Badge Of Honor: Men In Blue Part 9

He walked Wohl twenty feet down the sidewalk.

"Shoot," he said. "I gotta get inside. That's Dutch's sister-in-law. Ex-sister-in-law. And his nephew."

"The commissioner said if I saw you before he did, I should tell you what's going on."

"He here?"

"Yes, sir," Wohl said. "There was an eyewitness, Chief, Miss Louise Dutton, of Channel Nine."

"The blonde?" Coughlin asked.

"Right," Wohl said. "She was with Captain Moffitt at the time of the shooting," he added, evenly.

"Doing what?"

"I don't know, sir," Wohl said.

"You don't know?" Coughlin asked, on the edge of sarcasm.

"She said that she was meeting him to get his reaction to people calling the Highway Patrol 'Carlucci's Commandos,' " Wohl said. "She was very upset, sir, when I got there. She was kneeling over Captain Moffitt, weeping."

"Where is she?" Coughlin asked.

"She went from the diner to Channel Nine-"

"They didn't take her to the Roundhouse?" Coughlin interrupted. "Who let her go?"

"The commissioner ... I was a couple of blocks from the Waikiki Diner, and responded to the call, and I was the first supervisor on the scene, and I called him. The commissioner said I should do what had to be done. I didn't think sending her to the Roundhouse was the thing to do. So I borrowed two uniforms from the Second District, and sent them with her. I told them to stay with her, to see that she got home safely. Homicide will send somebody to talk to her at her apartment."

Coughlin grunted. "McGovern say anything to her?" he asked.

"I don't think Mac saw the situation as I did, Chief."

"Probably just as well," Coughlin said. "Mac is not too big on tact. Is there anything I should be doing?"

"I don't think so, sir. The commissioner knows how close you were to Dutch ..."

"Is there ... is this going to develop into something awkward, Peter?"

"I hope not," Wohl said. "I don't think so."

"Jesus H. Christ," Coughlin said. "This is going to be tough enough on Jeannie without it being all over the papers and on the TV that Dutch was fooling around with some bimbo ..."

"I think we can keep that from happening, Chief," Wohl said; and then surprised himself by adding, "She's not a bimbo. I like her. And she seems to understand the situation."

Coughlin looked at him with his eyebrows raised.

"The commissioner asked me to make sure nothing awkward develops, Chief," Wohl said. "To find out for sure what Captain Moffitt's relations.h.i.+p with Miss Dutton was ..."

"I went through the academy with Dutch's brother," Coughlin interrupted. "Dutch was then, what, sixteen, seventeen, and he was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his way through the cheerleaders at Northeast High. He never, as long as I knew him, gave his p.e.c.k.e.r a rest. I've got a d.a.m.ned good idea what his relations.h.i.+p with Miss-whatsername?-was."

"Dutton, Chief," Wohl furnished, and then added: "We don't know that, Chief."

"You want to give me odds, Peter?" Coughlin asked.

Mrs. Patricia Payne and Matthew Payne walked up to them.

"Patty, do you know Inspector Wohl?" Coughlin asked.

"No, I don't think so," Patricia Payne said, and offered her hand. "This is my son Matt, Inspector. Dutch's nephew.''

"I'm very sorry about this, Mrs. Payne," Wohl said. "Dutch and I were old friends." He offered his hand to Matt Payne.

"Inspector Wohl, did he say?" Matt asked.

"Staff Inspector Wohl," Coughlin furnished, understanding Matt's surprise that Wohl, who didn't look much older than Matt, held such a high rank. "He's a very good cop, Matt. He went up very quickly; the bra.s.s found out that when they gave him a difficult job, they could count on him to handle it."

There's something behind that remark, Patricia Payne thought. I wonder what?

"It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Payne, Matt," Wohl said. "I just regret the circ.u.mstances. I've got to get back on the job."

Chief Inspector Coughlin nodded, and then turned and took Mrs. Patricia Payne's arm and led her to Dutch Moffitt's front door.

FIVE.

With some difficulty, Staff Inspector Peter Wohl extricated his car from the cars jammed together on the streets, driveways, and alleys near the residence of Captain Richard C. Moffitt. He turned onto Holme Avenue, in the direction of Pennypack Circle.

When he was safely into the flow of traffic, he leaned over and took the microphone from the glove compartment.

"Isaac Twenty-three," he said into it, and when they came back at him, he said he needed a location on Two-Eleven, which was the Second District blue-and-white he'd commandeered from Mac McGovern to escort Miss Louise Dutton.

"I have him out of service at WCBL-TV at Seventeenth and Locust, Inspector," the radio operator finally told him. "Thirty-five minutes ago."

"Thank you," Wohl said, and put the microphone back inside the glove compartment and slammed the door.

There would be time, he decided, to see what the medical examiner had turned up about the female doer. There was no question that there would be other questions directed at him by his boss, Chief Inspector Coughlin, and very possibly by Commissioner Czernick or even the mayor. Peter Wohl believed the Boy Scouts were right; it paid to be prepared.

A battered Ford van pulled to a stop in the parking lot of the medical examiner's office at Civic Center Boulevard and University Avenue. The faded yellow van had a cracked winds.h.i.+eld. On the sides were still legible vestiges of a BUDGET RENT-A-CAR logotype. The chrome grille was missing, as was the right headlight and its housing. The pa.s.senger-side door had apparently encountered something hard and sharp enough to slice the door skin like a knife. There was a deep, but not penetrating, dent on the body on the same side. The body was rusted through at the bottom of the doors, and above the left-rear fender well.

The vehicle had forty-two unanswered traffic citations against it, most for illegal parking, but including a half dozen or so for the missing headlight, the cracked winds.h.i.+eld, an illegible license plate, and similar misdemeanor violations of the Motor Vehicle Code.

