"Inspector, the Commissioner just called, too, wanting you to get right back to him."
"Get me Chief Coughlin first," Wohl ordered. He walked into his office, sat down, and watched the telephones until one of the buttons began to flash. He picked it up.
"Inspector Wohl," he said.
"Hold one for the Chief," Sergeant Tom Lenihan's voice replied.
"Have you seen the papers, Peter?" Coughlin began, without any preliminaries.
"Yes, sir."
"What's this about you refusing to talk to the press?"
"I wasn't here," Wohl said. "Somebody must have told him I was unavailable."
"That's not what it sounded like in theLedger," Coughlin said.
"It also said you and I are cronies," Wohl said.
"The Commissioner's upset," Coughlin said.
"He just called here," Wohl said. "As soon as you're through with me, I'm going to return his call."
"What about assigning officers to find witnesses to clear the Highway cop?"
"Guilty," Peter said. "Except that I didn't assign them. They volunteered. Off duty, in civilian clothes. If they turn up a witness, there will be an anonymous telephone call from a public-spirited citizen to AID. It was actually Dave Pekach's idea, I want you to understand that I'm doing the opposite of laying it off on Pekach. If I had thought of it first, I would have done it first. And I'll take full responsibility for doing it."
He heard Coughlin grunt, and there was a pause before Coughlin asked, "Was that smart, under the circumstances?"
"If I could have sent them to find the Woodham woman, I would have," Wohl said.
Matt Payne appeared at his office door. Wohl made a gesture for him to go away, together with a mental note to tell him to learn to knock before he came through a closed door.
"How's that going?" Chief Coughlin asked.
"The first fifteen, maybe sixteen, volunteers just showed up for duty. I turned them all over to Washington and Harris to ring doorbells. That's where I was when you called."
"Maybe, until you get the Woodham woman back, you better put the people who were looking for witnesses to the car wreck to work ringing doorbells, too."
"I will if you tell me to, Chief," Wohl said, "but I'd rather not."
"You want to explain that?"
"Well, for one thing, I think they did all they could, and drew a blank, about finding anyone who saw Mr. McAvoy run the red light."
"Damn," Coughlin said.
"And for another, I don't think having Highway cops going around ringing doorbells is such a good idea. The guy we're looking for is already over the edge. I don't want to spook him."
"You want to go over that again?" Coughlin asked.
Wohl covered the mouthpiece with his hand, and demanded, "What the hell do you want, Payne?"
"Sir, the Commissioner's on Two Six, holding for you," Matt replied.
"Okay," Wohl said, and Matt backed out of the office, closing the door after him.
"Chief, the Commissioner's on the other line. Can I get back to you?"
"Call me when you get something," Coughlin said, impatiently, and then added, "Peter, frankly, I would have a hell of a lot more confidence in the way you're doing things if you had at least been able to keep that Peebles woman from being burgled again."
"I was just talking to Charley Emerson about that-" Wohl said, and then stopped, because Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin had hung up.
He pushed the flashing button on the telephone.
"Good morning, Commissioner," he said. "Sorry to keep you waiting. I was talking to Chief Coughlin."
"Hold on for Commissioner Czernick, please, Inspector Wohl," a female voice Peter did not recognize replied.
"Czernick," the Commissioner snarled a moment later.
"I have Inspector Wohl for you, Commissioner," the woman said.
"It's about time," Czernick said. "Peter?"
"Yes, sir. Sorry to keep you waiting, sir. I was talking to Chief Coughlin."
"You've seen the papers? What's this about you refusing to talk to the press?"
"Sir," Wohl said, "it wasn't quite that way. I wasn't here, and-"
"Lemme have that," a voice said, faintly in the background, and then came over the line full volume. "This is Jerry Carlucci, Peter."
"Good morning, sir," Peter said.
"I know and you know that sonofabitch is after us, Peter," the mayor of the City of Brotherly Love said, "and we both know why, and we both know that no matter what we do, he'll still be trying to cut our throats. But we can't afford to give the sonofabitch any ammunition. You just can't tell the press to go fuck themselves. I thought you were smarter than that."
