There were polite "the boss is always witty" chuckles, and then Wells turned to Richard Dye.

"Okay, Dick, what have you come up with?"

Dye took a small notebook from his pocket, and glanced at it.

"Miss Dutton… or should I call her 'Miss Wells'?"

"Her name is Dutton," Wells said, matter-of-factly. "I already had a wife when I met Louise's mother."

Ward V. Fengler hoped that his surprise at that announcement didn't register on his face.

"Miss Dutton was interviewing a cop, a captain named Richard Moffitt, in a diner on Roosevelt Boulevard. Are you familiar with the diners in Philly, Mr. Wells?"

"Yeah."

"This was a big one, with a bigger restaurant than a counter, if you follow me." Wells nodded. "They were in the restaurant. The cop, who was the commanding officer of the Highway Patrol… you know about them?"

Wells thought that over and shook his head no.

"They patrol the highways, but there's more. They're sort of an elite force, and they use them in high-crime areas. They wear uniforms like they were still riding motorcycles. Some people call them 'Carlucci's Commandos.' "

"Carlucci being the mayor?" Wells asked. Dye nodded. "I get the picture," Wells said.

"Well, apparently what happened was that somebody tried to stick up the diner. The cop saw it, and tried to stop it, and there were two robbers, one of them a girl. She let fly at him with a.22 pistol, and hit him. He got his gun out and blew her away. From what I heard, he didn't even know he was shot until he dropped dead."

"I don't understand that," Wells said.

"According to my source-who is a police reporter named Mickey O'Harathe bullet severed an artery, and he bled to death internally."

"Right in front of my daughter?"

"Yes, sir, she was right there."

"That's awful," Wells said.

"If I didn't mention this, the guy who was doing the stickup got away in the confusion. They're still looking for him."

"Do they know who he is?"

Dye dropped his eyes to his notebook.

"The guy's name is Gerald Vincent Gallagher, white male, twenty-four. The girl who shot the cop was a junkie-so is Gallagher, by the waynamed Dorothy Ann Schmeltzer. High-class folks, both of them."

"Go on," Wells said.

"Of course, every cop in Philadelphia was there in two minutes," Dye went on. "One of them was smart enough to figure out who Miss Dutton was-"

"Got a name?"

"Wohl," Dye said. "He's a staff inspector. According to O'Hara he's one of the brighter ones. He's the youngest staff inspector; he just sent the city housing director to the slammer, him and a union big shot-"

Wells made a "go on" gesture with his hands, and then took underwear from a suitcase and pulled a T-shirt over his head.

"So Wohl treated her very well. He sent her home in a police car, and had another cop drive her car," Dye went on. "Half, O'Hara said, because she's on the tube, and half because he's a nice guy. So she went to work, and did the news at six, and again at eleven, and then she went out and had a couple of drinks with the news director, a guy named Leonard Cohen, and a couple of other people. Then she went home. The door to the apartment on the ground floor-I was there, she had to walk past it to get to the elevator-was open, and she went in, and found Jerome Nelson in his bedroom. Party or parties unknown had hacked him up with a Chinese cleaver."

"What's a Chinese cleaver?" Wells asked.

"Looks like a regular cleaver, but it's thinner, and sharper," Dye explained.

Wells, in the act of buttoning a shirt, nodded.

"What was my daughter's relationship with the murdered man?" Wells asked. "I mean, why did she walk into his apartment?"

"They were friends, I guess. He was a nice little guy. Funny."

"There was nothing between them?"

"He was homosexual, Mr. Wells," Dye said.

"I see," Wells said.

"And, Stan," Kurt Kruger said, evenly, "he's-he was-Arthur Nelson's son."

"Poor Arthur," Wells said. "He knew?"

"I don't see how he couldn't know," Dye said.

"And I suppose that's all over the front pages, too?"

"No," Dye said. "Not so far. Professional courtesy, I suppose."

"Interesting question, Kurt," Wells said, thoughtfully. "What would we have done? Shown the same 'professional courtesy'?"

"I don't know," Kruger said. "Was his… sexual inclination… germane to the story?"

"Was it?"

"Nobody knows yet," Kruger said. "Until it comes out, my inclination would be not to mention the homosexuality. If it comes out there is a connection, then I think I'd have to print it. One definition of news is that's it's anything people would be interested to hear."

"Another, some cynics have said," Wells said dryly, "is that news is what the publisher says it is. That's one more argument against having only one newspaper in a town."

"Would you print it, Stan?" Kruger asked.

"That's what I have all those high-priced editors for," Wells said. " To make painful decisions like that." He paused. "I'd go with what you said, Kurt. If it's just a sidebar, don't use it. If it's germane, I think you would have to."

Kruger grunted.

"Go on, Dick," Wells said to Richard Dye.

"Miss We- Miss Dutton-"

"Try 'your daughter,' Dick," Wells said, adding, "if there's some confusion in your mind."

"Your daughtercalled the cops. They came, including the Homicide lieutenant on duty, a real horse's ass named DelRaye. They had words."

"About what?"

"He told her she had to go to the Roundhouse-the police headquarters, downtown-and she said she had told him everything she knew, and wasn't going anywhere. Then she went upstairs to her apartment. DelRaye told her unless she came out, he was going to knock the door down, and have her taken to the Roundhouse in a paddy wagon."

"Why do I have the feeling you're tactfully leaving something out, Dick? I want all of it."

"Okay," Dye said, meeting his eyes. "She'd had a couple of drinks. Maybe a couple too many. And she used a couple of choice words on DelRaye."

"You have a quote?"

"'Go fuck yourself,'" Dye quoted.

"Did she really?" Wells said. "How to win friends and influence people."

"So she must have called Inspector Wohl, and he showed up, and got her away from the apartment through the basement," Dye said. "In the morning, he brought her to the Roundhouse. There was a lawyer, Colonel Mawson, waiting for her there."

"She must have called me while she was in the apartment waiting for the good cop to show up," Wells said. "Either my wife couldn't tell Louise was drinking, or didn't want to say anything. She said she was afraid."

"I saw pictures of the murdered guy, Mr. Wells. Enough to make you throw up. She had every reason to be frightened."

"Where was she from the time-what was the time?- the good cop took her away from the apartment, and the time he brought her to the police station?"

"After one in the morning," Dye said. "He probably took her to a girl friend's house, or something."

"Or boyfriend's house?" Wells said. "You are a good leg man, Dick. What did you turn up about a boyfriend?"

"No one in particular," Dye said. "Couple of guys, none of whom seem to have been involved."

"Mr. Wells," Ward V. Fengler said, "if I may interject, Colonel Mawson asked Miss Dutton where she had been all night, and she declined to tell him."

"That spells boyfriend," Wells said. "And, maybe guessing I would show up here, she didn't want me to know she'd spent the night with him. Now my curiosity's aroused. Can you get me some more on that subject, Dick?"

"I'll give it a shot, sir," Dye said.

"Has she gone back to work?" Wells asked, and then, looking at his watch, answered his own question. "The best way to find that out is to look at the tube, isn't it?"