The lieutenant now took a good look at the expensively dressed young man.
"And you're Angelo Turpino, right?"
"That's right, Lieutenant," Turpino said. "I saw Captain Moffitt just minutes before this terrible thing happened, and I've come to pay my last respects."
The lieutenant, with an almost visible effort to keep control of himself, went through the sheets on his clipboard.
"You're on here," he said. "Won't you please go inside? Tell the usher 'friends of the family.' "
"Thank you very much," Angelo Turpino said. He took the women's arms. "Come on, Mama," he said. He led them into Saint Dominic's.
The sergeant whom the lieutenant had sent after Chief Inspector Coughlin came back. "He'll be right here, Lieutenant," he said. "He's on the phone."
The lieutenant nodded.
"Was that who I thought it was just going in?" the sergeant asked.
"That was Angelo Turpino," the lieutenant said. "And his mother. And a Mrs. Savarese. 'Friends of the family.' "
"Probably Vincenzo's wife," the sergeant said. "They was on the list?"
"Yes, they were," the lieutenant said.
"I'll be damned," the sergeant said.
"Mother," Amy Payne, who had heard all this, and who was fully aware that Vincenzo Savarese was almost universally recognized to be the head of the mob in Philadelphia, exploded, "I refuse to stand here and see you humiliated like this…"
Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin came around the corner of the church. He kissed Patricia as he offered his hand to Brewster Payne.
"What can I do for you, darling?" he asked.
"You can get us into the church," Patricia Payne said. "I am not on the family list, nor do we have invitations."
"My God!" Coughlin said, and turned to the lieutenant, who handed him his clipboard.
"You keep that," Coughlin said. "And you personally usher the Paynes inside and seat them wherever they want to sit."
"Yes, sir. Chief…"
"Just do it, Lieutenant," Coughlin said. "Brewster, I'm sorry…"
"We know what happened, Dennis," Brewster Payne said. "Thank you for your courtesy."
The pallbearers waited to be summoned behind Saint Dominic's, in a small grassy area between the church and the fence of the church cemetery.
Wohl took the opportunity to speak to the Jersey trooper lieutenant.
"I'm Peter Wohl," he said, walking up to him and extending his hand.
"Bob McGrory," the lieutenant said. "I heard Dutch talk about you."
"All bad?"
"He said you had all the makings of a good Highway Patrolman, and then went bad and took the examination for lieutenant."
"Dutch really liked Highway," Wohl said. "And they liked him. One of his sergeants rolled on the 'assist officer' call, found out that Dutch was involved, and called in every Highway Patrol car in the city."
"Dutch was a good guy. Goddamned shame, this," McGrory said.
"Yeah," Wohl agreed. "Mind if I ask you something else?"
"Go ahead."
"We've got a homicide. Son of a very important man. His car, a Jaguar, turned up missing. Then I heard they found it in Jersey. You know anything about that?"
"Major Knotts found it," McGrory said. "On his way over here last night. It was on a dirt road off Three Twenty-two."
"Do you know if they turned up anything? Besides the car?" Wohl asked.
"Knotts told me that when they got the NCIC hit, and then heard from you guys, he ordered the mobile crime lab in. And they were supposed to have people out there this morning, when it was light, to have a look around the area."
"You usually do that when you find a hot car?"
"No, but the word was 'homicide,' " McGrory said. Then he added, " Inspector, if they found anything interesting, I'm sure they would have passed it on to you. And probably to me, too. I mean, they knew Dutch and I were close."
"Yeah, I'm sure they would have," Wohl said, and started to say something else when someone spoke his name.
He turned and saw Sergeant Jankowitz, Commissioner Czernick's aide.
"Hello, Jank," Wohl said. "This is Lieutenant McGrory. Sergeant Jankowitz, Commissioner Czernick's indispensable right-hand man."
The two shook hands.
"Inspector Wohl," Jankowitz said, formally, "Commissioner Czernick would like to see you in his office at two this afternoon."
"Okay," Wohl said. "I'll be there."
Jankowitz started to say something, then changed his mind. He smiled, nodded at McGrory, and walked away.
Watching him go, Wohl's eyes focused on the street. He saw a ropedoff area in which a number of television camera crew trucks were parked. And he saw Louise. She was standing on a truck, and looking at the area through binoculars. When they seemed to be pointed in his direction, he raised his hand to shoulder level and waved. He wondered if she saw him.
A hand touched his shoulder. He turned and saw his father. And then his mother and Barbara Crowley.
"Hello, Dad," Peter said. "Lieutenant McGrory, this is my father, Chief Inspector Wohl, Retired. And my mother, and Miss Crowley."
Barbara surprised him by kissing him.
"When we heard you were going to be a pallbearer," Peter's mother said, "I asked Barbara if she wanted to come. Gertrude Moffitt, before she knew you were going to be a pallbearer, told me she'd given us three family seats, and since you wouldn't need one now, I asked Barbara. I mean she's almost family, you know what I mean."
"That was a good idea," Peter said.
"Got a minute, Peter?" Chief Inspector August Wohl, Retired, said, and took Peter's arm and led him out of hearing.
"You're in trouble," Peter's father said. "You want to tell me about it?"
"I'm not in trouble, Dad," Peter said. "I didn't do anything wrong."
"What's that got to do with being in trouble? The word is around that both the Polack and the mayor are after your scalp."
"They think I talked to Mickey O'Hara and said something I shouldn't. I haven't seen O'Hara in ten days. I don't know who ran off at the mouth, but it wasn't me. And I can't help it if Nelson is pissed at me. I didn't say anything to him, either, that I shouldn't."
"The mayor will throw you to the fish if he thinks he will get theLedger off his back. And so will the Polack. You better get this straightened out, Peter, and quick."
There was a burst of organ music from Saint Dominic's. The man from Marshutz amp; Sons began to collect the pallbearers.
When he was formed in ranks beside Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin, Staff Inspector Peter Wohl glanced at the street again, at the TV trucks. He saw Louise again, and was sure that she was looking at him, and that she had seen Barbara kiss him.
She was waving her hand slowly back and forth, as if she knew he was watching her, and wanted to wave goodbye.
EIGHTEEN
One of their own had died in the line of duty, and police officers from virtually every police department in a one-hundred-mile circle around Philadelphia had come to honor him. They had come in uniform, and driving their patrol cars, and the result was a monumental traffic jam, despite the best efforts of more than twenty Philadelphia Traffic Division officers to maintain order.
When Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin and Staff Inspector Peter Wohl made their careful way down the brownstone steps of Saint Dominic's Church (Dutch Moffitt's casket was surprisingly heavy) toward the hearse waiting at the curb, there were three lines of cars, parked bumper to bumper, prepared to escort Captain Moffitt to his last resting place.
Their path to the curb was lined with Highway Patrol officers, saluting. There was an additional formation of policemen on the street, and the police band, and the color guard. To the right, behind barriers, was the press. Peter looked for, but did not see, Louise Dutton.