uniform, complete to motorcyclist's boots and Sam Browne belt festooned with shiny cartridges, was leaning on a Highway blue-and-white on the cobblestones before Wohl's garage apartment when Wohl got there.

I wouldn't be surprised if he was working the expressway with radar for speeders,Wohl thought, and was immediately sorry. That was both unkind and not true. What David Pekach was doing was what he would have done himself in the circumstances, making the point that Highway could expect to find the boss riding around at midnight, and the second, equally important point, that he was not sneaking around in an unmarked car, but in uniform and in a blue-and-white.

Wohl pulled the nose of the LTD up to the garage and got out.

"Let me put this away, David," he called. "And then I'll buy you a beer. Long night?"

"I thought it was a good idea to ride around," Pekach said.

"So do I," Wohl said, as he unlocked the doors and swung them open. " But it's after midnight."

He put the car in the garage, and then touched Pekach's arm as he led him up the stairs to the apartment.

"You seen the papers?" Pekach said.

"No, should I have?"

"Yeah, I think so. I brought you theBulletin and theLedger. "

"Thank you," Wohl said. "It wouldn't take a minute to make coffee."

"I'm coffeed out; beer would be fine."

"Sit," Wohl said, pointing to the couch beneath the oil painting of the voluptuous nude, and went to the refrigerator and came back with two bottles of Schlitz. "Glass?"

"This is fine," Pekach said, "thank you."

"Nothing on Elizabeth Woodham?" Wohl asked. "I expect I would have heard…"

David Pekach shook his head.

"Not a damn thing," he said. "I was so frustrated I actually wrote a speeding ticket."

"Really?" Wohl chuckled.

"Sonofabitch came by me at about eighty, as if I wasn't there. I thought maybe he was drunk, so I pulled him over. He was sober. Just in a hurry."

"It's been a long time since I wrote a ticket," Wohl said.

"When he saw he was going to get a ticket," Pekach said, "he got nasty. He said he was surprised a captain would be out getting people for something like speeding when we had a serial rapist and a kidnapped woman on our hands."

"Ouch," Wohl said.

"I felt like belting the sonofabitch," Pekach said. "That was just before you called."

"I had a disturbing session just before I called you," Wohl said. " With a psychiatrist. You've seen that kid hanging around Bustleton and Bowler? Payne?"

"He's Dutch's nephew or something?"

"Yeah. Well, his sister. I let her read the files and asked her for a profile."

"And?"

"Not much that'll help us find him, I'm afraid. But she said-the way she put it was 'slippery slope'-that once somebody like this doer goes over the edge, commits the first act, starts to act out his fantasies, it's a slippery slope."

"Huh," Pekach said.

"Meaning that he's unable to stop, and starts to think of himself as invincible, starts to think, in other words, that he can get away with anything. Worse, that to get the same charge, the same satisfaction, he has to get deeper and deeper into his fantasies."

"Meaning, she doesn't think we're going to get the Woodham woman back alive?"

"No, she doesn't," Peter said. "And worse, that because he's starting to think he's invincible, that he's not going to get caught, that he' ll go after somebody else, a new conquest, more quickly than he has before."

"I'm not sure I understand that," Pekach said.

"What she said is that the first time, after he'd done it, he was maybe ashamed and afraid he would get caught. And then when he didn't get caught, he stopped being afraid. And he remembered how much fun it was. So he did it again, got into his fantasies a little deeper, and was a little less frightened, and a lot less ashamed."

"Jesus!"

"What she, Dr. Payne, said was that it"evolves into frenzy."

"She meant he loses control?"

"Yeah."

"You think she knows what she's talking about?"

"I'm afraid she does," Wohl said.

"What can be done that isn't being done?" Pekach asked.

"Tony Harris is working minor sexual offenders," Wohl said. "He thinks this guy may have a misdemeanor arrest or two for exposing himself, soliciting a hooker, you know. Mike has been out recruiting people, and as soon as they start coming in, in the morning, I'm going to put them to work ringing doorbells for Harris."

