The Victim (Badge of Honor 3)

"And now all we have to do is find this guy, bring him in front of a jury, convict his ass, send him off to the electric chair, and Special Operations generally and Officer Matthew Payne specifically will come across as supercops, and to the cheers of the crowd we will skip happily off into the sunset, is that what you're thinking?"

"Sir," Matt said doggedly, "she positively identified that man as the man who shot her."

"You did have a chance to buy uniforms before you came out here to Special Operations, I hope?"

"Yes, sir. I've got my uniforms."

"Good. You're going to need them. By verbal direction of the police commissioner, written confirmation to follow, Officer Payne, you are reassigned to the 12^th District, effective immediately. I doubt very much if you will be assigned plain clothes duties. You are also officially advised that a complaint, making several allegations against you involving your visit to Miss Detweiler at Hahneman Hospital today, has been made by a Dr. Dotson and officials of Hahneman Hospital. It has been referred to Internal Affairs for investigation. No doubt shortly you will be hearing from them."

"Peter, for chrissake, you're not listening to me!" Matt said. " She positively identified the shooter!"

"It's Inspector Wohl to you, Officer Payne," Wohl said.

"Sorry," Matt said.

"Matt, for chrissake!" Wohl said exasperatedly. "Let me explain all this to you. One, the chances of us catching these two, or either one of them, range from slim to none. On the way out here I stopped at Organized Crime and Intelligence. Neither of them are known by sight to anyone in Organized Crime or Intelligence-"

"You knew they weren't FBI guys?" Matt blurted, surprised.

"I have the word of the Special Agent in Charge about that," Wohl said. "They are not FBI agents. I have a gut feeling they are Mob hit men. Good ones. Imported, God only knows why, to blow DeZego away. Professionals, so to speak. We don't know where they came from. We can't charge them with murder or anything-unlawful flight or anything else, on the basis of some photographs that show them standing on a street."

"Penelope Detweiler swore that one of them is the guy who shot her and DeZego."

"Let's talk about Miss Detweiler," Wohl said. "She is a known user of narcotics, for one thing, and for another, she is Miss Penelope Detweiler, whose father's lawyers-your father, for example-will counsel her. They will advise her- and they probably should, I'm a little fuzzy about the ethics here-on the problems inherent in bringing these two scumbags before a grand jury for an indictment, much less before a jury. If I were her lawyer, I would advise her to tell the grand jury that she's really a little confused about what actually happened that day."

"Why would a lawyer tell her that?" Matt asked softly.

"Because, again presuming we can find these two, which I doubt, and presuming we could get an indictment-it isn't really true that any district attorney who can spell his own name can get an indictment anytim

e he wants to-and get him before a jury, then your friend Miss Detweiler would be subject to cross-examination. It would come out that she is addicted to certain narcotics, which would discredit her testimony, and it would come out that she was, tactfully phrased, romantically involved with Mr. DeZego. The press would have a certain interest in this trial. If I were her lawyer, I would suggest to her that testifying would be quite a strain on her and on her family."

"Oh, shit," Matt said. "I really fucked this up, didn't I?"

"Yeah, and good intentions don't count," Wohl said. "What counts, I'm afraid, is that Commissioner Czernick believes, more than likely correctly, that H. Richard Detweiler is going to be furious when he hears about your little escapade and is going to make his displeasure known to the mayor. When the mayor calls him, the commissioner will now be able to say that he's taken care of the matter. You have been relieved out here and assigned to duties appropriate to your experience. In other words, in a district, in uniform, and more than likely in a wagon."

"Oh, Christ, I'm sorry."

"So am I, Matt," Wohl said gently. "But what you did was stupid. For what it's worth, you probably should have gone to a district like anybody else fresh from the Academy."

"Hell, I'll just resign," Matt said.

"You think you're too good to ride around in a wagon?" Wohl asked.

"No," Matt said, "not at all. That's what I expected to do when I got out of the Academy. Denny Coughlin made sure I understood what to expect. I mean, under these circumstances. I have fucked up by the numbers, and they'll know that at the 12^th. I think it would be best all around, that's all, if I just folded my tent and silently stole away."

"Today's Thursday," Wohl said. "I'll call the captain of the 12^th and tell him you will either report for duty on Monday or resign by then. Think it over, over the weekend."

"You don't think I should resign?"

"I don't think you should resign right now, today," Wohl said. "I think you would have made a pretty good cop. I think you were given too great an opportunity to fuck up. But you did fuck up, and you're going to have to make your mind up whether or not you want to take your lumps." Matt looked at him.

"That's all, Officer Payne," Wohl said. "You can go." When Payne had left and closed the door behind him, Wohl went to his coffee machine and poured himself a cup of coffee.

"Fuck it," he said suddenly, angrily. He opened a filing cabinet drawer and took out a bottle of bourbon and liberally laced the coffee with it.

"If anybody wants any of that, help yourself," he said.

"Inspector," Captain Sabara said, "I didn't want to open my mouth, but a lot of what happened just now went right over my head."