Final justice - W.E.B. Griffin [11]
"The camera zeroed in on the light in the doorway," Washington said. "Pity."
"Its twelve hundred dots to the inch. Maybe the lab'll be able to salvage more than I could," Mickey said.
"Detective Fenson," Washington said. "Didn't you think, considering Mr. O'Hara's reputation as one of the more skilled photographers of the dark side of our fair city, that it behooved you to get this photograph to the lab as quickly as possible?"
"That's a pretty bad picture, Lieutenant."
"But a picture nevertheless, Detective Fenson," the Black Buddha said softly. "I constantly try to make the point that no stone should ever be left unturned."
Fenson picked up the picture and walked out of the room.
"I am grateful for the photograph, Mickey," Washington said. "Even if others may not be. I have a feeling that this case isn't going to be as easy to close as everyone else seems to feel it will be."
"Why's that?"
"Intuition," Washington said. "Nothing concrete."
"Your intuition is . . . what? Legendary?"
"That has been said," Washington said, smiling, then added, "I just have the feeling, Mick. I really hope I'm wrong."
"I got a couple of shots of the bodies, too," O'Hara said, and handed him the manila envelope.
Washington looked at them, then raised his eyes to O'Hara.
"I presume that these will shortly appear in the Bulletin?"
"I cleaned them up some," O'Hara said. "But yeah, they will."
Washington took O'Hara's meaning.
"Thank you, Mickey."
O'Hara gave a deprecating shrug.
"Buy you a cup of decent coffee, Jason?"
"Cafe Royal? In the Four Seasons?"
"Why not? The Bulletin's paying."
"Then I accept your kind offer," Washington said.
TWO
[ONE]
Office of the Deputy Commissioner (Patrol)
Police Administration Building
Eighth & Race Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Thursday, 7:45 A.M.
When Deputy Commissioner (Patrol) Dennis V. Coughlin, a tall, heavyset, ruddy-faced man who still had all of his curly silver hair and teeth at age fifty-nine, walked into his office on the third floor of the Police Administration Building, he saw that there were three documents on his desk demanding his immediate attention.
They were in the center of his leather-bound desk blotter, held in place by a heavy china coffee mug bearing the logotype of the Emerald Society, a fraternal organization of police officers of Irish heritage.
Denny Coughlin had joined "The Emerald" thirty-seven years before, right after graduation from the Police Academy and coming on the job, and had twice served as its president.
Coughlin peeled off the double-breasted jacket of his well-tailored dark blue suit as he walked toward his closet, exposing a Smith & Wesson snub-nosed .38 Special revolver worn, butt forward, on his right side.
Except for those rare times over the years when he wore a uniform, Denny Coughlin had slipped that same pistol's holster onto his belt every morning for thirty-three years, since the day he had reported on the job as a rookie detective.
He hung his jacket carefully on a hanger in his closet, closed the door, and turned to his desk.
Captain Francis Xavier Hollaran, an equally large Irishman who at forty-nine still had all of his teeth but not very much left from what had once been a luxurious mop of red hair, entered the room carrying a stainless-steel thermos of coffee.
"I went by Homicide," he greeted the commissioner. "Nothing that's not in there."
Hollaran indicated with a nod of his head the documents on the green blotter on Coughlin's desk.
"It's only nine hours," Coughlin replied. "They'll get something soon." He paused, then added, "Jesus Christ, won't they ever learn?"
"Wolf, wolf, boss," Frank Hollaran said. "You answer so many calls like that that are false alarms, you get careless."
"And dead," Coughlin said, more than a little bitterly.
Two of the documents on the green blotter under the Emerald Society mug detailed the events surrounding the death on duty of Officer Kenneth J. Charlton of the First District. (In Philadelphia, "districts" are what are called "precincts" in many other