The Investigators (Badge of Honor 7)

“I called her last night and asked her to bring you some clothes, your makeup, et cetera. You’re going to have to deal with them. You don’t have to tell them anything that makes you uncomfortable—tell them I said that, if you like—but I think it would help them, and you, if you told them you think I can help.”

“You must have been pretty sure I’d . . . make you my doctor last night,” Cynthia challenged.

“No, I wasn’t. Last night, when I called your mother, that was one young female taking care of another. I hate those damned hospital gowns myself.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m going to keep you in here for at least of couple of days,” Amy said. “But that doesn’t mean in bed. If you’d like, put some clothes on, and we can have lunch in the cafeteria. The food isn’t any better, but it’s not on a tray.”

“Thank you,” Cynthia said.

Amy smiled at her and walked out of the room.

When Inspector Peter Wohl walked into the Investigations Section of Special Operations, he found just about the entire staff, plus Staff Inspector Mike Weisbach and Captain Dave Pekach, in the former classroom. Pekach, in the unique uniform—breeches and boots—of the Highway Patrol, was the only one in uniform.

“Am I interrupting anything important?” Wohl asked.

“A suitable description of our present labors,” Sergeant Jason Washington announced in his deep, sonorous voice, “would be ‘spinning our wheels.’ ”

“What are you doing?” Wohl asked.

“Trying to make sense of Matt’s transcriptions of the Kellog tapes,” Pekach explained. “And getting nowhere.”

“They’re useless?”

“They’ve made me change my mind about nothing dirty going on in Five Squad,” Pekach said. “But what, nobody seems to be able to figure out, at least from the tapes. And as far as using them as evidence—”

“Is Payne essential?” Wohl asked.

Matt picked up on Wohl calling him by his last name; he suspected it might suggest he was in disfavor.

What did I do?

Shit, those FBI clowns did report me!

“I fear that all those hours our Matthew put in transcribing the tapes were a waste of time and effort,” Washington said.

“Not a waste, Jason,” Weisbach said. “Finding nothing we can use, so to speak, has taught us they are (a) up to something and (b) rather clever about whatever it is.”

“I stand corrected, sir,” Jason said.

“I can have Payne?” Wohl asked.

“He’s all yours,” Weisbach said. “See me later, Matt.”

“Yes, sir,” Matt said.

Matt stood up and followed Wohl out of the room. Wohl walked quickly, and Matt almost had to trot to catch up with him.

“What’s up?” Matt asked.

Wohl ignored him.

They went down the stairs and then up the corridor to Wohl’s office. Matt followed him inside.

Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin—a tall, heavyset, large-boned, ruddy-faced man with good teeth and curly silver hair—was sitting on the couch before Wohl’s coffee table in the act of dunking a doughnut in a coffee mug.

For all of Matt’s life, Coughlin had been “Uncle Denny” to him. He had been his father’s best friend, and Matt had come to suspect that Denny Coughlin, who had never married, had been in love—secretly, of course— with Patricia Stevens Moffitt Payne, Matt’s mother, for a very long time.