ficer with his van. At the time, he had neatly trussed up in the back of his van another naked young woman whom he had been regaling with specific details of what he planned to do to her just as soon as they reached some quiet spot in the country.
A massive Special Operations operation had run to earth another gentleman-a bank employee without any previous brushes with the law-who believed that God had told him to blow up the Vice President of the United States and was found at the time of his arrest to be in possession of the Vice President's Philadelphia visit itinerary as well as several hundred pounds of the latest high explosive, together with state-of-the-art detonating devices.
A Special Operations/ACT Task Force had, in a precisely timed operation, simultaneously arrested a dozen armed and dangerous individuals scattered all over Philadelphia on warrants charging them with murder in connection with the robbery of a South Philadelphia furniture store. With one exception, the arrests had been made without the firing of a shot. In the one exception, the individual had tried to gun down a Special Operations officer, who, although wounded, had saved the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania the cost of a lengthy trial with a well-placed fatal pistol shot.
More recently, Special Operations investigators had uncovered an operation smuggling heroin through Philadelphia 's International Airport. The operation had escaped the attention of the Narcotics Unit, and also-a police officer had been involved-that of the Internal Affairs Division, which had the responsibility for uncovering dishonest cops.
On the heels of that, Special Operations investigators had uncovered a call girl ring operating in Center City Philadelphia with the blessing of both the Mafia and the district commander-what are called 'precincts' in most large cities are called 'districts' in Philadelphia-and a lieutenant of the Vice Squad, who were being paid a percentage of the profits.
Commissioner Czernich's response to that-at, of course, Mayor Carlucci's suggestion-was to form another organization, to work very closely with, and be supported by, Special Operations. It was called the Ethical Affairs Unit (EAU). Staff Inspector Michael Weisbach, whose reputation-smart as a whip, straight as an arrow-was much like Peter Wohl's, was named to head EAU and charged with making sure that never again was the Philadelphia Police Department-and thus Mayor Jerry Carlucci-going to be embarrassed by a senior police official getting caught selling his badge.
Mike Weisbach had barely had time to find a desk in the Schoolhouse and turn in his battered unmarked Ford for one of Special Operations' brand-new Plymouths when another case caught Mayor Jerry Carlucci's personal attention.
Officer Jerome H. Kellog, who worked as a plainclothes officer in the Narcotics Unit, had been found brutally murdered in his own kitchen. Among the initial suspects in the homicide had been Officer Kellog's estranged wife, Helene, and Mrs. Kellog's close friend, Mr. Wallace J. Milham, into whose apartment she had moved when she left Officer Kellog's bed and board. Mr. Milham fell under suspicion not only because of possible motive, but also because it was known that Mr. Milham habitually carried on his person a pistol of the type and caliber that had killed Mr. Kellog.
Mr. Milham was a detective in the homicide division of the Philadelphia Police Department.
Shortly after her husband's death, Officer Kellog's widow had appeared at the apartment of Sergeant Jason Washington of Special Operations. Mrs. Kellog told him that she had come to him because he was the only cop besides Wally Milham of whose honesty she was sure. She then went on to say that if they really wanted to catch whoever had shot her late husband, they need look no further than the Five Squad of the Narcotics Unit, all of whom, she stated flatly, were dirty.
Jerry, she suggested, had been killed because he knew too much, or was about to blow the whistle on the others, or, probably, both.
Sergeant Washington had of course considered it possible that Mrs. Kellog was making these accusations to divert attention from herself and Detective Milham, but he didn't think so. He believed himself to be-and in fact was-an usually skilled judge of humankind, especially in the areas of veracity and obfuscation.
Washington reported to Inspector Wohl his encounter with Mrs. Kellog and his belief that she, at least, believed what she was saying. Wohl, knowing that Mayor Carlucci would want to know immediately of even a hint that a police officer had been murdered by other policemen, had passed what he knew on to the mayor.
At that point, the murder of Officer Kellog had been solved by a longtime ordinary uniformed beat patrolman, Woodrow Wilson Bailey, Sr., of the 39th District. Bailey, who had been keeping a more or less routine eye on one James Howard Leslie, whom he knew to be a burglar, had found in Leslie's burned trash pile a wedding photograph of Officer and Mrs. Jerome H. Kellog.
Correctly suspecting that Mr. Leslie had not been a close enough friend of Officer Kellog to have been given a wedding photograph, Officer Bailey investigated further, and sought assistance from other police officers. Soon after that, Mr. Leslie explained to Sergeant Washington why he had felt it necessary to shoot Officer Kellog.
That cleared Officer Kellog's widow and Detective Milham of any suspicion in the matter, of course. But it did not address the Widow Kellog's allegations that the entire Five Squad of the Narcotics Unit was dirty, and at least in her opinion, capable of murdering one of their own to ensure his silence.
Three months before, investigation of such allegations would have been routinely handled by the Internal Affairs Division, which was charged with uncovering police corruption. But three months before, Internal Affairs hadn't dropped the ball on that dirty cop passing heroin through the airport, or on the dirty Center City captain and Vice Squad lieutenant taking money from a call girl madam.
Three months before, Mayor Carlucci hadn't felt it necessary to suggest the formation of the Ethical Affairs Unit.
Inspector Peter Wohl, as he walked up to the front door of his childhood home, knew that while there would be lots of beer and whiskey and wine, and lots of tasty Jewish, Italian, German, and southern barbecue food served in the basement recreation room of his father's house this afternoon, as well as lots of laughs, and almost certainly a long trip down memory lane, that was not the reason Jerry Carlucci had suggested that everybody get together.
When the mayor decided the time had come, what they were going to do in good ol' Augie Wohl's recreation room this afternoon was decide how they were going to clean up the Narcotics Unit, and how to do it right, so that nobody dirty would get to walk because some goddamned defense lawyer caught them with an i they hadn't dotted, or a t they'd forgotten to cross.
He went in without knocking, and walked to the kitchen to kiss his mother.
There were six wives in the kitchen, dealing with the food: Chief Lowenstein's comfortably plump wife, Sarah; Angeline 'Angie' Carlucci, the slight, almost delicate woman who was said to be the only human being of whom Mayor Carlucci lived in fear; Mike Weisbach's Natalie, a younger version of Sarah Lowenstein; Mike Sabara's Helen, a striking woman with luxuriant red hair; Jack Fellows 's Beverly, a tall, slim woman who was an operating-room nurse at Temple Hospital; and Peter's mother.
Peter wondered tangentially how Martha Peebles-once she became Mrs. Captain David Pekach-was going to fit in with her fellow officer's wives. She would try, of course-she was absolutely bananas about her 'Precious '-but her experience with feeding people was limited to telling her butler how many people would be coming to dinner, when, and what she would like to have them fed.
For that matter, he absolutely could not imagine Amy Payne in a kitchen, stirring spaghetti sauce, either.
Mrs. Carlucci and Mrs. Lowenstein insisted on their right, as women who had known him since he wore diapers, to kiss him.
'Your father and everybody's downstairs,' his mother said.
'Really?' Peter replied, as if that was surprising.
'He's always been a smarty-pants,' his mother said.
'Yes, he has,' Sarah Lowenstein agreed. 'But his time is coming.'
'How's that?' Peter asked.
'There's a young lady out there-you just haven't bumped into each other yet-who will change you.'
'And any change would be an improvement, right?'
'You took the words out of my mouth.'
Peter smiled at her and went down the narrow steps into the basement.
