O’Hara saw Matt Payne long before Matt Payne saw him-or, perhaps more accurately, acknowledged O’Hara’s presence.
Matt was standing at the far end of the lot, pistol drawn, looking down at what after another second or two O’Hara saw was a man writhing on the ground.
“Matt! Matty! You all right?”
O’Hara decided that the crescendo of sirens was so loud Matt couldn’t hear him.
But finally, just when O’Hara was close enough to be able to hear the anguished moans of the man on the ground, Matt turned and looked at him.
O’Hara instantly-and certainly not intentionally-turned from concerned friend to journalist.
Jesus, that’s a good picture! A good-looking young cop in a tuxedo, tie pulled down, gun in hand, looking down at the bad guy! Justice fucking triumphant!
He put the digital camera to his eye and made the shot. And three others, to make sure he got it.
“What took you so long, Mickey?” Matt asked.
“What the hell happened, Matt?”
“These two guys…” He raised the pistol and indicated the second body. Then he waited patiently while Mickey took images of the dead man before going on:
“These two guys mugged a nice middle-class black couple out for dinner. The guy gave him his wallet, and one of these bastards knocked his teeth out with a gun anyway. I walked up on it, tried to grab them, and they let fly with a sawed-off shotgun and what looks like a. 380 Browning-”
“Jesus, Payne,” Lieutenant McGuire asked. “What went down here?”
“-and shot the shit out of my car and almost killed my girlfriend, and I put them down,” Matt finished, almost conversationally.
O’Hara, Nevins, and McGuire looked at him curiously.
“Are you all right?” McGuire asked in concern.
“I’m fine. They missed,” Matt replied. “The victims are over here.”
Sergeant Nevins squatted beside the man on the ground, who glared hatefully at him.
“It looks like you’re off the ballet team,” he said. “But you’ll live. Fire Rescue’s on the way.”
He stood up.
“They had guns?” he asked. “Where are they?”
Matt carefully took the Browning from his hip pocket and held it out. McGuire took it.
“I put the shotgun on the roof of my car,” Matt said.
“Mickey, get the hell out of here!” McGuire ordered.
O’Hara ignored him.
“Around here, Matt?” he asked.
“Just around the corner,” Matt said. “Two angry females. The victim’s wife, who wanted to know where I was when I was needed, and my girlfriend-perhaps ex-girlfriend would be more accurate-who just described me as a cold-blooded sonofabitch for shooting these two.”
"O’Hara, I told you to get the hell out of here!” McGuire shouted after him.
“I presume the firemen are on their way?” Matt said to McGuire. “In addition to the other damage, they apparently shot out a fuel line. There’s gas all over the ground. Or maybe they got the tank.”
McGuire approached him warily.
“Why don’t you let me have your weapon, Payne?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, of course. I forgot.”
He handed the Colt to McGuire butt-first as three uniforms and two men who were dressed much like those they hoped to arrest for illegal trafficking in controlled substances ran up to them, pistols in hand.
McGuire removed the clip, counted the rounds it held, then worked the action and ejected the round in the chamber.
Matt reached into the breast pocket of the dinner jacket, came out with another magazine, and handed it to McGuire.
“This is the magazine, now empty, that was in my weapon,” he said. “And somewhere over there is a live round I inadvertently ejected when this started.”
“The crime scene people will find it,” McGuire said.
Holding Matt’s pistol carefully by the checkering on the wooden grips, he started to put it in the pocket of his suit coat.
“I think you’re supposed to give that back to me,” Matt said.
“What?”
“Regulations state that the first supervisor to reach the scene of an incident like this is to take the weapon used from the officer who used it, remove the magazine, count the remaining rounds, take possession of that magazine, then return the weapon to the officer, who will then load a fresh magazine into his weapon and return it to his holster.”
“Sergeant, this is evidence,” McGuire said.
“With all respect, sir, that is not what the regulations say.”
“Shut up, Sergeant,” McGuire said.
“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Payne said.
A Fire Rescue ambulance began backing into the parking lot.
A Sixth District lieutenant, a very large man, came running up.
“My name is McGuire,” McGuire said. “Dignitary Protection Unit. I’m the first supervisor on the scene.”
“I’ve seen you around,” the Sixth District lieutenant said.
“I have relieved Sergeant Payne of his weapon, and am now going to transport him to Internal Affairs.”
“You’re the shooter, Sergeant?” the lieutenant asked.
“I think all the questions to him are supposed to be asked by Internal Affairs,” McGuire said. “Nevins will tell you what we know. Will you come with me, please, Sergeant Payne?”
“Yes, sir.”
Lieutenant McGuire put his hand on Sergeant Payne’s arm and walked with him through the parking lot to where the unmarked Dignitary Protection Crown Victoria sat, its engine running and its headlights and concealed blue flashers still on.
He put Matt in the backseat but didn’t close the door.
Nevins came to the car a moment later.
“You drive, Al,” McGuire said. “I’ll ride in the back with Payne.”
They exchanged questioning glances, then shrugged, and then Nevins got behind the wheel, and McGuire got in the backseat with Matt.
TWENTY-ONE
In Philadelphia, any discharge-even accidental- of a police officer’s weapon is investigated by the Internal Affairs Unit. Even if the discharge of the police officer’s weapon results in a death, Internal Affairs still retains the weapon results in a death, Internal Affairs still retains the responsibility for, and authority to, conduct the investigation. The Homicide Division “assists.”
This policy came into being when various civil rights organizations charged that police shootings-fatal and nonfatal-were being covered up when investigated by Homicide or Detective Divisions, and that only Internal Affairs, an elite unit already charged with the investigation of police malfeasance, could be trusted to investigate shootings fully and fairly.
When the first “assist officer, shots fired” call was broadcast to every police vehicle in Philadelphia, it was received in the Crown Victoria assigned to Inspector Michael Weisbach, of the Internal Affairs Division, who was at the time returning to his home from a social event at Temple Beth Emmanuel.
He did not respond to the call, primarily because he was a considerable distance from South Front Street, and realized that by the time he could get there, at least twenty, and probably more, other units would be on the scene.
But he did turn to his wife and say, “I really hope no one was hit. I’m really beat.”
By the time he got to his home, however, other radio traffic had made it clear that he wasn’t going to be able to go to bed anytime soon. And after he’d dropped his wife off and headed for the Internal Affairs office on Dungan Road in northeast Philadelphia, there came, several times, official confirmation.
“I-2, Radio.”
“I-2, go.”
“We have two suspects down, one dead, at the assist officer, shots fired, unit block South Front Street.”
“Okay. I’m on my way to IAD.”
Then his cellular telephone chirped the first bars of “Rule Britannia.”
“Weisbach.”
“Inspector, this is Captain Fein, Sixth District.”
“Hello, Jake.”
“Two suspects down, one dead, at the assist officer, shots fired on South Front.”