W.E.B Griffin: The Murderers

“And you can’t find his wife?” Talley asked.

“No. Bob, there’s some unpleasant gossip-”

“All of it probably true,” Talley interrupted.

“You’ve heard it?”

“Yeah. Fred, where are you? In your office?”

“Yeah. Bob, I know that you and Henry Quaire are pretty close-”

Captain Henry Quaire was Commanding Officer of the Homicide Unit.

“I’ll call him, Fred, and get back to you,” Talley said. He broke the connection with his finger, and started to dial a number. Then, sensing Sergeant Dolan’s eyes on him, quickly decided that telling him something of what he knew made more sense than keeping it to himself, and letting Dolan guess. Dolan had a big mouth and a wild imagination.

“They just found Jerry Kellog shot to death in his house,” he said.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Dolan said. “They know who did it?”

“All I know is what I told you,” Talley said. “I’m going to call Captain Quaire and see what I can find out.”

“You heard the talk?” Dolan asked.

“Talk is cheap, Dolan,” Talley said shortly. He walked across the room to his office, closed the door, and dialed a number from memory.

“Homicide, Sergeant Hobbs.”

“Captain Talley, Sergeant. Let me talk to Captain Quaire. His private line is always busy.”

“Sir, the Captain’s tied up at the moment. Maybe I could help you?”

“I know what he’s tied up with, Hobbs. Tell him I need to talk to him.”

“Captain, Chief Lowenstein’s in there with him.”

“Tell him I’d like to talk to him,” Talley repeated.

“Yes, sir. Hang on a minute, please.”

Sergeant Hobbs walked through the outer office to the office of the Commanding Officer and knocked at it.

The three men inside-Captain Henry Quaire, a stocky, balding man in his late forties; Chief Inspector of Detectives Matt Lowenstein, a stocky, barrel-chested man of fifty-five; and Lieutenant Louis Natali-all looked at him with annoyance.

“It’s Captain Talley,” Sergeant Hobbs called, loud enough to be heard through the door.

“I thought we might be hearing from him,” Chief Lowenstein said, then raised his voice loud enough to be heard by Hobbs. “On what, Hobbs?”

“One Seven Seven, Chief,” Hobbs replied.

Lowenstein turned one of the telephones on Quaire’s desk around so that he could read the extension numbers and pushed the button marked

“Chief Lowenstein, Talley. I guess you heard about Officer Kellog?”

“Yes, sir. Captain Samuels of the Twenty-fifth called. He’s-”

“Having trouble finding the Widow Kellog?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Detective Milham, who’s working a job, has been asked to come in to see Captain Quaire and myself to see if he might be able to shed light on that question. If he can, I will call Captain Samuels. And for your general fund of information, Detective Milham was not up for the Kellog job. Does that answer all the questions you might have?”

Sergeant Harry McElroy, a wiry, sandy-haired thirty-eight-year-old, had been “temporarily” assigned as driver to Chief Matt Lowenstein three years before. He had then been a detective, assigned to East Detectives, and didn’t want the job. Like most detectives, he viewed the Chief of Detectives with a little fear. Lowenstein had a well-earned reputation for a quick temper, going strictly by the book, and an inability to suffer fools.

The term “driver” wasn’t an accurate description of what a driver did. In military parlance, a driver was somewhere between an aide-de-camp and a chief of staff. His function was to relieve his chief of details, sparing him for more important things.

During Harry’s thirty-day temporary assignment, Lowenstein had done nothing to make Harry think he had made a favorable impression on him. He had been genuinely surprised when Lowenstein asked him how he felt about “sticking around, and not going back to East.”

Since that possibility had never entered Harry’s mind, he could not-although he himself had a well-earned reputation for being able to think on his feet-think of any excuse he could offer Lowenstein to turn down the offer.

Over the next eleven months, as he waited for his name to appear on the promotion list to sergeant-he had placed sixteenth on the exam, and was fairly sure the promotion would come through-he told himself that all he had to do was keep his nose clean and all would be well. He had come to believe that Lowenstein wasn’t really as much of a sonofabitch as most people thought, and when his promotion came through, he would be reassigned.

He would, so to speak, while greatly feeling the threat of evil, have safely passed through the Valley of Death. And he knew that he had learned a hell of a lot from his close association with Lowenstein that he could have learned nowhere else.

McElroy learned that his name had come up on a promotion list from Chief Lowenstein himself, the morning of the day the list would become public.

“There’s a vacancy for sergeant in Major Crimes,” Lowenstein had added. “And they want you. But what I’ve been thinking is that you could learn more staying right where you are. Your decision.”

That, too, had been totally unexpected, and by then he had come to know Lowenstein well enough to know that when he asked for a decision, Lowenstein wanted it right then, that moment.

“Thank you, Chief,” Harry had said. “I’d like that.”

McElroy now had his own reputation, not only as Lowenstein’s shadow, but for knowing how Chief Lowenstein thought, and what he was likely to do in any given situation.

His telephone often rang with conversations that began, “Harry, how do you think the Chief would feel about…”

He did, he came to understand, really have an insight into how Lowenstein thought, and what Lowenstein wanted.

Usually, Harry went wherever Lowenstein went. This morning, however, he sensed without a hint of any kind from Lowenstein that he would not be welcome in Captain Henry Quaire’s office when the Chief went in there to discuss the murder of Officer Jerome H. Kellog with Quaire and Lieutenant Natali.

He got himself a cup of coffee and stationed himself near the entrance to the Homicide Unit, where he could both keep an eye on Quaire’s office and intercept anybody who thought they had to see the Chief.

Chief Lowenstein came suddenly out of Quaire’s office and marched out of Homicide. As he passed Harry, he said, “I’ve got to go see the Dago.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Dago was the Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, the Honorable Jerry Carlucci.

They rode down to the lobby in the elevator, and out the door to where Harry had parked the Chief’s official Oldsmobile, by the CHIEF INSPECTOR DETECTIVE BUREAU sign at the door.

The police band radios came to life with the starting of the engine, and there was traffic on the command band:

“Mary One, William Five, at the Zoo parking lot,” one metallic voice announced.

“A couple of minutes,” a second metallic voice replied.

“Mary One” was the call sign of the limousine used by the Mayor of Philadelphia, “William” the identification code assigned to Special Operations.

“Who’s William Five?” Sergeant McElroy asked thoughtfully.

“Probably Tony Harris,” Lowenstein said. “Washington is William Four. But what I’d really like to know is why Special Operations is meeting the Mayor, or vice versa, in the Zoo parking lot. I wonder what wouldn’t wait until the Mayor got to his office.”

“Yeah,” McElroy grunted thoughtfully.

“Well, at least we know where to wait for the Mayor. City Hall, Harry.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did Weisbach call in this morning?”