Two men got out of the van. One of them was young, very large, and bearded. He was wearing greasy blue jeans, and a leather band around his forehead to keep his long, unkempt hair out of his eyes. After he got out of the pa.s.senger's side, the driver, a small, smooth-shaven, somewhat weasel-faced individual wearing a battered gray sweats.h.i.+rt with the legend support your local sheriff printed on it slid over and got out after him. They walked into the building.

Staff Inspector Peter Wohl and Sergeant Zachary Hobbs of Homicide were standing by a coffee vending machine in the bas.e.m.e.nt, drinking from Styrofoam cups. Wohl shook his head when he saw them.

"h.e.l.lo, Inspector," the weasel-faced small man, who was Lieutenant David Pekach of the Narcotics Squad, said.

"Pekach, does your mother know what you do for a living?" Wohl replied, offering his hand.

Pekach chuckled. "G.o.d, I hope not." He looked at Hobbs. "You're Sergeant Hobbs?"

"Yes, sir," Hobbs said.

"You know Officer McFadden?" Pekach asked, and both Wohl and Hobbs shook their heads, no.

"Charley, this is Staff Inspector Wohl," the weasel-faced man said, "And Sergeant Hobbs. Officer Charley McFadden."

"How do you do, sir?" Officer McFadden asked, respectfully, to Wohl and Hobbs each in turn.

"Where is she?" Pekach asked.

"In there," Wohl said, nodding at double metal doors. "He's not through with her."

"Don't tell me you have a queasy stomach, Inspector?" Pekach asked, innocently.

"You bet your a.s.s, I do," Wohl said.

Pekach walked in. McFadden followed him.

Unidentified White Female Suspect was on a stainless steel table. She was naked, her legs spread, one arm lying beside her, the other over her head. Body fluids dripped from a corner drain on the table into a stainless steel bucket on the tile floor.

A bald-headed man wearing a plastic ap.r.o.n over surgical blues stopped what he was doing and looked up curiously and unpleasantly at Pekach and McFadden. What he was doing was removing Unidentified White Female Suspect's heart from the opening he had made in her chest.

"I'm Lieutenant Pekach, Doctor," Pekach said. "We just want to get a look at her face."

The medical examiner shrugged, and went on with what he was doing.

"Jesus," Pekach said. "What did he shoot her with?"

"I presume," the medical examiner said dryly, not looking up, "that the weapon used was the standard service revolver."

Pekach snorted.

"She shot Captain Moffitt the way she was shot up like that?" Pekach asked.

"Before," the medical examiner replied. "What I think happened is that she shot Moffitt before he shot her.''

"I don't understand," Pekach said.

The medical examiner pointed with his scalpel at a small plastic bag. Pekach picked it up.

It held a misshapen piece of lead, thinner than a pencil and about a quarter of an inch long.

"Twenty-two," the medical examiner said. "Probably a long rifle. It entered his chest just below the armpit." He took Unidentified White Female Suspect's hand, raised it in the air, and pointed. "From the side, almost from the back. The bullet hit the left ventricle of the aorta. Then he bled to death, internally. The heart just kept pumping, and when he ran out of blood, he died."

"Jesus Christ!" Pekach said.

The medical examiner let Unidentified White Female Suspect's arm fall, and then pointed to another plastic envelope.

"Show these to Peter Wohl," he said. "I think it's what he's looking for. I just took those out of her.''

The envelope contained three misshapen pieces of lead. Each was larger and thicker than the .22 projectile removed from the body of Captain Moffitt. The ends of all the bullets had expanded, "mushroomed," on striking something hard, so that they actually looked something like mushrooms. The other end of each bullet was covered by a quarter-inch-high copper-colored cup. There were clear rifling marks on the cups; it would not be at all difficult to match these jacketed bullets to the pistol that had fired them.

The very large young man looked carefully at the face of Unidentified White Female Suspect and changed her status.

"Schmeltzer, Dorothy Ann," he said. "Twenty-four, five feet five, one-hundred twenty-five pounds. Last known address . . . somewhere on Vine, just east of Broad. I'd have to check."

"You're sure?"

"That's Dorothy Ann," McFadden said. "I thought she was still in jail."

"What was she in for?"

"Solicitation for prost.i.tution," McFadden said. "I think the judge put her in to see if they couldn't dry her out."

"She's got needle marks all over," the medical examiner said, "in places you wouldn't believe. No identification on her? Is that what this is all about?''

"Lieutenant Natali told me all she had on her was a joint and a .22 pistol," Pekach said. "And the needle marks. He thought we might be able to make her as a junkie. Thank you, Doctor."

He left the room.

Wohl and Hobbs were no longer alone. Lieutenant Natali and Lieutenant Sabara of the Highway Patrol had come to the medical examiner's office. Sabara looked askance at the Narcotics Division officers.

Natali saw it. "I like your sweats.h.i.+rt, Pekach," he said dryly.

"Could you identify her?" Hobbs asked.

"Officer McFadden was able to identify her, Sergeant," Pekach said, formally. "Her name was Schmeltzer, Dorothy Ann Schmeltzer. A known drug addict, who McFadden thinks was only recently released from prison."

"Any known a.s.sociates, McFadden?" Hobbs asked.

"Sir, I can't recall any names. It'd be on her record."

"If I can borrow him for a while, I'd like to take McFadden with me to the Roundhouse," Hobbs said.

"Sure," Pekach said.

"I guess you can call off the rest of your people, then," Hobbs said. "And thank you, Lieutenant."

"Now that I've got her name, maybe I can find out something," Pekach said. "I'll get on the radio."

"Appreciate it," Hobbs said. "If you do come up with something, give me or Lieutenant Natali a call."