Special Operations (Badge of Honor 2)

“Inspector,” Frizell said, nervously, “I don’t think you have the authority to do that.”

“Do that right now, please, Sergeant,” Wohl said, evenly, but aware that he was furious and on the edge of losing his temper.

The last goddamned thing I need here is this Roundhouse paper pusher telling me I don’t have the authority to do something.

Frizell, sensing Wohl’s disapproval, and visibly uncomfortable, left the room.

Wohl looked at the three young policemen.

“You fellows know each other, I guess?”

“Yes, sir,” they chorused.

“Okay, this is what I want you to do.” He threw car keys at Matt Payne, who was surprised by the gesture, but managed to snag them. “Take my car, and drive McFadden and Martinez to the motor pool at the Police Academy. There, you two guys pick up two unmarked cars. Take one of them to the radio shop and leave it. You take my car to the radio shop, Payne, and stay with it until they put another radio in it. Then bring it back here. Then you take Captain Sabara’s car and have them install the extra radios in it. Then you bring that back. Clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Matt Payne said.

“You two bring the other car here. I’ve got a job I want you to do when you get here, and when you finish that, then you’ll start

shuttling cars between the motor pool and the radio garage and here. You understand what I want?”

“Yes, sir.”

Getting cars, and radios for them, and handing out assignments to newly arrived replacements, is a Sergeant’s job, Wohl thought, except when the man in charge doesn’t really know what he’s doing, in which case he is permitted to run in circles, wave and shout, making believe he does. That is known as a prerogative of command.

Lieutenant Teddy Spanner of Northwest Detectives stood up when Peter Wohl walked into his office, and put out his hand.

“How are you, Inspector?” he said. “I guess congratulations are in order.”

“I wonder,” Wohl said, “but thanks anyway.”

“What can Northwest Detectives do for Special Operations?”

“I want a look at the files on the burglary—is it burglaries?—job on a woman named Peebles, in Chestnut Hill,” Wohl said.

“Got them right here,” Spanner said. “Captain Sabara said somebody was coming over. He didn’t say it would be you.”

“The lady,” Wohl said, “the Commissioner told me, has friends in high places.”

Spanner chuckled. “Not much there; it’s just one more burglary.”

“Did Mike say we were also interested in the Flannery sexual assault and abduction?”

“There it is,” Spanner said, pointing to another manila folder.

Wohl sat down in the chair beside Spanner’s desk and read the file on the Peebles burglary.

“Can I borrow this for a couple of hours?” Wohl asked. “I’ll get it back to you today.”

Spanner gave a deprecatory wave, meaning Sure, no problem, and Wohl reached for the Flannery file and read that through.

“Same thing,” he said. “I’d like to take this for a couple of hours.”

“Sure, again.”

“What do you think about this?” Wohl said.

“I think we’re dealing with a real sicko,” Spanner said. “And I’ll lay odds the doer is the same guy who put the woman in the van. Anything on that?”