“Denny, tell me about Captain David Pekach of Highway Patrol,” was the call that came next.
“What would you like to know, Eileen? And why?”
“The why’s my business. Tell me about him.”
“What about him? He’s a good cop.”
“Is he married?”
“No. He’s never been married. Before he made captain, and they gave him Highway Patrol, he was a lieutenant in Narcotics. He grew a pigtail, and the dealers thought he was one of them. He’s got one hell of an arrest record.”
“That’s all?”
“When he was a rookie detective in Homicide, just a kid, when the rest of the department didn’t think the sainted Fort Festung could possibly do anything like hurt his girlfriend, Dave Pekach finally got a judge to give him a search warrant-”
“I know who he is,” Eileen interrupted, remembering him from the trial.
“Like I said, Eileen, he’s a very good cop.”
“Tell me about him and women. I understand he’s quite a swordsman.”
“Who told you that?” Coughlin asked. “Eileen, you’ve seen him. He’s a little guy. Looks like a weasel. Women do the opposite of swoon when they see him. I’ve never even seen him with a woman. What’s this all about?”
“Thanks, Denny.”
Brewster Courtland Payne, Esq., gave Miss Martha Peebles in marriage to Captain David Pekach three weeks later. The Hon. Eileen McNamara Solomon was the matron of honor.
“Eileen, I realize this is short notice, but I’d really like you and Ben to come for supper tonight,” Martha Peebles Pekach said now.
“What’s up?”
“Brewster Payne’s son-Matt? — just made sergeant, and Precious and I are having a little party for him.”
“That kid made sergeant?” Eileen asked, surprised. Very privately, she thought of Detective Matt Payne as the Wyatt Earp-or maybe the Stan Colt-of the Main Line. Most cops never draw their weapons in twenty years of service. Brewster Payne’s kid had already shot two critters and been involved in an O.K. Corral shoot-out in Bucks County and he hadn’t been on the job much over five years.
And now he’s a sergeant?
“He was number one on The List. The mayor promoted him this morning.”
“I’ll have to check with Ben,” Eileen said.
“With or without him, Eileen, please? Sixish.”
Lieutenant Jason Washington, who was sitting in his glass-walled office, his feet resting on the open lower drawer of his desk, deep in thought, became aware that Detective Kenneth J. Summers, a portly forty-year-old, who was on the desk, was waving at him.
He raised his eyebrows to suggest that Summers now had his attention. Summers pointed to the telephone. Washington nodded and reached for it.
“Homicide, Lieutenant Washington.”
“Dave Pekach, Jason.”
“Dare I to hope that you are calling to tell me two critters have flagged down a Highway car and, overwhelmed by remorse, are asking how they can go about confessing to the Roy Rogers job?”
“You don’t have them yet?” Pekach asked, surprised.
“You know where we are, David?” Washington said. “In the absence of a better idea, I have four people running down a somewhat esoteric idea proposed by the newest member of our happy little family.”
“Matt?”