# 8 - Chapter Eight "It Hurts to Say Goodbye"

Chapter Eight  “It Hurts to Say Goodbye”

Doug Boswell stood on Race Street and looked up at the massive concrete structure. This was it, the headquarters of the Philadelphia Police Department: The seat of power, The Roundhouse, not just one but two circular forms with bands of windows all around – like rings, just like jewelry.  

Boswell was filled with a rush of new confidence. One telephone call from a secretary with a sexy voice did it. He was summoned to report to Captain William Cedric McAllister, the head of the department’s Narcotics Tactical Unit. 

His star was rising; Boswell knew that. The bosses of the tactical unit were impressed by his last confidential memo;  he was sure. Now would come the congratulations from McAllister, known for his power within the department, maybe even ask him to join the unit. They needed him. 

Boswell stepped forward, and the two glass doors rolled open automatically. There was just the slightest bounce to his step as he approached the security desk and started to reach for his wallet in his back pocket. 

The officer behind the desk said, “Hey Doug, how ya doin’? No, man, here we don’t need your ID. You’re family. Just gimme your John Henry, and you’re good to go.” 

Boswell signed the register. He noticed his name and rank were already printed, along with his arrival time. He didn’t question the entry. He knew word gets around. 

He strode with confidence to the elevator bank. After the doors opened and he entered, he pushed the button for the fourth floor, the top floor. 

  The elevator rose, the doors opened, a short walk down an empty hallway, the number 400 on the door, and Boswell entered.

Fuckin’ A, what a babe! He thought, that’s her just like she came outta a TV show. 

Blonde, beautiful and classy beyond belief, the secretary said: “You can go right in, Lieutenant Boswell. Captain McAllister is waiting for you.”

Boswell hesitated for just an instant. The tall wooden door was bare. This is it, he told himself. He turned the knob and entered. 

Capt. McAllister was an imposing figure. He was seated behind an expansive L-shaped desk with neat stacks of documents, but it was evident he was physically big – tall, massive torso. He had a full head of gray hair carefully combed back, and each one of his features was big, especially his nose and chin, and he wore glasses with steel rims. And he was wearing his full-dress dark-blue uniform, captain bars on his shoulders, black tie, everything. 

As he was reading a document, without raising his eyes, he said, “Just a second, I’ll be with you. You can grab that seat.” 

Just a little bit, Boswell was surprised by the tone of McAllister’s invitation.

In a quick gesture, McAllister raised his eyes and stared directly at Boswell. 

“You gotta hurry it up and wrap up that Fairmount murder case. It’s taking too long. It’s a minor case, it’s not worth all this trouble. Just wrap it up.” McAllister fired the words like they came from a machine gun. 

“Captain, we’re following . . . ,”  Boswell began.

“Once you make it through that door, we don’t need that official shit.” 

“Sure, okay. Sorry,” Boswell began, just a bit uneasy. “I just wanna say, we’re making good progress, and we’re following the procedures, you know, like evidentiary and multiple confirmations.”

“That’s fine and good.” McAllister spoke in clipped bursts. “You let me worry about procedures. ‘Cause I got other things to worry about, too, like the number of arrests. We gotta perform.” 

Boswell was confused. “You know, sure, you know our case is murder. There might be some drug stuff that comes out of it, but it’s small stuff. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, sure, ya know? But if we make some drug arrests, it’ll just be a few, way down there.”

McAllister squinted, and his eyes turned ice cold. “Don’t you ever look for excuses, not with me. Ever hear of “Mister Peanut,” huh? Well, you start out with justa few, just a few nuts. Then before you know it, you got a whole can. Then, holy shit, you got a whole, big fuckin’ bag. So, what we got? Every little bit counts. You got it?” 

  “Absolutely, perfectly.” The words came fast. “Thank you.” 

McAllister wasn’t going to make any confessions to a know-nothing, a mere lieutenant, but he was not making his numbers. 

When he took command of the Narcotics Tactical Unit two years ago, he promised the mayor’s office more than four hundred drug arrests per year. Last year, the total had fallen to less than two hundred, and he was forced to consolidate cases into group dockets, so that he could stall and cite existing cases as new arrests.

“Okay, fine. Now I’m gonna help you. I been looking over your confidential memo,” McAllister said. “Lemme tell you what you gotta do. You just didn’t finish the job. You started it, but you didn’t bring anything home. Okay, you questioned a waitress. What’s her name?”

