Pekach took off his uniform cap, and put his hand to his pigtail, which of course was no longer there.

Inside the door was a large foyer, with an octagonal tile fountain in the center. Closed double doors were on both sides of the foyer, and a wide staircase was directly ahead. There was a stained-glass leaded window portraying, Pekach thought, Saint Whoever-It-Was who slayed the dragon on the stairway landing.

This place looks like a goddamned museum. Or maybe a funeral home.

The maid slid open one of the double doors.

"Here's the policeman, Miss Martha," the maid said, and gestured for him to go through the door.

He found himself in a high-ceilinged room, the walls of which were lined with bookshelves.

"How do you do?" Martha Peebles said.

A fifty-year-old spinster,Pekach instantly decided, looking at Martha Peebles. She was wearing a white, frilly, high-collared, long-sleeved blouse and a dark skirt.

"Miss Peebles, I'm Captain Pekach, commanding officer of the Highway Patrol," David said. "Inspector Wohl asked me to come see you, to tell you how sorry we are about the trouble you've had, and to tell you we' re going to do everything humanly possible to keep it from happening again."

Martha Peebles extended her hand.

The cop, as opposed to the man, in Pekach took over. The cop, the trained observer, saw that Martha Peebles was not fifty. She did not have fifty-year-old hands, or fifty-year-old eyes, or fifty-year-old teeth. These wereher teeth, not caps, and they sat in healthy gums. There were no liver spots on her hands, and there was a fullness of flesh in the hands that fifty-year-olds have lost with passing time. And her neck had not begun to hang. It was even possible that the firm appearance of her breasts was Miss Peebles herself, rather than a well-fitting brassiere.

"How do you do, Captain…Pekach, you said?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Her hand was warm and soft, confirming his revised opinion of her age. She was, he now deduced, maybe thirty-five, no more. She just dressed like an old woman; that had thrown him off. He wondered why the hell she did that.

"You'll forgive me for saying I've heard that before, Captain," Martha Peebles said, taking her hand back and lacing it with the other one on her abdomen. "As recently as yesterday. "

"Yes, ma'am, I know," David Pekach said, uncomfortably.

"I am really not a neurotic old maid, imagining all this," she said.

"No one suggested anything like that, Miss Peebles," Pekach said.Oh, shit! McFadden and Martinez! "Miss Peebles, did the two officers who were here yesterday say anything at all out of line? Did they insinuate anything like that?

"No," she said. "I don't recall that they did. But, if I may be frank?"

"Please."

"They did seem a little young to be detectives," she said, "and I got the impression-how should I put this-that they were rather overwhelmed by the house."

"I'm rather overwhelmed with it," David said. "It's magnificent."

"My father loved this house," she said. "You haven't answered my question."

"What question was that, Miss Peebles?" Pekach asked, confused.

"Aren't those two a little young to be detectives? Do they have the requisite experience?"

"Well, actually, Miss Peebles, they aren't detectives," Pekach said.

"They were in civilian clothing," she challenged. "I thought, among policemen, only detectives were permitted to wear civilian clothing."

"No, ma'am," Pekach said. "Some officers work in civilian clothing."

"I didn't know that."

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "When it seems appropriate, that's authorized."

"It seems to me that the more police in uniform the better," she said. "That that would tend to deter crime."

"You have a point," Pekach said. "I can't argue with that. But may I explain the officers who were here yesterday?"

"We're talking about the small Mexican or whatever, and the large, simple Irish boy?"

"Yes, ma'am. Miss Peebles, do you happen to recall hearing about the police officer, Captain Moffitt, who was shot to death recently."

"Oh, yes, of course. On the television, it said that he was, unless I'm confused somehow, the commanding officer of the Highway Patrol."

"Yes, ma'am, he was," Pekach said.

"Oh, I see. And you're his replacement, so to speak?"

"Yes, ma'am, but that's not what I was driving at."

"Oh?"

"We knew who had shot Captain Moffitt within minutes," Pekach said. " Which meant that eight thousand police officers-the entire Philadelphia Police Department-were looking for him."

"I can certainly understand that," she said.

"Two undercover Narcotics Division officers found him-"

"They threw him under a subway train," she said. "I read that in theLedger. Good for them!"

"That story wasn't true, Miss Peebles," Pekach said, surprised at her reaction. "Actually, the officer involved went much further than he had to to capture him alive. He didn't even fire his weapon, for fear that a bullet might hit an innocent bystander."

"He should have shot him dead on the spot," Miss Peebles said, firmly.

David looked at her with surprise showing on his face.

"I read inTime," Martha Peebles said, "that for what it costs to keep one criminal in prison, we could send four people to Harvard."

"Yes, ma'am," Pekach said. "I'm sure that's about right."

"Now,that's criminal," she said. "Throwing good money after bad. Money that could be used to benefit society being thrown away keeping criminals in country clubs with bars."

"Yes, ma'am, I have to agree with you."

"I'm sure that people like yourself must find that sort of thing very frustrating," Martha Peebles said.

"Yes, ma'am, sometimes," Pekach agreed.

"I'm going to draw the blind," Martha Peebles announced. "The sun bleaches the carpets."

She went to the window and did so, and the sun silhouetted her body, for all practical purposes making her blouse transparent. David Pekach averted his eyes.

Just a bra, huh? I would have thought she'd have worn a slip. Oh, what the hell, it's hot. But really nice boobs!

She walked back over to him.

"You were saying?" she said.

"Excuse me?"

"There was a point to your talking about the man who shot your predecessor?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am. Miss Peebles, the officer who found Gerald Vincent Gallagher was Officer Charles McFadden."

"Who?"

"Officer McFadden, Miss Peebles. The officer Inspector Wohl sent to see you yesterday. And Officer Martinez is his partner."

"Really?" she replied, genuinely surprised. "Then I certainly have misjudged them, haven't I?"

"I brought that up, Miss Peebles, in the hope you might be convinced that we sent you the best men available."

"Hummm," she snorted. "That may be so, but they don't seem to be any more effective, do they, than anyone else that's been here?"

"They were working until long after midnight last night, Miss Peebles, looking for Walton Williams-"

"They were looking in the wrong place, then," Martha Peebles said. " They should have been looking here.He was here."

Shit, she's right about that!

"Well, actually, we don't know that," David said. "We don't know if whoever was here last night was Mr. Williams.

For that matter, we don't even know that Mr. Williams is even connected-"

"Don't be silly," Martha Peebles snapped. "Who else could it be?"

"Literally, anyone."

"Captain, I don't like to think of a total figure for all the things that have been stolen from this house by one of Stephen's 'friends.' I don't know whether he actually pays them to do what-whatever they dobut I do know that almost without exception, they tip themselves with whatever they can stick in their pockets before they go back wherever Stephen finds them."

"I didn't see any record of that, prior to this last sequence of events," Pekach said.