The Witness (Badge of Honor 4)

“Have fun,” McFadden said, and got behind the wheel again.

Matt could see in the car. Officer McFadden was explaining to Officer Quinn why Officer Payne was wading through the slush with a floodlight, a tape measure, and a clipboard. To judge by the look on Officer Quinn’s face, he found this rather amusing.

Officer McFadden put the Highway RPC in gear and stepped on the accelerator. The rear wheels spun in the dirty slush, spraying same on Officer Payne.

TWELVE

There was a telephone in Lieutenant Jack Malone’s suite in the St. Charles Hotel, through which, by the miracle of modern telecommunications, he could converse with anyone in the whole wide world, with perhaps a few minor exceptions like Ulan Bator or Leningrad.

He had learned, however, to his horror, when he paid his first bill for two weeks residency, that local calls, which had been free on his home phone, and which cost a dime at any pay station, were billed by the hotel at fifty cents each.

Thereafter, whenever possible, Lieutenant Malone made his outgoing calls from a pay station in the lobby.

When he dropped the dime in the slot this time, he knew the numb

er from memory. It was the fourth time he’d called since returning to the hotel shortly before six.

“Hello?”

“Officer McFadden, please?”

“You’re the one who’s been calling, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, he hasn’t come home,” Mrs. Agnes McFadden said.

“I don’t really have any idea where he is. You want to give me a number, I’ll have him call back the minute he walks in the door.”

“I’ll be moving around, I’m afraid,” Malone said. “I’ll try again. Thank you very much.”

“What did you say your name was?”

Malone broke the connection with his finger.

“My name is Asshole, madam,” he said softly, bitterly. “Lieutenant J. Asshole Malone.”

He put the handset back and pushed open the door.

He was not going to get to talk to Officer McFadden tonight, and he would not try again. He had carefully avoided giving McFadden’s mother his name—she had volunteered her identity on the first call.

When Officer McFadden finally returns home, his mother will tell him that some guy who had not given his name had called four times for him, but had not said what he wanted or where he could be reached.

McFadden will be naturally curious, but there will be no way for him to connect the calls with me.

On the other hand, if I did call back, and finally got through to him, he would know not only who I am, but whatever I had in mind was important enough that I would try five times to get through to him.

Under those circumstances, there would be no way I could casually, nonchalantly, let it be known that I would be grateful if he didn’t tell his pal Payne that I was staking out Holland’s body shop. I already know he has an active curiosity, and if I said please don’t tell Payne, that’s exactly what he will do. And Payne would lose no time in telling Wohl.

That triggered thoughts of Payne in a different area: The poor bastard’s probably still over there in that falling-down building, stumbling around in the dark, measuring it.

That was chickenshit of Wohl, making him do that. He sent me over there to look it over. I should not have let myself be talked out of doing what I was sent to do by a rookie cop, even if the rookie works for Wohl. I’m a lieutenant, although there seems to be some questions at all levels about just how good a lieutenant. But he’s taking the heat for what I did, and that’s not right.

If I were a good guy, I’d get in the car and go over there and help him. But Wohl might not like that. He sent the kid over there to rap his knuckles and Wohl might not like it if I held his hand.

Fuck Wohl! A man is responsible for his actions, and other people should not take the heat for them.

He walked out of the lobby of the St. Charles Hotel and found his car and started out for the school building at Frankford and Castor.