Investigators Read online

  This second cover story was the one Mr. Walter Davis would be asked to have the chief of police in Harrisburg—who he said was both an old friend and owed him several favors—spread around the Harrisburg Police Department. The chief of police would be told in confidence that Detective Payne’s investigations involved the Chenowith Group, but not that he was looking into the financial affairs of certain members of the Five Squad.

  This meant, Matt understood, that Chief Coughlin would prefer that neither the FBI nor the Harrisburg Police Department be aware what specific rotten apples Matt was looking for in the Philadelphia Police Department’s barrel.

  The FBI Briefing on the Chenowith Group began at 9:45 in the Conference Room of the FBI’s Philadelphia office. Present were Chief Coughlin, Inspector Wohl, and Detectives Payne and Wilfred G. “Wee Willy” Malone, a six-foot-four-inch giant of a man who was assigned to the Philadelphia Police Department’s Intelligence Unit. The FBI was represented by SAC Walter Davis; ASAC (Administration) Glenn Williamson; ASAC (Criminal Affairs) Frank F. Young; and FBI Special Agents Raymond Leibowitz and Howard C. Jernigan of the Anti-Terrorist Group, and Special Agent John D. Matthews of the FBI’s Philadelphia office.

  Everyone was seated in comfortable upholstered chairs around a long, glistening conference table. Before each participant had been laid out a lined pad, four sharpened pencils, a coffee mug, a water glass, and an ashtray. Two water thermos bottles, two coffee thermos bottles, and cream and sugar accessories were in the center of the table. On a shelf mounted on the wall were both a slide projector and a 16-millimeter motion picture projector. At the opposite end of the room was a lectern, complete to microphone, and, Matt supposed, controls to operate the lights and the slide and motion picture projectors. A roll-down beaded projection screen was mounted on the wall behind the lectern.

  This caused Matt to think, first, This is a hell of a lot fancier than Czernich’s conference room in the Roundhouse, and next, Well, what the hell, they’re spending federal tax dollars, which no bureaucrat considers real money, so why not?

  SAC Walter Davis stepped to the lectern, thanked everyone for coming, and turned the meeting over to ASAC Frank Young, a redheaded, pale-faced man in his forties on the edge between muscular and plump.

  Young went to the lectern, thanked everyone for coming, and asked if everybody knew everybody else. Everyone did, except for Wee Willy Malone and Jack Matthews, and Detective Payne and ASAC Williamson, who leaned across the table to shake hands.

  “SAC Davis has assigned Special Agent Matthews to liaise with Detective Payne while we’re doing this,” Young announced. “Presuming that meets with your approval, Chief Coughlin?”

  “Certainly,” Coughlin said.

  What the hell does “liaise with” mean? Detective Payne wondered.

  “I thought that the best way to get this show on the road,” Young said, “was to run a film we put together showing why we’re all looking for the Chenowith Group.”

  The room lights dimmed and the film projector started.

  The seal of the United States Department of Justice appeared on the screen, then the seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, then a notice announcing the film was classified “Official Use Only” and was not to be shown to unauthorized persons.

  “The Biological Sciences building of the Medical School of the University of Pittsburgh,” a voice announced.

  The screen now showed still photographs, obviously taken during different seasons of the year, of a three-story brick building of vaguely Colonial design.

  “At 5:25 P.M., 1 April,” the voice intoned without emotion, “an explosion occurred, causing extensive damage to the building and the deaths of eleven individuals. More than fifty other individuals were injured, some of them seriously. The death count of eleven reflects both immediate deaths and deaths which occurred later.”

  The screen now showed the building immediately after the explosion.

  Looks like they got this from TV news film, Matt thought.

  Fire hoses were still playing their streams on the shattered and smoking building, and firemen and police were shown entering and leaving the building. Ambulance crews were treating and transporting injured people, some of them badly injured.

  Jesus, they didn’t show something like that on the six-thirty news! Matt thought.

  The film—now not of “broadcast quality,” and including some still photographs and thus probably shot by the police—showed some of the victims who had been killed immediately, where their bodies had been found.

