Lieutenant Jack Potter, the mad genius of Forensics.'
'No. But what do they say? 'He is preceded by his reputation'? How are you, Payne?'
'How do you do, sir?'
'Anything?' Washington asked.
'Not much. We picked up some shotshell pellets and two wads, either from off the floor or picked out of the concrete. No more shell casings. Which means that the shooter knew what he was doing; or that he had only two shells, which suggests it was double-barrel, as opposed to an autoloader; or all of the above.'
'Anything in the girl's car?'
'Uh-uh. No bags of anything,' Lieutenant Potter replied. 'Haven't had a chance either to run the prints or analyze what the vacuum cleaner picked up.'
'I'd love to find a clear print of Mr. DeZego inside the Mercedes,' Washington said.
'If there's a match, you'll be the first to know,' Potter said.
'Can you release the Mercedes?' Washington asked. Potter's eyebrows rose in question. 'I thought it might be a nice gesture on our part if Officer Payne and I returned the car to the Detweiler home.'
'Why not?' Potter replied. 'What about the Dodge? There was nothing out of the ordinary there.'
'You've got the name and address of the owner?'
Potter nodded.
'Let me have it. I'll have someone check him out. I think we can take the tape down, anyway.'
Potter grunted.
'Which raises the question, of course, of Mr. DeZego's car,' Washington said. 'Do you suppose he walked up here?'
'Or he came up here with the shooter and they left without him,' Potter said.
'Or his car is parked on the street,' Washington said. 'Orwas parked on the street and may be in the impound yard now.'
'I'll check on that for you, if you like,' Potter said.
'Matt,' Washington said, 'find a phone. Call Organized Crime and see if they know what kind of a car Anthony J. DeZego drove. Then call Traffic and see if they impounded a car like that and, if so, where they impounded it. Maybe we'll get lucky.'
'Right,' Matt replied.
'And if that doesn't work, call Police Radio and have them see if they can locate the car and get back to me, if they can.'
'Right,' Matt said.
Washington turned to Potter.
'You have any idea where the shooter was standing?'
'Let me show you,' Potter said as Matt walked to the telephone.
TEN
Mrs. Charles McFadden, Sr., a plump, gray-haired woman of fortyfive, was watching television in the living room of her home, a row house on Fitzgerald Street not far from Methodist Hospital in South Philadelphia when the telephone rang.
Not without effort, and sighing, she pushed herself out of the upholstered chair and went to the telephone, which had been installed on a small shelf mounted on the wall in the corridor leading from the front door past the stairs to the kitchen.
'Hello?'
'Can I reach Officer McFadden on this number?' a male voice inquired.
'You can,' she said. 'But he's got his own phone. Did you try that?'
'Yes, ma'am. There was no answer.'
Come to think of it, Agnes McFadden thought, I didn't 't hear it ring.
'Just a minute,' she said, and then: 'Who did you say is calling?'
'This is Sergeant Henderson, ma'am, of the Highway Patrol. Is this Mrs. McFadden?'
'Senior,' she said. 'I'm his mother.'
'Yes, ma'am.'
'I'll get him,' she said. 'Just a moment.'
She put the handset carefully beside the base and then went upstairs. Charley's room was at the rear. When he had first gone on the job-working Narcotics undercover, which had pleased his mother not at all, the way he went around looking like a bum and working all hours at night-he had had his own telephone line installed.
Then, as happy as a kid with a new toy train, he had found a little black box in Radio Shack that permitted the switching on and off of the telephone ringer. It was a great idea, but what happened was that after he turned off the ringer, he forgot to turn it back on, which meant that either he didn't get calls at all, or the caller, as now, had the number of the phone downstairs, and she or his father had to climb the stairs and tell him he had a call.
She knocked at his door and, when there was no answer, pushed it open. Charley was lying facedown on the bed in his Jockey shorts, his arms and legs spread, snoring softly. That told her that he'd stopped off for a couple (to judge by the sour smell, a whole hell of a lot more than a couple) of beers when he got off work last night.
She called his name and touched his shoulder. Then she put both hands on his shoulders and bounced him up and down. He slept like the dead. Always had.
Finally he half turned and raised his head.
'What the hell, Ma!' Charley said.
'Don't you swear at me!'
'What do you want, Ma?'
'There's some sergeant on the phone.'
Still half asleep, Charley found his telephone, picked it up, heard the dial tone, and looked at her in confusion.
'Downstairs,' she said. 'You and your telephone switch!'
He got out of bed with surprising alacrity and ran down the corridor. She heard the thumping and creaking of the stairs as he took them two at a time.
'McFadden,' he said to the telephone.
'Sergeant Henderson, out at Bustleton and Bowler.'
'Yes, sir?'
'You heard about Officer Magnella being shot last night?'
'Yeah.'
'We're trying to put as many men on it as we can. Any reason you can't do some overtime? Specifically, any reason you can't come in at noon instead of four?'
'I'll be there.'
Sergeant Henderson hung up.
Charley had two immediate thoughts as he put the phone in its cradle: Jesus, what time is it? and, an instant later, Jesus, I feel like death warmed over. I've got to start cutting it short at the FOP.
'What was that all about?' his mother asked from the foot of the stairs, and then, without waiting for a reply, 'Put some clothes on. This isn't a nudist colony.'
'I gotta go to work. You hear about the cop who got shot?'
'It was on the TV. What's that got to do with you?'
'They're still trying to catch who did it.'
Mrs. Agnes McFadden had been the only person in the neighborhood who had not been thrilled when her son had been called a police hero for his role in putting the killer of Captain Dutch Moffitt of the Highway Patrol out of circulation. She reasoned that if Gerald Vincent Gallagher was indeed a murderer, then obviously he could have done harm to her only son.
