The investigators

SIX

When Matt Payne glanced into the lobby as he drove past the Delaware Valley Cancer Society Building, he saw two men in business suits sitting on the leather-and — chrome seats facing the receptionist's desk.

Except for the Wachenhut rent-a-cop the Cancer Society installed behind the receptionist's desk, they closed down tight at night and on weekends. It was therefore possible-even likely-that anyone in the lobby was waiting for him, not for someone connected with the Cancer Society.

He slowed and took a closer look. He recognized neither man. He shrugged and drove around the block, to the rear of the building, where he had to get out of the Porsche and use a difficult key to open the steel door lowered on weekends over the entrance to the basement garage. He entered the garage, then got out of the Porsche again to reclose the door.

He rode to the fourth-floor landing on the elevator, unlocked his door, and climbed the narrow stairway to his apartment.

Which seemed to be in even a greater mess than he remembered. An unpleasant sweetish odor told him that he had again forgotten to get rid of the goddamned garbage under the sink. He would, he realized, have to deal with both problems tonight.

Just as soon as he dealt with his answering machine, the red light of which was blinking.

"Matt," the recorded voice said. "Mike Weisbach. Sorry to bother you on your day off. If you get in before, say, half past ten, give me a ring at home, will you? 774- 4923."

He slumped onto the couch and reached for the telephone.

A woman answered.

"Inspector Weisbach, please. Detective Payne returning his call."

"Hi, Matt. This is Natalie. I'll get him."

"Thank you."

Why the hell can't I remember her name?

"Hey, Matt. Glad I caught you."

"What's up, Inspector?"

"Peter Wohl asked me to call you. We'll be working together on the Five Squad mess."

"Yes, sir. I spoke with the inspector earlier. He said he thought we'd get stuck with that."

"I'm going to get together with everybody in the morning, nine o'clock, your office. But what I'm calling about now is the tapes."

"Yes, sir."

"It seems to me the first thing we need is the tapes. How are they coming?"

"Slowly and painfully."

Weisbach chuckled.

"Captain Sabara said you were working on them late last night."

"Yes, sir."

"How would you like some more overtime, Detective Payne?"

"I'm very much afraid the inspector means tonight," Matt said.

"Other plans, Matt? Unbreakable?"

"No, sir. I can go out there. But, Inspector, I can't finish them tonight."

"Maybe we can come up with something tomorrow. Get you some help. But the more I could have before the meeting tomorrow, the better."

"Yes, sir. I'll go out there and do what I can."

"I appreciate it, Matt. Maybe I can make it up to you."

"I'll do what I can, sir."

"Thank you, Matt. See you in the morning."

"Yes, sir."

Matt put the telephone back in its cradle.

"Shit!" he said.

His doorbell sounded.

"Now what?"

He had an intercom, but it was less trouble to go down the stairs and open the door than to use it, and he did so.

The two men he had seen in the lobby were standing there.

"Matthew Payne?" the taller one said.

Matt nodded.

"I'm Special Agent Jernigan of the FBI, and this is Special Agent Leibowitz." He showed Matt his identification, then went on: "We'd like to talk to you. May we come in?"

"Talk to me about what?"

"May we come in?"

"Talk to me about what?" Matt repeated.

"If you don't mind, Mr. Payne, we'll ask the questions, " Special Agent Jernigan said.

"What is this, some sort of a joke?" Matt asked, aware that his temper was simmering just below the surface.

"I assure you, this is not a joke."

"Ask your questions," Matt said.

"Is Miss Susan Reynolds in your apartment?"

"I don't see how that's any of your business, but no, she's not."

"We'll decide what's our business, if you don't mind."

"And I will decide whether or not I'll answer your questions, if you don't mind."

"You understand, of course, Mr. Payne, that interfering with a federal investigation is a crime?"

"I heard that somewhere. But I also heard that declining to answer questions is not considered interfering with an investigation. I think they call that the Fifth Amendment."

"We understand, Mr. Payne," Agent Leibowitz said, "that you were with Miss Reynolds last night?"

