The Assassin Part 37

Enterprising youth, for example, who wish to earn a little pocket money by stealing someone's automobile, and removing therefrom parts that have resale value, drive the cars into the Pine Barrens and strip them there.

And, in the winter, more than one pa.s.sionate back seat dalliance in an auto with a leaking exhaust system has ended in tragedy by carbon monoxide poisoning.

And the Pine Barrens is a good place to shoot someone and dispose of the body. The chances that a shot will be heard are remote, and a shallow grave even desultorily concealed stands a very good chance of never being discovered.

There had been an incident of this nature just about a year before, which Deputy Sheriff Daniel J. Springs was thinking about as he drove, touching sixty, on a routine patrol in his three-year-old Ford, down one of the dirt roads that crosses the Barrens.

Dan Springs, a heavyset, somewhat jowly man who was fifty and had been with the Sheriff's Department more than twenty years, tried to cover all the roads in his area at least once every three days. Nine times out of ten, he saw nothing but the scrubby pines and the dirt road, and his mind tended to wander.

One of Springs's fellow deputies, making a routine patrol not far from here, had come across a nearly new Jaguar sedan abandoned by the side of the road, the keys still in the ignition, battery hot, with half a tank full of gas.

That meant somebody had dumped the car there, and driven away in a second car. They'd put the Pennsylvania plate on the FBI's NCIC (National Crime Information Center) computer and got a hit.

The cops in Philadelphia were looking for the car. It was owned by a rich guy, a white guy, who had been found carved up in his apartment. The cops were looking for the car, and for the white guy's black boyfriend.

Springs had been called in on the job then, to help with working the crime scene, and to keep civilians from getting in the way. Springs never ceased to be amazed how civilians came out of the woodwork, even in the Pine Barrens, when something happened.

Everybody came in on that job. The State Police, and even the FBI. There was a possibility of a kidnapping, which was a federal offense, even if state lines didn't get crossed, and here it was pretty evident, with a Philadelphia car abandoned in New Jersey, that state lines had been crossed.

Plus, of course, the Philadelphia Homicide detectives working the job. Springs remembered one of them, an enormous black guy dressed like a banker. Springs remembered him because he was the only one of the hotshots who did not go along with the thinking that because the car had been found here here, that if there was was a body, it had been dumped/buried anywhere a body, it had been dumped/buried anywhere but but here, and the chances of finding it were zilch. here, and the chances of finding it were zilch.

The black Philadelphia Homicide detective had said he was pretty sure (a) that there was a body and (b) they were going to find it right around where they had found the Jaguar.

And they had. Not a hundred yards from the Jaguar they had found a shallow grave with a black guy in it.

Springs had spoken to the big Homicide detective: "How come you were so sure we'd find a body, and find it here?"

"I'm Detective Jason Washington," the black guy had said, introducing himself, offering a hand that could conceal a baseball. "How do you do, Deputy Springs? We're grateful for your cooperation. "

"Why did you know the body would be here?" Springs had pursued as he shook hands. "Call me Dan."

"I didn't know it would be here," Washington had explained. "But I thought it would be."

"Why?"

"Well, I started with the idea that the doers were not very smart. They would never have stolen the Jaguar, an easy-to-spot vehicle, for example, if they were smart. And I'm reasonably sure they were drunk. And people who get drunk doing something wrong invariably sober up, and then get worried about what they've done. That would apply whether they shot this fellow back in Philadelphia, en route here, or here. They would therefore be anxious to get rid of the car, and the body, as quickly as possible. I would not have been surprised if we had found the body in, or beside, the car. And they are both lazy, and by now hung over. I thought it unlikely that they would drag a two-hundred-odd-pound corpse very far."

Just like Sherlock Holmes, Springs had thought. He had deduced deduced what probably had happened. Smart guy, as smart as Springs had ever met. what probably had happened. Smart guy, as smart as Springs had ever met.

They'd caught the guys, two colored guys, who had shot the one in the Barrens, a couple of days later, in Atlantic City. They had been using the dead white guy's credit cards, which proved Detective Washington's theory that they were not very smart.