"If there was a van, any kind of van, in Northwest Philly tonight that got away with not coming to a complete stop, or whose taillights weren't working, you know what I mean, I would be very surprised," Pekach said. "But we just can't stop every goddamned van in town, looking for a hairy white male, no further description available."

"I know," Wohl said.

"I went to the roll call tonight," Pekach said, "and reminded Highway that if we catch this scumbag, it might get the goddamned newspapers, especially the goddamnedLedger, off our backs. Not that they wouldn't be trying to catch this scumbag anyway."

"I know," Wohl said.

"Czernick on your back, Peter? Coughlin? The mayor?"

"Not yet," Peter said. "But that's going to happen."

"What do they expect?"

"Results," Wohl said. "I'm wide open to suggestion, David."

"I don't have any, sorry," Pekach said.

"What did you decide after tonight?" Wohl asked.

"Excuse me?"

"What shape is Highway in? Isn't that why you were riding around?"

Pekach met Wohl's eyes for a moment before replying.

"I went in on six calls," he said. "One on 95, one on the expressway, both traffic violations, and the other four all over town, a robbery in progress, two burglaries, man with a gun, that sort of thing. I didn't find a damned thing wrong with anything Highway did."

"Did AID come up with any witnesses in the accident?"

Any accident involving a city-owned vehicle is investigated by the Accident Investigation Division of the Police Department.

"Not a damned one."

"Well, I'll check and make sure they keep trying," Wohl said.

"I intended to do that, Inspector," Pekach said, coldly.

"I didn't mean that, David," Wohl said, evenly, "the way you apparently thought it sounded."

"I also let the word get out that maybe AID could use a little help," Pekach said.

"Meaning exactly what, David?" Wohl asked, his voice now chilly.

Pekach didn't reply; it was obvious he didn't want to,

"Come on, David," Wohl insisted.

Pekach shrugged.

"I wouldn't be surprised," Pekach said, "if a bunch of people in sports jackets and ties went around the neighborhood ringing doorbells. And if one of them turned up a witness, and then, anonymously, as a public-spirited citizen, called AID and gave them the witness's name, what's wrong with that?"

"Off-duty people in sports coats and ties, you mean, of course? Who could easily be mistaken for newspaper reporters or insurance investigators because they never even hinted they might be connected with the Police Department?"

"Of course," Pekach said.

"Then in that case, David," Wohl said, smiling at Pekach, "I would say that the new commander of Highway was already learning that some of the things a commander has to do can't be found in the book."

"I'm sorry I snapped at you before," Pekach said. "I don't know what the hell is the matter with me. Sorry."

"Maybe we're both a little nervous in our new jobs."

"You bet your ass," Pekach agreed, chuckling.

"You want another beer, David?"

"No. This'll do it. Now that I had it, I'm getting sleepy."

He got up. "Something will turn up, Peter, it always does," he said.

"I'm afraid of what will," Wohl said. "How long do you think it will take your wife to learn that the Highway Captain doesn't have to work eighteen hours a day?"

"Forever; I don't have a wife," Pekach said. "Or was that to politely tell me not to ride around?"

"It was to politely tell you to knock off the eighteen-hour days," Wohl said.

Pekach looked at him long enough to decide he was getting a straight answer, and gave one in return.

"I think Highway is sort of an honor, Peter. I want to do it right."

"You can do it right on saytwelve hours a day," Wohl said, smiling.

"Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?"

"The difference is that you have a kindly, understanding supervisor," Wohl said. "I have Coughlin, Czernick, and Carlucci."

"You may have a point." Pekach chuckled. "Good night, Peter. Thanks for the beer."

"Thanks for the talk," Wohl said. "I wanted to bounce what Dr. Payne said off someone bright."

"I'm very much afraid she's going to be right," Pekach said, and then he added, "Don't read those newspapers tonight. Let them ruin your breakfast, not your sleep."

"That bad?"

"TheLedger is really on our ass, yours in particular," Pekach said.

"Now, I'll have to read it," Wohl said, as he walked with Pekach to the door.