Matt understood when Leibowitz spoke that Leibowitz was the senior agent of the two, and that Leibowitz had opened his mouth only because he understood that Agent Jernigan and the interviewee had developed a personality conflict that would interfere with the interview.

"Yes, I was," Matt said.

"Would you mind telling us where you went with her when you left the Nesbitt residence together?"

"I did not leave the Nesbitt residence with anyone," Matt said.

Christ, have these guys been talking to Daffy? What the hell is this all about?

"We believe you did," Agent Leibowitz said.

"Frankly, I don't care if you believe in the Easter Bunny," Matt said. "I'm telling you I left the Nesbitt residence alone, and that's absolutely the last thing I'm going to tell you until you tell me what this is all about."

"I don't understand your hostility, frankly, Mr. Payne," Leibowitz said. "You have something against the FBI?"

"Some of my best friends are FBI agents, but I don't think I would want my sister to marry one," Matt said.

Matt saw that Agent Jernigan's face had grown red. And that pleased him.

"Where are you employed, Mr. Payne?" Jernigan asked, somewhat menacingly.

"I don't think you're supposed to be asking any more questions, are you? Didn't Agent Leibowitz take over the interview?"

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Payne," Agent Leibowitz said, and walked toward the elevator.

"'Bye, now," Matt said. "Have a nice night!"

He started back up the stairs to his apartment.

I wonder what the hell that was all about?

Jesus! Kidnapping?

Did somebody kidnap Susan Reynolds? That would involve the FBI.

And they must have talked to Daffy.

And she told them Susan had left with me, because that's what she told Susan's parents.

Goddamn her!

Wait a minute. Don't leap to conclusions.

Daffy told Susan's mother that Susan was off somewhere with me.

Susan's mother, or father, told Dad's pal, Lawyer Emmons, that Susan had gone off with me.

One of them, probably Lawyer Emmons, went to the FBI, and told the FBI the same thing.

The FBI is investigating the kidnapping, or at least the disappearance and possible kidnapping of Susan Reynolds.

So soon? She only turned up missing at two A.M. this morning.

The victim is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Reynolds. Reynolds, a multimillionaire, is president of Tomar, Inc.

And important enough to get the FBI working on a weekend.

Goddamn Daffy!

I am, if not a suspect, then the last person known to have seen the victim.

Those FBI clowns were just doing their job. I probably shouldn't have given them such a hard time. But they are such an arrogant bunch of bastards! "I am Special Agent Jernigan of the FBI, Mr. Payne. We'd like to talk to you. May we come in?" and then that "Where are you employed, Mr. Payne?" bullshit. Translation: "We're going to get you in trouble with your boss, wise guy."

Fuck them! All they had to do was tell me they were looking for Susan Reynolds, that they thought she might have been kidnapped. Even if I was the kidnapper, that wouldn't have hurt their investigation. And I would have told them everything I know… except, of course, that I don't think she spent the night in her room, because I went into her room and the bed hadn't been slept in.

Goddamn it, going into her room was really stupid!

He reached the top of the stairs, crossed to his couch, slumped into it, and put the telephone in his lap.

"Hello?"

"Daffy, curiosity overwhelms me. Where did your pal Susan finally turn up?"

"Matt," Daphne Browne Nesbitt said solemnly, "I am so sorry."

"So sorry about what?"

"Can you keep your mouth shut?"

"Of course."

"She was there all the time," Daffy said.

"She was where all the time?"

"In her room. She didn't want to answer the telephone. "

"How do you know that?"

"Because she told me."

"When was this?"

"About an hour ago. She called just before she checked out of the hotel."

"You're sure it was her?"

"Of course I'm sure."

"Did she tell you why she didn't want to answer the telephone?"

"No, but I can guess, can't you?"

"You're suggesting she was in the sack with some guy all the time?"

"I suggested nothing of the kind. Susan isn't that kind of girl."

"Where is she now?"

"Probably, about now, about halfway to Harrisburg. Matt, I feel like such a shit for getting you involved."

"Involved in what?"

"I know about her father's lawyer calling your father."

