Men In Blue Read online

  “Dutch is dead,” Peter said.

  “I never slept with him,” Louise said. “But I thought about it.”

  “You didn’t have to tell me that,” he said.

  “No,” she said, thoughtfully. “I didn’t. I wonder why I did?”

  “I’m your friendly father figure,” he said, chuckling.

  “The hell you are,” she said. “Now what?”

  “Now we see if we can find you a pair of pajamas or something—”

  “Have you a spare T-shirt?”

  “Sure, if that would do.”

  “And then we debate who gets the couch, right? And who gets the bed?”

  “You get the bed,” he said.

  “Why are you being so nice to me?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “No pass, Peter?” she asked, looking into his eyes.

  “Not tonight,” he said. “Maybe later.”

  He walked into his bedroom, took sheets and a blanket from a chest of drawers, carried them into the living room, and tossed them on the couch. Then he went back into the bedroom, found a T-shirt and handed it to her, wondering what she would look like wearing it.

  “I’ll brush my teeth,” he said. “And then the place is yours. I shower in the morning.”

  Brushing his teeth was not his major priority in the bathroom, with all he’d had to drink, and as he stood over the toilet trying to relieve his bladder as quietly as possible, the interesting fantasy that he would return to the bedroom and find her naked in his bed, smiling invitingly at him, ran through his head.

  When he went back in the bedroom, she was fully dressed, and standing by the door, as if she wanted to close it, and lock it, after him as soon as possible.

  “Good night,” he said. “If you need anything, yell.”

  “Thank you,” she said, almost formally.

  As if, he thought, I am the bellhop being rushed out of the hotel room.

  He heard the lock in the door slide home, and remembered that both Dorothea and Barbara were always careful to make sure the door was locked; as if they expected to have someone burst in and catch them screwing.

  He took off his outer clothing, folded it neatly, and laid it on the armchairs.

  Then he remembered that he had told the cop in the basement garage to tell Lieutenant DelRaye that he was taking her to the Roundhouse. He would have to do something about that.

  He tiptoed around the living room in his underwear until he found the phone book. He had not called Homicide in so long that he had forgotten the number. He found the book, and then sat down on the leather couch and dialed the number. The leather was sticky against his skin and he wondered if it was dirty, or if that’s the way leather was; he had never sat on his couch in his underwear before.

  “Homicide, Detective Mulvaney.”

  “This is Inspector Wohl,” Peter said.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Would you please tell Lieutenant DelRaye that I will bring Miss Dutton there, to Homicide, at eight in the morning?”

  “Yes, sir. Is there any place Lieutenant DelRaye can reach you?”

  Wohl hung up, and then stood up, and started to spread sheets over the leather cushions.

  The telephone rang. He watched it. On the third ring, there was a click, and he could faintly hear the recorded message: “You can leave a message for Peter Wohl after the beep.”

  The machine beeped.

  “Inspector, this is Lieutenant DelRaye. Will you please call me as soon as you can? I’m at the Roundhouse.”

  It was evident from the tone of Lieutenant DelRaye’s voice that he was more than a little annoyed, and that leaving a polite message had required some effort.

  Peter finished making a bed of the couch, took off his shoes and socks, and lay down on it. He turned off the light, and went to sleep listening to the sound of the water running in his shower, his mind’s eye filled with the images of Louise Dutton’s body as she showered.

  ****

  When Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernick, trailed by Sergeant Jank Jankowitz, walked briskly across the lobby of the Roundhouse toward the elevator, it was quarter past eight. He was surprised therefore to see Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson hurrying to catch up with him. He would have laid odds that Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson never cracked an eyelid before half past nine in the morning.

  “How are you, Colonel?” Czernick said, smiling and offering his hand. “What gets you out of bed at this unholy hour?”

  “Actually, Ted,” J. Dunlop Mawson said, “I’m here to see you.”

  They were at the elevator; there was nothing Commissioner Czernick could do to keep Mawson from getting on with him.

  “Colonel,” Czernick said, smiling and touching Mawson’s arm, “you have really caught me at a bad time.”

