Badge Of Honor: Men In Blue Part 42

"It would probably help some if you could catch whoever hacked up the Nelson boy and shot his boyfriend," Coughlin said.

They were in the cemetery now, winding slowly down access roads. He could see Dutch Moffitt's gravesite. Highway Patrolmen were already lined up on both sides of the path down which they would carry Dutch's casket.

Jesus, Peter thought. Maybe that was my mistake. Maybe I should have just stayed in Highway, and rode around on a motorcycle, and been happy to make Lieutenant at forty-five. That way there wouldn't 't have been any of this G.o.dd.a.m.ned politics.

But then he realized he was wrong.

There's always politics. In Highway, it's who gets a new motorcycle and who doesn't. Who gets to do interesting things, or who rides up and down Interstate 95 in the rain, ticketing speeders. Same c.r.a.p. Just a different level.

"Thank you, Chief," Peter said. "I appreciate the vote of confidence."

"I owe your father one," Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin said, matter-of-factly. "He saved my a.s.s, one time."

"h.e.l.lo?"

Peter's heart jumped at the sound of her voice.

"Hi," he said.

"I thought it might be you," she said. "You don't seem thrilled to hear my voice," Peter said.

"I don't get very many calls at midnight," she said, ignoring his reply.

"It took me that long to get up my courage to call," he said.

"Where are you, home? Or out on the streets, protecting the public?"

"I'm in Atlantic City," he said.

"What are you doing there?"

"Working on the Nelson job," he said.

"At two o'clock this afternoon, I had a call from WCTS-TV, Channel Four, Chicago," Louise said. "They want me to co-anchor their evening news show."

"Oh?"

"They want me so bad that they will give me twenty thousand a year more than I 'm making now, and they will buy out my contract here," Louise said. "That may be because I am very good, and have the proper experience, and it may be because my father owns WCTS-TV.''

"What are you going to do?"

"I'd like to talk to you about that," she said. "Preferably in a public place. I don't want to be p.r.o.ne to argue." He didn't reply.

"That was a joke," she said. "A clever double entendre on the word 'p.r.o.ne.' "

"I've heard it before," Peter said.

"But if you promise to just talk, you could come here. How long will it take you to drive from Atlantic City?"

"I can't come," Peter said.

"Why not?" she asked.

"I just can't, Louise."

"Your girl friend down there with you? Taking the sea air? I saw her kiss you this morning."

"No," he said. "I told you I'm working."

"At midnight?"

"I can't come back to Philadelphia right now," he said.

"Somebody told your girl friend about me? She's looking for you with a meat cleaver?" She heard what she said. "That was really first-cla.s.s lousy taste, wasn't it? I'm upset, Peter."

"Why?"

"My father is a very persuasive man," she said. "And then he topped his hour and a half of d.a.m.ned-near-irrefutable arguments why you and I could never build anything permanent with that lovely WCTS-TV carrot. And seeing good ol' whatsername kiss you didn't help much, either. I think it would be a very good idea if you came here, as soon as you could, and offered some very convincing counter arguments."

"Would you be happy with the carrot? Knowing it was a carrot?"

"I think the news director at WCTS-TV will be very pleasantly surprised to find out how good I am. Since I have been shoved down his throat, he expects some simpering moron. And I'm not, Peter. I'm good. And Chicago is one step from New York, and the networks."

"Is that what you want? New York and the networks?"

"I don't know right now what I want, except that I want to talk to you," she said.

"I can't come tonight, Louise," Peter said.

"Why not? I can't seem to get an answer to that question."

"I'm in trouble with the department," Peter said.

"What kind of trouble?"

"Political trouble."

"Any chance they'll fire you, I hope, I hope?"

"Thanks a lot," he said.

"Sorry, I forgot how important being a policeman is to you," she said, sarcastically.

There was a long pause.

"We're fighting, and saying things we won't be able to take back," she said. "That's not what I wanted."

"I love you," Peter said.

"One of the interesting thoughts my father offered was that people tend to confuse love with l.u.s.t. l.u.s.t comes quickly and eventually burns itself out. Love has to be built, slowly."

"Okay," Peter said. "I l.u.s.t you, and I'm willing to work on the other thing."

She laughed, but stopped abruptly.

"I don't know why I'm laughing," she said. "I'm not sure whether I should cry or break things, but I know I shouldn't be laughing. I want you to come here, Peter. I want to look at you when we're talking."

"I can't come," he said. "I'm sorry."

"When can you come?"

"I don't know," he said. "Three, four days, maybe."

"Why not now?" Louise demanded plaintively.

"Because I'm liable to lose my job if I come back right now.''

There was a long pause. When Louise finally spoke, her voice was calm.

