The Murderers (Badge of Honor 6)

“Amy, I know you’re there. I need to talk to Inspector Wohl.”

A moment later, Wohl himself came on the line.

“What is it, Matt?”

“Tiny Lewis is here. Having him go with me to the Detweilers’ is not such a good idea. The funeral is family and intimate friends only.”

“So your sister has been telling me,” Wohl said. “He’s there? Put him on the line.”

Matt held the phone up, and Tiny rose massively from the table and took it.

“Yes, sir?” he said.

Tiny’s was the only side of the conversation Matt could hear, and he was curious when Tiny chuckled, a deep rumble, and said, “I would, too. That’d be something to see.”

When he hung up, Matt asked, “What would be ‘something to see’?”

“The Mayor’s face when somebody tells him he can’t get in. Wohl said he knows the Mayor’s going to the funeral.”

“This one he may not get to go to,” Matt said. “My father said nobody’s been invited, period.”

“Wohl also said I was to drive you out there, if you wanted, and then to keep myself available. I was going to do that anyway.”

“You can take me over to the Parkway as soon as I get dressed. I’m going to drive my sister out there, in her car.”

“Yeah, sure. But listen to what I said. You need me, you know where to find me.”

Inspector Peter Wohl was examining the hole gouged in his cheek by Amy Payne’s dull razor—and from which an astonishing flow of blood was now escaping—when Amy appeared in the bathroom door.She was in her underwear. It was white, and what there was of it was mostly lace. He found the sight very appealing, and wondered if that was her everyday underwear, or whether she had worn it for him.

That pleasant notion was immediately shattered by her tone of voice and the look on her face.

“It’s for you,” she said. “Again. Does everyone in Philadelphia know you’re here?”

“Sorry,” he said, and quickly tore off a square of toilet paper, pressed it to the wound, and went into her bedroom. He sat on the bed and grabbed the telephone.

“Inspector Wohl.”

“I’m sorry to trouble you, sir,” Jason Washington’s deep, mellifluous voice said.

Washington’s the soul of discretion. When he got this number from the tour lieutenant—and with that memory of his, he probably knows whose number it is—unless it was important, he would have waited until I went to work.

“No trouble. I’m just sitting here quietly bleeding to death. Good morning, Jason. What’s up?”

“I just had an interesting call. An informant who has been reliable with what he’s given me—which hasn’t been much—in the past. He said the Inferno murders were a mob contract.”

“Interesting. Did he give you a name?”

“Frankie Foley.”

“Never heard of him.”

Amy sat on the bed beside him and put her hand on his cheek. It was a gesture of affection, but only by implication. She had a cotton swab dipped in some kind of antiseptic.

She pulled the toilet paper bandage off and professionally swabbed his gouge.

“Neither have I. And neither has Organized Crime or Intelligence.”

“Even more interesting.”