"No, sir."
"And then come back here," Lieutenant Lewis said. "I'm sure Detective D'Amata, and others, will have questions for you."
"Yes, sir."
Lieutenant Lewis turned to Amanda Spencer.
"I didn't get your name, miss," he said.
"Amanda Spencer."
"Are you from Philadelphia, Miss Spencer?"
"Scarsdale," Amanda said, adding, "New York."
"You're in town for the wedding?"
"That's right."
"Where are you staying here?"
"With the Brownes, the bride's family," Amanda answered. "In Merion."
That would be the Soames T. Brownes, Lieutenant Lewis recalled from an extraordinary memory. Soames T. Browne did not have a job. When his picture appeared, for example, in a listing of the board of directors of the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, the caption under it read "Soames T. Browne, Investments." The Brownes-and for that matter, the Soames-had been investing, successfully, in Philadelphia businesses since Ben Franklin had been running the newspaper there.
There was going to be a lot of pressure on this job, Lewis thought. And a lot of publicity. People like the Nesbitts and the Brownes and the Detweilers took the termpublic servant literally, with emphasis onservant. They expected public servants, like the police and the courts, to do what they had been hired to do, and were not at all reluctant to point out where those public servants had failed to perform. When a Detweiler called the mayor, he took the call.
Lieutenant Lewis thought again that Jerry Carlucci had been invited to the wedding and the reception and might even be at the Union League when the Payne kid walked in and told them that Penelope Detweiler had just been shot.
"Ordinarily, Miss Spencer, we'd ask you to come to the Roundhouse-"
"The what?" Amanda asked.
"To the Police Administration Building-"
"The whole building is curved, Amanda," Matt explained.
"-to be interviewed by a Homicide detective," Lieutenant Lewis went on, clearly displeased with Matt's interruption. "But since Officer Payne was with you, possibly Detective D'Amata would be willing to have you come there a little later."
"No problem with that, sir," D'Amata said.
And then, as if to document his prediction that the shooting was going to attract a good deal of attention from the press, an antennabedecked Buick Special turned out of the line of traffic and pulled into the exit ramp, and Mr. Michael J. O'Hara got out.
Mickey O'Hara wrote about crime for the PhiladelphiaBulletin. He was very good at what he did and was regarded by most policemen, including Lieutenant Foster H. Lewis, Sr., as almost a member of the Department. If you told Mickey O'Hara that something was off the record, it stayed that way.
"Hey, Foster," Mickey O'Hara said, "that white shirt looks good on you."
That made reference to Lieutenant Foster's almost brand-new status as a lieutenant. Police supervisors, lieutenants and above, wore white uniform shirts. Sergeants and below wore blue.
"How are you, Mickey?" Lewis said, shaking O'Hara's hand. "Thank you."
"And what are you doing, Matt?" O'Hara said, offering his hand to Officer Payne. "Moonlighting as a waiter?"
"Hey, Mickey," Payne said.
"What's going on?"
"Hold it a second, Mickey," Lewis said. "Miss Spencer, you'll have to make a statement. Payne will tell you about that. And you come back here, Payne, as soon as you do what you have to do."