"No major problem, Daffy."

"You want to come to supper? There's all kinds of leftovers."

"I'll take a rain check."

"You want Susan's telephone number? If at first you don't succeed, et cetera, et cetera…"

He stopped himself just in time from saying "no." He wrote the number down, then said good-bye to Daphne.

Do I want to take another shot at that dame? No, I do not. Then why did I take down her phone number?

He crumpled the sheet of notepaper up and threw it at an overflowing wastebasket. He missed.

He spent the next thirty minutes in an only partially successful attempt to clean up the apartment, then started carrying bags of garbage down the stairs to the elevator. On his third trip, emptying the wastebasket in brown kraft paper bags from Acme Supermarkets, he saw the crumpled ball of paper with Susan Reynolds's telephone number on it. He picked it up and after a moment's hesitation stuffed it into his pocket.

Then he went down in the elevator with the half-dozen bags of garbage, set them where they would be collected in the morning, and walked back to the Porsche. He debated a moment about taking the unmarked car, then decided not to. He was going on duty, sure, extra duty, and therefore the taxpayers of Philadelphia should be happy to pay for his transportation.

But on the other hand, driving the Porsche was fun. And there was probably going to be little chance to drive it during the next week or ten days. With His Honor the mayor paying personal attention to the investigation of dirty cops in Narcotics, there was almost certainly going to be a lot of overtime.

He drove out of the garage, closed it after him, and then started for Special Operations, via Broad Street. As he passed Hahnemann Hospital, he glanced in the rearview mirror to change lanes and saw Special Agent Leibowitz of the FBI at the wheel of a green Chevrolet, with Special Agent Jernigan sitting beside him.

I'll be goddamned! Those clowns are surveilling me!

They were still behind him after twenty minutes and a lengthy trip up and down the back alleys off Frankford Avenue when he pulled into the Special Operations Division parking lot and into the parking spot reserved for the unmarked car he had left in the Cancer Society Building garage.

First of all, he thought, not without a certain pleasure, they'll be wondering what I'm doing here. After a while-a long while, it is to be hoped-they may actually interrupt their dedicated surveillance of the kidnap suspect long enough to enter the building, identify themselves to the sergeant or the duty officer, and inquire of him if they happen to know what the occupant of the silver Porsche is doing in here.

At that point, they may actually get in touch with their supervisor, who will tell them that there is no kidnapping after all, and they will be denied the great pleasure of hauling the uncooperative wiseass off in handcuffs.

He went up the stairs to the Investigation Section, turned on the lights, worked the combination lock on "his" filing cabinet, took the tapes from the cabinet, seated himself at his desk, and turned on the dictating machine.

Staff Inspector Michael Weisbach looked around the Investigations Section office at the people he had summoned-in the case of Sergeant Jason Washington, politely asked-to participate.

Among them was the only man in uniform, Sergeant Elliot Sandow, a slight, sickly-looking former Traffic of ficer who had been struck on the job by a Strawbridge amp; Clothier delivery truck, spent four months in the hospital, and personally petitioned Mayor Carlucci to stay on the job rather than go out on disability.

He had proved to be an unusually skilled administrator, whom Weisbach had found working in Personnel and arranged to have transferred first to the Staff Inspection Unit, and then, when he had been named to command the Ethical Affairs Unit, to EAU. At the moment, Weisbach and Sandow were the EAU.

Also present were Detectives Anthony C. Harris, Jesus Martinez, Charles McFadden, Matthew M. Payne, and Of ficer Foster H. Lewis, Jr., a very black twenty-four-year-old who stood six feet three inches tall, weighed 230 pounds, and was known, perhaps inevitably, as "Tiny."

Foster H. Lewis, Sr., a lieutenant in the 9th District, was very unhappy that his son was a police officer at all, and working plainclothes in the Investigations Section of Special Operations in particular. As a parent, he would have much preferred that his son had remained a medical student rather than join the police department. As a policeman, he would have much preferred that his son learn the police profession as he had, working his way up from walking a beat, rather than going almost directly from the Academy to a plainclothes Special Operations assignment that carried with it so much overtime that he was bringing home almost as much money as his father and was usually provided with an unmarked car.

