Special Operations

NINETEEN

Officer Matthew Payne returned to consciousness and became aware that he was being half carried and half dragged down the wooden stairs of the summer cottage, between Detective Washington and Lieutenant Ward of the Pennsylvania State Police, who had draped his arms over their shoulders, and had their arms wrapped around his back and waist.

"I'm all right," Matt said, as he tried to find a place to put his feet, aware that he was dizzy, sweat soaked, and as humiliated as he could possibly be.

"Yeah, sure you are," Lieutenant Ward said.

They half dragged and half carried him to the car and lowered him gently into the passenger seat.

"Maybe you better put your head between your knees," Jason Washington said.

"I'm all right," Matt repeated.

"Do what he says, son," Lieutenant Ward said. "The reason you pass out is because the blood leaves your brain."

Matt felt Jason Washington's gentle hand on his head, pushing it downward.

"I did that," Lieutenant Ward said, conversationally, "on Twenty-Two, near Harrisburg. A sixteen-wheeler jackknifed and a guy in a sports car went under it. When I got there, his head was on the pavement, looking at me. I went down, and cracked my forehead open on the truck fuel tank. If my sergeant hadn't been riding with me, I don't know what the hell would have happened. They carried me off in the ambulance with the body."

"That better, Matt?" Washington asked.

"Yeah," Matt said, shaking his head and sitting up. His shirt was now clammy against his back.

"He's getting some color back," Lieutenant Ward said. "He'll be all right. Lucky he didn't break anything, the way he went down."

Matt saw the two men carrying the black bag with the obscenity in it down the stairs, averted his eyes, then forced himself to watch.

"Did you get any tire casts," Washington asked, "or did the local gendarmerie drive all over the tracks?"

"Got three good ones," Ward said. "The vehicle was a '69 Ford van, dark maroon, with a door on the side. It has all-weather tires on the back."

"How you know that?"

"I told you, I got casts."

"I mean that it was a '69 Ford?"

"Mailman saw it," Ward said. "Rural carrier. There's a couple of houses farther up the road."

"Bingo," Washington said. "I don't suppose he saw who was driving it?"

"Not driving it," Ward said. "But he saw a large white male out in back."

"That's all, 'large, white male'?"

"He had hair," Ward said.

"Had hair, or was hairy?"

"Wasn't bald," Ward said. "Late twenties, early thirties.

The mail carrier lives in that little village down there," he added, jerking his thumb in the direction of the highway. "You want to talk to him?"

"Yes, I do, but what I really want first is a tire cast. Is there a phone in the village?"

"Yeah, sure, there's a store and a post office."

"Are you back among us, Matt?" Washington asked. "Feel up to driving down there and calling the boss?"

"Yes, sir," Matt said.

"Well, then, go call him. Tell him what we have-were you with us when Lieutenant Ward gave us the vehicle description?" He stopped and turned to Ward. "I don't suppose we have a license number?"

"No," Ward said. "Just that it was a Pennsylvania tag. But he saw that the grill was pushed in on the right. What caught the mail carrier's attention was that the van was parked right up by the steps. He thought maybe somebody was moving in."

"I heard what Lieutenant Ward said," Matt said. "A '69 dark red Ford with a door on the side."

"Maroon,kid," Lieutenant Ward said. "Not red,maroon. This ain't whisper down the lane."

"Yes, sir," Matt said, terribly embarrassed."Maroon."

"And a pushed-in, on the right, grill," Washington added, quickly.

"Yes, sir."

"Pennsylvania tag. So tell Inspector Wohl that. Find out if Harris decided to come out here. If he did, tell Wohl that you'll bring the casts in as soon as they're set and dry, and that I'll ride back with Tony. If he's not coming, then I'll do what I can here and go back with you. Or you can take the casts in and come back for me. Ask him how he wants to handle it."

Forty-five minutes later, five miles north of Doylestown on US 611, a Pennsylvania State Trooper turned on his flashing red light, hit the siren switch just long enough to make it growl, and caught the attention of the driver of a Ford LTD that was exceeding the 50 mph speed limit by thirty miles an hour, and which might, or might not, be an unmarked law enforcement vehicle.

Matt was startled by the growl of the siren, and by the State Trooper car in his rearview mirror. He slowed, and the Trooper pulled abreast and signaled him to pull over. Matt held his badge up to the window, and the Trooper repeated the gesture to pull over.

