Badge Of Honor: Men In Blue Part 40

Patrol cars from the Seventh District were on hand to block intersections between Marshutz & Sons and Saint Dominic's Roman Catholic Church.

When Dutch Moffitt's flag-draped casket had been rolled into the hea.r.s.e, Dennis Coughlin and Peter Wohl walked forward to Coughlin's Oldsmobile. The Highway Patrol motorcycle men kicked their machines into life and turned on the flas.h.i.+ng lights. Then, very slowly, the small convoy pulled away from the funeral home.

The officers from the Seventh District cars saluted as the hea.r.s.e rolled past them.

"Tom, have you got the Ledger up there with you?" Denny Coughlin asked, from the backseat of the Oldsmobile.

"Yes, sir. And the Bulletin. "

"Pa.s.s them back to Inspector Wohl, would you please, Tom? He hasn't seen them."

When Sergeant Lenihan held the papers up, Wohl leaned forward and took them.

"You never saw any of that before, Peter?" Coughlin asked, when Wohl had read Mickey O'Hara's story in the Bulletin and the editorial in the Ledger.

"No, sir," Peter said. "Is there anything to it? Did Gallagher get pushed in front of the train?"

"No, and there are witnesses who saw the whole thing," Coughlin said. "Unfortunately, they are one cop-Martinez, McFadden's partner-and the engineer of the elevated train. Both of whom could be expected to lie to protect a cop."

"Then what the h.e.l.l is the Ledger printing c.r.a.p like that for?"

"Commissioner Czernick believes it is because Staff Inspector Peter Wohl first had diarrhea of the mouth-that's a direct quote, Peter-when speaking with Mr. Michael J. O'Hara-"

"I haven't spoken to Mickey O'Hara-"

"Let me finish, Peter," Coughlin interrupted. "First you had diarrhea of the mouth with Mr. O'Hara, and then you compounded your-another direct quote-incredible stupidity-by antagonizing Arthur J. Nelson, when you were under orders to charm him. Anything to that?"

"Once again, I haven't seen Mickey O'Hara, or talked to him, in ten days, maybe more."

"But maybe you did p.i.s.s off Arthur J. Nelson?"

"I called him late last night to tell him the Jaguar had been found. He asked me where, and I told him- truthfully-that I didn't know. He was a little sore about that, but I don't think antagonize is the word."

"You didn't-and for G.o.d's sake tell me if you did- make any cracks about h.o.m.os.e.xuality, 'your son the f.a.g,' something like that?"

"Sir, I don't deserve that," Peter said.

"That's how it looks to the commissioner, Peter," Coughlin said. "And to the mayor, which is worse. He's going to run again, of course, and when he does, he wants the Ledger to support him."

Peter looked out the window. They were still some distance from Saint Dominic's but the street was lined with parked police cars.

Dutch, Peter thought, is going to be buried in style.

"Chief," Peter said, "all I can do is repeat what I said. I haven't seen, or spoken to, Mickey O'Hara for more than a week. And I didn't say anything to Arthur Nelson that I shouldn't have."

Coughlin grunted.

"For Christ's sake, I even kept my mouth shut when he tried to tell me his son was Louise's boyfriend."

" 'Louise's boyfriend'?" Coughlin parroted. "When did you get on a first-name basis with her?"

Peter turned and met Coughlin's eyes.

"We've become friends, Chief," he said. "Maybe a little more."

"You didn't say anything to her about the Nelson boy being queer, did you? Could that have got back to Nelson?"

"She knew about him," Peter said. "I met him in her apartment."

"When was that?"

"When I went there to bring her to the Roundhouse," Peter said. "The day Dutch was killed."

Out the side window, Peter saw that the lines of police cars were now double-parked. When he looked through the winds.h.i.+eld, he could see they were approaching Saint Dominic's. There was a lot of activity there, although the funeral ma.s.s wouldn't start for nearly an hour.

"All I know, Peter," Coughlin said, "is that right now, you're in the deep s.h.i.+t. You may be-and I think you are- lily white, but the problem is going to be to convince Czernick and the mayor. Right now, you're at the top of their s.h.i.+t list."

The small convoy drove past the church, and then into the church cemetery, and through the cemetery back to the church, finally stopping beside a side door. The pallbearers got out of the limousine and went to the hea.r.s.e. Coughlin and Wohl joined them, and took Dutch Moffitt's casket from the hea.r.s.e and carried it through the side door into the church. Under the direction of the man from Marshutz & Sons, they set it up in the aisle.

The ornate, Victorian-style church already held a number of people. Peter saw Jeannie Moffitt and Dutch's kids and Dutch's mother, and three rows behind them his own mother and father. Ushers-policemen-were escorting more people down the aisles.

"About-face," Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin ordered softly, and the pallbearers standing beside the casket turned around. "For-ward, march," Coughlin said, and they marched back toward the altar, and then turned left, leaving Saint Dominic's as they had entered it. They would reenter the church as the ma.s.s started, as part of the processional, and take places in the first row of pews on the left.

The nave of the church was full of flowers.

Peter wondered how much they had all cost, and whether there wasn't something really sinful in all that money being spent on flowers.

