“So what does Mr. Walton Williams have to say about the burglaries of the Peebles residence?” Staff Inspector Peter Wohl inquired, at almost the same moment Martha Peebles handed Captain David Pekach the 1893 wild cherry-stocked Ludwig Hamner Remington rolling-block Schuetzen rifle.
“We had a little trouble finding him, Inspector,” Officer Charley McFadden replied.
“But you did find him?”
“No, sir,” McFadden said. “Not really.”
“You didn’t find him?” Wohl pursued.
“No, sir. Inspector, we was in every other fag bar in Philadelphia, last night.”
“Plus the bar in the FOP?” Wohl asked.
“We met Payne there is all, Inspector,” McFadden said.
“Oh, I thought maybe you thought you would find Mr. Williams hanging around the FOP.”
“No, sir. It was just a place to meet Payne.”
“So you had nothing to drink in the FOP?”
“Hay-zus didn’t,” Charley said.
“Does that mean that you and Payne had a drink? A couple of drinks?”
“We had a couple of beers, yes, sir.”
“Payne can’t hold his liquor very well, can he?”
“He put it away all right last night, it seemed to me,” McFadden said.
“In the FOP, or someplace else?”
“We had to order something besides a soda when we was looking for Williams, sir.”
“Hay-zus, too?”
“Hay-zus doesn’t drink,” McFadden said.
“I thought you just said, or implied, that to look credible in the various bars and clubs in which you sought the elusive Mr. Williams, it was necessary to drink something other than soda.”
“I don’t know how Hay-zus handles it, sir.”
“Weren’t you with him?”
“No, sir. We split up. Hay-zus took the plain car, and I took Payne and we looked in different places.”
“Using a personal vehicle?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Must have been fun,” Wohl said. “To judge by the way Payne looks and smells this morning.”
“He looked all right to me when we went home,” Charley said.
“I’ll take your word for that, Officer McFadden,” Wohl said. “Far be it from me to suggest that you would consider yourself to be on duty with a bellyful of booze and impaired judgment.”
“Yes, sir,” McFadden said.