Chief Inspector Matthew L. Lowenstein was chief of detectives.
“And have you? Come up with any answers?”
“Not so far.”
“What have you got so far?”
“His major expense is the condo,” Matt said. “The payment on the mortgage-$325,000-is about $2,400 a month. They furnished it from scratch, and the furniture payment is $323 a month. The Yukon-”
“What’s a Yukon?” Coughlin interrupted.
“I’m not really sure. What Cassidy has-and the old one, too, that he gave to his daughter-is the big GMC. Until I started this, I thought they called them ’Suburbans.’ ”
“Okay,” Coughlin said.
“Anyway, he bought the new Yukon-no trade-in-with no money down, on a four-year note. That’s $683 a month. That’s about-”
“Thirty-four hundred a month,” Coughlin interrupted. “Which is a large chunk out of a captain’s pay.”
“His house is paid for,” Matt said. “He lives in Northeast Philly, not far from Chief Wohl.”
“I know.”
“He has two kids in school, one in Archbishop Ryan High School and the other in Temple. I don’t know yet what that costs.”
“It’s not cheap.”
“On the income side, in the last nine months, his mother, who lived with him, died. And so did a brother. An unmarried brother, in Easton. There was some insurance-I’m working on how much-and some property. I’m working on that.”
“Gut feeling?”
“I don’t think he’s on the take,” Matt said. “Not the type.”
“You think you can tell by looking, do you, Matty?”
“The Black Buddha told me that just because you can’t take your gut feeling to court, doesn’t mean you should ignore it,” Matt said.
“You better get out of the habit of calling him that, if you’re going to Homicide.”
“It doesn’t make him mad,” Matt argued. “He told me that Buddha was a very wise man, and ‘God knows, I’m black.’ ”
Coughlin chuckled.
“Have you thought what Lieutenant Washington is going to think if you go to Homicide?”
That’s two “if you’re going to Homicide”s. Come on, Uncle Denny. Get the speech over with.
“Sure,” Matt said.
“Aside from the fact that Captain Patrick Cassidy is an affable Irishman who is good to his wife and daughter, and probably has a dog named Spot, why aren’t you made suspicious by his sudden new affluence?”
“There could be a number of explanations for it.”
“I’m all ears.”
“He cared for his mother for years. She could have left him money. Or the brother. Even if they didn’t, I can hear his wife saying, ‘Okay, that’s over. Your mother’s gone. I want a place at the shore.’ ”
“Even if they can’t afford it?”
“I hope to find out they can,” Matt said. “I was going to go to Easton today to check the brother’s will.”
“Was?”
“Here I am, at your orders,” Matt said.
“We won’t be at the Roy Rogers long,” Coughlin said. “I just wanted a look around after the crime scene people did their business. I thought you might want to have a look, since you may go to Homicide.”
That’s two “if”s and a “may.” Where’s the speech?
“I would. Thank you.”
They rode in silence for a minute or two, and there was no speech, which both surprised and worried Matt.
There has to be a hook in the two “if”s and a “may.”
What’s he done? Had a word with the commissioner, who will call me in and say that while I’m certainly entitled to go to Homicide, “the department has a real problem. They really need a sergeant with your experience in the Special Victims Unit and you’ll certainly understand that the needs of the department are paramount, and I give you my word that you’ll get to Homicide one day.”
If that’s what he’s done, he certainly won’t tell me.
Shit!
“Who were they talking about when I walked in?” Matt asked.
“Who’s who?”
“The ‘bastard’ Frank Hollaran said he’d really like to see in shackles, that Mike Sabara wants to personally strap in the electric chair.”
“Isaac ‘Fort’ Festung. The sonofabitch keeps sending Pekach postcards.”
“Who is he?”
“You really don’t know?” Coughlin asked, his surprise evident in his voice.
“No, I don’t,” Matt confessed. “The name sounds familiar… but no, I really don’t know. What did he do?”
“How old are you, Matty?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“I guess that’s why you never heard of him. When you were seven years old-no, six; she was in the trunk for a year-Fort Festung beat his girlfriend to death, stuffed her body in a trunk, and put the trunk in a closet. When they finally found her, her body was mummified.”
“Jesus! And he sends Dave Pekach postcards from prison?” Matt asked, and then, remembering, added, “I thought Dave said from France.”
“He did,” Coughlin said. “Festung never went to prison. After Dave got a search warrant, found the body, and arrested him, his lawyer, now our beloved Senator Feldman, got him released at his arraignment on forty thousand dollars bail, and he jumped it.”
“He was charged with murder and got out on bail?” Matt asked, incredulously.
“Yeah, that’s just what he did,” Coughlin said, “and he’s been on the run ever since. A couple of months ago, they found him in France.”
“And now he’ll be extradited and tried?”
“He’s already been tried. The only in absentia trial I ever heard about. The jury found him guilty, and Eileen Solomon sentenced him to life without possibility of parole.”
“The D.A.?” Matt asked, surprised.
The Hon. Eileen McNamara Solomon had just been reelected as district attorney of Philadelphia, taking sixty- seven percent of the votes cast.
“Before she was D.A., she was a judge,” Coughlin said. “And no, Matty, it doesn’t look as if he’ll be extradited. He’s got the French government in his pocket. And knows it. And likes to rub it in our faces, especially Dave Pekach’s. That’s what the postcard was all about. He’s still thumbing his nose at the system.”
“I’ll be damned,” Matt said.
“Get the case out and read it. It’s interesting,” Coughlin said, and then, nodding out the windshield, “I wonder if they’re just slow, or they got something.”
Matt followed his glance. The crime scene van was parked on Snyder Street, fifty yards past the Roy Rogers restaurant.
“I think there’s a place to park right in front of the van,” Coughlin said. “You can drop me here.”
“You want me to come in?” Matt asked, as he pulled to the curb.
“That’s the idea,” Coughlin said, as he got out of the car. “If you’re going to Homicide, you might find this educational.”
That’s three “if”s and a “may.”
Matt had to show his badge to the uniform standing outside to get past him into the Roy Rogers, and then was surprised to find Coughlin waiting for him just inside the door.
The restaurant was empty except for a man Matt guessed was the manager, sitting with a cup of coffee at