Wohl carried the beer bottles to the sink, emptied the inch remaining in his down the drain, and put them both in the garbage can under the sink.

He went to his bedroom, undressed, and then, giving into curiosity, walked naked into the living room and reclaimed the newspapers.

He spread them out on his bed, and sat down to read them.

There was a photograph of Elizabeth J. Woodham on the front page of theLedger, under the headline:KIDNAPPED SCHOOLTEACHER. Below the picture was a lengthy caption.

Elizabeth J. Woodham, 33, of the 300 block of E. Mermaid Lane in Chestnut Hill, is still missing two days after she was forced at knifepoint into a van and driven away. Her abductor is generally believed to be the serial rapist active in Chestnut Hill.

Inspector Peter Wohl, recently put in charge of a new Special Operations Division, which has assumed responsibility for the kidnapping, was "not available for the press" for comment, and Captain Michael J. Sabara, recently relieved as commander of the Highway Patrol to serve as Wohl's Deputy, refused to answer questions concerning Miss Woodham put to him by aLedger reporter.

Sources believed by theLedger to be reliable, however, have said the police have no clues that might lead them to the abductor, and no description of him beyond that of a "hairy, well-spoken white male." [ Further details and photographs on page B-3. The Police Department's handling of this case is also the subject of today'sLedger editorial, page A-7.]

Peter turned to the story, which contained nothing he hadn't seen before, and then to the editorial:

HOUSECLEANING NEEDED, NOT WHITEWASH

It is frankly outrageous, considering the millions of dollars Philadelphia's taxpayers pour unquestioningly into their police department, that a woman can be taken from her home at knifepoint at all. It is even more outrageous that twenty-four hours after the kidnapping, the police, rather than devoting all of their time and effort to apprehending the individual responsible for the kidnapping, and rescuing a kidnapped schoolteacher, have instead elected to assign many members of the so-called elite Highway Patrol to finding witnesses willing to say that the father of the four-year-old boy killed when a stoplight-running Highway Patrol smashed into his car was at fault, not them.

It was unconscionable that Inspector Peter Wohl, a crony of Police Commissioner Czernick, who is the responsible senior police official involved, should make himself "not available" to the press. The people have a right to know how well-or how poorly-their police are protecting them.

Mayor Carlucci should replace Czernick and Wohl with police officers dedicated to protecting the public, and not to whitewashing the Highway Patrol's unjustified, frequent, and well-documented excesses and failures. Anything less is malfeasance in office.

"Oh,shit," Peter Wohl said, tiredly, closing the newspaper. Then he picked up theBulletin. There were two stories about the Woodham abduction. One, a tearjerker, was written by a woman, Cheryl Davies, and chronicled the anguish of Elizabeth J. Woodham's family and friends. She had done her homework, Peter admitted grudgingly. There was a photograph of, and the reactions of, two sixth-graders who had been in her classes.

Mickey O'Hara's story was more or less upbeat. He wrote that Czernick had agreed to transfer to

… Staff Inspector Peter Wohl's just-forming new command two of the most highly respected homicide detectives, Jason Washington and Anthony Harris. Wohl, who himself enjoys a wide reputation as an investigator, has turned over the Woodham abduction to Washington and Harris, and is reported to be himself working around the clock on the investigation.

He finished reading Mickey's story, then folded theBulletin closed, too. He exhaled audibly, stood up, and carried the newspapers into the kitchen, intending to put them in the garbage. Then he changed his mind and simply laid them on the counter by the sink.

When he went back into his bedroom, he smashed his right fist into his open palm, grimaced, considered for a moment getting drunk, and wound up with his head pressing against the closed venetian blinds on the window beside his bed.

Without knowing why he did it, he pulled on the cord, and the blinds twisted open, and he could see the Big House thirty yards away.

There were lights in only several of the windows, and he had just decided they were the windows of Two B, Chez Schneider, when there was proof. Naomi Schneider, wearing only her underpants, pranced into view, smiling happily at someone else in the room, and handing him a drink.