Newt Gladstone pulled the Payne Cadillac to the curb in front of Saint Dominic's. A young police officer with a mourning band crossing his badge opened the door, and Brewster, Patricia, and Foster Payne got out of the backseat as Amy and Matt got out of the front.

The young policeman leaned in the open front door. "Take the first right," he ordered Newt. "Someone there will a.s.sign you a place in the procession."

Patricia Payne took Matt's arm and they walked up the short walk to the church door. Both sides of the flagstone walk were lined with policemen.

A lieutenant standing near the door with a clipboard in his hands approached them.

"May I have your invitations, please?" he asked.

"We don't have any invitations," Matt said.

"Our name is Payne," Patricia said. "This is my son, Matthew. He is Captain Moffitt's nephew."

"Yes, ma'am," the lieutenant said. "Family."

He flipped sheets of paper on his clipboard, and ran his fingers down a list of typewritten names. His face grew troubled.

"Ma'am," he said, uncomfortably, "I've only got one Payne on my list."

"Then your list is wrong," Matt said, bluntly.

"Let me see," Patricia said, and looked at the clipboard. Her name was not on the list headed "FAMILY- Pews 2 through 6, Right Side." Nor were Brewster's, or Foster's, or B.C.'s, or Amy's. Just Matt's.

"Well, no problem," Patricia said. "Matt, you go sit with your Aunt Jean and your grandmother, and we'll sit somewhere else."

"You're as much family as I am," Matt said.

"No, Matt, not really," Patricia Payne said.

"Is there some problem?" Brewster Payne asked, as he stepped closer.

"No," Patricia said. "They just have Matt sitting with the Moffitts. We'll sit somewhere else."

The lieutenant looked even more uncomfortable.

"Ma'am, I'm afraid that all the seats are reserved."

"What does that mean?" Patricia asked, calmly.

"Ma'am, they're reserved for people with invitations," he said.

"Mother," Amy said. "Let's just go!"

"Perhaps that would be best, Pat," Brewster Payne said.

"Be quiet, the both of you," Patricia snapped. "Lieutenant, is Chief Inspector Coughlin around here somewhere?"

"Yes, ma'am," the lieutenant said. "He's a pallbearer. I'm sure he's here somewhere."

"Get him," Patricia said, flatly.

"Ma'am?"

"I said, go get him, tell him I'm here and I want to see him," Patricia said, her voice raised just a little.

"Pat . . ." Brewster said.

"Brewster, shut up!" Patricia said. "Do what I say, Lieutenant. Matt, I told you to go inside and sit with your Aunt Jean."

"Do what she says, Matt," Brewster Payne ordered.

Matt looked at him, then shrugged, and went inside.

"Would you please stand to the side?" the lieutenant said. "I'm afraid we're holding things up."

"This is humiliating," Amy said, softly.

The lieutenant caught the eye of a sergeant, and motioned him over.

"See if you can find Chief Coughlin," the lieutenant ordered. "Tell him that a Mrs. Payne wants to see him, here."

Four other mourners filed into Saint Dominic's after giving their invitations to the lieutenant.

Then two stout, gray-haired women, dressed completely in black, with black lace shawls over their heads, walked slowly up the flagstones, accompanied by an expensively dressed muscular young man with long, elaborately combed hair.

"May I have your invitations, please?" the lieutenant asked politely.

"No invitations," the muscular young man said. "Friends of the family. This is Mrs. Turpino, and this is Mrs. Savarese."

The lieutenant now took a good look at the expensively dressed young man.

"And you're Angelo Turpino, right?"

"That's right, Lieutenant," Turpino said. "I saw Captain Moffitt just minutes before this terrible thing happened, and I've come to pay my last respects."

The lieutenant, with an almost visible effort to keep control of himself, went through the sheets on his clipboard.

"You're on here," he said. "Won't you please go inside? Tell the usher 'friends of the family.' "

"Thank you very much," Angelo Turpino said. He took the women's arms. "Come on, Mama," he said. He led them into Saint Dominic's.

The sergeant whom the lieutenant had sent after Chief Inspector Coughlin came back. "He'll be right here, Lieutenant," he said. "He's on the phone."

The lieutenant nodded.

"Was that who I thought it was just going in?" the sergeant asked.

"That was Angelo Turpino," the lieutenant said. "And his mother. And a Mrs. Savarese. 'Friends of the family.' "

"Probably Vincenzo's wife," the sergeant said. "They was on the list?"

"Yes, they were," the lieutenant said.

"I'll be d.a.m.ned," the sergeant said.

"Mother," Amy Payne, who had heard all this, and who was fully aware that Vincenzo Savarese was almost universally recognized to be the head of the mob in Philadelphia, exploded, "I refuse to stand here and see you humiliated like this ..."

Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin came around the corner of the church. He kissed Patricia as he offered his hand to Brewster Payne.

"What can I do for you, darling?" he asked.

"You can get us into the church," Patricia Payne said. "I am not on the family list, nor do we have invitations."

"My G.o.d!" Coughlin said, and turned to the lieutenant, who handed him his clipboard.

"You keep that," Coughlin said. "And you personally usher the Paynes inside and seat them wherever they want to sit."