  “This is important, or else I wouldn’t bother you,” Mawson said.

  “I just came from seeing Arthur Nelson,” Commissioner Czernick said. “You heard what happened to his son?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Mawson said. “Tragic, shocking.”

  “I wanted to both offer my personal condolences,” Commissioner Czernick said, and then interrupted himself, as the elevator door opened. “After you, Colonel.”

  They walked down the curving corridor together. There were smiles and murmurs of “Commissioner” from people in the corridor. They reached the commissioner’s private door. Jankowitz quickly put a key to it, and opened it and held it open.

  Commissioner Czernick looked at Mawson.

  “I can give you two minutes, right now, Colonel,” he said. “You understand the situation, I’m sure. Maybe later today? Or, better yet, what about lunch tomorrow? I’ll even buy.”

  “Two minutes will be fine,” Mawson said.

  Czernick smiled. “Then come in. I’ll really give you five,” he said. “You can hardly drink a cup of coffee in two minutes. Black, right?”

  “Thank you, black.”

  “Doughnut?”

  “Please.”

  Commissioner Czernick nodded at Sergeant Jankowitz and he went to fetch the coffee.

  “I have been retained to represent Miss Louise Dutton,” Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson said.

  “I don’t understand,” Czernick said. “You mean by WCBL-TV? Has something happened I haven’t heard about?”

  “Ted, that seems to be the most likely answer,” Mawson said.

  “Take it from the beginning,” Czernick said. “The last I heard, we had arranged to have Miss Dutton taken home from the Waikiki Diner, so that she wouldn’t have to drive. Later, as I understand it, we picked her up at her home, brought her here for the interview, and then took her home again.”

  “You didn’t know she was the one who found young Nelson’s body?” Mawson asked.

  Jankowitz handed him a cup of coffee and two doughnuts on a saucer.

  “Thank you,” Mawson said.

  “No, I didn’t,” Commissioner Czernick said. “Or if somebody told me, it went in one ear and out the other. At half past six this morning, they called me and told me what had happened to Arthur Nelson’s boy. I went directly from my house to Arthur Nelson’s place. I offered my condolences, and told him we would turn the earth upside down to find who did it. Then I came here. As soon as we’re through, Colonel, I’m going to be briefed on what happened, and where the investigation is at this moment.”

  “Well, when that happens, I’m sure they’ll tell you that Miss Louise Dutton was the one who found the body, and called the police,” Mawson said.

  “I don’t know where we’re going, Colonel. I don’t understand your role in all this. Or why WCBL-TV is so concerned.”

  “I’ve been retained to represent Miss Dutton,” Mawson said. “But not by WCBL. I’ve been told that the police intended to bring her here, to interview her—“

  “Well, if she found Nelson’s body, Colonel, that would be standard procedure, as I’m sure you know.”

  “No one seems to know where she is,” Mawson sai
d. “She’s not at her apartment, and she’s not here. And I’ve been getting sort of a runaround from the people in Homicide.”

  “ ‘A runaround’?” Czernick asked. “Come on, Colonel. We don’t operate that way, and you know we don’t.”

  “Well, then, where is she?” Mawson asked.

  “I don’t know, but I’ll damned sure find out,” Czernick said. He pulled one of the telephones on his desk to him and dialed a number from memory.

  “Homicide, Lieutenant DelRaye.”

  “This is the commissioner, Lieutenant,” Taddeus Czernick said. “I understand that Miss Louise Dutton is the citizen who reported finding Mr. Nelson’s body.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s true.”

  “Do you know where Miss Dutton is at this moment?”

  “Yes, sir. She’s here. Inspector Wohl just brought her in. We’ve just started to take her statement.”

  “Well, hold off on that a minute,” Czernick said. “Miss Dutton’s legal counsel, Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson, is here with me in my office. He wants to be present during any questioning of his client. He’ll be right down.”

  “Yes, sir,” DelRaye said.

  Commissioner Czernick hung up and looked up at Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson.

