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“Yes, Leonard?”

“Penny, can you see what Louise Dutton is doing out there?”

“At the moment, she’s walking toward her car. There are a couple of cops with her.”

“Tell Whatsisname—”

“Ned,” she furnished.

“Tell Ned to shoot it,” he ordered. “Tell him to shoot whatever he can of her out there. If you can get the cops in the shot, so much the better.”

“May I ask why?”

“Goddamn it, Penny, do what you’re told. And then the two of you get

back here as soon as you can.”

“You don’t have to snip at me, Leonard!” Penny said.

****

Officer Mason, once he and Officer Foley had slid the stretcher with Captain Richard C. Moffitt on it into the back of Two-Oh-One, had been faced with the decision of which hospital the “wounded” Highway Patrol officer should be transported to.

There had been really no doubt in his mind that Moffitt was dead; in the year and a half he’d been assigned to wagon duty, he’d seen enough dead and nearly dead people to tell the difference. But Moffitt was a cop, and no matter what, “wounded” and “injured” cops were hauled to a hospital.

“Tell Radio Nazareth,” Officer Mason had said to Officer Foley as he flicked on the siren and lights.

Nazareth Hospital, at Roosevelt Boulevard and Pennypack Circle, was not the nearest hospital, but it was, in Officer Mason’s opinion, the best choice of the several available to him. Maybe Dutch Moffitt wasn’t dead.

They had been waiting for him at Nazareth Emergency, nurses and doctors and everything else, but Dutch Moffitt was dead, period.

Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernick had arrived a few minutes later, and on his heels came cars bearing Mayor Jerry Carlucci, Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin, and Captain Charley Gait of the Civil Disobedience Squad. Officer Mason heard Captain Gaft explain his presence to Chief Inspector Coughlin: Until last month, he had been Dutch Moffitt’s home district commander, and he thought he should come; he knew Jeannie Moffitt pretty good.

And then Captain Paul Mowery, Dutch Moffitt’s new home district commander, appeared. He held open the glass door from the Emergency parking lot for Jeannie Moffitt. She was a tall, healthy-looking, white-skinned woman with reddish brown hair. She was wearing a faded cotton housedress and a gray, unbuttoned cardigan.

“Be strong, Jeannie,” Chief Inspector Coughlin said. “Dutch’s gone.”

“I knew it,” Jean Moffitt said, almost matter-of-factly. “I knew it.” And then she fumbled in her purse for a handkerchief, and then started to sob. “Oh, God, Denny! What am I going to tell the kids?”

Coughlin wrapped his arms around her, and Mayor Carlucci and Commissioner Czernick stepped close to the two of them, their faces mirroring their emotions. They desperately wanted to do something, anything, to help, and there was nothing in their power that could.

Jean Moffitt got control of herself, in a faint voice asked if she could see him, and the three of them led her into the curtained-off cubicle where the doctors had officially decreed that Dutch Moffitt was dead.

A moment later, Jean Moffitt was led out of the cubicle,

and out of the Emergency Room by Commissioner Czernick and Captain Mowery.

Chief Inspector Coughlin and the mayor, who was blowing his nose, watched her leave.

“Get the sonofabitch who did this, Denny,” the mayor said.

“Yes, sir,” Coughlin said, almost fervently. “We’ll get him.”

The mayor and Chief Inspector Coughlin waited until Captain Mowery’s car had gone, and then left the Emergency Room.

As the mayor’s Cadillac left the parking lot, it had to brake abruptly twice, as first a plain and battered Chevrolet, and then moments later a police car festooned with lights and sirens, turned off the street. Homicide, in the person of Lieutenant Louis Natali, and the Highway Patrol, in the person of Lieutenant Mike Sabara, had arrived.

****