W.E.B Griffin - The Murderers

Two minutes later, sleepy-eyed, dressed in a cotton bathrobe under which it could be seen that he had been sleeping in his underwear, Officer Crater picked up the telephone.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Charley, do you know where Special Operations Headquarters is?”

“Frankford and Castor?”

“Right. Be there at eight o’clock. See the Sergeant.”

“Jesus,” Crater said, looking at his watch. “It’s quarter after seven. What’s going on?”

“Wait a minute,” Corporal Peterson said. “Charley, the Sergeant says to send a car for you. Be waiting when it gets there.”

“What’s going on?”

“Hold it a minute, Charley,” Corporal Peterson said.

Sergeant Mario Delacroce came on the line.

“Crater, you didn’t get this from me,” he said. “All I know is that we got a call from Central Division saying to have you at Special Operations at eight this morning. What I hear is that Special Operations has got some operation coming off on your beat, and they want to talk to you.”

“What kind of an operation?”

“Charley, Central Division don’t confide in me, they just tell me what they want done. There’ll be a car at your house in fifteen minutes. Be waiting for it. You want a little advice, put on a clean uniform and have a fresh shave.”

“Right,” Charley Crater said.

He put the telephone back in its cradle.

“What was that all about?” Joanne Crater asked, concern in her voice.

“Ah, those goddamned Special Operations hotshots are running some kind of operation on my beat, and they want to talk to me,” Charley said.

“Talk to you about what?”

“Who knows?” Charley said. “They think their shit don’t stink.”

“I really wish you’d clean up your language, Charley.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Honey, I got to catch a quick shave and get dressed. Have I got a fresh uniform?”

“Yeah, there’s one I picked up yesterday.”

As he went up the stairs to his bedroom, Officer Crater had a very unpleasant thought: Maybe it has something to do with…Nah, if it was something like that, I’d have been told, before I went off last night, to report to Internal Affairs.

But what the hell does Special Operations want to ask me about?

Nine months before, a building contractor from McKeesport, Pennsylvania, had telephoned the Eastern Pennsylvania Executive Escort Service, saying the service had been recommended to him by a client of the service. After first ascertaining that the building contractor did indeed know the client, and that he understood the price structure, Mrs. Osadchy dispatched to Room 517 of the Benjamin Franklin Hotel one of her associates, who happened to be an employee of the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, whose husband had deserted her and their two children, and who worked on an irregular basis for the Eastern Pennsylvania Executive Escort Service to augment her income.

When she reached the building contractor’s room, it was evident to her that he was very drunk, and when his behavior was unacceptably crude, she attempted to leave. The building contractor thereupon punched her in the face. She screamed, attracting the attention of the occupants of the adjacent room, who called hotel security.

The on-duty hotel security officer, a former police officer, was contacted as he stood on the sidewalk, chatting with Officer Charles F. Crater, of the Sixth District, who was walking his beat.

Officer Crater, ignoring the hotel security officer’s argument that he could deal with the situation alone, accompanied him to the building contractor’s room, where they found the building contractor somewhat aghast at the damage he had done to the face of the lady from the Eastern Pennsylvania Executive Escort Service, and the lady herself in the bathroom, trying to stanch the flow of blood from her mouth and nose, so that she could leave the premises without attracting horrified attention to herself.

The lady did not look like what Officer Crater believed hookers should look like. She was weeping. She told Officer Crater that her name was Marianne Connelly, and that her husband had deserted her and their two children, and that she had to do this to put food in their mouths. He believed her. She told him that if anyone at the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society heard about this, she would be fired, and then she didn’t know what she would do. He believed her.

The building contractor said that he didn’t know what had come over him, that he was a family man with children, and if this ever got back to McKeesport, he would lose his family and probably his business.

The hotel security officer suggested to Officer Crater that no real good would come from arresting the building contractor, since there were no witnesses to the assault, and the lady from the Eastern Pennsylvania Executive Escort Service wouldn’t humiliate herself, and set herself up to surely get fired, by going to court to testify against him.

What harm would there be, the hotel security officer argued, if they settled this bad situation right here and now? The building contractor would give the lady from the Eastern Pennsylvania Executive Escort Service money, enough not only to pay for her medical bills and the damage to her clothing, but to compensate her for what the sonofabitch had done to her.

The sonofabitch produced a wallet stuffed with large-denomination bills to demonstrate his willingness to go along with this solution to the problem.

“Give it all to her,” Officer Crater ordered.

“I got to keep out a few bucks, for Christ’s sake!”

“Give it all to her, you sonofabitch!” Officer Crater ordered angrily, and watched as the building contractor gave the lady from the Eastern Pennsylvania Executive Escort Service all the money in his wallet. Then he turned to the hotel security officer. “You’ll see that she gets out of here and home all right, right?”

“Absolutely.”

Officer Crater then turned and left the room.

The lady from the Eastern Pennsylvania Executive Escort Service went home and telephoned Mrs. Osadchy to report what had happened.

“How much did he give you, Marianne?”

“Six hundred bucks.”

“You keep it, and I promise you, this will never happen again.”

Mrs. Osadchy also reported the incident to Mr. Cassandro, who considered the situation a moment and then said, “I think, since the cop was so nice, that we ought to show our appreciation. Give the broad a couple of hundred and tell her to give it to the cop.”

“I already told Marianne she could keep the dough she got from the john.”

“Then you give her the money for the cop, Harriet. Consider it an investment. Trust me. Do it.”

Two days later, while Officer Crater was walking his beat, the lady from the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society who moonlighted at the Eastern Pennsylvania Executive Escort Service approached him.

“I want to thank you for the other night,” she said. “I really appreciate it.”

“Aaaaaah,” Officer Crater said, somewhat embarrassed.

“No, I really mean it,” she said. “I really appreciate what you did for me.”

“Forget it,” Officer Crater said.

The lady handed him what looked like a greeting card.

“What’s this?” Officer Crater asked.

“It’s a thank-you card. I got it at Hallmark.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Officer Crater said. “All I was trying to do was make the best of a bad situation.”

“You’re sweet,” the lady said. “What did you say your name was?”

“Crater.”

“I mean your first name.”

“Charley,” Officer Crater replied.

“Mine’s Marianne,” she said. “Thanks again, Charley.” She kissed Officer Crater on the cheek and walked away.