W E B Griffin - Badge of Honor 02 - Special Operations Read online

  "What kind of a mask?"

  "A kid's mask, like the Lone Ranger."

  "And was he a big man, a little man, or what?" Dohner felt Mary Elizabeth Flannery's back stiffen under his hand. "What's the matter?" he asked, very gently.

  "I don't want to get in the back," she said.

  "Well, then, I'll put you in the front," he said. "Miss, what did this man do to you?"

  "Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Mary Elizabeth Flannery said, sucking in her breath, and then sobbing.

  "Did he do anything to you?"

  "Oh, Jesus!" she wailed.

  "I have to ask, miss, what did he do to you?"

  "He made me-he urinated on me!"

  "Is that all?" Dohner asked softly.

  "Oh, Jesus," Mary Elizabeth Flannery wailed. "He made me... he put his thing in my mouth. He had a knife-"

  "What kind of a knife?"

  "A knife," she said. "A butcher knife."

  "What's your name, miss? Can you tell me that, please?"

  He installed her in the front seat of the car, then ran around and got in beside her. She did not look at him as he did.

  "What's your name, miss?" Dohner asked again.

  "Flannery," she said. "Mary Flannery."

  "If we're going to catch this man, you're going to have to tell me what he looks like," Bill Dohner said. "What kind of clothes was he wearing? Can you tell me that?"

  "He was naked."

  "He brought you here from your apartment, right?" Dohner asked, and she nodded.

  "How did he bring you here?"

  "In a van."

  "Was he naked then?"

  "Oh, Jesus!"

  "Do you remember what kind of a van? Was it dark or light?"

  She shook her head from side to side.

  "Was it new or old?"

  She kept shaking her head.

  "Was it like a station wagon, with windows, or was it closed in the back?"

  "Closed."

  "And was he a small man?" There was no response. "A large man? Did you see the color of his hair? Did he have a beard, or scars or anything like that?"

  "He was big," Mary Elizabeth Flannery said. "And he was hairy."

  "You mean he had long hair, or there was a lot of hair on his body?"

  "On his body," she said. "What's going to happen to me?"

  "We're going to take care of you," Dohner said. "Everything's going to be all right now. But I need you to tell me what this man looked like, what he was wearing, so we can lock him up. Can you tell what he wore when he brought you over here?"

  "Overalls," she said. "Coveralls. You know?"

  "Do you remember what color they were?"

  "Black," she said. "They were black. I saw him put them on..."

  "And what color was the van?"

  "I didn't see. Maybe gray."

  "And when he left you here, which way did he go? Did he go back out to Bell's Mill Road, or the other way?"

  "Bell's Mill Road."

  "And which way did he turn when he got there?"

  "Right," she said, with certainty.

  Dohner reached for the microphone.

  "Fourteen Twenty-Three," he said.

  "Fourteen Twenty-Three," Police Radio replied.

  "Fourteen Twenty-Three," Dohner said. "Resume the Assist."

  "Resume the Assist" was pure police cant, verbal shorthand for "Those police officers who are rushing to this location with their sirens screaming and their warning lights flashing to assist me in dealing with the naked lady may now resume their normal duties. I have things in hand here, am in no danger, and expect my supervisor, a wagon, and probably a District detective to appear here momentarily.''

  As police cars slowed, and sirens and flashing lights died all over the Northwest, Dohner went on: "We have a sexual assault, kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon. Be on the lookout for a white male in a gray van, make unknown. He's wearing black coveralls and may be in possession of a black mask and a butcher knife. Last seen heading east on Bell's Mill Road toward Germantown."

  As he put the microphone down, a police car turned onto Forbidden Drive, lights flashing, siren screaming. It skidded to a stop beside Bill Dohner's car, and two Highway Patrolmen jumped out of it.

  Joe Bullock's voice came over the radio: "Flash information on a kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon and rape on Forbidden Drive. Be on the lookout for a white male in black coveralls driving a gray van. Suspect fled east on Bell's Mill Road toward Germantown. May be in possession of a large knife. May have a black mask."

  "Mary," Bill Dohner said, kindly. "I'm going to speak to these officers for a moment and tell them what's happened, and then I'm going to take you to the hospital."

  As Dohner opened the door, two more police cars, one of them another Fourteenth District RPC and the other an unmarked Northwest Detectives car, came onto Forbidden Drive, one from Bell's Mill Road, and the other from Northwestern Avenue, which is the boundary between Philadelphia and Montgomery counties.

  When Bill Dohner got back into the car beside Mary Elizabeth Flannery, she was shaking under the blanket, despite the heat.

  He picked up the microphone: "Fourteen Twenty-Three, I'm en route with the victim to Chestnut Hill Hospital."

  As he started to drive off. Bill Dohner looked at Mary Elizabeth Flannery again and said, "Shit," under his breath. She was probably going into shock. Shock can be fatal.

  "You all right, Mary?"

  "Why did he do that to me?" Mary Elizabeth Flannery asked, wonderingly, plaintively.

