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“My gut reaction, repeating the call is yours, is that you didn’t talk to Chief Lowenstein about anything but the double homicide.”
“OK. That’s it. We didn’t have this conversation, either.”
“What conversation?” Wohl asked, with exaggerated innocence.
“I’m not through, I’m afraid,” Washington said.
“What else?” Wohl asked tiredly as he pulled the door shut again.
“Chief Lowenstein got rid of Matt, so that he could talk to me, by sending him to the crime scene—the victims were in a downstairs office—with Henry Quaire when Quaire came to the scene. I don’t know what happened between Matt and Milham, but Milham pulled the rule book on him and insisted on getting Matt’s statement that night—God, that’s something else I have to do this morning, get my statement to Homicide—so Matt went to the Roundhouse, and I went home, and when I got there the Widow Kellog was there.”
“The widow of the undercover Narcotics guy?”
Washington nodded.
“Who was found with two bullets in his head in his house. Detective Milham’s close friend’s estranged husband.”
“She was at your place?” Wohl asked, surprised.
“Right. And she is convicted that her husband’s death is connected with drugs…”
“You don’t think Milham had anything to do with it, do you?”
“No. I don’t think so. But the Widow Kellog thinks it was done by somebody in Narcotics, because they—they being the Five Squad—are all dirty.”
“The Narcotics Five Squad, according to Dave Pekach, are knights in shining armor, waging the good war against controlled substances. A lot of esprit de corps, which I gather means they think they’re better than other cops, including the other four Narcotics squads. In other words, a bunch of hotshots who do big buys, make raids, take doors, that sort of thing. They’re supposed to be pretty effective. It’s hard to believe that any of them would be dirty, much less kill one of their own.”
“That’s what the lady is saying.”
“You believe her?”
“She said there’s all kinds of money floating around. She said she, she and her husband, bought a house at the shore and paid cash for it.”
“That could be checked out, it would seem to me, without much trouble. Did she tell Homicide about this? Or anybody else?”
“No. She thinks everybody’s dirty.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her I knew a staff inspector I knew was honest, and she should go to him; that I would set it up.”
“And she doesn’t want to go to him?”
“No,” Washington said. “Absolutely out of the question.”
“You believe her?”
“I think she’s telling the truth. My question is, what do we do with this?”
“If you take it to Internal Affairs…” Wohl said.
“Yeah.”
“Let me read this,” Wohl said, opening the envelope.
Wohl grunted twice while reading the three sheets of paper the envelope contained, then stuffed them back into the envelope.
“This has to go to the Mayor,” he said. “As soon as you can get it to him. And then I think you had better have a long talk with Captain Pekach about the Narcotics Five Squad.”
