“Ninety-six, Inspector,” Detective Payne interrupted. Wohl looked at him coldly. He saw that he had a telephone book open on the table before him.
“None of them,” Matt went on, “either Richard W. or Marianne. Not even an R. W.”
“I was about to say a hell of a lot of them,” Wohl said, adding with not quite gentle sarcasm, “Thank you, Payne. If I may continue? ”
“Sorry,” Matt said.
“And of course we don’t know if these people live in Philadelphia, or Camden, or Atlantic City.”
“Peter,” Frank Young said. “Our office in Atlantic City has already asked the local authorities for their help.”
“I’ll handle Camden,” Denny Coughlin announced. “I’m owed a couple of favors over there.”
“What about Wilmington, Chester, the suburbs?” Wohl asked him.
“I’ll handle that,” Coughlin said.
“Then that leaves us, if we are to believe Detective Payne, ninety-six people to check out in Philadelphia. It may be a wild goose chase, but we can’t take the chance that it’s not.”
“How do you want to handle it, Peter?”
“Ring doorbells,” Wohl said. “I’d rather have detectives ringing them.”
“Done,” Lowenstein said.
“What I think they should do, Chief,” Wohl said, “is ring the doorbell, ask whoever answers it if their name is Wheatley, and then ask if they own property in the Pine Barrens. If they say they do, they’ll either ask why the cops want to know, and the detective will reply—or volunteer, if they don’t ask—that the Jersey cops, better yet, the sheriff has called. There has been a fire in the house. The people have to be notified, and since Richard W. and Marianne Wheatley are not in the book, they are checking out all Wheatleys.”
“What if it’s the guy?” Captain Duffy asked.
“I don’t really think,” Wohl said, aware that he was furious at the stupidity of the question, and trying to restrain his temper, “that the guy is going to say, ‘Right, I’m Wheatley, I own the garbage dump, and I’ve been using it to practice blowing up the Vice President’ do you, Jack?”
“If I may, Peter?” Larkin asked.
“Certainly.”
“We have to presume this fellow is mentally unstable. And we know he’s at least competent, and possibly expert, around explosives. If we find him, we have to be very careful how we take him.”
“Yes, sir,” Captain Duffy said. “I can see that.”
“Let me lay this out as I see it,” Wohl said. “The reason I want detectives to ring the bell, Chief Lowenstein, is that most people who answer the doorbell are going to say ‘No, I don’t own a farm in Jersey’ and any detective should be able to detect any hesitation. For the sake of argument, they find this guy. There will have to be a reaction to a detective showing up at his door. The detective does his best to calm him down. There was a fire, he’s simply delivering a message. The detective goes away. Then we figure how to take him.”
“We’d like to be in on that, Peter,” Frank F. Young of the FBI said.
“How do you want to handle it, Peter?” Chief Lowenstein said.
“Depends on where and what the detective who’s suspicious has to say, of course,” Wohl replied. “But I think Stakeout, backed up by Highway.”
“We’ve got warrants,” Chief Coughlin said. “We just take the door, is that what you’re saying?”
“It’d take us up to an hour to set it up,” Wohl said. “Ordnance Disposal would be involved. And the district, of course another field Detective Division. By then, I hope, he would relax. And taking the doors would be, I think, the way to do it.”
Coughlin grunted his agreement.
“And in the meantime, sit on him?” Lowenstein said.
“Different detectives,” Wohl said, “in case he leaves.”
“And what if nobody’s home?” Mike Sabara asked.
“Then we sit on that address,” Wohl said. “An unmarked Special Operations car, until we run out of them, and then, if nothing else, a district RPC.” He looked at Lowenstein and Coughlin, and then around the table. “I’m open to suggestion.”
“I suggest,” Lowenstein said, breaking the silence, “that Detective Payne slide that phone book down the table to me, and somebody get me a pen, and we’ll find out where these ninety-six Wheatleys all live.”
The telephone book, still open, was passed down the table to Chief Lowenstein. Sergeant Tom Mahon, Chief Coughlin’s driver, leaned over him and handed Chief Lowenstein two ballpoint pens.
As if they had rehearsed what they were doing, Chief Lowenstein read aloud a listing from the telephone directory, the whole thing, name, address, and telephone number, then said, “North Central”