Lieutenant Foster was truly ambivalent about his son having recently taken-just as soon as he was eligible-the examination for promotion to detective. If he passed it and was promoted, Lieutenant Foster knew that he would really be proud of his son-despite his genuine belief that his son hadn't been on the job long enough to be a good beat patrolman, much less a detective.

"I'm sure," Staff Inspector Weisbach began, "that everyone was as thrilled as I was to learn that this morning Commissioner Czernich, by classified communication, charged the Ethical Affairs Unit with investigating certain allegations of misbehavior in the Five Squad of the Narcotics Unit, and further directed Inspector Wohl to make available to EAU whatever Special Operations resources are needed, which includes the services of everybody in this room."

"Shit," Detective Harris said, but smiled.

"Thank you, Detective Harris," Weisbach said, "for so succinctly summing up the feelings of so many of us."

There were general chuckles.

"But we're cops, gentlemen, all of us. And we do what we're ordered to do, so let's get on with it," Weisbach said. "My first order-I don't give many orders, so pay attention when I do-is that this is one job that nobody talks about. Not to your wives, not at the FOP bar, not to your buddies. Not to anyone. If there's something dirty going on in Narcotics Five Squad, and they even suspect we're looking close at them, they'll just shut down whatever they're doing and wait until the storm blows over. Which obviously means our job would be much harder. Everybody got that clear in their minds?"

He looked at Matt Payne so long that Matt nodded. And then he kept looking. Finally, Matt understood what was expected of him. He stood up and said, "Yes, sir."

Weisbach looked at everybody but Sergeants Washington and Sandow in turn, and waited until each of them stood up and said, "Yes, sir."

"For all practical purposes, Sergeants Washington and Sandow will not be taking a very active role in this," Weisbach said. "Sergeant Sandow for the obvious reasons, he'll be handling the paperwork, and Sergeant Washington because he really is a legend in his own time, and the first time he started asking questions, looking around Five Squad, they would wonder why. To only a slightly lesser degree-he is not nearly as visible as Sergeant Washington-this also applies to Detective Harris.

"This does not mean," Weisbach went on, to be interrupted by a chorus of chuckles, and then went on, "that Sergeant Washington and Harris will not be involved in this-quite the opposite-just that they won't be out ringing doorbells. The flow of reports will be through Washington to me, and I expect Washington to bring Harris in on everything. Okay?"

There was a chorus of "Yes, sirs," and Washington nodded his understanding.

"Is there anybody here who doesn't know how and where the interest in Five Squad began?" Weisbach asked. "I mean the accusations made to Sergeant Washington by Officer Kellog's wife at the time of the murder? Hands, please."

No hands went up.

"I'm not surprised. My wife says cops gossip more than women," Weisbach went on. "Okay, let me bring everybody up-to-date on what's happened since. If you've heard this before, bear with me.

"When these allegations first came up, I spoke with Captain Pekach. He was surprised to hear them. He felt, I suppose still feels, that if anything was going on in Narcotics, he would have heard about it, or at least had suspicions. Now, since Captain Pekach is both not naive, and an experienced police supervisor, what that means is-let's go on the presumption that there are dirty cops in the Five Squad-that they're smart and doing what they're doing skillfully enough to keep a smart supervisor like Captain Pekach from even suspecting that something's going on."

He looked at Detective Jesus Martinez.

"Jesus, when you worked Narcotics, did you hear anything about the Five Squad? Suspect anything?"

Martinez shook his head, "no."

"Charley?" Weisbach asked, looking at Detective McFadden.

"No, sir," McFadden said. "Five Squad were the hotshots. They hung together. They didn't even talk to the peasants."

Weisbach nodded.

"More proof that they know how to keep their mouths shut," Weisbach said. "I asked Captain Pekach to let his imagination run free, and come up with how Five Squad could illegally profit from the performance, or nonperformance, of their official duties.

