The Investigators (Badge of Honor 7)

“I’m about to say, Chief Coughlin, that we are back on the record.”

“Give me another ninety seconds on that, Manny, please.”

Giacomo considered that.

“Ninety seconds, no. We’re still off the record. We go back on at my option.”

“Thank you,” Coughlin said.

Coughlin reached in his pocket and took out a sheet of paper and read from it, slowly:

“ ‘Miss Cynthia Longwood was stripped naked and orally raped, by a policeman under circumstances that were themselves traumatic.’ ”

“Jesus!” Manny Giacomo said, and was immediately furious with himself for letting his surprise show.

“Dr. Payne believes that having suffered a traumatic experience like that is consistent with Miss Longwood’s condition, which is, in Dr. Payne’s opinion, very close to serious schizophrenia. I’m not too good with medical terms, Manny, but what Amy means is that if the girl gets that far, she won’t come back soon, or at all.”

“You’re saying that one of the Five Squad narcs did this to her?”

“Yes, I am. And does Savarese know? He knows. He doesn’t have the name of the cop yet.”

“Aren’t you presuming a lot, Denny? How do you know Savarese knows?”

“We know that Joey Fiorello hired a private investigator—a retired detective—to see who the girl’s boyfriend was. His name is Ronald R. Ketcham. The retired detective told Fiorello that Ketcham wasn’t quite the respectable stockbroker he’s supposed to be; that he’s into selling drugs. He also told Fiorello that it was logical to presume that Ketcham’s girlfriend was also into ‘recreational’ drugs.

“Shortly after that happened, Ketcham was snatched from the garage of his apartment. They took him to a deserted NIKE site in South Philadelphia, took his clothes away from him, and left him there in the dark overnight. The next day, they came back and asked him questions. He had no idea he was keeping company with Savarese’s granddaughter. He thought that the people who had snatched him were in the drug business.”

“I don’t understand what you’re telling me.”

“Last Thursday night, Ketcham went to the Howard Johnson motel on Roosevelt Boulevard to do a drug deal with a guy named Amos Williams. He had Savarese’s granddaughter with him. The Five Squad was apparently onto both of them. They busted Williams, and the people he had with him. One of the cops went into Ketcham’s room, stole twenty thousand dollars from him, handcuffed him to the toilet, and raped Savarese’s granddaughter.”

“You can prove all that, I suppose?”

Coughlin ignored the question.

“Ketcham told Savarese’s thugs what happened. His assumption was that Williams thought he had given Williams to the Five Squad, and that Williams had sent the people to snatch him. You with me?”

“I don’t know, keep talking.”

“So Savarese left Ketcham in the NIKE site . . .”

That I don’t believe. If Savarese thought this guy was responsible for his granddaughter getting raped—or just for getting her on “recreational” drugs—he just wouldn’t walk away and leave it at that.

But the rest of this is probably true. Savarese wanted me to get an investigator for him. Jesus Christ, I’m glad I didn’t do that!

“. . . and told Joey Fiorello to have the private investigator find out what cops were at the Howard Johnson motel when they busted Amos Williams. They gave the guy a bullshit story why they wanted to know, and the guy went to Mike Sabara and told him he smelled something fishy.”

“How did you know that person or persons unknown had left the boyfriend in the NIKE site?”

“We’re still off the record, right, Manny?”

“I’ll tell you when we go back on.”

“Amy Payne called Peter Wohl and told him about the message at the hospital. Peter brought it to me. I put out a Locate, Do Not Detain on Ketcham. Danny the Judge read it. When a South detective went to Justice and told him he had found a guy named Ketcham wearing only an overcoat locked up in the NIKE site, Danny called me.”

“That’s why everything is going on here?”

Coughlin nodded.