"You know what you just said, of course? That your G.o.dd.a.m.ned job is more important in your life than me."

"Don't be silly, Louise," Peter said.

"No, I won't," she said. "Not anymore."

The phone went dead in his ear.

When he dialed again, he got her answering device. He tried it three more times and then gave up.

When he tried to call her at WCBL-TV the next day, she was either not in, or could not be called to the telephone, and would he care to leave a message?

Staff Inspector Peter Wohl paid lip service to the notion that he was in Atlantic City working on the Nelson homicide job. He went to the hospital where the autopsy on Errol F. Watson, also known as Pierre St. Maury, was performed, and looked at the corpse, and read the coroner's report. Errol F. Watson had died of destruction of brain tissue caused by three projectiles, believed to be .32 caliber, of the type commonly a.s.sociated with caliber .32 Colt semiautomatic pistols.

That didn't mean he had been shot with a Colt. There were a hundred kinds of pistols that fired the .32 ACP cartridge. No fired cartridge cases had been found, despite what Wohl believed had been a very thorough search of the area where the body had been found. They had found blood and bone and brain tissue.

Very probably, whoever had shot Errol F. Watson also known as Pierre St. Maury had marched him away from the Jaguar, and then shot him in the back of the head. And then twice more, at closer range. G.o.d only knew what had happened to the ejected cartridge cases. If they had been ejected. There were some revolvers (which do not eject fired cases), chambered for .32 ACP. Whatever the pistol was, it was almost certainly already sinking into the sandy ocean floor off Atlantic City, or into the muck of a New Jersey swamp, and the chances of recovering it were practically nil.

He also spent most of a day at the state trooper garage, watching, with professional admiration, the lab technicians working on the Jaguar. They knew their business, and they lifted fingerprints and took soil samples and did all the clever things citizens have grown to expect by watching cop stories on television.

Lieutenant Bob McGrory, who had taken him to the garage, picked him up after work there and then insisted he come home with him for supper. He had been at first reluctant and uncomfortable, but McGrory's wife, Mary-Ellen, made him feel welcome, and McGrory produced a bottle of really good scotch, and they sat around killing that, and telling Dutch Moffitt stories, and Peter's mouth finally loosened, and he told McGrory why he really had been sent to Atlantic City.

He left then, aware that he was a little drunk, and not wanting to confide in Bob McGrory the painful details of his romance with Miss Louise Dutton.

On his arrival in Atlantic City, in a fey mood, he had taken a room in the Chalfonte-Haddon Hall, a thousand-room landmark on the boardwalk, rather than in a smaller hotel or a motel. He had told himself that he would endure his time in purgatory at least in luxury.

It was, he decided, faded grandeur rather than luxury. But it did have a bar, and he stopped there for a nightcap before he went to his room. He had just had another one-way conversation with Louise Dutton's answering machine, the machine doing all the talking, when there was a knock at his door.

"Hi," she said. "I saw you downstairs in the bar, and thought you might like a little company.''

He laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"I'm a cop," he said.

"Oh, s.h.i.+t!"

He watched her flee down the corridor, and then, smiling, closed the door and walked across the room to his bed.

The phone rang.

Please, G.o.d, let that be Louise! Virtue is supposed to be its own reward.

"Did I wake you up?" Lieutenant Bob McGrory asked.

"No problem, I had to answer the phone anyway," Wohl said, pleased with his wit.

"I just had a call from a friend of mine on the Atlantic City vice squad," McGrory said. "Two gentlemen were in an establishment called the Black Banana earlier this evening. They paid for their drinks with a Visa credit card issued to Jerome Nelson. The manager called it in. I understand he needs a friend-several friends-in the police department right now."

"The Black Banana?" Wohl asked. "If it's what it sounds like, we've got one of those in Philly."

"Maybe it's a franchise," McGrory said, chuckling.

"They still there?"

"No. The cops are checking the hotels and motels. They have what may be a name from the manager of the Black Banana, and they're also checking to see if anyone is registered as Jerome Nelson. They have a stakeout at the Banana, too."

"Interesting," Peter said.

"I told my friend I'd call him back and tell him if you wanted to be waked up if they find them."

"Oh, yes," Peter Wohl said. "Thank you, Bob."

On his fifth day in Atlantic City, when Peter Wohl walked into the state trooper barracks, Lieutenant Robert McGrory told him that he had just that moment hung up from talking with Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin.

" 'Almost all is forgiven, come home' is the message, Peter," Lieutenant McGrory said.

"Thank you," Peter said. "Thanks for everything."

"Any time. You going right back?"

"Yeah," Peter said. "My girl friend's probably finally given up on me."