Matt pulled onto the shoulder and stopped and was out of his car before the Trooper could get out of his. He met him at the fender of the State Police car with his badge and photo ID in his hand.

The Trooper looked at it, and then, doubtfully, at Matt.

"What's the big hurry?" the trooper asked.

"I'm carrying tire casts from the crime scene in Durham to Philadelphia," Matt said. When that didn't seem to impress the trooper very much, he added: "We're trying to get a match. We think the doer is a serial rapist we're looking for."

The trooper walked to the car and looked in the backseat, where the tire casts, padded in newspaper, were strapped to the seat with seat belts.

"I didn't know the Philadelphia cops were interested in that job," the Trooper said, "and I wasn't sure if you were really a cop. I've had two weirdos lately with black-walled tires and antennas that didn' t have any radios. And youwere going like hell."

"Can I go now?"

"I'll take you through Doylestown to the Willow Grove interchange," the Trooper said, and walked back to his car and got in.

There is a stoplight at the intersection of US 611, which at that point is also known as "Old York Road," and Moreland Road in Willow Grove. When Matt stopped for it, the State Trooper by then having left him, his eye fell on the line of cars coming in the opposite direction. The face of the driver of the first car in line was familiar to him. It was that of Inspector Peter Wohl. He raised his hand in sort of a salute. He was sure that Wohl saw him, he was looking right at him, but there was no response. And then Matt saw another familiar face in Wohl's car, that of his sister.

What the hell is she doing with Inspector Wohl?

The light changed. The two cars passed each other. The drivers examined each other, Matt looking at Wohl with curiosity on his face, Wohl looking at Matt with no expression that Matt could read. And Amy Payne didn't look at all.

When he had spoken with Wohl from the pay phone in the little genera! store in Durham, Wohl had ordered him to bring the tire casts into Philadelphia as soon as they could safely be transported. "Harris is on his way out there, and I'm going out there myself. One or the other of us will see that Washington gets home."

He hadn't mentioned anything about bringing Amy with him. What's that all about? And Harris? I must have passed him on the road. With my luck, when I was being escorted by the Trooper. What would Harris think about that? Or maybe even he drove past when I was stopped for speeding! Oh, Christ, what a fool I'm making of myself!

He had just begun to wallow in the humiliation of having passed out upon seeing his first murder victim when he became aware of the radio, first that W-William One was calling W-William Two Oh One; next that W-William One was Inspector Wohl, and finally that W-William Two Oh One was Washington's-and at the moment, his-call sign.

He grabbed the microphone.

"W-William Two Oh One," he said.

"The crime lab people are waiting for those casts," Wohl's voice said. "So take them right to the Roundhouse; don't bother stopping at Bustleton and Bowler."

"Yes, sir," Matt said.

As he tried to make up his mind the fastest way to get from where he was to the Roundhouse, he turned up the volume on the J-Band.

There came the three beeps of an emergency message, signifying that the message that followed was directed to all radio-equipped vehicles of the Philadelphia Police Department:

Beep Beep Beep.

"All cars stand by unless you have an emergency.

Wanted for investigation for homicide and rape, the driver of a 1969 Ford van, maroon in color, damage to right portion of the front grill, all-weather tires mounted on the rear. Operator is a white male, twenty-five to thirty years of age, may be armed with a knife. Suspect is wanted for questioning in a rape-homicide and should be considered dangerous."

There was a brief pause, then the beeps and the message were repeated.

Jesus, Matt thought, I'd like to spot that sonofabitch!

He did not do so, although he very carefully scrutinized all the traffic on Broad Street, and on the Roosevelt Boulevard Extension, and then down the parkway into downtown Philadelphia, looking for a maroon van.

He had difficulty finding a parking space at the Roundhouse, but finally found one. He unstrapped the casts and carried them into the building. A very stout lady with orange hair came rapidly out of the elevator as he prepared to board it, nearly knocking the casts out of his hands.

That, he decided, would not have surprised him at all. It would be the gilding of the lily. If he had dropped and destroyed the casts, he would have spent the rest of his natural life typing up Sergeant Frizell's goddamned multipart forms.

No, he thought, that's terribly clever, but it's not true. What would have happened if I had carelessly allowed the casts to be broken would be that I would have had to face the question I have been so scrupulously avoiding; whether or not I am, as Amy suggests, simply indulging myself walking around with a gun and a badge, pretending I'm a policeman because I was rejected by the Marines.

