The Investigators Part 81

"Because I am in charge of the safe-deposit boxes. No one gets into one of them unless they come by my desk and sign themselves in."

Matt turned to Chase.

"Mr. Chase, as an officer of this bank, do you have the authority to grant Lieutenant Deitrich and myself access to safe-deposit box number 421?"

"Yes, I do."

"I ask you now, Mr. Chase, for permission to examine box 421, which has been identified to me as the box to which Mrs. Worner arranged . . . irregular access. Do I have your permission?"

Chase nodded.

"Would you verbalize your answer, please, sir?"

"You have my permission to go into the box," Chase said.

"You're going to need Timmy's key," Mrs. Worner said. "It takes two keys to get into a box."

"The bank doesn't have a master key?" Matt asked, surprised.

Chase shook his head.

"We'll have to call a locksmith," Matt said. "Or break into it."

"Now, wait a minute," Chase said. "Who will pay for repairing that damage?"

"I will," Adelaide Worner said. "This is my fault."

"Give me the bank's key, Adelaide, please," Lieutenant Deitrich said.

"It's in my desk outside," she said. "I'll have to get it."

"Please," Deitrich said.

"Why don't we send for a locksmith?" Chase asked. "I'll pay for it."

"We may not have to, Mr. Chase," Deitrich said. "Let me see what I can do with that lock."

He took a leather case, about the size of Matt's credentials folder, from his jacket pocket. It contained an array of small stainless-steel picks.

Twenty seconds after Mrs. Worner had given him the bank's key to box 421, Deitrich pulled the stainless-steel door to it open.

"There it is," he said to Matt.

"Let's see what's in it," Matt said.

The box was nearly full of stacks of currency, neatly held together with rubber bands.

"My G.o.d! Look at all that money!" Mrs. Worner exclaimed.

There was something else. Matt took a ballpoint pen from his pocket and fished a large gold-cased wrist.w.a.tch with a matching band out of the box. The bezel of the watch was diamond-studded, and there was a diamond chip on the dial where each of the hour numbers would normally be.

"Does anyone really think Mrs. Calhoun inherited this from her grandmother?"

"What is it?" Deitrich asked.

"It's a Rolex, of course. What else?"

Matt held it out for Deitrich to see, and then let the gold-cased watch slip back off the ballpoint pen into the box.

"I think we should have pictures of this," he said. "And I'd like to fingerprint the watch and the box. Maybe they can even get something off the currency. How much trouble would that cause you, Lieutenant?"

"No more than dialing a telephone," Deitrich said. "I can have a forensic-evidence team here in five minutes."

"There's a telephone on my desk," Adelaide Worner said. "You first dial nine, that gets you an outside line, and then you dial your number."

"Thank you, Adelaide," Deitrich said.

"When you come back-we don't want some shyster lawyer accusing us of breaking the chain of evidence-so one of us is going to have to stay here until we get pictures and fingerprints. I need to call Philadelphia."

"I'll be back in thirty seconds," Deitrich said, and walked out of the room.

"What happens to me now, Mr. Chase?" Adelaide Worner asked.

"We'll have to think about that, Adelaide," Chase said. "We'll try to work something out."

"Inspector Wohl," Wohl said.

"Matt, boss."

"What have you got?"

"A forensic-evidence team is on its way here-here being the safe-deposit vault of the First Harrisburg Bank and Trust-to see if they can lift some prints from, and in any case, photograph box 421 and its contents."

"In other words, you served the search warrant?"

"We didn't need to; it was an unauthorized box, still under the control of the bank. The defense can't claim that the accused had a right to privacy by keeping something in a box that wasn't under his control. The lady let us into it. And a Harrisburg police stenographer is about to type up her statement, which ties Calhoun to it with a big red bow."

"Good job!"

"The difficult takes a little time, the impossible a little longer."

"What's in the box?"

"What looks like thirty, forty thousand dollars. Maybe more. I'm going to wait until they take pictures and maybe lift some prints before I count it. But a whole great big bunch of money! And a wrist.w.a.tch that looks like something a drug dealer, or a pimp, would have on his wrist."

"A Rolex, maybe?"

"Uh-huh."

"Have you got the serial number? It's on the back of the case."

"No, but I can get it in thirty seconds."

"Get it," Wohl ordered.

A minute later, Matt had read the serial number to him over the phone.

"Mr. Marcus Brownlee," Wohl said, "has given us a sworn statement that his Rolex watch was taken from him at the time of his arrest, but never made it from the place of his arrest to either the evidence room or personal property at Central Lockup. Tiny just got the serial number of said timepiece from Bailey, Banks and Biddle-"

"And it matches?"

