county courthouse with my car?” Young asked. “And catch a ride back with you?”
“Great,” Larkin said. He turned to Meador of ATF. “Meador, look into your crystal ball and tell me what he used for detonators.”
“The explosive looks like C-4,” Meador said. “Somebody with access to C-4 would probably have access to military detonators. I’ll know for sure when I’m finished in the laboratory.”
“Depressing thought,” Larkin said.
“Sir?”
“Somebody with access to C-4 and military detonators who blew up those lockers the way he did knows how to use that stuff, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yeah,” Meador said.
“Well, at least it gives us a lead or two,” Larkin said. “Which is a lead or two more than we had when I woke up this morning.”
He put his hand out to H. Howard Samm.
“Your team really did a fine job, Samm. I think my boss would like to write a letter of commendation.”
“Why,” Samm said. “That would be very nice, but unnecessary. ”
“Nonsense. A commendation is in order,” Larkin said, and then touched Matt’s shoulder. “Let’s go home, Matthew.”
A moment after they turned off the dirt road onto the highway, Larkin said, “You noticed, Frank, how Mr. Samm was so anxious to make sure that his guy who found that place got the credit?”
“I noticed. His name wasn’t mentioned.”
“His names is Glynes,” Larkin said. "C. V. Glynes.”
“And he gets the commendation?”
“They both do. And Meador too. But on his, Samm gets his name misspelled,” Larkin said.
Young laughed, and Larkin joined in.
“I don’t know why we’re laughing,” Young said. “Now we know we have a lunatic on our hands who knows what he’s doing with high explosives, and presumably has more in his kitchen closet.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Inspector Peter F. Wohl, of the Philadelphia Police Department, who had, ten minutes before, been Staff Inspector Wohl, came out of Commissioner Czernich’s office in the company of Chief Inspector (retired) and Mrs. Augustus Wohl.
They are happy about this, Peter Wohl thought, but they are in the minority. Czernich, despite the warm smile and the hearty handshake, didn’t like it at all. And a lot of other people aren’t going to like it either, when they hear about it.
Part of this, he felt, was because before he had become a staff inspector, he had been the youngest captain in the Department. And there was the matter of the anomaly in the rank structure of the Philadelphia Police Department: Captains are immediately subordinate to staff inspectors, who are immediately subordinate to Inspectors. The insignia of the ranks parallels that of the Army and Marine Corps. Captains wear two gold bars, “railroad tracks”; staff inspectors wear gold oak leaves, corresponding to military majors; and inspectors wear, like military lieutenant colonels, silver oak leaves.
There were only sixteen staff inspectors in the Department, all of them (with the sole exception of Wohl, Peter F.) assigned to the Staff Inspection Office of the Internal Affairs Division. There they handled “sensitive” investigations, which translated to mean they were a group of really first-rate investigators who went after criminals who were also high governmental officials, elected, appointed, or civil service.
Being a staff inspector is considered both prestigious and a good, interesting job. Many staff inspectors consider it the apex of their police careers.
Consequently, the promotion path from captain to inspector for most officers usually skips staff inspector. A lieutenant is promoted to captain, and spends the next five or six or even ten years commanding a District, or in a special unit, and/or working somewhere in administration until finally he ranks high enough on an inspector ’s examination—given every two years—to be promoted off it.
Peter Wohl, who everyone was willing to admit was one of the better staff inspectors, had been transferred out of Internal Affairs to command of the newly formed Special Operations Division. Officially, this was a decision of Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernich. Anyone who had been on the job more than six months suspected, correctly, that Wohl’s transfer had been made at the “suggestion” of Mayor Jerry Carlucci, whose suggestions carried about as much weight with Czernich as a Papal pronouncement, ex cathedra.
Anyone who had been on the job six months also was aware that Wohl had friends in high places. Chief Inspector Augustus Wohl, retired, it was generally conceded, had been Mayor Carlucci’s rabbi as the mayor had climbed through the ranks of the Department. And Peter Wohl was close to Chief Inspectors Lowenstein and Coughlin. It was far easier, and much more satisfying for personal egos, to conclude that Wohl’s rapid rise in rank