Tony Callis was determined that The Goddamned Nun, as good as she was, was not going to get her client off on this one. Indeed, in her heart of hearts, she probably didn’t want to see him walk. What she didn’t want was for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to put James Howard Leslie into handcuffs and march him off to Rockview Prison in State College for what the judge had just told him would be incarceration for the rest of his natural life, thereby destroying all of his hopes to be educated, rehabilitated, and returned to society as a productive, law-abiding member thereof.
What, Callis believed, McCarthy saw from her perspective as a reasonable solution to the case of James Howard Leslie was that he be allowed to plead guilty to Murder Three (voluntary manslaughter), a lesser offense that, she would be prepared to argue, would not only punish him and remove him from society for a very long period—say, seven to ten years—so that he could cause others no harm, but save both the Office of the District Attorney and the Office of the Public Defender the considerable cost in time and money of a trial and the following appeals processes.
There was a certain logic to her position. If Kellog had not been a police officer, Callis might have entertained her plea-bargain offer. But Kellog had been a cop, and Leslie had killed him in cold blood, and deserved to be locked up permanently. Strapping the murdering son of a bitch into the electric chair was unfortunately—thanks to bleeding hearts and the Supreme Court—no longer possible. The only way to get him locked up for life was to bring him to trial.
After some thought—it would do his political ambitions little good, he had reasoned, if he personally prosecuted Leslie only to have The Goddamned Nun get him off with something like seven to ten—Callis had decided to delegate the responsibility for prosecuting Leslie to Assistant District Attorney Hormel.
“Phebus wants to prosecute,” Harry Hormel said. “He asked me.”
Anton C. Phebus, Esq., was another of the assistant district attorneys under Callis’s supervision.
Callis was not surprised that Tony Phebus wanted to prosecute Leslie, or even that Phebus had asked Hormel for the job. Phebus was an ex-cop, and thus felt a personal interest in seeing to it th
at Leslie, after a fair trial, would be locked up permanently. And Harry Hormel was de facto if not de jure, like one of Mr. Orwell’s pigs, the most equal of all the assistant district attorneys.
“You don’t want to prosecute?” Callis asked.
“I will,” Hormel said. “But if Phebus does, it will give him the experience.”
Phebus was a relative newcomer both to the practice of law and the District Attorney’s Office. He had served twelve years as a police officer, rising to sergeant, and attending law school at Temple University whenever he could fit the hours into a policeman’s always changing schedule. He had joined the Office of the District Attorney fourteen months before, shortly after being admitted to the bar.
Callis suddenly remembered—he had a very good memory, which had served him well—that Phebus had been a sergeant in the Narcotics Unit of the Philadelphia Police Department when he had been a cop, and that Jerome H. Kellog had also been assigned to the Narcotics Unit.
“He and Kellog were buddies in Narcotics?” Callis asked. “Partners?”
It would be unwise to have a man with a really personal interest in sending the accused away for life serve as his prosecutor.
“No. I checked that out. They never worked together, and they weren’t friends,” Hormel said.
Callis was not surprised that Hormel had checked out that possible problem area before coming to see him.
“What are you suggesting, Harry? That maybe Phebus couldn’t get around McCarthy?”
“We have everything we need to get a conviction,” Hormel said. “A statement, everything. Phebus stands as good a chance of getting a conviction as I do. Miss McCarthy’ll give him her best shot, which would be a good learning experience for him both at the trial and during the appeals.”
Obviously, Callis thought, Phebus has got himself a rabbi. Harry wants him to try this case. Probably because he figures Phebus will not resign to go into private practice anytime soon.
Only a few assistant district attorneys make a career of it. Most leave to enter private practice after a few years on the job. Harry’s obviously interested in keeping Phebus. Nothing wrong in that. And Phebus is the kind of guy—he’s no mental giant, and he has a civil service mentality—who will want to stay on here.
So what’s the downside?
The Goddamned Nun makes a fool of him, and Leslie walks. Unlikely, but possible. But—even if it’s that bad—the public perception will be that I made an understandable mistake in assigning an ex-cop to prosecute a cop-killer. That’s better than McCarthy making a fool of me or Harry.
More likely—we’ve got a strong case—Phebus will be able to get a conviction. The District Attorney’s Office will get the credit for the conviction, and I may even get a little credit for assigning an ex-cop to prosecute a cop-killer. The cops, at least, will appreciate that.
The Goddamned Nun will appeal, of course, all the way to the Supreme Court, to get that scumbag out of jail. She may even be able to get away with it. Fighting the appeals will be both a pain in the ass and time-consuming. Right now, Phebus’s time isn’t all that valuable, and like Harry says, it will be a good learning experience for him.
“Let Phebus prosecute, Harry,” Callis ordered. “But keep an eye on him. If there are problems, let me know.”
Thirty-five-year-old Peter Frederick Wohl looked like—and was often mistaken for—an up-and-coming young stockbroker, or an attorney. He was fair-skinned, with even features, and carried 165 pounds on a lithe body just under six feet tall. He wore his light brown hair clipped short, and favored well-tailored, conservatively styled clothing, almost always worn with a crisply starched white button-down-collar shirt, regimentally striped neckties, and well-shined loafers. He drove a perfectly restored, immaculately maintained Jaguar XK-120 roadster, in the back of which could usually be found his golf clubs or his tennis racquet, or both.
He was in fact a police officer, specifically the youngest inspector—and in the Philadelphia Police Department inspector is the second senior rank, after chief inspector. On those very rare occasions when he wore his uniform, it carried a silver oak leaf, like those worn by lieutenant colonels in the Army or Marines.
Wohl was the commanding officer of the Special Operations Division, which was housed in a building at Frankford and Castor avenues that had been built in 1892 as the Frankford Grammar School. Wohl’s small, ground-floor office had been the office of the principal.
He glanced up from a thick stack of paper demanding his administrative attention at the clock on the wall and saw that it was quarter past four. He shook his head in resignation and shoved all the paperwork in the side drawer of his desk, locking it.
He took the jacket to a light brown glen plaid suit from a hanger on a clothes rack by the door and walked out of his office.