W.E.B Griffin - The Murderers

The only person who knew the real reason the Mayor elected to go about armed was his wife.

“Do you need that thing?” Angeline Carlucci had asked several years before, in their bedroom, as she watched him deal with the problem, Where does one wear one’s revolver when wearing a cummerbund?

“Honey,” the Mayor had replied, “I carried a gun for twenty-six years. I feel kind of funny, sort of half-naked, when I don’t have it with me.”

Mayor Carlucci had begun his career of public service as a police officer, and had held every rank in the Philadelphia Police Department except policewoman before seeking elective office.

Mrs. Carlucci accepted his explanation. So far as she knew, her husband had never lied to her. If she thought that there were perhaps other reasons-she knew it did not hurt him with the voters when his picture, with pistol visible, at some crime site, was published in the papers-she kept her opinion to herself.

“Mary One,” Lieutenant Fellows said into the microphone of the Command Band radio.

The response from Police Radio was immediate.

“Mary One,” a pleasant, female-sounding voice replied.

“We need a location on Mickey O’Hara,” Lieutenant Fellows said.

“Stand by,” Police Radio said, and Lieutenant Fellows hung the microphone up as the dividing glass whooshed back into place.

Police Radio, in the person of thirty-seven-year-old Janet Grosse, a civilian with thirteen years on the job, was very familiar with Mr. O’Hara, as well as with what the Mayor’s bodyguard-she had recognized Lieutenant Fellows’s voice-wanted. He wanted a location on Mickey O’Hara, that and nothing more. He expected her to be smart enough not to go on the air and inquire of every radio-equipped police vehicle in Philadelphia if they had seen Mickey, and if so, where.

Janet had the capability of doing just that, and if it got down to that, she would have to, the result of which would be that the police frequencies would be full with at least a dozen reports of the last time anyone had seen Mickey’s antenna-festooned Buick. While he didn’t know every cop in Philadelphia, every cop knew him.

And Mickey would be monitoring his police band radios and would learn that they were looking for him. Fellows had said the Mayor wanted a location on him, not that he wanted Mickey to know he wanted to know where he was.

Janet thought a moment and then threw a switch on her console which caused her voice to be transmitted over the Highway Band. Only those vehicles assigned to Highway Patrol, plus a very few in the vehicles of the most senior white shirts, were equipped with Highway Band radios.

“William One,” she said.

William One was the call sign of Inspector Peter Wohl. Janet knew that his official vehicle-an unmarked new Ford, which he customarily drove himself-was equipped with an H-Band radio.

There was no answer, which did not surprise Janet, as she had a good hunch where he was, and what he was doing, and consequently that he would not be listening to his radio. Neither was she surprised when a voice came over the H-Band:

“Radio, this is Highway One. William One is out of service. I can get a message to him.”

Highway One was the call sign of the vehicle assigned to the Commanding Officer of the Highway Patrol, which was a subordinate unit of the Special Operations Division.

I thought that would happen. William One, Highway One, and just about every senior white-shirt not on duty is in Chestnut Hill tonight. Wohl is having Highway One take his calls.

“Highway One, are you in Chestnut Hill?”

“Right.”

“Is Mickey O’Hara there, too?”

“Right.”

Bingo! I am a clever girl. Look for a gathering of white-shirts where the free booze is flowing, and there will be Mickey O’Hara.

“That will be all, Highway One. Thank you,” Janet said. She switched to the Command Band.

“Mary One.”

“Mary One.”

“The gentleman is in Chestnut Hill at a party,” Janet reported. “Do you need an address?”

“That was quick,” Fellows said, laughter in his voice. “No, thanks, I’m sure we can find him with that. Thank you.”

“Have a good time,” Janet said, and sat back and waited for another call.

“Mayor, Mickey’s already at the party.”

Mayor Carlucci nodded.

“When we get there, find him. Give me a couple of minutes to circulate, and then ask Mickey if he has a moment for me,” the Mayor said, “and bring him over.”

“Yes, sir.”

There were uniforms-white hats from the Traffic Division, not policemen from the Fourteenth District, which included Chestnut Hill-directing traffic on Glengarry Lane in Chestnut Hill. The mayoral limousine was quickly waved to the head of the line of cars waiting to pass through the ornate gates of the five-acre estate. As the Cadillac rolled past, each uniform saluted and got a wave from the Mayor in return.

The long, curving drive to the turn-of-the-century Peebles mansion was lined with parked cars, and there a cluster of chauffeurs gathered around a dozen limousines-including three Rolls Royces, Jerry Carlucci noticed-parked near the mansion itself.

If is wasn’t for what’s going to be on the front page of every newspaper in town tomorrow, the Mayor thought, tonight would be a real opportunity. Now all I can hope for is to minimize the damage, keep these people from wondering whether they’re betting on the wrong horse.

There was a man in a dinner jacket collecting invitations just outside the door. He didn’t ask for the Mayor’s, confirming the Mayor’s suspicion that he looked familiar, and was probably a retired police officer, now working as a rent-a-cop for Wachenhut Security, or something like that.

The reception line consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Brewster Cortland Payne II, Miss Martha Peebles, and Mr.-Captain-David Pekach.

“Mrs. Carlucci, Mr. Mayor,” Payne said. “How nice to see you.”

Payne and Pekach were wearing dinner jackets.

Probably most everybody here will be wearing a monkey suit but me , the Mayor thought. But it couldn’t be helped. I couldn’t have shown up at Tony Cannatello’s viewing wearing a monkey suit and looking like I was headed right from the funeral home to a fancy party.

“We’re happy to be here, Mr. Payne.”

“You know my wife, don’t you? And Miss Peebles?”

“How are you, Angeline?” Mrs. Patricia Payne said. “I like your dress.”

Patricia Payne and Martha Peebles were dressed similarly, in black, off-the-shoulder cocktail dresses. The Peebles woman had a double string of large pearls reaching to the valley of her breasts, and Mrs. Payne a single strand of pearls.

Nice chest, the Mayor thought, vis-a-vis Miss Peebles. Nice-looking woman. She’d be a real catch for Dave Pekach even without all that money.

And then, slightly piqued: Yeah, of course I know your wife. I’ve known her longer than you have. I carried her first husband’s casket out of St. Dominic’s when we buried him. And as long as we’ve known each other, isn’t it about time you started calling me “Jerry”?

“How is it, Patricia,” Angeline Carlucci spoke truthfully, “that you still look like a girl?”

The Mayor had a sudden clear mental image of the white, grief-stricken face of the young widow of Sergeant John X. Moffitt, blown away by a scumbag when answering a silent alarm at a gas station, as they lowered his casket into the ground in St. Dominic’s cemetery.

A long time ago. Twenty-five years ago. I was Captain of Highway when Jack Moffitt got killed.

Angie’s right. She does look good. Real good. She’s a Main Line lady now, a long way from being a cop’s widow living with her family off Roosevelt Boulevard.

“I’m so glad you could come,” Martha Peebles said to Angeline Carlucci.