Badge Of Honor: Men In Blue Part 17

"Oh, you don't? Then I guess you have an apartment?"

"I'm not so sure that would be a good idea," he said.

"I don't have designs on your body, if that's what you're thinking. I'm wide open to other suggestions."

"I'll make you some coffee," Peter said.

"I don't want coffee," she said.

"Okay, no coffee," Peter said.

Ten minutes later, as they drove up Lancaster Avenue, she said, "Where the h.e.l.l do you live, in Pittsburgh?"

"It's not far."

"All of my life, my daddy told me, 'If you're ever in trouble, you call me, day or night,' so tonight, for the first time, after the matinee idol told me he was sending for a battering ram, I called him. And his wife told me he's in London."

"Your stepmother?"

"No, his wife," Louise Dutton said, as if annoyed at his denseness. He didn't press the question.

"But you came, didn't you?" Louise asked, rhetorically. "Even if you didn't know I'd sent for you?"

Peter Wohl couldn't think of a reply. She half turned on the seat and held on to his arm with both hands.

"Why did they do that to him? Keep stabbing him, I mean? My G.o.d, they hacked him!"

"That's not unusual with murders involving s.e.xual deviates," Peter Wohl said. "There's often a viciousness, I guess is the word, in what they do to each other."

She shuddered.

"He was such a nice little man," she said. She sighed and shuddered, and added, "Bad things are supposed to come in threes. G.o.d, I hope that isn't true. I can't take anything else!"

"You're going to be all right," Peter said.

When they were inside the apartment, he turned the radio on, to WFLN-FM, the cla.s.sical music station, and then smiled at her.

"I won't ask you if I can take your jacket," he said. "How do you like your coffee?"

"Made in the highlands of Scotland," she said.

"All right," he said. "I'll be right with you."

He went in the kitchen, got ice, and carried it to the bar. He took his jacket off without thinking about it, and made drinks. He carried them to her.

"Until tonight, I always thought there was something menacing about a man carrying a gun," she said. "Now I find it pleasantly rea.s.suring."

"The theory is that a policeman is never really off duty," he said.

"Like Dutch?" she said.

"You want to talk about Dutch?" he asked.

"Quickly changing the subject," Louise said. "This is not what I would have expected, apartment-wise, for a policeman," she said, gesturing around the apartment. "Or even for Peter Wohl, private citizen."

"It was professionally decorated," he said. "I once had a girl friend who was an interior decorator.''

"Had?"

"Had."

"Then I suppose it's safe to say I like the naked lady and the red leather chairs, but I think the white rug and most of the furniture looks like it belongs in a wh.o.r.ehouse."

He laughed delightedly.

She looked at her drink.

"I don't really want this," she said. "What I really would like is something to eat."

"How about a world-famous Peter Wohl Taylor ham and egg sandwich?"

"Hold the egg," Louise said.

He went into the kitchen and took a roll of Taylor ham from the refrigerator and put it on his cutting board and began to slice it.

He fried the Taylor ham, made toast, and spread it with Durkee's Dressing.

"Coffee?" he asked.

"Milk?" she asked.

"Milk," he replied. He put the sandwiches on plates, and set places at his tiny kitchen table, then filled two gla.s.ses with milk and put them on the table.

Louise ate hungrily, and nodded her head in thanks when he gave her half of his sandwich.

She drained her gla.s.s of milk, then wiped her lips with a gesture Peter thought was exquisitely feminine.

"Aren't you going to ask me about me and Dutch?"

"Dutch is dead," Peter said.

"I never slept with him," Louise said. "But I thought about it."

"You didn't have to tell me that," he said.

"No," she said, thoughtfully. "I didn't. I wonder why I did?"

"I'm your friendly father figure," he said, chuckling.

"The h.e.l.l you are," she said. "Now what?"

"Now we see if we can find you a pair of pajamas or something-"

"Have you a spare T-s.h.i.+rt?"

"Sure, if that would do."

"And then we debate who gets the couch, right? And who gets the bed?"

"You get the bed," he said.

"Why are you being so nice to me?"

"I don't know," he said.

"No pa.s.s, Peter?" she asked, looking into his eyes.

"Not tonight," he said. "Maybe later."

