"All of us loved Jimmy so much," says the pastor at James Allen's church, as preparations begin for the detective's funeral.

09:12 AM EDT on Tuesday, April 19, 2005

BY AMANDA MILKOVITS
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- He was the gentle soul, a quiet man in a Columbo-style trenchcoat, a detective with a soft voice and a sharp mind.

Detective James L. Allen, 50, a 27-year police veteran, will be buried Thursday. His wake will be held tomorrow.

James L. Allen was a continuous presence in the detective bureau. Days, nights, he was a regular in the office, hunched over, working on cases piled high on his desk. Call him at home, and he'd come back to work without protest.

"Jimmy was like a piece of furniture," said detective John Finegan. "You always expect to see him [there]."

Allen, 50, was a constant at St. Thomas Church, in the Fruit Hill neighborhood where he and his two brothers grew up. Allen joined the church when he was in fourth grade, said the Rev. Francis Kayatta, and went to the parish school, where today one of his two daughters is a student and his wife is a secretary. Allen had been a church greeter and attended weekly Mass around his work schedule at the Police Department.

"He was absolutely devoted to God and to his Catholic faith," Kayatta said. "He was absolutely devoted to his wife and his family. And he was absolutely devoted to the community that he gave his life for."

At his parents' home in Cranston, Daniel Allen talked about the older brother he admired. "He was a role model," he said. "He was kind and gentle."

Yesterday, Allen's family, his priest and his fellow officers were pulling together to plan his funeral.

"All of us loved Jimmy so much," Kayatta said. "This is a way for us to kind of channel our grief and to help his family, too."

ALLEN HAD always wanted to be a cop.

His father, Lloyd Allen, had been a captain on the Providence force. James and Daniel Allen would go watch the police softball games when they were young.

They'd grown up in Fruit Hill, in a one-story bungalow on a neatly kept street of one- and two-family homes. It's out here where the Allen brothers -- James, Daniel and John -- played Wiffle ball and baseball in the street, and pick-up basketball games with the neighborhood kids at St. Thomas around the corner, his brother said.

James Allen worked part-time at the Star Market in Olneyville through high school, and joined the Providence police Explorers. He graduated from La Salle Academy in 1972 and went on the job 27 years ago, proud to be working in the same department as his father.

He met his future wife, Marguerite, while investigating a break-in at her house off Webster Avenue, Daniel Allen said. They married and had two daughters, Jennifer, 15, and Caitlin, 14.

He loved the Police Department, but those who knew Allen understood that his family was his world.

PICTURES OF his daughters are on Allen's desk. They'd always been there, among the piles of paperwork from his cases.

Now, the pictures are with a funeral wreath, in a memorial set up on his desk by his fellow detectives.

The detectives avoid the hallway and the conference room where their colleague died. Life in the city goes on, and they work criminal cases just several feet from a crime scene in their own bureau on the third floor.

The real Jimmy Allen is in the stories they tell. The stop-and-start way he drove, which bugged Detective Robert Washburn so much he wouldn't let Allen behind the wheel. His nearly savant ability to recall names, numbers, places and statutes within seconds, which gave him the nickname "Rainman."

Allen's methodical ways paid off. He was good at questioning people. He could ask questions and look at them with his poker face. They would talk, and the quiet man would listen, his mind recording their words. If they lied, he'd know, because he could remember what they'd said and how they'd said it.

Allen had his quirks. He took lunch exactly at noon. He stopped taking sick days eight years ago, preferring to come into work. Off-color jokes made him blush. He wore his trenchcoat like a detective from the '30s, covering the way his pants bagged from his waist and his shirt came untucked, Detective Philip Hartnett said.

Monday mornings, Allen came around to their desks and collected the $2 each for the coffee fund. They abused him: I just paid you! What are you doing with the money, going on vacation?

They liked to make him laugh -- "he just had such a goofy laugh," Hartnett said.

Vacations were wrapped around the schedule of Allen's two teenage daughters, the detectives said. They were in dance competitions, and he was often traveling with them. Which prompted the detectives to ask, "Hey Jimmy, what's your routine?"

Lt. Hugh Clements Jr., who oversaw Allen, talked to him about raising daughters. "We're all fathers. We've all had kids," Clements said. "But there was no better father than Jimmy Allen."

Clements, Washburn, Hartnett, Finegan and Detective John Carchia Jr. were talking about him yesterday in an office down the hall from their own bureau. They laughed at their memories.

Then, Finegan wanted to pay Allen the highest compliment there was for any detective. "I'd want him to work on my case," Finegan said simply.

That was all he could say. Finegan suddenly left the room, his face pale.

OUTSIDE the Public Safety Complex, firefighters on Ladder 1 were raising their ladder next to the glass atrium, so they could drape black bunting over the windows. They spent time, taking the bunting down and putting it up again, trying to make it look right.

The fire headquarters share the Public Safety Complex with the Police Department. After midnight Sunday morning, they had rushed through the building with a stretcher and medical equipment, trying to save Allen's life.

As the firefighters hung the bunting, Chief Dean M. Esserman was inside the auditorium, facing a roomful of reporters and questions about the investigation.

Allen had just gone home Saturday night, but he'd gone back to work after eating dinner with his family. He'd spent the day investigating the stabbing of an elderly woman, and a suspect had been picked up that night.

"He told his family this is an important case," Esserman said in a halting voice. "I have to live with that, because I'm the one who asked for us to pull out all the stops in this case."

The Rhode Island State Council of Churches has set up a fund for the Allen family. All contributions will go to this fund. Checks payable to the state Council of Churches, marked "Allen Family Fund," can be mailed to 225 Chapman St., Suite 303, Providence, RI 02905.

With reports from staff writers Liz Anderson and Tracy Breton.