Final justice - W.E.B. Griffin [13]
After he was notified of such an incident, Hollaran would wait a minute or two--often using the time to put on his clothing and slip his Smith & Wesson snub-nose into its holster--and then call Coughlin's private and unlisted number to learn from Coughlin whether he wanted to be picked up, or whether he would go to the scene himself, or whether there was something else Coughlin wanted him to do.
The procedure went back many years, to when Captain Denny Coughlin had been given command of the Homicide Bureau and Homicide detective Frank Hollaran had become-- without either of them planning it--Coughlin's right-hand man.
As Coughlin had risen through the hierarchy, Hollaran had risen with him, with time out for service as a uniform sergeant in the Fifth District, as a lieutenant with Northeast Detectives, and as district commander of the Ninth District.
Last night, when Hollaran had called Coughlin, Coughlin had said, "You better pick me up, Frank. It's going to be a long night."
It had turned out to be a long night. The commissioner himself, Ralph J. Mariani, had shown up at the Roy Rogers minutes after Coughlin and Hollaran. He had immediately put Hollaran to work organizing the notification party. The mayor, who was out of town, was not available, so Mariani would be the bearer of the bad news.
When finally the party was assembled, it consisted of Mariani, Coughlin, the police department chaplain, the pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church attended by the Charlton family, the First District captain, and Officer Charlton's lieutenant and sergeant.
Captain Leif Schmidt, the First District commander, telephoned Mrs. Charlton and told her that he had had a report her husband had been injured and taken to Methodist Hospital, and that he had dispatched a car to pick her up and take her there.
Sergeant Stanley Davis, Officer Charlton's sergeant, accompanied by police officer Marianna Calley, went to the Charlton home and suggested to Mrs. Charlton that it might be a good idea if Officer Calley, who knew the kids, stayed with them while she went to the hospital.
The notification protocol had evolved through painful experience over the years. It was better to tell the wife at the hospital that she was now a widow, rather than at her home. There were several reasons, high among them being that it kept the goddamn ghouls from the TV stations from shoving a camera in the widow's face to demand to know how she felt about her husband getting killed.
It also allowed the notification party to form at the hospital before the widow got there. The mayor would normally be there, and the police commissioner, and other senior white shirts, and it was better for them to hurry to a known location than descend one at a time at the officer's home, which sometimes might not have space for them all, and would almost certainly be surrounded by the goddamn ghouls of the Fourth Estate, all of whom had police scanner radios, and would know where to go.
Telling the widow at the hospital hadn't made the notification any easier, but it was the best way anyone could think of to do it.
The third document on Deputy Commissioner Coughlin's desk, which had been delivered to his office shortly before five the previous afternoon--just after Coughlin had left for the day--was in a sealed eight-by-ten manila envelope, bearing the return address "Deputy Commissioner (Personnel) " and addressed "Personal Attention Comm. Coughlin ONLY."
Coughlin tried and failed to get his fingernail under the flap, and finally took a small penknife from his desk drawer and slit it open.
It contained a quarter-inch-thick sheaf of stapled-together paper. Coughlin glanced at the first page quickly and then handed it to Hollaran.
"I think this is what they call a dichotomy," Coughlin said. "The good news is also the bad news."
Hollaran took the sheaf of xerox paper and