Olivia had her cellular in her hand.
“I guess I didn’t turn it on this morning, sir,” she said.
“Need I say that I would be both disappointed and more than a little annoyed if this ever-the operative word is ‘ever’-happened again?”
“No, sir,” they said, almost in unison.
“Then the incident is closed,” Washington said.
“Have you seen the Bulletin this morning, Lieutenant?” Matt asked.
“With your image adorning page one? Indeed, I have. And so, I daresay, has most of the population of Philadelphia.”
“I wasn’t talking about my picture,” Matt said. “I meant this.”
He laid Section Three of the Bulletin, “Living Today,” open to page four, on the desk.
“Then you stand out like a cork bobbing in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, for everyone else in Philadelphia is talking of nothing else… What am I being shown?”
“Look at the guy on the ground in the picture,” Matt said.
Washington looked.
“You can doubtless imagine the odds against that fellow being our critter,” he said after a moment. “But if you wish to turn over the stone under the stone, why don’t you give them a call?”
“I already have.”
Washington looked at him with interest.
“They wouldn’t tell me whether or not this guy had a knife,” Matt said. “Or whether he was just peeping in windows or trying to break in, or whether the window belonged to a young woman…”
“And you have concluded, obviously, that this proves he did indeed have a knife, with which he was trying to break into the apartment of a young woman?”
“I think the possibility exists,” Matt said, a little lamely.
One of the telephones on the desk rang, and Washington had it to his ear before it could ring again.
“Homicide, Lieutenant Washington,” he said.
And a moment later,
“Yes, sir.”
And a moment later,
“Yes, sir. They are both here with me.”
And a final moment later,
“Yes, sir. We’re on our way.”
He put the handset in its cradle.
“Detective Lassiter, it is said that God takes care of fools and drunks. While you are certainly not a drunk, Sergeant Payne qualifies on both counts, and you have apparently been taken under his protective mantle.”
“Sir?” Olivia asked.
“The reason I attempted-and failed, and we now know why, don’t we? — to communicate with the both of you this morning was to relay the order of Deputy Commissioner Coughlin to get you both in here immediately, and keep you here until I had additional instructions from him.”