“You can’t talk to me like that, O’Hara!”
“I just did. What are you going to do about it?”
Mr. Michael J. O’Hara assumed a fighting crouch and cocked his fists.
Mr. Roscoe G. Kennedy rose to the challenge.
He threw a roundhouse right at Mr. O’Hara. Mr. O’Hara nimbly dodged the punch, feinted with his right, then punched Mr. Kennedy in the nose with his left, and then in the abdomen with his right.
Mr. Kennedy fell, doubled over, to the floor, taking with him the Bulletin’s computer terminal.
Casimir J. Bolinski, Esq., erupted from Mr. O’Hara’s $2,10 °Charles Eames chair, rushed across the office, wrapped his arms around Mr. O’Hara, and without much apparent effort carried him across the city room-past many members of the Bulletin staff-and into an elevator. Mrs. Bolinski followed them.
Mr. Kennedy regained his feet and sort of staggered to the door.
“You’re fired, you insane shanty Irish sonofabitch! Fired!” he shouted. “When I’m through with you, you won’t be able to get a job on the National Enquirer.”
Mrs. Bolinski stuck her tongue out at Mr. Kennedy.
Ten minutes later, after an application of ice had stopped his nosebleed, Mr. Kennedy gave Mr. O’Hara’s latest-and as far as he was concerned, certainly last-contribution to the Bulletin some serious thought.
And then he called his assistant and told him to save space on page one, section one, copy to come, for a three-column pic, plus a four-hundred-word jump inside with three or four pics.
When Inspector Weisbach came into the Internal Affairs Unit Captain Daniel Kimberly was talking with Lieutenant McGuire and another man he sensed was a police officer. He didn’t see Payne.
Kimberly anticipated his question.
“I put Sergeant Payne in an interview room and asked him to wait,” Kimberly said. “Nothing else. And I called the FOP.”
“Good,” Weisbach said.
“Who called back just a moment ago to inform me that Mr. Armando C. Giacomo is en route here to represent Sergeant Payne.”
“How fortunate for Sergeant Payne,” Weisbach said.
“Inspector, this is Lieutenant McGuire…”
“How are you, Lieutenant?”
“Good evening, sir. Or good morning, sir.”
“And this is Sergeant Al Nevins, Inspector,” McGuire said.
“You were the first supervisor on the scene?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A uniform got there ahead of you?”
“No, sir. Mickey O’Hara got there first-by about thirty seconds. When Nevins and I got there, he had already taken Payne’s picture, standing over the man Payne put down.”
“I understood there were two men shot?”
“Yes, sir. One fatally. Payne blew his brains out.”
“How do you know that, Lieutenant?”
“Well, sir, Payne told us. And we saw the body. The bullet struck right about here.”
He pointed at his own face.
“Did Payne also tell you what happened?”
“He said there had been an armed robbery of a couple picking up their car in the lot; that he’d walked up on it right afterward, told the robbers to stop. They ran, he went after them. They fired at him with a shotgun and a semiautomatic pistol, and he put both of them down.”
“Did they hit him?” Weisbach asked.
“No, sir,” McGuire said, and hesitated.
“Go on, Lieutenant,” Weisbach said.
“He was a little shaken up, sir.”
“How shaken up?”
“Acted odd, you know,” McGuire said.
“No, I don’t know.”
“Well, there was the business about his weapon,” McGuire said.
“What about his weapon?”
“I took it from him, of course,” McGuire said, and pointed to one of the desks in the room. There were two Ziploc bags on it. One of them held Matt’s Officer’s Model Colt. 45 pistol, and the other a magazine.
“Of course?” Weisbach asked.
“Yes, sir, and he gave me some lip that I was supposed to give it back to him. He didn’t give me any trouble, but he told me I was supposed to give it back to him after I counted the rounds left in the magazine.”
“At that time, Lieutenant, did you believe that Sergeant Payne (a) posed a danger to others or himself, and/or (b) that he had committed a crime of any kind?”
“No, sir. From what I saw it was a good shooting.”
“Two things, Lieutenant. There is no such thing as a good shooting. They are all lamentable. Some of them are unfortunately necessary, but there is no such thing as a ‘good’ shooting.”
“Sir, I meant-”
“Secondly, Lieutenant, you might find it valuable to refresh your memory regarding the regulations dealing with taking a weapon from an officer in a situation like this.”
“Sir?”
“The sergeant was right, Lieutenant. Absent any reason to believe that the shooting officer poses a danger to himself or others, or belief that the officer has committed a felony, the regulations state that his weapon will be returned to him by the supervisor after he counts the rounds remaining in the magazine, and takes possession of that.”
“Inspector, I thought it was evidence…”
“So you implied. The point here is that a clever lawyer, such as Mr. Giacomo, may make the point that your disarming of Sergeant Payne against regulations is proof of bias.”
“Jesus, I didn’t know.”
“Obviously. Now, was there any other indication of what you considered odd behavior in Sergeant Payne?”
“He was… sort of out of it, sir. Distant, maybe, is the word.”
The telephone on one of the desks rang, and Captain Kimberly went to answer it, and the door opened and Inspector Peter Wohl and Amelia A. Payne, M.D., came into the room.
“Hello, Mike,” Wohl said. He nodded at the others.
“Where is he?” Amy asked.
“Honey!” Wohl said, warningly.
“Peter, as I understand it, Sergeant Payne is no longer assigned to Special Operations,” Weisbach said.
“That’s right.”
“That makes me ask, you’ll understand, what you’re doing here?”
“What we’re doing here?” Amy flared. “Jesus H. Christ! I want to see my brother, is what we’re doing here.”
“And what Dr. Payne is doing here?” Weisbach continued.
“Inspector,” Captain Kimberly said. “That was Captain Hollaran on the phone. He and Commissioner Coughlin are en route here. He asked who was the supervisor. I told him you were.”
Weisbach nodded his understanding.
“Unless you can tell me you have official business here, Peter,” Weisbach said, “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you and the lady to leave.”
“I’m not a lady, goddamn it, I’m a physician. And I demand to see my brother.”
“Take it easy, honey,” Wohl said. “Mike’s just going by the book. He has to.”
“Screw his book. Screw him. I demand to see my brother.”
“Peter… ” Weisbach said.
“Inspector Weisbach, with your permission,” Peter said, “I’d like to stay here with the lady until the arrival of Commissioner Coughlin.”
The door opened again.
Armando C. Giacomo strode in. He was wearing a tweed jacket, gray flannel trousers, a pajama top, and bedroom slippers.
“Sorry it took me so long to get here,” he said. “Hello, Mike. Amelia. Peter. What brings you two here?”
“They won’t let me see my brother,” Amy said. “Tell them they have to.”
“Do I correctly infer that it is Sergeant Payne who was allegedly involved in this unfortunate incident?”
Weisbach nodded.
“I’m not sure if they have to give you access to your brother, Amy,” Giacomo said, “but I am absolutely sure that I have the right to see the detainee, accompanied by the physician of my choice. Isn’t that correct, Inspector Weisbach?”
“I think you can have a police physician, Counselor,” Weisbach said. “I’ll have to check about Dr. Payne.”
“You’re splitting hairs, Inspector. If the police department can seek, as they have on several occasions that come readily to both our minds, the consultation of Dr. Payne in the investigation of crimes, the only reason I can see why you refuse her, as my consultant in this matter, access to the detainee is that you are personally biased against my client, determined to deprive him of his full rights under the Constitution, or, perhaps…”