The outreach was a self-appointed task, one he felt neither the mayor nor the police commissioner could do effectively because of their high profiles. And they both agreed with Coughlin; as first deputy police commissioner, he was the top cop who really had his hand in the everyday business of all the varied departments.
Coughlin considered it highly important that the city’s heavy hitters had a better understanding of what the department was doing-and what the men on the street were up against. If they did, he figured, then they would be more prone to defend and support the police department. And, failing that, at least not be of a limited mind-set to rush to judgment and damn the department for the slightest infraction.
Denny Coughlin quickly patted his suit coat at chest level, first one side then the other. He felt relief when he found that the half-dozen index cards bearing his notes for the evening discussion were still in the inside left pocket.
Coughlin then looked at Hollaran and said, “Frank, Jason Washington told me that that Texas Ranger is with Matty.”
“That’s right, Denny.”
“Put out the arm for them, would you, please? For one, I’d like to meet the man. Liz Justice spoke highly of him. For another, he might be able to contribute to tonight’s topic. Meantime, I’m going to visit the gentlemen’s facility before this thing gets started.”
Hollaran nodded, then stepped into the corridor. He pulled out his cell phone from his suit jacket’s inside pocket. But then he remembered that by the door was a chrome-plated four-foot-tall pole on a round chrome base that displayed a sign:
CELLULAR TELEPHONE CONVERSATIONS PROHIBITED!
Hollaran walked down the corridor and went to a bank of telephones. He picked up the receiver of one that had a small sign beside it that read LOCAL CALLS. He looked at his cell phone. He scrolled down its phone book list until he found PAYNE MATT HOME, then PAYNE MATT CELL. He punched a key to show the number, then he punched the number into the landline phone’s keypad.
“Matt,” Hollaran said when Payne answered. “Frank Hollaran. Commissioner Coughlin would like you and your guest to join us at the Union League. How soon can you get here?”
“We just left the ME’s office,” Payne said.
“Anything new?”
“Yeah. And it doesn’t look good. I think we can be there directly. ‘We’ being Jim Byrth and Tony Harris.”
Harris? Hollaran thought. He’s a damned good cop.
But he’d be out of his league here in, well, the League. Would that make him uncomfortable? “I have no problem with Tony, Matt. But would he be comfortable?”
“A helluva lot more comfortable than where we just were and witnessed.”
Hollaran heard a strange tone in Payne’s voice. Anger maybe? “Okay,” he said. “I leave the decision in your capable hands, Sergeant. See you shortly.”
Forty-five minutes earlier, Philadelphia Homicide Detective Tony Harris and Philadelphia Homicide Sergeant Matt Payne and Texas Rangers Sergeant Jim Byrth had walked out of Liberties feeling no pain. The questions had arisen as to where they were going to have dinner and where Byrth was going to rent a room for the duration of his stay in the City of Brotherly Love.
Payne had said, “I’d offer you the guest room in my apartment-”
“Thanks, but no way could I accept your offer,” Byrth had interrupted.
“And you’re exactly correct,” Payne had replied. “Because I’m not.”
Byrth turned to him with a look that said, Then why the hell did you offer it?
Tony Harris explained, “It’s because he doesn’t have one. His apartment is tiny.”
Payne’s stomach growled.
“Excuse me. Obviously, I am in need of sustenance,” he said. Then he added, “Jim, that was what’s known as a hypothetical statement. Because if I did have one, it’d be all yours. That’s where I was going with that train of thought.”
Byrth smiled, then shook his head. The Hat on top accentuated the motion.
Harris added, “You’re welcome to stay at my house. I do have a guest room.”
“Thank you, Tony. But, really, I couldn’t impose. Besides, I’m not spending my money.”
Then Harris’s phone had started ringing. That reminded Payne he’d turned his off, and he pushed the 0/1 button till his screen lit up. He cleared out the MISSED CALLS list-all from Chad Nesbitt, who within a twenty-minute period had called a dozen times, then had gotten the message and given up.
I told you, ol’ buddy, I’ll deal with that later.
Harris answered his phone.
After a moment, he said, “Okay, thanks.” And ended the call.
“Dr. Mitchell’s finishing up with the girl they fished out of the river,” Harris said. “I asked him to call me when he did. I wanted to swing by. You guys don’t need to go.”
“Am I allowed to ask, ‘Who’s Dr. Mitchell’?”
Payne said, “Sure. Feel free to ask anything. He’s the medical examiner.”
“As strange as it might sound, I’d like to go,” Byrth said. “You always learn something. Even if it’s only a little thing that triggers a thought later.”
“The Black Buddha calls that ‘Looking under the rock under the rock,’ ” Payne said. “I’m in, too, Tony. I figure I’ve got enough liquid encouragement in me to get through it.”
“Won’t take but a moment,” Harris said.
Harris had been wrong. It had taken longer than he had thought. They’d had more to discuss than just the young Hispanic woman.
The Medical Examiner’s Office, just across the Schuylkill River, was next door to the University of Pennsylvania and, somewhat appropriately, just up University Avenue from Woodlands Cemetery.
The medical examiner’s job was to investigate all “non-natural and unattended natural deaths.”
The Medical Examiner’s Office was open round-the-clock. In a city like Philly, that was an absolute necessity. Its investigators handled some six thousand cases each year-which averaged out to be a staggering sixteen a day. They worked long hours to determine what caused a person’s violent or suspicious death, particularly all homicides and suicides and any deaths that were drug-related.
And they were good at it. They more or less quickly determined the manner of death in about half of the cases; the remainder required an autopsy. The ME’s office then wrote up a report of the autopsy for use in the criminal justice system, and the ME himself often appeared in court and provided expert testimony.
Philadelphia Medical Examiner Howard H. Mitchell was board-certified in forensic pathology, and the balding, rumpled man could usually be found in a well-worn suit and tie. When Payne, Harris, and Byrth found him, however, he wore tan hospital scrubs and surgical gloves. The scrubs and gloves had more than a little blood on them.
Dr. Mitchell was in the room marked PORTMORTEM EXAMINATION. The autopsy room was brightly lit, almost harshly, and its temperature a chilly sixty degrees Fahrenheit. The walls and floor were covered with shiny ceramic tiling, gray ones on the floor and white ones on the walls. There were three stainless-steel operating tables, each with a four-inch-diameter stainless-steel drain in the tiled floor directly beneath them. Two of the stainless-steel operating tables were empty and gleaming.
Dr. Mitchell stood at the third table. He was neatly suturing up the flesh over the chest cavity of a brown-skinned female body without a head.