O’Hara read the story, then handed it back to the Mayor, who handed it to Chief Wohl.

“You all better read it,” the Mayor said.

MORE UNSOLVED MURDERS;

Capt. Henry O. Quaire, commanding officer of the Homicide Unit of the Philadelphia Police Department, refused to comment on rumors circulating through the police department that a homicide detective is under investigation for the brutal murder of Police Officer Jerome H. Kellog. Chief Inspector Matthew Lowenstein, who heads the Detective Bureau of the Police Department, was “out of town on official business” when this reporter attempted to contact him.

Kellog, 33, who was assigned to the Narcotics Unit, was found Friday morning in his home at 300 West Luray Street in the Feltonville section, dead of multiple gunshot wounds to the head. His death has been classified as “a willful death,” which is police parlance for murder.

Rumors began almost immediately to circulate that an unnamed Homicide Unit detective, who is allegedly involved with Officer Kellog’s estranged wife, is a prime suspect in the killing.

Although a large number of his fellow police officers called to pay their last respects to Officer Kellog at the John F. Fluehr amp; Sons Funeral Home this afternoon, including more than a dozen middle-ranking police supervisors, none of the police department’s most senior officers were present.

Their absence fueled another rumor, that Officer Kellog was not to be accorded the elaborate funeral rites, sometimes called an “Inspector’s Funeral,” normally given to a police officer killed in the line of duty.

Capt. Robert F. Talley, Commanding Officer of the Narcotics Unit, who made a brief appearance at the funeral home visitation, accompanying Officer Kellog’s widow, refused comment.

Captain Quaire, when asked if the denial to Officer Kellog of an “Inspector’s Funeral” suggested that his death was not in the line of duty, said that as far as he knew, no decision had been made in the matter. He stated that Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernich was the official who authorized, or denied, an official police funeral, and that all questions on the subject should be referred to him.

Commissioner Czernich’s office, when contacted, said the Commissioner was out of the office, and they had no idea when he would be available to answer questions from the press.

Kellog will be buried tomorrow in Lawnview Cemetery, in Rockledge, following funeral services at the Memorial Presbyterian Church of Fox Chase.

Quaire also said that the Homicide Unit was “actively involved” in the investigation of the murders of Mrs. Alicia Atchison and Anthony J. Marcuzzi in a downtown restaurant shortly after midnight last night, but the police as yet have been unable to identify, much less arrest, the two men who were identified by Gerald N. Atchison, Mrs. Atchison’s husband, and the proprietor of the restaurant, as the murderers.

“Why are you surprised?” O’Hara asked. “You know the Ledger ’s after you.”

“I don’t care if they go after me,” the Mayor said, “but putting in the paper that his widow has been messing around, that’s pretty goddamned low. Did you hear those rumors?”

O’Hara nodded.

“Did you write about them?” the Mayor asked. “Or feel your readers had the right to know that the widow was carrying on with some cop?”

O’Hara shook his head.

“There you go, Mick,” the Mayor said with satisfaction. “In that one goddamn story, that sonofabitch writes that the widow is a tramp…”

“That’s a little strong, Jerry,” Chief Wohl protested.

“What do you call a married woman who sleeps with another man?” the Mayor asked sarcastically. “And while we’re on that subject, Lowenstein, how is it that neither you nor Quaire told Detective Milham to keep his pecker in his pocket?”

Chief Lowenstein’s face colored.

“Jerry, I don’t consider that sort of thing any of my business,” he said.

“Maybe you should,” the Mayor snapped. “I don’t know if I’d want a detective around me whose wife divorced him for carrying on with her sister, and the next thing you know is playing hide-the-salami with a brother officer’s wife. It says something about his character, wouldn’t you say?”

Lowenstein’s face was now red.

Chief Wohl touched Lowenstein’s arm to stop any response. The worst possible course of action when dealing with an angry Jerry Carlucci was to argue with him.

“Take it easy, Jerry,” Chief Wohl said.

Matt Payne glanced at Chief Coughlin. Coughlin made a movement with his head that could have been a signal for him to leave the group. He was considering this possibility when his attention was diverted by the Mayor’s angry voice:

“Who the hell are you to tell me to take it easy?”

“Well, for one thing, I’m bigger than you are,” Chief Wohl said with a smile, “and for another, smarter. And better-looking.”

Carlucci glowered at him.

“Matty,” Chief Coughlin said. “Your girlfriend’s looking daggers at you. Maybe you better go pay some attention to her.”

Matt looked around but could not find Penny Detweiler. He wasn’t surprised. Coughlin was telling him a lowly detective should not be here, where he would be privy to what looked like a major confrontation between senior white-shirts and the Mayor of Philadelphia.

“Excuse me,” he said.

“You’ve been doing some good work, Payne,” the Mayor said. “It hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

Carlucci waited until Matt was out of earshot.

“You know what that young man did? Not for publication, Mickey?”

“No,” O’Hara replied with a chuckle. “What did that young man do, not for publication?”

“Peter here’s been running a surveillance operation,” Carlucci began.

“Surveilling who?” O’Hara interrupted.

“I’ll get to that in a minute. Anyway, they had a microphone mounted on a window, and it got knocked off. The window was on the thirteenth floor, I forgot to say. So what does Payne do? He goes to the room next door to the one where the mike fell off, goes out on a ledge, and puts it back in place. How’s that for balls, Mickey?”

“I hadn’t heard about that,” Chief Coughlin said, looking at Peter Wohl.

“Neither had I,” Peter said.

“He knew what had to be done, and he did it,” the Mayor said approvingly. “That’s the mark of a good cop.”

“Or a damned fool,” O’Hara said. “It was that important?”

“What the hell could be that important? He could have killed himself,” Coughlin said.

“The way it turned out, it was that important,” Carlucci said. “If he hadn’t put the mike back, we wouldn’t have got what we got after he put it back. Tony Harris told me that when he gave me the tapes this morning.”

“Which is what?” Coughlin asked.

“Enough, Tony Callis tells me, to just about guarantee a true bill from the grand jury and an indictment.”

The Hon. Thomas J. “Tony” Callis was the District Attorney for Philadelphia County.

“Of who?” O’Hara asked.

“Not yet, Mickey, but you will be the first to know, trust me. The warrants are being drawn up. Peter, I think you should let Payne go with you when you and Weisbach serve them; he’s entitled.”

When I and Weisbach serve them? Wohl thought. What the hell is that all about?

“Serve them on who?” O’Hara asked.

“I told you, Mickey, you’ll be the first to know, but not right now. For right now, you can have this.” The Mayor reached in his pocket and handed O’Hara a folded sheet of paper. “I understand the first of these will be given out first thing in the morning. You don’t know where you got that,” he said.

O’Hara unfolded the sheet of paper. It was a press release.