'Goddamn it, Penny, do what you're told. And then the two of you get back here as soon as you can.'
'You don't have to snip at me, Leonard!' Penny said.
Officer Mason, once he and Officer Foley had slid the stretcher with Captain Richard C. Moffitt on it into the back of Two-Oh-One, had been faced with the decision of which hospital the 'wounded' Highway Patrol officer should be transported to.
There had been really no doubt in his mind that Moffitt was dead; in the year and a half he'd been assigned to wagon duty, he'd seen enough dead and nearly dead people to tell the difference. But Moffitt was a cop, and no matter what, 'wounded' and 'injured' cops were hauled to a hospital.
'Tell Radio Nazareth,' Officer Mason had said to Officer Foley as he flicked on the siren and lights.
Nazareth Hospital, at Roosevelt Boulevard and Pennypack Circle, was not the nearest hospital, but it was, in Officer Mason's opinion, the best choice of the several available to him. Maybe Dutch Moffitt wasn' t dead.
They had been waiting for him at Nazareth Emergency, nurses and doctors and everything else, but Dutch Moffitt was dead, period.
Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernick had arrived a few minutes later, and on his heels came cars bearing Mayor Jerry Carlucci, Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin, and Captain Charley Gait of the Civil Disobedience Squad. Officer Mason heard Captain Gaft explain his presence to Chief Inspector Coughlin: Until last month, he had been Dutch Moffitt's home district commander, and he thought he should come; he knew Jeannie Moffitt pretty good.
And then Captain Paul Mowery, Dutch Moffitt's new home district commander, appeared. He held open the glass door from the Emergency parking lot for Jeannie Moffitt. She was a tall, healthy-looking, white-skinned woman with reddish brown hair. She was wearing a faded cotton housedress and a gray, unbuttoned cardigan.
'Be strong, Jeannie,' Chief Inspector Coughlin said. 'Dutch's gone.'
'I knew it,' Jean Moffitt said, almost matter-of-factly. 'I knew it.' And then she fumbled in her purse for a handkerchief, and then started to sob. 'Oh, God, Denny! What am I going to tell the kids?'
Coughlin wrapped his arms around her, and Mayor Carlucci and Commissioner Czernick stepped close to the two of them, their faces mirroring their emotions. They desperately wanted to do something, anything, to help, and there was nothing in their power that could.
Jean Moffitt got control of herself, in a faint voice asked if she could see him, and the three of them led her into the curtained-off cubicle where the doctors had officially decreed that Dutch Moffitt was dead.
A moment later, Jean Moffitt was led out of the cubicle, and out of the Emergency Room by Commissioner Czernick and Captain Mowery.
Chief Inspector Coughlin and the mayor, who was blowing his nose, watched her leave.
'Get the sonofabitch who did this, Denny,' the mayor said.
'Yes, sir,' Coughlin said, almost fervently. 'We'll get him.'
The mayor and Chief Inspector Coughlin waited until Captain Mowery's car had gone, and then left the Emergency Room.
As the mayor's Cadillac left the parking lot, it had to brake abruptly twice, as first a plain and battered Chevrolet, and then moments later a police car festooned with lights and sirens, turned off the street. Homicide, in the person of Lieutenant Louis Natali, and the Highway Patrol, in the person of Lieutenant Mike Sabara, had arrived.
When Staff Inspector Peter Wohl drove into the Emergency entrance at Nazareth, five minutes later, he was not surprised to find three other police cars there, plus the Second District wagon. One of the cars, except that it was light blue, was identical to his. One was a wellworn green Chevrolet, and one was a black Ford.
When he went inside, it was easy to assign the cars to the people there. The blue LTD belonged to Captain Charley Gaft of the Civil Disobedience Squad. New, unmarked cars worked their way down the hierarchy of the police department, first assigned to officers in the grades of inspector and above, and then turned over, when newer cars came in, to captains, who turned their cars over to lieutenants. Exceptions were made for staff inspectors and for some captains with unusual jobs, like Gaft's assignment, who got new cars.
Wohl wasn't sure what the exact function of the Civil Disobedience Squad was. It was new, one of Taddeus Czernick's ideas, and Gaft had been named as its first commander. Wohl thought that whatever it did, it was inaptly named (everything, from murder to spitting on the sidewalk, was really 'civil disobedience') and he wasn't sure whether Gaft had been given the job because he was a bright officer, or whether it had been a tactful way of getting him out of his district.
The well-worn, unmarked Chevrolet belonged to Lieutenant Louis Natali of Homicide, and the black Ford with the outsized high-speed tires and two extra shortwave antennae sticking up from the trunk deck was obviously that of Lieutenant Mike Sabara of the Highway Patrol. Now that Dutch was dead, Sabara, the ranking officer on the Highway Patrol, was, at least until a permanent decision was made, its commanding officer.
Lieutenant Sabara's face showed that he was surprised and not particularly happy to see Staff Inspector Wohl. He was a Lebanese with dark, acne-scarred skin. He was heavy, and short, a smart, tough cop. He was in uniform, and the leather jacket and puttees added to his menacing appearance.
'Hello, Peter,' Captain Gaft said.
'Charley,' Wohl said, and smiled at the others. 'Mike. Lou.'
They nodded and murmured, 'Inspector.'
'You just missed the mayor, the commissioner, and Chief Coughlin,' Captain Gaft said. 'Plus, of course, poor Jeannie Moffitt.'
The conversation was interrupted as Officers Foley and Mason rolled a cart with a sheet-covered body toward them.
'Just a minute please,' Wohl said. 'Where are Captain Moffitt's personal things? And his pistol?'
Natali tapped his briefcase.
'What's on your mind, Inspector?' Lieutenant Sabara asked.
'Natali,' Wohl asked. 'May I have a look, please?'
'What does that mean?' Sabara asked.
'It means I want me to have a look at what Dutch had in his pockets,' Wohl said.
'Why?' Sabara pursued.
'Because I want to, Lieutenant,' Wohl said.
'It sounds as if you're looking for something wrong,' Sabara said.
'I don't care what it sounds like, Mike,' Wohl said. 'What itmeans is that I want to see what Dutch had in his pockets. Dutch and I were friends. I want to make sure he had nothing in his wallet that his wife shouldn't see. Let me have it, Natali.'
Natali opened the briefcase, took out several plastic envelopes, and laid them on a narrow table against the wall. Wohl picked up one of them, which held a wallet, keys, change, and other small items, dumped the contents on the table and went through them carefully. He found nothing that made a connection with Miss Louise Dutton. There were three phone numbers without names, one written on the back of a Strawbridge amp; Clothier furniture salesman's business card, and two inside matchbooks.
Wohl handed the card and the matchbooks to Natali.
'I don't suppose you've had the time to check those numbers out, Natali?' he said.
'I was going to turn them over to the assigned detective,' Natali said. 'But it wouldn't be any trouble to do it now.'
'Would you, please?' Wohl asked.
Natali nodded and went looking for a phone.
Wohl met Sabara's eyes.
'What about the bimbo, Peter?' he asked. 'Is that what this is all about?'
'What 'bimbo,' Mike?' Wohl replied, a hint of ice in his voice.
