There was sort of a small grandstand in which the family and friends of the accused could watch through a plate-glass wall as the accused was brought before the magistrate.
To the left was the door leading to the lobby of the Roundhouse. It was kept closed and locked. A solenoid operated by a Police Officer, usually a Corporal, sitting behind a thick, shatterproof window directly opposite the door, controlled the lock.
Most senior officers of the Police Department of the City of Philadelphia, that is to say from Deputy Commissioners on down through the Captains, were known by sight to the cop controlling the door. Peter Wohl, as a Staff Inspector, was rather high in the police hierarchy. He was one of seventeen Staff Inspectors, a rank immediately superior to Captains, and immediately subordinate to Inspectors. On the rare occasions when Staff Inspector Wohl wore his uniform, it carried a gold oak leaf, identical to that of majors in the armed forces. Inspectors wore silver oak leaves, and Chief Inspectors a colonel's eagle.
Senior officers were accustomed, when entering the Roundhouse, to having the solenoid to the locked door to the lobby buzzing when they reached it. When Peter Wohl reached it, it remained firmly locked. He looked over his shoulder at the cop, a middle-aged Corporal behind the shatterproof glass. The Corporal was looking at him, wearing an official, as opposed to genuine, smile, and gesturing Wohl over to him with his index finger.
Peter Wohl had been keeping count. This made it thirteen-six. Of the nineteen times he had tried to get through the door without showing his identification to the cop behind the shatterproof glass window, he had failed thirteen times; only six times had he been recognized and passed.
He walked to the window.
"Help you, sir?" the Corporal asked.
"I'm Inspector Wohl," Peter said. The corporal looked surprised and then uncomfortable as Wohl extended the leather folder holding his badge (a round silver affair embossed with a representation of City Hall and the lettersSTAFF INSPECTOR) and identification for him to see.
"Sorry, Inspector," the Corporal said.
"You're doing your job," Peter said, and smiled at him.
He went back to the door, and through it, and walked across the lobby to the elevators. Then he stopped and walked to a glass case mounted on the wall. It held the photographs and badges of Police Officers killed in the line of duty. There was a new one, of an officer in the uniform of a captain of Highway Patrol. Richard C. Moffitt.
Captain Dutch Moffitt and Peter Wohl had been friends as long as Wohl could remember. Not close friends-Dutch had been too flamboyant for that-but friends. They had known they could count on each other if there was a need; they exchanged favors. Wohl thought that the last favor he had done Dutch was to convince Jeannie, the Widow Moffitt, that Dutch had business with the blonde Dutch had been with in the Waikiki Diner on Roosevelt Boulevard when he had been fatally wounded by a junkie holding the place up.
Wohl turned and entered the elevator and pushed the button for the third floor, the right wing of which was more or less the Executive Suite of the Roundhouse. It housed the offices of the Commissioner, the Deputy Commissioners, and some of the more important Chief Inspectors, including that of Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin.
The corridor to that portion of the building was guarded by a natty man in his early thirties, either a plainclothesman or a detective, sitting at a desk. He knew Wohl.
"Hello, Inspector, how are you?"
"About to melt," Wohl said, smiling at him. "I heard some of the cops in Florida can wear shorts. You think I could talk Chief Coughlin into permitting that?"
"I don't have the legs for that," the cop said, as Wohl went down the corridor.
Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin shared an outer office with Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernick, separated from it by the Commissioner's Conference Room.
Sergeant Tom Lenihan sat at a desk to the left. A pleasant-faced, very large man, his hair was just starting to thin. He was in his shirtsleeves; a snub-nosed revolver could be seen on his hip.
"Well, I'm glad you could fit the Chief into your busy schedule," Lenihan said, with a smile. "I know he'll be pleased."
"How do you think you're going to like the last-out shift in the Seventeenth District, Sergeant?" Wohl said.
Lenihan chuckled. "Go on in. He's expecting you."
Wohl pushed open the door to Chief Inspector Coughlin's office. Coughlin's desk, set catty-cornered, faced the anteroom. Coughlin was also in his shirtsleeves, and he was talking on the telephone. He smiled and motioned Wohl into one of the two chairs facing his desk.
"Hold it a minute," he said into the telephone. He tucked it under his chin and searched through theHOLD basket on his desk. He came out with four sheets of teletype paper and handed them to Wohl. He smiledrather smugly, Peter thought-at him, and then he resumed his telephone conversation.
The teletype messages had been passed over the Police Communications Network. There was a teletype machine in each of the twenty-two districts (in New York City, and many other cities, the term used for district police stations was "precinct"); in each Detective Division; and elsewhere.
Wohl read the first message.
GENERAL: 0650 06/30/73 From Commissioner
PAGE 1 OF 1
*** CITY OF PHILADELPHIA***
*** POLICE DEPARTMENT***
ANNOUNCEMENT WILL BE MADE AT ALL ROLL CALLS OF THE FOLLOWING COMMAND
ASSIGNMENT: EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY CAPTAIN DAVID S. PEKACH IS
REASSIGNED FROM NARCOTICS BUREAU TO HIGHWAY PATROL AS COMMANDING OFFICER.
Well, there goes whatever small chance I had to plead Mike Sabara's case. Now that it's official, it's too late to do anything about it.
He read the second message.
Generaclass="underline" 0651 06/30/73 From Commissioner
PAGE 1 OF 1
*** CITY OF PHILADELPHIA***
*** POLICE DEPARTMENT***
THE FOLLOWING COMMAND REORGANIZATION WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT ALL ROLL CALLS: EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY A SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISION IS FORMED WITH HEADQUARTERS IN THE 7TH POLICE DISTRICT/HIGHWAY PATROL BUILDING, COMMANDING OFFICER SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISION WILL BE IMMEDIATELY SUBORDINATE TO THE COMMISSIONER, REPORTING THROUGH CHIEF INSPECTOR COUGHLIN. THE SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISION WILL CONSIST OF THE HIGHWAY PATROL, THE ANTI-CRIME TEAM (ACT) UNIT, AND SUCH OTHER UNITS AS MAY BE LATER ASSIGNED. THE SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISION HAS CITYWIDE JURISDICTION. SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISION MOTOR VEHICLES (EXCEPT HIGHWAY PATROL) ARE ASSIGNED RADIO CALL SIGNS S-100 THROUGH S-200, AND WILL USE THE PHONETIC PRONUNCIATION "SAM."
The radio designator "Sam" was already in use, Wohl knew. Stakeout and the Bomb Squad used it. It was "Sam" rather than the military " Sugar" because the first time a Bomb Squad cop had gone on the air and identified himself as "S-Sugar Thirteen" the hoots of derision from his brother officers had been heard as far away as Atlantic City.
Special Operations had been given, he reasoned, the "Sam" designator because Special Operations, also "S" was going to be larger than "S" for Stakeout. So what were they going to use for Stakeout and the Bomb Squad? It would not work to have both using the same designator.
But that was a problem that could wait.
He read the third and fourth teletype messages.
Generaclass="underline" 0652 06/30/73 From Commissioner
PAGE 1 OF 1
*** CITY OF PHILADELPHIA***
*** POLICE DEPARTMENT***
ANNOUNCEMENT WILL BE MADE AT ALL ROLL CALLS OF THE FOLLOWING COMMAND ASSIGNMENT: EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY STAFF INSPECTOR PETER F. WOHL IS REASSIGNED FROM INTERNAL AFFAIRS DIVISION TO SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISION AS COMMANDING OFFICER.