"There areno known witnesses, except, of course, the civilian who called Emergency and reported him down. That civilian is not identified and has not come forward. Obviously he-the tape suggests it was a male, probably white and probably around forty-doesn't want to get involved.
"No one in the neighborhood heard anything unusual, including shots. A.22 doesn't make a hell of a lot of noise.
"Everything I have been able to turn up suggests that Magnella was a straight arrow. He didn't gamble; he hardly drank; he was about to get married to a girl from his neighborhood; he was a churchgoer; he didn't drink-I said that, didn't I? Anyway, there's nothing to suggest that the shooting was connected to anything in his personal life-"
"What's your gut feeling, Tony?" Chief Coughlin asked, interrupting.
"Chief, what I think is he saw something, a couple of kids, a drunk, a hooker, nothing he considered really threatening. And he stopped the car and got out and they-or maybe evenshe -shot him."
"Why?" Coughlin asked.
Harris shrugged and held his hands up in a gesture of helplessness.
"So where are you now, Tony?" Coughlin asked.
"Going over it all again. There are some people in the neighborhood we haven't talked to yet. We're going to talk to people who work in the neighborhood. We're going to check everybody Magnella ever arrested. We're going to talk to his family again, and people in his neighborhood-"
"You need anything?" Coughlin asked.
That's my question, Wohl thought. But Coughlin wanted to ask it so that when Tony says, "Can't think of anything," he can say, "Well, if there's anything at all you need, speak up." And Lucci will report that to the mayor, that Chief Coughlin is staying on top of things.
"Can't think of anything, Chief," Tony Harris said.
"Well, if there's anything you need, anything at all, speak up," Coughlin said.
"You getting everything you need from Homicide?" Wohl asked.
"Yeah, sure," Harris said. "Lou Natali even called me up and asked if there was anything he could do. Said Chief Lowenstein told him to."
"I'm sure that it's just a matter of time, Tony," Coughlin said.
"Jason?" Wohl asked.
"Nothing. Well, not quite nothing. We found out the Detweiler girl uses cocaine, and we found out she knew DeZego, so that's where we're headed."
"You're sure about that?" Coughlin asked. "Detweiler's daughter is using cocaine?"
"I'm sure about that," Washington said evenly.
"Jesus!" Coughlin said. "And she knew DeZego?"
"I got that just a couple of minutes ago when I came in," Washington said. "Matt Payne left a message."
"I thought he was working with you. I mean, why isn't he here?" Coughlin asked.
"He's at the wedding. I thought he might hear something. He did. I wouldn't be surprised if he heard a little more at the reception."
"I thought you were working on the scenario that the Detweiler girl was just an innocent bystander," Coughlin said.
"That was before we found out she's using cocaine and knew DeZego."
"Any other explanation could turn into a can of worms, Jason," Coughlin said.
"I'm getting a gut feeling, Chief, that what happened on the roof was that somebody wanted to pop DeZego. I have no idea why. But if that holds up, if DeZego getting popped wasn't connected, in other words, with cocaine or robbery- but had something to do with the mob is what I'm trying to say-then the Detweiler girl could very easily really be an innocent bystander."
"Yeah," Coughlin said thoughtfully, adding, "It could very well be something like that."
You'd like that, wouldn't you, Chief? Wohl thought, somewhat unpleasantly. That would eliminate that can of worms you 're talking about.
"I'm going to see Jim Osgood when I leave here," Washington said. "Maybe he'll have something."
Lieutenant James H. Osgood, of the Organized Crime Division, was the department expert on the internal workings of the mob (actually, mobs) and the personal lives of their members.
"You waited until now to get into that?" Coughlin asked. It was a reprimand.
"I was over there at eight this morning, Chief," Washington said, "before I went to Hahneman to see the girl. Osgood was in New York. He got back, was supposed to get back, at five."
"If anyone would have a line on something like that, it would be Osgood," Chief Coughlin said somewhat lamely.
"Chief," Wohl asked, "am I under any sort of budgetary restrictions about overtime?"
"Absolutely not!" Coughlin said emphatically. "You spend whatever you think is necessary, Peter, on overtime or anything else."
I hope you wrote that down, Lucci. I'm sure that Chief Coughlin really wants that on the record, for the mayor to know that he personally authorized me to spend whatever I think is necessary on overtime or anything else. The son of a bitch is covering his ass while he hangs me out in the wind.
"Anybody else got anything?" Wohl asked.
Heads shook. "No."
"Chief, have you got anything else?" Wohl asked.
"No. I'm going to get out of here and let you and your people get on with it," Coughlin said.
He got out of the couch, shook hands with everyone in the room, and left.
"I think this is where, as your commanding officer, I am expected to say something inspiring," Wohl said.
They all looked at him.
" 'Something inspiring,' " Wohl said. "Get the hell out of here. I'll see you tomorrow."
When they had all gone, Wohl closed the door after them and then sat on the edge of his desk again and pulled the phone to him.
"Yes?" a gruff voice asked.
"Buy you a beer?"
"Come to supper."
"I don't want to, Dad," Wohl said.
"Oh," Chief Inspector August Wohl (retired), said. "Downey's, Front and South, in half an hour?"
"Fine. Thanks."
THIRTEEN
Captain David Pekach was relieved when the meeting in Wohl's office broke up so quickly. Under the circumstances it could have gone on for hours.
Both he and Mike Sabara followed Lieutenant Lucci to his desk, where Sabara told Lucci he would either be at home or at St. Sebastian's Church; Lucci had both numbers. Pekach told him that he would be at either of the two numbers he had given Lucci, and from half past seven at the Ristorante Alfredo downtown. He wrote the number down and gave it to Lucci.
Lucci and Sabara exchanged smiles.
"Big date, Dave, huh?" Sabara asked.
"I'm taking a lady friend to dinner, all right?" Pekach snapped. " Is there anything wrong with that?"
"Wow!" Sabara said. "What did I do? Strike a raw nerve?"
Pekach glared at him, then walked toward the door to the parking lot.
"Nicewatch, Dave," Sabara called after him.
Pekach turned and gave him the finger, then stormed out of the building. Sabara and Lucci grinned at each other.
"What was that about the watch?" Lucci asked.
"His'lady friend' gave him a watch for his birthday," Sabara said. "An Omega. Gold. With all the dials. What do you call it, a chronometer?"
"Chronograph," Lucci said. "Gold, huh?"
"Gold," Sabara confirmed.
"Why's he so sensitive about her?" Lucci asked, deciding at the last moment not to tell Captain Sabara that he had heard Captain Pekach's lady friend call him Precious when he had called him at her house.
"I don't know," Sabara replied. "I've seen her. She's not at all bad-looking. Nothing for him to be ashamed of."
Shewas Miss Martha Ellen Peebles, a female Caucasian thirty-four years and six months old, weighing 121 pounds and standing five feet four inches tall.
Miss Peebles resided alone, in a turn-of-the-century mansion at 606 Glengarry Lane in Chestnut Hill. There was a live-in couple-a chauffeur-butler-majordomo and a housekeeper-cook-who were in turn helped by a constantly changing staff of maids and groundskeepers, most often nieces and nephews of the live-in couple, who kept the place up.