  “Holy Mother of God!” someone said, and after a moment Matt recognized Denny Coughlin’s voice.

  The exclamation was understandable. Legless bodies and heads smashed by tons of steel and concrete are not pretty sights.

  “Investigation by the FBI and local agencies,” the narrator went on dispassionately, as the screen showed the interior of the building sometime later—the bodies were gone—“indicates that the explosives used were Composition C-4 and Primacord. Composition C-4 is not available on the civilian market, and chemical analysis indicated the composition of the Primacord used to be identical to that procured for the military services.

  “This makes it probable that the explosives used were stolen from U.S. military stocks, most probably from the explosives depository of the 173rd Light Engineer Company, Pennsylvania Army National Guard, located on the Indiantown Gap Military Reservation near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

  “This depository was robbed, at gunpoint, on 13 February. Three hundred pounds of Composition C-4; fifty pounds of Primacord; forty-eight electrical and twenty-five fire-actuated detonating devices; six U.S. carbines, caliber .30 M2—the M2 is the fully automatic version of the carbine—six .45-caliber pistols, model 1911A1; and a substantial quantity of ammunition of these calibers was stolen.

  “The perpetrators were two white males and at least one white female who drove a Ford panel truck, later determined to be stolen. The perpetrators wore ski masks over their faces, but during the robbery the civilian guard, who was bound, gagged, and blindfolded, was nevertheless able to obtain sufficient vision around his blindfold to make a positive identification of one of the robbers, who had pulled his ski mask off his face. Bryan C. Chenowith, twenty-six, white male, five feet eight, 160 pounds, light brown hair, hazel eyes, no distinguishing markings or features.”

  A mug shot of Bryan C. Chenowith appeared on the screen.

  “At the time of the Indiantown Gap robbery, Mr. Chenowith was a fugitive from justice on charges of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution in connection with the hijacking at gunpoint of a truck engaged in interstate commerce. The truck contained orangutans being transported from Ken nedy International Airport, New York, to the Medical School of the University of Pittsburgh. The animals were freed from their cages near Allentown, Pennsylvania.

  “Mr. Chenowith at the time was a student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. While at the University of Pittsburgh, Mr. Chenowith was active in the Fair Play for Animals and Stop the Slaughter programs.”

  Another still photograph of Chenowith appeared on the screen. It showed him carrying a sign showing an orang utan tied, Christ-like, to a cross.

  “Mr. Chenowith and two of his known associates, Jennifer Downs Ollwood, white female, twenty-five years of age, five feet four inches, 130 pounds, black hair, brown eyes, no distinguishing marks and/or features, and Edgar Leonard Cole, white male, twenty-five years old, five feet ten inches, 170 pounds, dark blond hair, four-inch scar left calf, have been positively identified as having been in and around the Biological Sciences building the day before and the day of the explosion.”

  Several still photographs first of Jennifer Ollwood and then of Edgar Cole appeared on the screen, as the narrator furnished details of their backgrounds.

  Jennifer Ollwood was a rather pretty young woman who wore her black hair in bangs. In one photograph she was wearing a fringed leather jacket. In another, she was pictured holding a s
ign reading, “Stop the Torture!” and in a third, a sign reading “Save the Animals!”

  “Miss Ollwood,” the narrator announced, “was an undergraduate student at the University of Pittsburgh at the time of the bombing. She had previously been a student at Bennington College, from which she had been expelled as a result of her participation in antivivisectionist activities, and her arrest for having assaulted a campus police officer. She was active in the animal-activist movement at the University of Pittsburgh.”

  Edgar Cole had acne so bad that it was visible beneath his scraggly beard.

  “Mr. Cole is also a former University of Pittsburgh student, where he was also active in animal-activist activities. At the time of the Indiantown Gap robbery, he was also being sought on unlawful-flight-to-avoid-prosecution warrants in connection with the truck hijacking, and by the Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, police department to answer charges of being in possession of more than one pound of marijuana with intentions of distributing same.”

