Badge Of Honor: The Victim Part 8

It is a question of upward and downward social mobility. My son has thrown away a splendid chance at upward mobility, to become a doctor; to make, a few years out of medical school, more money than I will ever make in my lifetime. This young man is turning his back on G.o.d alone knows what. Certainly, a partnership in Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo and Lester. Very possibly a chance to become a senator or a governor. Certainly to make a great deal of money.

I am as baffled by this one as I am by Foster.

"Lieutenant," Detective D'Amata said, "Payne knows one of the victims. The woman." He consulted his notebook. "Her name is Penelope Detweiler. He says her parents are probably at the Union League-"

"Chestnut Hill?" Lieutenant Lewis asked, interrupting. "Those Detweilers, Payne?"

"Yes, sir."

Lieutenant Lewis also knew a good deal about the Detweilers of Chestnut Hill. Four generations ago George Detweiler had gone into partnership with Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt to found what was then called the Nesbitt Potted Meats and Preserved Vegetables Company. It was now Nesfoods International, listed just above the middle of the Fortune 500 companies and still tightly held. C. T. Nesbitt III was chairman of the Executive Committee and H. Richard Detweiler was President and Chief Executive Officer.

C. T. Nesbitt IV was to be married the day after tomorrow by the Episcopal Bishop of Philadelphia at St. Mark's Church. His Honor the Mayor and Mrs. Carlucci had been invited, and there had been a call from a mayor's officer to the 9th District commander, saying the mayor didn't want any problems with traffic or anything else.

Extra officers from the 9th District had been a.s.signed to a.s.sist the Traffic Division in handling the flow of traffic. As a traffic problem it would be much like a very large funeral. A large number of people would arrive, more or less singly, at the church. Traffic flow would be impeded as each car (in many cases, a limousine) paused long enough to discharge its pa.s.sengers and then moved on to find a parking place. After the wedding the problem would grow worse, as the four hundred odd guests left all at once to find their cars or limousines for the ride to the reception at the home of the bride's parents. Only the problem of forming a funeral convoy of cars would be missing.

Additionally there would be a number of plainclothes officers from Civil Affairs and the Detective Division mingling with the guests at the church and at the pre-wedding c.o.c.ktail party for out-of-town guests in the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel.

Captain J. J. Maloney, the 9th District Commander, had ordered Lieutenant Foster H. Lewis, Sr., to take care of it.

"Has the family of the victim been informed?'' Lieutenant Lewis asked.

"No, sir," D'Amata said.

"Sir, I thought maybe I could do that," Payne said. Lieutenant Lewis thought that over carefully for a moment. It had to be done. Normally it would be the responsibility of the 9th District. But if Payne did it, it would probably be handled with greater tact than if he dispatched an RPC to do it. He considered for a moment going himself, or going with Payne, and decided against it. He also decided that he would not take it upon himself to notify the mayor, although he was sure Jerry Carlucci would want to hear about this. Let Captain J. J. Maloney tell the mayor, or one of the big bra.s.s. He would find a phone and call Maloney.

"Very well," Lieutenant Lewis said. "Do so. I don't think I have to tell you to express the regret of the Police Department that something like this has happened, do I?"

"No, sir."

"As I understand the situation, we don't know what happened here, do we?"

"No, sir," Matt Payne said.

"I'm sure that you will not volunteer your opinions, will you, Payne?"

"No, sir."

"And then come back here," Lieutenant Lewis said. "I'm sure Detective D'Amata, and others, will have questions for you."

"Yes, sir."

Lieutenant Lewis turned to Amanda Spencer.

"I didn't get your name, miss," he said.

"Amanda Spencer."

"Are you from Philadelphia, Miss Spencer?"

"Scarsdale," Amanda said, adding, "New York."

"You're in town for the wedding?"

"That's right."

"Where are you staying here?"

"With the Brownes, the bride's family," Amanda answered. "In Merion."

That would be the Soames T. Brownes, Lieutenant Lewis recalled from an extraordinary memory. Soames T. Browne did not have a job. When his picture appeared, for example, in a listing of the board of directors of the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, the caption under it read "Soames T. Browne, Investments." The Brownes-and for that matter, the Soames-had been investing, successfully, in Philadelphia businesses since Ben Franklin had been running the newspaper there.

There was going to be a lot of pressure on this job, Lewis thought. And a lot of publicity. People like the Nesbitts and the Brownes and the Detweilers took the term public servant literally, with emphasis on servant. They expected public servants, like the police and the courts, to do what they had been hired to do, and were not at all reluctant to point out where those public servants had failed to perform. When a Detweiler called the mayor, he took the call.

Lieutenant Lewis thought again that Jerry Carlucci had been invited to the wedding and the reception and might even be at the Union League when the Payne kid walked in and told them that Penelope Detweiler had just been shot.

"Ordinarily, Miss Spencer, we'd ask you to come to the Roundhouse-"

"The what?" Amanda asked.

"To the Police Administration Building-"

"The whole building is curved, Amanda," Matt explained.

"-to be interviewed by a Homicide detective," Lieutenant Lewis went on, clearly displeased with Matt's interruption. "But since Officer Payne was with you, possibly Detective D'Amata would be willing to have you come there a little later."

"No problem with that, sir," D'Amata said.

And then, as if to doc.u.ment his prediction that the shooting was going to attract a good deal of attention from the press, an antenna-bedecked Buick Special turned out of the line of traffic and pulled into the exit ramp, and Mr. Michael J. O'Hara got out.

Mickey O'Hara wrote about crime for the Philadelphia Bulletin. He was very good at what he did and was regarded by most policemen, including Lieutenant Foster H. Lewis, Sr., as almost a member of the Department. If you told Mickey O'Hara that something was off the record, it stayed that way.

