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The inner door of Dennis V. Coughlin’s office was half open when Matt Payne stuck his head through it. He saw that Coughlin was seated at his desk, holding the receiver of his desktop telephone and nodding. Matt thought it was interesting that he was not in his usual suit and tie but instead wore his class “A” uniform, three gold stars shining on each epaulet of the dark jacket and on both collar points of his stiff white shirt.
“Okay, Jerry,” Coughlin said as he began waving for Payne to enter, “I’ll look into that before the presser and get back to you.”
Press conference? Payne thought. So, that explains the uniform.
Coughlin put the receiver in its base as he looked up at Payne, who was sipping from a to-go cup imprinted with the logotype of the local Good Karma Café.
“You’re late, Matty.”
“Unfortunately, unavoidable, Uncle Denny,” Payne said. “Had to change my bandage.”
Coughlin grunted.
“I suppose I can let it slide for that. But apparently you found the time to stop for coffee.”
“Priorities, sir. You really don’t want to be around me if I haven’t had adequate jolts of caffeine.” He smiled while pointing at the cup. “And, as the Black Buddha would concur, good karma always is an admirable thing to aspire to.”
Coughlin’s expression showed that he was not amused.
“Actually, sorry I’m late,” Payne went on in a more serious tone. “Tony Harris brought in the coffees. We’ve been going back over everything we have on the Morgan case and running down everything we can on the two males who were strung up in the PECO tower.”
Coughlin came out from behind his desk and went to where a low wooden table separated a black leather couch and a pair of heavy armchairs. Payne followed, easing himself carefully into one of the chairs, while Coughlin sat on the couch opposite him.
“Jerry’s keeping a close eye on her case and the shooting,” Coughlin said, and gestured toward the nearby wall-mounted flat-screen television. “High-profile means top of the news cycle. There seems to be a new story about her every hour.”
The TV was, like the one in Mayor Carlucci’s office, constantly tuned to KeyCom cable’s Philly News Now channel, the volume muted. The reason for that, Payne remembered Coughlin telling him, was that the mayor, who held the news media in utter contempt, regularly fired up his phone line, demanding, “Denny, are you seeing what those bastards are now broadcasting about us on the news?”
Coughlin added, “Are you getting any good leads?”
Payne shook his head. “A lot of leads that have gone nowhere. We finally interviewed the two women who had been in the bar with the dentist and went up with Camilla Rose to her condo. They’re commercial realtors. They called in after hearing the news, then came in.”
“And?”
“No smoking gun. Basically, they all just drank—and drank a lot. Their stories match the dentist’s, and everything else we’ve established, including the time-stamped video of them staggering out of the lobby shortly before she died. The women were clearly devastated. They had even been planning to attend her fund-raiser tonight.”
Payne glanced at his watch, and added, “Willie Lane is the last one from that crowd, and he’s due in at ten o’clock for Tony to interview. Everyone he was with has been interviewed, and what few leads they gave us went nowhere. Hard to expect his will be any different.”
“You never know. Still early, I would suggest. So, how is the wound? Besides freshly bandaged. The way you slowly lowered yourself into that chair was not lost on me.”
“Better every day.”
Coughlin studied him, his expression dubious, then said, “I damn sure hope so. That wound was bad enough, and easily could have been a lot worse. And I would have been the one obliged to break the news to your mother.”
Payne nodded, and said, “I saw her at lunch yesterday, and she said to give you her love.”
His mother, of course, hadn’t, but he felt no guilt saying it because he knew she would have said exactly that had she known he would be seeing her son’s godfather.
“Your mother is a wonderful lady.”
“I brought up the Black Buddha—”
“You really have to insist on calling Jason that, Matty?”
“I don’t understand why you object, Uncle Denny. He doesn’t mind. And it fits him.”
Coughlin, gesturing impatiently with his hand for Matt to continue, said, “Okay, so what about him?”
“When I mentioned Jason, Mom said something interesting that I wanted to ask you about.”
