"Left where?"
"Coventry. England. Where they make them."
"But it looks new."
"Thank you again."
"I'll be damned," Naomi said. She looked down at Peter and smiled. " You hear what happened last night?"
"No."
"About the woman who was raped? Practically right around the corner?"
"No," Peter Wohl replied truthfully. He had spent the previous day, and the day before that, the whole damned weekend, in Harrisburg, the state capital, in a hot and dusty records depository.
"He forced her into his van, did-you know-to her, and then threw her out of the van in Fairmount Park. It was on the radio, KYW."
"I hadn't heard."
"With Mel gone so much, it scares me."
"Did they say, on the radio, if it was the same man they think has done it before?" Peter asked.
"They said theythink it is," Naomi said.
Interesting, Peter Wohl thought, if it is the same guy, it's the first time he's done that.
"Naked," Naomi said.
"Excuse me?"
"He threw her out of the van naked. Without any clothes."
Well, that would tie in with the humiliation that seems to be part of this weirdo's modus operandi.
There was the sound of tires moving across the cobblestones in front of the garages, and Peter's ears picked up the slightly different pitch of an engine with its idle speed set high; the sound of an engine in a police car.
He hoisted himself off the mechanic's crawler. A Highway Patrol car pulled to a stop. The door opened, and a sergeant in the special Highway Patrol uniform (crushed crown cap, Sam Browne belt, and motorcyclist's breeches and puttees) got out. Wohl recognized him. His name was Sergeant Alexander W. Dannelly. Wohl remembered the name because the last time he had seen him was the day Captain Dutch Moffitt had been shot to death at the Waikiki Diner, over on Roosevelt Boulevard. Sergeant Dannelly had been the first to respond to the call, "Officer needs assistance; shots fired; officer wounded."
And Dannelly recognized him, too. He smiled, and started to wave, and then caught the look in Wohl's eyes and the barely perceptible shake of his head, and stopped. "Can I help you, Officer?" Wohl asked. "I'm looking for a man named Wohl," Sergeant Dannelly said.
"I'm Wohl."
"May I speak to you a moment, sir?"
"Sure," Wohl said. "Excuse me a minute, Naomi." She smiled uneasily.
Wohl walked to the far side of the Highway Patrol car. "What's up, Dannelly?" he asked.
"You're not answering your phone, Inspector."
"I've got the day off," Wohl said. "Who's looking for me?"
"Lieutenant Sabara," Dannelly said. "He said to send a car by here to see if you were home; that maybe your phone wasn't working."
"The phone's upstairs," Wohl said. "If it's been ringing, I didn't hear it."
"Okay with you, sir, if I get on the radio and tell him you're home?"
"Sure." Wohl wondered what Sabara wanted with him that was so important he had sent a car to see if his phone was working. "Tell him to give me fifteen minutes to take a bath, and then I'll wait for his call."
"You want to wait while I do it?"
"No," Wohl said, smiling. "You get out of here and then you call him."
"I understand, sir," Dannelly said, nodding just perceptibly toward Naomi.
"No, you don't," Wohl said, laughing. "The only thing I'm trying to hide, Sergeant, is that I'm a cop."
"Whatever you say, Inspector," Dannelly said, unabashed, winking at Wohl.
Wohl waited until Sergeant Dannelly had gotten back in the car and driven off, then walked back to Naomi Schneider. Her curiosity, he saw, was about to bubble over.
"I saw an accident," Peter lied easily. "I have to go to the police station and make a report."
Sometimes, now for example, Peter Wohl often wondered if going to such lengths to conceal from his neighbors that he was a cop was worth all the trouble it took. It had nothing to do with anything official, and he certainly wasn't ashamed of being a damned good cop, the youngest Staff Inspector in the department; but sometimes, with civilians, especially civilians like his neighbors-bright, young, well-educated, well-paid civilians-it could be awkward.
Before he had, just after his promotion to Staff Inspector, moved into the garage apartment, he had lived in a garden apartment on Montgomery Avenue in the area of West Philadelphia known as Wynnfield. His neighbors there had been much the same kind of people, and he had learned that their usual response to having a cop for a neighbor was one of two things, and sometimes both. What was a lowlife, like a cop, doing in among his social betters? And what good is it having a cop for a neighbor, if he can't be counted on to fix a lousy speeding ticket?
He had decided, when he moved into the garage apartment, not to let his neighbors know what he did for a living. He almost never wore a uniform, and with his promotion to Staff Inspector had come the perk of an official car that didn't look like a police car. Not only was it unmarked, but it was new (the current car was a two-tone Ford LTD) and had white-wall tires and no telltale marks; the police shortwave radio was concealed in the glove compartment and used what looked like an ordinary radio antenna.
