She snorted.
“If I gave you the name of a staff inspector in Internal Affairs whom I can personally vouch for…”
Helene Kellog stood up.
“I guess I should have known better than to come here,” she said, on the edge of tears. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time.” She turned to Martha Washington. “Thank you.”
“Mrs. Kellog
, there’s really nothing I can do to help you. I have nothing to do with either Homicide or Narcotics or Internal Affairs.”
“Like I said, I’m sorry I wasted your time,” she said. “That’s the way out, right?”
“I’ll see you to the door,” Washington said, and went with her.
At the door, she turned to him.
“Do me one favor, all right? Don’t tell Wally that I came to see you.”
“If you wish, Mrs. Kellog.”
She turned her back on him and walked down the corridor to the elevator.
Martha was waiting for him in the living room.
“I’m sorry about that, honey,” he said.
“I think she was telling the truth.”
“She believed what she was saying,” Jason said after a moment. “That is not always the same thing as the whole truth.”
“I felt sorry for her.”
“So did I.”
“But you’re not going to do anything about what she said?”
“I’ll do something about it,” he said.
“What?”
“I haven’t decided that yet. I don’t happen to think that Wally Milham had anything to do with her husband’s murder; he’s not the type. I saw him tonight, by the way. That’s where I was.”
“Excuse me?”
“I went to see Matt. We tried to go to the Rittenhouse Club for a drink, but it was closed, so we took a walk, and walked up on a double homicide. On Market Street. And we got involved in that. Wally Milham had the job.”
“You mean, you were involved in a shooting?”
“No. We got there after the fact.”
“What was so important that you had to see Matt at midnight?” Martha asked. “And be warned that ‘police business’ will not be an acceptable reply.”
He met her eyes, smiled, and shook his head.
“We’re conducting a surveillance. Earlier tonight, the microphone we had in place on a hotel window was dislodged. I learned from Tony Harris that Matt climbed out on a ledge thirteen floors up to replace the damned thing.”
“My God! At the Bellvue? When he was here, he was wearing a Bellvue maintenance uniform.”