Special Operations (Badge of Honor 2)

Matt Payne walked into Bustleton and Bowler thirty minutes later and handed the keys to the car to the same Corporal who had given him hell for being late before he’d gone on the stakeout.

“Where the hell have you been with that car? It’s after one.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Matt said. “Get off my back.”

“You can’t talk that way to me,” the Corporal said.

“Payne!” a voice called. “Is that you?”

“Yeah, who’s that?”

“Jason,” Washington called. “I’m in here.”

“Here” was Wohl’s office. Washington was sitting on the couch, typing on a small portable set up on the coffee table.

“Do me a favor?” Washington asked, as he jerked a sheet of paper from the typewriter.

“Sure,” Matt said.

“I’m dead on my feet,” Washington said, “and you, at least relatively, look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

He inserted the piece of paper he had just taken from the typewriter into a large manila envelope and then licked the flap.

“Wohl wants this tonight, at his house,” Washington said. “It’s a wrap-up of the stuff we did in Bucks County, and what’s happening here. You’d think they could find a maroon Ford van, wouldn’t you? Well, shit. We’ll have addresses on every maroon Ford van in a hundred miles as soon as Motor Vehicles opens in Harrisburg in the morning. Anyway, that’s what’s in there. He says if there are no lights on, slip it under his door.”

“I don’t know where he lives,” Matt said.

“Chestnut Hill,” Washington said. “Norwood Street. In a garage apartment behind a big house in front. You can’t miss it. Only garage apartment. I’ll show you on the map.”

“I can find it,” Matt said.

“Thanks, Matt, I appreciate it,” Washington said.

“I appreciate…today, Mr. Washington,” Matt said. “I’ll never forget today.”

“Hey, it’s Jason. I’m a detective, that’s all.”

“Anyway, thanks,” Matt said.

When he was in the Porsche headed for Chestnut Hill, he was glad he had thought to say “thank you” to Washington. He would probably never see him again, and thanks were in order. A lesser gentleman would have made merry at the rookie’s expense.

He found Norwood Street without trouble. There was a reflective sign out in front with the number on it, and he had no trouble finding the garage apartment behind it, either.

And there was the maroon Ford van that everybody was looking for, parked right under Staff Inspector Peter Wohl’s window.

Matt chuckled when he saw it.

That poor sonofabitch is in for a hell of a surprise when he goes tooling down the street tomorrow, and is suddenly surrounded by eight thousand cops, guns drawn, convinced they’ve caught the rapist.

Matt’s attention didn’t linger long on the Ford van. There was another motor vehicle parked on the cobblestones he really found fascinating. It was a Buick station wagon, and if the decal on the windshield was what he thought it was, a parking permit for the Rose Tree Hunt Club, then it was the property of Amelia Alice Payne, M.D., which suggested that the saintly Amelia and the respectable Peter Wohl were up to something in the Wohl apartment that they would prefer not to have him know about.

He walked to the station wagon and flashed his light on the decal. It was the Rose Tree decal all right.

There were no lights on in the garage apartment. Wohl and Amy were either conducting a séance, or up to something else.

What the hell, Wohl had no idea I’d bring this envelope. He thought either Jason would, or maybe a Highway car, neither of whom would pay a bit of attention to Amy’s car.

What I should do is go up there and beat on the door until I wake him up or at least get his attention. “Hi, there, Inspector! Just Officer Payne running one more safe errand. My, but that lady looks familiar!”