Men In Blue Read online

  Jesus Christ! Does he expect me to believe that? Does he believe it himself?

  He looked at Nelson’s face, and then understood: He knows what his son was, and he probably knows that I know. I have just been given the official cover story. Arthur J. Nelson wants the fact that his son was homosexual swept under the rug. For his own ego, or maybe, even more likely, because there’s a mother around. What the hell, my father would do the same thing.

  “Insofar as the Ledger is concerned,” Nelson said, meeting Wohl’s eyes, “every effort will be made to spare Miss Dutton any embarrassment. I can only hope my competition will be as understanding.”

  He obviously feels he can get to Louise, somehow, and get her to stand still for being identified as Jerome’s girl friend. Well, why not? “Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” works at all echelons.

  “I understand, sir,” Peter said.

  “Thank you for coming to see me, Inspector,” Arthur J. Nelson said, putting out his hand. “When I see Ted Czernick, I will tell him how much I appreciate your courtesy and understanding.”

  The translation of which is “Do what you ‘re told, or I’ll lower the boom on you.”

  ****

  Peter Wohl called Detective Tony Harris from a pay phone in the lobby of the Ledger Building and told him that Arthur J. Nelson’s secretary was going to come up with a list of jewelry and other valuables that probably had been in the apartment, and that it would probably be ready by the time Harris could come to the Ledger Building.

  And then he told Harris what Nelson had said about Louise Dutton being Jerome Nelson’s girl friend, and warned him not to get into Jerome’s sexual preference if there was any way it could be avoided. Somewhat surprising Wohl, Harris didn’t seem surprised.

  “Thanks for the warning,” he said. “I can handle that.”

  “He also suggested that by now the Jaguar has been stripped,” Wohl said.

  “Could well be. They haven’t found it yet, and Jaguars are pretty easy to spot; there aren’t that many of them. Either stripped, or on a dock in New York or Baltimore waiting to get loaded on a boat for South America. I think we should keep looking.”

  Wohl did not mention to Harris Nelson’s toast to vigilante justice, or his remark about what he really wanted to hear was that the doer had been killed resisting arrest. It was, more than likely, just talk.

  When he hung up, he considered, and decided against, reporting to Commissioner Czernick about his meeting with Nelson. He really didn’t have anything important to say.

  Instead, he found the number in the phone book, dropped a dime in the slot, and called WCBL-TV.

  He had nearly as much trouble getting Louise on the line as he had getting in to see Arthur J. Nelson, but finally her voice came over the line.

  “Dutton.”

  Peter could hear voices and sounds in the background. Wherever she was, it wasn’t a private office.

  “Hi,” Peter said.

  “Hi,” she breathed happily. “I hoped you would call!”

  “You all right?”

  “Ginger-peachy, now,” she said. “What are you doing?”

  “I just left Arthur J. Nelson,” he said.

  “Rough?”

  “He told me you were Jerome’s girl friend,” Peter said.

  “Oh, the poor man!” she said. “You didn’t say anything?”

  “No.”

  “So?”

  “So?” he parroted.

  “So why did you call?”

  “I dunno,” he said.

  “What are you going to do now?” she asked.

  “I’ve got to go by my office, and then figure out some way to get my car from where it’s parked in front of your house,” he said.

  “I forgot about that,” she said. “Why don’t you pick me up here after I do the news at six? I could drive it to your place, or wherever.”

  “Where would I meet you?”

  “Come on in,” Louise said. “I’ll tell them at reception.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said, and then added, “Peter, don’t forget to pick up your uniform at the cleaners.”

  “Okay,” he said, and chuckled, and the line went dead.

  He realized, as he hung the telephone up, that he was smiling. More than that, he was very happy. There was something very touching, very intimate, in her concern that he not forget to pick up his uniform. Then he thought that if he had called Barbara Crowley and she had reminded him of it, he would have been annoyed.

  Is this what being in love is like?

  He went out of his way to get the uniform before he drove downtown, so that he really would not forget it.

