“Too many ‘ifs.’ There may be nothing in that box to incriminate him about anything. And if we go into the box, then they know we’re looking at them. And they shut down. And what if Calhoun is the scumbag who did that to the girl?”
“Then Jason tells him who the girl is, and that unless he goes along, we tell Grandpa.”
Coughlin looked at him.
“Maybe you will get to be police commissioner,” he said. “I am seeing in you a certain amoral ruthlessness I never noticed before.”
He met Peter’s eyes, then stood up.
“For the time being, only you, me, and Jason. Agreed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you for lunch, Peter.”
“Chief, I’m sorry I didn’t ask you before I accepted . . .”
“No problem. But there is one.”
“Sir?”
“Does your dad know?”
Peter shook his head, “no.”
“The problem is you’re going to have to tell him before he finds out, for one thing. And when he finds out, he’ll think you just might be getting a little too big for your britches.”
“Yeah.”
“Good. You’ve got that message?”
“Loud and clear, sir.”
“Okay. Then I will take pity on you and tell you I already told him I was going to tell you to accept. But now you know how the phones work in here, I’d get on it. Call him and ask him what he thinks. Even money he’ll say go ahead.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Thanks again for lunch, Peter,” Coughlin said and walked out of the Grill Room.
Susan led Matt three blocks from the First Harrisburg Bank & Trust to a Pennsylvania Dutch restaurant.
The place was spotless, and the waitress, a tall blonde about as old as Susan looked, Matt thought, like a visual definition of innocent and wholesome. She wore a starched white lace hat on top of her blond hair, which was parted in the middle and done up in a bun at her neck. Her white cotton blouse—buttoned to the neck—was covered with an open black sweater. Her black skirt was more than halfway down her calves, and her starched white apron matched the cap. No makeup, of course.
She smiled gently, and apparently sincerely, at Susan and Matt.
I wonder what she would do if she knew she was about to serve two felons?
“Are you going to have lunch with us?” she asked. There was a Germanic accent to her speech.
“That depends on what you have,” Matt said.
She looked at him curiously.
“Please,” Susan said and kicked him under the table.
When the waitress left, Matt asked, “Did I say something wrong?”
“She’s Amish, I think,” Susan said. “But whatever, she’s what they call plain people, and she would not understand your smart-ass wit.”
“How am I going to order lunch if I don’t know what’s on the menu?”
Susan inclined her head toward the waitress, who was pushing a large-wheeled cart toward their table.
“What a big-city sophisticate like you would probably call prix fixe,” Susan said. “As much as you want, all one price. But don’t be a pig; take only what you intend to eat. It hurts them when you don’t eat everything on your plate. They think you didn’t like it.”
“Yes, Mother,” Matt said.
There was an enormous display of food in bowls and on platters arranged on the cart.
Matt took roast pork, beef pot roast, potatoes au gratin, lima beans, apple sauce, beets, succotash, two rolls, butter, what looked to him like some kind of apple pie, iced tea, and coffee.
The wholesome waitress smiled at him approvingly, then served Susan approximately one-third as much food.
“Did you hear what I said about eating everything?” Susan said when the waitress had rolled the cart away.
“I intend to,” Matt said.
She shook her head in disbelief.
“Do you know what happened when you put that briefcase under your desk?”
“No,” Matt said, curious and therefore serious, “what? I think it’s safe there, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said. “You had a choice to make, and you made one. Have you thought about that?”
“I didn’t have any choice,” he said. “You know that.”
“Could you put yourself in Jennifer’s shoes? Did she have any choice?”
“Oranges and lemons, Susan,” Matt said. “And how did Jennifer manage to intrude herself on what I thought until sixty seconds ago was going to be a nice lunch?”
“She called this morning. Just before I went to the bank.”
“And?”
“I told her I was busy and that she would have to call back.”
“How much of the conversation did your pal from the FBI hear? Or record?”
“All of it. But there’s nothing—”
“It was one more call in a series of recent calls. They’ll think that something is about to happen. If I were in charge, I would tighten surveillance. We don’t need that.”
“What do I tell her? She’ll keep calling until I talk to her.”
“Tell her to call you tomorrow,” Matt said.
“And what do I tell her tomorrow?”
“Between now and then, we’ll think of something.”
“What are you going to do with the mon—the briefcase?”
“Take it to my room.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been kicking the idea around that maybe we can—somehow, but don’t ask me how—use your returning the loot to our advantage. It would at least show a change of heart. I don’t know how much good that would do.”
She looked at him but said nothing.
“Eat your succotash, like a good girl,” Matt said. “An other option, of course, is to get rid of it. Then—”
“You mean destroy it?”
Matt nodded, and went on: “Then it would be your word against Chenowith that you ever had it.”
“His and Jennifer’s,” Susan said. “She’ll go along with whatever he says.”
“Against her faithful friend?” Matt asked sarcastically.
“Yes.”
