The Witness (Badge of Honor 4)

“He’s been home about an hour and a half,” the cop who had stopped Wohl said. “I don’t think he’ll be going out again tonight in this weather.”

“How are you working this?” Wohl asked, and touched Malone’s knee to silence him when it looked like Malone was going to answer.

“Simple rotation,” the second cop answered. “One of us walks for thirty minutes—when the wind’s really blowing, only fifteen minutes—and then one of us takes his place. We do a four-hour tour, and then go on our regular patrols.”

“Your reliefs showing up all right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Does the man walking the beat have a radio?”

“We all have radios.”

“Can you think of any way to improve what we’re trying to do? Even a wild hair?”

“How about a heated snowmobile?”

“I’ll ask Commissioner Czernich in the morning about a snowmobile. Don’t hold your breath. But I meant it, anybody got any ideas about something we should, or should not, be doing?”

Both cops shook their heads.

“Well, I can see that I’m not needed here,” Wohl said. “I guess everybody understands how important Monahan is as a witness?”

“Yes, sir,” they said, nearly in unison.

“Can I have a word with you, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir, certainly.”

Wohl shook hands with both cops and got out of the car. Malone followed him to the Jaguar.

“Yes, sir.”

“You have anything else to do here?”

“No, sir.”

“Any hot plans for tonight? For dinner, to start with?”

“No, sir.”

“Okay, Jack. Get in your car and follow me.”

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere where it’s warm, and where, I suspect, there will be a more than adequate supply of free antifreeze.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Miss Martha Peebles had decided that it would be better to receive her and Captain Pekach’s guests in the family (as opposed to the formal) dining room of her home. For one thing, it had been her father’s favorite room. She had good memories of her father and his friends getting up from the dinner table and moving to the overstuffed chairs and couches at the far end of the room for cognac and cigars and coffee.

Tonight, she would more or less reverse that. She had had Evans and his nephew Nathaniel set up a little bar near the overstuffed furniture. Nathaniel would serve drinks first, before they moved to the dining table for the meal. Then, after they had eaten, they could move back.

Besides, she reasoned, the formal dining room was just too large for the few people who would be coming. When she was a little girl, for her eleventh birthday party, it had been converted into a roller-skating rink.

But her father had preferred the family dining room, and it seemed appropriate for tonight. And she thought that her father would appreciate the arrangements she had made. She was convinced that her father would have liked David, and vice versa. They were men. And if he liked David, her father would also like David’s friends, Inspector Wohl and Captain Sabara.

Daddy probably wouldn’t like Farnsworth Stillwell any more than I do, she thought, but she could clearly hear his voice telling her, “Like it or not, kitten, you are who you are, and from time to time, you have to go through the motions and put up with people of your own background.”