Special Operations (Badge of Honor 2)

“Maybe he drives around looking through windows,” Wohl thought aloud, “and when he finds a naked, or partially naked, woman, that turns him on.”

“That might have been the trigger early on,” Amy said. “I can’t really say. But now that I’m almost certain this man is out of control, I don’t really know what effect, if any, that would have.”

“Ummm,” Peter Wohl said, thoughtfully.

“If that’s all, Inspector, it’s very late.”

“Actually,” Peter Wohl blurted, “I had something else in mind.”

It had, in fact, occurred to him two seconds before.

“Yes?” Amy said, impatiently.

“I really enjoyed our time together,” Wohl plunged on, “and I hoped that you might have dinner with me sometime. On a nonprofessional basis.”

“Oh, I see,” she heard herself saying. “We could run through a long line of gangster-owned restaurants where fellow men of honor get free meals, is that it?”

There was a long pause, long enough for Amy to wonder what’s wrong with me? Why did I say that?

“I beg your pardon, Doctor. I won’t trouble you again.”

Oh, God, he’s going to hang up!

“Peter—”

There was no reply for a long moment, and then he said, “I’m here.”

“I don’t know why I said that. I’m sorry.”

He didn’t reply.

“I would love to have dinner with you,” Amy heard herself blurting. “Call me. Tomorrow. I’m glad you called.”

“So’m I,” Peter Wohl said, happily. “Good night, Amy.”

The line went dead.

She looked at herself in the mirror again.

Oh, God, she thought. It was Freudian. Sex is what that was all about!

SIXTEEN

At five minutes to eight, the nineteen police officers assigned to the day shift of the Fourteenth Police District gathered in the Roll Call Room of the district building at Germantown and Haines Streets, and went through the roll call ritual, under the eyes of Captain Charles D. Emerson, the Fourteenth District Commander, a heavyset, gray-haired man of fifty.

The officers formed in ranks, and went through the ritual, obviously based on similar rituals in the armed forces, of inspection in ranks. Trailed by the Sergeant, Captain Emerson marched through the three ranks of men, stopping in front of each to examine his appearance, the length of his hair, whether or not he was closely shaved, and the cleanliness of his weapon, which each officer held up in front of him, with the cylinder open. Several times, perhaps six, Captain Emerson had something to say to an officer: a suggestion that he needed a new shirt, or a shoe shine, or that he was getting a little too fat.

When the Inspection in Ranks was completed, the Sergeant stood before the men and read aloud from several items on a clipboard.

Some of the items he read were purely administrative, and local in nature, dealing with, for example, vacation schedules; and some had come over the police teletype from the Roundhouse with orders that they be read at roll calls. They dealt with such things as the death and funeral arrangements for two retired and one active police officers.

There were some items of a local nature, in particular the report of another burglary of the residence of a Miss Martha Peebles of 606 Glengarry Lane in Chestnut Hill, coupled with instructions that Radio Patrol cars and Emergency Patrol wagons on all shifts were to make a special effort to ride by the Peebles residence as often as possible.

“And we are still looking for Miss Elizabeth Woodham,” the Sergeant concluded. “That’s at the top of the list. You all have her description, and what description we have of the probable doer and his van. We have to get the lady back. Report anything you come across.”

The day shift of the Fourteenth District was then called to attention, and dismissed, and left the Roll Call Room to get in their cars and go on duty.