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Deitrich looked at Mueller to see if there was anything else.
“Thank you, Paul,” Mueller said.
Deitrich nodded first at Mueller and then at Matt and then sort of shuffled out of the room.
Mueller waited until he was out of earshot, then said, “Paul doesn’t say much. When he does, listen.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why don’t you let me welcome you to Harrisburg with a home-cooked dinner?” Mueller asked.
“That’s very kind, sir. But could I take a rain check?”
Mueller looked at Matt, his bushy eyebrows raised. Then he nodded.
“I hope she’s pretty,” Mueller said.
“She is,” Matt said.
Mueller put out his hand. The meeting was over.
“I meant what I said about if you need anything, anytime, you have my numbers.”
“Thank you, sir,” Matt said, “for everything.”
The Penn-Harris hotel provided Detective Payne with a small suite on the sixth floor at what Matt guessed was half the regular price. There was a bedroom with three windows—through which he could see the state capitol building—furnished with a double bed, a small desk, a television set, and two armchairs. The sitting room held a couch, a coffee table, two armchairs, and another television set.
While he was unpacking, he opened what he thought was a closet door and found that it was a kitchenette complete to a small refrigerator. To his pleased surprise, the refrigerator held a half-dozen bottles of beer, a large bottle of Coke, and a bottle of soda water.
He decided this was probably due more to Chief Mueller’s wish to do something nice for a friend of Chief Inspector (Retired) Augustus Wohl than to routine hotel hospitality, particularly for someone in a cut-rate room.
Matt finished unpacking, then took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator, settled himself on the sitting-room couch with his feet up on the coffee table, and reached for the telephone.
Jason Washington’s deep, vibrant voice came over the line.
“Special Operations Investigations. Sergeant Washington.”
“Detective Payne, Sergeant Washington, and how are you on this warm and pleasant afternoon?”
“How good of you to call. We were all wondering when you were going to find the time.”
“I just got here,” Matt protested, and then asked, “Did something come up?”
“I have had three telephone calls from Special Agent Matthews asking if we had heard from you. Weren’t you supposed to liaise with him, Matthew?”
“I’m not sure I know what that means,” Matt said. “Anyway, I don’t have anything to tell him. I just got here.”
“So you said. And how were you received by our brothers of the Harrisburg police?”
“By the chief. Nice guy. He said Chief Wohl had called him.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Yeah, I thought so. Anyway, Chief Mueller set me up with their White Collar Crimes guy, a lieutenant named Deitrich, who’s going to get me into both the banks and the hall of records in the courthouse.”
“Where are you, Matthew?”
“Six twelve in the Penn-Harris,” Matt said. He took a close look at the telephone and read the number to Washington.