  “You heard that?” he asked, and Mawson nodded. “Not only is she right here in the building, but Staff Inspector Peter Wohl is with her. You know Wohl?”

  Mawson shook his head no.

  “Very bright, very young for his rank,” Czernick said. “When I heard that Miss Dutton was a witness to Captain Moffitt’s shooting, I asked Wohl to make sure that she was treated properly. We don’t want WCBL-TV’s anchor lady sore at the police department, Colonel. I’m sure that Wohl showed her every possible courtesy.”

  “Then where the hell has she been? Why haven’t I been able to see her, even find out where she is, until you got on the phone?”

  “I’m sure she’ll tell you where she’s been,” Czernick said. “There’s been some crossed wire someplace, but whatever has been done, I’ll bet you a dime to a doughnut, has been in your client’s best interest, not against it.”

  Mawson looked at him, and decided he was telling the truth.

  “We still friends, Colonel?” Commissioner Czernick asked.

  “Don’t be silly,” Mawson said. “Of course we are.”

  “Then can I ask you a question?” Czernick asked, and went ahead without waiting for a response. “Why is Philadelphia’s most distinguished practitioner of criminal law involved with the routine interview of a witness to a homicide?”

  “Homicides,” Mawson said. “Plural. Two cases of murder in the first degree.”

  “Homicides,” Commissioner Czernick agreed.

  “Okay, Ted,” Mawson said. “We’re friends. At half past three this morning, I had a telephone call. From London. From Stanford Fortner Wells III.”

  Commissioner Czernick shrugged. He didn’t know the name.

  “Wells Newspapers?” Mawson asked.

  “Okay,” Czernick said. “Sure.”

  “He told me he had just been on the telephone to Jack Tone, of McNeel, Tone, Schwartzenberger and Cohan, and that Jack had been kind enough to describe me as the . . . what he said was ‘the dean of the Philadelphia criminal bar.’ “

  “That seems to be a fair description,” Commissioner Czernick said, smiling. He was familiar with the Washington, D.C., law firm of McNeel, Tone, Schwartzenberger and Cohan. They were heavyweights, representing the largest of the Fortune 500 companies, their staff larded with former cabinet-level government officials.

  “Mr. Wells said that he had just learned his daughter was in some kind of trouble with the police, and that he wanted me to take care of whatever it was, and get back to him. And he told me his daughter’s name was Louise Dutton.”

  “Well, that’s interesting, isn’t it?” Czernick said. “Dutton must be a TV name.”

  “We’re friends, Ted,” Mawson said. “That goes no farther than these office walls, right?”

  “Positively,” Commissioner Czernick said.

  “Presuming your Inspector Wohl hasn’t had her up at the House of Correction, working her over with a rubber hose, Ted,” Mawson said, “asking him to look after her was probably a very good idea.”

  Commissioner Czernick laughed, heartily, and shook his head, and walked to Mawson and put his hand on his arm. “Can you find Homicide all right, Colonel? Or would you like me to have Sergeant Jankowitz show you the way?”

  “I can find it all right,” Mawson said. “Thank you for seeing me, Commissioner.”

  “Anytime, Colonel,” Czernick said. “My door’s always open to you. You know that.”

  The moment Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson was out the door, Commissioner Czernick went to the telephone, dialed the Homicide number, and asked for Inspector Wohl.

  When Wohl came on the line, Commissioner Czernick asked, “Anything going on down there that you can’t leave for five minutes?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then will you please come up here, Peter?”

  ****

  There are four interview rooms in the first-floor Roundhouse offices of the Homicide Division of the Philadelphia Police Department. They are small windowless cubicles furnished with a table and several chairs. One of the chairs is constructed of steel and is firmly bolted to the floor. There is a hole in the seat through which handcuffs can be locked, when a suspect is judged likely to require this kind of restraint.

  There is a one-way mirror on one wall, through which the interviewee and his interrogators can be observed without being seen. No real attempt is made to conceal its purpose. Very few people ever sit in an interview room who have not seen cop movies, or otherwise have acquired sometimes rather extensive knowledge of police interrogative techniques and equipment.

