With some difficulty, Staff Inspector Peter Wohl extricated his car from the cars jammed together on the streets, driveways, and alleys near the residence of Captain Richard C. Moffitt. He turned onto Holme Avenue, in the direction of Pennypack Circle.
When he was safely into the flow of traffic, he leaned over and took the microphone from the glove compartment.
"Isaac Twenty-three," he said into it, and when they came back at him, he said he needed a location on Two-Eleven, which was the Second District blue-and-white he'd commandeered from Mac McGovern to escort Miss Louise Dutton.
"I have him out of service at WCBL-TV at Seventeenth and Locust, Inspector," the radio operator finally told him. "Thirty-five minutes ago."
"Thank you," Wohl said, and put the microphone back inside the glove compartment and slammed the door.
There would be time, he decided, to see what the medical examiner had turned up about the female doer. There was no question that there would be other questions directed at him by his boss, Chief Inspector Coughlin, and very possibly by Commissioner Czernick or even the mayor. Peter Wohl believed the Boy Scouts were right; it paid to be prepared.
A battered Ford van pulled to a stop in the parking lot of the medical examiner's office at Civic Center Boulevard and University Avenue. The faded yellow van had a cracked windshield. On the sides were still legible vestiges of aBUDGET RENT-A-CAR logotype. The chrome grille was missing, as was the right headlight and its housing. The passenger-side door had apparently encountered something hard and sharp enough to slice the door skin like a knife. There was a deep, but not penetrating, dent on the body on the same side. The body was rusted through at the bottom of the doors, and above the left-rear fender well.
The vehicle had forty-two unanswered traffic citations against it, most for illegal parking, but including a half dozen or so for the missing headlight, the cracked windshield, an illegible license plate, and similar misdemeanor violations of the Motor Vehicle Code.
Two men got out of the van. One of them was young, very large, and bearded. He was wearing greasy blue jeans, and a leather band around his forehead to keep his long, unkempt hair out of his eyes. After he got out of the passenger's side, the driver, a small, smooth-shaven, somewhat weasel-faced individual wearing a battered gray sweatshirt with the legend support your local sheriff printed on it slid over and got out after him. They walked into the building.
Staff Inspector Peter Wohl and Sergeant Zachary Hobbs of Homicide were standing by a coffee vending machine in the basement, drinking from Styrofoam cups. Wohl shook his head when he saw them.
"Hello, Inspector," the weasel-faced small man, who was Lieutenant David Pekach of the Narcotics Squad, said.
"Pekach, does your mother know what you do for a living?" Wohl replied, offering his hand.
Pekach chuckled. "God, I hope not." He looked at Hobbs. "You're Sergeant Hobbs?"
"Yes, sir," Hobbs said.
"You know Officer McFadden?" Pekach asked, and both Wohl and Hobbs shook their heads, no.
"Charley, this is Staff Inspector Wohl," the weasel-faced man said, " And Sergeant Hobbs. Officer Charley McFadden."
"How do you do, sir?" Officer McFadden asked, respectfully, to Wohl and Hobbs each in turn.
"Where is she?" Pekach asked.
"In there," Wohl said, nodding at double metal doors. "He's not through with her."
"Don't tell me you have a queasy stomach, Inspector?" Pekach asked, innocently.
"You bet your ass, I do," Wohl said.
Pekach walked in. McFadden followed him.
Unidentified White Female Suspect was on a stainless steel table. She was naked, her legs spread, one arm lying beside her, the other over her head. Body fluids dripped from a corner drain on the table into a stainless steel bucket on the tile floor.
A bald-headed man wearing a plastic apron over surgical blues stopped what he was doing and looked up curiously and unpleasantly at Pekach and McFadden. What he was doing was removing Unidentified White Female Suspect's heart from the opening he had made in her chest.
"I'm Lieutenant Pekach, Doctor," Pekach said. "We just want to get a look at her face."
The medical examiner shrugged, and went on with what he was doing.
"Jesus," Pekach said. "What did he shoot her with?"
"I presume," the medical examiner said dryly, not looking up, "that the weapon used was the standard service revolver."
Pekach snorted.
"She shot Captain Moffitt the way she was shot up like that?" Pekach asked.
"Before," the medical examiner replied. "What I think happened is that she shot Moffitt before he shot her."
"I don't understand," Pekach said.
The medical examiner pointed with his scalpel at a small plastic bag. Pekach picked it up.
It held a misshapen piece of lead, thinner than a pencil and about a quarter of an inch long.