They'd copped a plea, and been sentenced to twenty years to life, which meant they would be out in seven, eight years, but Springs now recalled hearing somewhere that they had been indicted for kidnapping, and were to be tried in federal court for that. The white boy's father had political clout, he owned a newspaper, newspapers, and he wanted to make sure that the guys who chopped up his son didn't get out in seven or eight years.

Deputy Springs was thinking of the enormous black Homicide detective who dressed like a banker and talked like a college professor, wondering if he was still around Philadelphia, when suddenly the steering wheel was torn out of his hands, and the Ford skidded out of control off the dirt road and into a scraggly pine tree before he could do anything about it.

He hit the four-inch-thick pine tree squarely. He was thrown forward onto the steering wheel, and felt the air being knocked out of him. The Ford bent the pine tree, and then rode up the trunk for a couple feet, and then the tree trunk snapped, and the car settled on the stump.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" Deputy Springs exclaimed. For a moment, he could see the branches of the pine tree, and then, accompanied by the smell of the water/antifreeze mixture turning to steam, the windshield clouded over.

There was a screeching from the engine compartment as the blades of the fan dug into the radiator.

Springs switched off the ignition, unfastened his seat belt, and pushed his door open. He got out and walked several feet away from the car and stood there for a moment, taking tentative deep breaths to see if he'd broken a rib or something, and bending his knees to see if they were all right.

Then he walked around the front of the car and examined the b.u.mper.

They're not b.u.mpers, they're G.o.dd.a.m.ned decoration is all they are. Look at the way that "b.u.mper" is bent!

He walked to the right side of the car and saw what had happened.

He'd blown a tire. The wheel was off the ground, and still spinning, and he could see the steel and nylon, or polyethelene or whatever they were, cords just hanging out of the tire.

That sonofab.i.t.c.h really blew. It must have been defective from the factory. Christ, it could have blown when I was chasing some speeder on the highway, and I would have been up s.h.i.t creek.

He walked back to the driver's side and got behind the wheel and turned the ignition key on. The radio lights went on.

He called in, reporting that he'd had an accident, and approximately where, and that he'd need a wrecker.

They said they'd send someone as quick as they could, and asked if he was hurt. He told them no, he was all right, he had been lucky. He also told them he was going off the air, that he didn't want to have the ignition and the radios on, he might have got a gas line.

They told him to take it easy, they were going to send a State Trooper who was only ten, fifteen miles away, and that the wrecker should be there in thirty, thirty-five minutes.

He turned the ignition off and got out of the car again. He took another look at the shredded tire, and then walked twenty yards away and sat down against another pine tree.

He then offered a little prayer of thanks for not getting hurt or killed, and settled down to wait for the Trooper and the wrecker.

SEVENTEEN.

Detective Matthew M. Payne parked his Bug in the Special Operations parking lot at five minutes to eight Monday morning. At precisely eight, he pushed open a door-on the frosted gla.s.s door of which had been etched, before he was born, "Princ.i.p.al's Office."

There was a very natty sergeant, face unfamiliar, sitting inside the door, a stocky man who looked as if he was holding the war against middle-aged fat to a draw.

"May I help you, sir?" the sergeant asked politely.

"Sergeant, I'm Detective Payne, I'm reporting in."

"Oh, yes," the sergeant said, and stood up and offered his hand. "I'm Sergeant Rawlins, d.i.c.k Rawlins, the administrative sergeant. "

"How do you do?"

"I just had a quick look at your records," Rawlins said. "Haven't had the time for more than a quick look. But I did pick up that you were third on the detective's exam, and that speaks well of you."

"Thank you."

"Have a seat, Payne," Rawlins said. "The captain will see you when he's free."

He gestured toward the door, on which could still be faintly seen faded gilt lettering, Princ.i.p.al. Private. Princ.i.p.al. Private.

"The captain" was obviously Mike Sabara, whose small office opened off Peter Wohl's office. Captain Dave Pekach's office was down the corridor.

"I wonder what he wants?" Matt thought aloud.