  “A trio of outstanding American youth,” Wohl offered. “Your lady friend, Matt, has some interesting friends.”

  “On 3 April,” the narrator interrupted, “Pittsburgh police conducted a raid on premises known to have been occupied by Mr. Chenowith and Miss Ollwood and Miss Eloise Anne Fitzgerald, white female, twenty-four years of age, five feet two, 110 pounds, light red hair, pale complexion, green eyes, no distinguishing marks or features, at 1101 West Hendricks Street in Pittsburgh.”

  A picture of Eloise Anne Fitzgerald appeared on the screen. It showed a demure-looking, short-haired redhead, wearing glasses, and looking about as menacing, Matt thought, as a librarian’s assistant.

  “This photo of Miss Fitzgerald,” the narrator went on, “was acquired from the publisher of the Bennington College yearbook, and portrays Miss Fitzgerald as a sophomore. She was expelled from Bennington at the same time Miss Ollwood was expelled, and for approximately the same reasons, although there is no record of her arrest on any charges anywhere. She subsequently enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh, seeking a degree in social work. She was active there in the animal-activist movement.”

  The screen next showed first a photograph of the exterior of the house, a large, run-down, Victorian-era building, and then of two rooms inside the house.

  “The occupants had recently vacated the premises, apparently in some haste, and leaving behind five pounds of Composition C-4, one point five pounds of Primacord, three electrical detonators, and two M2 carbines and several bandoliers of carbine ammunition.

  “It was quickly determined, by their serial numbers, that the recovered firearms were among those stolen from Indiantown Gap. Labeling of the C-4 uncovered at the West Hendricks location indicates it is from the same manufacturing lot as the C-4 stolen from Indiantown Gap; laboratory analysis of the Primacord indicates that it is from the same manufacturing lot as the Primacord stolen from Indiantown Gap; and other tests indicate the detonators are of the same type and age as those taken from the National Guard depository.”

  The screen now went back to shots of the sparsely furnished apartment in the old house on West Hendricks Street.

  “In addition to statements made by other residents of the building at 1101 West Hendricks that Mr. Cole was a frequent visitor to the premises, physical evidence, including fingerprints and personal property, indicates this is the case.

  “On 16 April, the Grand Jury of Allegheny County returned indictments against Mr. Chenowith, Mr. Cole, Miss Ollwood, and Miss Fitzgerald, charging them with causing the unlawful deaths by explosive device of eleven individuals.”

  The screen now showed—in most cases snapshots, in one case a standard high-school graduation portrait, and in two others police photographs taken in an autopsy room—photographs of the eleven individuals who had lost their lives as a result of the explosives detonated by the Chenowith Group on the University of Pittsburgh campus.

  “Mr. Chenowith’s and Mr. Cole’s difficulties brought them under FBI attention, and after Miss Fitzgerald and Miss Ollwood were positively identified as having been at Bennington College, Vermont, subsequent to their indictment in Pennsylvania, federal indictments were sought and obtained charging both females with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

  “Because of the nature of the offenses alleged, FBI supervision of the cases involved, collectively referred to as ‘the Chenowith Group,’ has been assigned to the Anti-Terrorist Group at FBI Headquarters.

  “The fugitives sought are known to be armed, and should be considered highly dangerous.”

  Abruptly the screen went white, and the room lights brightened.

  “Nice friends you have, Payne,” Wee Willy Malone said.

  “I think that we should keep that in mind, Detective Malone,” SAC Davis said.

  “Excuse me?” Malone asked.

  “If I had to offer one reason that the FBI has so far been unable to apprehend these fugitives, the so-called Chenowith Group, it would be that they are ‘nice.’ They all come from upper-middle-class backgrounds—in the case of the Ollwood woman, an upper-class background. Not only are they highly intelligent, but they can move, with relative ease, from one socioeconomic environment to another. We don’t really know where to look for them at any given time.”

  “Okay,” Wee Willy said after considering that.

  “Should we go on, sir?” Williamson asked.