When his neighbors in the garage apartment asked him what he did, he told them he worked for the city. He didn't actually come out and deny that he was a cop, but he managed to convey the impression that he was a middle-level civil servant, who worked in City Hall.
He didn't get chummy with his neighbors, for several reasons, among them that, like most policemen, he was most comfortable with other policemen, and also because there was no question in his mind that when he was invited to come by for a couple of beers, at least marijuana, and probably something even more illegal, would be on the menu as well.
If he didn't see it, he would not have to bust his neighbors.
"Oh," Naomi Schneider said, when he told her about the accident he had seen and would have to go to the station to make a report about.
"Actually," Peter said, "I'm a suspect in a bank robbery."
Naomi laughed delightedly, which made her bosom jiggle.
"Well, it was nice to meet you, Naomi," Peter said. "And I thank you for the beer-"
"My pleasure," Naomi interrupted. "You looked sohot\"
"And I look forward to meeting Mr. Schneider."
"Mel," she clarified. "But he won't be home until Thursday. He went to Pittsburgh, this time."
"But now I have to take a shower and go down to the police station."
"Sure, I understand," Naomi said. "How come you're home all the time in the daytime, if you don't mind my asking?"
"I have to work a lot at night," he explained. "So instead of paying me overtime, they give me what they call compensatory time."
"Oh," Naomi said.
He handed her the empty Budweiser bottle, smiled, and went up the stairs at the end of the building to his apartment.
The red light on his telephone answering machine in the bedroom was flashing. That was probably Sabara, he decided. But even if it wasn't, if it was either business, or more likely his mother, who was not yet convinced that he was really eating properly living by himself that way, it would have to wait until he had his shower.
He showered and shaved in the shower, a trick he had learned in the army, and started to dress. After he pulled on a pair of DAK slacks, he stopped. He knew Mike Sabara- now the Acting Commander of Highway Patrol, until they made it official-but they were not close friends. That made it likely that what Sabara wanted was official; that he would have to meet him somewhere, and he could not do that in lemoncolored DAKs and a polo shirt.
Barefoot, wearing only the DAKs, he pushed thePLAY button on the answering machine. The tape rewound, and then began to play. He had had a number of calls while he was outside putting the seats back in the XK-120. But most of the callers had either hung up when they heard the recorded message, or cussed and then hung up. Finally, he heard Mike Sabara's voice:
"Inspector, this is Mike Sabara. I'd like to talk to you. Would you call Radio and have them give me a number where you can be reached? Thank you."
This was followed by his mother's voice ("I don't know why I call, you're never home") and three more beeps and clicks indicating his callers' unwillingness to speak to a damned machine.
He looked at his watch and decided he didn't want to hang around until Sabara called him. He dialed the number of Police Radio from memory.
"This is Isaac Seventeen," he said. "Would you get word to Highway One that I'm at 928-5923 waiting for his call? No. Five ninetwo three. Thank you."
He decided another beer was in order, and went to the refrigerator in the kitchen and got one. Then he went back into the living room and sat down on his long, low, white leather couch and put his feet on the plate-glass coffee table before it to wait for Sabara's call.
Peter Wohl had once had a girlfriend, now married to a lawyer and living in Swarthmore, who had been an interior decorator, and who had donated her professional services to the furnishing of the apartment when it had seemed likely they would be married. From time to time he recalled what the couch, two matching chairs, and the plate-glass coffee table had cost him, even with Dorothea's professional discount. Everytime he did, he winced.
His door chimes went off. They were another vestige of Dorothea. She said they were darling. They played the first few bars of "Be It Ever So Humble, There's No Place Like Home."They were "custom," and not only had cost accordingly, but were larger than common, ordinary door chimes, so that when, post-Dorothea, he had tried to replace them, he couldn't, without repainting the whole damned wall by the door.
It was Naomi Schneider. He was annoyed but not surprised.
"Hi," she said. "All cleaned up?"
"I hope so," he said. "What can I do for you?"
"Mel, my husband, asked me to ask you something," she said.
The phone began to ring.
"Excuse me," he said, and went toward it. When he realized that she had invited herself in, he walked past the phone on the end table and went into his bedroom and picked up the bedside phone.
"Hello?"
"Tom Lenihan, Inspector," his caller said.
Sergeant Tom Lenihan worked for Peter's boss, Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin. He was sort of a combination driver and executive assistant. Peter Wohl thought of him as a nice guy, and a good cop.
"What's up, Tom?"
