Then Louise reappeared. She looked into the camera.
“Moments before he was fatally wounded,” she said, “Police Captain Richard C. Moffitt said, ‘Put the gun down, son. I don’t want to have to kill you. I’m a police officer.’
“Moffitt was meeting with this reporter over coffee in the Waikiki Diner in the sixty-five-hundred block of Roosevelt Boulevard early this afternoon. He was concerned with the image his beloved Highway Patrol has in some people’s eyes . . . ‘Carlucci’s Commandos’ is just one derogatory term for them.
“He had just started to explain what they do, and why, and how, when he spotted a pale-faced blond young man police have yet to identify holding a gun on the diner’s cashier.
“Captain Moffitt was off duty, and in civilian clothing, but he was a policeman, and a robbery was in progress, and it was his duty to do something about it.
“There was a good thirty-second period, maybe longer, during which Captain Moffitt could have shot the bandit where he stood. But he decided to give the bandit a break, a chance to save his life: ‘Put the gun down, son. I don’t want to have to kill you.’
“That humanitarian gesture cost Richard C. Moffitt his life. And Moffitt’s three children their father, and Moffitt’s wife her husband.
“The bandit had an accomplice, a woman. She opened fire on Moffitt. Her bullets struck all over the interior of the diner. Except for one, which entered Richard C. Moffitt’s chest.
“He returned fire then, and killed his assailant. “And then, a look of wonderment on his face, he slumped against a wall, and slid down to the floor, killed in the line of duty.
“Police are looking for the pale-faced blond young man, who escaped during the gun battle. I don’t think it will take them long to arrest him, and the moment they do, ‘Nine’s News’ will let you know they have.”
A formal portrait of Dutch Moffitt in uniform came on the screen.
“Captain Richard C. Moffitt,” Louise said, softly, “thirty-six years old. Killed . . . shot down, cold-bloodedly murdered ... in the line of duty.
“My name is Louise Dutton. Barton?”
She took three steps forward and turned the television off before Barton Ellison could respond. Peter Wohl took advantage of the visual opportunity offered.
“That was just beautiful,” Jerome Nelson said, softly. “I wanted to cry.”
I’ll be goddamned, Peter Wohl thought, so did I.
He looked at Louise, and saw her eyes were teary.
“That bullshit about me being under police protection cheapened the whole thing,” she said. “That cheap sonofabitch!”
She looked at Wohl as if looking for a response.
He said, “That was quite touching, Miss Dutton.”
“It won’t do Dutch a whole fucking lot of good, will it? Or his wife and kids?” Louise said.
“Do you always swear that much?” Wohl asked, astounding himself. He rarely said anything he hadn’t carefully considered first.
She smiled. “Only when I’m pissed off,” she said, and walked out of the room.
“God only knows how long that will take,” Jerome Nelson said. “Won’t you sit down, Inspector?” He waved Wohl delicately into one of four identical white leather upholstered armchairs surrounding a coffee table that was a huge chunk of marble.
It did not, despite what Jerome Nelson said, take Louise Dutton long to get dressed. When she came back in the room Wohl stood up. She waved him back into his chair.
“If you don’t mind,” she said, “I’ll finish my drink.”
“Not at all,” Wohl said.
She sat down in one across from them, and then reached for a cigarette. Wohl stole another glance down her neckline.
“What’s your first name?” Louise Dutton asked, when she had slumped back into the chair.
“Peter,” he said, wondering why she had asked.