"Sir, that's not the way it happened," Peter said.
"So tell me," Mayor Carlucci said.
"Sir, I was not in the office. Iwas 'unavailable.' That's it."
"Shit," the mayor said. "What about using Highway to look for witnesses to clear our guy? Is that true?"
"Yes, sir, I did that. But in sports coats and ties. Off-duty volunteers."
"I think I know why you did it," Mayor Carlucci said, "but under the circumstances, was it smart?"
"Sir, I considered it to be the proper thing to do at the time. There was nothing that wasn't already being done to locate Miss Woodham, and I hoped to clear the officers involved of what I considered-considerto be an unjust accusation."
"You're saying you'd do the same thing again?" Carlucci asked, coldly.
"Yes, sir."
"They find any witnesses for our side?"
"No, sir."
"They still looking?"
"Sir, I have no intention, without orders to the contrary, to tell my men what they can't do when they're off duty and in civilian clothes."
"In other words, fuck Arthur Nelson and his goddamnedLedger! "
"No, sir. I frankly think that if we were going to find a witness, they'd have found one by now. But I think, for the morale of Highway, that it's important we keep looking. Or maybe I mean that I don't want Highway to think I threw Officer Hawkins to the wolves because of theLedger editorial."
"Hawkins was the guy driving?"
"Yes, sir. And he says Mr. McAvoy ran the stoplight, and I believe him."
"Goddamn it, I was right," Mayor Carlucci said.
"Sir?"
"When I sent you out there, gave you Special Operations," Mayor Carlucci said.
Peter Wohl could think of no appropriate response to make to that, and so made none.
"I was about to ask where you are with the Woodham job," Mayor Carlucci said.
"Sir, I have turned over all-"
"I said 'was about to ask,' " the mayor said. "Don't interrupt me, Peter."
"Sorry, sir."
"I've been there," the mayor said. "And I know the one thing a commanding officer on the spot does not need is people looking over his shoulder and telling him what they think he should have done. So I won't do that. I'll tell you what I am going to do, Peter. I'm going to issue a statement saying that I have complete faith in the way you' re handling things."
"Yes, sir," Peter said.
"But you better catch this sonofabitch, Peter. You know what I'm saying?"
"Yes, sir."
"This sonofabitch is making the Police Department look like the Keystone Cops. The Department can't afford that. I can't afford that. And you, in particular, can't afford that."
"I understand, sir," Peter said.
"I don't want to find myself in the position of having to tell Tad Czernick to relieve you, and making it look like Arthur Nelson and his goddamnedLedger were right all the time," Mayor Carlucci said.
"I hope that won't be necessary, sir."
"You need anything, Peter, anything at all?"
"No, sir, I don't think so."
"If you need something, you speak up. Tad Czernick will get it for you."
"Thank you, sir."
"Tell your dad, when you see him, I said hello," the mayor said. " Han
g on, Tad wants to say something."
"Peter," Commissioner Czernick said. "I understand Miss Peebles was burgled again last night."
"Yes, sir," Peter said. "I'm working on it."
"Good," Commissioner Czernick said. "Keep me advised."
Then he hung up.
Wohl took the telephone from his ear, looked at the handset, wondered for perhaps the three hundredth time why he did that, and then put it in its cradle. He got up and walked to his office door and pulled it open.
Matt Payne had been put to work collating some kinds of forms.
"Payne?"
"Yes, sir?"
"You look like death warmed over," Wohl said. "Are you sick?"
Payne looked distinctly uncomfortable.
"Sir, I guess I had a little too much to drink last night."
That figures, Wohl thought, McFadden and Martinez took him to the FOP and initiated him.
"Where are they?"
"Sir?"
"Where's Sherlock Holmes and the faithful Dr. Watson?"
Matt finally understood that Wohl meant McFadden and Martinez.
"Sir, I don't know," he said.
"Find them," Wohl said. "Tell them as soon as they can fit me into their busy schedule, I want to see them. And find Captain Pekach, too, please, and ask him to come see me."
