Badge Of Honor: The Victim Part 24

"Excuse me?"

"Muggers are rarely armed with anything more than a knife. A professional thief, for lack of a better word, who went to the Penn Services Parking Garage knowing that there would be a number of well-to-do people using it at that time, would be more likely to take a shotgun with him. Not intending to shoot anyone but for its psychological effect."

"Yes," Detweiler said.

"And his plans could have gone astray, and he found himself having to use it."

"Yes, I see," Detweiler said.

"Was your daughter wearing any valuable jewelry, Mr. Detweiler?"

"I don't think so," Detweiler said. "She doesn't have any. Some pearls. All girls have pearls. But nothing really valuable." He looked at Matt and grinned. "Matt hasn't seen fit to offer her an engagement ring yet. ..."

"A brooch? A pin of some sort?" Was.h.i.+ngton said, pursuing the matter.

"She has a pin, a brooch"-he gestured at his chest to show where a female would wear such an ornament-"from my wife's mother. She could have been wearing that. It has some rubies or whatever, in a band of-what do they call those little diamonds?-chips?"

"I believe so," Was.h.i.+ngton said.

"She could have been wearing that," Detweiler said.

"There was no such pin in her personal effects," Was.h.i.+ngton said. "Do you happen to know where she kept it?"

"In her room, I suppose," Detweiler said. "Do you think we should check to see if it's there?"

"I think we should," Was.h.i.+ngton said.

Detweiler led them up a narrow flight of stairs from the serving pantry to the second floor and then into Penelope's bedroom. There was a Moroccan leather jewelry case, sort of a miniature chest of drawers, on a vanity table. Detweiler went to it and searched through it and found nothing.

"It's not here," he said. "But let me check with my wife. She needed a lay-down when we came back from the hospital."

Was.h.i.+ngton nodded sympathetically.

"I hate to disturb her," he said.

"Nonsense, she'd want to help," Detweiler said, and walked out of the room.

Was.h.i.+ngton immediately picked up a wastebasket beside the vanity table and dumped the contents on the floor. He squatted and flicked through with his fingers, picking up a couple of items and putting them in his pocket. Then, very quickly, he was erect again.

"Fix that," he ordered, and moved toward a double mirrored-door closet. Matt set the wastebasket upright and began to replace what Was.h.i.+ngton had dumped on the floor.

When he was finished, he turned to see what Was.h.i.+ngton was doing. He was methodically patting down the clothing hanging in the closet, dipping his hands in every pocket. Matt saw him stuffing small items-including what, at quick glance, appeared to be some sort of plastic vial-in his pocket.

And then Mrs. H. Richard Detweiler appeared in the doorway, just a moment after Was.h.i.+ngton had slid closed the mirrored door.

"I think this is what you were looking for," she said, holding up a gold brooch.

"h.e.l.lo, Mrs. Detweiler," Matt said. "Mrs. Detweiler, this is Detective Was.h.i.+ngton."

"I'm Grace Detweiler. How do you do?" she said, flas.h.i.+ng a quick smile. Then she turned to Matt. "I don't know what to think about you. It's natural to see you here, under these absolutely horrible circ.u.mstances, but not as a policeman. I really don't quite know what to make of that."

"We're trying to find out what happened to Penny," Matt said.

"You're driving your mother to distraction, you know," she said. "I can't fathom your behavior."

"Grace," H. Richard Detweiler said, "that's none of your business."

"Yes it is," she snapped. "Patricia is one of my dearest friends, and I've known Matt since he was in diapers."

"Matt's no longer a child," Detweiler said. "He can make his own decisions about what he wants to do with his life."

"Why am I not surprised you'd say something like that?" she replied. "Well, all right then, Mr. Policeman, what do you think happened to Penny?"

"Right now we think she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," Matt said.

"How can parking your car in a public garage be the wrong place?" she snapped.

"We think she was probably an innocent bystander," Matt said.

"Probably? What do you mean, 'probably'? What other explanation could there possibly be?"

"Ma'am, we try to check out everything," Was.h.i.+ngton said. "That's why we were interested in the jewelry."

"Penny doesn't have any good jewelry," she said.

"They didn't know that until they asked," Detweiler said. "Ease off, Grace."

Was.h.i.+ngton gave him a grateful look.

"Mrs. Detweiler, what about money?" Was.h.i.+ngton asked.

"What about it?"

"Did Miss Detweiler habitually carry large amounts of cash?"

"No," she said, "she didn't. It's not safe to carry cash, or anything else of value, in your purse these days."

"Yes, ma'am, I'm afraid you're right about that," Was.h.i.+ngton agreed. "You would say, then, that it's probable she didn't have more than a hundred dollars in her purse?"

"I would be very surprised if she had more than-actually, as much as-fifty dollars. She had credit cards, of course."

"There were seven or eight of those in her purse," Was.h.i.+ngton said. "They weren't stolen."

