Matt was bright. He had never had any trouble in school, and there had been at least a dozen letters from teachers and headmasters saying essentially the same thing, that if he applied himself, he could be an A student. He never applied himself (Patricia was convinced he had never done an hour's honest homework in his life) and he had never been an A student.
Foster was, but Foster had to work at it. By definition, Foster was the only student among the three of them. Amy rarely had to crack a book, Matt was never willing to, and Foster seldom had his nose out of one. B.C. had been a 3.5 average student at Episcopal without ever having brought a book home from school.
The patio was furnished with a long, wrought-iron, mottled-glasstopped table, with eight cushioned wrought-iron chairs. Two smaller matching tables sat against the fieldstone, slate-topped patio wall. Two electric frying pans had been set up on one of them, and it also held a bowl of eggs and a plate with bacon and Taylor ham. The other held an electric percolator, a pitcher of milk, a toaster, bread and muffins, and a pitcher of orange juice.
Patricia Payne had decided, when the kids were growing up, that the solution to everybody's sauntering down to breakfast in their own good time was, rather than shouted entreaties and threats up the kitchen stairwell, a cafeteria-style buffet. The kids came down when they wanted, and cooked their own eggs. In the old days, too, there had been two newspapers, which at least partially solved the question of who got what section when.
There was something bittersweet about today's breakfast, Patricia thought: fond memories of breakfasts past, pleasure that everyone was once again having breakfast together again, and a disquieting fear that today, or at least the next week or so, might be the very last time it would happen.
"That's absolutebullshit!" Matthew Payne said, furiously.
Everybody looked at him. He was on the right side of the far end of the table, bent over a folded copy of theLedger.
"Matt!" Patricia Payne said.
"Did you see this?" Matt asked, rhetorically.
"Actually, no," Brewster Payne said, dryly. "When I came down, all that was left of the paper was the real estate ads."
"Tell us what the goddamn liberals have done this time, Matty," Amy said.
"You watch your language, too,Doctor," Patricia Payne said.
Matt got up and walked down the table to Brewster Payne and laid the editorial page on the table before him. He pointed.
" 'No Room In Philadelphia For Vigilante Justice'," Matt quoted. " Just read that garbage!"
Brewster Payne read the editorial, then pushed the paper to his wife.
"Maybe they know something you don't, Matt," he said.
"I met that cop yesterday," Matt said.
"You met him?" Amy said.
"Denny Coughlin took me to meet him," Matt said. "First he took me to the medical examiner's and showed me the body, and then he took me to South Philadelphia to meet the cop."
"Why did he do that?" Amy asked.
"He shares your opinion,Doctor, that I shouldn't join the police," Matt said. "He was trying to scare me off."
"I suppose even a policeman can spot obvious insanity when he sees it," Amy said.
"Amy!" Patricia Payne said.
Foster Payne got up and stood behind Patricia Payne and read the editorial.
"Whoever wrote this," he said, "is one careful step the safe side of libel," he said.
"It's bullshit," Matt said. "It's… vicious. I saw that cop. He was damned near in shock. He was so shook up he didn't even know who Denny Coughlin was. He's a nice, simple Irish Catholic guy who could no more throw somebody in front of an elevated train than Mom could."
"But it doesn't say that, Matthew," Foster Payne explained patiently. "It doesn'tsay he pushed that man onto the tracks. What it says is that that allegation has been raised, and that having been raised, the city has a clear duty to investigate. Historically, police have overreacted when one of their own has been harmed."
Matthew glared at him; said, with infinite disgust, "Oh, Jesus!" and then looked at Brewster Payne. "Now that Harvard Law has been heard from, Dad, what do you say?"
"I don't really know enough about what really happened to make a judgment," Brewster Payne said. "But I think it reasonable to suggest that Arthur J. Nelson, having lost his son the way he did, is not very happy with the police."
"Daddy, you saw where the police are looking for the Nelson boy's homosexual lover?" Amy asked. "HisNegro homosexual lover?"
"Oh, no!" Patricia Payne said. "How awful!"
"No, I didn't," Brewster Payne said. "But if that's true, that would lend a little weight to my argument, wouldn't it?"
"You're not suggesting, Brew, that Mr. Nelson would allow something like that to be published; something untrue, as Matt says it is, simply to… get back at the police."
"Welcome to the real world, Mother," Amy said.
SEVENTEEN
Jason Washington was waiting for them at the medical examiner's office. His expressive face showed both surprise and, Peter Wohl thought, just a touch of amusement when he saw that Wohl was in uniform.
"Good morning, Miss Dutton," Washington said. "I'm sorry to have to put you through this."
"It's all right," Louise said.
"They're installing a closed-circuit television system, to make this sort of identification a little easier on people," Washington said. " But it's not working yet."
"I can come back in a month," Louise said.
They chuckled. Washington smiled at Wohl.
"And may I say, Inspector, how spiffy you look today?" he said.
"I'm going to be a pallbearer," Wohl said.
"Can we get on with this?" Louise asked.
"Yes, ma'am," Washington said. "Miss Dutton, I'm going to take you inside, and show you some remains. I will then ask you if you have ever seen that individual, and if so, where, when, and the circumstances."
"All right," Louise said.
"You want me to come with you?" Peter asked.
"Only if you want to," Louise said.
Louise stepped back involuntarily when Jason Washington lifted the sheet covering the remains of Gerald Vincent Gallagher, but she did not faint, nor did she become nauseous. When Peter Wohl tried to steady her by putting his hands on her arms, she shook free impatiently.
"I don't know his name," she said, levelly. "But I have seen that man before. In the Waikiki Diner. He's the man who was holding the diner up when Captain Moffitt tried to stop him."
"There is no question in your mind?" Washington asked.
"For some reason, it stuck in my mind," Louise said, sarcastically, and then turned and walked quickly out of the room.
Wohl caught up with her.
"You all right?" he asked.
"I'm fine," she said.
"You want a cup of coffee? Something else?"
"No, thank you," she said.
"You want to go get some breakfast?"
"No, thank you."
"You have to eat, Louise," Wohl said.
"He said, ever practical," she said, mockingly.
"You do," he said.
"All right, then," she said.
They went to a small restaurant crowded with office workers on the way to work. They were the subject of a good deal of curiosity. People recognized Louise, Wohl realized. They might not be able to recognize her as the TV lady, but they knew they had seen her someplace.
She ate French toast and bacon, but said very little.
"I have the feeling that I've done something wrong," Peter said.
"Don't be silly," she said.
As they walked back to his car, they passed a Traffic Division cop, who saluted Peter, who, not expecting it, returned it somewhat awkwardly. Then he noticed that the cop was wearing the mourning band over his badge. He had completely forgotten about that. The mourning bands were sliced from the elastic cloth around the bottom of old uniform caps. He didn't have an old uniform cap. He had no idea what had happened to either his old regular patrolman's cap, or the crushed-crown cap he had worn as a Highway Patrol sergeant. And there never had been cause to replace his senior officer's cap; he hadn't worn it twenty times.