“Rebecca. She works at Gertie’s, sir.” 

McAllister threw out a reproving look. “Okay, her testimony implicates that Jew, that Siegel guy. And he’s the guy we wanna get. But you didn’t lock it up. You let her get away with a bunch of vague statements. We gotta say she testified she saw the victim leave with Siegel. You gotta nail it down.”

“Yes, but . . . ,” Boswell stopped himself.

“Look, I’m trying to help you. Just listen!” McAllister was impatient. “Did you run her name? I can tell you I know you didn’t. ‘Cause, let’s see, Rebecca Kahn. What about her? Well, you know what? She happens to be on parole. She pled to drug possession three-four years ago, maybe marijuana. 

“Now she can’t afford any trouble, you get my drift? Thank heaven! The weed laws are all fucked up! This is legal, oh yeah? No, not really. It’s kinda legal, but we still can arrest ‘em. I’m sure you can get her to cooperate a lot more. I’m just saying you gotta use everything we got.”

Boswell hesitated, but he forced the words out. “Yes, you’re absolutely right. Thank you, really.”

“That’s why I’m sitting on this side of the desk. I’m here to help you. That’s why I’m here. I’m sure you know what to do now.” McAllister waited a few seconds. 

Then he went on. “So, lemme ask you, you like your job? You like being a detective, an investigator? Lemme just tell you, I believe in performance. I want you to perform. But if you can’t, I’ll give your job to a third team. Hear me? You getting’ it?”

“Loud and clear. You’ll get what you need.” Boswell was careful to keep his voice even and not sound too enthusiastic. 

“Good, good, that’s just fine,” McAllister said. “Just remember, we need cops on the street, too. You get my drift, neighborhood policing, getting close to the people.”   

The captain wasn’t going to explain the facts. He didn’t like it. It was a fact of life. He was being forced to pull underperforming teams off their cases and assign more efficient teams, teams that weren’t bothered by the subtleties of overly precise evidence, informing defense attorneys and the excessive rights of defendants. 

  McAllister said, “Anything else you wanna tell me? My mind is open.”

“Okay, I’m just wondering what you thought of the lab results from the samples we got from the site. We’re thinking the blood samples show they’re from the victim, and that indicates her body was brought from another site, and . . .”

The captain cut him off. “Yeah, yeah, but that doesn’t get us any further along. Okay, she was killed at another site. But it’s still her blood. Now, if it was that Siegel’s blood, then we’d have something.”

“And the smell of urine at the Fairmount site? We brought in some soil samples,” Boswell said.

“Oldest trick in the world,” McAllister shot back. “Sulfur and ammonia, gets ‘em every time.” 

The captain decided he definitely wasn’t going to explain the facts of life to a weak detective. And it wasn’t exactly new. In Philadelphia, like across the country, illegal drugs were growing like a clogged toilet. And the smell was getting worse – more and more clever schemes to move drugs across our borders, smart drug cartels run by crooks with brown skin, and gifted scientists creating more and more products. 

Only thing was, McAllister thought, I got friends I gotta protect.

“And another thing,” he said. “What about the new one, the male victim. Your report said it was found at the same site, at Fairmount. What you got on that?”

Boswell had the answers. “Too early right now. We don’t have the autopsy report yet, and the crime lab’s still working on it, especially the knife. As soon as we get something, I’ll shoot over a report.”

“Just one more thing,” McAllister said. “I don’t want that stiff screwing up the case against that Siegel guy. That’s a separate case, got it? It doesn’t have any of the same elements. I don’t see it as related. 

“Oh, yeah, something else,” he leaned forward on his desk and spoke slowly. “The press, the media, these guys aren’t our friends. They’re our enemies. So, we gotta be sure. Your case, keep it outta the press, all the newspapers, the web, off the TV and radio too. I want it nowhere.”

Boswell spoke with conviction. “Of course, you got it.”

Boswell wanted to show McAllister how much he appreciated his help, but he knew he had to be careful. Overstep the bounds, act too subservient or inexperienced, who knows what would happen?

“I wanna just say you’ll get what we need. I got the message. Thanks. I’ll keep routing those confidential memos to you.” Then he waited. 

The captain was reading and didn’t bother to look up. Long seconds passed. Finally McAllister said, “Fine, you can go.” 

