Ridge Avenue, and when he got there, carried his luggage into a small office building until he was sure the cab had driven away.
Then he went back to the Divine Lorraine Hotel, sorted everything out on the bed, repacked everything, and put it in the closet. The closet had a key, which he thought was fortuitous, and he removed it and put it in his pocket.
Then he sat down at the desk and looked at the Bible again, and reread the passage the Lord had directed him to. He could by now practically recite Haggai 2:17 by heart, but he was no closer to understanding what “17. I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labours of your hands; yet ye turned not to me, saith the Lord” meant than he had been when the Lord had first directed his attention to it.
Marion decided the only thing to do was pray.
He knelt by the bed, and with the Bible before him, he prayed for understanding.
When Inspector Wohl walked into his office, a few minutes after two, it was immediately apparent to Captain Mike Sabara that he had a hair up his ass about something, and Sabara wondered if he had done the wrong thing in sending Matt Payne off with the man from the Secret Service.
“Do you have any word from Payne, Mike?” Wohl asked.
“No, sir.”
“When he gets back, let me know,” Wohl said, and went into his office and closed the door.
Twenty minutes later, Officer O’Mara put his head in Wohl’s door and said that Mr. Larkin was here, and could the inspector see him?
“Ask him to come in,” Wohl said, “and if Payne is out there, don’t let him get away.”
"Yes, sir,” Officer O’Mara replied crisply, and then promptly misinterpreted his instructions. Detective Payne, at Officer O’Mara’s bidding, followed Supervisory Special Agent Larkin into Inspector Wohl’s office.
“Well, Peter,” Larkin asked as they shook hands, “how did the promotion ceremony go?”
Does everybody in Philadelphia know I’ve been promoted? And what the hell is Matt doing in here?
“I did all right until the Commissioner kissed me.”
He stopped.
I’ll show Payne the photograph and then throw him out.
“Yes, sir?”
“Excuse me, Charley. This won’t take a minute,” Wohl said, and handed Matt the photograph. “You ever see this woman before?”
Matt looked at it.
“That’s the girl Lanza had in the Poconos.”
“Okay. Call Captain Olsen in Internal Affairs and tell him that,” Wohl ordered.
“Right now?”
“Right now,” Wohl said sharply.
“Peter,” Larkin said. “Excuse me, but is that as important as our lunatic?”
No, of course it isn’t. I am just having one of my goddamned bad days. What the hell is the matter with me?
“No, of course not,” Wohl said. “Sorry. Payne, that will wait.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m reasonably sure, Peter, that we know where our man has been,” Larkin said. “But we don’t have an idea who he is, or where.”
“What happened in New Jersey?”
“A deputy sheriff came across a piece of steel that showed evidence of having been involved in a high-explosive detonation,” Larkin said. “Actually, he ran over it. Anyway, an ATF guy out of Atlantic City ran it down, and they called us. What we found, in a garbage dump in the middle of the Pine Barrens, were half a dozen railroad station, airline terminal, bus station rental lockers that had been, recently, blown up. The ATF expert said he was almost sure it was Composition C-4, and that it was set up with GI detonators. This guy knows his way around explosives.”
“That’s not good news, is it?”
“It may not be all bad. It may give us a line on him. We’re already back-checking with the military. And if he knows what he’s doing, that would lessen the chance of his explosives going off accidentally. ”
“But you don’t know who he is?”
“That’s the bad news. Where we stand is that the FBI is searching records in the county courthouse over there to find out who owns the property. There’s a house, more of a cabin, on the property. Someone has been there in the past week or ten days, which coincides with when the ATF explosives guy says the explosions took place. And, for a cabin, the place was out-of-the-ordinary neat and clean. Which ties in with the psychological profile. Both of them. Ours and Dr. Payne’s. I have a gut feeling he could be our guy.”
“But no name?”
“Not yet. And I could be wrong. Maybe the people who own the property have nothing to do with what happened