AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When Sergeant Hobbs and Officer McFadden got to the Roundhouse, and McFadden started to open the passenger-side door, Hobbs touched his arm.
“Wait a minute,” he said. He then got out of the car, walked to the passenger side, motioned for McFadden to get out, and when he had, put his hand on his arm, and then marched him into the building. It looked for all the world as if McFadden was in custody and being led into the Roundhouse, which is exactly what Hobbs had in mind.
The Roundhouse is a public building, but it is not open to the public to the degree, for example, that City Hall is. It is the nerve center of the police department, and while there are always a number of ordinary, decent, law-abiding citizens in the building, the overwhelming majority of private citizens in the Roundhouse are there as nonvoluntary guests of the police, or are relatives and friends of the nonvoluntary guests who have come to see what can be done about getting them out, either by posting bail, or in some other way.
There are almost always a number of people in this latter category standing just outside, or just inside, the door leading into the Roundhouse from the parking lot out back. Immediately inside the door is a small foyer. To the right a corridor leads to an area from which the friends and relatives of those arrested can watch preliminary arraignments before a magistrate, who either sets bail or orders the accused confined until trial.
To the left is a door leading to the main lobby of the building, which is not open to the general public. It is operated by a solenoid controlled by a police officer who sits behind a shatterproof plastic window directly across the corridor from the door to the parking lot.
Hobbs didn’t want anyone with whom McFadden might now, or eventually, have a professional relationship to remember later having seen the large young man with the forehead band walking into the place and being passed without question, as if he was cop, into the main lobby.
Still holding on to Officer McFadden’s arm, Hobbs flashed his badge at the corporal on duty behind the window, who took a good look at it, and then pushed the button operating the solenoid. The door lock buzzed as Hobbs reached it. He pushed it open, and went through it, and marched McFadden to the elevator doors.
There was a sign on the gray steel first-floor door reading CRIMINAL RECORDS, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Hobbs pushed it open, and eventually the door opened. A corporal looked at Officer McFadden very dubiously.
“This is McFadden, Narcotics,” Hobbs said. The room held half a dozen enormous gray rotary files, each twelve feet long. Electric motors rotated rows of files, thousands of them, each containing the arrest and criminal records of one individual who had at one time come to the official attention of the police. The files were tended by civilian employees, mostly women, under the supervision of sworn officers.
Hobbs saw the sergeant on duty, Salvatore V. DeConti, a short, balding, plump, very natty man in his middle thirties, in a crisply starched shirt and perfectly creased uniform trousers, sitting at his desk. He saw that DeConti was unable to keep from examining, and finding wanting, the fat bearded large young man he had brought with him into records.
Amused, Hobbs walked McFadden over to him and introduced him: “Sergeant DeConti, this is Officer McFadden. He’s identified the woman who shot Captain Moffitt.”
It was an effort, but DeConti managed it, to offer his hand to the fat, bearded young man with the leather band around his forehead.
“How are you?” he said, then freed his hand, and called to the corporal. When he came over, he said, “Officer McFadden’s got a name on the girl Captain Moffitt shot.”
“I guess the fingerprint guy from Identification ought to be back from the medical examiner’s about now with her prints,” the corporal said. “What’s the name?”
“Schmeltzer, Dorothy Ann,” McFadden said. “And I got a name, Sergeant, for the guy who got away from the diner.” He gestured with his hand, a circular movement near his head, indicating that he didn’t actually have a name, for sure, but that he knew there was one floating around somewhere in his head. That he was, in other words, working intuitively.
“Florian will help you, if he can,” Sergeant DeConti said.
“Gallagher, Grady, something Irish,” McFadden said. “There’s only three or four thousand Gallaghers in there, I’m sure,” Corporal Florian said. “But we can look.”
“Help yourself to some coffee, Sergeant,” DeConti said. Then, “Damned shame about Dutch.”
“A rotten shame,” Hobbs agreed. “Three kids.” Then he looked at DeConti. “I’m sure McFadden is right,” he said. “Lieutenant Pekach said he’s smart, a good cop. Even if he doesn’t look much like one.”
“I’m just glad I never got an assignment like that,” DeConti said. “Some of it has to rub off. The scum he has to be with, I mean.”
Hobbs had the unkind thought that Sergeant DeConti would never be asked to undertake an undercover assignment unless it became necessary to infiltrate a group of hotel desk clerks, or maybe the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. If you put a white collar on DeConti, Hobbs thought, he could easily pass for a priest.
Across the room, McFadden, a look of satisfaction on his face, was writing on a yellow, lined pad. He ripped off a sheet and handed it to Corporal Florian. Then he walked across the room to Hobbs and DeConti.
“Gerald Vincent Gallagher,” he announced. “I remembered the moment I saw her sheet. He got ripped off about six months ago by some Afro-American gentlemen, near the East Park Reservoir in Fairmount Park. They really did a job on him. She came to see him in the hospital.”
“Good man, McFadden,” DeConti said. “Florian’s getting his record?”
“Yes, sir. Her family lives in Holmesburg,” McFadden went on. “I went looking for her there one time. Her father runs a grocery store around Lincoln High School. Nice people.”
“This ought to brighten their day,” Hobbs said.
Corporal Florian walked over with a card, and handed it, a little uneasily, to McFadden. DeConti and Hobbs leaned over to get a look.
“That’s him. He’s just out on parole, too,” McFadden said.
“He fits the description,” Hobbs said, and then went on: “If you were Gerald Vincent Gallagher, McFadden, where do you think you would be right now?”
