center of one of them would have to be removed before he could move the meat to the platter.
He touched it gingerly, and it didn’t seem to be that hot. He got a decent grip on it and gave it a tug. It remained impaled. He picked up the fork again, and using the fork to hold the meat in place, tugged harder. The sensor came free, suddenly, which caused Coughlin, in the moment in which he realized the goddamn thing was burning his fingers and let go of it, to throw both the sensor, the metal cord, and the Stainless Steel Easy-To-Read, Dishwasher-Safe Interior Temperature Indicating Device into the grass of Chief Wohl’s backyard.
There were cheers, whistles, and applause from Chief Wohl’s back porch, where Chief Wohl, Chief Inspector of Detectives Matthew Lowenstein, Inspector Peter Wohl, Captain Frank Hollaran, and Mr. Michael J. O’Hara were standing- out of the rain-watching the Master Chef at work.
After glancing momentarily at the porch, Commissioner Coughlin impaled the tenderloins, one after the other, and placed them on the platter-a stainless-steel plate with blood grooves resting in a depression in a wooden plate with handles; yet another culinary gift to the Wohls. Then he balanced the platter on his right hand, like a waiter, and sort of squatted to pick up the umbrella.
Then he marched toward the porch under the umbrella and somewhat unsteadily climbed the stairs, to further whistles, cheers, and applause from the men standing on it.
“You can all kiss my royal Irish ass,” Commissioner Coughlin announced.
Five minutes later, Commissioner Coughlin, fresh from drying his face and hair, sat down to table with everybody, which now included Mrs. Olga Wohl, Mrs. Sarah Lowenstein, and Mrs. Barbara Hollaran, at a table heavily laden with what else they were going to eat.
“I’ve got to get one of those little digital cameras and carry it with me,” Chief Lowenstein said. “I’d love to have pictures of the Master Chef at work.”
“I already told you what you can do,” Coughlin said. “And, yes, Augie, thank you for asking, I will have a glass of that wine.”
'I’ve got mine,” Mickey O’Hara said, holding up his camera. “But I’ve seen that Angry Irishman look in his eyes before and didn’t think I’d better.”
Twenty minutes after that, as Sarah Lowenstein poured coffee and appropriate comments of approval were being offered vis-a-vis the chocolate cake Barbara Hollaran had prepared for the nearly ritual once-every-other-week supper at the Wohls’, Commissioner Coughlin’s cellular phone buzzed.
He took it from his shirt pocket, said, “Hold one” before his caller had a chance to say anything, and handed the cellular to Hollaran, who quickly went into the kitchen.
Hollaran returned almost immediately.
“Commissioner, it’s Captain Quaire,” he said, formally.
Coughlin nodded, and reached for the phone.
“What’s up?” he asked, listened, and said, “I’ll get right back to you. Don’t do anything until I do.”
He pushed the End button and, holding the cellular in his palm, looked thoughtfully at it a moment.
“Mickey, this is out of school, okay?”
'Sure,” O’Hara said.
“What is it, Denny?” Chief Wohl asked.
“We’ve identified one of the doers in the Roy Rogers job,” he said. “Tony Harris went to the State Police fingerprint guy, Lieutenant Stecker, who worked some kind of magic with their new AFIS machine and was able to get enough points to let us run them, and.. ”
He stopped in midsentence, and forestalled any other questions by punching his way through the stored numbers on the cellular until he found what he wanted, and then pressing Call.
“Ben, Denny Coughlin. I apologize for calling you at home…”
He stopped and laughed.
“What, Denny?” Chief Wohl asked.
“Ben Solomon told me to take two aspirin and call him in the morning,” Coughlin said, and then his voice suddenly grew serious, as Mrs. Solomon, aka the district attorney of Philadelphia, came on the line.
“Eileen, we’ve identified one of the doers in the Roy Rogers homicide and now have a pretty good idea who the other one is,” he said. “I thought I’d better let you know.”
There was a pause, and then he continued.
“Tony Harris got the State Police, using some kind of a new machine they have, to get enough prints-points- from a hat, a visor, one of them left at the scene.”
Pause.
“Yeah, that’s it, Eileen. But, once we arrest them, I’m pretty sure some of the witnesses will be able to pick them out of a lineup.
…”
Pause.
“No. Henry Quaire’s getting the warrant as we speak…”
Pause.
“Whatever you say, Eileen. Is Unger there? You want me to send a car?”
Pause.
“Okay. Thirty minutes, in my office.”
Pause.
“Matt’s here. We’re at Augie Wohl’s house.”
Pause.
“Thirty minutes. Thanks, Eileen.”
He took the phone from his ear and pushed End.
“The district attorney says she wants to make sure this is done right. She’s going to meet us in my office in thirty minutes.”
“Just you two?” Peter Wohl asked.
“That’s what she said. What are you driving at?”
“The last I heard, this job was given to a Special Operations task force.”
“Jesus, I forgot about that,” Coughlin said. “Peter, why don’t you just happen to be in Homicide in case Eileen wants to see you?”
Peter Wohl nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Mickey, you didn’t hear any of this,” Coughlin said.
“When do I hear any of this?”
“I’ll let you know what happens when we meet with Eileen, but that’ll probably still be off the record.”
“If you’ve identified these crumbs, what’s all this about?”
“In the words of our beloved district attorney, we want to make goddamn sure these critters don’t walk out of the courtroom because we did something stupid now that we finally know who they are,” Coughlin said.
He rose to his feet.
“Eat Barbara’s cake and drink your coffee first,” Olga Wohl ordered firmly. “Five minutes one way or the other’s not going to matter.”
Five minutes later, the first radio call was made when Frank Hollaran took the microphone from beneath the dash and spoke into it: “Radio, C-2 en route to the Roundhouse from Chief Wohl’s residence.”
Immediately after that, there were two more calls, as D-l (Chief Inspector of Detectives Lowenstein) and S-l Inspector Wohl (Special Operations) reported that they, too, were on their way from Chief Wohl’s house to the Roundhouse.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here, Eileen,” Police Commissioner Ralph J. Mariani said, as he walked into Deputy Commissioner Coughlin’s conference room.
“You’re the police commissioner, Ralph,” the Hon. Eileen McNamara Solomon replied, matter-of-factly. “I thought you ought to be on this, so I asked Al Unger to call you.”
There were several shadings to their relationship. The most important was that Commissioner Mariani served at the pleasure of the Hon. Alvin W. Martin, mayor of the City of Philadelphia. The mayor is one of the two senior officials in Philadelphia who have no one to answer to but the law and the voters. The other is the district attorney.
Almost as important, both the police commissioner and the district attorney felt-even if they never articulated