"Captain Pekach said he doesn't think Five Squad is taking payments from drug dealers or others to ignore their criminal activities. He made the point that the statistics-the number of 'good' arrests resulting in court convictions made by Five Squad-are extraordinary.

"That, he said-and I think he's right-left one possibility: if there is something dirty going on, it's taking place during raids and arrests. I looked into this idea, and found out that the number of times Five Squad conducted raids and arrests without support from other police units, the districts, Highway Patrol, and ACT teams is unusual.

"In other words, with no one present during a raid or arrest but fellow members of the Narcotics Five Squad, it's possible that Five Squad is illegally diverting to their own use part of the cash and other valuables that would be subject to seizure before it was entered upon a property receipt."

"Yeah," Detective McFadden thought out loud.

"McFadden?" Weisbach asked.

"They run a bust. The bad guy has, say, ten thousand in cash. They turn in say, eight or nine thousand. What's the bad guy going to do? 'Hey, I got ripped off of a thousand '? Who's going to believe him?"

"I think it will probably turn out to be something like that," Weisbach said.

"Or controlled substances," Jesus Martinez said. "They bust the guy, he's got fifty bags of crap. They turn in forty. Same story."

"If Martinez is right about that-and I'm afraid he might be-that would mean that Five Squad is putting drugs back onto the street," Weisbach said.

"Are we talking out of school here?" McFadden asked.

"Yes, we are."

"I done a little of that myself," McFadden said, "Took a couple of bags here and there to feed my snitches."

"You never sold any, Charley," Jesus said.

"What I'm saying is that's how it could have started," McFadden said. "You need to make a car payment or something, you got five, ten bags you took away from some scumbag to feed your snitches. Fuck your snitches, sell the shit, make your car payment."

Staff Inspector Weisbach had spoken to Captain Pekach about Detectives Martinez and McFadden, who had worked for him when he'd been a lieutenant in Narcotics.

They both had been assigned to Narcotics right out of the Academy, solely because Narcotics needed a steady stream of undercover officers whose faces were not known on the street. Until they were "burned"-that is, became known-rookie cops were very valuable in making buys, and thus causing arrests. Many rookies were psychologically unable to work undercover, and many other rookies, because of inexperience or just plain bad luck, were quickly burned. Once burned, rookie cops working undercover Narcotics then resumed a rookie's normal police career. Most of them wound up in districts, walking a beat, until such time as their superiors felt they could be trusted working district wagons.

McFadden and Martinez had been the exception to the general rule. They liked what they were doing, and had been extraordinarily good at it. They had come to be known as "Mutt and Jeff," after the comic book characters, because of their sizes. They made a large number of good arrests, and they had been on the job over a year before they had been burned.

And the way they were burned had set them aside from their peers, too.

The commanding officer of Highway Patrol, Captain "Dutch" Moffitt, a very colorful and popular officer, had been shot to death when, off-duty and in civilian clothing, he had tried to stop an armed robbery of a diner on Roosevelt Boulevard.

The identity of the shooter, a drug addict, was known, and the entire Philadelphia Police Department was looking for him. Mutt and Jeff had run him down on their own time, at the Bridge Street elevated train station. McFadden had literally run the shooter down, chasing him down the elevated train tracks at considerable risk to his own life, until a train had come along, and the shooter had fallen under its wheels.

The two had received their commendations from Mayor Carlucci himself, which had caused their photographs to be plastered all over the front pages of all the newspapers in Philadelphia except the Ledger, and thus effectively burning them from further duty as undercover narcs.

It wouldn't have been fair, under those circumstances, to send the two of them out to a district to turn off fire hydrants in the summer, transport prisoners, and do the other things that other rookies with an out-of-the-Academy undercover narcotics assignment usually did after they were burned.

Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin had arranged for their assignment to Highway Patrol, considered the elite of the uniformed force. Normally, police officers couldn't even apply for transfer to Highway unless they had at least five very good years on the job elsewhere.

They'd taken the examination for detective as soon as they were eligible. Martinez had placed two spots below Matt Payne, and McFadden two spots above the cutoff point at the bottom on the rankings.

