Badge Of Honor: The Victim Part 17

Matt slid the Ledger across the table to Amanda and then became aware that the waitress was still standing there.

"Amanda, would you like to order?"

"I think I lost my appet.i.te," she said.

"You have to eat."

"Can I get a breakfast steak?" she asked.

"Honey, anything your heart desires, we got it," the waitress said.

"They're running a special on me," Matt said. "I'm specially marked down for the occasion."

"Breakfast steak, medium-rare, eggs sunny-side up, toast, tomato juice, and coffee," Amanda said.

"Twice," Matt said. "Thank you."

Matt turned to the Bulletin. It used two photographs on the front, placed side by side. One was the same photo the Ledger had used of Amanda. The other was of Anthony J. DeZego scowling at the camera from above a board that read PHILA POLICE DEPT and carried his name and the date. Under these the caption gave their names and read, "shooting victims."

MAFIOSO KILLED: SOCIALITE.

WOUNDED.

IN CENTER CITY.

POLICE SEEKING CLUES.

IN EARLY EVENING SHOOTING.

By Michael J. O'Hara A shotgun blast to the head killed Anthony J. "Tony the Zee" DeZego, a Philadelphia underworld figure, and a second blast critically wounded Penelope Detweiler, socialite daughter of H. Richard Detweiler, president of Nesfoods International, shortly after seven last night on the roof level of the Penn Services Parking Garage on South 15th Street in downtown Philadelphia.

Miss Detweiler is in "critical but stable" condition at Hahneman Hospital. She was struck by "many" pellets from a shotgun sh.e.l.l, according to a hospital spokesman.

Off-duty Police Officer Matthew M. Payne discovered first Miss Detweiler, lying in a pool of blood, and then DeZego's body when he went to park his car. Payne, who is special a.s.sistant to Staff Inspector Peter Wohl, commanding officer of the Police Department's Special Operations Division, last month shot to death Warren K. Fletcher, 31, of German-town, ending what Mayor Jerry Carlucci termed "the reign of terror of the Northwest serial rapist."

Miss Detweiler, Payne, and Miss Amanda Spencer, of Scarsdale, N.Y., who was with Payne in his silver Porsche, were en route to the Union League Club on South Broad Street to attend a dinner being given for out-of-town wedding guests by C. T. Nesbitt III, Nesfoods International chairman of the board, whose son is to marry Daphne Browne of Merion at seven-thirty tonight at St. Mark's Church, near the site of the shooting.

According to senior police officials, it is most likely that Miss Detweiler was an innocent bystander caught in the middle of a mob exchange of gunfire, but this reporter has learned that police are quietly investigating the possibility that Miss Detweiler knew DeZego, and possibly may have gone to the parking garage to meet him.

In a surprise development last night, Police Commissioner Thaddeus Czernick announced that responsibility for the investigation of the shooting had been a.s.signed to Staff Inspector Peter Wohl and the Special Operations Division. Such an investigation would normally be conducted by the Homicide Division.

Commissioner Czernick also a.s.signed to Wohl the investigation of the murder of Police Officer Joseph Magnella, who was shot to death last night in North Philadelphia. (See related story, Page 3A.) One theory advanced for this unusual move was the rea.s.signment of ace Homicide Detectives Jason Washington and Anthony J. Harris to Special Operations during the search for the North Philadelphia serial rapist.

"They've got my name in here," Amanda said, "but not yours."

"The Ledger never mentions a cop's name unless they can say something nasty about him," Matt said.

"Really?" Amanda said, not sure if he was serious or not. She put her hand on the Bulletin. "What does that one say?''

"About the same thing," Matt said.

"Through?" Amanda asked, and slid the Bulletin away from Matt's side of the table.

He saw her eyes widen when she got to the place in the story about him. She glanced at him, then finished the story.

"You never told me about that," she said.

"Yes I did," Matt said. "You said if you had a car like mine and somebody dinged it, you'd kill him. And I said somebody did and I had."

The waitress appeared with a stainless-steel coffee pot. Amanda waited until she had poured the coffee and left.

"I thought you were just being a wisea.s.s," she said.

"You should have seen what he did to my car," Matt said. "He was lucky I didn't get really mad."

"Matt, stop!."

"Sorry," he said after a moment.