Boswell felt clumsy as he got up from his chair and left the office. He closed the door carefully, making sure it didn’t slam.

On his way out, the secretary smiled at him as he walked past her desk. He couldn’t make up his mind what message she was trying to give him; she pursed her red lips and said, “See you next time.” 

Boswell said nothing and felt relieved when he made it to the empty hallway. He avoided major embarrassment; he was getting a woodie.

He took his time as he walked to the elevator, and it started to dawn on him: he had a problem, and the problem was women. Like, when McAllister’s secretary smiled at him, his mind was stuck on her, and he wasn’t thinking clearly.  And it was the same thing with the waitress Rebecca; he was looking at her tits, and his questioning was far from professional. Sure, he got a call in the middle of it, but still . . .

The elevator’s light flashed on and the electronic ping sounded, and as Boswell walked into the cabin, his shoulders shook and he felt the wet heat between his shoulder blades. He realized that his problem was more serious than he realized. It was the confidential report he passed on to Captain McAllister.

Sure, Boswell admitted, he stretched the truth just a bit, and now his efforts to show progress were coming back to haunt him. Rebecca said that it was possible that Siegel and Faith Gruen were at Gertie’s on May thirteenth, but she was unsure about the date. And while she said both Siegel and Gruen could have been there, she never said she saw them talking or that they left the joint at the same time.

The elevator hit the ground floor, and Boswell lost his train of thought. The doors slid open and he waved to the desk officer as he pushed through the turnstile and out onto the street. 

He turned, and his eyes rose along the façade of the powerful concrete structure. Suddenly, he felt diminished. It takes so much to succeed here, he told himself, you gotta play the game so good. He realized that he had been tricked, skillfully manipulated. 

The captain, he realized, he knows I didn’t say all that stuff in the report. He knows it wasn’t sure, and it sure wasn’t testimony. He knew I didn’t have the guts to disagree with him. And the second body, it’s gotta be a separate investigation. Now I gotta make his word good. I gotta make the investigation fit his picture of it, or I’m in deep shit. 

I gotta fix it.   

 -0-

It was around four in the afternoon. Just like the first time, Gertie’s Pub was empty and dark, and Rebecca was not to be seen. Boswell chose the same table as before. He knew she would appear soon. 

He was out of breath; he had walked all the way down to Sansom from The Roundhouse on Race. He had wanted the chance to think things through, but the only idea that came to mind was that he’d been tricked, like a kid, like a loser. 

After just a few minutes, Rebecca appeared. She looked just the same, even wearing the same frilly blouse. As she walked between the empty tables toward Boswell, he had a hard time reading her expression. 

But when she got to his table, she greeted him with a smile. “Guess I can’t say ‘Howdy stranger.’ It’s not true any longer. I’ll just stick with what can I get you?” 

Boswell thought. “I’ll stick with the same thing. It’s been a tough day. You remember? Just Bourbon and ice.” 

“You got it, partner.” And she bounced away, slipped behind Gerdie’s bar, pretended to dance on her way back, and leaned forward when she served Boswell his drink. 

As he took his first sip of the Bourbon, Boswell let his mind wander, wondering what her gesture meant. Watching her black slacks, he asked himself what she’d look like without . . . But he pulled himself back. He told himself he had to concentrate on the task at hand. 

He placed his glass on the table, and then felt his voice halt and stumble as he started to speak. But finally, he came out with it, “This is hard for me to say. There’s a lot of pressure on the department, and there’s a lot on me.”

He watched Rebecca’s expression express danger and her back stiffen. “What’s that got to do with me? I’m a waitress at Gertie’s. I don’t know cops’ work or police departments? I just don’t know . . .  ” 

Boswell’s words didn’t come any easier. They felt rough and clumsy in his mouth. “I’d like you to think something over. I’d like you to think over what we talked about the other night. Remember? We talked about the night of May thirteenth; you remember we talked about that? I was asking you to try to remember what you saw. Now, I’m asking to just try harder.”

Rebecca stared at Boswell. Her mouth tightened, and she gripped the edge of the table. Gotta learn, honey, she told herself. Nice guy, huh? A cop’s a cop. Either they wanna use you, or they want pussy. And why not both? You don’t matter. You’re just something to use. 

