Deadly Assets (Badge of Honor 12)

“I can’t speak for the entire department, but I know I’m getting love notes from my usual fans,” Payne said as he pulled out his cellular telephone, tapped its screen, then held it up for Washington to read. “This is the ‘Stop Killadelphia’ conversation on PhillyNewsNow-dot-com.”

“‘Fire and jail the killer cop Payne,’” Washington read aloud.

“Now look at the one that follows it, from the person calling himself Justice of the Piece. The one using the picture of a revolver as their avatar.”

Washington read: “‘Forget firing him! Fire at him! Cap the cop! If we’re dying, Payne’s dying.’”

“Not my first death threat,” Payne said, “but at least i

t’s one that’s a little more clever than the others.”

Washington read farther down, then looked from the phone to Payne.

“I would hesitate using the word clever, Matthew, but I will grant that it rises above the crudeness of these other illiterate messages. Regardless, they all anger me.”

Payne shrugged. “You know that people get brave online when they can hide behind their keyboard, Jason.”

“True. Let’s just hope that’s all it is, nothing more than tough rhetoric fueled by Reverend Cross,” Washington said. “Denny also said he was impressed with your remarkable restraint when Cross attempted to ambush you during the television interview at the LOVE Park scene.”

Payne’s mind flashed back to the moment he caught a glimpse of the tall, skinny, bearded forty-year-old African-American in his black cloak and white clerical collar, approaching the camera crew.

“Fortunately,” Payne said, “I saw him coming out of the corner of my eye and figured what he probably was up to.”

“The posters being your first clue?” Washington said drily.

Payne grinned.

“I admit I can be more than a bit slow, Jason, but I eventually figure things out.”

Washington chuckled.

“I damn sure didn’t want a confrontation,” Payne went on, “at least not one caught on camera. I leaned in close to the microphone so I’d be heard over the chanting, and said, ‘Excuse me. I have a job to do. And I would suggest that someone trying to create a cause célèbre on the spot where a young woman has just been brutally murdered is disrespectful at best, and damned disgusting at worst.’”

Washington raised an eyebrow.

“That sound bite should make headlines,” he said. “Especially when they edit out all but the last part, and begin with ‘. . . I would suggest.’ Between the two of us, good for you. But I caution you to be careful. As you know, he was just elevated to chairman of CPOC.”

“So?”

“So you well could be the trophy he wants to make a name for himself.”

—

Pronounced See-Pock, the acronym stood for Citizens Police Oversight Committee. The five people on the self-governed entity were appointed to staggered terms by each of the city council members serving on the council’s Committee for Public Safety. Current members were a female African-American pro bono publico criminal defense lawyer, a white Roman Catholic bishop, a Temple University professor of sociology who was a female of Puerto Rican heritage, a male civil engineer whose parents had emigrated to Philly from India, and its longest-serving appointee, whose five-year term would expire within the next ten months, the Reverend Josiah Cross.

CPOC had come into existence a quarter-century earlier, in the aftermath of the city’s race riots. The then mayor had thrown it out as a bone, hoping to appease, if not silence, community activists. They complained that the police department’s Internal Affairs Unit was nothing more than the cops policing themselves—read: paying lip service to allegations of misconduct, and doing next to nothing about said misconduct—and demanded an independent board.

Over the years, the members of CPOC, charged with only a mandate of reviewing and advising the mayor and city council on matters pertaining to police department policy, rarely accomplished anything beyond creating self-serving headlines. Which many observers said wasn’t exactly a surprise, as it was very much in line with the accomplishments of the city council members themselves, ones who (a) knew they were appointing them to a position that in essence was political patronage, and who (b) quietly expected a portion of the CPOC member’s annual $80,000 salary to find its way into the patron’s reelection war chest.

—

“I appreciate what you’re saying, Jason,” Payne said. “He’s a grandstanding troublemaker. And I’m not going to let anyone from CPOC bother me. Every damn member comes with some ax to grind. Starting with that fraud who says he ‘found’ religion in the slam.”

Washington chuckled deeply.

“Discretion being the better part of valor, Matthew, I probably should not tell you this, but I heard that the new head of the city’s public relations department—”

“That tiny guy who’s working for Ed Stein? Whatshisname? Finley?”