"Well, this pretty much shoots down your professional-thief theory then, doesn't it, Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton?" H. Richard Detweiler said.

"Yes, sir. It certainly looks that way, doesn't it? We're back to Matt's theory that Miss Detweiler was an innocent bystander.''

"Does that mean that whoever did this to my daughter is going to get away with it?" Grace Detweiler asked unpleasantly.

"No, ma'am," Was.h.i.+ngton said. "I think we'll find whoever did it."

"I called Jeanne Browne, Matt," Grace Detweiler said, "and told her that there is absolutely no reason to let what happened to Penny interfere with Daffy and Chad's wedding."

"I was out there this morning," Matt replied. "They were worried about it. What to do, I mean."

"Well, as I say, Mr. Detweiler and I have agreed that this should not interfere with the wedding in any way. Are we going to see you there?"

"I'll be holding Chad up," Matt said.

"Nice to have met you, Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton," she said, and marched out of the room.

"She didn't mean to jump on you that way, Matt," H. Richard Detweiler said. "She's naturally upset."

"Yes, sir," Matt said.

"Thank you very much for your cooperation, Mr. Detweiler," Was.h.i.+ngton said.

"Thank you, Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton," Detweiler said. "And you, too, Matt."

In the car Was.h.i.+ngton asked, even before they'd pa.s.sed through the gate, "What's going on this afternoon? With the wedding party?"

"I don't know what you're asking," Matt confessed.

"If you weren't out Sherlock Holmesing with me, where would you be?"

Pus.h.i.+ng a typewriter outside Wohl's office, Matt thought, then, That's not what he's asking.

"With Chad Nesbitt," Matt said.

"The bridegroom?"

"Yeah."

"That's what I hoped," Was.h.i.+ngton said. "Where's that gorgeous new car of yours?''

"Bustleton and Bowler."

Was.h.i.+ngton reached for the microphone, then flicked a switch.

"W-William Three," he said into the mike. "I need a Highway car to meet me at City Line and Monument."

"W-William Three, this is Highway Twenty. I'm westbound on the Schuylkill Expressway at City Line."

"Highway Twenty, meet me at City Line and Monument."

"Twenty, 'kay."

Was.h.i.+ngton put down the microphone and turned to Matt. "They'll give you a ride to get your car," he said. "What I'm hoping is that your peers will not be struck dumb when they remember you're a cop. You just might pick up something. Go through the whole business. What is that again?"

"Not much. Just the wedding itself and the reception."

"The bachelor party was last night?"

"Yeah. I missed it."

"Pity. It might have been interesting."

Was.h.i.+ngton s.h.i.+fted around on the seat, taking out the stuff he had removed from Penelope Detweiler's wastebasket and clothing pockets and handing it to Matt. There were half a dozen matchbooks, several crumpled pieces of paper, several tissues with what could have been spots of dried blood on them, and the small plastic vial.

"What do you think is in the vial?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if what was in the vial was cocaine," Was.h.i.+ngton said. "I'll drop it by the lab and find out. The tissues indicate she might have been injecting heroin."

Was.h.i.+ngton saw the look of mingled surprise and confusion on Matt's face and went on: "Heroin users will often dab the needle mark with tissues. Thus the blood spots. Cocaine is usually snorted or smoked, but some experienced junkies sometimes mix cocaine with their heroin and then inject it. They call it a speedball. The cocaine provides an immediate euphoria, a rush, lasting maybe fifteen, twenty, twenty-five minutes. Then the heroin kicks in, as a depressant, and brings the user down from the high into a mellow low lasting for several hours. Very powerful, very dangerous. ''

"Jesus," Matt said, visibly upset. Then he asked, "Is it evidence? I mean, we didn't have a search warrant or probable cause."

"No. Moot point. No a.s.sistant DA in his right mind is going to try to indict Penelope Detweiler for simple possession."

"Her mother said she probably didn't have fifty dollars in cash; she really had seven hundred and change."

"Her mother told us the truth, as far as she knew it. I don't think she knows that her daughter is doing cocaine. But that does suggest, since Penelope uses c.o.ke and didn't have any but had a lot of money, that she was shopping for some, doesn't it?"

"From DeZego?"

"We don't know that, but-"

"Somebody was trying to rip DeZego off, and/or his customer? ''

"But why the shotgun? Why kill him?" Was.h.i.+ngton replied. "Any of that stuff ring a bell?"

"Gin-mill matchbooks," Matt said. "From saloons where Penny and her kind drink.''

"They all familiar?"

"This one's new to me," Matt said, holding up a large matchbook with a flocked purple cover and the legend INDULGENCES stamped in silver.

Was.h.i.+ngton glanced at it.

"New to me too," he said. "Is there an address?"

"Not outside," Matt said. He opened it. "There's a phone number, printed inside."

"I'll check that out," Was.h.i.+ngton said. "Anything else?"

Matt examined the other matchbooks.