Men In Blue

FIFTEEN

It had been the intention of Lieutenant Robert McGrory, commanding officer of Troop G (Atlantic City) of the New Jersey State Police, to take off early, say a little after eight, which would have put him in Philly a little after nine-thirty, in plenty of time to go by the Marshutz amp; Sons Funeral Home for Dutch Moffitt's wake.

But that hadn't proved possible. One of his troopers, in pursuit of a speeder on U.S. 9, had blown a tire and slammed into a culvert. It wasn't as bad as it could have been; he could have killed himself, and the way the car looked it was really surprising he hadn't. But all he had was a broken arm, a dislocated shoulder, and some bad cuts on his face. But by the time he had that all sorted out (the trooper's wife was eight-and-a-half months gone, and had gotten hysterical when he went by the house to tell her and to take her to the hospital, and he had been afraid that she was going to have the kid right there and then) it was almost nine.

By then, the other senior officers going to Captain Dutch Moffitt's funeral had not elected to wait for him; a major and two captains could not be expected to wait for a lieutenant. Major Bill Knotts left word at the barracks for Lieutenant McGrory that Sergeant Alfred Mant (who was coming from Troop D, in Toms River, bringing people from there and further north) had been directed to swing by Atlantic City and wait at the Troop G Barracks for McGrory, however long it took for him to get free.

The senior state police officers in Knotts's car were all large men. They all had small suitcases; and they were, of course, in uniform, with all the regalia. The trunk of Knotts's Ford carried the usual assortment of special equipment, and there was no room in it for two of the three suitcases; they had to be carried in the backseat. When they were all finally in it, the Ford was crowded and sat low on its springs.

"I think you'd probably make better time on Three Twenty-two," Knotts said, as he settled into the front seat, beside Captain Gerry Kozniski, who was driving.

"Whatever you say, Major," Captain Kozniski said, aware that he had just been given authority, within reason, to "make good time" between Atlantic City and Philadelphia. There were two major routes, 322 and 30, between the two cities. U.S. 30 was four-laned nearly all the way, from Atlantic City to Interstate 295, just outside Camden. Only some sections of U.S. 322 were four-laned. Consequently, 30 got most of the traffic; there would be little traffic on 322 and it would be safer to drive faster on that road.

Captain Kozniski hit sixty-five, and then seventy, and then seventyfive. The Ford seemed to find its cruising speed just under eighty. They would still be late, but unless something happened, they could still at least put in an appearance at the wake.

"Word is," Captain Kozniski said, "that Bob McGrory's going to be a pallbearer."

"Yeah. Mrs. Moffitt asked for him," Knotts said.

"Dutch Moffitt and he went way back. They went to the FBI National Academy together."

He did not add, wondering why he didn't, that the Moffitts and McGrorys, having made friends at the FBI Academy in Quantico, had kept it up. They visited each other, the Moffitts and their kids staying at the McGrory house in Absecon for the beach in the summer, and the McGrorys and their house apes staying with the Moffitts in Philly for, for example, the Mummers' parades, or just because they wanted to go visit.

The wives got on well. Lieutenant Bob McGrory had told Knotts he had heard from his weeping wife that Dutch had stopped a bullet before he heard officially. Dutch's Jeannie had called McGrory's Mary-Ellen the minute she got back from the hospital. Mary-Ellen had parked the kids with her mother and gone right to Philly.

"I met him a couple of times," Captain Stu Simons, riding alone in the backseat, said. "VIP protection details, stuff like that. He was a nice guy. It's a fucking shame, what happened to him."

"You said it," Bill Knotts said.

"They catch him yet, the one that got away?"

"I think so," Captain Simons said. "I think I heard something. They canceled the GRM (General Radio Message) for him."

"I didn't hear anything," Knotts said. "It was a busy night."

"I hope they fry the sonofabitch," Captain Kozniski said.

"Don't hold your breath," Captain Simons said. "He'll get some bleeding-heart lawyer to defend him, and they'll wind up suing Moffitt's estate for violation of the bastard's civil rights."

