W.E.B Griffin - The Murderers

“Oh, Jerry wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” Angeline said.

“No, I wouldn’t,” the Mayor agreed. “Thank you for having us, Miss Peebles.”

“Oh, Martha, please,” she said as she took his hand.

Then the Mayor put his hand out to Captain Pekach.

“Don’t you look spiffy, Dave,” he said.

“Mr. Mayor.”

“There’s a rumor going around that some unfortunate girl who doesn’t know what she’s getting into has agreed to marry you. Anything to it?”

Martha Peebles giggled. Dave Pekach looked at her and smiled uneasily at the Mayor but didn’t reply.

A waiter in a white jacket stood at the end of the reception line holding a tray of champagne glasses. Angeline took one. The waiter, seeing the indecision on the Mayor’s face, said, “There is a bar in the sitting room to your left, Mr. Mayor.”

“A little champagne will do just fine,” the Mayor said, and took a glass. “But thank you.”

It took the Mayor five minutes to work his way through the entrance foyer to the bar in the sitting room, and another five to find somebody he could leave Angie with and then to reach his destination.

In descending order of importance, he wished to have a word with Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin, Chief Inspector Matthew Lowenstein, and Inspector Peter Wohl. It would have been his intention to first find Denny or Matt and then send Fellows to fetch the others, but luck was with him. The three were standing together in a corner of the sitting room- not surprising, birds of a feather, et cetera -and there was a bonus. With them were Chief Inspector (Retired) August Wohl, Detective Matthew M. Payne, and Mr. Michael J. O’Hara of the Bulletin.

Chiefs Coughlin, Lowenstein, and Wohl were in business suits. Inspector Wohl and Detective Payne were in monkey suits. Mr. O’Hara was wearing a plaid sports coat of the type worn by the gentlemen who offer suggestions on the wagers one should make at a racetrack.

Not surprising, the Mayor thought. Dave Pekach works for Peter Wohl, and Peter would have probably rented a monkey suit for this if he didn’t have one, and he probably has his own, because he’s a bachelor, and doesn’t have a family to support and can afford a monkey suit. And Detective Payne not only is also a bachelor with no family to support, but doesn’t have to worry about living on a detective’s pay anyway. His father-what was the way they put it? His adoptive father, he adopted him when he married Patty Moffitt-is Brewster Cortland Payne II.

The Mayor handed Inspector Wohl his champagne glass.

“Get rid of this for me, will you, Mac?” he asked, as if he thought anybody in a monkey suit had to be a waiter. “Get me a weak scotch, and get my friends another round of whatever they’re drinking.”

“Good evening, Mr. Mayor,” Peter Wohl said, as the others laughed.

“My God, my mistake!” the Mayor said in mock horror. “What we have here is a cop in a monkey suit. I would never have recognized him.”

“Two, Jerry,” Chief Wohl said. “Three counting Dave Pekach. The Department’s getting some class.”

As Mayor Carlucci had risen through the ranks of the Police Department he had had Chief Inspector Wohl as his mentor and protector. The phrase used was that “Wohl was Carlucci’s rabbi.” It was said, quietly of course, but quite accurately, that Chief Wohl had not only helped Carlucci’s career prosper, but had on at least two occasions kept it from being terminated.

And Inspector, and then Chief Inspector, and then Deputy Commissioner and ultimately Commissioner Carlucci had been rabbi to Chiefs Coughlin and Lowenstein as they had worked their way up in the hierarchy. Detective Payne, it was universally recognized, had two rabbis, Chief Coughlin and Inspector Wohl.

Payne’s relationship with Wohl was the traditional one. Wohl saw in him a good cop, one who, with guidance and experience, could become a good senior police official. His relationship with Chief Dennis V. Coughlin was something different. Coughlin had been John Francis Xavier Moffitt’s best friend since they had been at the Police Academy. He had been the best man at his wedding, and he had gone to tell Patricia Moffitt, pregnant with Matt, that her husband had been killed. Just about everyone-including Jerry Carlucci-had thought it certain that after a suitable period, the Widow Moffitt would marry her late husband’s best friend. You didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to tell from the way he looked at her, and talked about her, how he felt about her.

Patty Moffitt had instead met Brewster Cortland Payne II, an archetypical Main Line WASP, in whose father’s law firm she had found work as a typist. He had been widowed four months previously when his wife had died in a traffic accident returning from their summer cottage in the Poconos.

Their marriage had enraged both families. Having lost a mate was not considered sufficient cause to marry hastily, and across a vast chasm of social and religious differences. It was generally agreed that the marriage would not, could not, last, and that was the reason many offered for Denny Coughlin never having married: he was still waiting for Patty Moffitt.

The marriage endured. Payne adopted Matthew Mark Moffitt and gave him his name and his love. Denny Coughlin never married. He and Brewster Payne became friends, and he was Uncle Denny to all the Payne children.

The Mayor shook everybody’s hand. A waiter appeared. The Mayor gave him his champagne glass and asked for a weak scotch. Inspector Wohl and Detective Payne both took champagne from the waiter’s tray.

“How ya doing, Mayor?” Mickey O’Hara asked.

“Take a look at this,” the Mayor said as he took a newspaper clipping from his pocket and handed it to O’Hara, “and make a guess.”

O’Hara read the story, then handed it back to the Mayor, who handed it to Chief Wohl.

“You all better read it,” the Mayor said.

MORE UNSOLVED MURDERS;

Capt. Henry O. Quaire, commanding officer of the Homicide Unit of the Philadelphia Police Department, refused to comment on rumors circulating through the police department that a homicide detective is under investigation for the brutal murder of Police Officer Jerome H. Kellog. Chief Inspector Matthew Lowenstein, who heads the Detective Bureau of the Police Department, was “out of town on official business” when this reporter attempted to contact him.

Kellog, 33, who was assigned to the Narcotics Unit, was found Friday morning in his home at 300 West Luray Street in the Feltonville section, dead of multiple gunshot wounds to the head. His death has been classified as “a willful death,” which is police parlance for murder.

Rumors began almost immediately to circulate that an unnamed Homicide Unit detective, who is allegedly involved with Officer Kellog’s estranged wife, is a prime suspect in the killing.

Although a large number of his fellow police officers called to pay their last respects to Officer Kellog at the John F. Fluehr amp; Sons Funeral Home this afternoon, including more than a dozen middle-ranking police supervisors, none of the police department’s most senior officers were present.

Their absence fueled another rumor, that Officer Kellog was not to be accorded the elaborate funeral rites, sometimes called an “Inspector’s Funeral,” normally given to a police officer killed in the line of duty.

Capt. Robert F. Talley, Commanding Officer of the Narcotics Unit, who made a brief appearance at the funeral home visitation, accompanying Officer Kellog’s widow, refused comment.