Badge Of Honor: The Victim Part 39

"I didn't hear anybody say anything like that, Lieutenant."

"I owe you one," Lieutenant Mikkles said.

"Forget it," Washington said.

Sergeant Dolan came back in the office with a handful of five-by-seven photographs.

"Here's the f.u.c.king photographs," he said, handing them to Washington. "What do you want to know?"

Washington looked through the photographs, then sorted them so they would be sequential.

They showed Anthony J. DeZego getting out of his car in front of the Hotel Warwick; handing the doorman money; walking toward the hotel c.o.c.ktail lounge; inside the c.o.c.ktail lounge (four shots, including one of the bellboy giving him the car keys); leaving the c.o.c.ktail lounge; walking toward the garage; and, the last shot, entering the garage.

"This is in the right sequence? This all of them?" Washington asked, handing the stack of photographs to Dolan.

"What do you mean, is this all of them?" Dolan snapped. "Yeah, it's all of them." He flipped through them quickly and said, "Yeah, that's the order I took them in."

Anomaly! Anomaly! Anomaly!

"Sergeant, I'd like a set of these pictures for my report," Washington said. "The negatives, I guess, are in the photo lab?"

"The guy that runs the lab is a pal of mine," Dolan said. "I'll give him a ring and have him run you off a set."

"Thank you," Washington said. "Looking at them again, does anything new come to your mind?"

"Not a f.u.c.king thing," Dolan said firmly.

"Well, we tried," Washington said.

"Is that all?"

"Unless you can think of something."

"Not a f.u.c.king thing. If I think of something, I'll give you a call."

"I'd really appreciate that," Washington said.

"And like I said, I'll call my friend in the photo lab and have him run off a set of prints for you."

"Thank you," Washington said.

Jason Washington parked his unmarked car in the parking lot behind the Roundhouse at 7th and Race and walked purposefully toward the building.

There are four anomalies vis-a-vis Sergeant Dolan and his photographs.

One, Dolan had told me that he and his partner had been trailing the Detweiler girl and had trailed her to the parking garage. There were no photographs of Penelope Detweiler; they were all of Anthony J. DeZego. Why?

Two, there were no photographs of Matt Payne and his girlfriend in the Porsche. If he thought Matt was dealing drugs, there should have been.

Three, there were only thirteen photographs in the stack Dolan showed me. Thirty-five millimeter film comes in twenty-four- and thirty-six-exposure rolls. Ordinarily almost every frame on a roll of film is exposed, and ordinarily every exposed frame on a roll is printed. And since it is better to have too many photographs than too few, it seemed likely that Dolan would have taken far more than thirteen photographs during the time he had been watching DeZego. Probably a roll at the hotel, and then a fresh one, starting from the moment DeZego left the hotel. Probably a thirty-six-exposure roll, so he wouldn't run out at the wrong time. That's what I would have done.

Four, he suddenly turned obliging at the end. He would call a pal in the photo lab and have his pal make a set of prints and send, them to me. Had he suddenly joined the Urban League and vowed to lean over backward in the interests of racial harmony and/or interdepartmental cooperation ? Or did he want to control what pictures the lab sent me to include in my report?

Three guys were on duty in the photo lab. One of them seemed less than overjoyed to see Detective Jason Washington. Washington consequently headed straight for him.

"Morning!" he said cheerfully.

"I just this minute got off the phone," the lab guy, a corporal, said. "With Dolan, I mean."

"Good," Washington said. "Then you know why I'm here."

"I'll get to it as soon as I can," the corporal said. "You want to come by about two, or do you want I should send them to you?"

"I want them now," Washington heard himself say. "Didn't Sergeant Dolan tell you that?"

"What do you mean, 'now'?"

"Like, I'll wait," Washington said.

"It don't work that way, Washington, you know that. Other people are in line ahead of you."

"No," Washington said. "I'm at the head of line."

"The f.u.c.k you are!"

"Well, you can either take my word for that or we can call Inspector Wohl and he'll tell you I'm at the head of the line."

"Wohl don't run the photo lab," the corporal said.

This Irish b.a.s.t.a.r.d is sweating too. What the h.e.l.l have I found here?

"Well, you tell him that."

"What I am going to do is find the lieutenant and ask him what to do about your coming in here like Jesus Christ Almighty. Who the f.u.c.k do you think you are, anyway?"

"Let's go see him together," Washington said.

"I'll go see him," the corporal said. "You read the f.u.c.king sign." He pointed to the sign: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY IN THE LAB.

"I'm surprised," Jason Washington said as he ducked inside the counter, "that an experienced, well-educated police officer such as yourself hasn't learned that there is an exception to every rule."

"You lost your f.u.c.king mind or what, Washington?"

That's entirely possible. But the essence of my professional experience as a police officer is that there are times when you should go with a gut feeling. And this is one of those times. I have a gut feeling that if I let you out of my sight, that roll, or rolls, of film are going to turn up missing.

What the h.e.l.l are these two up to?

The corporal turned surprisingly docile when they were actually standing before the lieutenant's desk. His indignation vanished.

"Sir," he said, "Detective Washington has an unusual request that I thought you should handle."

"h.e.l.lo, Jason," the lieutenant said. "Long time no see. How are things out in the country? Do you miss the big city?''

"I would hate to think the lieutenant was making fun of our happy home at Bustleton and Bowler," Washington said. "Where the deer and the antelope play."