"Twenty-two," the medical examiner said. "Probably a long rifle. It entered his chest just below the armpit." He took Unidentified White Female Suspect's hand, raised it in the air, and pointed. "From the side, almost from the back. The bullet hit the left ventricle of the aorta. Then he bled to death, internally. The heart just kept pumping, and when he ran out of blood, he died."
"Jesus Christ!" Pekach said.
The medical examiner let Unidentified White Female Suspect's arm fall, and then pointed to another plastic envelope.
"Show these to Peter Wohl," he said. "I think it's what he's looking for. I just took those out of her."
The envelope contained three misshapen pieces of lead. Each was larger and thicker than the.22 projectile removed from the body of Captain Moffitt. The ends of all the bullets had expanded, " mushroomed," on striking something hard, so that they actually looked something like mushrooms. The other end of each bullet was covered by a quarter-inch-high copper-colored cup. There were clear rifling marks on the cups; it would not be at all difficult to match these jacketed bullets to the pistol that had fired them.
The very large young man looked carefully at the face of Unidentified White Female Suspect and changed her status.
"Schmeltzer, Dorothy Ann," he said. "Twenty-four, five feet five, one-hundred twenty-five pounds. Last known address… somewhere on Vine, just east of Broad. I'd have to check."
"You're sure?"
"That's Dorothy Ann," McFadden said. "I thought she was still in jail."
"What was she in for?"
"Solicitation for prostitution," McFadden said. "I think the judge put her in to see if they couldn't dry her out."
"She's got needle marks all over," the medical examiner said, "in places you wouldn't believe. No identification on her? Is that what this is all about?"
"Lieutenant Natali told me all she had on her was a joint and a.22 pistol," Pekach said. "And the needle marks. He thought we might be able to make her as a junkie. Thank you, Doctor."
He left the room.
Wohl and Hobbs were no longer alone. Lieutenant Natali and Lieutenant Sabara of the Highway Patrol had come to the medical examiner's office. Sabara looked askance at the Narcotics Division officers.
Natali saw it. "Ilike your sweatshirt, Pekach," he said dryly.
"Could you identify her?" Hobbs asked.
"Officer McFadden was able to identify her, Sergeant," Pekach said, formally. "Her name was Schmeltzer, Dorothy Ann Schmeltzer. A known drug addict, who McFadden thinks was only recently released from prison."
"Any known associates, McFadden?" Hobbs asked.
"Sir, I can't recall any names. It'd be on her record."
"If I can borrow him for a while, I'd like to take McFadden with me to the Roundhouse," Hobbs said.
"Sure," Pekach said.
"I guess you can call off the rest of your people, then," Hobbs said. "And thank you, Lieutenant."
"Now that I've got her name, maybe I can find out something," Pekach said. "I'll get on the radio."
"Appreciate it," Hobbs said. "If you do come up with something, give me or Lieutenant Natali a call."
"Sure," Pekach said. "Inspector, the medical examiner said to show you these. He said he thought that's what you were waiting for."
Wohl took the bag Pekach handed him and held it up to the light. He was not surprised to see that the bullets were jacketed, and from the way they had mushroomed, almost certainly had been hollow pointed.
"What's that? The projectiles?" Sergeant Hobbs asked.
Wohl handed the envelope to Sergeant Hobbs. They met each other's eyes, but Hobbs didn't say anything.
"Don't lose those," Wohl said.
"What do you think they are, Inspector?" Hobbs asked, in transparent innocence.
"I'm not a firearms expert," Wohl said. "What I see is four bullets removed from the body of the woman suspected of shooting Captain Moffitt. They're what they call evidence, Sergeant, in the chain of evidence."
"They're jacketed hollow points," Hobbs said. "Is that what this is all about?"
"What the hell is the difference?" Pekach said. "Dutch is dead. The Department can't do anything to him now for using prohibited ammunition."
"And maybe we'll get lucky," Hobbs said, "and get an assistant DA six months out of law school who thinks bullets are bullets are bullets."
"Yeah, and maybe we won't," Wohl said. "Maybe we'll get some assistant DA six months out of law school who knows the difference, and would like to get his name in the newspapers as the guy who caught the cops using illegal ammunition, again, in yet another example of police brutality."
"Jesus," Pekach said, disgustedly. "And I know just the prick who would do that." He paused and added. "Two or three pricks, now that I think about it."
"Get those to Firearms Identification, Hobbs," Wohl said. "Get a match. Keep your fingers crossed. Maybe we will be lucky."
"Yes, Sir," Hobbs said.
"I don't think there is anything else to be done here," Wohl said. " Or am I missing something?" He looked at Sabara as he spoke.
