The Witness (Badge of Honor 4)

“Hi ya, Mom?” Tony said, considerably louder.

The men shook hands.

“I’m in the kitchen, honey.”

“Nice blazer,” Lieutenant Lewis said. “New?”

“Yeah. It is nice, isn’t it?”

Tiny walked past his father into the kitchen, put his arms around his mother, who weighed almost exactly one-half as much as he did, and lifted her off the floor.

“Put me down!” she said, and turned to face him. “Don’t you look nice!”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said. “It’s new.”

She fingered the material. “Very nice.”

“What are we eating?”

“Roast pork.”

“Pork goes nicely, he said, apropos of nothing whatever, with beer.”

“Help yourself,” she laughed. “You know where it is.”

“You’re driving a department car,” Lieutenant Lewis said.

“Yes, I am.”

“You know what it would do to your record if you had an accident and had been drinking,” Lieutenant Lewis said, and immediately regretted it.

“Well, then, I guess I better not have an accident. You want a beer, Dad?”

“Yes, please.”

“I saw your boss earlier this evening,” Lieutenant Lewis said.

“Sergeant Washington?”

“I meant Inspector Wohl,” Lieutenant Lewis said. “Do you consider Jason Washington your boss?”

“They formed a Special Investigations Section. He’s in charge. I’m in it.”

“Doing what?”

“Baby-sitting honkies,” Tiny said, with a smile.

“And what does that mean?” Lieutenant Lewis snapped.

“You know a Highway sergeant named Carter?”

Lieutenant Lewis nodded.

“That’s what he said, that I was ‘baby-sitting honkies.’”

“Foster, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You heard about these screwballs calling themselves the Islamic Liberation Army threatening to get Matt Payne for blowing away one of them?”