Without thinking about it, Peter turned off the lights in his bedroom.

"Peel him a grape, Naomi," Peter said, aloud.

And then he wondered if Mr. Schneider had come home unexpectedly, or whether Naomi had pulled on someone else's dong to lure him into what obviously was her bedroom.

Nice boobs!

And then a wave of chagrin hit him.

"Oh, shit," he said. He closed the blinds quickly, turned the light on, and sat on the bed.

"You're a fucking voyeur, you goddamned pervert! You were really getting turned on watching her boobs flop around like that.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself!

And then he had a second thought, not quite as self-critical: Or get your ashes hauled, so that you won't get horny, peeking through people's bedroom windows.

And then he had a third thought, considered it a moment, and then dug the telephone book from where he kept it under his bed.

Amelia Alice Payne, M.D., lived on the tenth floor of the large, luxurious apartment building on the 2600 block of the Parkway, said to be the first of its kind in Philadelphia, and somewhat unimaginatively named the2601 Parkway.

She got off the elevator, walked twenty yards down the corridor, and let herself into her apartment.

She pushed the door closed with her rear end, turned and fastened the chain, and started to unbutton her blouse. She was tired, both from a long day, and from her long session with Staff Inspector Peter Wohl.

She walked into her living room and slumped into the armchair beside a table, which held the telephone answering device. She snapped it on.

She grunted as she bent to take off her shoes.

There were a number of messages, but none of them were important, or required any action on her part tonight. She had no intention of returning the call of one female patient who announced that she just had to talk to her as soon as possible. Listening to another litany of the faults of the lady's husband would have to wait until tomorrow.

She reset the machine, turned it off, and, carrying her shoes, walked into her bedroom, turning to the drapes and closing them. Open, they had given her a view of downtown Philadelphia, and, to the right, the headlights moving up and down the Schuylkill Expressway.

Amy decided against taking a shower. No one was going to be around to smell her tonight, and it would be better to use the shower as both cleanser and waker-upper in the morning.

She took off her blouse and pushed her skirt off her hips, and jerked the cover off her bed.

She probably had met more offensive men than Peter Wohl in her life, but she couldn't call one to mind at the moment. He represented everything she found offensive in men, except, she thought, that he didn't have either a pencil-line mustache or a pinky ring. But everything else she detested was there, starting with the most advanced (regressive?) case of Male Supremacist Syndrome she had ever encountered.

It was probably his cultural background, she thought. Wohl was certainly German. What was it the Germans said to define their perception of the proper role of females in society,Kinder, Kirche, und Kuche? Children, church, and kitchen. He obviously thought that Moses had carried that down from Mount Sinai with the other Commandments.

And he was a cop, the son of a cop. Had he said the grandson of a cop, too? That, obviously, had had a lot to do with what he was, and how he thought.

It wasn't, she thought, that he had implied she was stupid. He had been perfectly willing to pick her mind about this seriously ill man who was raping the women in Northwest Philadelphia. He was willing, as he had proved byinterrogating her for over three hours after they had gone back to Matt's apartment, to recognize her expertise, and take advantage of it. Men who couldn't fry an egg were always perfectly willing to allow themselves to be fed by the Little Woman.

Peter Wohl, Amy knew, had believed, and had been alarmed by, her announcement that the man he was looking for was rapidly losing what control he had left. He had asked her why she had felt that way, and she had explained, and then he had made her explain her explanations. And in the end, she knew he had accepted everything she had told him.

But he had never let her forget for a moment that he was a great big policeman, charged by God and the City of Philadelphia with protecting the weak and not-too-bright, such as she. He admired her skill and knowledge, Amy thought, the way he would have admired a dog who had been trained to walk on its hind legs.Isn't that amazing!

He had actually insisted on walking her to her car and then telling her"to make sure" to lock the doors from the inside,"there were all sorts of people running loose at night. "

And if he had said"Good Girl" one more time, she would have thrown something at him.

Which, of course, would only have confirmed his devout belief that women were unstable creatures who needed a great big male to protect them from the world, and from themselves.