  TWO

  Mickey O'Hara drove the battered Chevrolet around City Hall, then down South Broad Street, past the dignified Union League Club. When he came to the equally dignified Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, Mickey pulled to the curb at the corner, directly beside a sign reading NO PARKING AT ANY TIME TOW AWAY ZONE.

  He slid across the seat and got out the passenger side door. Then he walked the fifty feet or so to the revolving door of the Bellevue-Stratford and went inside.

  He walked across the lobby to the marble reception desk. There was a line, two very well dressed middle-aged men Mickey pegged to be salesmen, and a middle-aged, white-haired couple Mickey decided were a wife and a husband who, if he had had a choice, would have left her home.

  All the salesmen did was ask the clerk for their messages. The wife had apparently badgered her husband into complaining about their room, which didn't offer what she considered a satisfactory view, and then when he started complaining, took over from him. She obviously, and correctly, considered herself to be a first-class bitcher.

  The desk clerk apparently had the patience of a saint, Mickey thought; and then-by now having gotten a good look at her-he decided she looked like one, too. An angel, if not a saint. Tall, nicely constructed, with rich brown hair, a healthy complexion, and very nice eyes. And she was wearing, Mickey noticed, no rings, either engagement or wedding, on the third finger on her left hand.

  She gave the big-league bitcher and her consort another room, apologizing for any inconvenience the original room assignment might have caused. Mickey thought the big-league bitcher was a little disappointed, like a bantamweight who sent his opponent to the canvas for the count with a lucky punch in the first round. All keyed up, and nobody around to fight with.

  "Good evening, sir," the desk clerk said. "How may I help you?"

  Her voice was low and soft, her smile dazzling; and her hazel eyes were fascinating.

  "What room is Bull Bolinski in?" Mickey asked.

  "Mr. Bolinski isn't here, sir," she replied immediately.

  "He isn't?"

  "Are you Mr. O'Hara, sir? Mr. Michael J. O'Hara?"

  "Guilty."

  She smiled. Warmly, Mickey thought. Genuinely amused.

  "I thought I recognized you from your pictures," she said. "I'm one of your... what... avid readers... Mr. O'Hara."

  "Oh, yeah?"

  She nodded confirmation. "Mr. Bolinski called, Mr. O'Hara," she said. "Ju
st a few moments ago. He's been delayed."

  "Oh?"

  "He said you would be here, and he asked me to tell you that he will be getting into Philadelphia very late, and that he hopes you'll be free to have breakfast with him, somewhere around ten o'clock."

  "Oh."

  "Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. O'Hara?"

  "No. No, thanks."

  She smiled at him again, with her mouth and her eyes.

  By the time he got to the revolving door, Mickey realized that opportunity had knocked, and he had as usual, blown it again.

  Well, what the hell was 1 supposed to say, "Hey, honey, what time do you get off? Let's you and me go hoist a couple?"

  Mickey got back in the Chevy and drove home, nobly resisting the temptation to stop in at six different taverns en route for just one John Jamison's. He went into the kitchen, finished the quart bottle of Ortleib's, and then two more bottles as he considered what he would do if he couldn't be a police reporter anymore. And, now that the opportunity was gone, thinking of all the clever, charming and witty things he should have said to the desk clerk with the soft and intimate voice and intelligent, hazel eyes.

  ***

  George Amay, the Northwest Detectives Division detective, who, using the designator D-Dan 209, had gone in on the naked woman call, stayed at the crime scene just long enough to get a rough idea of what was going down. Then he got back in his car and drove to an outside pay phone in a tavern parking lot on Northwestern Avenue and called it in to the Northwest Detectives desk man, one Mortimer Shapiro.

  Detective Shapiro's place of duty was a desk just inside the Northwest Detectives squad room, on the second floor of the Thirty-fifth Police District Building at North Broad and Champlost Streets.

  "Northwest Detectives, Shapiro," Mort said, answering the telephone.

  "George Amay, Mort," Amay said. "I went in on a Thirty-fifth District call for a naked lady on Forbidden Drive. It's at least Criminal Attempt Rape, Kidnapping, et cetera et cetera."

  "Where are you?"

  "In a phone booth on Northwestern. The victim's been taken to Chestnut Hill Hospital. The Thirty-fifth Lieutenant and Sergeant are at the scene. And Highway. And a lot of other people."

  "Go back to the scene, and see if you can keep Highway from destroying all the evidence," Shapiro said. "I'll send somebody over."

  Detective Shapiro then consulted the wheel, which was actually a sheet of paper on which he had written the last names of all the detectives present for duty that night in the Northwest Detectives Division.

  Assignment of detectives to conduct investigations, called jobs, was on a rotational basis. As jobs came in, they were assigned to the names next on the list. Once assigned a job, a detective would not be assigned another one until all the other detectives on the wheel had been assigned a job, and his name came up again.

  The next name on the wheel was that of a detective Mort Shapiro privately thought of as Harry the Farter. Harry, aside from his astonishing flatulence, was a nice enough guy, but he was not too bright.

