The Investigators (Badge of Honor 7)

“Keep out two bottles,” he said. “No. Three bottles. Drop them off at Giacomo’s office.”

“Got it, Mr. S.”

Mr. Savarese looked as if he was searching his mind for something else that had to be done, and then, that he had found nothing.

He walked to the Steinway grand piano, took the handkerchief from the top of the violin case, and tucked it into his collar. Then he opened the violin case, took out the bow, tested the horsehair for proper tension, took out the Strenelli, and, holding it by the neck, walked to the reel-to-reel tape recorder and turned it back on.

Then he tucked the Strenelli under his chin, raised the bow to its strings, and began to play along with the Philharmonica Slavonica’s rendition of Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto in G Minor, Opus 26.

During the briefings given to Detective Matt Payne by the Philadelphia Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to prepare him for his role in the apprehension of the fugitives Bryan C. Chenowith, Jennifer Ollwood, Edgar L. Cole, and Eloise Anne Fitzgerald (known to the FBI as “The Chenowith Group”), Matt had a number of thoughts he was aware would annoy or confound (probably both) both the FBI and his fellow officers of the Philadelphia Police Department.

The first of these was his realization that Sir Walter Scott had been right on the money when he proclaimed, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!”

Chief Inspector Coughlin, Inspector Wohl, Staff Inspector Weisbach, and Sergeant Jason Washington were responsible for bringing this conclusion to Payne’s mind.

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bsp; They had spent the better part of an hour, starting at 8: 15 A.M. in Denny Coughlin’s Roundhouse office, conducting a discussion of the cover story Matt would use in Harrisburg. Detective Payne had been present, but it had been made immediately clear to him that his participation had not been solicited and was not desired.

The three senior police supervisors decided that so far as the members of the Special Operations Division Investigation Section were concerned, they would be told that Matt would be in Harrisburg attempting to uncover suspicious financial activity on the part of any member of the Narcotics Unit Five Squad, with special attention being paid to Officer Timothy J. Calhoun, who had relatives in Harrisburg and Camp Hill.

Only those with the need to know were to be made privy to the fact that Matt would also be “cooperating” with the FBI in their investigation of the Chenowith Group while he was in Harrisburg. Weisbach decided those with a need to know were those present, plus Sergeant Sandow.

The Intelligence Division of the Philadelphia Police Department was to be made privy to Matt’s role vis-à-vis the FBI, but not to the fact that he would be in Harrisburg investigating the Narcotics Five Squad. The Intelligence Division, to prevent any possible leaks that might come to the attention of the Five Squad, was to be told a second cover story. This one had Matt looking into possible connections between vice operations in Philadelphia and Harrisburg.

Chief Coughlin felt this second cover story would have a certain credibility, inasmuch as Lieutenant Seymour Meyer, who had commanded the Central District’s Vice Squad, had been relieved of his command and his badge and was presently awaiting trial on charges that he had sold his protection to the madam of a call girl ring.

His replacement—and the new commanding officer of the Central District (Inspector Gregory F. Sawyer, Jr., the former commander, had been relieved of his command at the time of Meyer’s arrest)—would be told that the Special Operations investigation of Center City prostitution had not been completed, and that Detective Payne, specifically, was in Harrisburg working on it.

Chief Coughlin also felt, and Inspectors Wohl and Weisbach agreed, that because of the close working relationship between the Central District generally, and the Central District’s Vice Squad and the Narcotics Unit, the word would quickly reach the Five Squad that Special Operations had sent Detective Payne to Harrisburg hoping that he would there find the final nails to drive in Lieutenant Meyer’s coffin.

This second cover story was the one Mr. Walter Davis would be asked to have the chief of police in Harrisburg—who he said was both an old friend and owed him several favors—spread around the Harrisburg Police Department. The chief of police would be told in confidence that Detective Payne’s investigations involved the Chenowith Group, but not that he was looking into the financial affairs of certain members of the Five Squad.

This meant, Matt understood, that Chief Coughlin would prefer that neither the FBI nor the Harrisburg Police Department be aware what specific rotten apples Matt was looking for in the Philadelphia Police Department’s barrel.

The FBI Briefing on the Chenowith Group began at 9:45 in the Conference Room of the FBI’s Philadelphia office. Present were Chief Coughlin, Inspector Wohl, and Detectives Payne and Wilfred G. “Wee Willy” Malone, a six-foot-four-inch giant of a man who was assigned to the Philadelphia Police Department’s Intelligence Unit. The FBI was represented by SAC Walter Davis; ASAC (Administration) Glenn Williamson; ASAC (Criminal Affairs) Frank F. Young; and FBI Special Agents Raymond Leibowitz and Howard C. Jernigan of the Anti-Terrorist Group, and Special Agent John D. Matthews of the FBI’s Philadelphia office.

Everyone was seated in comfortable upholstered chairs around a long, glistening conference table. Before each participant had been laid out a lined pad, four sharpened pencils, a coffee mug, a water glass, and an ashtray. Two water thermos bottles, two coffee thermos bottles, and cream and sugar accessories were in the center of the table. On a shelf mounted on the wall were both a slide projector and a 16-millimeter motion picture projector. At the opposite end of the room was a lectern, complete to microphone, and, Matt supposed, controls to operate the lights and the slide and motion picture projectors. A roll-down beaded projection screen was mounted on the wall behind the lectern.

This caused Matt to think, first, This is a hell of a lot fancier than Czernich’s conference room in the Roundhouse, and next, Well, what the hell, they’re spending federal tax dollars, which no bureaucrat considers real money, so why not?

SAC Walter Davis stepped to the lectern, thanked everyone for coming, and turned the meeting over to ASAC Frank Young, a redheaded, pale-faced man in his forties on the edge between muscular and plump.

Young went to the lectern, thanked everyone for coming, and asked if everybody knew everybody else. Everyone did, except for Wee Willy Malone and Jack Matthews, and Detective Payne and ASAC Williamson, who leaned across the table to shake hands.

“SAC Davis has assigned Special Agent Matthews to liaise with Detective Payne while we’re doing this,” Young announced. “Presuming that meets with your approval, Chief Coughlin?”

“Certainly,” Coughlin said.

What the hell does “liaise with” mean? Detective Payne wondered.

“I thought that the best way to get this show on the road,” Young said, “was to run a film we put together showing why we’re all looking for the Chenowith Group.”

The room lights dimmed and the film projector started.

The seal of the United States Department of Justice appeared on the screen, then the seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, then a notice announcing the film was classified “Official Use Only” and was not to be shown to unauthorized persons.

“The Biological Sciences building of the Medical School of the University of Pittsburgh,” a voice announced.