The Investigators (Badge of Honor 7)

“This is part of that?”

“No. This is personal. You are about to ruin my romantic evening. How does the Harrisburg Police Department feel about professional courtesy?”

“You know how fast she was going?”

“Too fast for me to take my eyes off the road to look for speed-limit signs.”

“Sixty-five. This is zoned forty.”

“I understand. If you feel that duty requires you toss her in the slam and ruin the best chance I’ve had in six months, I will understand.”

The uniform laughed.

“If you put it that way, how could I run her in?”

“You could be a prick like my corporal when I was in Highway.”

“Have a word with her,” the uniform said, chuckling.

“I will,” Matt said, and put out his hand. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

“Good luck,” the uniform said, and got back in his car.

Matt walked up to Susan’s car. The window was down, but she didn’t say anything. She looked a little frightened.

“I just got you off,” he said. “Say, ‘Thank you, Matthew. ’ ”

“I heard,” she said. “Everything. I think I’d rather have gotten the ticket.”

“You’re welcome,” Matt said.

The window whooshed up.

“Drive slow,” Matt muttered a little bitterly and then walked back to the Plymouth.

When he flicked the Plymouth’s headlights, the Porsche moved off the shoulder and down the road and he followed it.

He had a sudden insight:

She was not being routinely rude. She was frightened. But why? I just got the uniform not to pinch her. And she knew that. She said she “heard everything.”

In which case, she heard the uniform verify my story about why I’m in Harrisburg. That should have put her mind at rest about me, if indeed Daddy had turned on her alarm system and she was wondering if I was really here looking for hidden money.

But if I was involved in something like she is, and a police car with its bubble-gum machine flashing pulled me over, I’d be pissing my pants, too. And while Wohl is probably right—Chenowith, who robs banks with a sawed-off shotgun, and the scumbag with the acne are dangerous—from what I’ve seen tonight, Susan is more a Presbyterian Princess who calls her parents “Mommy” and “Daddy,” than a cold-blooded terrorist.

She didn’t blow up the Biological Sciences building. If she had, the FBI would have said so. Helping those lunatics makes her an accessory after the fact, sure, but it doesn’t mean she’s as cold-blooded as they are.

Can I use that somehow?

FOURTEEN

If he saw it at all, Mr. Ronald R. Ketcham paid little attention to the black GMC Suburban truck parked near the elevator in the basement garage of his garden apartment building on Overbrook Avenue.

The truck was inconspicuous, and intended to be that way. It was painted black, and all but the windshield and front-seat windows had been painted over. There were no signs on its doors or sides indicating its ownership or purpose; it was classified as a “Not For Hire” vehicle, and none were required by law.

The inconspicuous Suburban was normally used to carry the remains of the recently deceased from their place of death—usually a hospital, but sometimes from the Medical Examiner’s office, if the deceased had died at home, or for some other reason was subject to an official autopsy—to a funeral home.

Larger undertaking establishments often had their own discreet vehicles for the purpose of collecting bodies and bringing them to their places of business, as they had their own fleets of hearses, flower cars, and limousines to carry the dear departed, his/her floral tributes, and his/her mourners to his/her final resting place. But many—perhaps most—of Philadelphia’s smaller funeral homes had found it good business to take advantage of the corpse pickup service and delivery service offered by Classic Livery, Inc., which owned the Suburban Mr. Ketcham did not notice as he drove his Buick into his garage.