W. Griffith - The investigators

"Yes, sir, " Matt said. "One question: Do we let Calhoun know we got into the box? Or about the watch?"

Wohl thought that over for fifteen seconds, which seemed longer.

"Yeah, let him know. I'd rather he spend the time riding back here wondering what's going to happen to him knowing we have his ass than trying to convince himself he shouldn't be worried, we don't have anything."

"Yes, sir."

"You stay there and keep your eye on the Reynolds woman."

The phone went dead in Matt's ear when he was halfway through saying, "Yes, sir."

"Okay," the Hon. Jerome H. Carlucci said, looking around his conference table. "Where are we? Who wants to start?"

Present were Thomas J. Callis, Philadelphia's district attorney; Taddeus Czernich, police commissioner; Chief Inspector of Detectives Matthew Lowenstein; Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin; Inspector Peter Wohl; Staff Inspector Michael Weisbach; and Lieutenant J. K. Fellows.

In the wings, so to speak, in case they were needed, were Captain Michael Sabara and Detective Tony Harris (physically in the mayor's outer office); Captain David Pekach and Lieutenant John J. Malone of the Highway Patrol (sitting in their cars in the courtyard of City Hall); and Lieutenant Daniel Justice, Jr., and Sergeant Jason Washington (within two rings of a telephone at the 1st District/South Detectives).

Inspector Wohl motioned with his hand to indicate that he thought Staff Inspector Weisbach was the man to bring the mayor-and for that matter, everybody else-up-to-date. Mike Weisbach first shook his head, then inclined it toward the head of the table. Peter Wohl followed his eyes and saw that the mayor was looking at him impatiently.

He started to stand up. The mayor waved him back into his seat.

"Yes, sir," Wohl said. "The entire Five Squad has been arrested, and are presently being held in the detention cell of the First District."

"What are we charging them with?"

"Right now, with misprision in office, specifically the theft, under cover of office, of evidence," Wohl said. "Mr. Callis will, of course, add other charges later when we decide who's going to be charged with what."

"Does he mean the rape, Tony?" Carlucci asked.

"What Denny and Matt and I have been thinking, Jerry," Callis said, pointing vaguely at Coughlin and Lowenstein, "is that once Prasko understands we have them for the theft of evidence-and simple grand larceny-once, in other words, he understands that they're going down on that, we can let Prasko know we know about the rape, and get him to testify against the others, in exchange for his being allowed to plead guilty to violating the civil rights of Williams and Brownlee-and probably half a dozen others."

"He plea-bargains to a federal rap and gets what?" Carlucci said.

"I talked to the U.S. Attorney just before I came over here, Jerry. Nothing's set in cement, but he thinks he can find a judge willing to go along with five years on each charge, sentences to be served consecutively, so figure at least four charges, so twenty years."

"Which means he'd really do what?" Carlucci asked coldly.

"He'd probably be out in six, seven years," Callis said.

"You and Denny and Matt decided that between you?" Carlucci asked. "What about him?" He pointed at Police Commissioner Czernich. "Was he involved in your discussion? The last I heard was that he's the police commissioner. You didn't think you had to discuss that with him?"

The translation of that was that Jerry Carlucci did not like what he had heard, and because he did not like it, neither would Commissioner Czernich.

"I'm not sure," Czernich began, understanding his role and taking his cue, "that I could-"

"Well, Tony?" Carlucci interrupted him.

"Would I be wasting my breath to tell you why we think that's the way to go?" Callis asked.

"Try me. Find out."

"The priority here is to put the Five Squad away. Do we agree on at least that much?"

The mayor shrugged.

"Unless we can have somebody on the Five Squad turn state's witness, all we have on them is the testimony of drug dealers in the one case we really know about, what happened at the Howard Johnson motel last Thursday. Juries are funny, Jerry. If the defense brings in weeping cops' wives and scared-looking kids in the courtroom, what a lot of jurors might decide is that 'fuck the drug dealers, they got what was coming to them.' "

Carlucci's face tightened, but he didn't say anything.

"They're going to look like good cops to the jury, Jerry," Lowenstein said. "I went over their arrest records last night. Lots of good busts, lots of convictions. A couple of them got hurt. All that will have to be made available to the defense, and it can't help but impress a jury."

"On that subject," Mike Weisbach said. "The defense-"

"The goddamn FOP!" the mayor exploded. "I am unable to believe that one cop in five hundred wants his FOP dues used to defend scumbags like these!"

"They call that, Jerry, 'innocent until proven guilty,' " Callis said.

Carlucci glowered at him.

"In this case, it's moot," Weisbach said. " 'Armando C. Giacomo for the defense, your honor.' Manny does it pro bono; it won't cost the FOP a dime."

"Jesus!" the mayor said.

"When did you find that out?" Coughlin asked.

"About thirty minutes ago," Weisbach said. "He called Sabara-I guess he heard they were picked up by Special Operations-and Mike passed him on to me. He wants to know where he can speak with them at half past ten."

"How the hell did Giacomo get involved so quickly?"

"I think he calls the FOP and makes himself available when he has some free time," Callis said. "All that does is reinforce my argument that unless we can get at least one of the Five Squad to roll over, the testimony of a couple of drug guys like Williams and Brownlee probably isn't going to be enough."

"If Manny Giacomo talks to any of these guys at half past ten, at ten forty-five, Vincenzo Savarese will have their names," Lowenstein said.

"He'd get the names eventually anyway," Coughlin said. "But I'd much prefer later than sooner. Maybe I can talk to him."

"Don't hold your breath, Denny," the mayor said.

"I think it's worth the effort. When I spoke to Savarese this morning, he made it pretty clear he intends to whack the guy who raped his granddaughter."

"It would be nice, wouldn't it, if we caught him doing that?" Carlucci said. "This scumbag would get what he deserves, and we'd have Savarese on premeditated murder. "

"The philosophy of that aside, Jerry," Lowenstein said, "Savarese wouldn't whack Prasko. And he would be in church with the archbishop when one of his thugs did."

Wohl saw that Carlucci was going to angrily respond to that, and jumped into the conversation:

"There was some good news from Harrisburg," Wohl said. "Matt Payne got into the safe-deposit box they were using. Got a statement that Calhoun, Timothy J., was the only one with access to the box, in which there was probably forty thousand dollars-maybe more-and a gold Rolex that Baby Brownlee says was stolen from him last Thursday night."

"And?" the mayor asked.

"That may be enough to convince Calhoun that the thing for him to do is roll over," Wohl said. "I told Payne to get Calhoun back here as soon as he can, and to take him directly to Jason Washington."

"Who is where right now? Washington, I mean?" Carlucci asked.

"South Detectives," Coughlin said.

"Doing what?"

"Trying to pick the right moment to let Prasko know what he did to the girl, and what Savarese is going to do to him unless he can hide out in some nice safe federal prison."

"I thought we had the guy he locked up in the NIKE site? An eyewitness to the rape? What happened to him?"

"I told Washington to wait until we saw what happened in Harrisburg," Wohl said. "Then we let Prasko know we have the money, maybe a rolled-over Calhoun and Ronald R. Ketcham, who saw him rape the girl."