Broken Trust (Badge of Honor 13)

Payne dealt with it as best he could, mostly by losing himself in his work. And that he did well.

When he was promoted to the rank of sergeant and transferred to the Homicide Unit, Matt Payne was given Badge No. 471, which previously had been worn by Sergeant Jack Moffitt, his father.

Other heroic incidents occurred—too many to be included here—but one of the most recent was among the most memorable, when the Wyatt Earp of the Main Line again found himself involved in a foot chase—and a shoot-out—with a murderer.

Payne happened to be at Temple University Hospital when Jesús Jiménez, a nineteen-year-old gang member, snuck into the third-floor Burn Unit and executed a patient. Payne pursued him out onto the streets, wounding him in the thigh, before Jiménez got away.

Jiménez, it turned out, belonged to a drug- and human-trafficking gang led by Juan Paulo Delgado, a Texican, age twenty-one. And the assassination in the hospital to settle a drug deal debt was only a part of Delgado’s reign of terror—one that stretched from the streets of Philadelphia to the dirt trails of the Texas–Mexico border.

When Delgado abducted for ransom Dr. Amanda Law—whose patient Jiménez had murdered—Payne, Detective Anthony Harris, and Sergeant Jim Byrth of the legendary Texas Rangers law enforcement agency were already hunting him.

The men, acting on a tip from their informant, tracked Delgado’s gang to a dilapidated row house on Hancock Street in Kensington. After a shoot-out, Delgado was dead. Payne and his associates then rescued Dr. Law, who they found bound and gagged in the kitchen, her head covered with a pillowcase.

And so now we come to today. One final time we declare Matt Payne a hero.

This courageous, dedicated son of Philadelphia gave the city his all. May he rest in peace.

“We know that Matt will always be a hero to the decent and law-abiding citizens of Philadelphia,” his wife, Dr. Amanda Law Payne, said as she held their toddler daughter on her hip and as their twin sons clung to her legs following a memorial service that overflowed with attendees. “But first and foremost, he was our family’s hero. While we must move forward, our children and I shall never ever forget that.”

Matthew Mark Payne is survived by his loving wife of five years, Mrs. Amanda Law Payne; his sons, Brewster Cortland Payne III and John Francis Xavier Moffitt Payne, age four; his daughter, Mandy Law Payne, age two; his sister, Dr. Amelia Payne; his parents, Mr. and Mrs. B. C. Payne II; and numerous other relatives and friends.

The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, memorials be made for other officers in Matthew Mark Payne’s name to the Widows & Orphans’ Fund at the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #5, 11630 Caroline Road, Philadelphia, PA 19154-2110.

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Matt, feeling the deep frustration that hit the first time he had read the obit, slowly refolded the papers and gently put them on the marble countertop.

Amanda said, “And now to that can be added you being declared Public Enemy No. 1 and getting shot by that damn drug dealer.”

“You know,” he said, “all that Public Enemy nonsense basically evaporated when Skinny Lenny got crushed to death. He was the problem, and now it’s over.”

“I truly hope so, Matt. Just the thought of someone else taking a shot at you, well . . .”

Jesus! Does she know about today?

It was on the TV news when I got out of the shower.

But I only heard Camilla Rose being mentioned.

What do I say?

After a while, he said, “I don’t know what to say.”

Amanda nodded.

She took a sip of her wine, then said, “At the hospital, I deal with death on a daily basis. I’m not going to wear the loss of the baby on my sleeve. But it is causing me a great deal of reflection. I can’t get past the emptiness.”

“So, first we lose the baby. And now . . . what?”

“Damn it, Matt! I almost lost you. That obit almost came true.”

She paused, bit her lower lip, then, clearly measuring her words, went on. “I am not in any way blaming the miscarriage on you. They happen in fifteen percent of pregnancies. That’s an unfortunate fact. My mother said she had two before she had me. Intelligently, clinically, I can understand losing the baby. Emotionally, is something else. Something that I’m learning I’m coming to terms with.”

She inhaled deeply, then slowly let it out.

“Matt, I let my mind get too far ahead, making plans for the baby, for us. And because of that, because now there won’t be a baby, there’s this . . . this horrible void deep inside me.”

She turned and pulled a tissue from the box on the counter and blew her nose.