'Why should that bother you? Aren't you under police protection?'
'What does that mean?'
'Just what it sounded like. I called the Homicide guy, DelRaye, Lieutenant DelRaye, when I couldn't find you, and he said that I would have to talk to Inspector Wohl, that Wohl was 'taking care of you.' '
'I am not under police protection,' she said, evenly. 'I'll tell you what I will do, Leonard. I'll look at what you have on tape, and if there's anything there that makes it worthwhile, I'll do a voice-over. But I am not going to chat pleasantly with Barton Ellison about it on camera.'
'Okay,' Leonard Cohen replied. 'Thank you ever so much. Your dedication to journalism touches me deeply. Who's Wohl?'
'He's a cop. He's a friend of mine. He's a nice guy,' Louise said.
'He's the youngest staff inspector in the police department,' Cohen said. 'He was also the youngest captain. His father is a retired chief inspector, which may or may not have had something to do with his being the youngest captain and staff inspector. What he usually does is investigate corruption in high places. He put the head of the plumber's local, two fairly important Mafiosi, and the director of the Housing Authority in the pokey just before you came to town.'
She looked at him, her eyebrows raised again.
'Very bright young man,' Cohen went on. 'He normally doesn't schmooze people. I'm sure, you being a professional journalist and all, that you have considered the police department may have a reason for assigning an attractive young bachelor to schmooze you.'
'You find him attractive, Leonard, is that what you're saying?' Louise asked innocently. 'I'll have to tell him.'
His lips tightened momentarily, but he didn't back off.
'You're going to see him again, huh?'
'Oh, God, Leonard, I hope so,' Louise said. 'He's absolutely marvelous in the sack!' She waited until his eyes widened. 'Put that in your file, too, why don't you?' she added, and then walked away.
TEN
Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson was sitting on the sill of a wall of windows that provided a view of lower Market Street, the Delaware River and the bridge to New Jersey.
'So, I went down to Homicide,' he said, nearing the end of his story, 'and finally got to meet Miss Wells, also known as Dutton.'
'Where had she been?' Brewster Payne asked. Mawson had aroused his curiosity. Through the entire recital of having been given a runaround by the police, and the gory details of the brutal murder of Jerome Nelson, he had not been able to guess why Mawson was telling it all to him.
'She wouldn't tell me,' Mawson said. 'She's a very feisty young woman, Brewster. I think she was on the edge of telling me to butt out.'
'How extraordinary,' Payne said, dryly, 'that she would even consider refusing the services of 'Philadelphia's most distinguished practitioner of criminal law.''
'I knew damned well I made a mistake telling you that,' Mawson said. 'Now I'll never hear the end of it.'
'Probably not,' Payne agreed.
'I have an interesting theory,' Mawson said, 'that she spent the night with the cop.'
'Miss Dutton? And which cop would that be, Mawson?' Payne asked.
'Inspector Wohl,' Mawson said. 'He took her away from the apartment, and then he brought her in in the morning.'
'I thought, for a moment, that you were suggesting there was something romantic, or whatever, between them,' Payne said.
'That's exactly what I'm suggesting,' Mawson said. 'He's not what comes to mind when you say 'cop.' Or 'inspector.' For one thing he's young, and very bright, and well dressed…polished if you take my meaning.'
'Perhaps they're friends,' Payne said. 'When he heard what had happened, he came to be a friend.'
'She doesn't look at him like he's a friend,' Mawson insisted, 'and unless Czernick is still playing games with me, he didn't even know her until yesterday. According to Czernick, he assigned him to the Wells/Dutton girl to make sure she was treated with the appropriate kid gloves for a TV anchorwoman.'
'I don't know where you're going, I'm afraid,' Payne said.
'Just file that away as a wild card,' Mawson said. 'Let me finish.'
'Please do,' Payne said.
'So, after she signed her statement, and she rode off into the sunrise with this Wohl fellow, I came here and put in a call to Wells in London. He wasn't there. But he left a message for me. Delivered with the snotty arrogance that only the English can manage. Mr. Wells is on board British Caledonian Airways Flight 419 to New York, and ' would be quite grateful if I could make myself available to him immee-jut-ly on his arrival at Philadelphia.' '
'Philadelphia?' Payne asked, smiling. Mawson's mimicry of an upperclass British accent was quite good. 'Does British Caledonian fly into here?'
'No, they don't. I asked the snotty Englishman the same question. He said, he 'raw-ther doubted it. What Mr. Wells has done is shed-yule a helicopter to meet the British Caledonian air-crawft in New York, don' t you see? To take him from New York to Philadelphia.' '
Payne set his coffee cup on the end table beside the couch.
'You're really very good at that,' he said, chuckling. 'So you're going to meet him at the airport here?'
Mawson hesitated, started to reply, and then stopped.
'Okay,' Brewster Payne said. 'So that's the other question.'
'I don't like being summoned like an errand boy,' Mawson said. 'But on the other hand, Stanford Fortner Wells is Wells Newspapers, and there-'
'Is a certain potential, for the future,' Payne filled in for him. ' If he had counsel in Philadelphia, he would have called them.'
'Exactly.'
'We could send one of our bright young men to the airport with a limousine,' Payne said, 'to take Mr. Wells either here, to see you, or to a suite which we have reserved for him in the… what about the Warwick?… where you will attend him the moment your very busy schedule-shed-yule-permits.'
'Good show!' Mawson said. 'Raw-ther! Quite! I knew I could count on you, old boy, in this sticky wicket.'
Payne chuckled.
'You said 'the other question', Brewster,' Mawson said.
'What, if anything, you should say to Mr. Wells about where his daughter was when you couldn't find her, and more specifically, how much, if at all, of your suspicions regarding Inspector Wall-'
'Wohl. Double-U Oh Aitch Ell,' Mawson interrupted.
'Wohl,' Payne went on. 'And his possibly lewd and carnal relationship with his daughter.'
'Okay. Tell me.'
'Nothing, if you're asking my advice.'
'I thought it might show how bright and clever we are to find that out so soon,' Mawson said.
'No father, Mawson, wants to hear from a stranger that his daughter is not as innocent as he would like to believe she is.'
Mawson laughed.
'You're right, Brewster,' he said. He walked to the door and opened it. 'Irene, would you ask Mr. Fengler to come over, please? And tell him to clear his schedule for the rest of the day? And then reserve agood suite at the Warwick, billing to us, for Mr. Stanford Fortner Wells? And finally, call that limousine service and have them send one over, to park in our garage? And tell them I would be very grateful if it was clean, and not just back from a funeral?'
'Yes, sir,' she said, smiling.
'Hello, Matt,' Mawson said. 'How are you?'