"The Chief says he knows you worked all weekend, and it's your day off, and he's sorry, but something has come up, and he wants to see you this afternoon. I've got you scheduled for three-thirty. Is that okay?"
"What would you say if I said no?"
"I think I'd let you talk to the Chief." Lenihan chuckled.
"I'll be there."
"I thought maybe you could fit the Chief into your busy schedule," Lenihan said. "You being such a nice guy, and all."
"Go to hell, Tom," Wohl said, laughing, and hung up. He wondered for a moment if the Chief wanting to see him was somehow connected with Lieutenant Mike Sabara wanting to talk to him.
Then he became aware that Naomi Schneider was standing in the bedroom door, leaning on the jamb, and looking at the bed. On the bed were his handkerchief, his wallet, his keys, the leather folder that held his badge and photo-identification card, and his shoulder holster, which held a Smith amp; Wesson "Chief's Special" five-shot.38 Special revolver, all waiting to be put into, or between layers of, whatever clothing he decided to wear.
"What are you, a cop or something?" Naomi asked.
"A cop."
"A detective, maybe?" Naomi asked, visibly thrilled.
"Something like that."
Christ, now it will be all over the House by tomorrow morning!
"What does that mean?" Naomi asked. "Something like that?"
"I'm a Staff Inspector," he said. "And, Naomi, I sort of like for people not to know that I am."
"What's a Staff Inspector? "
"Sort of like a detective."
"And that's sort of a secret."
The phone rang again, and he picked it up.
"Peter Wohl," he said.
"Inspector, this is Mike Sabara."
Wohl covered the mouthpiece with his hand.
"Excuse me, please, Naomi?"
"Oh, sure," she said, and put her index finger in front of her lips in a gesture signifying she understood the necessity for secrecy.
When she turned around, he saw that her red underpants had apparently gathered in the decolletage of her buttocks; her cheeks peeked out naked from beneath the white shorts.
"What's up, Mike?" Wohl asked.
"I'd like to talk to you, if you can spare me fifteen minutes."
"Anytime. Where are you?"
"Harbison and Levick," Sabara said. "Could I come over there?"
The headquarters of the Second and Fifteenth districts, and the Northeast Detectives, at Harbison and Levick Streets, was in a squat, ugly, two-story building whose brown-and-tan brick had become covered with a dark film from the exhausts of the heavy traffic passing by over the years.
"Mike, I've got to go downtown," Wohl said, after deciding he really would rather not go to Harbison and Levick. "What about meeting me in DaVinci's Restaurant? At Twenty-first and Walnut? In about fifteen minutes?"
"I'll be there," Lieutenant Sabara said. "Thank you."
"Be with you in a minute, Naomi," Wohl called, and closed the door. He dressed in a white button-down shirt, a regimentally striped necktie, and the trousers to a blue cord suit. He slipped his arms through the shoulder holster straps, shrugged into the suit jacket, and then put the wallet and the rest of the impedimenta in various pockets. He checked his appearance in a mirror on the back on the door, then went into the living room, where he caught Naomi having a pull at the neck of his beer bottle.
"Very nice!" Naomi said.
"Naomi, I don't want to sound rude, but I have to go."
"I understand."
"What was it Mr. Schneider wanted you to ask me?" he asked.
"He said I should see if I could find out if you would consider subletting one of your garages."
"I'm sorry, I can't do that. I need one for the Jaguar, and my other car belongs to the city, and that has to be kept in a garage."
"Why?" It was not a challenge, but simple curiosity.
"Well, there's a couple of very expensive radios in it that the city doesn't want to have boosted."
"Boosted? You mean stolen?"
"Right."
"That makes sense," she said. "I'll tell Mel."
She got off the couch, displaying a large and not at all unattractive area of inner thigh in the process.
"Well," she said. "I'll let you go."
He followed her to the door, aware that as a gentleman he should not be paying as much attention as he was to her nakedgluteus maximus, which was peeking out the hem of her shorts.
"Naomi," he said, as he pulled the door open for her, "when you talk to your husband about me, would you tell him that I would consider it a favor if he didn't spread it around that I'm a cop?"
"I won't even tell him."
"Well, you don't have to go that far."
"There's a lot of things I don't tell Mel," Naomi said, softly.
And then her fingers brushed his crotch. Peter pulled away, in a reflex action, and had just decided it was an accidental contact, when that theory was disproved. Naomi's fingers followed his retreating groin, found what she was looking for, and gave it a gentle squeeze.
"See you around, Peter," she said, looking into his eyes. Then she let go of him, laughed, and went quickly down the stairs.