W.E.B Griffin - The Murderers

“Looks like an overdose,” Wells said softly. “The maid found her, the daughter, in her bed with a needle in her arm.”

“In her bed? How did she get down here?”

“The father carried her,” Wells said. “He was sitting on that couch holding her in his arms when I got here. He’s pretty upset. I told him about the M.E., the autopsy, and he said ‘no way.’”

“You know who this guy is?” Monahan asked.

Wells shook his head, then gestured toward the mansion. “Somebody important.”

“He runs Nesfoods,” Monahan said.

“Jesus!”

Monahan walked up the shallow stairs to the patio.

“Mr. Detweiler,” he said.

It took a long moment before Detweiler raised his eyes to him.

“I’m Sergeant Monahan from the Fourteenth District, Mr. Detweiler,” he said. “I’m very sorry about this.”

Detweiler shrugged.

“I’m here to help in any way I can, Mr. Detweiler.”

“It’s a little late for that now, isn’t it?”

“It looks that way, Mr. Detweiler,” Monahan agreed. “I’m really sorry.” He paused. “Mr. Detweiler, I have to see the room where she was found. Maybe we’ll find something there that will help us. Could you bring yourself to take me there?”

“Why not?” H. Richard Detweiler replied. “I’m not doing anybody any good here, am I?”

“That’s very good of you, Mr. Detweiler,” Sergeant Monahan said. “I appreciate it very much.”

He waited until Detweiler had stood up and started into the house, then motioned for Wells to follow them.

“What’s your daughter’s name, Mr. Detweiler?” Monahan asked gently. “We have to have that for the report.”

“Penelope,” Mr. Detweiler said. “Penelope Alice.”

Behind them, as they crossed the foyer to the stairs, Officer Wells began to write the information down on Police Department Form

They walked up the stairs and turned left.

“And who besides yourself and Mrs. Detweiler,” Sergeant Monahan asked, “was in the house, sir?”

“Well, Violet, of course,” Detweiler replied. “I don’t know if the cook is here yet.”

“Wells,” Sergeant Monahan interrupted.

“I got it, Sergeant,” Officer Wells said.

“Excuse me, Mr. Detweiler,” Sergeant Monahan said.

Officer Wells let them get a little ahead of them, then, one at a time, he picked two of the half-dozen Louis XIV chairs that were neatly arranged against the walls of the corridor. He placed one over the plastic hypodermic syringe that both he and Sergeant Monahan had spotted, and the second over a length of rubber surgical tubing, to protect them.

Then he walked quickly after Sergeant Monahan and Mr. Detweiler.

Sergeant John Aloysius Monahan was impressed with the size of Miss Penelope Alice Detweiler’s apartment. It was as large as the entire upstairs of his row house off Roosevelt Boulevard. The bathroom was as large as his bedroom. He was a little surprised to find that the faucets were stainless steel. He would not have been surprised if they had been gold.

And he was not at all surprised to find, on one of Miss Detweiler’s bedside tables, an empty glassine packet, a spoon, a candle, and a small cotton ball.

He touched nothing.

“Is there a telephone I can use, Mr. Detweiler?” he asked.

Detweiler pointed to the telephone on the other bedside table.

“The detectives like it better if we don’t touch anything,” Monahan said. “Until they’ve had a look.”

“There’s one downstairs,” Detweiler said. “Sergeant, may I now call my funeral director? I want to get…her off the patio. For her mother’s sake.”

“I think you’d better ask the Medical Examiner about that, Mr. Detweiler,” Monahan said. “Can I ask you to show me the telephone?”

“All right,” Detweiler said. “I was thinking of Penny’s mother.”

“Yes, of course,” Monahan said. “This is a terrible thing, Mr. Detweiler.”

He waited until Detweiler started out of the room, then followed him back downstairs. Officer Wells followed both of them. Detweiler led him to a living room and pointed at a telephone on a table beside a red leather chair.

“Officer Wells here,” Monahan said, “has some forms that have to be filled out. I hate to ask you, but could you give him a minute or two?”

“Let’s get it over with,” Detweiler said.

“Officer Wells, why don’t you go with Mr. Detweiler?” Monahan said, waited until they had left the living room, closed the door after them, went to the telephone, and dialed a number from memory.

“Northwest Detectives, Detective McFadden.”

Detective Charles McFadden, a very large, pleasant-faced young man, was sitting at a desk at the entrance to the offices of the Northwest Detective Division, on the second floor of the Thirty-fifth Police District building at North Broad and Champlost streets.

“This is Sergeant Monahan, Fourteenth District. Is Captain O’Connor around?”

“He’s around here someplace,” Detective McFadden said, then raised his voice: “Captain, Sergeant Monahan on Three Four for you.”

“What can I do for you, Jack?” Captain Thomas O’Connor said.

“Sir, I’m out on a Five Two Nine Two in Chestnut Hill. The Detweiler estate. It’s the Detweiler girl.”

“What happened to her?”

“Looks like a drug overdose.”

“I’ll call Chief Lowenstein,” Captain O’Connor said, thinking aloud.

Lowenstein would want to know about this as soon as possible. For one thing, the Detweiler family was among the most influential in the city. The Mayor would want to know about this, and Lowenstein could get the word to him.

Captain O’Connor thought of another political ramification to the case: the Detweiler girl’s boyfriend was Detective Matthew Payne. Detective Payne had for a rabbi Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin. It was a toss-up between Coughlin and Lowenstein for the unofficial title of most important chief inspector. O’Connor understood that he would have to tell Coughlin what had happened to the Detweiler girl. And then he realized there was a third police officer who had a personal interest and would have to be told.

“You’re just calling it in?” O’Connor asked.

“I thought I’d better report it directly to you.”

“Yeah. Right. Good thinking. Consider it reported. I’ll get somebody out there right away. A couple of guys just had their court appearances canceled. I don’t know who’s up on the wheel, but I’ll see the right people go out on this job. And I’ll go myself.”

“The body’s still on a Fire Department stretcher,” Monahan said. “The father carried it downstairs to wait for the ambulance. I haven’t called the M.E. yet.”

“You go ahead and call the M.E.,” O’Connor said. “Do this strictly by the book. Give me a number where I can get you.”

Monahan read it off the telephone cradle and O’Connor recited it back to him.

“Right,” Monahan said.

“Thanks for the call, Jack,” O’Connor said, and hung up.

He looked down at Detective McFadden.

“Who’s next up on the wheel?”

“I am. I’m holding down the desk for Taylor.”

“When are Hemmings and Shapiro due in?”

Detective McFadden looked at his watch.

“Any minute. They called in twenty minutes ago.”

“Have Taylor take this job when he gets here. I don’t think you should.”

McFadden’s face asked why.

“That was a Five Two Nine Two, Charley. It looks like your friend Payne’s girlfriend put a needle in herself one time too many.”

“Holy Mother of God!”

“At her house. That’s all I have. But I don’t think you should take the job.”