At ten minutes past seven, Matt Payne very nearly drove Miss Penelope Detweiler's Mercedes into the wrought-iron gate of the Detweiler estate in Chestnut Hill.
He stopped so suddenly that Penny was thrown against the dashboard.
'When the hell did you start closing the goddamned gate?'
'No, I don't think I'm hurt, but thank you for asking, darling.'
'Sorry. Are you all right?'
'I'm going to be sore all over,' Penny said innocently. 'If it's not one thing, it's another. Whatever am I going to do about you, Matthew darling?'
'What's with the gate?'
'There's some kind of a machine on it. It closes automatically at ten, something like that, and then opens automatically when it gets light in the morning.'
'Not this morning.'
He got out of the car and went to a telephone box and lifted a telephone receiver. It rang automatically.
'May I help you?' a voice said.
'Princess Penelope seeks entrance to the castle,' Matt said.
'Yes, sir,' the voice, which Matt now recognized as that of Jensen, the chauffeur, said. He did not seem amused.
The right half of the double gates creaked majestically open.
'I'll tell you something else that gate does,' Matt said as he drove through it. 'It permits your parents to know when your boyfriends bring you home.'
'Don't be silly,' she said.
H. Richard Detweiler, in a quilted silk dressing gown, came out of the front door as Matt drove up, holding a cup of coffee.
'He doesn't do that too well, does he?' Penny said.
'Do what?'
'Manage to look like he just happened to be there?'
Matt drove right past Detweiler, waving cheerfully at him, and around to the garage. His Volkswagen was parked to one side.
'You lie to your father,' Matt said. 'I'm getting out of here.'
'You're underestimating him. I'll bet there's no keys in your Bug.'
There were not.
It was necessary to walk back to the house, where Penny gave an entirely credible, but wholly false, report of GiGi's party, and why they had decided to stay over and come back first thing in the morning.
Matt was at first amused. Then it occurred to him that if Penny could lie that easily to her father, she could lie as easily to someone else, say M. Payne, Esq., and it no longer seemed amusing.
And then he realized that H. Richard Detweiler didn't believe a word Penny had told him.
He has no idea where we really were, but he knows damned well we were not at GiGi's. So why isn't he mad? Aren't fathers supposed to be furious when young men screw their daughters?
As a general rule of thumb, yes. But not when the young gentleman is an old, dear, and more importantly, responsible friend of the family, and the young lady in question has previously been involved in things that make a night between the sheets seem quite innocent, indeed.
'I really have to go.'
'I'll have Jensen bring your car around,' Detweiler said.
'Just get me the keys, please, I can get it myself.'
'Thank you for a lovely evening, Matt,' Penny said. 'Ask me again, soon.'
When she was sure her father's back was turned, she winked lewdly at him.
At two minutes before eight, Matt Payne pushed open the door to the Special Investigations Section. Two sergeants were waiting for him.
'Payne,' Sergeant Maxwell Henkels said, 'I told you once before. This is the second time, I'm not going to tell you again. I want to know where you are located all the time.'
Somebody, obviously, has been looking for me.
'I wasn't aware that applied when I'm off duty,' Matt said.
'Yeah, well, now you do. You understand me, I'm not going to tell you again?'
'I understand, Sergeant.'
'Payne,' Sergeant Jerry O'Dowd said uncomfortably, a strange smile on his face. 'You have thirty-one minutes to meet Inspector Wohl at Chief Marchessi's office in Internal Affairs.'
'What?'
'What are you, deaf or what?' Sergeant Maxwell Henkels demanded.
'I'll handle this, Sergeant,' O'Dowd said. 'And to make things easier for everybody concerned, I'll keep track of Detective Payne's whereabouts. Will that be all right with you?'
'The inspector asked me where he was, and I felt like an asshole when I didn't know.'
'Well, that won't happen again. Payne will keep me advised of his location, on and off duty, won't you, Payne?'
'Right.'
Henkels left the office.
'You'd better get moving, Payne,' O'Dowd said. 'With the early morning traffic, you're going to have to push it.'
'Do you know what this is all about?'
'No. But right now, you're not one of his favorite people. He made that pretty clear.'
Matt tried to figure that out, but came up with nothing.
'I guess nothing happened overnight? About the lunatic?'
'Not a thing.'
'Well, Sergeant,' Matt said. 'You know where I'll be.'
Jerry O'Dowd nodded.
TWENTY
At twenty-nine minutes after eight, Matt entered the outer office of Chief Inspector Mario Marchessi, of the Internal Investigations Bureau, which was housed in a building about as old as the Schoolhouse, literally under the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, which connects Philadelphia with Camden, N.J.
Staff Inspector Peter Wohl and Officer Jesus Martinez were already there.
'Good morning, sir,' Matt said.
Wohl did not reply. He gestured for Martinez and Payne to follow him out into the corridor.
'I want to make this clear before we go in to see Chief Marchessi,' Wohl said. 'This is to see what, if anything, can be salvaged as a result of you two going off like you thought you were the heroes in a cops-and- robbers movie on TV. Do you understand what I'm saying?'
'No, sir,' Matt said. Martinez shook his head no.
'Jesus!' Wohl said disgustedly. 'Martinez, you were sent to the airport to keep your eyes and ears open, and to report what you thought you heard or saw to me…'
What does he mean, 'Martinez, you were sent to the airport'?
'…but when I asked you to tell me your gut feelings, you decided, to hell with him, I'll play it close to my chest; I'm Super Cop. I'll catch this dirty cop by myself.'
Matt looked at Martinez, who looked crushed.
'And you!' Wohl turned to Matt. 'Whatever gave you the idea that you could, without orders, surveil anyone,