I'm not a policeman. I proved that today, both by the childish pleasure I took racing through traffic with the siren screaming and then again by passing out like a Girl Scout seeing her first dead rabbit when I saw that poor woman's mutilated body. And just now, again, when I was really looking for a dark red van, so I could catch the bad guy, and earn the cheers and applause of my peers.

What bullshit! What the hell would I have done if I'd found him?

Maybe it would have been better in the long run if that fat lady had knocked the casts from my hands; the cops, the real cops, are going to catch this psychopath anyway, and if I had dropped the damned things, I would have been out of the Police Department in the morning, which, logic tells me, ergo sum, would be better all around.

Officer Matthew Payne was not at all surprised to be treated as a messenger boy by the officers in the Forensic Laboratory when he gave them the casts, nor when he returned to Bustleton and Bowler to be curtly ordered by a Corporal he had never seen before to get his ass over to the Peebles residence.

"You're late," the Corporal said. "Where the hell have you been?"

"At the Roundhouse," Matt replied.

"Oh, yeah, I heard," the Corporal said. "You have friends in high places, don't you, Payne?"

Matt did not bother to explain that he had been sent to the Roundhouse by Inspector Wohl, and that it had been in connection with police business. The Corpora! had just added the final argument in favor of resignation. He did have friends in high places.

Even if I wanted to, even if I had the requisite psychological characteristics necessary in a police officer, which I have proven beyond argument today that I do not, it would be impossible to prove myself a man, uncastrate myself, so to speak, with Uncle Denny Coughlin around, watching over me like a nervous maiden aunt, keeping me from doing what every other rookie gets to do, but rather sending me to a sinecure where, I am sure, the word is out to protect me. And where, I am obviously, and with justification, held in contempt by my peers.

I'll complete this tour of duty, because it would not be fair to expect McFadden and Martinez to take my duty in addition to their own, but in the morning, I will type out a short, succinct letter of resignation, and have it delivered out here by messenger.

He took the keys the Corporal had given him in exchange for the keys to Jason Washington's car and drove out to Chestnut Hill.

Charley McFadden had parked his car fifty yards away from the gate to the Peebles residence, on the opposite side of the street. Matt pulled in behind it, got out, and walked up to it.

"I was beginning to wonder if you were going to show up at all," McFadden said, not critically. "Where'd you go with Washington?"

"He went out to Bucks County, where they found the Woodham woman's body," Matt said. "He needed an errand boy."

"Well, all those Homicide guys think they're hotshots," McFadden said, not understanding him. "Don't let it get you down."

"What am I supposed to do here, Charley?"

"This is mostly bullshit," McFadden said. "Most of it is to scare the creep off. Wohl don't want another burglary here on the Overnight Report. And some of it is because he's pissed at me."

"What for?"

"He somehow has the idea I took you out and got you shitfaced last night," Charley said. He looked at Matt's face for a reaction, and then went on: "Hay-zus thinks you told Wohl that."

"No," Matt said. "I told Inspector Wohl thatI got drunk."

"With me?"

"No," Matt said. "And if he formed that impression, I'll see that I correct it."

"Fuck it, don't worry about it," Charley said. "Now, about here. I don't think this asshole will show up again. If he does, he's not stupid, he'll spot your car, and disappear. But if he does show up, and he is stupid-in other words, if you see somebody sneaking around the bushes, call for a backup. Don't try to catch him yourself. Highway cars will be riding by here every half hour or so, so what you'll do is sit here and try to stay awake until Hay-zus relieves you at midnight."

"How do I stay awake?"

"You didn't bring a thermos?"

Matt shook his head.

"I should have said something," Charley said. "I'll go get you a couple of containers of black coffee before I leave. Even cold coffee is better than no coffee. Get out of the car every once in a while, and walk around a little. Wave your arms, get the blood circulating.

…"

"I get the picture," Matt said.

"Every supervisor around is going to be riding past here tonight," McFadden said. "I wouldn't be surprised if Wohl himself came by. So for Christ's sake, don't fall asleep, or your ass will be in a crack."

"Okay," Matt said. "Thanks, Charley."

"Ah, shit," McFadden said, and started his engine. "You want something with the coffee? An egg sandwich, hamburger, something?"

"Hamburger with onions, two of them," Matt said, digging in his pocket for money. "They give me gas. Maybe that'll keep me awake."