  He had not been at his desk in his office three minutes when Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin slipped into the chair beside it.

  “Jeannie was asking where you were last night, Peter,” Coughlin said. “At the house.”

  “I wasn’t up to it,” Peter said. “And you know what happened later.”

  “You feel up to being a pallbearer?” Coughlin asked, evenly.

  “If Jeannie wants me to, sure,” Peter said.

  “That’s what I told her,” Coughlin said. “Be at Marshutz & Sons about half past nine. The funeral’s at eleven.”

  “I’ll be there,” Peter said. “Chief, my dad suggested I wear my uniform.”

  Chief Inspector Coughlin thought that over a moment.

  “What did you decide about it?”

  “Until I heard about being a pallbearer, I was going to wear it.”

  “I think it would nice, Peter, if we carried Dutch to his rest in uniform,” Chief Inspector Coughlin said. “I’ll call the wife and make sure mine’s pressed.”

  ****

  Officer Anthony F. Caragiola, who was headed for the job on the four-to-midnight watch, glanced at his wrist-watch, and walked into Gene & Jerry’s Restaurant & Sandwiches across the street from the Bridge Street Terminal. There would be time for a cup of coffee and a sweet roll before he climbed the stairs to catch the elevated and go to work.

  Officer Caragiola, who wore the white cap of the Traffic Division, had been a policeman for eleven years, and was now thirty-four years old. He was a large and swarthy man, whose skin showed the ravages of being outside day after day in heat and cold, rain and shine.

  He eased his bulk onto one of the round stools at the counter, waved his fingers in greeting at the waitress, a stout, blond woman, and helped himself to a sweet roll from the glass case. He had lived three blocks away, now with his wife and four kids, for most of his life. When there was a problem at Gene & Jerry’s, if one of the waitresses took sick, or one of the cooks, and his wife, Maria, could get somebody to watch the kids, she came and filled in.

  The waitress put a china mug of coffee and three half-and-half containers in front of him.

  “So how’s it going?”

  “Can’t complain,” Officer Caragiola said. “Yourself?”

  She shrugged and smiled and walked away. Tony Caragiola carefully opened the three tubs of half-and-half and carefully poured them into his coffee, and then stirred it.

  He heard a hissing noise, and looked at the black swinging doors leading to the kitchen. Gene was standing there, wiggling her fingers at him. Gene was Eugenia Santalvaria, a stout, black-haired woman in her fifties who had six months before buried her husband, Gerimino, after thirty-three years of marriage.

  Caragiola slipped off the stool and, carrying his coffee with him, stepped behind the counter and walked to the doors to the kitchen.

  “Tony, maybe it’s something, maybe it ain’t,” Gene Santalvaria said, in English, and then switched to Italian. There were two bums outside, a big fat slob and a little guy that looked like a spic, she told him. They had been there for hours, sitting in an old Volkswagen. Maybe they were going to stick up the check-cashing place down the block, or maybe they were selling dope or something; every once in a while, one of them got out of
the car and went up the stairs to the elevated, and then a couple of minutes later came back down the stairs and got back in the car. She didn’t want to call the district, ‘cause maybe it wasn’t nothing, but since he had come in, she thought it was better she tell him.

  “I’ll have a look,” Officer Caragiola said.

  He left the kitchen and walked to the front of the restaurant and, sipping on his coffee, looked for a Volkswagen. There was two guys in it, one of them, a big fat slob with one of them hippie bands around his forehead, behind the wheel, slumped down in the seat as if he was asleep. And then the passenger door opened, and a little guy—she was right, he looked like a spic—got out and looked for traffic, and then walked across the street to the stairs to the elevated. Looked like a mean little fucker.

  Officer Caragiola set his coffee on the counter and walked quickly out of Gene & Jerry’s, and across the street, and up the stairs after him.

  He got to the platform just as a train arrived. Everybody on the platform got on it but the little spic. He acted as if he was waiting for somebody who might have ridden the elevated to the end of the line and just stayed on. If he did that, he would just go back downtown. If somebody like that was either buying or selling dope, that would be the way to do it.

