"What do you know about DeZego getting himself shot, Tony?"
"Blown away, Inspector," Lucci said. "With a shotgun. On the roof of that parking garage behind the Bellevue-Stratford. Nick DeBenedito went in on the call. We were just talking about it."
"Is he there?"
"I think so. You want to talk to him?"
"Please."
Sergeant Nick DeBenedito came on the line thirty seconds later. " Sergeant DeBenedito, sir."
"Tell me what happened with Tony the Zee, DeBenedito."
"Well, I was downtown, and there was a 'shots-fired,' so I went in on it. It was on the roof of the parking garage behind the Bellevue. Inspector, I didn't know he was a cop."
"That who was a cop?"
"Payne. I mean, he was wearing a tuxedo and he had a gun, so I put him down on the floor. As soon as Martinez told me he was a cop, I let him up and said I was sorry."
Peter Wohl smiled at the mental image of Matt Payne lying on the concrete floor of the parking garage in his formal clothes.
"What went down on the roof?"
"Well, the way I understand it, Payne went up there in his car with his girlfriend, saw the first victim-the girl. She was wounded. So he sent his girl downstairs to the attendant's booth to call it in, tried to help the girl, and then he found Tony the Zee. The doerdoers-had a shotgun. They practically took Tony the Zee's head off. Anyway, then we got there. The doers were long gone. I sent Martinez with the wagon to see if he could get a dying declaration-"
"Did she die?"
"No, sir. But Martinez said she was never conscious, either."
"Okay."
"So I hung around until Lieutenant Lewis from the 9^th, and then the Homicide detectives, showed up, and then I went to the hospital and got Martinez and we resumed patrol."
"Do you have any reason to think that Payne was involved?"
"Lieutenant," DeBenedito said uncomfortably, "what I saw was a civilian with a gun at a crime scene. How was I supposed to know he was a cop?"
"You did exactly the right thing, Sergeant," Wohl said. "Thank you. Put Lieutenant Lucci back on, will you?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Where's Captain Pekach?"
"Probably at home, sir. He said either he'd be there or in Chestnut Hill. I got the numbers. You want them?"
"No thank you, Tony, it's not that important. I'm going to Narcotics. If I go someplace else, I'll call in."
"Are we involved in this, Inspector?"
"No. But Narcotics is interviewing a very suspicious character they think is involved. I want to find out what they think they have."
"No kidding? Anybody we know?"
"Officer Payne." Wohl chuckled and hung up.
Captain David Pekach, the recently appointed Highway commander, previously had been assigned to the Narcotics Division. If he had happened to be either at Bustleton and Bowler or on the streets, Wohl would have asked him to meet him at Narcotics, which was located in a onetime public-health center at 4^th Street and Girard Avenue, sharing the building with Organized Crime.
But he wasn't working. That meant he was almost certainly in Chestnut Hill with his lady friend, Miss Martha Peebles. Dave Pekach was thirty-two or thirty-three, and Martha Peebles a couple of years older. It was the first romance either had had, and Wohl decided that the problem with Narcotics was not serious enough to interfere with true love.