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“When I got home, I called Homicide to see if anything had happened, if they’d found Gerald Vincent Gallagher, and they told me what had happened at Stockton Place, and I figured I’d better go, and I did.”
That, Peter thought, wasn’t the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but it wasn’t a lie. So why do 1 feel uncomfortable?
“What happened there?”
“Can I go off the record?” Wohl asked.
The commissioner looked at him with surprise, thought that over, and then nodded.
“Lieutenant DelRaye had rolled on the job, and with his usual tact, he’d rubbed Louise Dutton the wrong way. When I got there, she was locked in her apartment, and DelRaye was about to take down her door. He had a wagon waiting to bring her over here.”
“Jesus!” Czernick said. “So what happened?”
“I talked to her. She’d found the body, and was understandably pretty upset. She said she was not going to come over here, period. And she meant it. She asked me to take her out of there, and I did.”
“Where did you take her?”
“To my place,” Peter said. “She said she didn’t want to go to a hotel. I’m sure she felt she would be recognized. Anyway, it was half past two in the morning, and it seemed like the thing to do.”
“You better hope your girl friend doesn’t find out,” Czernick said.
“So I calmed her down, and gave her something to eat, and at eight o’clock, I brought her in. I just got to Homicide when you called down there.”
“How do you think she feels about the police department?” Czernick asked.
“DelRaye aside, I think she likes us,” Peter said.
“She going to file a complaint about DelRaye?” Czernick asked.
“No, sir.”
“You see Colonel Mawson downstairs?”
“Yes, sir. I guess WCBL sent him over?”
“No,” Czernick said. “The name Stanford Fortner Wells mean anything to you, Peter?”
Wohl shook his head no.
“Wells Newspapers?” Czernick pursued.
“Oh, yeah. Sure.”
“He sent the colonel,” Czernick said.
Peter suddenly recalled, very clearly, what he’d thought when he’d first seen Louise Dutton’s apartment; that she couldn’t afford it; that she might be a high-class hooker on the side, or some rich man’s “good friend.” That certainly would explain a lot.
“He’s her father,” Czernick went on. “So it seems the extra courtesies we have been giving Miss Dutton were the thing to do.”
“She told me she had tried to call her father, but that he was out of the country,” Peter said. “London, she said. She didn’t tell me who he was.”
He realized that he had just experienced an emotional shock, several emotions all at once. He was ashamed that he had been so willing to accept that Louise was someone’s mistress, which would have neatly explained how she could afford that expensive apartment. His relief at learning that Stanford Wells was her father, not her lover, was startling. And immediately replaced with disappointment, even chagrin. Whatever slim chance there could be that something might develop between him and Louise had just been blown out of the water. The daughter of a newspaper empire was not about to even dally with a cop, much less move with him into a vine-covered cottage by the side of the road.
“Peter, I want you to stay with this,” Commissioner Czernick said. “I’m going to tell J. Arthur Nelson that I’ve assigned you to oversee the case and that you’ll report to him at least daily where the investigation is leading.”
“Yes, sir,” Peter said.
“Find out where things stand, and then you call him. Better yet, go see him.”