Major Bill Knotts suddenly shifted very quickly on his seat, and looked out the window.

Captain Kozniski looked at him curiously.

"That shouldn't be there," Knotts said, aloud, but as if to himself.

"Whatever it was, I missed it," Captain Kozniski said.

"There was a Jaguar back there, on a dirt road."

"Somebody taking a piss," Captain Kozniski said.

"Or getting a little," Simons said.

"You want me to call it in, Major?" Captain Kozniski said.

"We're here," Knotts said simply.

Captain Kozniski eased slowly off on the accelerator, and when the car had slowed to sixty, began tapping the brakes. The highway was divided here by a median, and he looked for a place to cross it. The Ford bottomed out as they bounced across the median.

"Jesus Christ, Gerry!" Simons called out. "All we need is to wipe the muffler off!"

Captain Kozniski ignored him. "Where was it, Major?" he asked.

"Farther down," Knotts said. "Where the hell are we? Anybody notice?"

"We're three, four miles east of State Fifty-four," Captain Kozniski replied with certainty.

It took them five minutes to find the car, and then another two minutes to find another place to cross the median again.

"Stay on the shoulder," Knotts ordered, as they approached the dirt road.

Captain Kozniski stopped the car, and Knotts got out. Kozniski followed him, and then Simons. There was the sudden glare of a flashlight, and then Simons walked back to the car and got in the front seat and turned on the radio.

Knotts, carefully keeping out of the grass-free part of the road so as not to disturb tire tracks, approached the car, which was stopped, headed away from the highway, in the middle of the road.

"Give me a flashlight, please," he said, and put his hand out. Kozniski handed him his flashlight. Knotts flashed the light inside the car. It was empty. He moved the beam of the light very slowly around the front of the car.

"Major!" Captain Simons called. "It's a hit on the NCIC computer. NCIC says it was reported stolen in Philadelphia."

"Bingo," Captain Kozniski said.

"Get on the radio, please, Stu," Knotts said, "and have a car meet us here. And see if Philadelphia has any more on it."

"There was another car," Kozniski said. "You can see where they turned around." He used his flashlight as a pointer.

"If it was a couple of kids who 'borrowed' it, and then had second thoughts," Knotts said, "why get rid of it out here in the sticks?"

Kozniski went to the bumper and carefully examined it with his flashlight.

"It wasn't pushed in here, either," he said. "That rubber stuff on the bumper doesn't have a mark on it. I mean, I was thinking maybe it broke down, and they had to leave it."

"If they were going to dismantle it, there wouldn't be anything left by now but the license plate," Knotts said.

Captain Simons walked up to them.

"If the driver is apprehended," he said, formally, "he is to be held for questioning about a homicide."

"Double bingo," Captain Kozniski said. "You telepathic, Major?"

"Absolutely," Major Bill Knotts said. "You mean you didn't know?"

He walked to the Ford, switched the radio frequency to the statewide frequency, established communication with state police headquarters in Trenton; and, after identifying himself and reporting they had located a car NCIC said was hot, and which the Philadelphia police were interested in for a homicide investigation, asked for the dispatch of the state police mobile crime lab van.

"And first thing in the morning, I think we had better get enough people out here to have a good look at the woods," he said. "In the meantime, I'll need somebody to guard the site. I pulled a car off patrol, but I'd like to get him released as soon as possible."

They all got back in the Ford and waited for the patrol car to come to the scene.

Captain Kozniski, without really being aware he had done it, switched on the radar. A minute or so later, it came to life, and a car headed for Atlantic City came down the highway twenty-five miles an hour faster than the posted limit.

"You want to ticket him, Major?" Kozniski asked.

"God no, if we pulled him over and a major and two captains got out of the car, we'd give him a heart attack," Knotts said.

The car was filled with chuckles and laughter.

Two minutes later, Kozniski saw in his rearview mirror the flashing lights on top of a patrol car.

