Kelvin nodded his understanding.
'Jason Washington called. Homicide detective? You know him?'
'Special Operations,' Wohl corrected him. 'He transferred in today.'
'He didn't mention that,' Kelvin said. 'He called in and asked that you get in touch when you have time to talk to him.'
'Where is he?'
'He said he was having dinner in the Old Ale House.'
'Call him, please, Jack, and tell him that when he finishes his dinner, I'll be here for the next hour or so.'
'Yes, sir,' Kelvin said. 'Captain Sabara left word that he's going to work the First and Second District roll calls for volunteers, and then go home. Captain Pekach left word that he's going to have dinner and then ride around, and that he'll more than likely be in here sometime tonight.'
Wohl nodded. 'Payne was supposed to have Xeroxed some stuff for me. You know anything about it?'
'Yes, sir. I left it on your desk. I'd love to know where he found that Xerox machine. The copies are beautiful.'
'Knowing Payne, he probably waltzed into the Commissioner's office and used his,' Wohl said. He put out his hand again. 'It's good to see you, Jack,' he said. 'And especially behind that desk.'
'I'm glad to see you behind your desk, too, Inspector.'
He meant that, Wohl decided, flattered. It wasn't just polishing the apple.
Wohl went into his office and examined the Xeroxed materials. Kelvin was right, he thought, the copies were beautiful, like those in the Xerox ads on television, not like those to be expected from machines in the Police Department.
He took the original file back out to Sergeant Kelvin and told him to have a Highway Patrol car run it back to Northwest Detectives, and to make sure that it wound up in Lieutenant Spanner's hands, not just dumped on the desk man's desk in the squad room.
Then he sat down and took one of the Xerox copies and started, very carefully, to read through it again.
Fifteen minutes later, he sensed movement and looked up. Jason Washington was at the office door, asking with a gesture of his hand and a raised eyebrow if it was all right for him to come in.
Wohl gestured that it was. Washington did so and then closed the door behind him.
'How was dinner?' Wohl asked.
'All I had was a salad,' Washington said. 'I have to watch my weight.'
'What's on your mind, Jason?'
'Is that the Xerox you said you would get me?'
Wohl nodded, and made a gesture toward it.
Washington took one of the files, then settled himself in an armchair.
'I saw the Flannery girl,' he said.
'How did that go?'
'Not very well, as a matter of fact,' Washington said. 'She wasn't what you could call anxious to talk about it again. Not to anyone, but especially not to a man, and maybe particularly to a black man.'
'But?'
'And,'Washington said, 'I told you Hemmings was a good cop. It was a waste of time. I didn't get anything out of her that he didn't. And then I talked to him. He's pissed, Peter, and I can't say I blame him. Putting me on this job was the same as telling him either that you didn't think he had done a good job, or that he was capable of doing one.'
'That's not true, and I'm sorry he feels that way.'
'How would it look to you, if you were in his shoes?' Washington asked reasonably.
'When I was a new sergeant in Homicide, Jason,' Wohl replied, 'Matt Lowenstein took me off a job because I wasn't getting anywhere with it. The wife in Roxborough who ran herself over with her own car. He put the best man he had on the job, a guy named Washington.'
'I told Hemmings that story,' Washington said. 'I don't think it helped much.'
After a moment, Wohl said, 'Thank you, Jason.'
Washington ignored that.
'You read that file?'
'I was just about finished reading it for the third time.'
'The one time I read it,' Washington said, 'I thought I saw a pattern. Our doer is getting bolder and bolder. You see that, something like that, too?'
'Yes, I did.'
'If we get the abducted woman back, alive, I'll be surprised.'
'Why?'
'That didn't occur to you?' Washington asked.
'Yes, it did, but I want to see if we reached the same conclusion for the same reasons.'
'The reason we don't have a lead, not a damned lead, on this guy is because we don't have a good description on him, or his van. And the reason we don't is that, until the Flannery thing, he wasn't with the victims more than fifteen, twenty minutes, and he did what he did where he found them. In the Flannery job, he put her in his van, but in such a way that it didn't give us any better picture of him than we had before. He never took that mask off-by the way, it's not a Lone Ranger-type mask; the Lone Ranger wore one that just covered his eyes.'
'I picked up on that,' Wohl said.
'That was the one little mistake that Dick Hemmings made, and when I mentioned it to him, he admitted it right away; said that he'd picked up on that, too, and doesn't know why he put it in the report the way he did.'
'Go on, Jason.'
'In the Flannery job, he put her in his van and drove away with her. I think that convinced him he can take his victims away, and keep them longer. That's what he's really after, I think, having them in his power. That's more important to him, I think, than the sexual gratification he's getting; there's been no incident of him reaching orgasm except by masturbation.'
'I agree,' Wohl said, 'that he's after the domination; the humiliation is part of that.'
'So he now knows he can get away with taking the women away from their homes; he proved that by taking the Flannery woman to Forbidden Drive. And since that was so much fun, he took the next victim away, too. Maybe to his house, maybe someplace else, the country, maybe.'
'And the longer he keeps them, the greater the possibility… that his mask will fall off, or something…'
'Or that the victim will look around and see things that would help us to find where she's been taken,' Washington continued. 'And this guy is smart, Peter. It is going to occur to him sooner or later, if it hasn't already, that what he's got on his hands is someone who can lead the cops to him; and that will mean the end of his fun.'
Not dramatically, but matter-of-factly, Jason Washington drew his index finger across his throat in a cutting motion.
'And he might find that's even more fun than running around in his birthday suit, wearing a mask, and waving his dong at them,' Washington added.
'That's the way I see it,' Wohl said. 'That's why I wanted you over here, working on it. I want to catch this guy before that happens.'
'Dick Hemmings, if you'd have asked him, could have told you the same thing.'
'It's done, Jason, you're here. So tell me what we should be doing next.'
'Tony Harris has come up with a long list of minor sexual offenders,' Washington said. 'If I were you, Peter, I'd get him all the help he needs to ring doorbells.'
'I don't know where I can get anybody,' Wohl said, thinking aloud.
'You better figure out where,' Washington said. 'That's all we've got right now. Tony's been trying to get a match, in Harrisburg, between the names he's got and people who own any kind of a van. So far, zilch.'
'Sabara's got some people coming in,' Peter said. 'Probably some of them will be here in the morning. I'll put them on it. And maybe I could get some help from Northwest Detectives, maybe even tonight.'
'I wouldn't count on that,' Washington said. 'I think they're glad you've taken this job away from them.'
'I didn't take it away from them,' Wohl flared. 'It was given to me.'
