“You’ve seen the papers? What’s this about you refusing to talk to the press?”
“Sir,” Wohl said, “it wasn’t quite that way. I wasn’t here, and—”
“Lemme have that,” a voice said, faintly in the background, and then came over the line full volume. “This is Jerry Carlucci, Peter.”
“Good morning, sir,” Peter said.
“I know and you know that sonofabitch is after us, Peter,” the mayor of the City of Brotherly Love said, “and we both know why, and we both know that no matter what we do, he’ll still be trying to cut our throats. But we can’t afford to give the sonofabitch any ammunition. You just can’t tell the press to go fuck themselves. I thought you were smarter than that.”
“Sir, that’s not the way it happened,” Peter said.
“So tell me,” Mayor Carlucci said.
“Sir, I was not in the office. I was ‘unavailable.’ That’s it.”
“Shit,” the mayor said. “What about using Highway to look for witnesses to clear our guy? Is that true?”
“Yes, sir, I did that. But in sports coats and ties. Off-duty volunteers.”
“I think I know why you did it,” Mayor Carlucci said, “but under the circumstances, was it smart?”
“Sir, I considered it to be the proper thing to do at the time. There was nothing that wasn’t already being done to locate Miss Woodham, and I hoped to clear the officers involved of what I considered—consider—to be an unjust accusation.”
“You’re saying you’d do the same thing again?” Carlucci asked, coldly.
“Yes, sir.”
“They find any witnesses for our side?”
“No, sir.”
“They still looking?”
“Sir, I have no intention, without orders to the contrary, to tell my men what they can’t do when they’re off duty and in civilian clothes.”
“In other words, fuck Arthur Nelson and his goddamned Ledger?”
“No, sir. I frankly think that if we were going to find a witness, they’d have found one by now. But I think, for the morale of Highway, that it’s important we keep looking. Or maybe I mean that I don’t want Highway to think I threw Officer Hawkins to the wolves because of the Ledger editorial.”
“Hawkins was the guy driving?”
“Yes, sir. And he says Mr. McAvoy ran the stoplight, and I believe him.”
“Goddamn it, I was right,” Mayor Carlucci said.
“Sir?”
“When I sent you out there, gave you Special Operations,” Mayor Carlucci said.
Peter Wohl could think of no appropriate response to make to that, and so made none.
“I was about to ask where you are with the Woodham job,” Mayor Carlucci said.
“Sir, I have turned over all—”
“I said ‘was about to ask,’” the mayor said. “Don’t interrupt me, Peter.”
“Sorry, sir.”