Broken Trust (Badge of Honor 13)

[ FOUR ]

As Payne drove down Broad Street, with City Hall, the world’s tallest masonry building, looming in the distance, Camilla Rose said, “I don’t know if you did this by design—I suspect that you did—but this is the perfect place for what I have to say. I won’t repeat this in public.”

As Payne glanced at her, he saw an open parking space at the curb ahead. He quickly pulled into it.

He turned to her, and said, “Okay.”

“It’s about what Johnny said when I asked.”

“He said, ‘You know.’ So, do you?”

She met Payne’s eyes and nodded.

On her lap, she held tight to a small clutch purse. She reached into it and produced a miniature bottle of vodka.

“My nerves are a mess,” she said. “Do you mind?”

“By all means, help yourself.”

“Would you like one?”

“I can wait.”

“Then you’re not going to judge me, are you? It’s not like you haven’t needed a nip or two at some point.”

“With me, it’s more like three or four. So, no judging.”

She made a wistful smile.

“You’re too kind, Matthew.”

Payne watched as she twisted off the top and drained the bottle.

After a pause, Camilla Rose, carefully screwing the cap back on and putting the empty in her clutch, then said, “Johnny means that Mr. Morgan is behind the shooting.”

Payne thought, But Old Man Morgan is dead.

She’s not saying that he calls the shots from the grave?

“Mr. Morgan? Your father?”

“My father passed, Matthew,” she said, her tone now cold. She looked out the passenger window and sighed. “Which is a great deal of why this situation is so grave.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t follow.”

She looked ahead, out the windshield.

“My father and I were very close when I was young. I was a classic daddy’s girl.”

She pointed in the direction of the thirty-seven-foot-tall bronze statue of William Penn standing atop City Hall.

“He used to take me up to the observation deck there, then over to LOVE Park, before going shopping along Walnut Street. Lots and lots of time together. And despite the divorce and my mother moving the two of us out to L.A., my father and I stayed in close touch throughout the school years—he paid for my schooling in Beverly Hills, of course, and kept an active interest in how I was progressing—and I spent my summers here with him.

“As I grew older, he saw to it that I had jobs here that introduced me into the family businesses. After graduating prep school, I came back from California to go to Wharton, with plans to eventually get my master’s at the business school. My father was a Wharton grad. I wanted to follow in his footsteps. And I did . . . until Mr. Morgan.”

What the hell is she saying? Payne thought.

He said, “So . . . who is this Mr. Morgan?”