“Then why do you give a damn about her?”
“I do, Matt. I can’t help that.”
Matt raised a forkful of pot roast toward his mouth, then lowered it.
“You don’t know that,” he said.
“I don’t know what?”
“From everything you’ve told me, Jennifer is a really weak sister.”
“I told you about her, why she’s that way,” Susan said.
“So she goes along with Chenowith because he’s strong, right? Or at least she sees him that way.”
Susan nodded.
“What are you driving at?”
“Don’t take this as anything but me thinking out loud,” he said. “Tell me about the drunken mother. Is she going to spring for a lawyer—a good lawyer—when they arrest Jennifer?”
“I don’t know. Probably. But if she doesn’t, I will. Do you know one?”
“I know two of the best, but I don’t think they’d take her case.”
“I thought they were supposed to represent people no matter what they did.”
“Let’s skip that for the moment,” Matt said. “For the sake of argument, Jennifer has a good lawyer. By definition, a lawyer argues. A good lawyer offers strong arguments.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Little lady, you have a choice. You either stick with your murdering boyfriend, in which case they will take your baby away from you, and you will never see it again, or you go tell the FBI everything you know, and after you do that, you go into that courtroom and convince people you stayed with him out of fear for your life, and that of the baby.”
“I don’t know, Matt,” Susan said.
“We’re back to have you got any better ideas?”
“Let me think about it,”
Susan said.
“Throw this in the equation,” Matt said. “Don’t do it. Just think about it. You tell her you’ll meet her but you want to meet her alone. Set up the meet. I’m there. I arrest her. Then we tell the FBI where to find Chenowith. You tell Jennifer not to say one goddamn word until she has a lawyer. Then the lawyer delivers his little speech to her.”
“I’ll think about it. Matt, it doesn’t sound credible.”
“I’m still thinking out loud. If she had the money—all the money, what you have and what you think she’s going to give you—”
“They wouldn’t believe that.”
“It doesn’t matter what they believe, or, for that matter, what they know. They have to convince the jury, and that’s not as easy as it looks in the movies. Maybe they’d let her cop a plea. Prosecuting a young mother with a baby in her arms isn’t easy. And they want to win this bad.”
Susan looked at him intently. He saw that she was beginning to accept the argument.
“What I said Susie, is that I’m thinking out loud, and that’s all.”
“I understand,” she said.
“Changing the subject,” Matt said. “You want to go back out to Hershey tonight for our anniversary? Or would you rather have a quiet evening at home with room service in the Penn-Harris? I know the Penn-Harris has oysters.”
She blushed, which he found both sweetly touching and somehow erotic.
“At home, unfortunately. My home.”
“Christ, no!”
“You’ve met Mommy. Mommy thinks you should come to dinner, so you’re coming to dinner. You know what she’s like.”
“Yeah, I know what she’s like. Penny’s mother is just like her. And so is Chad’s mother. And Daffy’s. Bennington apparently has a required course in how to be a three-star bitch.”
“Right now, we can’t afford to antagonize her, Matt.”
“And afterward?”
“Mommy had a motherly word of advice for me when she telephoned to tell me we’re having dinner at the house. After dinner, when you are sure to suggest we go to the club or someplace, I’m to politely turn you down. Leave them wanting more, Mommy said. The worst thing a girl can do when she’s really interested in a boy is appear too interested.”
“Christ! Why do I have this sickening feeling you’re dead serious?”
“Because I am. What do you want me to do?”
Matt shrugged in annoyed helplessness.
“I could get off an hour early,” Susan said, her fresh blush telling him he had correctly interpreted what she meant. “If you could.”
“I don’t know,” Matt said doubtfully. “They’re pretty strict, at the bank, about people taking off before the books are balanced to the last penny.”
“You bastard!”
“How about an hour and a half early? For that matter, how about taking the afternoon off?”
Shit, what if she says yes? I’ve got to see Davis about what box Calhoun went into.
“Maybe a little more than an hour. But not much,” Susan said seriously.
“I’ll leave a candle burning in the window,” Matt said.
“My girl said you wanted to see me, Matt?” Mr. James C. Chase said as he came into Matt’s borrowed office two minutes after Matt returned from lunch.
“Yes, sir,” Matt said and quickly decided the way to handle Chase was to tell him exactly what he wanted. “At eleven fifty-four this morning, one of the men we’re interested in went into the safe-deposit section—”
“You recognized him?”
“Yes, sir. But none of the names on my list of his relatives and acquaintances matches any of the names of your safe-deposit-box holders.”
“And you would like me to find out what box he went in, without drawing attention to you?”
“Yes, sir, that’s exactly what I hoped you could do for me,” Matt said.
“I’ll be right back,” Mr. Chase said and walked out of the office.
Well, I couldn’t ask for anything more than that, could I?
Chase came back into Matt’s office a few minutes later, wearing a look of confusion.