"Yes, sir."
David Pekach was still in the Seventh District Building. Two minutes later, he was standing in Wohl's doorway waiting for Wohl to raise his eyes from the papers on his desk. Finally, he did.
"Come in, please, David," he said. "You want some coffee?"
Pekach shook his head no, then asked with raised eyebrows if Wohl wanted him to close the door. Wohl nodded that he did.
"I just finished talking to Chief Coughlin and the Commissioner," Wohl said, deciding in that moment not to mention Mayor Jerry Carlucci.
"I thought maybe they would call," David Pekach said, dryly.
"In addition to everything else," Wohl said, "they both seem personally concerned and very upset with me about whatever the hell is going on with this Peebles woman. She was burgled again last night."
"I heard."
"I put your two hotshots, McFadden and Martinez, on the job. They're looking for-"
Pekach's nod of understanding told Wohl that Pekach knew about that, so he stopped. "The way they tackled the job, unless I am very wrong, was to take young Payne out there down to the FOP and get him fallingdown drunk."
"I don't know," Pekach said, loyally. "They were always pretty reliable."
"They didn't find the guy-the actor, the boyfriend of the Peebles woman's brother-that I know," Wohl said.
"You want me to talk to them?"
"No. I'll talk to them. I want you to go talk to Miss Peebles."
"What?"
"You go over there right now," Wohl said. "And you ooze sympathy, and do whatever you have to do to convince her that we are very embarrassed that this has happened to her again, and that we are going to take certain steps to make absolutely sure it doesn't happen again."
"What certain steps?"
"We are going to put-call it a stakeout team-on her property from sunset to sunrise."
"You lost me there," Pekach confessed. "Where are you going to get a stakeout team? I mean, my God, if it gets in the paper that you're using manpower to stake out a third-rate burglary site…"
"Martinez, McFadden, and Hungover Harry out there," Wohl said, "The wages of sin are death, David. I'm surprised you haven't learned that."
Pekach chuckled. "Okay," he said.
"And you will tell Miss Peebles that a Highway Patrol car will drive past her house not less than once every half hour during the same hours. Then you will tell your shift Lieutenant to set that up, and to tell the guys in the car that they not only are to drive by, but they are to drive into the driveway, making a lot of noise, and slamming the car doors when they get out of the car, so that Miss Peebles, when she looks in curiosity out her window, will see two uniformed officers waving their flashlights around in the bushes."
"That'd spook the guy who's doing this to her," Pekach argued.
"I hope so," Wohl said. "I don't want another burglary at that address on the Overnight Report on the Commissioner's desk tomorrow morning."
"Okay," Pekach said, doubtfully, "you're the boss."
"I'm not going to tell Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson this, David," Wohl said. "But I think they're right. I think the doer is the brother's boyfriend. When they're not sitting outside her house, I want them to keep looking for him. Got the picture?"
"Like I said, you're the boss. You're more devious than I would have thought…"
"I'll interpret that as a compliment," Wohl said. "And as devious as I am, I will frankly tell you that the success of this operation will hinge on how well you can charm the lady."
"Then why don't you go charm her?"
"Because I am the commanding officer, and that sort of thing is beneath my dignity," Wohl said, solemnly.
Pekach smiled.
"I'll charm the pants off the lady, boss," he said.
"Figuratively speaking, of course, Captain?"
"I don't know. What does she look like?"
"I don't know," Wohl said.
"Then I don't know about the pants," Pekach said. "I'll let you know how well I do."
"Just the highlights, please, Captain. None of the sordid details."
SEVENTEEN
Captain David Pekach was tempted to go see both the Captain of Northwest Detectives and the Captain of the Fourteenth District before going to call on the Peebles woman, but finally decided against it. He knew that his success as the new Highway Captain depended in large measure on how well Highway got along with the Detective Bureau and the various Districts. And he was fully aware that there was a certain resentment toward Highway on the part of the rest of the Department, and especially on the part of detectives and uniformed District cops.
