“I told him, for openers, that you can get him into the banks,” Mueller went on, “and—I just thought of this—you have friends in the county courthouse if he wants to check property transfers.”
“When do you want to start?” Deitrich asked.
“How about tomorrow morning?” Chief Mueller answered for him. “Get him a chance to get settled in his hotel. The Penn-Harris.”
The massive head bobbed.
“I’ll make some calls this afternoon,” Deitrich said.
“Thank you.”
“You’ll be moving around,” Mueller said. “What kind of a car are you driving?”
“A Plymouth.”
“Yours, or the department’s?”
“An unmarked car.”
“What year? Does it have official plates?”
“A new one,” Matt said. “Blue. Regular civilian plates.”
“They must like you in Philadelphia,” Deitrich said. “Before you leave, get me the plate numbers. I’ll have the word put out that a suspicious, not-one-of-ours unmarked car is to be left alone.”
“Thank you.”
Deitrich wordlessly took a business card from his wallet and handed it to Matt.
“Thank you,” Matt repeated.
“Nine o’clock?” Deitrich asked.
“Nine’s fine with me.”
Deitrich looked at Mueller to see if there was anything else.
“Thank you, Paul,” Mueller said.
Deitrich nodded first at Mueller and then at Matt and then sort of shuffled out of the room.
Mueller waited until he was out of earshot, then said, “Paul doesn’t say much. When he does, listen.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why don’t you let me welcome you to Harrisburg with a home-cooked dinner?” Mueller asked.
“That’s very kind, sir. But could I take a rain check?”
Mueller looked at Matt, his bushy eyebrows raised. Then he nodded.
“I hope she’s pretty,” Mueller said.
“She is,” Matt said.
Mueller put out his hand. The meeting was over.
“I meant what I said about if you need anything, anytime, you have my numbers.”
“Thank you, sir,” Matt said, “for everything.”
The Penn-Harris hotel provided Detective Payne with a small suite on the sixth floor at what Matt guessed was half the regular price. There was a bedroom with three windows—through which he could see the state capitol building—furnished with a double bed, a small desk, a television set, and two armchairs. The sitting room held a couch, a coffee table, two armchairs, and another television set.
While he was unpacking, he opened what he thought was a closet door and found that it was a kitchenette complete to a small refrigerator. To his pleased surprise, the refrigerator held a half-dozen bottles of beer, a large bottle of Coke, and a bottle of soda water.
He decided this was probably due more to Chief Mueller’s wish to do something nice for a friend of Chief Inspector (Retired) Augustus Wohl than to routine hotel hospitality, particularly for someone in a cut-rate room.
Matt finished unpacking, then took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator, settled himself on the sitting-room couch with his feet up on the coffee table, and reached for the telephone.
Jason Washington’s deep, vibrant voice came over the line.
“Detective Payne, Sergeant Washington, and how are you on this warm and pleasant afternoon?”
“How good of you to call. We were all wondering when you were going to find the time.”
“I just got here,” Matt protested, and then asked, “Did something come up?”
“I have had three telephone calls from Special Agent Matthews asking if we had heard from you. Weren’t you supposed to liaise with him, Matthew?”
“I’m not sure I know what that means,” Matt said. “Anyway, I don’t have anything to tell him. I just got here.”
“So you said. And how were you received by our brothers of the Harrisburg police?”
“By the chief. Nice guy. He said Chief Wohl had called him.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Yeah, I thought so. Anyway, Chief Mueller set me up with their White Collar Crimes guy, a lieutenant named Deitrich, who’s going to get me into both the banks and the hall of records in the courthouse.”
“Where are you, Matthew?”
“Six twelve in the Penn-Harris,” Matt said. He took a close look at the telephone and read the number to Washington.
“I will share that with Special Agent Matthews,” Washington said. “Is there anything else, in particular anything concerning your—what shall I say, ‘social life in romantic Harrisburg’—that you would like me to tell him?”
“I haven’t called her. I will when I get off the phone with you. And that one telephone call may be, probably will be, the end of that.”
“And how is that?”
“You were there when I told Davis that her eyes glazed over when I told her I was a cop.”
“If at first you don’t succeed, to coin a phrase. You might try inflaming her natural maternal instincts, and get her to take pity on a