He walked into his bedroom, took sheets and a blanket from a chest of drawers, carried them into the living room, and tossed them on the couch. Then he went back into the bedroom, found a T-s.h.i.+rt and handed it to her, wondering what she would look like wearing it.

"I'll brush my teeth," he said. "And then the place is yours. I shower in the morning."

Brus.h.i.+ng his teeth was not his major priority in the bathroom, with all he'd had to drink, and as he stood over the toilet trying to relieve his bladder as quietly as possible, the interesting fantasy that he would return to the bedroom and find her naked in his bed, smiling invitingly at him, ran through his head.

When he went back in the bedroom, she was fully dressed, and standing by the door, as if she wanted to close it, and lock it, after him as soon as possible.

"Good night," he said. "If you need anything, yell."

"Thank you," she said, almost formally.

As if, he thought, I am the bellhop being rushed out of the hotel room.

He heard the lock in the door slide home, and remembered that both Dorothea and Barbara were always careful to make sure the door was locked; as if they expected to have someone burst in and catch them s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g.

He took off his outer clothing, folded it neatly, and laid it on the armchairs.

Then he remembered that he had told the cop in the bas.e.m.e.nt garage to tell Lieutenant DelRaye that he was taking her to the Roundhouse. He would have to do something about that.

He tiptoed around the living room in his underwear until he found the phone book. He had not called Homicide in so long that he had forgotten the number. He found the book, and then sat down on the leather couch and dialed the number. The leather was sticky against his skin and he wondered if it was dirty, or if that's the way leather was; he had never sat on his couch in his underwear before.

"Homicide, Detective Mulvaney."

"This is Inspector Wohl," Peter said.

"Yes, sir?"

"Would you please tell Lieutenant DelRaye that I will bring Miss Dutton there, to Homicide, at eight in the morning?"

"Yes, sir. Is there any place Lieutenant DelRaye can reach you?"

Wohl hung up, and then stood up, and started to spread sheets over the leather cus.h.i.+ons.

The telephone rang. He watched it. On the third ring, there was a click, and he could faintly hear the recorded message: "You can leave a message for Peter Wohl after the beep."

The machine beeped.

"Inspector, this is Lieutenant DelRaye. Will you please call me as soon as you can? I'm at the Roundhouse."

It was evident from the tone of Lieutenant DelRaye's voice that he was more than a little annoyed, and that leaving a polite message had required some effort.

Peter finished making a bed of the couch, took off his shoes and socks, and lay down on it. He turned off the light, and went to sleep listening to the sound of the water running in his shower, his mind's eye filled with the images of Louise Dutton's body as she showered.

When Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernick, trailed by Sergeant Jank Jankowitz, walked briskly across the lobby of the Roundhouse toward the elevator, it was quarter past eight. He was surprised therefore to see Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson hurrying to catch up with him. He would have laid odds that Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson never cracked an eyelid before half past nine in the morning.

"How are you, Colonel?" Czernick said, smiling and offering his hand. "What gets you out of bed at this unholy hour?"

"Actually, Ted," J. Dunlop Mawson said, "I'm here to see you."

They were at the elevator; there was nothing Commissioner Czernick could do to keep Mawson from getting on with him.

"Colonel," Czernick said, smiling and touching Mawson's arm, "you have really caught me at a bad time."

"This is important, or else I wouldn't bother you," Mawson said.

"I just came from seeing Arthur Nelson," Commissioner Czernick said. "You heard what happened to his son?"

"Yes, indeed," Mawson said. "Tragic, shocking."

"I wanted to both offer my personal condolences," Commissioner Czernick said, and then interrupted himself, as the elevator door opened. "After you, Colonel."

They walked down the curving corridor together. There were smiles and murmurs of "Commissioner" from people in the corridor. They reached the commissioner's private door. Jankowitz quickly put a key to it, and opened it and held it open.

Commissioner Czernick looked at Mawson.

"I can give you two minutes, right now, Colonel," he said. "You understand the situation, I'm sure. Maybe later today? Or, better yet, what about lunch tomorrow? I'll even buy.''

"Two minutes will be fine," Mawson said.

Czernick smiled. "Then come in. I'll really give you five," he said. "You can hardly drink a cup of coffee in two minutes. Black, right?"

"Thank you, black."

"Doughnut?"

"Please."