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Lieutenant Fellows quickly served him one.

“Don’t mind me,” the mayor said. “If anyone wants something harder than coffee, help yourselves.”

Chiefs Coughlin and Lowenstein went to the refrigerator and helped themselves to bottles of Neuweiler’s ale. The others poured coffee. The pot ran dry.

Lieutenant Fellows went upstairs to see how the fresh pot was coming.

“I talked to Jason Washington about this,” the mayor began. “Maybe I should have asked Augie to have him here for this. Anyway, Washington told me he believes Officer Kellog’s widow believes what she told him about the whole Five Squad being dirty. No disrespect to Captain Pekach intended—he’s a fine officer—but despite what he says about if there was something dirty going in Narcotics he would have known about it, I don’t think we can ignore what the widow said. Now, what else have we got?”

“The threatening telephone call,” Peter Wohl said. “I believe that Mrs. Milham—”

“Mrs. Milham?” Mayor Carlucci interrupted.

“She and Wally Milham went to Maryland and got married, Mr. Mayor,” Peter said. “I thought you knew.”

“Now that you mention it . . . go ahead, Peter.”

“I believe there was such a call,” Peter said. “And so does Wally Milham.”

“He would have to believe it, wouldn’t you say, Peter? I mean, after all, he was slipping the salami to her before her husband was murdered.”

“Wally Milham is a good cop, Mr. Mayor,” Peter said.

The mayor looked at him for a long moment without expression.

“Tell me about the tapes,” the mayor said finally.

“They’re in the process of being transcribed,” Peter said.

“Still? Christ, you’ve had them for a week.”

“The tapes were damaged by fire, Mr. Mayor,” Peter said. “They’re very hard to transcribe.”

“Get somebody good to do it. Somebody smart and fast.”

“Detective Payne is transcribing them,” Wohl said.

“And working hard at it, sir. Like last night at midnight,” Mike Sabara interjected. “I listened to a little of them . . .”

“Did you?” the mayor asked, not pleasantly.

“I was surprised he’s able to get anything off them at all,” Sabara said.

“So they’re useless?” the mayor said.

“No, sir,” Peter Wohl said. “Both Payne and Sergeant Washington, who has read what Payne has transcribed so far, believe there will be something useful in them when we’re finished. ”

“The point I’m trying to make, Peter, and I’m not just trying to give you a hard time, is that we really don’t have anything, except accusations made by a Five Squad wife who wasn’t sleeping with her own husband,” Carlucci said. “Against which, we have the opinion of a damned good cop who used to work Narcotics and says if there was anything wrong, he would have known about it.”

No one replied.

The mayor looked at Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin.

“You think we’d be spinning our wheels on this one, Denny?”

“It may turn out that way, but I think we have to do it,” Chief Coughlin said.

“Matt?” the mayor asked, turning his head to Chief Inspector Matthew Lowenstein.