Badge Of Honor: The Victim Part 38

"See if either of them is still there," Wohl ordered.

Pekach went to the door and a moment later returned with Matt Payne.

"Do you know where Was.h.i.+ngton is?"

"No, sir. He told me he would either see me here or phone."

"Find him," Wohl ordered. "Tell him I want to see him as soon as I can."

"Yes, sir," Matt said, and left the room.

Wohl looked at Joe D'Amata.

"You know where this is going, don't you?" he asked.

"Sir, you're thinking there's a connection to the DeZego shooting?''

"Right. And since Special Operations has that job, I've got to call Chief Lowenstein and tell him I want the Lanier job-and that means you, too, Joe, of course-as part of that."

"He's not going to like that," Sabara said.

"If you're sure about that, Mike, you call him," Wohl said, and let Sabara wait ten seconds before he reached for the telephone himself.

To Peter Wohl's genuine surprise Chief Lowenstein agreed to have D'Amata work the Lanier job under Special Operations supervision with absolutely no argument.

"I don't believe that," he said when he hung up. "All he said was that you're a good man, D'Amata, and if there is anything else I need, all I have to do is ask for it."

"Well, how do you want me to handle it?" D'Amata asked.

"Very simply, ask Was.h.i.+ngton how he wants it handled. Aside from one wild one, I am about out of ideas."

"Wild idea?"

"I want to send the two shotguns to the lab. I have a wild idea that one of them is the one that popped DeZego."

"Yeah," D'Amata said thoughtfully, "could be."

"Do you two clowns think you could take the shotguns to the lab and tell them I need to know, as soon as possible, if the sh.e.l.ls we have were ejected from either of them, without getting in any more trouble?"

"Yes, sir," Martinez and McFadden said in unison, and then McFadden asked, "You want us to come back here, sir?"

"No," Wohl said. "You're working four to twelve, right?"

"Yes, sir. Twelve to twelve with the overtime."

"I haven't made up my mind what to do with you," Wohl said. "Let your sergeant know where you're going to be, in case Was.h.i.+ngton or somebody wants to talk to you, and then report for duty at four. Maybe by then Captain Pekach can find somebody to sit on the both of you. Separately, I mean. Together you're dangerous."

"Yes, sir," they chorused.

"Dave," Wohl said, turning to Pekach, "as soon as D'Amata gets Sherlock Holmes and his partner the shotgun, tell D'Amata what happened in the Ristorante Alfredo," Wohl ordered.

"Yes, sir."

The door opened. Matt Payne put his head in.

"Can't find Was.h.i.+ngton, sir. He doesn't answer the radio, and he's not at home."

"What I told you to do, Payne, is find him. Not report that you can't. Get in a car and go look for him. The next time I hear from you, I want it to be when you tell me Detective Was.h.i.+ngton is on his way here."

"Yes, sir," Matt said, and quickly closed the door again.

The telephone rang. Obviously his calls were being held. So the ring indicated that this call was too important to hold.

"Inspector Wohl," he said, answering it himself.

"Dennis Coughlin, Peter."

"Good morning, Chief."

"We're due in the mayor's office at 10:15. You, Matt Lowenstein, and me."

"Yes, sir."

"He's mad, Peter. I guess you know."

"Yes, sir."

The phone went dead.

Well, that explains Chief Lowenstein's inexplicable spirit of enthusiastic cooperation. He knew we were all going to have a little chat with the mayor. He can now go on in there and truthfully say that this very morning, when I asked for it, he gave one more of his brighter detectives and asked if there was anything else he could do for me.

SEVENTEEN.

Detective Jason Was.h.i.+ngton did not like Sergeant Patrick J. Dolan, and he was reasonably convinced the reverse was true.

Specifically, as Was.h.i.+ngton drove his freshly waxed and polished, practically brand-new unmarked car into the parking lot behind the former district station house that was now the headquarters for both the Narcotics and Intelligence Divisions at 4th and Girard and parked it beside one of the dozen or more battered, ancient, and filthy Narcotics unmarked cars, he thought, I will have to keep in mind that Dolan thinks I'm a slick n.i.g.g.e.r. It would be better for me if he thought I was a plain old, that is to say, mentally r.e.t.a.r.ded n.i.g.g.e.r, but he is just smart enough to know that isn't so. He knows that Affirmative Action does not go so far as to put mentally r.e.t.a.r.ded n.i.g.g.e.rs to work as Homicide detectives.

