The mayor threw up his hands, admitting he could not counter that argument.
“Frank,” Coughlin said, turning to the FBI official, “we don’t want to spook Savarese. Could you, without making many waves, see if you could keep the FBI—or, for that matter, any other feds—away from the Warwick from now until, say, nine-thirty?”
“FBI. No problem. I’ll get right on that. Have you got any idea what other agency might be interested in Savarese?”
Coughlin saw Wohl’s eyes roll before he answered for Coughlin.
“Frank, if Savarese sees anybody who looks like a cop, or a fed, doing anything at the Warwick, he will think they’re interested in him. Whether or not they are. The safest thing to do is keep everybody with any kind of a badge away from the Warwick for an hour or so.”
“Well, I understand that, certainly,” Young said, a little lamely. “I’ll call around.”
“I’ll put the word out that nobody is to go near the Warwick,” Matt Lowenstein said. “Which will probably have the result that every cop in Philadelphia will show up to see what’s going on.”
“What are we waiting for now?” Mayor Carlucci asked.
“To hear from Matt Payne in Harrisburg,” Wohl said. “To see if he’s got anything on Calhoun or not.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” the mayor said.
“We should hear something in fifteen or twenty minutes, Mr. Mayor,” Peter said.
“A lot can happen in fifteen or twenty minutes,” Carlucci said. “Why don’t you do it now, Peter?”
“Mr. Mayor, we gave that a lot of thought. And we decided—”
“You’re a good cop, Peter. And I love you. But the last time I looked, I was mayor of Philadelphia. Arrest the bastards!”
“Yes, sir,” Wohl said.
Detective Matt Payne looked at his watch when there was a knock at the door. It was 7:59.
He opened the door. Lieutenant Paul Deitrich was standing there.
“Good morning, sir,” Matt said. “Please come in.”
Deitrich nodded but didn’t say anything.
“Lieutenant, these are Detectives McFadden and Martinez,” Matt said, making the introductions. “Charley, Jesus, this is Lieutenant Deitrich.”
Deitrich nodded, just perceptibly, then looked at Matt for an explanation for the two detectives.
“They’ve got a warrant for Calhoun,” Matt said.
“We got lucky,” McFadden said. “Somebody dumped the answer in our lap.”
“I got lucky here, too,” Deitrich said. “I remembered that if you really want to find something out, ask the cop on the beat.”
“Our guy was a retired detective, who smelled something rotten.”
Deitrich looked at Matt.
“I know one of the guys who work that area pretty well,” Deitrich said. “I went to see him. He told me—without me having to tell him why I was asking—that Mrs. Worner lives at 218 Maple. Her yard backs up against 223 Elm, which is where—”
“Vincent T. Holmes, Calhoun’s uncle, lives,” Matt furnished.
Deitrich nodded.
“You’re talking about the lady who works in the bank, right?” Martinez asked.
Deitrich nodded again.
“Holmes’s wife died two years ago, of cancer,” Deitrich went on. “About the time Mrs. Worner finally gave up and put her husband away.”
“Excuse me?” Matt asked.
“He got hurt bad in Korea,” Deitrich said. “Lost one leg above the knee and the foot on the other leg. She married him anyway. He got a one-hundred percent disability pension. They weren’t hurting for money. But he couldn’t work, and he got into the sauce pretty bad. I guess he was in pain a lot, and he just sort of went downhill until she couldn’t handle him anymore. The last time he got arrested for drunken driving, the judge gave him the choice of going into the VA hospital or two years in jail. He went to the VA hospital.”
“And enter the friendly neighbor, right?” McFadden said.
Deitrich nodded again.
“She’s Catholic, so she won’t divorce her husband. Maybe she wouldn’t marry Holmes anyway. He’s not a real catch. He works for Pennsylvania Power and Light as a lineman, and he doesn’t look much like Paul Newman. But anyway, she sneaks over to his house at night, or he over to hers, fooling nobody in the neighborhood, of course, but everybody feels sorry for them—mostly for her—and nobody says anything.”
“Shit!” McFadden said.
“So there’s your connection, Payne,” Deitrich said. “What do you want to do about it?”
“The question is, what did she do?” Matt asked.
“You know fucking well what she did, Payne,” Martinez said. “She conspired with Calhoun to hide whatever those Five Squad scumbags wanted to hide in a safe-deposit box. That makes her an accessory after the fact.”
“First of all, we don’t know if anything connected to Five