  What Amay had just called in was not the sort of job that should be assigned to detectives like Harry the Farter, if there was to be any real hope to catch the doer. The name below Harry the Farter's on the wheel was that of Richard B. "Dick" Hemmings, who was, in Mort Shapiro's judgment, a damned good cop.

  Shapiro opened the shallow drawer in the center of his desk, and took from it a report of a recovered stolen motor vehicle, which had come in several hours before, and which Detective Shapiro had "forgotten" to assign to a detective.

  When a stolen motor vehicle is recovered, or in this case, found deserted, a detective is assigned to go to the scene of the recovery to look for evidence that will assist in the prosecution of the thief, presuming he or she is ultimately apprehended. Since very few auto thefts are ever solved, investigation of a recovered stolen motor vehicle is one of those time-consuming futile exercises that drain limited manpower resources. It was, in other words, just the sort of job for Harry the Farter.

  "Harry!" Mort Shapiro called, and Harry the Farter, a rather stout young man in his early thirties, his shirt showing dark patches of sweat, walked across the squad room to his desk.

  "Jesus," Harry the Farter said when he saw his job. "Another one?"

  Shapiro smiled sympathetically.

  "Shit!" Harry the Farter said, broke wind, and walked back across the squad room to his desk. When, in Shapiro's judgment, Harry the Farter was sufficiently distracted, Shapiro got up and walked to the desk occupied by Detective Hemmings, who was typing out a report on an ancient manual typewriter. He laid a hand on his shoulder and motioned with his head for Hemmings to join him at the coffee machine.

  "Amay just called in," Shapiro said after Hemmings had followed him to the small alcove holding the coffee machine. "We've got another rape, it looks like, on Forbidden Drive by the Bell's Mill bridge over the Wissahickon."

  Hemmings, a trim man of thirty-five, just starting to bald, pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows.

  "Amay said that he could use some help protecting the crime scene," Shapiro said. "I just gave Harry a recovered stolen vehicle."

  Hemmings nodded his understanding, then walked across the room to a row of file cabinets near Shapiro's desk. He pulled one drawer open, reached inside, and came out with his revolver and ankle holster. He knelt and strapped the holster to his right ankle. Then he went to Shapiro's desk, opened the center drawer, and took out a key to one of the Northwest Detectives unmarked cars, then left the squad room.

  Shapiro, first noting with annoyance but not surprise that Harry the Farter was still fucking around with things on his desk and had not yet left, entered the Lieutenant's office, now occupied by the tour commander, Lieutenant Teddy Spanner.

  "Amay called in an attempted criminal rape, kidnapping, et cetera," Shapiro said. "It looks as if our scumbag is at it again. I gave it to Hemmings."

  "Where?" Spanner asked.

  "Forbidden Drive, by the bridge over the Wissahickon."

  "Who's next up on the Wheel?" Spanner said.

  "Edgar and Amay," Shapiro said.

  "What's Harry Peel doing?" Lieutenant Spanner asked.

  "I just sent him on a recovered stolen vehicle," Shapiro said.

  Spanner met Shapiro's eyes for a moment.

  "Well, send Edgar if he's next up on the Wheel, over to help, and tell him to tell Amay to stay with it. Or, I will. I better go over there myself.''

  "Yes, sir," Mort Shapiro said, and walked back across the squad room to his desk, where he sat down and waited for the next job to come in.

  ***

  Officer Bill Dohner used neither his siren nor his flashing lights on the trip to the Chestnut Hill Hospital Emergency Room. For one thing, it wasn't far, and there wasn't much traffic. More importantly, he thought that the girl was upset enough as it was without adding the scream of a siren and flashing lights to her trauma.

  "You just stay where you are, miss," Dohner said. "I'll get somebody to help us."

  He got out of the car and walked quickly through the doors to the Emergency Room.

  There was a middle-aged, comfortable-looking nurse standing by the nurse's station.

  "I've got an assaulted woman outside," he said. "All she has on is a blanket."

  The nurse didn't even respond to him, but she immediately put down the clipboard she had been holding in her hands and walked quickly to a curtained cubicle, pushing the curtains aside and then pulling out a gurney. She started pushing it toward the doors. By the time she got there, she had a licensed practical nurse, an enormous red-haired woman, and a slight, almost delicate black man in a white physician's jacket at her heels.

  "Any injuries that you saw?" the doctor asked Dohner, who shook his head. "No."

  The LPN, moving with surprising speed for her bulk, was at the RPC before anyone else. She pulled the door open.

  "Can you get out of there without any help, honey?" she asked.

&
nbsp; Mary Elizabeth Flannery looked at her as if the woman had been speaking Turkish.

  The LPN leaned into the car and half pulled Mary Elizabeth Flannery from it, and then gently put her on the gurney. She spread a white sheet over her, and then, with a little difficulty, pulled Dohner's blanket from under the sheet.

  "You're going to be all right, now, dear," the LPN said.