“He was assigned to surveil Atchison?”
“He was ordered to assist the assigned detective in whatever way the assigned detective felt would be helpful,” Lowenstein replied.
“Presumably,” Hormel said, “there was coordination with the Media Police Department?”
“That same afternoon, Detective Payne accompanied Sergeant Washington to interview Mr. Atchison at his home. That was coordinated with the Media Police Department.”
“Jason’s back working Homicide? I hadn’t heard that,” Callis said.
“Sergeant Washington and Detective Payne were the first police officers on the scene of the Inferno Lounge murders,” Lowenstein said. “Inspector Wohl was kind enough to make them both available to me to assist in the conduct of Homicide’s investigation of the murders.”
Callis snorted.
“‘Detective Payne,’” Hormel said, obviously playing the role of a defense attorney, “‘you look like a very young man. How long have you been a police officer? How long have you been a detective?’”
“‘How long have you been assigned to Homicide?’” Callis picked up on Hormel’s role playing. “‘Oh, you’re not assigned to Homicide? Then you really had no previous experience in conducting a surveillance of a murder suspect? Is that what you’re telling me?’”
“And then we get to re-direct,” Wohl said. “Our distinguished Assistant District Attorney-or perhaps the District Attorney himself-approaches the boy detective on the stand and asks, ‘Detective Payne, were you in any way involved in the apprehension of the so-called Northwest Serial Rapist? Oh, was that you who was forced to use deadly force to rescue Mrs. Naomi Schneider from the deadly clutches of that fiend?’”
Callis chuckled.
“Very good, Peter.”
“‘And were you involved in any way, Detective Payne, in the apprehension of the persons subsequently convicted in the murders at Goldblatt’s Furniture Store? Oh, was that you who was in the deadly gun battle with one of the murderers? Mr. Atchison was not, then, the first murderer with whom you have dealt?’”
“That could be turned against you. It could make him look like a cowboy,” Callis said.
“The dark and stormy night is what bothers me,” Hormel said. “We have to convince the jury that the package Denny Coughlin saw them take from the river was the same package Atchison tossed in there. That’s a tenuous connection.”
“The two South detectives saw the package being passed from Foley to Atchison,” Lowenstein said.
“No, they didn’t,” Hormel argued. “There’s room for reasonable doubt about that. And it was a dark and stormy night. ‘How can you testify under oath, Detective Payne, that the package taken from the river by police divers was the package you saw Mr. Atchison carry out of Yock’s Diner? How can you testify under oath that, if the night was as dark as you have testified it was, and you were as far from Mr. Atchison as you say you were, that what he threw, if indeed he threw anything, into the river was that package? You couldn’t really see him, could you? You’re testifying to what you may honestly believe happened, but, honestly, you didn’t really see anything, did you?’”
“Ah, come on, Harry!” Lowenstein protested.
“I’m inclined to go with Harry,” Callis said. “This is weak.”
Lowenstein stood up.
“Always a pleasure to see you, Tom,” he said. “And you, too, Harry.”
“Where are you going?”
“To carry out my orders,” Lowenstein said. “I was instructed to show you what we have. Then I was instructed to arrest the sonsofbitches. Come on, Peter.”
Wohl stood up and offered his hand to Harry Hormel.
“Now, wait a minute,” Callis said. “I didn’t say it was no good. I said it was weak.”
“It is,” Hormel agreed.
“Harry,” the District Attorney said. “You’ve gone into court with less then this, and won. Peter made a good point. All you have to do is convince the jury that these two were pursued by one of the brightest detectives on the force. A certified hero. If you handle that angle right, you can go for the death penalty and get it.”
“It’s weak,” Harry Hormel repeated.
“Let Harry know when you have them, Matt,” Callis said. “I’m sure he would like to be there when you confront them with the guns.”
TWENTY-TWO
For Frankie Foley, there had been a certain satisfying finality about his meeting with Gerry Atchison in the Yock’s Diner the previous night. He had received his final payment for the hit, and he’d gotten rid of the guns. The job was done.
He presumed that Atchison would safely dispose of the weapons somewhere, probably throw them in the Delaware, or bury them in the woods when he was out playing weekend warrior with the National Guard. It didn’t matter.
Frankie knew that once Atchison had taken the guns, and once he’d gotten out of the diner without anyone seeing them together, everything was going to be fine.
Frankie personally thought that the bullshit Atchison insisted on going through, making him leave the guns in the garbage can in the toilet of the Yock’s Diner, and coming out, and then Atchison going in to get them, was some really silly bullshit. Atchison must have been watching spy movies on the TV or something.
It would have made much more sense for them just to have met someplace, even in the parking lot of the Yock’s Diner, for Christ’s sake, swapped the dough for the guns, and gotten in their cars and driven away.
On the other hand, which was why Frankie had gone along with the swapping-in-the-crapper bullshit, doing it that way had been safer than meeting him in a dark parking lot someplace.
Frankie didn’t trust Atchison. He hadn’t trusted him in the Inferno when he’d done the job, and had taken steps to make sure that Atchison hadn’t hit him after he’d hit the wife and the partner, which would have been smart, which would have made it look like the dead guy on the floor had robbed the place and killed the partner and the wife, and Atchison was the fucking hero who had killed him.
That “dead men tell no tales” wasn’t no bullshit. He was the only guy who could pin the job on Atchison, and Atchison knew it. If he was dead, Atchison could relax. The cops would look for-fucking-ever-or at least until something else came along-for the two robbers Atchison had made up and told the cops about.
Frankie had considered that the reverse was also true, that if Atchison was dead, Atchison couldn’t get weak knees or something and tell the cops, “Frankie Foley is the guy who murdered my wife.” He considered hitting Atchison. It would be no trouble at all. He could have been waiting for him in the parking lot at the Yock’s Diner, put a couple of bullets into his head, and driven off and that would have been the end of it.
Except that maybe it wouldn’t have really been the end of it. The cops would look like even bigger assholes if Atchison got hit and they couldn’t catch who had done him, either. The Ledger was already giving the cops a hard time about that. The cops would get all excited all over again, and maybe they’d get lucky.
Frankie didn’t think Atchison would have the balls to try to kill him himself, otherwise he would have killed his wife and the partner by himself, right? And Atchison didn’t know no other professional hit men, or else he would have hired one of them to do the job, right?
So the smart thing to do-the professional thing-was just stop right where he was. He had been paid to do a job, and he had done it, and got paid for it, and that should be the end of it. Go on to other things, right?
If he did it that way, in a couple of weeks he could go to work in the Inferno, and tell Wanamaker’s what they could do with their fucking warehouse. The word would get out that he had done the job for Atchison, and sooner or later other jobs would come along.
What he would have liked to have done was maybe catch an airplane and go to Las Vegas and see if he would have any luck gambling. Frankie had never been to Vegas, but he had heard there was a lot of pussy that hung around the tables, and that if they thought you were a high roller, they even sent pussy to your room. That would really be nice, go out there, win a lot of money at the crap tables, and get some pussy thrown in for good
