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"I'm very good, thank you for asking," Matt said. "Call your supervisor, Susan."
Armando C. Giacomo, Esq., had more than a little difficulty finding a place to park his Jaguar sedan in the parking lot shared by the 1st District and South Detectives. The three spots reserved for visitors outside the ancient, run-down building were occupied, which was not really surprising. But so were the two spots reserved for inspectors; and the two spots set aside for the two captains of the 1st District and South Detectives.
He finally figured to hell with it, and parked in an "Absolutely No Parking at Any Time" slot near the rear door of the old, shabby building. His car was subject to being towed away there, but he suspected that before his shiny new Jaguar was hauled off, inquiries would be made to establish its ownership, and he could then explain to whoever came asking, how hard he had looked for a place to park and how reluctant he was to leave it on the street, where some happy adolescent would write his initials in the shiny green lacquer with a key.
Most cops, he knew, bore him little ill will for defending individuals alleged to have a co
They arrested the bad guys. That was their job. What happened with the lawyers and the district attorneys and juries wasn't their concern.
There were even a few cops who really believed-as Ma
And just about every cop knew that if they were hauled before the bar of justice, lowercase J, on an excessive-brutality rap or the like, they could expect to hear, "Armando C. Giacomo for the defense, your honor," when they stood up to face the judge.
Just before he pushed open the door to the building, Ma
Mr. Michael J. O'Hara of the Bulletin is obviously up and about practicing his profession, Giacomo thought, and wondered if he could somehow put the power of the press to work defending the officers he had come to protect from the unjustified accusations of the police establishment.
Just inside the door, Lieutenant Daniel Justice of South Detectives, who had probably been waiting for him, stuck out his hand.
"Good morning, Counselor."
"Da
Da
"I thought you were working Last Out," Giacomo said.
"You know what they say, 'no rest for the virtuous,' " Da
"Before I talk to the unjustly accused police officers, you mean?"
"Now, is what I mean," Da
Da
De
"Mr. Giacomo, Chief," Da
"Declare it abandoned, have it hauled to the Academy, and tell them I said they should use it for target practice," Coughlin replied. "Good morning, Counselor."
"You heard him, Mickey," Giacomo said. "Blatantly and shamelessly threatening the desecration of a work of art."
O'Hara got up from behind the desk and walked toward the door.
"Somehow, I get the feeling that De
Da
"There's coffee, Ma
Giacomo walked to it and helped himself.
"Being a suspicious character," he said as he looked with distaste at a bowl full of packets of nondairy creamer and decided he was not going to put that terrifying collection of chemicals into his coffee, "I suspect that there may be more here than meets the eye. Or, more specifically, what I was led to believe by the vice president of the
FOP."
"What did he lead you to believe?" Coughlin asked.
"For one thing," Giacomo said, taking a sip from his coffee mug-which bore the insignia of the Emerald Society, the association of police officers of Irish extraction-and deciding the coffee was going to be just as bad as he was afraid it would be, "the last I heard, Chief Inspector Coughlin was not ru
"What did they tell you at the FOP?" Coughlin repeated.
"That several all-around scumbags engaged in the controlled-substances distribution industry had made several outrageous allegations against a number of pure-as -freshly-fallen-snow police officers."
"Well, they got the 'scumbags' part right, at least," Coughlin said.
"I am now prepared to listen to-if you are inclined to tell me-the opposing view."
He sat down at the district captain's desk and looked at Coughlin.
"Off the record, if you'd rather, De
"Thank you for off-the-record, Ma
"The entire Five Squad? That's interesting. And so is 'misprision.' And what inference, if any, should I draw from 'right now'?"
"One of the charges that may be placed against one of these officers is rape," Coughlin said.
" 'May be placed'? Was there a rape? Can you prove it?"
"There was a rape. An oral rape. We have a witness to the rape."
" 'May be placed'? I don't understand that."
"I understand, Ma
"What we're talking about here, De
"Shortly after Dr. Payne took Cynthia Longwood under her care," Coughlin went on, "a message was left for her at University Hospital-"
"I'm really disappointed in Dr. Payne. And/or Brewster Payne. If what you say is true, then either Payne told his son-which is the same thing as telling the police-or Dr. Payne clearly violated patient-physician-"
"Let me finish, Ma
"I'm about to say, Chief Coughlin, that we are back on the record."
"Give me another ninety seconds on that, Ma
Giacomo considered that.
"Ninety seconds, no. We're still off the record. We go back on at my option."
"Thank you," Coughlin said.
Coughlin reached in his pocket and took out a sheet of paper and read from it, slowly:
" 'Miss Cynthia Longwood was stripped naked and orally raped, by a policeman under circumstances that were themselves traumatic.' "
"Jesus!" Ma
"Dr. Payne believes that having suffered a traumatic experience like that is consistent with Miss Longwood's condition, which is, in Dr. Payne's opinion, very close to serious schizophrenia. I'm not too good with medical terms, Ma