Pop! Goes the Weasel

CHAPTER Fourteen

Something was up, and I didn't think that I'd like it very much. I arrived at the Seventh District Police Station just before seven thirty that morning. I'd been summoned by the powers-that-be to the station, and it was a tough deal. I'd worked until two in the morning trying to get a lead on Nina Childs' murder.

I had a feeling that the day was starting out wrong. I was tense and more uptight than I usually let myself become. I didn't like this early-morning command appearance one bit.

I shook my head, frowned, tried to roll the kinks out of my neck. Finally, I gritted my teeth tightly before opening the mahogany-wood door. Chief of Detectives George Pittman was lying in wait in his office, which consisted of three connecting offices, including a conference room.

The Jefe, as he's called by his many 'admirers', had on a boxy gray business suit, overstarched white shirt, a silver necktie. His gray-and-white-streaked hair was slicked back. He looked like a banker, and in some ways he was. As he never tires of saying, he is working with a fixed budget, and is always mindful of manpower costs, overtime costs, caseload costs. Apparently, he is an efficient manager, which is why the police commissioner overlooks the fact that he's a bully, bigot, racist and careerist.

Up on his wall were three large, important-looking pushpin maps. The first showed two consecutive months of rapes, homicides, and assaults in Washington. The second map did the same for residential and commercial burglaries. The third map showed auto thefts. The maps and the Post say that crime is down in DC, but not where I live.

''Do you know why you're here, why I wanted to see you?' Pittman asked point-blank. No socializing or small talk from the Jefe, no niceties. 'Of course you do, Dr. Cross. You're a psychologist. You're supposed to know how the human mind works. I keep forgetting that.'

Be cool, be careful, I told myself. I did the thing Chief Pittman least expected - I smiled, and said softly, 'No, I really don't know. I got a call from your assistant. So I'm here.'

Pittman smiled back, as if I'd made a pretty good joke. Then he suddenly raised his voice, and his face and neck turned a bright red; his nostrils flared, exposing the bristly hairs within.

One of his hands was clenched into a tight fist, while the other was stretched open. His fingers were as rigid as the pencils sticking up from the leather cup on his desk.

'You're not fooling anybody, Cross, least of all me. I'm fully fucking aware that you're investigating homicides in Southeast that you aren't assigned to, the so-called Jane Does. You're doing this against my explicit orders. Some of those cases have been closed for over a year. I won't have it, I won't tolerate your insubordination, your condescending attitude. I know what you're trying to pull. Embarrass the department, specifically embarrass me, curry fucking favor with the mayor, make yourself some kind of folk hero in Southeast in the process.'

I hated Pittman's tone and what he was saying, but I had learned one trick a long time ago, and it was probably the most important thing to know about politics inside any organization. It's so simple, but it's the key to every petty kingdom, every fiefdom. Knowledge truly is power; it's everything, and if you don't have any, pretend you do.

So I told Chief Pittman nothing. I didn't contradict him; I didn't admit to a thing. I did nothing. Me and MahaI'ma Gandhi.

I let him think that maybe I was investigating old cases in Southeast - but I didn't admit to it. I also let him think that maybe I had some powerful connections with Mayor Monroe, and God only knows who else in the City on the Hill. I let him think that maybe I was after his job, or that I might have, God forbid, even loftier aspirations.

'I'm working the homicides assigned to me. Check with the captain. I'm doing my best to close as many cases as I can.'

Pittman nodded curtly - one nod. His face was still heart-attack red. 'All right, I want you to close this case, and I want you to close it fast. A tourist was robbed and gunned down on M Street last night,' he said. 'A well-respected German doctor from Munich. It's front fucking page in today's Post. Not to mention the International Herald Tribune, and every newspaper in Germany of course. I want you on that murder case and I want it solved pronto.'

"This doctor, he's a white man?' I asked, keeping my expression neutral.

'I told you, he's German.'

'I already have a number of open cases in Southeast,' I said to Pittman. 'A nurse was murdered over the weekend.'

He didn't want to hear it. He shook his head - one shake. 'And now you have an important case in Georgetown. Solve it, Cross. You're to work on nothing else. That's a direct order... from the jefe.'