Two hamburgers generously dressed with fried and raw onions (Charley McFadden, not knowing Matt's preference, had brought one of each) and two enormous foam containers of coffee, while they produced gas, did not keep Officer Matthew Payne awake on his post.

Neither did half a dozen walks down the street and up the driveway of the Peebles residence. Neither did getting out of the car and waving his arms around and doing deep knee bends.

At five minutes after eleven, while he was, for the tenth or fifteenth time, mentally composing the letter of resignation he would write in the morning, striving for both brevity and avoiding any suggestion that he would entertain any requests to reconsider, his head dropped forward and he fell asleep.

Five minutes after that, he twisted in his sleep, and slid slowly down on the seat.

Five minutes after that, as Officer McFadden had predicted, a senior supervisor did drive by the Peebles residence. He spotted the car, but paid only cursory attention to it, for he had other things on his mind.

Captain David Pekach thought the odds were about twenty-to-one that he was about to make a complete fool of himself. He wasimagining that the fingers of Miss Martha Peebles had lingered tenderly and perhaps even suggestively on his when he had damned near dropped the Ludwig Hamner Remington rolling-blockSchuetzen, and it waspreposterous to think that he really saw what he thought he saw in her eyes when she had seen him to the door.

What he was going to do, he decided, as he turned into the Peebles driveway, was simply perform his duty, that given to him by Peter Wohl; to assure the lady that everything that could conceivably be done by the Philadelphia Police Department generally and the Highway Patrol, of which he was the commanding officer, specifically, to protect her property from the depredations of Walton Williams; and to apprehend Mr. Williams; was being done. His presence would be that proof.

The odds are, he thought, that she went to bed long ago, anyway.

But there was a light in the library, and the light over the entrance was on, so he went on the air and reported that Highway One was out of service at 606 Glengarry Lane, checking the Peebles residence.

He walked up the stairs and had his finger out to push the doorbell when the door opened.

"I saw you coming up the drive," Martha Peebles said. "I wasn't sure that you would come."

"Good evening," David Pekach said, unable to choose between "Miss Peebles" and "Martha" and deciding quickly on neither one.

"Please come in," she said.

She was wearing a dressing robe.

Nothing sexy or suggestive or anything like that; it goes from her neck to her ankles. Just what a lady like herself would wear when she was about to go to bed.

"I said I would stop by and check on you," David Pekach said.

"I know," she said.

She started to walk to the stairway, stopped and looked over her shoulder to see if he was following her.

Where the hell is she going?

"And I've ordered cars to check on you regularly," he said.

"I've seen them," she said. "That's why I thought you might not be coming. That you had sent the other cars in your stead."

"If I say I'll do something, I do it," David Pekach said.

"I was almost sure of that, and now that you're here, I'm convinced that you are a man of your word," Martha Peebles said.

They were at the landing before the stained glass window of Saint Whatsisname the Dragon Slayer by then.

"I made a little midnight snack," Martha Peebles said.

"You didn't have to do that."

"I wanted to," she said, and took his arm.

"And there's a plainclothes officer in an unmarked car parked just up the block," David said.

Or I think there is. I didn't see anybody in the goddamned car, now that I think about it.

"I saw him, too," she said. "He's been up the drive four times, waving his flashlight around."

"We're doing our very best to take care of you."

"I wasn't sure if you-if you came, that is-if you could drink on duty, so I made coffee. But there's wine. Or whiskey, too, if you'd rather."

They were on the second floor now, moving down the corridor, away from the gun room.

"Oh, I don't think law and order would come crashing down if I had a glass of wine," David said.

"I'm glad. I put out a port, a rather robust port, that Father always enjoyed."

A door was open. Inside, David saw a small round table with a tablecloth that reached to the floor. There was a tray of sandwiches on it, with the crusts cut off, and a silver coffee set, and beside it was a wine cooler with the neck of a bottle of wine sticking out of it.

Jesus!

And when he stepped inside, he saw that there was an enormous, heavily carved headboard over a bed on which the sheets had been turned down.

Jesus!

"The maiden's bed," Martha Peebles said.

"Excuse me?" David said, not sure that he had heard her correctly.

"The maiden's bed," Martha said. "My bed. I suppose you think that's a bit absurd in this day and age, a maiden my age."

"Not at all." He seemed to have trouble finding his voice.

"I'm thirty-five," Martha said.

"I'm thirty-seven."

"Do you thinkI'm absurd?" Martha Peebles asked.

"No," he said firmly. "Why should I think that?"

