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“I’m not in the mood for your wit, Matt,” Patricia said.

“Just trying to brighten up an otherwise lousy afternoon,” Matt said.

Sergeant Lenihan turned right onto North Thirty-third Street, cut over to North Thirty-fourth at Mantua, and led the Mercury past the Philadelphia Zoological Gardens; turned left again onto Girard for a block, and finally right onto the Schuylkill Expressway, which parallels the West Bank of the river. He drove fast, well over the posted speed limit, but not recklessly. Matt had no trouble keeping up with him. He glanced at the speedometer from time to time, but did not mention the speed to his mother.

When they crossed the Schuylkill on the Twin Bridges their pace slowed, but not much. Going past Fern Hill Park, Matt saw a police car parked off the road, watching traffic. And he saw the eyes of the policeman driving follow him as they zipped past. But the car didn’t move.

Lenihan slowed the Oldsmobile then, to a precise forty-five miles an hour. They had to stop for the red light at Ninth Street, but for no others. The lights were supposed to be set, Matt recalled, for forty-five. That they didn’t have to stop seemed to prove it.

“There it is,” his mother said.

“There what is?”

“The Waikiki Diner,” she replied. “That’s where Denny said it happened.”

He turned to look, but couldn’t see what she was talking about.

Lenihan turned to the right at Pennypack Circle, onto Holme Avenue, and into the Torresdale section of Philadelphia.

There was a traffic jam, complete to a cop directing traffic, at the intersection of Academy Road and Outlook Avenue. The cop waved the Oldsmobile through, but then gestured vigorously for the Mercury to keep goi

ng down Academy.

Matt stopped and shook his head, and pointed down Outlook. The white-capped traffic cop walked up to the car. Matt lowered the window.

“Captain Moffitt was my uncle,” Matt said.

“Sorry,” the cop said, and waved him through.

There were more cars than Matt could easily count before the house overlooking the fenced-in fairway of the Torresdale Golf Course. Among them was His Honor the Mayor Jerry Carlucci’s Cadillac limousine.

Matt saw that there was at least one TV camera crew set up on the golf course, on the other side of the fence that separated it from Outlook Avenue. And there were people with still cameras.

“Park the car, Tom, please,” Chief Inspector Coughlin said to his aide, “and then come back and take care of their car, too.”

He got out of the Oldsmobile and stood in the street, waiting for Matt and Patty to drive up.

Staff Inspector Peter Wohl walked up to him.

“Can’t we run those fucking ghouls off, Peter?” Coughlin said, nodding toward the press behind the golf course fence.

“I wish we could, sir,” Wohl said. “If you’ve got a minute, Chief?”

Matt stopped the Mercury at Coughlin’s signal. Patty lowered the window, and Coughlin leaned down to it.

“Just leave the keys, Matt,” he said. “Lenihan will park it, and then catch up with us.” He opened Patty’s door, and she got out. “I’ll be with you in just a minute, dear. I gotta talk to a guy.”

He walked Wohl twenty feet down the sidewalk.

“Shoot,” he said. “I gotta get inside. That’s Dutch’s sister-in-law. Ex-sister-in-law. And his nephew.”

“The commissioner said if I saw you before he did, I should tell you what’s going on.”

“He here?”

“Yes, sir,” Wohl said. “There was an eyewitness, Chief, Miss Louise Dutton, of Channel Nine.”

“The blonde?” Coughlin asked.