"Here comes the car," he said. Knotts got out of the Ford, explained the situation to the trooper, and then got back in.

He looked at his watch as Kozniski got the Ford moving.

"Christ, we're going to be late for the wake," he said. "You better step on it, Gerry."

The Wackenhut rent-a-cop on the Arch Street entrance to the Stockton Place underground garage stooped over and looked into the Ford LTD. Recognizing Louise Dutton, he smiled, went back to his little cubicle, and pushed the button raising the barrier.

Once inside the garage, Peter Wohl parked the LTD beside her yellow Cadillac convertible, and they got out.

She met him at the back of the LTD.

"If you find the time, dear, you might do the ironing," Louise said as she dropped the keys to her apartment in his hand. "But don't wear yourself out."

"What I think I'll do is call Sharon," Peter said.

"You bastard!" she said, and kissed him quickly and got in her Cadillac convertible.

He waited until she had driven out of the underground garage and then walked through the tunnel to the elevators. The call button for the elevator required a key to function, and he had to work his way through half a dozen before he found the right one. And then he had trouble getting into the apartment itself.

He felt strange, once he was inside and had snapped on the lights, and wasn't sure if he was uncomfortable or excited. There was something very personal, very intimate, in being here alone. He took off his jacket and threw it on an overstuffed chair, and then changed his mind and hung it in a closet by the door. There were two fur coats in there, a long one, and one so short it was almost a cape.

That reminded him that his uniform and other things were still in the LTD, so he retraced his steps and carried them up. He carried everything into the bedroom. The bedroom smelled of Louise. There was a display of perfume bottles on her dressing table and he walked to them and squirted a bulb, and then it really smelled like her.

He found the bathroom, voided his bladder, and then took a good look around. The bathtub looked like a small black marble swimming pool. He wondered if it contained a Jacuzzi, and looked for controls, but found none.

What he needed, he decided, was a drink. He went back in the living room and opened doors and found her liquor supply. He carried a bottle of scotch into the kitchen and found ice cubes and made himself a drink. Then he said aloud, "You goddamned voyeur, Wohl," and went back in the bedroom and opened the drawers of her dresser, one at a time. He found the array of underwear erotic; but a rather diligent-one might say professional-search of the premises failed to come up with a photograph or any other evidence, of any other male, young, old, handsome, ugly, or otherwise.

He was pleased. He went to make himself another drink, and then changed his mind. This was a momentous occasion; the most beautiful girl in the world, the love, finally, of his life, was going to welcome him into her bed, and the worst thing he could arrange would be for him to be shit-faced when she came home. No more booze.

Christ! Washington!

Five minutes later, he had relayed the information to Detective Jason Washington that he would have Miss Louise Dutton at the medical examiner's office at eight o'clock the following morning.

Champagne! Why didn't 't I think of that before? I'll have a couple of bottles on ice when she walks in the door.

He put his coat back on and went out in search of champagne. He bought three bottles, instead of two, and two plastic bags of ice, and returned to the apartment. He couldn't find a champagne bucket, so he put the champagne and the ice in the kitchen sink and covered it with a dishcloth. That raised the question of champagne glasses, and a further diligent search came up with some, which apparently had not been washed for years. He washed and rinsed two of them and then polished them with a paper towel.

He was ready. But she would not be here for an hour, an hour and fifteen minutes.

An idea, so ridiculous and absurd on its face that he laughed out loud, popped into his mind.

What the hell, why not?

He went into the bathroom and turned the taps on to fill the marble swimming pool. He saw a glass container with BUBBLE BATH printed on it. If half a cupful of detergent was the proper amount to use for a washerful of dirty clothes, that measure would probably work for a bubble bath. He poured what he estimated to be a half cupful into the tub.

Next, he looked for and found a razor. He examined it carefully. It was a ladies' razor, with a gold-plated head, and a long, pink, curved handle. But the working part of it, the gold-plated device, seemed to be identical to a regular razor. He decided it would do.