They had to be considered outstanding young police of ficers, Staff Inspector Weisbach thought. And while there was no question in his mind that they were both straight arrows, there was something very disturbing to him in their matter-of-fact acceptance that it was perfectly acceptable-if admittedly illegal-police procedure to take drugs from evidence with the intention of using them to pay informers. That the end, so to speak, justified the means.

He was not morally outraged-he had been a policeman too long for that-but it bothered him.

"You think something like that happened, McFadden?" he asked.

"I don't think anybody, any dirty cop, starts out by saying, 'Fuck it, today I start being dirty.' They have to have some reason, something that makes it all right. Tell themselves, for example, 'Just this one time, when I make this car payment, that'll be the end of it. I'll never do it again.' "

"If you're right, and I think you may be, that doesn't explain how the whole Five Squad went bad," Weisbach said.

"Are we sure they're all dirty?" Martinez asked.

"If they're not all actually involved," Washington said, "I find it difficult to accept that anyone on Five Squad is not fully aware of what the others are doing."

"Cops don't snitch on other cops?" McFadden replied.

Washington nodded.

"Not unless their option is, their own innocence aside, going down with the others," Tony Harris said. "Maybe the way to get into this is to find the one guy-if there is one-who is not dirty."

"How do we find him, Tony?" Weisbach asked.

"Easy. He's the one who doesn't have money he shouldn't have," Harris said.

"Well, that's where we're going to begin. With money," Weisbach said. "We're going to see if anybody on the Five Squad has been spending-or saving-more money than seems reasonable on what the department is paying him. Frankly, I would be surprised if we can quickly, or easily, come up with something. If, on the first go-around, we can find anything suspicious at all."

"I don't understand, Inspector," Matt Payne said.

"I think one of the things we all have to keep in mind, Payne, is that although Internal Affairs hasn't been given this job specifically, that doesn't mean they're incompetent, or stupid. They're always looking for signs of unusual affluence, and I would suspect they look closest at cops in jobs where taking bribes, or doing something else illegal, would be more likely. I'm sure they routinely check Narcotics people, is what I'm saying. And they didn't find anything suspicious, or else they would have started their own investigation. Chief Coughlin tells me Internal Affairs was not conducting any kind of a specific investigation of anybody in Narcotics before we got this job.

"What I think that could mean is-presuming some members of Five Squad are dirty-that they are also too smart to go out and buy a new Buick in their own name, or a condo at the shore, or put money in their own bank account. You still with me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, we-and by 'we' I mean McFadden and Jesus and Tiny-are going to go through the motions of looking for unexplained amounts of money. I expect a thorough job. I would be delighted if they don't find unexplainable money and prove me wrong. Call that the first go-around. And while they're doing that, Payne, you're going to come up with a database of names of people in whose names Buicks and condos, et cetera, could be bought. Still with me?"

"No, sir. Sorry."

"Relatives. Friends. A brother-in-law. You want to buy a condo at the shore and you don't want to attract Internal Affairs attention, so you give your brother-in-law or your uncle Charley the money, and he buys the condo at the shore. Or you put the money in his bank account. Got it?"

"Where do I start?"

"Start with personnel records. Sergeant Sandow can set that up for you. At night, Elliot. I don't want it to get out that somebody from Special Operations or Ethical Affairs is checking personnel records."

"Yes, sir," Sergeant Sandow said.

"That'll give us some names to start with," Weisbach went on. "I don't want to start ringing doorbells until we have to. We can't afford to have somebody say, 'Hey, Charley, there was a cop here asking questions about you.' "

"Yes, sir," Payne said.

"Your first job, though, Payne, is the tapes. We need them transcribed, the sooner the better. Sandow will see that everybody gets a copy. Then I want everybody, individually, to try to make sense of them. Then we'll get together and brainstorm them. I want a brainstorm session every day or so. We all have to know what everybody else is doing, and maybe somebody will be able to make sense out of something the other guy doesn't understand."

He looked around the room.

"Any questions?"

No one had any questions.