The Investigators Part 78

"For a moment, I thought I heard a threat," Savarese said. "And for a moment, I forgot that you are an honorable man, incapable of even thinking of using my granddaughter as a p.a.w.n."

"One of my concerns, as a man, and a police officer, is to spare your granddaughter any further pain," Coughlin said.

"Yes, I believe that, and you have my grat.i.tude," Savarese said. "It seems to me that what this amounts to is the dichotomy between your belief that 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,' and my belief that that vengeance, as limited as we both know it will be, is not nearly enough."

Coughlin shrugged.

"I will do, Mr. Coughlin, what I believe is both my right and my duty to do, and I'm sure you will do the same."

"Mr. Savar-"

Savarese held up his hand to shut him off.

"I don't think, on this subject, that we have anything else to say to each other," Savarese said. "Why don't we just finish our breakfast?"

TWENTY-FOUR.

Officer Timothy J. Calhoun was sitting with his wife on the couch in the living room watching the Today Today show on the tube when he heard the siren. show on the tube when he heard the siren.

Police sirens were a part of life in Philadelphia. Out here in the sticks, you seldom heard one.

And this was more than one siren. Two. Maybe even three.

He took his sock-clad feet off the coffee table, then put his coffee cup on the table and stood up, slipping his feet into loafers.

"What is it?" Monica Calhoun asked.

"Probably a fire," Tim said. "Right around here someplace. Them sirens is getting closer."

He walked to the front door and opened it and looked up and down the street. He could see neither a fire nor police nor fire vehicles, and pulled the door closed.

Just as he did, he heard one siren abruptly die. He knew that meant that whoever was running the siren had gotten where he was going.

There was still the sound of two sirens.

Monica joined him at the door.

"You didn't see anything?"

He shook his head, "no."

The sound of the sirens grew very loud, and then, one at a time, died suddenly.

Monica opened the door.

"Jesus, they're right here!" she said.

There was a Harrisburg black-and-white in the driveway, and what looked like an unmarked car with two guys in it at the curb, and as Tim watched two uniforms jump out of the car in the driveway, a second Harrisburg black-and-white came screeching around the corner and pulled its nose in behind the black-and-white in the driveway.

"What the f.u.c.k?"

The first uniform reached the door.

"Timothy J. Calhoun?"

"What the h.e.l.l is going on?"

"Timothy J. Calhoun?"

"Yeah, I'm Calhoun."

"Timothy J. Calhoun, I have a warrant for your arrest for misprision in office," the first cop said. "You are under arrest!"

"Timmy!" Monica wailed. "What's going on?"

"Turn around, please, and put your hands behind your back," the first uniform said, as the second uniform put his hands on his shoulders and spun him around.

"Timmy!" Monica wailed again.

"You have the right to remain silent . . ." The first cop began very rapidly to give him his rights under the Miranda decision.

"It's some kind of mistake, baby," Tim said.

What did the uniform say? Misprision? What the f.u.c.k is misprision?

"Do you understand your rights as I have outlined them to you?" The first cop asked.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Timmy said. "Look, I'm a cop, I don't know what the h.e.l.l is going on here."

"You're being arrested for being a dirty cop, Calhoun," a voice-somehow familiar-said.

The uniform who had spun him around to cuff him now spun him around again.

Jesus Martinez, onetime plainclothes narc, was standing there looking at him with contempt.

"What the h.e.l.l is going on here, Jesus?"

"You're on your way to the slam, big time," Martinez said. "I'll need your badge and your gun."

"Timmy, for Christ's sake," Monica wailed. "Why are they doing this to you?"

One more uniform and two guys in civilian clothing came around the side of the house. Tim recognized the big guy first. Charley McFadden, who had also been a plainclothes narc-the other half of Mutt & Jeff, which is what everybody had called the two of them.

The other wasn't nearly as familiar, and it took a moment for Tim to recognize him.

It's that hotshot from Special Operations, Payne. The guy who shot the serial rapist. The last time I saw him was in the Roundhouse parking lot.

"I'm really sorry about this, Timmy," McFadden said. "Jesus, how could you be so stupid?"

"I don't know what the h.e.l.l you're talking about," Tim said.

"He didn't do anything!" Monica wailed. "Charley, he's a good cop! You know that!"

"I know he's not a good cop, Monica," Charley said. "He's dirty, and he got caught."

"Charley, what are they talking about?" Monica asked.

"Call the FOP in Philly and tell them I was just arrested," Tim said.

"Where are they taking you?"

"He'll be in the detention cell in Harrisburg police headquarters for a while, Mrs. Calhoun," Matt Payne said. "They can contact him there."

"Who the h.e.l.l are you?" Monica snapped.

"My name is Payne. I'm a detective a.s.signed to the Special Operations Division. I'm sorry about this, Mrs. Calhoun."

"Yeah, you look like you're sorry!"

"I'm going to be at the bank," Matt said to Charley McFadden. "As soon as I have the safe-deposit box, I'll meet you at police headquarters."

"Right," McFadden said.

"Have you got his gun and his badge?"

"Not yet," Martinez said.

"If you would give me the key to the safe-deposit box, Calhoun, you'd save everybody a lot of time and inconvenience."

"I don't know nothing about no safe-deposit box."

"Why am I not surprised?" Matt said.

He looked at the Harrisburg uniforms.

"Take him away, please," he said.

Mrs. Timothy J. Calhoun, holding her balled fists to her mouth, watched with horror and disbelief as her husband was led down the path and loaded into the backseat of the Harrisburg black-and-white.

Then she watched until it drove out of sight.

"I'll need the gun and the badge, Mrs. Calhoun," Detective Martinez said.

"And if you know where the key to the box is, Monica," Charley McFadden added.

"You're supposed to be his friend, Charley!" Monica said. "How could you do this to him?"

"He done it to himself, Monica," Charley said. "Let's go get his gun and badge."

"You stay here! I'll go get it."

"I can't let you do that, Monica," Charley said. "I'll have to go with you."

When Harrison J. Hormel, Esq., first among equals of the a.s.sistant district attorneys of Philadelphia, arrived at work, he heard the sound of an electric razor coming from the office of the Hon. Thomas J. "Tony" Callis, the district attorney of Philadelphia.

He looked at his watch. It was 8:35, a good hour or hour and a half earlier than Callis's usual appearance.

He turned and knocked at the unmarked private door to Callis's office. When there was no answer, he tried the k.n.o.b, and it turned, and he was able to push the door slightly open.

Callis, in a sleeveless undershirt, his suspenders hanging loose, was standing at the washbasin in his small private bath.

Hormel walked to the door. Callis saw his reflection in the mirror and took the electric razor from his face.

"What's up, Harry?" he asked.

"I was about to ask you the same thing."

"It's a long story," Callis said. "One I'm not really ready to pa.s.s on right at this moment."

"What's the big secret?"

"I'll give you a thumbnail, but no questions, okay?"

"You're the boss."

"Dirty cops. Lots of them."

"Doing what?"

"I said no questions. The arrests are not finished yet. There's an incredible amount of ifs in this one, Harry. If this happens, then that will. If that doesn't happen, then this will. You follow?"

Hormel shook his head, "no."

"I've been up since half past three," Callis said. "Coughlin sent a Highway Patrol car for me. What I need now is to finish my shave, put on a clean shirt, have a couple of cups of coffee and thirty minutes to settle my thoughts."

"Since when is Denny Coughlin investigating dirty cops?"

"Since Carlucci-who they got out of bed at six thirty, by the way-told him to."