"Who, me?" the lieutenant chuckled. "What can we do for you?"

"I'm working the DeZego job," Washington said.

"So I heard."

"Sergeant Dolan of Narcotics shot a roll of film. I need prints this time yesterday."

"You got the negatives?" the lieutenant asked the corporal, who nodded. "You got it, Jason. Anything else?"

"I want to take the negatives with me."

After only a second's hesitation the lieutenant said, "Sign a receipt and they're yours."

"And I may want some blown up specially," Washington said. "Could I go in the darkroom with him?"

"Sure. That's it?"

Since your face reflected a certain att.i.tude of unease when you heard that I want to go into the darkroom with you, Corporal, and that I'm taking the negatives with me, I will go into the darkroom with you and I will take the negatives with me. What the h.e.l.l is it with these photographs ?

"Yes, sir. Thank you very much."

"Anytime, Jason. That's what we're here for."

The corporal became the spirit of cooperation, to the point of offering Washington a rubber ap.r.o.n once they entered the darkroom.

If I were a suspicious man, Washington thought, or a cynic, I might think that he has considered the way the wind is blowing, and also that if anything is amiss, he didn't do it, or at least can't blamed for it, and has now decided that Dolan can swing in the wind all by himself.

There was only one roll of film, a thirty-six-exposure roll.

"Hold it up to the light," the corporal said. "Or, if you'd like, I can make you a contact sheet. Take only a minute."

"A what?"

"A print of every negative in negative size on a piece of eight-by-ten."

"Why don't you just feed the roll through the enlarger?" Washington asked.

Jason Washington was not exactly a stranger to the mysteries of a darkroom. Years before, he had even fooled around with souping and printing his own 35-mm black-and-white film. That had ended when Martha said the chemicals made the apartment smell like a sewage-treatment station and had to go. He had no trouble "reading" a negative projected through an enlarger, although the blacks came out white, and vice versa.

The first negative projected through the enlarger showed Anthony J. DeZego emerging from his Cadillac in front of the Warwick Hotel. The second showed him handing money to the doorman. The third showed him walking toward the door to the hotel c.o.c.ktail lounge. The fourth showed him inside the c.o.c.ktail lounge; the view partially blocked by a pedestrian, a neatly dressed man carrying an attache case who was looking through the plate-gla.s.s window into the c.o.c.ktail lounge. That photograph had not been in the stack of five-by-sevens Sergeant Dolan had shown him.

Next came an image of DeZego inside the bar, the pedestrian having moved on down the street. Then there were two images of DeZego's car as the bellboy walked toward it and got in it. The pedestrian was in one of the two, casually glancing at the car. He was not in the second photograph. Dolan had shown him a print of the bellman and the car, less the pedestrian.

What's with the pedestrian ?

The next image was of DeZego's Cadillac making a left turn. And the one after that was of the pedestrian crossing the street in the same direction. Dolan's stack of prints hadn't included that one, either.

Is that guy following DeZego's car? Who the h.e.l.l is he?

The next shot showed the chubby bellboy walking back to the hotel, apparently after having parked DeZego's Cadillac. Two frames later the pedestrian with the attache case showed up again. Then came a shot of the bellboy giving DeZego his car keys, and then, no longer surprising Jason Washington, the pedestrian came walking down the sidewalk again.

"Go back toward the beginning of the roll, please," Jason Washington said. "The third or fourth frame, I think."

"Sure," the corporal said cooperatively.

The image of the well-dressed pedestrian with the attache case looking into the Warwick Hotel c.o.c.ktail lounge appeared.

"Print that one, please," Washington said.

"Five-by-seven all right?"

"Yeah, sure," Washington said, and then immediately changed his mind. "No, make it an eight-by-ten. And you better make three copies."

"Three eight-by-tens," the corporal said. "No problem."

Sergeant Patrick J. Dolan is an experienced investigator. If he didn't spot the guy with the attache case, my name is Jerry Carlucci. Who the h.e.l.l is he, and why didn't Dolan want me to see his picture ?

Even in a well-equipped photographic laboratory with all the necessary equipment to print, develop, and then dry photographs, it takes some time to prepare thirty-six eight-by-ten enlargements. It was 10:10 when Detective Jason Washington, carrying three large manila envelopes each containing a set of the dozen photographs Sergeant Dolan had taken, but not either included in his report or shown to Washington, came out of the Police Administration Building.

He got in his car and drove the half dozen blocks to Philadelphia's City Hall, then parked his car in the inner courtyard with its nose against a sign reading RESERVED FOR INSPECTORS.

As he got out of the car he saw that he had parked beside a car familiar to him, that of Staff Inspector Peter Wohl. He checked the license plate to be sure. Wohl, obviously, was somewhere inside City Hall.

Peter will want to know about this, Jason Washington thought immediately. But even if I could find him in here, what the h.e.l.l could I tell him I have? It's probably a good thing I didn't b.u.mp into him.

He then visited inside City Hall and began to prowl the cavernous corridors outside its many courtrooms, looking for Sergeant Patrick J. Dolan.

"You have your special a.s.sistant with you, Inspector?" Mayor Jerry Carlucci asked, by way of greeting, Staff Inspector Peter Wohl.

"No, sir," Peter Wohl replied.

"Where is he?"

"He's working with Detective Washington, sir."

"That's a shame," the mayor said. "I had hoped to see him."

"I didn't know that, sir."