  Officer Caragiola ducked behind a stairwell so the little spic couldn’t see him, and waited. People started coming up the stairs, filling up the platform, and then a train arrived from downtown and left, and then five minutes later reappeared on the downtown track. Everybody on the platform got on the train but the little spic.

  Tony Caragiola came out from behind the stairwell and walked over to the little spic.

  “Speak to you a minute, buddy?” he said.

  “What about?”

  Tony saw that the little spic was pissed. He probably knew all the civil rights laws about cops not being supposed to ask questions without reasonable cause.

  “You want to tell me what you and your friend in the Volkswagen are doing?”

  “Narcotics,” the little spic said. “I’d rather not show you my I.D. Not here.”

  “Who’s your lieutenant?” Tony asked.

  “Lieutenant Pekach.”

  It was a name Officer Caragiola did not recognize.

  “I think you better show me your ID,” he said.

  “Shit,” the little spic said. He reached in his back pocket and came out with a plastic identity card. “Okay?” he said.

  “The lady in the restaurant said you were acting suspicious,” Tony Caragiola said.

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

  Officer Jesus Martinez put his ID back in his pocket and walked down the stairs. Officer Anthony Caragiola walked twenty feet behind him. He went back in Gene & Jerry’s and told Gene everything was all right, not to worry about it. Then he went back across the street and climbed the stairs to catch the elevated to go to work.

  Officer Martinez got back into the Volkswagen. He glowered for a full minute at Officer Charley McFadden, who was asleep and snoring. Then he jabbed him, hard, with his fingers, in his ribs. McFadden sat up, a look of confusion on his face.

  “What’s up?”

  “I thought you would like to know, asshole, that the lady in the restaurant called the cops on us. Said we look suspicious.”

  ****

  At quarter to five, Peter Wohl drove to Marshutz & Sons. As he walked up the wide steps to the Victorian-style building, the Moffitts—Jean, the kids, and Dutch’s mother—came out.

  Jean Moffitt was wearing a black dress and a hat with a veil. The kids were in suits. Gertrude Moffitt was in a black dress and hat, but no veil.

  “Hello, Peter,” Jean Moffitt said, and offered a gloved hand.

  “Jeannie,” Peter said.

  “You know Mother Moffitt, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course,” Peter said. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Moffitt.”

  “We’re going out for a bite to eat,” Gertrude Moffitt said. “Before people start coming after work.”

  “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Moffitt, about Dick,” Peter said.

  “His close personal friends, some of who I didn’t even know,” Gertrude Moffitt went on, “were at the house last night.”

  It was a rebuke.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t come by last night, Jeannie,” Peter said.

  “Your mother explained,” Jeannie Moffitt said. “Did Denny Coughlin ask you?”

  “About being a pallbearer?” Peter asked, and when she nodded, went on: “Yes, and I’m honored.”

  “Dennis Coughlin was a sergeant when he carried my John, God rest his soul, to his grave,” Gertrude Moffitt said. “And now, as a chief inspector, he’ll be doing the same for my Richard.”

  “Mother, would you please put the kids in the car?” Jean Moffitt said. “I want a word with Inspector Wohl.”

  That earned Jeannie a dirty look from Mother Moffitt, but it didn’t seem to faze her. She returned the older woman’s look, staring her down until she led the boys down the stairs.

  “Tell me about the TV lady, Peter,” Jeannie Moffitt said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Isn’t that why you didn’t come by the house last night? You were afraid I’d ask you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jeannie,” Wohl said.

  “I’m talking about Louise Dutton of Channel Nine,” she said. “Was there something between her and Dutch? I have to know.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “It’s going around,” she said. “I heard it.”

  “Well, you heard wrong,” Peter said.

  “You sound pretty sure,” Jeannie Moffitt accused sarcastically.

  “I know for sure,” Peter said.

  “Peter, don’t lie to me,” Jeannie said.

