Men In Blue (Badge of Honor 1)

“Such as?” Wells pursued.

Wohl threw his hands up. “You never know.”

“Why do you look so worried, Peter?” Louise asked.

“Do I look worried?” he asked, and then went on before anyone could reply: “I’m trying to make up my mind whether or not I should call Arthur Nelson. Now, I mean, rather than in the morning.”

“Why would you call him?” Wells asked.

“Commissioner Czernick has assigned me to stroke him,” Peter said. “To keep him abreast of where the investigation is going.”

“Until just now, I thought they liked you on the police department,” Wells said. “How did you get stuck with that?”

“He can be difficult,” Peter said, chuckling. “You know him?”

“Sure,” Wells said. “Which is not the same thing as saying he’s a friend of mine.”

“He’s not willing to face the facts about his son,” Peter said. “I don’t know whether he expected me to believe it or not, but he suggested very strongly that Louise was his son’s girl friend.”

“Obviously not knowing about you and Louise,” Wells said.

“Nobody, with your exception, knows about Louise and me,” Wohl said.

“The two of you have developed the infuriating habit of talking about me as if I’m not here,” Louise said.

“Sorry,” her father said. “Are you going to call him— now, I mean?”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “I think I’d better.”

“I was going to suggest that,” Wells said. “Better to have him annoyed by a late-night call than sore that you didn’t tell him something as soon as you could.”

They like each other, Louise thought again. Because they think alike? Because they are alike? Is that what’s going on with me and Peter? That I like him because he’s so much like my father? Even more so than Dutch?

Peter dialed information and asked for Arthur J. Nelson’s residence number. There was a reply, and then he said, obviously annoyed, “Thank you.”

He sensed Louise’s eyes on him, and met hers for a moment, and then smiled mischievously.

“He’s got an unlisted number, too.”

He dialed another number, identified himself as Inspector Wohl, and asked for a residence phone number for Arthur J. Nelson.

He wrote the number down, and put his finger on the telephone switch.

“That’s it?” Louise asked. “You can get an unlisted number from the phone company that easily?”

“That wasn’t the information operator,” Wohl said, as he dialed the telephone. “I was talking to the detective on duty in Intelligence. The phone company won’t pass out numbers.”

There was the faint sound of a telephone ringing.

“Mr. Arthur J. Nelson, please,” he said. “This is Inspector Peter Wohl of the Philadelphia Police Department. “

Neither Louise nor her father could hear both sides of the conversation, but it was evident that the call was not going well. The proof came when Peter exhaled audibly and shook his head after he hung up.

“Arthur was being his usual, obnoxious self, I gather?” Wells asked.

“He wanted to know precisely where the car was found, where it is. I told him I didn’t know. He made it plain he didn’t believe me. I was on the verge of telling him that if I knew, I wouldn’t tell him. I don’t want a dozen members of the goddamned press mucking around by the car until the lab people are through with it.”

“Thank you very much, you goddamned policeman,” Louise said.