"Has the guy in the overcoat got a name, Lenny?"
"Ketcham, Ronald."
"Nice not to talk to you, Lenny. I owe you a big one."
"I figure I still owe you," Sergeant Moskowitz said and hung up.
On being advised by Lieutenant Daniel Justice that Mr. Michael J. O'Hara of the Bulletin was in the building and desired a minute or two of his time, Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin left the small room equipped with a one-way mirror adjacent to the interview room and went to speak to him.
"We're going to have to stop meeting this way, Mickey," he greeted him. "People will start to talk."
"Ah, Denny, you silver-tongued devil, you!"
"I'd love to know who tipped you to this. He would be on Last Out for the rest of his life, walking a beat in North Philly." Last Out was the midnight-to-eight shift.
"What do you mean, 'who tipped me'? I was on my way home, Denny, for some well deserved rest, when what do I hear on the radio? You're coming here. Peter Wohl is coming here. So I figured, what the hell, I'd come down here, we'd all have a cup of coffee, chew the rag a little-"
"Chew the rag a little about what, for example?"
"For example, why did you put the arm out for Mr. Ronald R. Ketcham?"
"Ronald R. Ketcham? I don't seem to recall the name."
"And why, if it was a Locate, Do Not Detain, did he wind up in a holding cell?"
"A holding cell?"
"Wearing nothing but an overcoat."
"Mickey, you have your choice between me throwing you out of here myself, or agreeing to really sit on this one. And that may mean permanently sitting on it. Now and forever."
"You got a deal, Denny."
"I'll fill you in later," Coughlin said. "I don't want to miss any of this."
He waved O'Hara into the small room with the one-way mirror adjacent to the interview room. There Mr. O'Hara found Inspector Peter Wohl; Amelia Payne, M.D.; Mr. Walter Davis, Special Agent in Charge of the Philadelphia office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; a well-dressed individual Mr. O'Hara correctly guessed was also in the employ of the FBI; and Lieutenant Daniel Justice.
Through the one-way mirror, he saw Sergeant Jason Washington and a distraught-looking man sitting in a chair wearing nothing but a blanket around his shoulders.
Mickey waved a cheerful hello.
The FBI agent Mickey didn't recognize looked confused.
Mr. Davis of the FBI looked very uncomfortable, as did Danny the Judge.
Dr. Payne smiled at him absently, her attention devoted to what was going on on the other side of the mirror.
Inspector Wohl smiled in recognition and resignation.
Mickey helped himself to a cup of coffee, then sat down, backward, in a wooden chair and watched Sergeant Washington interviewing Mr. Ketcham.
TWENTY-FOUR
Officer Timothy J. Calhoun was sitting with his wife on the couch in the living room watching the Today show on the tube when he heard the siren.
Police sirens were a part of life in Philadelphia. Out here in the sticks, you seldom heard one.
And this was more than one siren. Two. Maybe even three.
He took his sock-clad feet off the coffee table, then put his coffee cup on the table and stood up, slipping his feet into loafers.
"What is it?" Monica Calhoun asked.
"Probably a fire," Tim said. "Right around here someplace. Them sirens is getting closer."
He walked to the front door and opened it and looked up and down the street. He could see neither a fire nor police nor fire vehicles, and pulled the door closed.
Just as he did, he heard one siren abruptly die. He knew that meant that whoever was running the siren had gotten where he was going.
There was still the sound of two sirens.
Monica joined him at the door.
"You didn't see anything?"
He shook his head, "no."
The sound of the sirens grew very loud, and then, one at a time, died suddenly.
Monica opened the door.
"Jesus, they're right here!" she said.
There was a Harrisburg black-and-white in the driveway, and what looked like an unmarked car with two guys in it at the curb, and as Tim watched two uniforms jump out of the car in the driveway, a second Harrisburg black-and -white came screeching around the corner and pulled its nose in behind the black-and-white in the driveway.
"What the fuck?"
The first uniform reached the door.
"Timothy J. Calhoun?"
"What the hell is going on?"
"Timothy J. Calhoun?"
"Yeah, I'm Calhoun."
"Timothy J. Calhoun, I have a warrant for your arrest for misprision in office," the first cop said. "You are under arrest!"
"Timmy!" Monica wailed. "What's going on?"
"Turn around, please, and put your hands behind your back," the first uniform said, as the second uniform put his hands on his shoulders and spun him around.
"Timmy!" Monica wailed again.
"You have the right to remain silent…" The first cop began very rapidly to give him his rights under the Miranda decision.
"It's some kind of mistake, baby," Tim said.
What did the uniform say? Misprision? What the fuck is misprision?
"Do you understand your rights as I have outlined them to you?" The first cop asked.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Timmy said. "Look, I'm a cop, I don't know what the hell is going on here."
"You're being arrested for being a dirty cop, Calhoun," a voice-somehow familiar-said.
The uniform who had spun him around to cuff him now spun him around again.
Jesus Martinez, onetime plainclothes narc, was standing there looking at him with contempt.
"What the hell is going on here, Jesus?"
"You're on your way to the slam, big time," Martinez said. "I'll need your badge and your gun."
"Timmy, for Christ's sake," Monica wailed. "Why are they doing this to you?"
One more uniform and two guys in civilian clothing came around the side of the house. Tim recognized the big guy first. Charley McFadden, who had also been a plainclothes narc-the other half of Mutt amp; Jeff, which is what everybody had called the two of them.
The other wasn't nearly as familiar, and it took a moment for Tim to recognize him.
It's that hotshot from Special Operations, Payne. The guy who shot the serial rapist. The last time I saw him was in the Roundhouse parking lot.
"I'm really sorry about this, Timmy," McFadden said. "Jesus, how could you be so stupid?"
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about," Tim said.
"He didn't do anything!" Monica wailed. "Charley, he's a good cop! You know that!"
"I know he's not a good cop, Monica," Charley said. "He's dirty, and he got caught."
"Charley, what are they talking about?" Monica asked.
"Call the FOP in Philly and tell them I was just arrested, " Tim said.
"Where are they taking you?"
"He'll be in the detention cell in Harrisburg police headquarters for a while, Mrs. Calhoun," Matt Payne said. "They can contact him there."
"Who the hell are you?" Monica snapped.
"My name is Payne. I'm a detective assigned to the Special Operations Division. I'm sorry about this, Mrs. Calhoun."
"Yeah, you look like you're sorry!"
"I'm going to be at the bank," Matt said to Charley McFadden. "As soon as I have the safe-deposit box, I'll meet you at police headquarters."
"Right," McFadden said.
"Have you got his gun and his badge?"
"Not yet," Martinez said.
"If you would give me the key to the safe-deposit box, Calhoun, you'd save everybody a lot of time and inconvenience. "
"I don't know nothing about no safe-deposit box."
"Why am I not surprised?" Matt said.
He looked at the Harrisburg uniforms.
"Take him away, please," he said.
Mrs. Timothy J. Calhoun, holding her balled fists to her mouth, watched with horror and disbelief as her husband was led down the path and loaded into the backseat of the Harrisburg black-and-white.