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He went up the stairs to the Investigation Section, turned on the lights, worked the combination lock on “his” filing cabinet, took the tapes from the cabinet, seated himself at his desk, and turned on the dictating machine.
Staff Inspector Michael Weisbach looked around the Investigations Section office at the people he had summoned—in the case of Sergeant Jason Washington, politely asked—to participate.
Among them was the only man in uniform, Sergeant Elliot Sandow, a slight, sickly-looking former Traffic officer who had been struck on the job by a Strawbridge & Clothier delivery truck, spent four months in the hospital, and personally petitioned Mayor Carlucci to stay on the job rather than go out on disability.
He had proved to be an unusually skilled administrator, whom Weisbach had found working in Personnel and arranged to have transferred first to the Staff Inspection Unit, and then, when he had been named to command the Ethical Affairs Unit, to EAU. At the moment, Weisbach and Sandow were the EAU.
Also present were Detectives Anthony C. Harris, Jesus Martinez, Charles McFadden, Matthew M. Payne, and Officer Foster H. Lewis, Jr., a very black twenty-four-year-old who stood six feet three inches tall, weighed 230 pounds, and was known, perhaps inevitably, as “Tiny.”
Foster H. Lewis, Sr., a lieutenant in the 9th District, was very unhappy that his son was a police officer at all, and working plainclothes in the Investigations Section of Special Operations in particular. As a parent, he would have much preferred that his son had remained a medical student rather than join the police department. As a policeman, he would have much preferred that his son learn the police profession as he had, working his way up from walking a beat, rather than going almost directly from the Academy to a plainclothes Special Operations assignment that carried with it so much overtime that he was bringing home almost as much money as his father and was usually provided with an unmarked car.
Lieutenant Foster was truly ambivalent about his son having recently taken—just as soon as he was eligible—the examination for promotion to detective. If he passed it and was promoted, Lieutenant Foster knew that he would really be proud of his son—despite his genuine belief that his son hadn’t been on the job long enough to be a good beat patrolman, much less a detective.
“I’m sure,” Staff Inspector Weisbach began, “that everyone was as thrilled as I was to learn that this morning Commissioner Czernich, by classified communication, charged the Ethical Affairs Unit with investigating certain allegations of misbehavior in the Five Squad of the Narcotics Unit, and further directed Inspector Wohl to make available to EAU whatever Special Operations resources are needed, which includes the services of everybody in this room.”
“Shit,” Detective Harris said, but smiled.
“Thank you, Detective Harris,” Weisbach said, “for so succinctly summing up the feelings of so many of us.”
There were general chuckles.
“But we’re cops, gentlemen, all of us. And we do what we’re ordered to do, so let’s get on with it,” Weisbach said. “My first order—I don’t give many orders, so pay attention when I do—is that this is one job that nobody talks about. Not to your wives, not at the FOP bar, not to your buddies. Not to anyone. If there’s something dirty going on in Narcotics Five Squad, and they even suspect we’re looking close at them, they’ll just shut down whatever they’re doing and wait until the storm blows over. Which obviously means our job would be much harder. Everybody got that clear in their minds?”
He looked at Matt Payne so long that Matt nodded. And then he kept looking. Finally, Matt understood what was expected of him. He stood up and said, “Yes, sir.”
Weisbach looked at everybody but Sergeants Washington and Sandow in turn, and waited until each of them stood up and said, “Yes, sir.”
“For all practical purposes, Sergeants Washington and Sandow will not be taking a very active role in this,” Weisbach said. “Sergeant Sandow for the obvious reasons, he’ll be handling the paperwork, and Sergeant Washington because he really is a legend in his own time, and the first time he started asking questions, looking around Five Squad, they would wonder why. To only a slightly lesser degree—he is not nearly as visible as Sergeant Washington—this also applies to Detective Harris.
“This does not mean,” Weisbach went on, to be interrupted by a chorus of chuckles, and then went on, “that Sergeant Washington and Harris will not be involved in this—quite the opposite—just that they won’t be out ringing doorbells. The flow of reports will be through Washington to me, and I expect Washington to bring Harris in on everything. Okay?”
There was a chorus of “Yes, sirs,” and Washington nodded his understanding.
“Is there anybody here who doesn’t know how and where the interest in Five Squad began?” Weisbach asked. “I mean the accusations made to Sergeant Washington by Officer Kellog’s wife at the time of the murder? Hands, please.”
No hands went up.
“I’m not surprised. My wife says cops gossip more than women,” Weisbach went on. “Okay, let me bring everybody up-to-date on what’s happened since. If you’ve heard this before, bear with me.
“When these allegations first came up, I spoke with Captain Pekach. He was surprised to hear them. He felt, I suppose still feels, that if anything was going on in Narcotics, he would have heard about it, or at least had suspicions. Now, since Captain Pekach is both not naive, and an experienced police supervisor, what that means is—let’s go on the presumption that there are dirty cops in the Five Squad—that they’re smart and doing what they’re doing skillfully enough to keep a smart supervisor like Captain Pekach from even suspecting that something’s going on.”
He looked at Detective Jesus Martinez.
“Jesus, when you worked Narcotics, did you hear anything about the Five Squad? Suspect anything?”
Martinez shook his head, “no.”
“Charley?” Weisbach asked, looking at Detective McFadden.
“No, sir,” McFadden said. “Five Squad were the hotshots. They hung together. They didn’t even talk to the peasants.”
Weisbach nodded.
“More proof that they know how to keep their mouths shut,” Weisbach said. “I asked Captain Pekach to let his imagination run free, and come up with how Five Squad could illegally profit from the performance, or nonper formance, of their official duties.
“Captain Pekach said he doesn’t think Five Squad is taking payments from drug dealers or others to ignore their criminal activities. He made the point that the statistics—the number of ‘good’ arrests resulting in court convictions made by Five Squad—are extraordinary.
“That, he said—and I think he’s right—left one possibility: if there is something dirty going on, it’s taking place during raids and arrests. I looked into this idea, and found out that the number of times Five Squad conducted raids and arrests without support from other police units, the districts, Highway Patrol, and ACT teams is unusual.
