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“I thought it had been assigned to you,” Nelson interrupted.
“No, sir,” Peter said. “Detective Harris of the Homicide Division has been assigned to the case.”
“Then what’s your role in this? Ted Czernick led me to believe that you would be in charge.”
“Commissioner Czernick has asked me to keep him advised, to keep you advised, and to make sure that Detective Harris has all the assistance he asks for,” Wohl said.
“I was pleased,” Nelson interrupted again. “I checked you out. You’re in Internal Security, that sounds important whatever it means, and you’re the man who caught the Honorable Mr. Housing Director Weaver and that Friend of Labor, J. Francis Donleavy, with both of their hands in the municipal cookie jar. And now you’re telling me you’re not on the case . . .”
“Sir, what it means is that Commissioner Czernick assigned the best available Homicide detective to the case. That’s a special skill, sir. Harris is better equipped than I am to conduct the investigation—”
“That’s why he’s a detective, right, and you’re an inspector?”
“And then the commissioner called me in and told me to drop whatever else I was doing, so that I could keep both you and him advised of developments, and so that I could provide Detective Harris with whatever help he needs,” Wohl plunged o
n doggedly.
Arthur J. Nelson looked at Wohl suspiciously for a moment.
“I had the other idea,” he said, finally. “All right, so what has Mr. Harris come up with so far?”
“Harris believes that a number of valuables have been stolen from the apartment, Mr. Nelson.”
“He figured that out himself, did he?” Nelson said, angrily sarcastic. “What other reason could there possibly be than a robbery? My son came home and found his apartment being burglarized, and the burglar killed him. All I can say is that, thank God, his girl friend wasn’t with him. Or she would be dead, too.”
Girlfriend? Jesus!
“Detective Harris, who will want to talk to you himself, Mr. Nelson, asked me if you could come up with a list of valuables, jewelry, that sort of thing, that were in the apartment.”
“I’ll have my secretary get in touch with the insurance company,” Nelson said. “There must be an inventory around someplace.”
“Your son’s car, one of them, the Jaguar, is missing from the garage.”
“Well, by now, it’s either on a boat to Mexico, or gone through a dismantler’s,” Nelson snapped. “All you’re going to find is the license plate, if you find that.”
“Sometimes we get lucky,” Peter said. “We’re looking for it, of course, here and all up and down the Eastern Seaboard.”
“I suppose you’ve asked his girl friend? It’s unlikely, but possible that she might have it. Or for that matter, that it might be in the dealer’s garage.”
“You mentioned his girl friend a moment ago, Mr. Nelson,” Wohl said, carefully, suspecting he was on thin ice. “Can you give me her name?”
“Dutton, Louise Dutton,” Nelson said. “You are aware that she found Jerry? That she went into his bedroom, and found him like that?”
“I wasn’t aware of a relationship between them, Mr. Nelson,” Peter said. “But I do know that Miss Dutton does not have Mr. Nelson’s car.”
“Miss Dutton is a prominent television personality,” Nelson said. “It would not be good for her public image were it to become widely know that she and her gentleman friend lived in the same apartment building. I would have thought, however, that you would have been able to put two and two together.”
Jesus Christ! Does he expect me to believe that? Does he believe it himself?
He looked at Nelson’s face, and then understood: He knows what his son was, and he probably knows that I know. I have just been given the official cover story. Arthur J. Nelson wants the fact that his son was homosexual swept under the rug. For his own ego, or maybe, even more likely, because there’s a mother around. What the hell, my father would do the same thing.
“Insofar as the Ledger is concerned,” Nelson said, meeting Wohl’s eyes, “every effort will be made to spare Miss Dutton any embarrassment. I can only hope my competition will be as understanding.”
He obviously feels he can get to Louise, somehow, and get her to stand still for being identified as Jerome’s girl friend. Well, why not? “Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” works at all echelons.
“I understand, sir,” Peter said.
“Thank you for coming to see me, Inspector,” Arthur J. Nelson said, putting out his hand. “When I see Ted Czernick, I will tell him how much I appreciate your courtesy and understanding.”
