Special Operations (Badge of Honor 2)

“Take a right,” Washington ordered, “and then a left onto Red Lion.”

“Yes, sir,” Matt said, and started off.

There was a line of cars stopped for a red light at Red Lion Road. Matt started to slow.

“Go around them to the left,” Washington ordered. “Be careful!”

And then he reached down and threw a switch. A siren started to howl.

“Try not to kill us,” Washington ordered. “But the sooner we get out there, the better. Maybe we can find this sonofabitch before he does it again.”

“Where are we going?”

“The State Troopers found Miss Woodham,” Washington said. “Mutilated. Dead, of course. In the sticks.”

Matt edged into the intersection, saw that it was clear, and went through the stop sign.

My God, I’m actually driving a police car with the siren going, on my way to a murder!

“Are you sure you’d rather not drive, Mr. Washington?” Matt asked.

“You have to start somewhere, Payne. The first time I was driving and my supervisor turned on the light and siren, I was sort of thrilled. I felt like a regular Dick Tracy.”

“Yeah,” Matt Payne said, almost to himself, as he pulled the LTD to the left and, swerving into and out of the opposing lane, went around a UPS truck and two civilian cars.

Sergeant Ed Frizell stood in Inspector Wohl’s doorway and waited until he got off the telephone.

“Sir, am I going to get Payne back? Detective Washington just took him off somewhere, and I have all those—”

“You’ll get him back when Washington’s through with him. You better find Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson and tell them Payne might not be back by the time he’s supposed to be at the Peebles residence.”

“Yes, sir,” Frizell said, disappointed, and started to leave.

“Wait a minute,” Wohl said. “There’s something else.” He had just that moment thought of it.

“Yes, sir.”

“Get somebody on the Highway Band and ask them to get me a location on Mickey O’Hara. I mean me, say ‘W-William One wants a location on Mickey O’Hara.’”

“He might be hard to find, sir. Wouldn’t it be better to put it out on the J-Band? And have everybody looking for him?”

“I think Mickey monitors Highway,” Wohl said.

“Can I ask what that’s all about, Inspector?”

“Put it down to simple curiosity,” Wohl said. “Thank you, Sergeant.”

And then, as Frizell closed the door, Wohl thought of something else, and dug out the telephone book.

“Dr. Payne,” Amelia Alice Payne’s voice came over the line.

“Peter Wohl,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, and he sensed that her voice was far less professional, more—what? girlish—than it had been a moment before.

“I called to break our date,” he said.

“I wasn’t aware that we had one,” she said, coyly.