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“I can come back in a month,” Louise said.
They chuckled. Washington smiled at Wohl.
“And may I say, Inspector, how spiffy you look today?” he said.
“I’m going to be a pallbearer,” Wohl said.
“Can we get on with this?” Louise asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Washington said. “Miss Dutton, I’m going to take you inside, and show you some remains. I will then ask you if you have ever seen that individual, and if so, where, when, and the circumstances.”
“All right,” Louise said.
“You want me to come with you?” Peter asked.
“Only if you want to,” Louise said.
Louise stepped back involuntarily when Jason Washington lifted the sheet covering the remains of Gerald Vincent Gallagher, but she did not faint, nor did she become nauseous. When Peter Wohl tried to steady her by putting his hands on her arms, she shook free impatiently.
“I don’t know his name,” she said, levelly. “But I have seen that man before. In the Waikiki Diner. He’s the man who was holding the diner up when Captain Moffitt tried to stop him.”
“There is no question in your mind?” Washington asked.
“For some reason, it stuck in my mind,” Louise said, sarcastically, and then turned and walked quickly out of the room.
Wohl caught up with her.
“You all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“You want a cup of coffee? Something else?”
“No, thank you,” she said.
“You want to go get some breakfast?”
“No, thank you.”
“You have to eat, Louise,” Wohl said.
“He said, ever practical,” she said, mockingly.
“You do,” he said.
“All right, then,” she said.
They went to a small restaurant crowded with office workers on the way to work. They were the subject of a good deal of curiosity. People recognized Louise, Wohl realized. They might not be able to recognize her as the TV lady, but they knew they had seen her someplace.
She ate French toast and bacon, but said very little.
“I have the feeling that I’ve done something wrong,” Peter said.
“Don’t be silly,” she said.
As they walked back to his car, they passed a Traffic Division cop, who saluted Peter, who, not expecting it, returned it somewhat awkwardly. Then he noticed that the cop was wearing the mourning band over his badge. He had completely forgotten about that. The mourning bands were sliced from the elastic cloth around the bottom of old uniform caps. He didn’t have an old uniform cap. He had no idea what had happened to either his old regular patrolman’s cap, or the crushed-crown cap he had worn as a Highway Patrol sergeant. And there never had been cause to replace his senior officer’s cap; he hadn’t worn it twenty times.
He wondered if someone would have one at Marshutz & Sons, predicting that someone like him would show