  “Louise Dutton and me, as my mother would put it, if she knew, and doesn’t, are ‘keeping company,’ “ Wohl said. “That’s how I know.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise.

  “Really?” she said, and he knew she believed him.

  “Not for public consumption,” Peter said. “The gossips got their facts wrong. Wrong cop.”

  “I thought you were seeing that nurse, what’s her name, Barbara—”

  “Crowley,” Peter furnished. “I was.”

  “Your mother doesn’t know?”

  “And, for the time being, I would like to keep it that way,” Peter said.

  She looked in his eyes, and then stood on her toes and kissed his cheek.

  “Oh, I’m glad I ran into you,” she said.

  “Dutch liked being married to you, Jeannie,” Wohl said.

  “Oh, God, I hope so,” she said.

  She turned and ran down the stairs.

  Wohl entered the funeral home. The corridors were crowded with people, a third of the men in uniform. And, Peter thought, two-thirds of the men in civilian clothing were cops, too.

  He waited in line, signed the guest book, and then made his way to the Green Room.

  Dutch’s casket was nearly hidden by flowers, and there was a uniformed Highway Patrolman standing at parade rest at each end of the coffin. Wohl waited in line again, until it was his turn to drop to his knees at the prie-dieu in front of the casket.

  Without thinking about it, he crossed himself. Dutch was in uniform. He looks, Wohl thought, as if he just came from the barber’s.

  And then he had another irreverent thought: I just covered your ass again, Dutch. One last time.

  And then, surprising him, his throat grew very tight, and he felt his eyes start to tear.

  He stayed there, with his head bent, until he was sure he was in control of himself, and then got up.

  TWELVE

  Karl August Fenstermacher had immigrated to the United States in 1837, at the age of two. His father had indentured himself for a period of four years to Fritz W. Diehl, who had gone to the United States from the same village, Mochsdorf, in the Kingdom of Bavaria, twenty years previously. Mr. Diehl had entere
d the sausage business in Philadelphia, and prospered to the point where he needed good reliable help. His brother Adolph, back in Mochsdorf, had recommended Johann Fenstermacher to him, and the deal was struck:

  Diehl would provide passage money for Fenstermacher and his wife and three children, provide living quarters for them over the shop, and see that they were clothed and fed. At the end of four years, provided Fenstermacher proved to be a faithful, hardworking employee, he would either offer young Fenstermacher a position with the firm, or give him one hundred dollars, so that he could make his way in life somewhere else.

  At the end of two years, instead of the called-for four, Fritz released Johann Fenstermacher from his indenture, coinciding with the opening of Fritz’s stall (Fritz Diehl Fine Wurstware & Fresh Meats) at the Twelfth Street Market. In 1860, when Diehl opened an abattoir just outside the city limits, the firm was Diehl & Fenstermacher, Meat Purveyors to the Trade. Both men believed that God had been as good to them as he could be.

  They were wrong. The Civil War came, and with it a limitless demand for smoked and tinned meats and hides. They became wealthy. Fritz Diehl took a North German Lloyd steamer from Philadelphia to Bremen, and went back to Mochsdorf, where he presented St. Johann’s Lutheran Church with a stained glass window. He died of a stroke in Mochsdorf ten days before the window was to be officially consecrated.

  His widow elected to remain in Germany. From that day until her death, Johann Fenstermacher scrupulously sent her half the profits from the firm, although, after several years, he changed the name to J. Fenstermacher & Sons. The name was retained on the Old Man’s death, just before the Spanish-American War, by Karl Fenstermacher, who bought out his brother’s interest, and formed J. Fenstermacher & Sons, Incorporated.

  He turned over the business to his son Fritz in 1910, when he was seventy-five. He lived six more years. In early 1916, when it was clear that his father was failing, Fritz Fenstermacher went to Francisco Scalamandre, whose firm was to stonecutting in Philadelphia what J. Fenstermacher & Sons, Inc., was to the meat trade, and ordered the construction of a suitable monument where his mother and father could lie together for eternity.