Photographs were taken, and the momentous occasion was both recorded on videotape and flashed via satellite to at least two of Philadelphia’s TV stations, which interrupted their regular programming to bring-live-to their viewers images of Mr. Colt’s arrival.
Matt saw that a young man his age and a prematurely gray-haired woman Matt guessed was probably in her late thirties had begun to take luggage from both the cabin and the baggage compartment. Both were stylishly dressed. Matt had no idea who they were, but presumed they had been on the airplane.
When they had all the luggage off the plane, they began to carry it to a black GMC Yukon XL, on the doors of which was a neat sign reading “Classic Livery.”
The side windows of the truck were covered with dark translucent plastic. Matt knew that the truck-there were several just like it-was usually used to move cadavers from hospitals to funeral homes that rented their funeral limousines from Classic Livery. He wondered if the truck was going to be able to haul all the luggage.
The commissioner indicated the white limousine. Colt nodded, then sort of trotted over to the fans behind their barriers, shook hands, kissed two of the younger females, and then, waving, sort of trotted to the white limousine and ducked inside.
The fat photographer got in the front seat. The mayor and the commissioner got in the back.
“Hi!” Terry Davis said.
He hadn’t seen her get off the Citation.
Jesus, she looks good!
“Hi!”
“You’re going wherever they go from here?”
“I’m afraid so,” he said.
“Got room for me?”
“Absolutely.”
He saw that she had two large pieces of what he thought of as “limp” luggage and a squarish item he thought was probably a makeup kit. Plus an enormous purse.
“My car’s over there,” he said, gesturing in the general direction.
“Will all this stuff fit in a Porsche?”
“The city’s car,” he said. “It’s a Ford.”
When he picked up her limp luggage, his left hand hurt.
“What did you do to your face?” Terry asked, as she picked up her own bag.
“I fell down,” Matt said, as he started to walk to the Crown Victoria.
He saw that Detective Jesus Martinez had finally shown up; he was standing with McFadden, and they did, he thought, indeed look like Mutt and Jeff.
“You better follow me,” Matt said, and his voice was drowned out by the roar of the Highway bikes starting up.
“You better follow me,” Matt repeated.
His hand hurt again when he loaded Terry’s luggage into the backseat.
By the time Terry’d gotten in and he’d gotten the engine started, McFadden and Martinez had pulled their identical unmarked Crown Victorias in behind him.
And the convoy had left. He could see the GMC and four assorted vehicles bearing the press bringing up the end of it, disappearing around the corner of the administration building.
Discretion forbade racing to catch up with the convoy. He knew where it was going; he could probably catch up with it on I-95.
But when he reached the airport exit, it was barred by a line of cars stopped by two Eighth District uniforms and a sergeant apparently charged with seeing that Mr. Colt’s fans did not join the convoy.
Matt drove to the side of the line of cars, and when he reached the head of it, reached under the dash and pushed the button that caused the blue lights under the grille to flash and the siren to start to growl.
The uniform sergeant waved the first fan’s car through the gate, then waved Matt through the space he had occupied, with McFadden and Martinez following.
“So tell me about the face,” Terry said when he had caught up with the convoy and was driving a stately fifty-five miles per hour down I-95 at the end of it.
“I was trying to stop a homicidal maniac from detonating an atom bomb and ending life as we know it on our planet.”
Terry giggled. It was an accurate synopsis of Stan Colt’s last opus.
“And in so doing, I fell down.”
“And landed on your face?”
“Correct.”
“But you caught the bad guy?”
“Yeah.”
“What did he do?”
“Stole a car, ran a red light, and slammed into a family in their van.”
“That’s awful. But what did it have to do with you?”
“I saw the crash. That made it my business.”
“Stan will love that story,” Terry said.
“Please don’t tell him,” Matt said.
She looked at him strangely.
“Okay. If you don’t want me to.”
Lieutenant Luther Stecker of the Pennsylvania State Police had obviously just finished shaving when his doorbell rang, for he answered the door in a sleeveless undershirt, with a towel hanging from his neck, and with vestiges of shaving cream under his chin and near his left ear.
He was a small and wiry man who wore what was left of his gray hair in a crew cut.
He waited wordlessly for his caller to announce his purpose.
“Lieutenant Stecker?” Tony Harris asked.
Stecker nodded.
“Sir, I’m Detective Harris from Philadelphia Homicide.” Stecker nodded and waited for Harris to go on.
“I’m working a job, and I really need your help.”
“This is my last day on the job. Why’d you come here?”
“I went by the lab, sir. And saw Lieutenant Mueller.”
And again Stecker waited expressionlessly for him to go on.
“Lieutenant, Dick Candelle said if anybody can come up with enough points from what I’ve got, it’s you.”
“You know Candelle?”
“Yes, sir. We go back a while.”
“And he couldn’t develop enough points from what you’ve got?”
“No, sir. But all he had to work with was a partial, sir. Probably an index finger.”
A plump, pleasant-looking woman appeared behind Stecker.
“What?” she asked.
“This is Detective Harris from Homicide in Philadelphia.”
“Did you tell him this is your last day on the job, and that.. ” She looked at her watch. “… in an hour and ten minutes, you’re having your retirement party at the Penn-Harris? ”
“Tell me about the job,” Stecker said.
“Two black guys held up a Roy Rogers,” Harris said. “They killed a Puerto Rican lady.”
“That’s terrible,” the gray haired lady said, sucking in her breath.
“And then when a uniform-a friend of mine, nice guy, Kenny Charlton, eighteen years on the job, two kids- responded to the robbery in progress, one of the doers-who was wearing the visor hat, cap, I’ve got-stuck a. 38 under his vest and blew him away.”
Stecker didn’t say anything.
“The only tie we have to these critters is this,” Tony said. He held up the plastic evidence bag containing the crownless visor cap.
“That’s all? No witnesses?”
