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Inspector Wohl smiled in recognition and resignation.

Mickey helped himself to a cup of coffee, then sat down, backward, in a wooden chair and watched Sergeant Washington interviewing Mr. Ketcham.

TWENTY-ONE

“I could use another cup of coffee, Mr. Ketcham, how about you?” Sergeant Jason Washington inquired of Mr. Ronald R. Ketcham.

“W

hat I want is my clothes,” Ketcham replied.

“Well, I certainly understand that,” Washington said. “And they should be here by now. I’ll check. Cream and sugar?”

“Black, please,” Ketcham said.

Washington left the interview room, and closed the door after him. Ketcham, who had seen enough cops-and-robbers movies to suspect that he might be under observation by persons on the other side of the mirror, tried very hard to look righteously indignant, rather than uncomfortable.

Washington stuck his head into the room on the other side of the mirror, and motioned for everyone to come into the main office.

As Michael J. O’Hara passed through the door, Washington draped his massive arm around Mickey’s shoulders.

“You will understand, old friend,” Washington said “why my usual joy at seeing your smiling face is tempered by the circumstances.”

“How goes it, Jason?” Mickey O’Hara replied.

“Mickey, sit in there for a minute, will you?” Chief Inspector Coughlin said, indicating Captain Henry Quaire’s office. “Amy, you keep him company.”

Mr. O’Hara and Dr. Payne went into Quaire’s office. Chief Coughlin closed the door after them.

“You didn’t get much, did you, Sergeant Washington?” Mr. Walter Davis of the Federal Bureau of Investigation asked.

“If we are to believe Mr. Ketcham, which I find difficult to do,” Jason replied, “he was abducted, in what he believes to be a case of mistaken identity, from the garage of his home by persons unknown.”

Inspector Wohl chuckled.

“Letting your imagination soar, Jason, what do you think happened?”

“I would hazard a guess that Mr. Ketcham has no idea who transported him to the NIKE site, beyond a deep suspicion that it has something to do with his trafficking in controlled substances,” Washington said. “About which, of course, he is understandably reluctant to talk. That position, I would think, is buttressed by his being aware that he was not in possession of any narcotics at the time of his abduction.”

“Put it together for me, Jason,” Chief Coughlin said.

“I have several tentative theories,” Washington said. “We have these facts: Mr. Ketcham was involved with Miss Longwood. To what degree we do not know. There was a telephone call to Dr. Payne at the hospital—the language of which was not consistent with the vocabulary of the caller—which alleged . . .”

He consulted a pocket notebook:

“. . . that ‘Cynthia Longwood was stripped naked and orally raped by a policeman under circumstances that were themselves traumatic.’ Dr. Payne believes this is consistent with Miss Longwood’s physical condition. The question then becomes, Who made the telephone call to Dr. Payne, and how did he come into possession of the knowledge of the rape?”

“Vincenzo Savarese,” Mr. Walter Davis said.

Sergeant Washington looked at Mr. Davis in such a manner as to make clear he did not like to be interrupted, then went on:

“I think it is reasonable to believe that Mr. Savarese, whose deep concern for his granddaughter has been made obvious, wondered if her gentleman acquaintance, Mr. Ketcham, might have information bearing on the situation. We must keep in mind here that Mr. Savarese had to move carefully. His relationship to Miss Longwood has been carefully concealed, and if Mr. Ketcham was not involved in the assault . . .”

Wohl and Coughlin grunted, accepting Washington’s theory.

“I think it bears on the equation,” Washington went on, “that Mr. Ketcham has not come to the attention of either Intelligence or the Drug Unit. Neither by name or by physical description. It is possible that Mr. Savarese’s contacts on the street, or within the drug community, came up with his name, but I have the feeling that was not the case, and even if it was, his acquiring that knowledge would have been after Miss Longwood required medical attention.”

“Okay,” Coughlin agreed.