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Where the hell do I know her from? What was she up to with Dutch ?
“Why are they doing that?” she asked. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
I don’t know why they’re doing that, Wohl thought. The dead are left where they have fallen, for the convenience of the Homicide Detectives. But, I guess maybe no one wants to admit that a fellow cop is really dead.
“Yes, I’m afraid he is,” Wohl said. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“He was trying to stop a holdup,” Louise said. “And somebody shot him. A girl, he said.”
A portly, red-faced policeman in a white shirt with captain’s bars pinned to the epaulets of his white shirt came into the Waikiki.
His name was Jack McGovern, and he was the commanding officer of the Second District. He had been a lieutenant in Highway Patrol when Peter Wohl had been a corporal. He had made captain on the promotion list before Peter Wohl had made captain, and they had sat across the room from each other when they’d sat for the Staff Inspector’s examination. Peter Wohl had been first on the list; Jack McGovern hadn’t made it.
McGovern’s eyebrows rose when he saw Wohl.
“What the hell happened?” he asked. “Was that Dutch Moffitt they just carried out of here?” he asked.
“That was Dutch,” Wohl confirmed. “He walked in on a holdup.”
McGovern’s eyebrows rose in question.
“He’s gone, Jack,” Wohl said.
“Jesus,” McGovern said, and crossed himself.
“I think it would be better if you took care of the parking lot,” Wohl said. “You’re in uniform. You see the woman’s body?”
McGovern shook his head. “A woman? A woman shot Dutch?”
“There were two of them,” Wohl said. “One ran. Dutch got the other one. I don’t know who shot Dutch.”
“He said it was a woman,” Louise Dutton said, softly.
Captain McGovern looked at her, his eyebrows raising, and then at Wohl.
“This lady was with Captain Moffitt at the time,” Wohl said, evenly. He turned to Louise. “I’ve got to make a telephone call,” he said. “It won’t take a moment.”
She nodded.
Wohl looked around for a telephone, saw the cashier’s phone lying on the floor off the hook, and went to a pay phone on the wall. He dropped a dime in it and dialed a number from memory.
“Commissioner’s office, Sergeant Jankowitz.”
“Peter Wohl, Jank. Let me talk to him. It’s important.”
“Peter?” Commissioner Taddeus Czernick said when he came on the line a moment later. “What’s up?”
“Commissioner, Dutch Moffitt walked into a holdup at the Waikiki Diner on Roosevelt Boulevard. He was shot to death. He put down one of them; the other got away.”
“Jesus H. Christ!” Commissioner Czernick replied. “The one he got is dead?”
“Yes, sir. It’s a woman, and a witness says she’s the one that shot him. She said Dutch said a woman got him. I just got here.”
“Who else is there?”
“Captain McGovern.”
“Jesus Christ, Dutch’s brother got himself killed too,” the commissioner said. “You remember that?”