  When Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson walked into Homicide, Miss Louise Dutton was in one of the interview rooms. Mawson recognized her from television. She was wearing a suit, with lace at the neck. She was better-looking than he remembered.

  With her were three people, one of whom, Lieutenant DelRaye, Mawson had once had on the witness stand for a day and a half, enough time for them both to have acquired an enduring distaste for the other. There was a police stenographer, a gray-haired woman, and a young man in blue blazer and gray flannel slacks who looked like a successful automobile dealer, but who had to be, Mawson decided, Staff Inspector Wohl, “very bright; very young for his rank.”

  “Miss Dutton, I’m J. Dunlop Mawson,” he said, and handed her his card. She glanced at it and handed it to Inspector Wohl, who looked at it, and handed it to Lieutenant DelRaye, who put it in his pocket.

  “Lieutenant, I intended that for Miss Dutton,” Mawson said.

  “Sorry,” DelRaye said, and retrieved the card and handed it to Louise.

  “The station sent you, I suppose, Mr. Mawson?” Louise Dutton asked.

  “Actually, it was your father,” Mawson said.

  “Okay,” Louise Dutton said, obviously pleased. She looked at Inspector Wohl and smiled.

  “Gentlemen, may I have a moment with my client?” Mawson asked.

  “You’re coming back?” Louise Dutton asked Inspector Wohl.

  “Absolutely,” Wohl said. “I’ll just be a couple of minutes.”

  “Let’s step out in the corridor a moment, Miss Dutton, shall we?” Mawson asked.

  “What’s wrong with here?”

  “I meant alone,” he said, gesturing at the one-way mirror. “And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was a microphone in here that someone might inadvertently turn on.”

  She got up and followed him out of the room, and out of the Homicide office into the curved corridor. Mawson saw her eyes following Inspector Wohl as he walked down the corridor.

  “How far did the interview get?” Mawson asked.

  “Nowhere,” she said. “The stenographer just got there.”

  “Good,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you since
four this morning, Miss Dutton. Where have they had you?”

  “Since four?”

  “Your father called from London at half past three,” Mawson said.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “I went to your apartment, and they said you had been taken here, and when I came here, no one seemed to know anything about you. Where did they have you?”

  “What exactly are you going to do for me here and now, Mr. Mawson?” Louise replied.

  “Well, I’ll be present to advise you during their interview, of course. To protect your rights. You didn’t answer my question, Miss Dutton?”

  “You can’t take the hint? That I didn’t want to answer it? They didn’t have me anywhere. Where I was, I don’t think is any of your business.”

  “Your father is going to be curious, I’m sure of that.”

  “It’s none of his business, either,” Louise said.

  “We seem to have somehow gotten off on the wrong foot, Miss Dutton,” Mawson said. “I’m really sorry. Let’s try to start again. I’m here to protect your interests, your rights. To defend you, in other words. I’m on your side.”

  “My side? The cops are the bad guys? You’ve got that wrong, Mr. Mawson. I’m on their side. I’ll tell the cops anything they want to know. I want them to catch whoever butchered Jerome Nelson.”

  “You misunderstand me,” Mawson said.

  “I want to be as helpful and cooperative as I can,” Louise said. “I just wasn’t up to it last night ... or early this morning, and that’s what that flap was all about. But I’ve had some rest, and now I’m willing to do whatever they want me to.”

  “What ‘flap’?”

  “There was some disagreement last night about when I was to come here,” she said. “But Inspector Wohl took care of that.”

  “All I want to do, Miss Dutton, is protect your rights,” Mawson said. “I’d like to be there when they question you.”

  “I can take care of my own rights,” she said.

  “Your father asked me to come here, Miss Dutton,” Mawson said.

  “Yeah, you said that,” Louise said. She looked at him thoughtfully, obviously making up her mind. “Okay. So long as you understand how I feel.”

  “I understand,” Mawson said. “You were close to Mr. Nelson?”