Men In Blue (Badge of Honor 1)

When Sergeant Lenihan held the papers up, Wohl leaned forward and took them.

“You never saw any of that before, Peter?” Coughlin asked, when Wohl had read Mickey O’Hara’s story in the Bulletin and the editorial in the Ledger.

“No, sir,” Peter said. “Is there anything to it? Did Gallagher get pushed in front of the train?”

“No, and there are witnesses who saw the whole thing,” Coughlin said. “Unfortunately, they are one cop—Martinez, McFadden’s partner—and the engineer of the elevated train. Both of whom could be expected to lie to protect a cop.”

“Then what the hell is the Ledger printing crap like that for?”

“Commissioner Czernick believes it is because Staff Inspector Peter Wohl first had diarrhea of the mouth—that’s a direct quote, Peter—when speaking with Mr. Michael J. O’Hara—”

“I haven’t spoken to Mickey O’Hara—”

“Let me finish, Peter,” Coughlin interrupted. “First you had diarrhea of the mouth with Mr. O’Hara, and then you compounded your—another direct quote—incredible stupidity—by antagonizing Arthur J. Nelson, when you were under orders to charm him. Anything to that?”

“Once again, I haven’t seen Mickey O’Hara, or talked to him, in ten days, maybe more.”

“But maybe you did piss off Arthur J. Nelson?”

“I called him late last night to tell him the Jaguar had been found. He asked me where, and I told him— truthfully—that I didn’t know. He was a little sore about that, but I don’t think antagonize is the word.”

“You didn’t—and for God’s sake tell me if you did— make any cracks about homosexuality, ‘your son the fag,’ something like that?”

“Sir, I don’t deserve that,” Peter said.

“That’s how it looks to the commissioner, Peter,” Coughlin said. “And to the mayor, which is worse. He’s going to run again, of course, and when he does, he wants the Ledger to support him.”

Peter looked out the window. They were still some distance from Saint Dominic’s but the street was lined with parked police cars.

Dutch, Peter thought, is going to be buried in style.

“Chief,” Peter said, “all I can do is repeat what I said. I haven’t seen, or spoken to, Mickey O’Hara for more than a week. And I didn’t say anything to Arthur Nelson that I shouldn’t have.”

Coughlin grunted.

“For Christ’s sake, I even kept my mouth shut when he tried to tell me his son was Louise’s boyfriend.”

“ ‘Louise’s boyfriend’?” Coughlin parroted. “When did you get on a first-name basis with her?”

Peter turned and met Coughlin’s eyes.

“We’ve become friends, Chief,” he said. “Maybe a little more.”

“You didn’t say anything to her about the Nelson boy being queer, did you? Could that have got back to Nelson?”

“She knew about him,” Peter said. “I met him in her apartment.”

“When was that?”

“When I went there to bring her to the Roundhouse,” Peter s

aid. “The day Dutch was killed.”

Out the side window, Peter saw that the lines of police cars were now double-parked. When he looked through the windshield, he could see they were approaching Saint Dominic’s. There was a lot of activity there, although the funeral mass wouldn’t start for nearly an hour.

“All I know, Peter,” Coughlin said, “is that right now, you’re in the deep shit. You may be—and I think you are— lily white, but the problem is going to be to convince Czernick and the mayor. Right now, you’re at the top of their shit list.”

The small convoy drove past the church, and then into the church cemetery, and through the cemetery back to the church, finally stopping beside a side door. The pallbearers got out of the limousine and went to the hearse. Coughlin and Wohl joined them, and took Dutch Moffitt’s casket from the hearse and carried it through the side door into the church. Under the direction of the man from Marshutz & Sons, they set it up in the aisle.