“Hey, I understand.”
He closed the door after her and went around the front and got in the car, and drove up to the drive, past the mansion to Norwood Street, and turned right.
“No flashing blue lights and screaming siren?” Amy asked.
“We’ll probably get to Internal Affairs before he does,” Wohl said.
He reached under the dash and came up with a microphone.
"S-1,” he said.
“Go ahead, S-1,” Police Radio-this time a masculine voice-replied.
“On my way from my home to Internal Affairs,” Wohl said.
“Got it.”
He dropped the microphone on the seat.
“Can you get Denny Coughlin on that?” Amy asked.
He picked up the microphone.
“Radio, S-1. Have you got a location on Commissioner Coughlin?”
"S-1, he’s at Methodist Hospital.”
“What’s going on there?”
“An officer was shot answering a robbery in progress on South Broad. And be advised, there’s a new assist officer, shots fired on Front Street. Just a couple of minutes ago.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
He put the microphone down.
“If the root of your question was ‘Does he know?’, the answer is if he doesn’t, he will in a matter of minutes.”
“He does a much better job of telling Mother and Dad about things like this than I do.”
“They’re
almost certainly asleep at this hour. You really want to wake them up?”
“No,” she said after a moment. “But they’ll be hurt and angry if someone doesn’t tell them.”
“You really want to wake them up?” he asked again, and went on. “All you’re going to do is upset them. You-or Coughlin-can do it in the morning, when things have settled down.”
“Good morning, Mom!” she said, sarcastically. “Guess what happened, again, last night?”
He chuckled.
“Was it a good shooting, Peter?” she asked, almost plaintively.
“From the way Matt talked, it was,” he said. “We’ll soon find out.”
Mickey O’Hara beat the first police unit-a marked Sixth District car-and the second-Lieutenant Gerry McGuire’s unmarked Dignitary Protection Crown Victoria-to the parking lot by a good thirty seconds.
He was well into the parking lot, camera at the ready, before the uniformed officer, McGuire, and Nevins got of their cars, drew their weapons, and cautiously entered the lot.