was about to bag a couple of quail.
Charley Whelan got off the roof of his Cherokee, tried and failed to get the Peeping Tom’s name from the chief, got the old fart’s name and another picture of him, and then drove back to Mobile, this time exceeding the speed limit by only fifteen miles per hour.
The city editor was still there, and Charley made quick prints of the images in his digital camera and showed them to him.
“Well, it’s too late for today’s rag,” the city editor said. “Put it on the Atlanta wire; those big papers close later than we do. We’ll run it tomorrow.”
Charley sat down at his computer terminal and quickly typed,
Daphne, ALPossible Peeping Tom Bagged ByCommunity Watcher, 72
Shown here with his shotgun and his as yet unidentified quarry handcuffed on the ground is retired business executive Chambers D. Galloway, 72, a member of Daphne’s Jackson Oak Citizens’ Community Watch, Inc., who made a middle-of-the-night citizen’s arrest of the man after he was seen peeping into the windows of a resident of the Lake Forest Yacht Club Condominiums, whom police declined to identify.
Four Daphne police cars, two Fairhope police cars, a Baldwin County deputy sheriff, and an Alabama state trooper converged on the scene to take the suspect off Mr. Galloway’s hands. The accused peeper will be held in the Daphne police jail while the investigation continues.
Mobile Register Photos By Charles E. Whelan
When the pictures and the story reached the Associated Press in Atlanta, the night man there also thought the yarn-and especially the pictures of the old guy with the shotgun-was funny, good human interest, and pushed the National button. This caused the photos and story to be instantly sent to newspapers all over the United States, which of course included those in Philadelphia.
The device that electronically chimed “Be It Ever So Humble” when the doorbell of the residence of Sergeant Matthew Payne was pushed had two controls. One provided a selection of the numbers of bars of music to be played, from Six to All, and the other was a volume control.
Detective Payne, who had few visitors to his home, and used the device primarily as a backup alarm clock, had set both controls to the maximum choices offered.
A full rendition of “Be It Ever So Humble” played at maximum volume in the small confines of the apartment had so far never failed to wake Sergeant Payne from the deepest sleep.
And so it did the following morning at 6:05 A.M. when the Wachenhut security guard, a retired police officer who both liked the young cop in the attic and was grateful for the bottle of Wild Turkey he’d been given for Christmas, rode the elevator up, laid a copy of the just delivered Bulletin on the floor outside the door to the attic, and pushed the doorbell.
Half awake, Sergeant Payne had just identified the sound, glanced through half-opened eyes at the time displayed on the ceiling, and decided he had a good half hour to get leisurely out of bed, when a female voice quite close to him brought him suddenly to full wakefulness.
“What the hell is that?” Detective Olivia Lassiter had asked, as much in alarm as curiosity.
Matt opened his eyes fully.
Olivia had been so startled by the music that she had suddenly sat up on the bed and not thought about pulling the sheet up to modestly cover her exposed bosom.
Jesus, she has beautiful breasts!
“That’s the newspaper,” he said.
“The newspaper?”
“The security guy rings the doorbell when he brings the paper up,” Matt explained.
Olivia saw where his eyes were directed and pulled the sheet up over her chest.
“The cow, so to speak, is already out of the barn,” Matt said.
“What time is it?” Olivia asked, ignoring him.
Matt pointed at the ceiling. After a moment’s confusion, Olivia looked at the ceiling.
“My God, I’ve got to get out of here!” she said.
“Why?”
“Because I have to go home and change my clothes,” she said. “Something I didn’t think about last night.”
“Okay. I’ll take you, and we can get some breakfast someplace. ”
“I’m going to take a cab,” she said. “I should have taken one last night and gone home.”
“So we won’t be seen together, and someone will suspect what’s going on?”
“Exactly.”
“That cow, I have to tell you, is really out of the barn.”
“What does that mean?”
“Mr. Colt somehow got the idea-you saw that-that you and I have become something more than professional associates…”
“And?”
“… and decided to share this perception with Mickey O’Hara, Peter Wohl, and Jason Washington.”
“My God, I hope you denied it!”
“Of course,” Matt said, “whereupon Stan showed his acceptance of my denial in the following manner.”
He winked broadly, mimicking Colt, and demonstrated the balled-fist, thumb-up gesture Colt had used.
“That sonofabitch!”
“Honey, he thought he was being funny.”
“His being funny blew my chances of getting in Homicide, ” she said, bitterly.
“Realistically, honey, there doesn’t seem to be much chance of that,” Matt said.
“Thanks a lot!”
“Well, there doesn’t,” he insisted. “At least right now.”
“I’m going to take a shower,” she snapped. “And then a cab.”
He watched her enter the bathroom.
After a moment, he reluctantly concluded that-however delightful an idea it was on the surface-there was not room in the shower for the both of them.
And besides, she’s already pissed that our shameful secret has become public knowledge.
He swung his legs out of bed, got fresh underwear, and went down the stairs to get the newspaper.
He started to read it as he climbed the stairs back to his apartment, and just as he reached the top, he saw that the picture that Eddie the photographer had taken of him and Stan Colt outside the Bellvue-Stratford was on page one of the Bulletin.
There was a rather lengthy caption:
Stan Colt, movie detective, in Philadelphia to raise money for West Catholic High, found time in his busy schedule to meet with the real thing. He is shown here arriving at the Mayor’s Reception at the Bellvue-Stratford with Sergeant M. M. Payne of the Phila. PD Homicide Unit. Payne will be showing Colt what police work is really like whenever Colt has a spare minute. (The full schedule of the Colt Fund-raising Visit can be found on page 2 of Section Four of today’s Bulletin.)
Matt remembered that Colt had said that the picture was the only one that would get printed.
Olivia was toweling herself by the side of the bed, which he found to be an interesting sight.
“I’m famous,” he said, showing her the newspaper.
Olivia glanced at it very quickly.
“Put your clothes on. You can drive me home,” she said.
“Oh, thank you, thank you!”
“I have three choices: putting on wet underwear, getting in a cab without my underwear, or you.”
“With or without underwear?”
“My God! Get dressed.”
The Swedish philosopher/theologian Emmanuel Swedenborg believed that there is sometimes an unspoken communication between loved ones. That one loved person knows what the other loved one is thinking.
This may or may not have had anything to do with what Detective Olivia Lassiter said to Sergeant Matthew Payne when he pulled to the curb in front of her apartment.