I will also have to remember that in his own way Dolan is a pretty good cop, that is to say, that a certain degree of intelligence does indeed flicker behind that profanely loudmouthed mick exterior. He is not really as stupid as I would like to think he is, notwithstanding that really stupid business of hauling Matt Payne over here in the belief that he was dealing drugs.

Most important, I will have to remember that what Dolan hasn't told me-and there is something he hasn't told me-is because he doesn't even know he saw it. The dumb mick has tunnel vision. He was looking for a drug bust and saw two rich kids, one driving a Mercedes and one driving a Porsche, and he was so anxious to put them in the bag, what was important to him, a good drug bust, that he just didn't see Murder One going down.

Inside the building, Was.h.i.+ngton found Sergeant Patrick J. Dolan in the office of Lieutenant Mick Mikkles.

"Good morning, sir," Jason Was.h.i.+ngton said politely. "And thank you, Sergeant, for making yourself available."

"I'm due in court in an hour," Sergeant Dolan said. "What's on your mind, Was.h.i.+ngton?"

"I need a little help, Sergeant," Was.h.i.+ngton said. "I'm getting nowhere with the DeZego job."

"You probably won't," Dolan said. "You want to know what I think?"

"Yes, I really do."

"It was a mob hit. Pure and simple. DeZego broke the rules and they put him out of the game. It's just that simple. You're Homicide. You tell me how many mob hits ever wind up in court."

"Very, very few of them."

"f.u.c.king right! You don't mind me telling you that you're spinning your wheels on this job, Was.h.i.+ngton?"

"Sergeant, I think you're absolutely right," Was.h.i.+ngton said. "But because of the Detweiler girl-"

"She's a junkie. I told you that."

"She's also H. Richard Detweiler's daughter," Was.h.i.+ngton said, "and so the mayor wants to know who did the shooting. If she wasn't involved-"

"I get the picture," Dolan interrupted. "So you go through the motions, right?"

"Exactly."

"So you came back here and interviewed me again. And I told you exactly the same thing I told you the first time, all right? So now we're finished, right?"

"I'd really like to go over it all again," Was.h.i.+ngton said.

"Jesus f.u.c.king Christ, Was.h.i.+ngton," Dolan said. He looked at his watch. "I told you, I'm due in f.u.c.king court in fifty-five minutes. I gotta go over my notes."

He really wants to get rid of me. And I don't think it has a d.a.m.n thing to do with him being due in court.

"The mayor's on Inspector Wohl's back, so he's on mine. I really-"

"f.u.c.k Inspector Wohl! That's your problem."

"Hey, Pat," Lieutenant Mikkles said, "take it easy!"

"You're thinking that if Wohl hadn't come here and turned his driver loose, you could have gotten something, right?"

"Yeah, that's exactly what I think."

"Well, then you know my problem with Wohl," Was.h.i.+ngton said.

"No, I don't know your problem with Wohl," Dolan said.

"You don't think I wanted to leave Homicide to go work for him, do you?"

Dolan considered that for a moment.

"Yeah, I heard about that. You and Tony Harris, right?"

"Right. Wohl's got a lot of clout, Sergeant. He generally gets what he wants."

That last remark was for you, Lieutenant Mikkles, to feed your understandable concern that if this doesn't go well, your face will be in the breeze when the s.h.i.+t hits the fan.

"Maybe from you," Dolan said.

"Pat," Lieutenant Mikkles said, "give him fifteen minutes. Go through the motions. You know how it is."

Dolan looked at Mikkles, his face indicating that he thought he had been betrayed. Mikkles nodded at him.

"Fifteen minutes," he said. "You'll still have time to make court."

"Okay," Sergeant Dolan said. "Fifteen minutes. Okay?"

"We'll just go through the motions," Was.h.i.+ngton said.

"Okay. Start."

"Those pictures you took handy?"

"What the h.e.l.l do you need those for? I already showed them to you."

Why doesn't he want me to look at the pictures?

"Who knows? Maybe if we look at them again, we'll see something we missed."

"Like what?"

"I don't know."

"I don't know where the h.e.l.l they are."

I am on to something!

"Maybe your partner has them?" Was.h.i.+ngton asked.

"Nah, they're probably in the G.o.dd.a.m.n file. I'll look," Dolan said, and left the room.

"Was.h.i.+ngton," Lieutenant Mikkles said, "Dolan is a good man."

"Yes, sir, I know."

"But he comes equipped with a standard Irish temper. I would consider it a favor if you could forget that 'f.u.c.k Inspector Wohl' remark."