“Matt, are you sure of the time?”
“Yes, sir.”
“According to Adelaide’s records—”
“Adelaide?”
“Adelaide Worner, she’s been in charge of the safe-deposit vault for . . . God, I don’t know, at least ten years, and is absolutely reliable; there were only two people who went into their boxes between eleven forty-five and twelve-fifteen. One of them was a man I’ve known for years, who makes nearly daily visits to his box, and who I don’t think could possibly be involved in the sort of thing you’re interested in. And the other was a young lady with whom I believe you’re acquainted, Susan Reynolds, Tom Reynolds’s daughter.”
“We had lunch,” Matt said.
Shit. This smells. I know Calhoun went in there. But I can’t tell Chase that Adelaide Worner, his faithful tender of the safe-deposit vault, is either mistaken or—worse!—might be involved with Calhoun.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Matt,” Chase said.
“When all else fails, tell the truth,” Matt said with a smile. “ ‘Matt, you were obviously wrong.’ ”
“It looks that way, doesn’t it?” Chase said. “Did you have a nice lunch?”
“Susan took me to a Pennsylvania Dutch place a couple of blocks from here.”
“Christianson’s?”
“They wheel enough food to feed a family of ten to your table.”
“Christianson’s,” Chase confirmed. “I was going to recommend it to you.”
“Very nice place. I ate too much.”
“That’s why people go to Christianson’s, to eat too much.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If there’s anything else you need, Matt?”
“No, sir. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”
“Don’t be silly.”
Matt waited until he saw Chase enter his office across the lobby and then called the number Lieutenant Deitrich had given him. There was no answer. Matt let it ring long enough first to decide that it was Deitrich’s private number—otherwise someone would have answered it—and then to have the thought Shit, is good old Adelaide Worner going to be suspicious about Chase’s interest in her records and ring the warning bell to Calhoun? and then hung up.
He called Chief Mueller.
“Chief, I really need to talk to Lieutenant Deitrich,” Matt said. “And his phone doesn’t answer.”
“Time important, Payne?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Give me your number. I’ll get back to you.”
Three minutes later, the telephone rang.
“Deitrich will pick you up on the corner—turn right when you leave the bank—in five minutes,” Chief Mueller announced, without any preliminary greeting.
“Thank you very much.”
“Happy to do it.”
Almost exactly five minutes later, a pea-green unmarked Ford with Deitrich at the wheel pulled up at the corner. He signaled Matt to get in.
“You got something?” Deitrich asked.
Matt recited the chain of events as they drove through traffic.
Deitrich nodded his head.
“One of the troubles you have when dealing with banks is that nobody in a bank wants to believe that honest somebody could possibly have his, or especially her, hand in the till,” he said. “I guess you already learned that.”
I have just been complimented.
“I’ll check this Adelaide Worner out. Where are you going to be?”
“At the bank. Tonight I’m going out to dinner.”
“Eight o’clock at the Penn-Harris too early for you?”
“No, sir. Thank you very much.”
Deitrich pulled to the curb, and Matt understood he was to get out.
“Thank you, sir.”
Deitrich nodded at him but did not speak.
Matt got out. He had no idea where h
e was, and had to ask directions to get back to the First Harrisburg Bank & Trust.
He called Jason Washington, was told he was not available, then tried Staff Inspector Weisbach’s number and was told he was out sick with a cold. Finally, he called Inspector Peter Wohl.
I really don’t want to talk to Wohl.
Wohl listened to his recitation of Calhoun going into a box without there being a record of it, and what he had done about it.
“Call in when you have something,” Wohl said.
“Yes, sir.”
“I had lunch with Chief Coughlin,” Wohl said. “I told him that I felt sure you were not going to do anything stupid in Harrisburg. Don’t make a liar of me, Matt.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“Anything happening with your lady friend?”
“No, sir.”
Jesus, I hate to lie to him. It makes me want to throw up.
“Take care, Matt,” Wohl said and hung up.
Matt hung up, then leaned back in the high-backed executive chair.
His foot struck the attaché case half full of stolen money and knocked it over.
He sat there another minute or two, considering the ramifications of what he had done, and what he was doing.
And then he stood up, reached under the desk for the attaché case, picked it up, and walked out of the bank with it.
TWENTY
While Mr. Michael J. O’Hara of the Philadelphia Bulletin enjoyed a close personal relationship with many—indeed, almost all—of the senior supervisors of the Philadelphia Police Department, the White Shirts, as a general rule, did not provide him with the little tidbits of information from which Mr. O’Hara developed the stories in which his readers were interested.
The unspoken rules of the game were that if Mr. O’Hara posed a question to a senior White Shirt based upon what he had dredged up visiting the various districts and the special units of the Philadelphia Police Department, he would either be given a truthful answer, or asked to sit on the germ of a story, and they would get back to him later—and more important, first, before his competitors—when releasing the information would be appropriate.
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