Badge Of Honor: The Victim Part 45

He handed her one of the manila envelopes of photographs.

"What's this?"

"Open it. Have a look. The jig, as they say, is up."

"I thought you were my friend, that I could at least count on you."

"You can, Penny."

"Then do me the favor. I'll give you a phone number, Matt. And all you would have to do is meet the guy someplace."

"You're not listening," he said. "Bulls.h.i.+t time is over, Penny. Look at the photographs."

"You're a son of a b.i.t.c.h, you always have been. A son of a b.i.t.c.h and a s.h.i.+t. I hate you."

"I like you too," Matt said. "Look at the G.o.dd.a.m.n pictures."

"I don't want to look at any G.o.dd.a.m.n pictures. What are they of, anyway?"

She slid the stack of photographs out of the envelope.

"Oh, Jesus," she said, her voice quavering.

"Got your attention now, have I?"

"Have you got him in jail?"

"In jail"? What the h.e.l.l does that mean? Why should we have the FBI guys in jail?

"Looks familiar, does he?"

"He's the man who shot me, who killed Tony," Penelope Detweiler said. "I'll never forget him-that face-as long as I live."

Jesus H. Christ! What the h.e.l.l is she talking about? What am I into ?

"We know all about you and Tony, Penny," Matt said. "As I said, you can stop the bulls.h.i.+t."

"Who is this man? Why did he kill Tony?"

"Who knows?" Matt blurted.

"He won't tell you?"

"He's being difficult," Matt said. "I don't think he believes that you're alive. If he had killed you, there would be no witnesses."

I don't know what the f.u.c.k I'm doing. I'm just saying the first thing that pops into my mind. Jesus Christ, why did I do this? I'm going to f.u.c.k the whole thing up!

"I'll testify. I saw him. I saw him shoot Tony, and then he shot me."

"Why didn't you tell us before?"

"I couldn't hurt my father that way," Penelope said, making it clear she considered her reply to be self-evident. "My G.o.d, Matt, he thinks I'm still his little girl."

"And all the while you've been f.u.c.king Tony DeZego, right?"

"That's a s.h.i.+tty thing to say. We were in love. That was just like you, Matt. Always thinking the nastiest thing and then saying it in the nastiest possible way.''

"Tony the Zee had a wife and two kids," Matt said. "Little boys."

He couldn't tell from the look in her eyes if this was news to her or not.

"I don't believe that," she said.

"I told you, precious Penny, bulls.h.i.+t time is over. You were running around with a third-rate guinea gangster, a married guinea gangster with two kids. Who was supplying you with cocaine."

"He really was married?" she asked.

Matt nodded.

"I didn't know that," she said. "But it wouldn't have mattered. We were in love."

"Then I feel sorry for you," Matt said. "I really do."

"Does Daddy know about Tony?"

"Not yet. He knows about the c.o.ke. But he'll have to find out about DeZego."

"Yes, I suppose he will," she said calmly. "If I'm going to testify against this man, and I will, it will just have to come out, and Daddy and Mommy will just have to adjust to it."

She looked at him and smiled.

Jesus Christ, he thought, she's stoned.

He saw that her pupils were dilated.

Has she been getting that s.h.i.+t in here ? In a hospital?

She's on cloud nine. I think the technical term is "euphoric. '' She didn't even react when I called DeZego a guinea gangster, or when I told her he's married and has two kids. The first should have enraged her, and the second should have . . . caused a much greater reaction than it did. She didn't deny it when I said DeZego was supplying her with cocaine, and she didn't seem at all upset when I told her I know her father knows about the cocaine and will inevitably learn about her and DeZego.

Ergo sum, Sherlock Holmes, she doesn't give a d.a.m.n about things that are important, and is therefore, almost by definition, stoned.

It could be, come to think of it, that she is stoned on something legitimate, something they gave her for the pain. Or possibly that Dr. Dotson gave her a maintenance dose, having decided that this is not the time or place to detoxify her, either because of her condition or because he 'd rather do that someplace where a lot of questions would not be asked.

So where are you now, hotshot? What do you do now?

"Penny, are you absolutely sure that the man in those photographs is the one who shot you?''

"I told you I was," she said.

"And you are prepared to testify in court about that?"

"Yes, of course," she said.

"Well, what happens now, Penny," Matt explained-I don't know what the h.e.l.l happens now-"is that I will ask you to make a statement on the back of one of the photographs."

"What?"

"Quote, 'Having been sworn, I declare that the individual pictured in this photograph is the individual who, on the roof of the Penn Services Parking Garage, shot Mr. Anthony J. DeZego and me with a shotgun,' unquote. And then you sign it and I sign it. And then soon, Detective Was.h.i.+ngton will come back here and take a full statement."

" 'Killed,' " Penelope Detweiler said. "Not just 'shot,' 'killed.' "

"Right."

"You write it down and I'll sign it," Penny said agreeably.

"It has to be in your handwriting," Matt said. He rolled the bedside tray in place over Penny, selected one of the photographs, and showed it to her. "This him?"

"Yes, that's the man."

He spotted a Gideon Bible on the lower shelf of her bedside table and held it out to her. She put her hand on it.

"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?"

"I do," Penny said solemnly.

He handed her a ballpoint pen.

"Write," he said.

"Say that again," Penny said.

He dictated essentially what he had said before, and she wrote it on the back of the photograph.

"Sign it," he ordered. She did, and looked at him, he thought, like a little girl who expected her teacher to give her a Gold Star to Take Home to Mommy.

He pulled the bedside tray away from the bed, read what she had written, and then wrote, "Witnessed by Officer Matthew Payne, Badge 3676, Special Operations Division," and the time and date.

And now what?

"Penny, as I said before, someone will be back, probably Detective Was.h.i.+ngton and a stenographer, and they will take a full statement.''

"All right," she said obligingly.

"And I have to go now, to get things rolling."

"All right. Come and see me again, Matt."

He smiled at her and left the room.

Dr. Dotson, the rent-a-cop, and two hospital private security men in policelike uniforms were coming down the corridor.

"I don't know who you think you are, Matt," Dotson said furiously, "or what you think you're doing, but you have absolutely no right to go in Penny's room without my permission and that of the Detweilers."

"I'm finished, Dr. Dotson," Matt said.

"See that he leaves the hospital. He is not to be let back in," Dotson said. "And don't you think, Matt, that this is the end of this."

NINETEEN.

"Inspector Wohl's office, Captain Sabara," Sabara said, answering one of the telephones on Wohl's desk.

"This is Commissioner Czernick, Sabara. Let me talk to Wohl."

"Commissioner, I'm sorry, the inspector's not here at the moment. May I take a message? Or have him get back to you?''

"Where is he?"

"Sir, I'm afraid I don't know. We expect him to check in momentarily.''

"Yeah, well, he doesn't answer his radio, and you don't know where he is, right?"

"No, sir. I'm afraid I don't know where he is at this moment."

"Have him call me the moment you see him," Commissioner Czernick said, and hung up.

"I wonder what that's all about," Sabara said to Captain David Pekach as he put the phone in its cradle. "That was Czernick, and he's obviously p.i.s.sed about something. You don't know where the boss is?"

"The last I heard, he was on his way to the mayor's office."

"I felt like a fool, having to tell Czernick I don't know where he is."

"What's Czernick p.i.s.sed about?"

"I don't know, but he's p.i.s.sed. Really p.i.s.sed."

Pekach got up from his upholstered chair and went to the Operations sergeant.

"Have you got any idea where Inspector Wohl might be?"

"Right at this moment he's on his way to see the commissioner," the sergeant said.