The Witness (Badge of Honor 4)

“Samuel’s not home yet, so don’t go in the basement,” Sarah said as she took her coat off a hook by the rear door. “You wouldn’t hear the doorbell.”

“Where is he?”

“He called and said he would be studying with the Rosen girl, Natalie.”

“That’s what they call that now, ‘studying’?”

“He must have had a bad day, Rabbi, excuse him, please,” Sarah said, and went out the door.

“A bad bad day?” Kuntz asked. “Or an ordinary, run-of-the-mill bad day?”

Lowenstein took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and handed it to Kuntz, and then made himself a stiff Scotch, with very little ice or water, before replying.

“Maybe in the middle of that,” Lowenstein said, raising his drink and adding “Mazeltov.”

“Mazeltov,” the rabbi replied.

“I spent a painful hour and a half—closer to two, really—before lunch with the commissioner and the mayor,” Lowenstein said. “Most of it strained silence, which is actually worse than an exhibition of his famous Neapolitan temper.”

“What about?”

“That young Italian cop who got himself shot down by Temple University. You know what I’m talking about?”

Kuntz nodded. “It’s been in the papers.”

“Has it really?” Lowenstein said bitterly. “There was another editorial in today’s Ledger, you see that one?”

Kuntz nodded.

“We have no idea who shot him or why,” Lowenstein said. “Not even a hunch. And the mayor, who is angry at several levels, first, giving him the benefit of the doubt, as a cop, and then as an Italian, and then, obviously, as a politician, getting the flack from the newspapers, and not only the Ledger, is really angry. Frustrated, maybe, is the better word.”

“Which makes him angry.”

“Yeah.”

“And he’s holding you responsible?”

“He took the job away from me—technically away from Homicide, but it’s the same thing—and gave it to Special Operations. I think he now regrets that.”

“Special Operations isn’t up to the job?”

“You know Peter Wohl? Runs Special Operations?”

Kuntz shook his head no.

“Very sharp cop. His father is a retired chief, an old pal of mine. Peter was a sergeant in Homicide. He was the youngest captain in the Department, and is now the youngest staff inspector. Just before Carlucci gave him Special Operations, he put Judge Findermann away.”

“I remember that,” Kuntz said. “So why can’t he find the people who did this?”

“For the same reason I couldn’t; there’s simply nothing out there to find.”

“But wouldn’t you have more resources in the Detective Division? More experienced people?”

“Wohl took the two best homicide detectives away from Homicide, with the mayor’s blessing,” Lowenstein said. “And I passed the word that anything else he wants from the Detective Division, he can have. The way it works is that if you don’t get anything at the scene of the crime, then you start ringing doorbells and asking questions. Wohl’s people have run out of doorbells to ring and people to question. Hell, there’s a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward out—Nesfoods International put it up—and we haven’t gotten a damned thing out of that, either.”

“And the mayor knows all of this?”

“Sure. And I think one of the reasons he’s so upset is that he knows he couldn’t do any better himself. But that doesn’t get the newspapers off his back. I had a very unkind thought in there this morning: The only reason Carlucci isn’t throwing Peter Wohl to the wolves—”