He took the cover from the bed, folded it neatly, and then turned a corner of the sheet and blanket down, and finally returned to the bathroom. The swimming pool was now overflowing with bubbles. There were more bubbles than he would have imagined possible.

There was nothing to do about it now, obviously, so he slipped into the water. There were so many bubbles that he had to push them away from his mouth with his hand.

There's room in here for both of us. I wonder how she would read to that suggestion?

There came the sound of a door opening against a lock chain.

Oh, Christ, she came home early! And I put the goddamned chain on the goddamned door!

He erupted from the swimming pool, called "Wait a minute, I'll be right there!" and dried himself hastily. He grabbed his bathrobe from where he had left it on the bed, and ran through the apartment to the door.

"Sorry," he said, as he pushed the door closed so that he could unfasten the chain lock. "I was taking a goddamned bath."

He pulled the door open.

He found himself looking at a smallish, dapper, intense, middle-aged man.

"I'll just bet," Stanford Fortner Wells III said, "that your name is Peter Wohl."

Louise Dutton let herself into her apartment, and then turned to fasten the dead-bolt lock and door chain.

"Peter, don't tell me you're asleep," she called, and then walked into her living room, where she found her father and Staff Inspector Peter Wohl standing by the couches and coffee table. There were glasses; a bottle of scotch; a cheap glass bowl half-full of ice; and an open box of Ritz crackers on the table. They were both smoking cigars.

"Hello, baby," her father said.

"Oh,God! " Louise said.

"You called," Stanford Fortner Wells III said, "and I came."

"So I see," Louise said, and then ran across the room to him, and threw herself in his arms. "Oh, Daddy!"

When she let him go, she took a handkerchief from her purse and blew her nose loudly in it.

She looked at Peter. "Is my mascara running?"

He shook his head no.

She walked to him, and took the glass from his hand and took a large swallow.

"Peter and I have been having a pleasant chat," Wells said.

"I'll bet you have," Louise said, as she handed the glass back. She pointed to the bowl of ice. "What's with that?"

"It's a bowl, with ice in it," Peter said.

"What do you think that is?" she said, pointing to a large, square heavy crystal bowl on a sideboard.

Both Peter and her father shrugged.

"That'san ice bowl," she said. "I paid two hundred dollars for it. Where did you get that one?"

"Under the sink in the kitchen," her father said.

"That figures," she said. She went to the crystal bowl, moved it to the coffee table, dumped the ice from the cheap bowl into it, and then carried it into the kitchen. She returned in a moment with a small silver bowl full of cashews and a glass.

"Where were they?" her father asked. "All we could find was the crackers."

"In the kitchen," she said. She made herself a drink and then looked at them. "Gentlemen, be seated," she said.

They sat down, Wells on the couch, Peter Wohl in an armchair.

"Well," Louise said. "Now that we're all here, what should we talk about?"

Wohl and her father chuckled.

"I thought the standard scenario in a situation like this was that the father was supposed to thrash the boyfriend within an inch of his life," Louise said. "What happened, Daddy, did you see his gun?"

"No," Wells said. "I just decided that a man who takes bubble baths can't be all bad."

"Bubble baths?" Louise asked.

"Oh, shit," Peter said.

"When he answered the door, he had bubbles in his ears, all over his head," Wells said. "You really don't want to thrash a man with bubbles on him."

Peter, grimacing, laughed deep in his throat. Wells grinned at him.

They like each other,Louise realized, and it pleased her.

"Tell me about the champagne in the sink," Louise said.

Her father threw up his hands, signaling his innocence about that.

"I'm a scotch drinker, myself," he said.

"Ooooh," Louise cooed, "champagne for little ol' me, Peter?"

"At the time, it seemed like a splendid idea," Peter said.

"That was before he answered the door," Wells said.

"Surprise! Surprise!" Peter said.

The two men laughed.

"You should have seen his face," Wells said.

"How long have you been here, in Philadelphia, I mean?" Louise asked.

"Since late this afternoon," Wells said. "I just missed you at WCBL."

