Number 606 Glengarry Lane turned out to be a very large Victorian house, maybe even a mansion, sitting atop a hill behind a fieldstonepillar-and-iron-bar fence and a wide expanse of lawn. The fence, whose iron bars were topped with gilded spear tops, ran completely around the property, which Pekach estimated to be at least three, maybe four acres. The house on the adjacent property to the left could be only barely made out, and the one on the right couldn't be seen at all.
Behind the house was a three-car garage that had, Pekach decided, probably started out as a carriage house. The setup, Pekach thought, was much like where Wohl lived, except that the big house behind Wohl' s garage apartment had been converted into six luxury apartments. This big house was occupied by only two people, the Peebles woman and her brother, and the brother was reported to be in France.
All three garage doors were open when Pekach drove up the driveway and stopped the car under a covered entrance portal. It was not difficult to imagine a carriage drawn by a matched pair of horses pulling up where the blue-and-white had stopped, and a servant rushing off the porch to assist the Master and his Mistress down the carriage steps.
No servant came out now. Pekach saw a gray-haired black man, wearing a black rubber apron and black rubber boots, washing a Buick station wagon. There was a Mercedes coupe, a new one, and a Cadillac Coupe de Ville in the garage, and a two-year-old Ford sedan parked beside the garage, almost certainly the property of the black guy washing the car.
Pekach went up the stairs and rang the doorbell. He heard a dull bonging inside, and a moment or two later, a gray-haired black female face appeared where a lace curtain over the engraved glass window had been pulled aside. And then the door opened.
"May I help you?" the black woman asked. She was wearing a black uniform dress, and Pekach decided the odds were ten to one she was married to the guy washing the Buick.
"I'm Captain Pekach of the Highway Patrol," David said. "I'd like to see Miss Peebles, please."
"One moment, please," the black woman said. "I'll see if Miss Peebles is at home." She shut the door. Pekach glanced around.
The way this place is built and laid out, it's an open invitation to a burglar to come in and help himself.The door opened again a full minute later. "Miss Peebles will see you," the maid said. "Will you follow me, please?"
Pekach took off his uniform cap, and put his hand to his pigtail, which of course was no longer there.
Inside the door was a large foyer, with an octagonal tile fountain in the center. Closed double doors were on both sides of the foyer, and a wide staircase was directly ahead. There was a stained-glass leaded window portraying, Pekach thought, Saint Whoever-It-Was who slayed the dragon on the stairway landing.
This place looks like a goddamned museum. Or maybe a funeral home.
The maid slid open one of the double doors.
"Here's the policeman, Miss Martha," the maid said, and gestured for him to go through the door.
He found himself in a high-ceilinged room, the walls of which were lined with bookshelves.
"How do you do?" Martha Peebles said.
A fifty-year-old spinster,Pekach instantly decided, looking at Martha Peebles. She was wearing a white, frilly, high-collared, long-sleeved blouse and a dark skirt.
"Miss Peebles, I'm Captain Pekach, commanding officer of the Highway Patrol," David said. "Inspector Wohl asked me to come see you, to tell you how sorry we are about the trouble you've had, and to tell you we' re going to do everything humanly possible to keep it from happening again."
Martha Peebles extended her hand.
The cop, as opposed to the man, in Pekach took over. The cop, the trained observer, saw that Martha Peebles was not fifty. She did not have fifty-year-old hands, or fifty-year-old eyes, or fifty-year-old teeth. These wereher teeth, not caps, and they sat in healthy gums. There were no liver spots on her hands, and there was a fullness of flesh in the hands that fifty-year-olds have lost with passing time. And her neck had not begun to hang. It was even possible that the firm appearance of her breasts was Miss Peebles herself, rather than a well-fitting brassiere.
"How do you do, Captain…Pekach, you said?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Her hand was warm and soft, confirming his revised opinion of her age. She was, he now deduced, maybe thirty-five, no more. She just dressed like an old woman; that had thrown him off. He wondered why the hell she did that.
"You'll forgive me for saying I've heard that before, Captain," Martha Peebles said, taking her hand back and lacing it with the other one on her abdomen. "As recently as yesterday. "
"Yes, ma'am, I know," David Pekach said, uncomfortably.
"I am really not a neurotic old maid, imagining all this," she said.
"No one suggested anything like that, Miss Peebles," Pekach said.Oh, shit! McFadden and Martinez! "Miss Peebles, did the two officers who were here yesterday say anything at all out of line? Did they insinuate anything like that?
"No," she said. "I don't recall that they did. But, if I may be frank?"
"Please."
"They did seem a little young to be detectives," she said, "and I got the impression-how should I put this-that they were rather overwhelmed by the house."
"I'm rather overwhelmed with it," David said. "It's magnificent."
"My father loved this house," she said. "You haven't answered my question."
"What question was that, Miss Peebles?" Pekach asked, confused.
"Aren't those two a little young to be detectives? Do they have the requisite experience?"
"Well, actually, Miss Peebles, they aren't detectives," Pekach said.
"They were in civilian clothing," she challenged. "I thought, among policemen, only detectives were permitted to wear civilian clothing."
"No, ma'am," Pekach said. "Some officers work in civilian clothing."
"I didn't know that."
"Yes, ma'am," he said. "When it seems appropriate, that's authorized."
"It seems to me that the more police in uniform the better," she said. "That that would tend to deter crime."
"You have a point," Pekach said. "I can't argue with that. But may I explain the officers who were here yesterday?"
"We're talking about the small Mexican or whatever, and the large, simple Irish boy?"
"Yes, ma'am. Miss Peebles, do you happen to recall hearing about the police officer, Captain Moffitt, who was shot to death recently."
"Oh, yes, of course. On the television, it said that he was, unless I'm confused somehow, the commanding officer of the Highway Patrol."
"Yes, ma'am, he was," Pekach said.
"Oh, I see. And you're his replacement, so to speak?"
"Yes, ma'am, but that's not what I was driving at."
"Oh?"
"We knew who had shot Captain Moffitt within minutes," Pekach said. " Which meant that eight thousand police officers-the entire Philadelphia Police Department-were looking for him."
"I can certainly understand that," she said.
"Two undercover Narcotics Division officers found him-"
"They threw him under a subway train," she said. "I read that in theLedger. Good for them!"
"That story wasn't true, Miss Peebles," Pekach said, surprised at her reaction. "Actually, the officer involved went much further than he had to to capture him alive. He didn't even fire his weapon, for fear that a bullet might hit an innocent bystander."
"He should have shot him dead on the spot," Miss Peebles said, firmly.
David looked at her with surprise showing on his face.
"I read inTime," Martha Peebles said, "that for what it costs to keep one criminal in prison, we could send four people to Harvard."
"Yes, ma'am," Pekach said. "I'm sure that's about right."
"Now,that's criminal," she said. "Throwing good money after bad. Money that could be used to benefit society being thrown away keeping criminals in country clubs with bars."