“Where else would he get a picture of Kellog?” Carlucci asked, thoughtfully rhetoric. “Have you got the frame?”
“Yeah. That’s why Quaire called me. We got a search warrant. They found not only a silver frame, but a dozen-thirteen, actually-tape cassettes. They were in the fire, but maybe Forensics can do something with them. If Mrs. Kellog can identify the frame, or there’s something on the tapes…”
“Where’s the critter?”
“Right now, he’s on his way from the Thirty-ninth to Homicide,” Lowenstein said.
“Who’s going to interview him?”
Lowenstein shrugged. “Detective D’Amata is the assigned detective.”
“Peter, do you have Jason Washington doing anything he can’t put off for a couple of hours?” the Mayor asked, innocently.
That is, Wohl noted mentally, the first time the Mayor has acknowledged my presence.
“You want to take it away from D’Amata?” Lowenstein asked.
“I’d like an arrest in that case,” Carlucci said. “If you think it would be a good idea to have Washington talk to this critter, Matt, I’d go along with that.”
“Shit,” Lowenstein said. “You find Washington, Peter,” he ordered. “I’ll call Quaire.”
“Yes, sir,” Peter said.
“Only if you think it’s a good idea, Matt,” the Mayor said. “It was only a suggestion.”
“Yeah, right,” Lowenstein said, and walked back to Mrs. Annette Cossino’s desk and reached for one of the telephones.
“D’Amata will understand, Peter,” the Mayor said.
“Yes, sir,” Peter said. “I’m sure he will.”
“Annette,” the Mayor called. “Call the Thirty-ninth. Tell the Commanding Officer I want him and this uniform standing by to come here if I need them.”
“Yes, Mr. Mayor,” Mrs. Cossino said.
“Henry,” Lowenstein said into the telephone. “When they bring in the critter from the Thirty-ninth, handcuff him to a chair in an interview room and leave him there until Washington shows up. Wohl’s putting the arm out for him now. I think that’s the way to handle the interview, and the Mayor agrees.”
He hung the phone up and turned to face Carlucci.
“Are you pissed at me, Matt?” Carlucci, sounding genuinely concerned, asked.
“When am I not pissed at you?” Lowenstein said. “It goes with the territory.”
“You don’t think it was a good idea?”
“That’s the trouble. I think it was a very good idea,” Lowenstein said.
“Sergeant Washington is en route to the Roundhouse, Mr. Mayor,” Wohl repeated.
“Great!” Carlucci said enthusiastically. Then he smiled broadly. “Let’s do this all over.”
“What?” Lowenstein asked in confusion.
“Well, Chief Lowenstein,” Carlucci said, and grabbed Lowenstein’s hand and pumped it. “And Inspector Wohl! How good of you both to come see me! It’s always a pleasure to see two of the most valuable members of the Police Department here in my office. Come in and have a cup of coffee and tell me how I may be of assistance!”
Lowenstein shook his head in resignation.
“Jesus Christ!”
“What can I do for you, Chief?”
“Stop the bullshit, Jerry,” Lowenstein said, chuckling.
“OK,” Carlucci said agreeably. “What’s up?”
“Last night, a couple of South detectives saw one John Francis Foley pass a package to one Gerald North Atchison. Shortly thereafter, Detective Payne of Special Operations saw Mr. Atchison throw said package off a pier in Chester-”
“How did South detectives get involved in this?” Carlucci asked, and Wohl saw that he had slipped back into being a cop.
“Payne was surveilling Atchison. He ran into the South detectives and asked for their assistance.”
“OK,” Carlucci said thoughtfully. “Go on.”
“The package was retrieved early this morning by a police diver. The lab just came up with a positive ballistics match to the murder weapons.”
“Fingerprints?”
Lowenstein shook his head. “Weapons were cleaned. I thought I’d show it to you before I sent someone over to Tom Callis’s office with it.”
“Let me see,” Carlucci said, holding out his hand.
Lowenstein handed the Mayor an envelope. Carlucci made a “come in” gesture with his hand, walked ahead of them into his office, sat down at his desk, and opened the envelope.
Carlucci carefully stuffed the report back into its envelope, then looked at Lowenstein.
“It may be enough,” Carlucci said. “It is for an arrest, anyway.”
“I thought so,” Lowenstein said. “I’ll have it sent to Callis within the hour.”
“What the hell, Matt,” Carlucci said. “I mean, you’re right here in the neighborhood, right’? Why don’t you, both of you, take this to Tom? See if he has any problems with it? Give him my very best regards when you do.”
James Howard Leslie had been sitting in the steel captain’s chair in the Homicide Unit interview room, handcuffed to its seat, for almost an hour when the door opened and a very large, important-looking black man walked in.
No one had spoken to him during that time, nor had anyone so much as opened the door to look at him. He suspected that he was being watched through the somewhat fuzzy mirror on the wall, but he couldn’t be sure.
“James Howard Leslie?” the black man asked.
Leslie didn’t reply.
“Good afternoon,” Jason Washington said. “If you’d like, I can remove the handcuff.”
“I don’t give a fuck one way or the other.”
Washington unlocked the handcuff and stood back. Leslie rubbed his wrist.
“I don’t even know what the fuck’s going on,” Leslie said.
“You’ve been in here some time, I understand.” Washington said. “Is there anything I can get for you’? Would you like a Coca-Cola, a cup of coffee, a sandwich?”
“What I would like is to know what the hell is going on. All I did was try to burn some garbage.”
“I understand. That’s why I’m here, to explain to you what’s going on. And while we’re talking, would you like a Coca-Cola, or a cigarette?”
“I could drink a Coke.”
Washington opened the door. “Sergeant,” he ordered sternly, “would you please get a Coca-Cola for Mr. Leslie?”
Leslie heard someone reply.
“Fuck him! Let the fucking cop killer drink water!”
“I said get him a Coca-Cola.”
“Whose side are you on, anyway?” the voice said.
“That wasn’t a suggestion, it was an order,” Washington said sharply.
Two minutes later, a slight, dapper man with a pencil-thin mustache entered the interview room with a Coca-Cola, thrust it into Leslie’s hand with such violence that liquid erupted from the neck of the bottle and spilled on Leslie’s shirt and trousers.
The slight, dapper man then left the interview room. Just before the door slammed shut, Leslie heard the man say, “Fuck Special Operations, too.”
Washington handed Leslie a crisp white handkerchief to clean his shirt and trousers.
“He and Officer Kellog were friends,” Washington said, in explanation.
“What?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Washington said. He leaned on the wall by the door, waited until Leslie had finished