The telephone rang.

"I wonder who that can be?" Louise said. "Oh, God! My mother?"

"For your sake, Peter, I hope not," Wells said.

"Jesus!" Wohl said, as Louise went to the telephone.

"Hello?" Louise said to the telephone. Then her face stiffened. "How did you get this number? Who is this?"

Then she offered the telephone to Wohl.

"Lieutenant DelRaye for you,Inspector Wohl," she said, just a little nastily.

As Wohl got up and crossed the room, Wells asked, "DelRaye? Is that the cop you had trouble with?"

"Yes, indeed," Louise said.

"This is Peter Wohl," Wohl said to the telephone. Then he listened, asked a few cryptic questions, then finally said, "Thank you, Lieutenant. If anything else comes up, I'll either be at this number or at home."

He hung up.

"'I'll either be at this number or at home,'" Louise parroted. "What did you do, Peter, thumbtack my number, myunlisted number, to the bulletin board?"

"I don't even know your number," Peter said, just a little sharply. " He must have gotten it from Jason Washington."

"What did he want?" Louise asked quickly. She had seen her father's eyebrows raise in surprise to learn that Peter didn't know her number.

"They found Jerome Nelson's car," Wohl said. "Actually, a New Jersey state trooper major found it as he was driving here for Dutch's wake. In the middle of New Jersey, on a dirt road off U.S. Three Twentytwo."

"What does that mean?" Wells asked.

"One of Nelson's cars, a Jaguar, was missing from the garage downstairs," Peter said. "It's possible that the doer took it."

"The 'doer'?" Wells asked.

"Whoever chopped him up," Wohl said.

"I love your delicate choice of language," Louise said. "Really, Peter!"

"Does finding the car mean anything?" Wells asked.

"Only, so far, to reinforce the theory that the doer took it. As opposed to an ordinary, run-of-the-mill car thief," Wohl said. "The New Jersey State Police sent their mobile crime lab to where they found the car, and, in the morning, they'll search the area. With a little luck, they may turn up something."

"Such as?" Wells pursued.

Wohl threw his hands up. "You never know."

"Why do you look so worried, Peter?" Louise asked.

"Do I look worried?" he asked, and then went on before anyone could reply: "I'm trying to make up my mind whether or not I should call Arthur Nelson. Now, I mean, rather than in the morning."

"Why would you call him?" Wells asked.

"Commissioner Czernick has assigned me to stroke him," Peter said. " To keep him abreast of where the investigation is going."

"Until just now, I thought they liked you on the police department," Wells said. "How did you get stuck with that?"

"He can be difficult," Peter said, chuckling. "You know him?"

"Sure," Wells said. "Which is not the same thing as saying he's a friend of mine."

"He's not willing to face the facts about his son," Peter said. "I don't know whether he expected me to believe it or not, but he suggested very strongly that Louise was his son's girl friend."

"Obviously not knowing about you and Louise," Wells said.

"Nobody, with your exception, knows about Louise and me," Wohl said.

"The two of you have developed the infuriating habit of talking about me as if I'm not here," Louise said.

"Sorry," her father said. "Are you going to call him- now, I mean?"

"Yeah," Peter said. "I think I'd better."

"I was going to suggest that," Wells said. "Better to have him annoyed by a late-night call than sore that you didn't tell him something as soon as you could."

They like each other, Louise thought again. Because they think alike? Because they are alike? Is that what's going on with me and Peter? That I like him because he's so much like my father? Even more so than Dutch?

Peter dialed information and asked for Arthur J. Nelson's residence number. There was a reply, and then he said, obviously annoyed, "Thank you."

He sensed Louise's eyes on him, and met hers for a moment, and then smiled mischievously.

"He's got an unlisted number, too."

He dialed another number, identified himself as Inspector Wohl, and asked for a residence phone number for Arthur J. Nelson.

He wrote the number down, and put his finger on the telephone switch.

"That's it?" Louise asked. "You can get an unlisted number from the phone company that easily?"

