Men In Blue (Badge of Honor 1)

As the city editor read Mickey’s first ‘graphs, O’Hara leaned over and dialed the number of the photo lab.

“Bobby, this is Mickey. Did they come out?”

“Nice,” the city editor said. “How much more is there?”

“How much space can I have?”

“Pictures?”

“Two good ones for sure,” Mickey said. “I got a lovely shot of the severed head.”

“I mean ones we can print, Mickey,” the city editor said. He pointed to the telephone in Mickey’s hand. “That the lab?” Mickey nodded, and the city editor gestured for the phone. “Print one of each, right away,” he said, and hung up.

“I asked how much space I can have,” Mickey O’Hara said.

“Everybody else was there, I guess?”

“Nobody else has pictures of the cop,” Mickey said. “For that matter, of the tracks when anything was still going on.”

“And you’re sure this is the guy?”

“One of the Fifteenth District cops recognized the head,” Mickey said.

“Give me a thousand, twelve hundred words,” the city editor said. “Things are a little slow. Nothing but wars.”

Mickey O’Hara nodded and walked back to his desk and sat down before the computer terminal. He pushed the COMPOSE key, and typed,

SLUG: Fried Thug

By Michael J. O’Hara

Add One

****

Sergeant Tom Lenihan stepped into the doorway of the office of Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin, who commanded the Special Investigations Bureau, and stood waiting until he had Coughlin’s attention.

“What is it, Tom?”

“They just got Gerald Vincent Gallagher, Chief,” Lenihan said.

“Good,” Coughlin said. “Where? How?”

“Lieutenant Pekach just phoned,” Lenihan said. “Two of his guys—one of them that young plainclothes guy who identified the girl—went looking for him on their own. They spotted him at the Bridge Street Terminal. He ran. Officer McFadden chased him down the elevated tracks. Gallagher slipped, fell onto the third rail, and then a train ran over him.”

Denny Coughlin’s face froze. His eyes were on Lenihan, but Lenihan knew that he wasn’t seeing him, that he was thinking.

Dennis V. Coughlin was only one of eleven chief inspectors of the Police Department of the City of Philadelphia. But it could be argued that he was first among equals. Under his command (among others) were the Narcotics Unit; the Vice Unit; the Internal Affairs Division; the Staff Investigation Unit; and the Organized Crime Intelligence Unit.

The other ten chief inspectors reported to either the deputy commissioner (Operations) or the deputy commissioner (Administration), who reported to the first deputy commissioner, who reported to the commissioner. Denny Coughlin reported directly to the first deputy commissioner.

Phrased very simply, there were only two people in the department who could tell Denny Coughlin what to do, or ask him what he was doing: the first deputy commissioner and the commissioner himself. On the other hand, without any arrogance at all, Denny Coughlin believed that what happened anywhere in the police department was his business.

“Tom, is Inspector Kegley out there?”

“Yes, sir, I think so.”

“Would you tell him, please, unless there is a good reason he can’t, I would like him to find out exactly what happened?”