Peter parked the car behind the building beside other police cars, marked and unmarked, and a few privately owned cars, and then walked into the funeral home. The corridor was crowded with uniformed police officers, one of them a New Jersey state trooper lieutenant in a blueand-gray uniform. Wohl wondered who he was.

As he walked toward them, Wohl saw that the Blue Room, where Dutch had been laid out for the wake, and which had been full of flowers, was now virtually empty except for the casket itself, which was now closed, and covered with an American flag.

"We were getting worried about you, Peter," Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin said to him. "The Moffitts left just a couple of minutes ago. I think Jeannie maybe expected you to be here when they closed the coffin."

"I took Miss Dutton to identify Gallagher," Peter replied. "And I just left Homicide. Vice turned up a suspect who seems to know something about why Nelson was killed."

"I thought maybe you'd run into the commissioner," Coughlin said.

He's pissed that I 'm late. Well, to hell with it. I couldn't 't help it.

"Was the commissioner looking for me?" Peter asked. "I think you could say that, yes," Coughlin said, sarcastically.

"Chief, I'm missing something here," Wohl said. "If I've held things up here, I'm really sorry."

Coughlin looked at him for a long moment. "You really don't know what I'm talking about, do you?"

"No, sir."

"You haven't seen theLedger? Nobody's shown it to you? Said anything about it?"

"TheLedger? No, sir."

"When was the last time you saw Mickey O'Hara? Or talked to him?"

"I saw him a week, ten days ago," Peter said, after some thought. "I ran into him in Wanamaker's."

"Not in the last two, three days? You haven't seen him, or talked to him?"

"No, sir," Peter said, and then started to ask, "Chief-"

"Now that we're all here," an impeccably suited representative of Marshutz amp; Sons interrupted him, "I'd like to say a few words about what we're all going to do taking our part in the ceremonies."

"You ride from here to Saint Dominic's with me," Chief Inspector Coughlin ordered, earning himself a look of annoyance from the funeral director.

"With one exception," the man from Marshutz began, "pallbearer positions will reflect the rank of the pallbearer. Chief Inspector Coughlin will be at the right front of the casket, with Staff Inspector Wohl on the left. Immediately behind Chief Inspector Coughlin, the one exception I mentioned, will be Lieutenant McGrory of the New Jersey State Police. From then on, left, right, left, right, positions are assigned by rank. I have had a list typed up…"

Patrol cars from the Seventh District were on hand to block intersections between Marshutz amp; Sons and Saint Dominic's Roman Catholic Church.

When Dutch Moffitt's flag-draped casket had been rolled into the hearse, Dennis Coughlin and Peter Wohl walked forward to Coughlin's Oldsmobile. The Highway Patrol motorcycle men kicked their machines into life and turned on the flashing lights. Then, very slowly, the small convoy pulled away from the funeral home.

The officers from the Seventh District cars saluted as the hearse rolled past them.

"Tom, have you got theLedger up there with you?" Denny Coughlin asked, from the backseat of the Oldsmobile.

"Yes, sir. And theBulletin. "

"Pass them back to Inspector Wohl, would you please, Tom? He hasn't seen them."

When Sergeant Lenihan held the papers up, Wohl leaned forward and took them.

"You never saw any of that before, Peter?" Coughlin asked, when Wohl had read Mickey O'Hara's story in theBulletin and the editorial in theLedger.

"No, sir," Peter said. "Is there anything to it? Did Gallagher get pushed in front of the train?"

"No, and there are witnesses who saw the whole thing," Coughlin said. "Unfortunately, they are one cop-Martinez, McFadden's partner-and the engineer of the elevated train. Both of whom could be expected to lie to protect a cop."

"Then what the hell is theLedger printing crap like that for?"

"Commissioner Czernick believes it is because Staff Inspector Peter Wohl first had diarrhea of the mouth-that's a direct quote, Peter-when speaking with Mr. Michael J. O'Hara-"

"I haven't spoken to Mickey O'Hara-"

"Let me finish, Peter," Coughlin interrupted. "First you had diarrhea of the mouth with Mr. O'Hara, and then you compounded your-another direct quote-incredible stupidity-by antagonizing Arthur J. Nelson, when you were under orders to charm him. Anything to that?"

"Once again, I haven't seen Mickey O'Hara, or talked to him, in ten days, maybe more."

"But maybe you did piss off Arthur J. Nelson?"

"I called him late last night to tell him the Jaguar had been found. He asked me where, and I told him- truthfully-that I didn't know. He was a little sore about that, but I don't thinkantagonize is the word."

"You didn't-and for God's sake tell me if you did- make any cracks about homosexuality, 'your son the fag,' something like that?"

"Sir, I don't deserve that," Peter said.

"That's how it looks to the commissioner, Peter," Coughlin said. "And to the mayor, which is worse. He's going to run again, of course, and when he does, he wants theLedger to support him."

Peter looked out the window. They were still some distance from Saint Dominic's but the street was lined with parked police cars.

Dutch, Peter thought, is going to be buried in style.

"Chief," Peter said, "all I can do is repeat what I said. I haven't seen, or spoken to, Mickey O'Hara for more than a week. And I didn't say anything to Arthur Nelson that I shouldn't have."

Coughlin grunted.

"For Christ's sake, I even kept my mouth shut when he tried to tell me his son was Louise's boyfriend."

" 'Louise's boyfriend'?" Coughlin parroted. "When did you get on a first-name basis with her?"

Peter turned and met Coughlin's eyes.

"We've become friends, Chief," he said. "Maybe a little more."

"You didn't say anything to her about the Nelson boy being queer, did you? Could that have got back to Nelson?"

"She knew about him," Peter said. "I met him in her apartment."

"When was that?"

"When I went there to bring her to the Roundhouse," Peter said. "The day Dutch was killed."

Out the side window, Peter saw that the lines of police cars were now double-parked. When he looked through the windshield, he could see they were approaching Saint Dominic's. There was a lot of activity there, although the funeral mass wouldn't start for nearly an hour.

"All I know, Peter," Coughlin said, "is that right now, you're in the deep shit. You may be-and I think you are- lily white, but the problem is going to be to convince Czernick and the mayor. Right now, you're at the top of their shit list."

The small convoy drove past the church, and then into the church cemetery, and through the cemetery back to the church, finally stopping beside a side door. The pallbearers got out of the limousine and went to the hearse. Coughlin and Wohl joined them, and took Dutch Moffitt's casket from the hearse and carried it through the side door into the church. Under the direction of the man from Marshutz amp; Sons, they set it up in the aisle.

The ornate, Victorian-style church already held a number of people. Peter saw Jeannie Moffitt and Dutch's kids and Dutch's mother, and three rows behind them his own mother and father. Ushers-policemenwere escorting more people down the aisles.

"About-face," Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin ordered softly, and the pallbearers standing beside the casket turned around. "For-ward, march," Coughlin said, and they marched back toward the altar, and then turned left, leaving Saint Dominic's as they had entered it. They would reenter the church as the mass started, as part of the processional, and take places in the first row of pews on the left.