"It matches."

"Who is Marcus Brownlee?" Matt asked.

"Didn't McFadden fill you in?"

"I didn't hear that name."

"One of the drug guys the Five Squad busted at the Howard Johnson motel," Wohl explained.

"Then we have them."

"It's not quite that simple," Wohl said. "I'll fill you in later. What I want you to do now, once you work the box, is get Calhoun and the watch-the money would be nice, too, but that can wait-back to Philadelphia."

"Yes, sir."

"Be d.a.m.ned careful with the chain of evidence on this one, Matt, if I have to tell you that. And make sure Mutt and Jeff do."

"Yes, sir."

"Where's Calhoun now?"

"McFadden and Martinez have him at Harrisburg Police Headquarters."

"Have them bring him to South Detectives at Twenty-fourth and Wolf," Wohl ordered. "We're using the First District detention cells downstairs as our own Central Lockup."

"I don't understand," Matt said.

"I'm not trying to shoot you down, Matt-right now you're at the head of my good-guy list for tying Calhoun to the box-but right now you don't have to understand. Just do what I told you. I'll fill you in later."

"Yes, sir, " Matt said. "One question: Do we let Calhoun know we got into the box? Or about the watch?"

Wohl thought that over for fifteen seconds, which seemed longer.

"Yeah, let him know. I'd rather he spend the time riding back here wondering what's going to happen to him knowing we have his a.s.s than trying to convince himself he shouldn't be worried, we don't have anything."

"Yes, sir."

"You stay there and keep your eye on the Reynolds woman."

The phone went dead in Matt's ear when he was halfway through saying, "Yes, sir."

"Okay," the Hon. Jerome H. Carlucci said, looking around his conference table. "Where are we? Who wants to start?"

Present were Thomas J. Callis, Philadelphia's district attorney; Taddeus Czernich, police commissioner; Chief Inspector of Detectives Matthew Lowenstein; Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin; Inspector Peter Wohl; Staff Inspector Michael Weisbach; and Lieutenant J. K. Fellows.

In the wings, so to speak, in case they were needed, were Captain Michael Sabara and Detective Tony Harris (physically in the mayor's outer office); Captain David Pekach and Lieutenant John J. Malone of the Highway Patrol (sitting in their cars in the courtyard of City Hall); and Lieutenant Daniel Justice, Jr., and Sergeant Jason Washington (within two rings of a telephone at the 1st District/South Detectives).

Inspector Wohl motioned with his hand to indicate that he thought Staff Inspector Weisbach was the man to bring the mayor-and for that matter, everybody else-up-to-date. Mike Weisbach first shook his head, then inclined it toward the head of the table. Peter Wohl followed his eyes and saw that the mayor was looking at him impatiently.

He started to stand up. The mayor waved him back into his seat.

"Yes, sir," Wohl said. "The entire Five Squad has been arrested, and are presently being held in the detention cell of the First District."

"What are we charging them with?"

"Right now, with misprision in office, specifically the theft, under cover of office, of evidence," Wohl said. "Mr. Callis will, of course, add other charges later when we decide who's going to be charged with what."

"Does he mean the rape, Tony?" Carlucci asked.

"What Denny and Matt and I have been thinking, Jerry," Callis said, pointing vaguely at Coughlin and Lowenstein, "is that once Prasko understands we have them for the theft of evidence-and simple grand larceny-once, in other words, he understands that they're going down on that, we can let Prasko know we know about the rape, and get him to testify against the others, in exchange for his being allowed to plead guilty to violating the civil rights of Williams and Brownlee-and probably half a dozen others."

"He plea-bargains to a federal rap and gets what?" Carlucci said.

"I talked to the U.S. Attorney just before I came over here, Jerry. Nothing's set in cement, but he thinks he can find a judge willing to go along with five years on each charge, sentences to be served consecutively, so figure at least four charges, so twenty years."

"Which means he'd really do what?" Carlucci asked coldly.

"He'd probably be out in six, seven years," Callis said.

"You and Denny and Matt decided that between you?" Carlucci asked. "What about him?" He pointed at Police Commissioner Czernich. "Was he involved in your discussion? The last I heard was that he's the police commissioner. You didn't think you had to discuss that with him?"

The translation of that was that Jerry Carlucci did not like what he had heard, and because he did not like it, neither would Commissioner Czernich.

"I'm not sure," Czernich began, understanding his role and taking his cue, "that I could-"

"Well, Tony?" Carlucci interrupted him.

"Would I be wasting my breath to tell you why we think that's the way to go?" Callis asked.