“Why you doing this?” she blurted out. She didn’t have time to think. “Why you like this?”

Boswell couldn’t stop himself. He had to succeed. He had to get the words out. If he didn’t rush, he feared he couldn’t say it. “And, too, just try to remember that you’re . . . and this you didn’t tell me. You’re on parole. You didn’t say . . .” 

“I know that’d come up. I was starting to think you’re an all right guy. So, here you are, dredging up that.” Rebecca felt her face heat up, her eyes start to well up with tears. She wanted to leave, hide in the john, anywhere, just get away. But she knew, she had to be strong and stand firm. She wouldn’t show her emotions. She wouldn’t let him see her as weak. 

Boswell couldn’t believe it. He felt he had to explain. He had no choice. He wanted to calm her. “I gotta follow the procedures, it’s not exactly all up to me. I’ll do what I can, I mean for you. But just think it over. Because some other people said they thought they saw the victim, Faith Gruen, they thought they saw her leaving with Mr. Siegel.” 

“But I told you I wasn’t sure, and I’m still not,” she shouted at him as she held back her tears. “I told you it was crowded; I told you. I was serving drinks, I can’t keep track of every customer . . . I told you I don’t know, and I still don’t. I got a job to do.”

The detective was desperate. “It’s not like you’re testifying against Mr. Siegel, just think it over. If we can, it’ll be informal. You’d just be confirming what other people already said. You’re not sticking your neck out. We just need a little more substantiation, just to make the others’ statements sure.” 

Rebecca started to watch Boswell. She saw he was sweating and having trouble speaking. “Tell me,” she asked, “what’s your first name? Whadda people call you?” 

No, problem, Boswell had to answer. “You can call me Doug. I’m Douglas Boswell, lieutenant, detective in the Philadelphia Police Department.”

“Okay, Doug,” she said. “You’re a smart detective, so you tell me, if you have other witnesses, why you need me? If you got them, why you going to all this trouble, all this sweat to get my little word?”

“It’s called substantiation.” He felt good; he had a ready answer. “I told you, didn’t I?” 

“Not quite like that,” she said.  “But, doesn’t matter, but even if I did see them leave together, and I’m not saying I did, or they did, that doesn’t prove anything.” 

“It’s one element,” he rushed to say. “We fit different elements together.”

“Oh, you fit things together.” Rebecca smiled just a bit. “Fascinating, that’s fascinating.” 

Both Boswell and Rebecca looked up. A middle-aged man, well over six feet tall, a bit chubby and bald entered Gertie’s unnoticed. He had a round, pleasant face, and he carried himself with an aura of strength, and he was now standing in front of Boswell’s table. He wore a blue polo shirt and slightly baggy trousers. 

He looked, back and forth, from Boswell to Rebecca, and then gave Rebecca a fatherly hug. He stepped back and, holding one of her hands, he asked, “Hi, Sweety, something’s the matter?”

“No problem, just talk,” Rebecca said. 

“No problem, that’s fine,” the man said. “Good, I’ll just be upstairs, kinda arranging things. The Comedy Club, they’re not the neatest bunch, you know.” 

“Bruce,” Rebecca said nonchalantly. “This is Lieutenant Boswell. He’s investigating Faith’s death. Lieutenant, this is Bruce Moore, the founder of our poetry group, ‘Wonder Words.’”

Immediately, Moore lowered his gaze to the floor for a few seconds, and then stared into the distance. “Lieutenant, I hope you get the son of a bitch, the animal that killed her,” he said. “You better, I’m telling you that. Everyone loved her.”

Boswell looked directly at Moore. “We’ll get him. I promise you. In fact, I’d like to talk with you, if you have a minute after me and Rebecca finish and we can . . . ”

“Look’it, I think we’re finished,” Rebecca said. “At least for the moment. Why don’t the two of you . . . ”  

Boswell froze. The alarm went off in his head. What the fuck can I do now? What the fuck’s happening? I can’t let this thing get away from me.

Moore said, “If the investigator feels I might know something, sure. I’ll try. Like I say, like you said, lieutenant, you gotta find the bastard.”

There was no way out, Boswell knew. At least for the moment. 

-0-

Boswell and Moore heard the creaks of old wood as they climbed the stairs up to the second floor of Gertie’s Pub. Once they pushed through a velvet cloth at the top, Boswell surveyed the space. 