He had seen, several times, and as recently as an hour before, what he thought was the wrong reaction to theLedger editorial calling Highway "the Gestapo." This morning, he had heard a Seventh District uniformed cop call"Achtung!" when two Highway cops walked into the building, and twice he had actually seen uniformed cops throw a straight-armed salute mockingly at Highway Patrolmen.
It was all done in jest, of course, but David Pekach was enough of an amateur psychologist to know that there is almost always a seed of genuine resentment when a wife zings her husband, or a cop zings another cop. After he had a few words with the cop who had called" Achtung," and the two cops who had thrown the Nazi salutes, he didn't think they would do it again. With a little luck, the word would quickly spread that the new Highway Commander had a temper that had best not be turned on.
He understood the resentment toward Highway. Some of it was really unjustified, and could be attributed to simple jealousy. Highway had special uniforms, citywide jurisdiction, and the well-earned reputation of leaving the less pleasant chores of police work, especially domestic disputes, to District cops. Highway RPCs, like all other RPCs, carried fire hydrant wrenches in their trunks. When the water supply ran low, or water pressure dropped, as it did when kids turned on the hydrants to cool off in the summer, the word went out to turn the hydrants off.
David Pekach could never remember having seen a Highway cop with a hydrant wrench in his hand, and he had seen dozens of Highway cars roll blithely past hydrants pouring water into the streets, long after the kids who had turned it on had gone in for supper, or home for the night. That sort of task, and there were others like it-a long list beginning with rescuing cats from trees and going through such things as chasing boisterous kids from storefronts and investigating fenderbenders-was considered too menial to merit the attention of the elite Highway Patrol.
The cops who had to perform these chores naturally resented the Highway cops who didn't do their fair share of them, and Highway cops, almost as a rule, managed to let the District cops know that H
ighway was something special, involved inreal cop work, while their backward, non-elite brothers had to calm down irate wives and get their uniforms soaked turning off fire hydrants.
So far as the detectives were concerned, it was nearly Holy Writ among them that if Highway reached a crime scene before the detectives did, Highway could be counted on to destroy much of the evidence, usually by stomping on it with their motorcyclists' boots. Lieutenant Pekach of Narcotics had shared that opinion.
One of his goals, now that he had Highway, was to improve relations between Highway and everybody else, and he didn't think a good way to do that would be to visit Northwest Detectives and the Fourteenth District to ask about the Peebles burglaries. They would, quite understandably, resent it. It would be tantamount to coming right out and saying"since you ordinary cops can't catch the doer in a thirdrate burglary, Highway is here to show you how real cops do it!"
And, David Pekach knew, Peter Wohl had already been to both the Fourteenth District and Northwest Detectives. Wohl could get away with it, if only because he outranked the captains. And Wohl, in Pekach's judgment, was a good cop, and if there had been anything not in the reports, he would have picked up on it and said something.
But Pekach did get out the reports, which he had already read, and he read them again very carefully before getting into his car and driving over to Chestnut Hill.
Number 606 Glengarry Lane turned out to be a very large Victorian house, maybe even a mansion, sitting atop a hill behind a fieldstonepillar-and-iron-bar fence and a wide expanse of lawn. The fence, whose iron bars were topped with gilded spear tops, ran completely around the property, which Pekach estimated to be at least three, maybe four acres. The house on the adjacent property to the left could be only barely made out, and the one on the right couldn't be seen at all.
Behind the house was a three-car garage that had, Pekach decided, probably started out as a carriage house. The setup, Pekach thought, was much like where Wohl lived, except that the big house behind Wohl' s garage apartment had been converted into six luxury apartments. This big house was occupied by only two people, the Peebles woman and her brother, and the brother was reported to be in France.
All three garage doors were open when Pekach drove up the driveway and stopped the car under a covered entrance portal. It was not difficult to imagine a carriage drawn by a matched pair of horses pulling up where the blue-and-white had stopped, and a servant rushing off the porch to assist the Master and his Mistress down the carriage steps.
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