She pulled her slip over her head, and unfastened her brassiere and took that off, examining the marks it had left on the lower portion of her breasts.

The telephone rang. She reached down to her bedside table and picked it up.

If it's that hysterical bitch calling again, I'll scream!

"Yes?"

"Dr. Payne?"

"Yes."

I'll be damned, it's him!

"Peter Wohl, Doctor."

"How nice of you to call," Amy said, sarcastically.

"I'm glad I caught you before you got to bed," he said.

"Just barely," she said. "What is it, Inspector?"

Was that a Freudian slip?Amy wondered. She had, quite unintentionally, caught her reflection in the triple mirror of her vanity table. She was, except for her underpants,bare. She covered her breasts with her free arm.

"I wanted to say how grateful I am for all the help you gave me, for your time," Peter Wohl said.

That's absurd! What am I modestly concealing? From whom? Mr. High and Mighty is on the telephone; he can't see me.

"You said that earlier," she said.

She pushed her panties off her hips and stepped out of them, found her reflection again, put her free hand on her hip, and thrust it out.

I have nothing whatever to be embarrassed about.

"And I have one more question," he said.

"What?"

"What effect on our doer would seeing a naked woman have? I mean, if he saw one through her window?"

She felt herself flushing.

Why the hell did he ask that?

She looked quickly around the room to see that her own blinds were tightly drawn.

"As opposed to a woman… a fully clothed woman," Wohl went on.

"What did you do, Inspector, just see something like that?" Amy asked, sarcastically.

"As a matter of fact, yes," he said, unabashed. "Quite inadvertently."

"I'm sure," Amy said. "But it had no effect on you, right, but you're wondering if it would on… a mentally ill man?"

"No," he said. "Actually, it had quite an effect on me. It was rather embarrassing."

Most men would deny that, Amy thought. How interesting.

"The nude female, at least a reasonably attractive one," Amy said seriously, and then saw her reflection and almost giggled as she thought,like me for example, "has a certain effect on the male. The normal male. A mentally ill male? Let me think." She did, and then went on. "Probably, given a man with mental problems, it would have a more profound effect. I'm not sure what that would be. If he hates women, it might trigger disgust. He might become highly aroused. The disgust might trigger anger, a sense that he thereafter had the right to punish. Innocent nudity, changing clothes, having a bath, might lead him to thinking about the helplessness of the woman."

He grunted.

"Is this of any help to you?"

"Mary Elizabeth Flannery was wearing only her underpants when this scumbag-sorry-when this guy showed up."

"I saw that in the file," Amy said.

"Maybe he drives around looking through windows," Wohl thought aloud, "and when he finds a naked, or partially naked, woman, that turns him on."

"That might have been the trigger early on," Amy said. "I can't really say. But now that I'm almost certain this man is out of control, I don't really know what effect, if any, that would have."

"Ummm," Peter Wohl said, thoughtfully.

"If that's all, Inspector, it's very late."

"Actually," Peter Wohl blurted, "I had something else in mind."

It had, in fact, occurred to him two seconds before.

"Yes?" Amy said, impatiently.

"I really enjoyed our time together," Wohl plunged on, "and I hoped that you might have dinner with me sometime. On a nonprofessional basis."

"Oh, I see," she heard herself saying. "We could run through a long line of gangster-owned restaurants where fellow men of honor get free meals, is that it?"

There was a long pause, long enough for Amy to wonderwhat's wrong with me? Why did I say that?

"I beg your pardon, Doctor. I won't trouble you again."

Oh, God, he's going to hang up!

"Peter-"

There was no reply for a long moment, and then he said, "I'm here."

"I don't know why I said that. I'm sorry."

He didn't reply.

"I would love to have dinner with you," Amy heard herself blurting. " Call me. Tomorrow. I'm glad you called."

"So'm I," Peter Wohl said, happily. "Good night, Amy."

The line went dead.

She looked at herself in the mirror again.

Oh, God, she thought. It was Freudian. Sex is what that was all about!