And a moment after that Amanda reached out and caught his hand. They sat that way, holding hands and looking into each other's eyes, until the waitress delivered breakfast.

NINE.

There was a fence around the Browne place in Merion, field-stone posts every twenty-five feet or so with wrought-iron bars between them. The bars were topped with spear points, and as a boy of six or seven Matt had spent all of one afternoon trying to hammer one loose so that he would have a spear to take home.

There was also a gate and a gate house, but the gate had never in Matt's memory been closed, and the gate house had always been locked and off-limits.

When he turned off the road, the gate was closed, and he had to jump on the brakes to avoid hitting it. And the door to the gate house was open. A burly man in a dark suit came out of it and walked to the gate.

A rent-a-cop, Matt decided. Had he been hired because the Princess of the Castle was getting married? Or did it have something to do with what had happened at the parking garage ?

The rent-a-cop opened the left portion of the gate wide enough to get through and came out to the Porsche.

"May I help you, sir?"

"Would you open the gate, please? Miss Spencer is a guest here."

The rent-a-cop looked carefully at both of them, then smiled, said, "Certainly, sir," and went to the gate and swung both sides open.

Matt saw that a red-and-white-striped tent, large enough for a two-ring circus, had been set up on the lawn in front of the house. There were three large caterer's trucks parked in the driveway. A human chain had been formed to unload folding chairs from one of them and set them up in the tent, and he saw cardboard boxes being unloaded in the same way from a second.

Soames T. Browne, in his shirt sleeves, and the bride-to-be, in shorts and a tattered gray University of Pennsylvania sweatshirt that belonged, Matt decided, to Chad Nesbitt, were standing outside the castle portal when Matt drove up. The rent-a-cop had almost certainly telephoned the house. Matt saw another large man in a business suit standing just inside the open oak door.

"I'll see you later," Matt said, waving at the Brownes with his left hand and touching Amanda's wrist with his right.

Amanda kissed his cheek and opened her door.

Soames T. Browne came around to Matt's side. Matt rolled the window down.

"Morning."

"Daffy said Amanda was probably with you," Browne said. "You should have called, Matt."

"Matt had to work-" Amanda said.

"Sure he did," Daffy snorted.

"-and I waited for him."

"Come in and have some coffee, Matt," Soames T. Browne ordered. "I want a word with you."

"I can't stay long, Mr. Browne."

"It won't take long," Browne said.

Matt turned the ignition off and got out of the car. There was a breakfast room in the house, on the ground floor of one of the turrets, with French windows opening onto the formal garden behind the house. Soames Browne led Matt to it, and then through it to the kitchen, where Mrs. Soames T. Browne, in a flowing negligee, was perched on a stool under a rack of pots and pans with a china mug in her hand.

"Good morning," Matt said.

She looked over him to Amanda.

"We were worried about you, honey," she said.

"I was with Matt," Amanda said.

"That's what we thought; that's why she was worried," Daffy said.

"We should have called. I'm sorry," Matt said.

"We were just going to do something about breakfast," Mrs. Browne said. "Have you eaten?"

"We just had breakfast, thank you," Amanda said.

"I didn't know Matt could cook," Daffy said sweetly.

"Coffee, then?" Mrs. Browne asked.

"Please," Amanda said.

"Do you know how Penny is, Matt?" Soames T. Browne asked.

"As of midnight she was reported to be 'critical but stable,'" Matt said.

"How do you know that?"

"My boss told us," Matt said.

"That was seven hours ago," Soames T. Browne said.

"Would you like me to call and see if there's been any change?''

"Could you?"

"I can try," Matt said. He looked up the number of Hahneman Hospital in the telephone book and then called.

"I'm sorry, sir, we're not permitted to give out that information at this time."

"This is Officer Payne, of the police."

"One moment, please, sir."

The next voice, very deep, precise, that came on-line surprised Matt: "Detective Washington."

"This is Matt Payne, Mr. Washington."

"What can I do for you, Matt?"

"I'm trying to find out how Penelope Detweiler is. They put me through to you."

"For Wohl?"

"For me. She's a friend of mine."

"I heard that. I'll want to talk to you about that later. At six o'clock they changed her from 'critical' to 'serious.' "

"That's better?"

Washington chuckled.