"Enticing you, trying to entice you, up here like this?"

"Jesus!"

"Then you do," she said. "I didn't… it wasn't my intention to embarrass you, David."

"You're not embarrassing me."

"I'll tell you what is absurd," she said. "I never even thought of doing something like this until you came here this afternoon."

"I don't know what to say," David said. "Christ, I've been thinking about you all day… ever since I almost dropped the HamnerSchuetzen."

"When our hands touched?"

"Yeah, and when you looked at me that way," he said.

"I thought you were looking into my soul," Martha said.

"Jesus!"

"That made you uncomfortable, didn't it?" Martha asked. "For me to say that?"

"I felt the same damned thing!"

"Oh, David!"

He put his arms around her. At first it was awkward, but then they seemed to adjust their bodies to each other, and he kissed the top of her head, then her forehead, and finally her mouth.

"David," Martha said, finally. "Your… equipment… the belt and whatever, your badge, is hurting me. If we're going-shouldn't we take our things off?"

David backed away from her and looked down at his badge, then started to take off his Sam Browne belt.

When he glanced at Martha, he saw that she had removed her dressing gown. She hadn't been wearing anything under it.

"Are you disappointed?" she asked.

"You're beautiful]"

"Oh, I'm so glad you think so!"

At fifteen minutes to midnight, Officer Jesus Martinez drove down Glengarry Lane in Chestnut Hill, saw the unmarked car parked by the side of the Peebles house, recognized it as one he had ferried from the Academy, and wondered who the hell was in it. Obviously, one of the brass hats, stroking the lady. If there had been anything going on, it would have come over the radio.

He saw Matt Payne's unmarked car and drove past it, made a U-turn, and pulled in beside it. Payne wasn't in the car; maybe he was in the house with the supervisor.

He turned the engine off, and slumped back against the seat waiting for Payne to show up.

When ten minutes passed and he had not, Jesus Martinez got out of his car and walked up to Payne's. Payne knew he was coming. Maybe he had left a note for him on the dashboard or something, saying where he was.

When he saw Matt on the seat, the first thing that occurred to him was that violence had occurred, that maybe he'd run into Walton Williams or something. He was just about to jerk the door open when Matt snored.

The cocksucker's asleep! The cocksucker is really asleep!

This was followed by a wave of righteous indignation approaching blind fury.

The sonofabitch is sleeping when I've been out busting my ass all night looking for the asshole burglar! Before I have to baby-sit this fucking place!

Officer Matthew Payne was a hair's breadth away from being jerked out of the car by his feet when Martinez had one more reaction that infuriated him even more than finding Payne asleep.

The sonofabitch has been getting away with it! While I have been out busting my ass in every tinkerbell saloon in Philadelphia, he has been sleeping and nobody caught him! Highway cars have been going past here every half hour, and nobody caught him-or gave a damn if they did-and every fucking supervisor around, District, Highway, Northwest Detectives, maybe even Wohl and Sabara and that new Sergeant, have ridden by here and nobody noticed!

Officer Martinez stood by the side of Matt's car for a moment, his arms folded angrily across his chest, as he considered the various options open to him to fix the rich-boy rookie's ass once and for all for this. When the solution came to him, it was simplicity itself.

Now smiling, he took his penknife from his pocket, tested the sharpness of the blade with his thumb, and then knelt by the left front wheel. He sliced into the rubber tire valve where it passed through the tire. There was a piercing whistle of escaping air, which Martinez quickly muffled with his fist.

On the right front and rear wheels, he used his handkerchief to muffle the whistle of air escaping from sliced air valves.

Then he got back in his car and drove off, wearing a smile of satisfaction. The smile grew broader as he thought of the finishing touch. He reached for his microphone.

"W-William Two Eleven, W-William Two Twelve," he said.

"Go," Charley McFadden's voice came back immediately.

"I'm at Broad and Olney, working on something," Martinez said. "I ain't gonna be able to relieve our friend on time. What should I do?"

"I'll go relieve him," Charley replied immediately. "You want to come when you get loose, or do you want me to take the tour?"

"I'll relieve you at three, if that's all right," Martinez said.

"Yeah, fine," McFadden said.

That means I've got to hang around until three, Jesus Martinez thought. But what the fuck. It's worth it!

And then he thought that the sonofabitch would probably still be asleep when Charley rode up.

Good, let Charley see for himself what a useless prick Rich-boy is.