"I thought I'd escort the hearse to the funeral home," Sabara said. " You know, what the hell. It seems little enough…"
"I think Dutch would like that," Wohl said.
"Well, I expect I had better pay my respects to Chief Lowenstein," Wohl said. "I'll probably see you fellows in the Roundhouse."
"If you don't mind my asking, Inspector," Hobbs said. "Are you going to be in on this?"
"No," Wohl said. "Not the way you mean. But the eyewitness is that blonde from Channel 9. That could cause problems. The commissioner asked me to make sure it doesn't. I want to explain that to Chief Lowenstein. That's all."
"Good luck, Inspector," Hobbs said, chuckling. Chief Inspector of Detectives Matt Lowenstein, a heavyset, cigar chewing man in his fifties, had a legendary temper, which was frequently triggered when he suspected someone was treading on sacred Detective Turf.
"Why do I think I'll need it?" Wohl said, also chuckling, and left.
There was a Cadillac hearse with a casket in it in the parking lot. The driver was leaning on the fender. Chrome-plated letters outside the frosted glass readMARSHUTZ amp; SONS.
Dutch was apparently going to be buried from a funeral home three blocks from his house. As soon as the medical examiner released the body, it would be put in the casket, and in the hearse, and taken there.
Wohl thought that Sabara showing up here, just so he could lead the hearse to Marshutz amp; Sons, was a rather touching gesture. It wasn't called for by regulations, and he hadn't thought that Dutch and Sabara had been that close. But probably, he decided, he was wrong. Sabara wasn't really as tough as he acted (and looked), and he probably had been, in his way, fond of Dutch.
He got in the LTD and got on the radio.
"Isaac Twenty-Three. Have Two-Eleven contact me on the J-Band."
Two-Eleven was the Second District car he had sent with Louise Dutton.
He had to wait a moment before Two-Eleven called him.
"Two-Eleven to Isaac Twenty-Three."
"What's your location, Two-Eleven?"
"We just dropped the lady at Six Stockton Place."
Where the hell is that? The only Stockton Place I can think of is a slum down by the river.
"Where?"
"Isaac Twenty-Three, that's Apartment A, Six Stockton Place."
"Two-Eleven, where does that come in?"
"It's off Arch Street in the one-hundred block."
"Okay. Two-Eleven, thank you," he said, and put the microphone back in the glove box.
He was surprised. That was really a crummy address, not one where you would expect a classy blonde like Louise Dutton to live. Then he remembered that there had been conversion, renovation, whatever it was called, of the old buildings in that area.
When Lieutenant David Pekach came out of the medical examiner's office, he found a white-cap Traffic Division officer standing next to the battered van, writing out a ticket.
"Is there some trouble, Officer?" Pekach asked, innocently.
The Traffic Division officer, who had intended to ticket the van only for a missing headlight, took a look at the legend on Pekach's Tshirt, and with an effort, restrained himself from commenting.
What he would haveliked to have done is kick the fucking hippie queer junkie's ass from there to the river, and there drown the sonofabitch, and in the old days, when he'd first come on the job, he could have done just that. But things had changed, and he was coming up on his twenty years for retirement, and it wasn't worth risking his pension, even if somebody walking around with something insulting to the police like that-Support Your Local Sheriffmy ass, that wasn't what it meantprinted on his sweatshirt and walking around on the streets really deserved to get his ass kicked.
Instead, he cited the vehicle for a number of additional offenses against the Motor Vehicle Code: cracked windshield, smooth tires, nonfunctioning turn indicators, and illegible license plate, which was all he could think of. He was disappointed when the fucking hippy had a valid driver's license.
Half a block from the medical examiner's office, Lieutenant Pekach put his copy of the citation between his teeth, ripped it in half, and then threw both halves out the van's window.
When Wohl got to the Roundhouse, he parked in the space reserved for Chief Inspector Coughlin. Coughlin was very close to the Moffitt family; more than likely he would be at the Moffitt house for a while. As he walked into the building, he saw Hobbs's car turn into the parking lot.
He was not surprised to find Chief Inspector of Detectives Matt Lowenstein in Homicide. Lowenstein was in the main room, sitting on a desk, a fresh, very large cigar in the corner of his mouth.
"Well, Inspector Wohl," Lowenstein greeted him with mock cordiality, "I was hoping I'd run into you. How are you, Peter?"
"Good afternoon, Chief," Wohl said.
"Do you think you could find a moment for me?" Lowenstein asked. "I' ve got a little something on my mind."
"My time is your time, Chief," Wohl said.
"Why don't we just go in here a moment?" Lowenstein said, gesturing toward the door of an office on whose door was lettered captain HENRY