be told that Matt would be in Harrisburg attempting to uncover suspicious financial activity on the part of any member of the Narcotics Unit Five Squad, with special attention being paid to Officer Timothy J. Calhoun, who had relatives in Harrisburg and Camp Hill.
Only those with the need to know were to be made privy to the fact that Matt would also be “cooperating” with the FBI in their investigation of the Chenowith Group while he was in Harrisburg. Weisbach decided those with a need to know were those present, plus Sergeant Sandow.
The Intelligence Division of the Philadelphia Police Department was to be made privy to Matt’s role vis-à-vis the FBI, but not to the fact that he would be in Harrisburg investigating the Narcotics Five Squad. The Intelligence Division, to prevent any possible leaks that might come to the attention of the Five Squad, was to be told a second cover story. This one had Matt looking into possible connections between vice operations in Philadelphia and Harrisburg.
Chief Coughlin felt this second cover story would have a certain credibility, inasmuch as Lieutenant Seymour Meyer, who had commanded the Central District’s Vice Squad, had been relieved of his command and his badge and was presently awaiting trial on charges that he had sold his protection to the madam of a call girl ring.
His replacement—and the new commanding officer of the Central District (Inspector Gregory F. Sawyer, Jr., the former commander, had been relieved of his command at the time of Meyer’s arrest)—would be told that the Special Operations investigation of Center City prostitution had not been completed, and that Detective Payne, specifically, was in Harrisburg working on it.
Chief Coughlin also felt, and Inspectors Wohl and Weisbach agreed, that because of the close working relationship between the Central District generally, and the Central District’s Vice Squad and the Narcotics Unit, the word would quickly reach the Five Squad that Special Operations had sent Detective Payne to Harrisburg hoping that he would there find the final nails to drive in Lieutenant Meyer’s coffin.
This second cover story was the one Mr. Walter Davis would be asked to have the chief of police in Harrisburg—who he said was both an old friend and owed him several favors—spread around the Harrisburg Police Department. The chief of police would be told in confidence that Detective Payne’s investigations involved the Chenowith Group, but not that he was looking into the financial affairs of certain members of the Five Squad.
This meant, Matt understood, that Chief Coughlin would prefer that neither the FBI nor the Harrisburg Police Department be aware what specific rotten apples Matt was looking for in the Philadelphia Police Department’s barrel.
The FBI Briefing on the Chenowith Group began at 9:45 in the Conference Room of the FBI’s Philadelphia office. Present were Chief Coughlin, Inspector Wohl, and Detectives Payne and Wilfred G. “Wee Willy” Malone, a six-foot-four-inch giant of a man who was assigned to the Philadelphia Police Department’s Intelligence Unit. The FBI was represented by SAC Walter Davis; ASAC (Administration) Glenn Williamson; ASAC (Criminal Affairs) Frank F. Young; and FBI Special Agents Raymond Leibowitz and Howard C. Jernigan of the Anti-Terrorist Group, and Special Agent John D. Matthews of the FBI’s Philadelphia office.
Everyone was seated in comfortable upholstered chairs around a long, glistening conference table. Before each participant had been laid out a lined pad, four sharpened pencils, a coffee mug, a water glass, and an ashtray. Two water thermos bottles, two coffee thermos bottles, and cream and sugar accessories were in the center of the table. On a shelf mounted on the wall were both a slide projector and a 16-millimeter motion picture projector. At the opposite end of the room was a lectern, complete to microphone, and, Matt supposed, controls to operate the lights and the slide and motion picture projectors. A roll-down beaded projection screen was mounted on the wall behind the lectern.
This caused Matt to think, first, This is a hell of a lot fancier than Czernich’s conference room in the Roundhouse, and next, Well, what the hell, they’re spending federal tax dollars, which no bureaucrat considers real money, so why not?
SAC Walter Davis stepped to the lectern, thanked everyone for coming, and turned the meeting over to ASAC Frank Young, a redheaded, pale-faced man in his forties on the edge between muscular and plump.
Young went to the lectern, thanked everyone for coming, and asked if everybody knew everybody else. Everyone did, except for Wee Willy Malone and Jack Matthews, and Detective Payne