W. Griffin: The Murderers

“Yes, sir,” Matt said.

Wohl looked at Callis.

“OK?”

“Fine.”

“Thank you, Tony.”

“Anytime, Peter. You know that.”

The Forensics Laboratory of the Philadelphia Police Department is in the basement of the Roundhouse. It is crowded with a large array of equipment-some high-tech, and some locally manufactured-with which highly skilled technicians, some sworn police officers, some civilian employees, ply their very specialized profession.

When Detective Wally Milham walked in at half past eight, he found Detective Matt Payne, who had been in the room in compliance with his orders not to leave the cassette tapes out of his sight, for nine hours, sprawled on a table placed against the wall. He had made sort of a backrest from several very large plastic bags holding blood-soaked sheets, pillows, and blankets. It was evidence, one of the uniform technicians had told Matt, from a job where a wife had expressed her umbrage at finding her husband in her bed with the lady next door by striking both multiple times with their son’s Boy Scout ax.

Amazingly, the technician had reported, neither had been killed.

Matt was pleased to see Milham. He was bored out of his mind. The forensic process had at first been fascinating. One of the technicians, using a Dremel motor tool, had, with all the finesse of a surgeon, carefully sawed through the heat-distorted tape cassettes so that the tape inside could be removed.

The technician, Danny Meadows, was nearly as large as Tiny Lewis, and Matt had been genuinely awed by the delicacy he demonstrated.

And, according to his orders, Matt had ensured that photographs were taken of every cassette being opened, and then of the individual parts the technician managed to separate.

He had been fascinated too, at first, as Danny Meadows attempted to wind the removed tape onto reels taken from dissected new Radio Shack tape cassettes.

And his interest had been maintained at a high level when some of the removed tapes would not unwind, because the heat had melted the tape itself, or the rubber wheels of the cassette had melted and dripped onto the tape, and Danny again displayed his incredible delicacy trying to separate it.

But watching that, too, had grown a little dull after a while, and for the past two hours, as Meadows sat silently bent over a tape-splicing machine, gluing together the “good” sections of tape he had been able to salvage from sections of tape damaged beyond any hope of repair, he had been ready to climb the walls.

He had, at seven-thirty, announced that he was hungry, in the private hope that Danny would look at his watch, decide it was time to go home. A corporal working elsewhere in the laboratory, aware of Matt’s orders not to let the tapes out of his sight, had obligingly gone out and returned with two fried-egg sandwiches and a soggy paper cup of lukewarm coffee.

At eight-fifteen, Matt had inquired, in idle conversation, if Danny was perhaps romantically attached. On being informed that he had three months before been married, Matt suggested, out of the goodness of his heart, that perhaps Danny might wish to go home to his bride.

“No problem,” Danny had replied. “We can use the overtime money. You have any idea what furniture costs these days?”

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” Wally said.

“I’ve been right here, in case my expert advice might be required,” Matt said.

The technician, without taking his eyes from the tape-splicing machine, chuckled.

“I thought you’d like to have these,” Wally said, and handed Matt Xeroxes of 75-49s, “as a souvenir of your time in Homicide.”

Jesus, that’s right, isn’t it? My detail to Homicide is over. I am back to doing something useful, like not letting cassette tapes out of my sight. And rolling around in the mud catching dirty cops.

I’m going to miss Homicide, and it’s going to be a long time before I can even think of getting assigned there. Unless, of course, Our Beloved Mayor and Chief Lowenstein get into another lovers’ quarrel.

“Thank you,” Matt said after scanning the reports. “What I’ll do with these is have them framed and hang them on my bathroom wall, so that when I take a leak, I can remember when they let me play with the big boys.”

Milham laughed.

“Come on, Matt, if you hadn’t taken one more look at Atchison, we wouldn’t have the guns. That’ll be remembered, down the line, when they’re looking for people in Homicide. I enjoyed working with you.”

“Thank you,” Matt said. “Me, too.”

“And this,” Milham said, handing Matt what in a moment he recognized as the spare set of keys to his apartment. “I really owe you-both of us do-for that.”

“Hell, Wally, keep it as long as you need it.”

“Well, that’s it. We’re not going to need it. I just left Helene there. She’s packing. We had dinner tonight, and she asked me, ‘What happens now?’ and I said, ‘I think we should get married,’ and she said, ‘Oh, Wally, what would people think?’ and I said, ‘Who cares?’ The logic of my argument overwhelmed her.”

“Well, good for you. Do I get an invitation?”

“Well, you’re welcome, of course, but what we’re going to do is drive to Elkton, Maryland, tonight. You can get married there right away. And then come back in the morning, a done deed.”

“Jesus. I have to sit on these goddamned tapes!”

“I know. I figured that after we’re back a couple of days, we’ll have a little party. A small party, only those people who didn’t think I might have done Kellog. Anyway, you’re invited to that, of course.”

“I accept,” Matt said, and then changed the subject. “Is she going to help with this?” He waved his hand at the technician working on the tapes.

“I don’t know. Maybe, after a while, after we’re married, she’ll change her mind, but right now she won’t talk about the Narcotics Five Squad. I’ll work on her, but, Jesus, she’s scared-that telephone call really got to her-and she’s got a hard head.”

“Well, maybe we’ll get something out of the tapes, but I doubt it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because we’re-Danny is-putting so much effort into it. The Matt Payne Theory of Investigation holds that the more effort put into something, the less you get from it. The really good stuff falls into your lap.”

Danny and Wally both laughed.

And then Danny surprised him.

“You’re right, Payne. To hell with it. I’ve had enough. My eyes are watering, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore. Let’s hang it up and start again in the morning.”

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard in eight hours.”

By the time Matt got to his apartment-checking the tapes back into the Evidence Room took even longer than checking them out had-Wally Milham and Helene Kellog were gone.

Helene left a thank-you note on the refrigerator door, and when he opened it, he saw that they had stacked it with two six-packs of Ortleib’s, eggs, Taylor ham, and English muffins, which he thought was a really nice gesture.

He was sipping on a beer and frying a slice of the Taylor ham when the telephone rang.

Wohl, he thought, or Weisbach. They called the Forensics Lab to see how things were going, heard I was gone, and are now calling here.

“Hello.”

“Matt? Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you,” Mrs. Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV began.

At the top of a long list of people I would rather not talk to right now is Dear Old Daffy.

“The orgy lasted a little longer than I thought it would. I just got home.”

“Have you been drinking?” It was more an accusation than a question.