Rawlins's smile faded.

"I'm sure the captain will tell you what he wants, Detective," he said.

You have just had your knuckles rapped, Detective Payne, and you will not get a gold star for behavior to take home to Mommy.

I wonder what Sabara wants with me? He was there when Wohl told me I would be working with Jack Malone. And Malone left a message on the machine that he wanted to see me at eight.

Five minutes later, the door opened and Mike Sabara stuck his head out. Then, surprised, he saw Matt.

"Hi, Matt. You waiting to see me?"

"Sir, Sergeant Rawlins told me you wanted to see me."

"Come on in," Sabara said, and then added, to Rawlins, "Sergeant, if you see the inspector before I do, would you have him call Chief Coughlin?"

"Yes, sir."

Sabara closed the door to his office behind him.

"Sergeant Rawlins comes to us highly recommended from Criminal Records," he said dryly. "That 'see the captain business' is so either the inspector or I can eyeball newcomers. It didn't apply to you, obviously, and he should have known that. I'm already getting the feeling that he's every bit as bright as that Sergeant Henkels we got stuck with. Does that tell you enough, or should I draw a diagram?"

"I think I get the point, sir."

"Well, our time is not entirely wasted. This gives me the chance to tell you that the inspector was impressed with Sergeant O'Dowd, so for the time being, he'll be working for Jack Malone too, full-time, on the lunatic. And so will Washington, although, of course, with the Black Buddha, the way we say that is 'will be working with with.' "

"Yes, sir," Matt said, chuckling.

"I think catching this lunatic with the bomb is the first thing that's really interested Jason since Wohl transferred him here. He and Malone are going, maybe have gone, to Intelligence. I don't know what Malone has planned for you, but I think you'd better go down there and see."

"Yes, sir."

"Matt, that was a good job on the lunatic profile."

"That was my sister, not me," Matt said, "but thank you anyway. "

"I'm glad you're back. You-or at least your car-lends the place some cla.s.s."

"I'm driving my Volkswagen, Captain."

"Get out of here," Sabara said.

Matt went back in the outer office as Staff Inspector Wohl came into it from the corridor.

Sergeant Rawlins stood up.

"Good morning, Inspector," he said. "Sir, Captain Sabara said that you are to call Chief Coughlin at your earliest opportunity. And, sir, this is Detective Payne."

"Is it?" Wohl asked, a wicked gleam in his eye.

"Good morning, sir," Matt said.

"Good morning, Detective Payne," Wohl said, and then turned to Rawlins. "Is Captain Sabara in there?"

"Yes, sir. He just interviewed Detective Payne."

"I'm sorry I missed that," Wohl said, and went into his office.

"Did the captain happen to tell you where you will be working, Detective?" Rawlins asked.

"For Lieutenant Malone," Matt said.

"That would be in Plans and Training," Rawlins replied, after consulting an organizational chart. "I'll make a note of that."

"What can I do for you?" Sergeant Maxwell Henkels demanded, making it more of a challenge than a question, as Detective Matthew M. Payne walked through a door on the second floor of the building, above which hung a sign, Plans and Training Section Plans and Training Section.

Henkels was just this side of fat, a flabby man who could have been anywhere from forty to fifty, florid-faced, with what Matt thought of as booze tracks on his nose.

"I'm looking for Lieutenant Malone, Sergeant."

"What for, and who are you?"

Why, I'm the visiting inspector for the Courtesy in Police Work Program, Sergeant. And you have just won the b.o.o.by prize.

"My name is Payne, Sergeant. Detective Payne."

"The lieutenant and Sergeant Washington were waiting for you," Henkels said. "When you didn't show up, they went to Intelligence. He wants you to meet him there."

"I just transferred in this morning. . . ."

"Yeah, I heard."

". . . and the administrative sergeant said I had to report to Captain Sabara before I came here."

"You should have called me," Sergeant Henkels said. "You're to let me know where you are all the time, understand?"

Oh, s.h.i.t!

Matt nodded.

"Did Lieutenant Malone say anything about a car for me?"