The Witness (Badge of Honor 4)

“Well, spit it out, Frank, what did young Matthews hear?”

“Nothing specific. But what he did hear made him think he should bring me in on it. He went drinking with young Payne, his bodyguard, and another young cop—”

“What the hell is that all about?” Williamson interrupted. “He went out drinking with the cops? I’ve been telling my people to maintain a polite, cordial, but distant—”

“I sent him,” Davis said, annoyance in his voice. “Okay, Glenn? Go on, Frank.”

“Well, toward the end of the evening, when Matthews mentioned that he was working on interstate auto theft, he said the ears of both Payne and one of the cops—Mc-Something—perked up, and they started asking all sorts of questions about how the Bureau runs a car theft investigation. From the nature of their questions, Jack thought that they could be talking about Bob Holland’s operation.”

“What kind of questions?” A-SAC Towne asked.

“Why don’t we go to the source?” SAC Davis said. He picked up his telephone. “Carolyn, would you please ask Special Agent Matthews to come in here?”

“Who’s that?” Officer Robert Hartzog said into the microphone of the new intercom on the wall of Matt Payne’s kitchen.

“Inspector Wohl.”

“Be right there, Inspector,” Hartzog said. He then went down the stairs two at a time.

Wohl appeared a moment later at the head of the stairs, carrying Hartzog’s shotgun.

“I told him to take a couple of laps around Rittenhouse Square,” Wohl said, resting the shotgun against the closet door. “And how are you this morning, Casanova?”

“I heard about what happened,” Matt said. “I’m sorry.”

“For me or Monahan?”

“Both.”

‘I’m sorry for Malone and Monahan, and for me. I’m even sorry for you. Everybody’s sorry for someone else.”

“Why are you sorry for me?” Matt asked.

“I would desperately like to have a cold beer,” Wohl said, as if he hadn’t heard the question. “For purely medicinal purposes.”

“Help yourself,” Matt said, gesturing toward the kitchen. “Bring me one too, please.”

“You want a glass?” Wohl called the kitchen.

“Absolutely. A good beer, like a decent wine, needs to breathe.”

“Oh, God!”

“It’s true,” Matt said.

Wohl came into the living room with two bottles of Tuborg, glasses sitting upside down on their necks.

“And there is a way to get the beer from the bottle to the glass,” Matt said, demonstrating. “One pours the glass approximately half full by decanting against the side of the glass, and then, at the precise moment, allowing the incoming liquid to fall into the middle, thus providing the proper head.”

He looked at Wohl, smiling. Wohl did not return the smile.

“You’re going to be investigated by the FBI, for the Justice Department, for violating the civil rights of Charles David Stevens.”

“I know. The FBI told me last night.”

“They were here already?” Wohl asked, surprised.

“They sent a young FBI agent, Jack Matthews, to tell me. On the QT.”