  “Please do,” Davis said.

  Special Agent Leibowitz got up from the table and took Williamson’s place at the lectern.

  The lights dimmed again and the slide projector began, with a thunk, to show a color slide of what Matt recognized as the Bennington College campus in the spring.

  “We wondered why Ollwood and Fitzgerald went to Bennington, which is way to hell and gone from Pittsburgh in Vermont,” Leibowitz began. “I mean, they both got the boot from the college, and there was still a local warrant outstanding against Ollwood for socking the campus cop, so why go back? Unless, of course, they had a good reason. We found it. There’s a little white box around a blonde’s face in the next couple of slides. Take a good look at her.”

  The slide machine thunked, and a black-and-white slide of a group of young women sitting on the wide steps of a large brick house appeared on the screen. There were circles around the faces of Misses Ollwood and Fitzgerald and a white box around the face of Susan Reynolds. And he recognized two other faces in the photo.

  “I know a couple of other faces in that picture,” Matt said. “Is that important?”

  The slide was replaced by another snapshot.

  “It could be,” Davis said. “Who?”

  Leibowitz, with some difficulty, managed to get the group shot back on the screen.

  “The blonde, second from the left in the second row, is the former Daphne Elizabeth Browne,” Matt said. “Now Mrs. Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt the Fourth.”

  “Interesting,” Davis said. “The hostess of the party, right? We should have picked up on that.”

  “I don’t think Daffy is the type to blow things up, and/ or help fugitives,” Matt said.

  “Take my word for it, Detective,” Jernigan said. “As suming that ‘nice’ people can’t be involved in some pretty nasty business isn’t smart.”

  “Which is rather what I had in mind when I mentioned to Detective Malone that ‘nice’ is something we should all keep in mind.”

  Matt didn’t reply.

  “You said you knew a couple of faces?” Davis went on.

  “Sitting beside Daffy is a female named Penelope Alice Detweiler,” Matt said, “who I know is not aiding and abetting our fugitives.”

  “How do you know that?” Jernigan challenged,

  “She’s dead,” Matt said.

  “Penny Detweiler died of a narcotics overdose,” Chief Coughlin said.

  “I see. Well, that would seem to buttress my observation about the meaning of the word ‘nice,’ wouldn’t it?” Davis said.

  The group shot disappeared from the
screen and was replaced by a series of other snapshots of Bennington girls, each showing Susan Reynolds with a square box around her face and a circle around the face of either (or both) Eloise Anne Fitzgerald or Jennifer Ollwood—in some shots, of both.

  “The blonde is Miss Susan Reynolds, of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, white female now twenty-six years of age, five feet five, 130 pounds, blond hair, pale complexion, blue eyes, who has puncture wounds, entrance and exit, on her inside upper thigh caused by her having taken an arrow during archery practice at summer camp when she was sixteen.”

  There were chuckles around the table.

  Somebody—Matt could not tell for sure, but it sounded like Jack Matthews—asked incredulously, “Archery practice? Some girl didn’t know the bow was loaded?”

  There were more chuckles.

  Another photo of Susan appeared, a more recent photograph. In it she was wearing a dress.

  “This was taken three months or so ago, outside the Department of Social Services Building in Harrisburg, where Miss Reynolds is employed as an appeals officer,” Leibowitz said. “She resides with her parents in Camp Hill and drives a red Porsche 911—which she obviously didn’t buy with what they pay her at Social Services—and in which she frequently drove to her family’s summer home in the Pocono Mountains on weekends.”

  “When this came to our attention,” Leibowitz continued, “we sought and received assistance from the local authorities.”

  “What ‘local authorities’?” Chief Coughlin asked.

  “The county sheriff, Chief,” Leibowitz said. “We gave him a camera with a tripod and a telephoto lens—”

  “You gave him a camera?” Peter Wohl asked.

  “I asked about that myself, Peter,” Walter Davis said. “It was cost-effective, Agent Leibowitz told me. I suppose a good camera like that is worth five hundred dollars. . . .”