It was nearly a copy of the main floor, only smaller. In the dim light, Boswell could see the long bar, about eight round tables, and built-in wooden benches circling the room. Across from the bar was a raised stage, and on the wall behind it a variety of posters, the largest one carrying the words, “Wonder Words – Poetry for the World.” 

“Your pleasure,” Moore said. “The choice of a table’s up to you.”

Boswell took a seat at a table near the middle of the room, and Moore chose the place across from him. 

Boswell took out his small notebook and a ballpoint. “So, tell me about Faith Gruen,” the detective began. 

Moore didn’t hesitate an instant: “Everyone loved her, loved her in the highest sense.” He closed his eyes for a long few seconds. “Besides that, she was truly sweet, and what’s more, she was a dedicated and truly talented poet. And besides all that, I believe she was a true genius, probably had an IQ off the charts.”

Moore didn’t miss a beat. “So, what’s all this mean to you? Every human life is a miracle, that’s a given. But Faith was in a class by herself. Her death kicked the shit outta all of us. So you, you better find the sub-human bastard that killed her, that took her from us.”

Moore’s statement was a surprise. Boswell went silent. He didn’t know how to get his mind around this reaction, but he wanted to understand. He thought; he felt a need. 

Then he pulled himself back, again. “Yeah, I guess  . . . Well, can you tell me the people, the names of the people in your club she was friends with?” 

“That’s gonna be kinda hard,” Moore began. “You see, like I said, and I wasn’t exaggerating. It’s true. Everyone really loved her. When she recited, she stood there and she belted it out. And everyone listened, because it was worth listening to. She put her personal warmth into every word, every poem, and we felt it.

“But I can come up with a few,” Moore went on. “There’s a couple young women, I think they all live in center city. I’ll have to look up their last names, and I don’t wanna miss anyone, but there was a Valerie and a Sophie. Sometimes I’d see the three of them all giggling together. And then there’s some of my editors, that is for our poetry collections and chapbooks; I could go over my membership list.”

Boswell pulled his wallet from his back pocket and found a business card. “Look’it, here’s my card, and it has my cell number and my email. Whatever you can give me, I’d appreciate.”

“Of course, will do,” Moore said. “But I wanna explain something to you. You could ask yourself, why all these folks feel so close, yes, and even love Faith? One reason is that she really believed in what we’re about, like our values, why poetry and all the arts are important to us. We express the ideas that’re so important to us, the ideas that open up the minds of other folk, that can get them to feel with us.”

Again, Boswell couldn’t get his mind around the ideas Moore was explaining. He wanted to understand; but values, emotions, opening up minds – for Boswell, these were not part of a police investigation. For now, he knew he had to focus. 

“Tell me,” Boswell said. “Tell me, you ever see her with a man, a guy named Elliott Siegel? I think he might go by the name El Siegel. You ever see them together? If you remember, it might help me.”

Moore thought for just a second. “I know him, just met him, really, kinda a new member. And now that you mention it, yeah, I’ve seen them together. As a matter of fact, Faith told me that he’s getting more and more interested in poetry, and she was trying to help him.  But, ya know, she’s helped a lot of people.”

Now, Boswell thought he could gamble. He took his time. “Ya think they had a relationship that went beyond poetry? Ya think it was more personal?”

“Possibly,” Moore said. “You never know. We’re all human. But morals aren’t my thing, not really.  I believe in honesty. That’s enough. Morals, that’s kinda subjective. I just want people to be happy, as long as they don’t hurt someone. That’s about it.”

The two men talked for a while longer, until Moore finally mentioned that he’d better start straightening out the upstairs space. They agreed to keep in touch, and Boswell thought that he established decent rapport with a possible future source. As they separated, they shook hands, and then Boswell attacked the creaky stairway to get to the main floor.  

Boswell was hoping that he’d have another chance to talk with Rebecca on his way out. He remembered: she did say “for the moment.”

But the barkeep, a tall and lean guy in a short-sleeve Hawaiian-print shirt, was alone behind the bar. He told Boswell that Rebecca pleaded that she didn’t feel good and needed to leave. 

“I was a sucker and let her go,” he said. “That’s a broad for ya. She was gonna rest. Leaves me in shit. Now they’re lookin’ for a sub. I can only do so much.”

Boswell couldn’t put his finger on it, but for the moment, he didn’t care.