"That wasn't the information operator," Wohl said, as he dialed the telephone. "I was talking to the detective on duty in Intelligence. The phone company won't pass out numbers."

There was the faint sound of a telephone ringing.

"Mr. Arthur J. Nelson, please," he said. "This is Inspector Peter Wohl of the Philadelphia Police Department. "

Neither Louise nor her father could hear both sides of the conversation, but it was evident that the call was not going well. The proof came when Peter exhaled audibly and shook his head after he hung up.

"Arthur was being his usual, obnoxious self, I gather?" Wells asked.

"He wanted to know precisely where the car was found, where it is. I told him I didn't know. He made it plain he didn't believe me. I was on the verge of telling him that if I knew, I wouldn't tell him. I don't want a dozen members of the goddamned press mucking around by the car until the lab people are through with it."

"Thank you very much, you goddamned policeman," Louise said.

"You're welcome," Peter said, and Wells laughed.

"Goddamnyou, Peter!"

'I didn't teach her to swear like that," Wells said. "She learn that from you?"

"I'd hate to tell you what she said to Lieutenant DelRaye," Peter said.

"I know what she said," Wells said. "If she was a little younger, I'd wash her mouth out with soap.

"I may get to that," Peter said.

"What the hell is it with you two?" Louise demanded. "A mutualadmiration society? A mutual-male-chauvinist-admiration society?"

"Could be," Wells said. "I don't know how he feels about me, baby, but I like Peter very much."

Louise saw happiness and perhaps relief in Peter's eyes. Their eyes met for a moment.

"Then can I have him, Daddy?" Louise said, in a credible mimicry of a small girl's voice. "I promise to feed him, and housebreak him, and walk him, and all that stuff. Please, Daddy?"

Wohl chuckled. Wells grew serious.

"I think he'd have even more trouble housebreaking you than you would him," he said. "You come from very different kennels. My unsolicited advice-to both of you-is to take full advantage of the trial period."

"I thought you said you liked him," Louise said, trying, and not quite succeeding, to sound light and bright.

"I do. But you were talking about marriage, and I think that would be a lousy idea."

"But if we love each other?" Louise asked, now almost plaintively.

"I have long believed that if it were as difficult to get married as it is to get divorced, society would be a hell of a lot better off," Wells said.

"You're speaking from personal experience, no doubt?" Louise flared,

"Cheap shot, baby," Wells said, getting up. "I've had a long day. I'm going to bed. I'll see you tomorrow before I go."

"Don't go, Daddy," Louise said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said."

"Sure, you did. And I don't blame you. But just for the record, if I had married your mother, that would have been even a greater mistake than marrying the one I did. I don't expect you to pay a bit of attention to what I've said, but I felt obliged to say it anyway."

He crossed the room to Peter Wohl and put out his hand.

"It was good to meet you, Peter," he said. "And I meant what I said, I do like you. Having said that, be warned that I'm going to do everything I can to keep her from marrying you."

"Fair enough," Peter said.

"You understand why, I think," Wells said.

"Yes, sir," Peter said. "I think I do."

"And you think I'm wrong?"

"I don't know, Mr. Wells," Peter Wohl said.

Wells snorted, looked into Wohl's eyes for a moment, and then turned to his daughter.

"Breakfast? Could you come to the Warwick at say, nine?"

"No," she said.

"Come on, baby," he said.

"I have a busy schedule tomorrow," she said. "I begin the day at eight by looking at a severed head, and then at ten, I have to go to a funeral. It would have to be in the afternoon. Can you stay that long?"

"I'll stay as long as necessary," he said. "We are going to have a very serious conversation, baby, you and I."

"Can I drop you at your hotel, Mr. Wells?" Peter asked. "It's on my way."

"Come on, Peter," Wells said. "Don't ruin a fine first impression by being a hypocrite now. Anyway, there's a limo waiting for me."

He kissed Louise's cheek, waved at Wohl, and walked out of the apartment.