W.E.B Griffin - The Victim

The ride to Stanley Rocco and Sons, Funeral Directors, was pleasant until they got there. That is to say, he got to ride in the backseat with Margaret and he could smell her- an entirely delightful sensation-even over his after-shave. He could even see the lace at the hem of her slip, which triggered his imagination.

But then, when Mr. McCarthy had parked the Ford and Margaret had climbed out and he had in a gentlemanly manner averted his eyes from the unintentional display of lower limbs and he got out, he saw that the place was crowded with cops, in uniform and out.

"Jesus, wait a minute," he said to Margaret.

He took out his wallet and sighed with relief when he found a narrow strip of black elasticized material. He had put it in there after the funeral of Captain Dutch Moffitt, intending to put it in a drawer when he got home.

Thank God I forgot!

"What is that?" Margaret asked.

"A mourning stripe," Charley said. "You cut up a hatband."

"Oh," she said, obviously not understanding.

"When there's a dead cop, you wear it across your badge," he explained as he worked the band across his. "I almost forgot."

He started to pin the badge to his lapel.

"You got it on crooked," Margaret said. "Let me."

He could see her scalp where her hair was parted as she pinned the badge on correctly.

She looked up at him and met his eyes and smiled, and his heart jumped.

"There," she said.

"Thanks," he said.

They caught up with Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy and walked to the funeral home.

There was a book for people to write their names in on a stand just inside the door. It was just about full.

He wrote "Officer Charles McFadden, Badge 8774, Special Operations" under the name of some captain he didn't know from the 3^ rd District.

Officer Joseph Magnella was in an open casket, surrounded by flowers. They were burying him in his uniform, Charley saw. There were two cops from his district, wearing white gloves, standing at each end of the casket, and there was an American flag on a pole behind each of them.

In his turn Charley followed Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy and Margaret to the prie-dieu and dropped to his knees. He made the sign of the cross and, with part of his mind, offered the prayers a Roman Catholic does in such circumstances. They came to him automatically, and although his lips moved, he didn't hear them.

He was thinking, Christ, they put face powder and lipstick on him.

I wonder if they will take the badge off before they close the casket, or whether they 'II bury him with it.

The last time I saw him, he was still in the gutter with somebody' s coat over his face and shoulders.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, don't let that happen to me!

And the word is, they're not even close to finding the scumbags who did this to him!

I'd like to find those cocksuckers! They wouldn't look as good in their coffins as this poor bastard does!

As he had approached the coffin he had noticed the Magnella family, plus the girlfriend, sitting in the first row of chairs. When he rose from the prie-dieu, they were all standing up. Mr. Magnella was embracing Mr. McCarthy, and Mrs. McCarthy was patting Mrs. Magnella. The girlfriend looked as if somebody had punched her in the stomach; Margaret was smiling at her uncomfortably.

"Al," Mr. McCarthy said when Charley approached, "this is Charley McFadden, from the neighborhood."

"I'm real sorry this happened," Charley said as Mr. Magnella shook his hand.

"You knew my Joe?"

"No. I seen him around, though."

"It was nice of you to come."

"I wanted to pay my respects."

"This is Joe's mother."

"Mrs. Magnella, I'm real sorry for you."

"Thank you for coming."

"I was Joe's fiancee," the girlfriend said.

"I'm real sorry."

"We were going to get married in two months."

"I'm really sorry for you."

"Thank you for coming."

"I'm Joe's brother."

"I'm really sorry this happened."

"Thank you for coming."

"Bob," Mr. Magnella said to Mr. McCarthy, "go in the room on the other side and fix yourself and Officer McFadden a drink."

"Thank you, Al," Mr. McCarthy said. "I might just do that."

Margaret put her hand on Charley's arm, and they followed Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy across the room to a smaller room, where a knot of men were gathered around a table on which sat a dozen bottles of whiskey.

Margaret opened her purse and wiped her eyes with a handkerchief.

"Seagram's all right for you, Charley?" Mr. McCarthy asked.

"Fine," Charley said.

As he put the glass to his mouth the soft murmur of voices died out. Curious, he turned to see what was going on.

Mrs. Magnella had entered the room. She looked like she was headed right for him.

She was. Her son and husband were on her heels, looking worried.

"I know who you are," Mrs. Magnella said to Charley McFadden. "I seen your picture in the papers. You're the cop who caught the junkie and pushed him under the subway, right?"

That wasn't what happened. I was chasing the son of a bitch and he fell!

"Uh!" Charley said.

"I want you to find the people who did this to my Joseph and push them under the subway!"

"Mama," Officer Magnella's brother said. "Come on, Mama!"

"I want them dead! I want them dead!"

"Come on, Mama! Pop, where's Father Loretto?"

"I'm here," a silver-haired priest said. "Elena, what's the matter?"

"I want them dead! I want them dead!"

"It's going to be all right, Elena," the priest said. "Come with me, we'll talk."

"I'm sorry about this," Officer Magnella's brother said to Officer McFadden as the priest led Officer Magnella's mother away.

"It's all right, don't worry about it," Charley said.

Margaret McCarthy looked at Charley McFadden and saw that it wasn' t all right. Without thinking what she was doing, she put her hand out to his face, and when he looked at her, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him.

Officer Matthew Payne was feeling a little sorry for himself. He had been given an impossible task-how the hell was he supposed to find one man in a city the size of Philadelphia?- and Peter Wohl had made it plain that he expected him to accomplish it: No excuses, please. Just do it.

When he had tried looking for Jason Washington in all the places he could think, starting with his home, and then going to the Roundhouse and over to the parking garage and even to Hahneman Hospital, he went back to the Roundhouse, on the admittedly somewhat flimsy reasoning that Washington had told him to meet him in Homicide in the Roundhouse before he left word on the answering machine not to meet him there.

Washington was not in Homicide and had not been there.

It occurred to Matt that very possibly Washington had finished doing whatever he was doing and had gone, as he said he would, out to Bustleton and Bowler. If Washingtonwas at Bustleton and Bowler, where he said he would be, and Officer Payne was downtown at the Roundhouse looking for him, Officer Payne was going to look like a goddamn fool.

Which, in the final analysis, was probably a just evaluation.

He called Bustleton and Bowler. "Special Operations, Sergeant Anderson."

"This is Payne, Sergeant. Is Detective Washington around there someplace?"

"No. He called in and wanted to talk to you. He said he told you to wait for him here."

"Did he say where he was?"

"No. He just said if I saw you, I was to sit on you."

"Okay."

"Wait a minute. He said that he would be at City Hall."

"Thank you very much," Matt said.

He hung up, rode the elevator down from Homicide, and ran out of the building into the parking lot, where a white-capped Traffic officer was in the process of putting an illegal-parking citation under the Porsche's windshield wiper.