"Hey, Foster," Mickey O'Hara said, "that white shirt looks good on you."

That made reference to Lieutenant Foster's almost brand-new status as a lieutenant. Police supervisors, lieutenants and above, wore white uniform shirts. Sergeants and below wore blue.

"How are you, Mickey?" Lewis said, shaking O'Hara's hand. "Thank you."

"And what are you doing, Matt?" O'Hara said, offering his hand to Officer Payne. "Moonlighting as a waiter?"

"Hey, Mickey," Payne said.

"What's going on?"

"Hold it a second, Mickey," Lewis said. "Miss Spencer, you'll have to make a statement. Payne will tell you about that. And you come back here, Payne, as soon as you do what you have to do."

"Yes, sir. See you, Mickey."

O'Hara waited until Matt Payne had politely loaded Amanda Spencer into the Porsche, gotten behind the wheel, and was fed into the line of traffic by the Traffic sergeant before speaking.

"Nice kid, that boy," he said.

"So I hear," Lieutenant Lewis said.

"What does he have to do before he comes back here?"

"Tell H. Richard Detweiler that his daughter was found lying in a pool of blood on the roof of this place; somebody popped her with a shotgun," Lewis said.

"No s.h.i.t? Detweiler's daughter? Is she dead?"

"No. Not yet, anyway. They just took her to Hahneman. There's another victim up there. White man. He got his head blown off."

"Robbery?" Mickey O'Hara asked. "With a shotgun? Who is he?"

"We don't know."

"Can I go up there?" Mickey asked.

"I'll go with you," Lewis said, and gestured toward the stairwell.

Between the third and fourth floors of the Penn Services Parking Garage, Lieutenant Lewis and Mr. O'Hara encountered Detective Lawrence G.o.dofski of Homicide coming down the stairs.

G.o.dofski had a plastic bag in his hand. He extended it to Lieutenant Lewis.

"Whaddayasay, Larry?" Mickey O'Hara said.

"How goes it, Mickey?"

The plastic bag contained a leather wallet and a number of cards, driver's license, and credit cards, which apparently had been removed from the wallet.

Lieutenant Lewis examined the driver's license through the clear plastic bag and then handed it to Mickey O'Hara. The driver's license had been issued to Anthony J. DeZego, of a Bouvier Street address in South Philadelphia, an area known as Little Italy.

"I'll be d.a.m.ned," Mickey O'Hara said. "Tony the Zee. He's the body?"

Detective G.o.dofski nodded.

"This is pretty cla.s.sy for Tony the Zee, getting himself blown away like this," O'Hara said. "The last I heard, he was driving a shrimp-and-oyster reefer truck up from the Gulf Coast."

"G.o.dofski," Lieutenant Lewis said, "have you thought about bringing Organized Crime in on this?"

"Yes, sir. I was about to do just that."

"You find anything else interesting up there?"

G.o.dofski produced another plastic bag, this one holding two fired shotsh.e.l.l cartridges.

"Number seven and a halfs," he said. "Rabbit sh.e.l.ls."

"No gun?"

"No shotgun. Tony the Zee had a .38, a Smith and Wesson Undercover, in an ankle holster. I left it there for the lab guys. He never got a chance to use it."

"What the h.e.l.l has H. Richard Detweiler's daughter got to do with a second-rate guinea gangster like Tony the Zee?" Mickey O'Hara asked rhetorically.

Lieutenant Lewis shrugged and then started up the stairs again.

The Union League of Philadelphia is a stone Victorian building-some say a remarkably ugly one-on the west side of South Broad Street, literally in the shadow of the statue of Billy Penn, which stands atop City Hall at the intersection of Broad and Market Streets.

South Broad Street, in front of the Union League, has been designated a NO PARKING AT ANY TIME TOW-AWAY ZONE. Several large signs on the sidewalk advertise this.

Traffic Officer P. J. Ward, who was directing traffic in the middle of South Broad Street, was thus both surprised and annoyed when he saw a silver Porsche 911 pull up in front of the Union League, turn off its lights, and stop. Then a young guy in a monkey suit got out and quickly walked around to the other side to open the door for his girlfriend.

Ward quickly strode over.

"Hey, you! What the h.e.l.l do you think you're doing?"

The young guy in the monkey suit turned to face him.

"I won't be long," he said. "I'm on the job."

There was a silver-colored badge pinned to his jacket, but Officer Ward decided he wasn't going to take that at what it looked like. There was a good chance, he decided, that when he got a good look at the badge, it would say PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR or OFFICIAL U.S. TAXPAYER, and that the young man in the monkey suit driving the Porsche would turn out to be a wisea.s.s rich kid who thought he could get away with anything.

"Hold it a minute," he said, and trotted onto the sidewalk.

The badge was real. The next question was what was this rich kid driving a Porsche 911 doing with it?

"I'm Payne, Special Operations," the young guy said, and held out his photo ID. Ward saw at a glance that the ID was the real thing.

"What's going on?"

"I have to go in here a minute," Matt said. "I won't be long."

"Don't be," Officer Ward said.

Matt took Amanda's arm and they walked up the stairs to the front door. As they reached the revolving door to the entrance foyer, it was put into motion for them. Matt saw that just inside was a large man, who smelled of retired cop and was functioning more as a genteel bouncer than a doorman.

He had seen the two young people all nicely dressed up and decided they had legitimate business inside.

"Good evening," he said, then saw the badge on the young man's lapel, and surprise registered on his face.

"The Browne dinner?" Matt asked.

"Up the stairs, sir, and to your right," the man at the door said, pointing.

Matt and Amanda started up the stairs. Matt unpinned his badge and put it in his pocket. He would need it again when he went back to the garage, but he didn't want to put it on display here. Then he thought of something else.

"Here," he said, handing the Porsche keys to Amanda.