It was obvious that Callis was not pleased to hear of this new complication.

“Isn’t this sort of thing in Internal Affairs’ basket? And what’s it got to do with the tapes, in any event?”

“I wish it was in Internal Affairs’ basket,” Wohl said. “But I had a call this morning from the Commissioner, who gave it to Special Operations.”

“You really are the Mayor’s private detective bureau, aren’t you?” Callis observed. When Wohl did not reply but Callis saw his face tighten, Callis added: “No offense, Peter. I know you didn’t ask for it.”

“We have reason to suspect,” Weisbach said, “that these tapes are recordings made by Officer Kellog of telephone calls to his home. If that’s the case, they may contain information bearing on our investigation.”

“They may have contained anything,” Callis said. “Past tense. They’re burned up.”

“The Forensics Lab thinks maybe they can salvage something,” Weisbach said.

“What we would like from you, to preserve the evidence in both cases,” Wohl said, “is permission to have Forensics work on them. Photographing each step of the process as they’re worked on.”

“Destroyed is what you mean,” Callis said. “If I was going to be in court with the Leslie case, I’d want to show the jury the tapes as they were in the fire, the actual tapes, not what’s left after Forensics takes them apart.”

Wohl didn’t reply, and Callis let his imagination run:

“A good defense attorney could generate a lot of fog with somebody having fooled around with those tapes,” he said, and shifted into a credible mimicry of Bernadette Callahan, Attorney-at-Law, formerly Sister John Anthony:

“‘What were you looking for on these tapes? Oh, you don’t know? Or you won’t tell me? But you can tell me, under oath, can’t you, that you found absolutely nothing on these mysterious tapes that you examined with such care that connected Mr. Leslie in any way with what you’re accusing him of.’

“And then,” Callis went on, “in final arguments, she could make the jury so damned curious about these damned tapes that they would forget everything else they heard.”

“They gave him the Nun to defend him?” Weisbach asked, smiling.

“She probably volunteered,” Callis replied. “She has great compassion for people who kill other people.”

“Tony,” Wohl said. “I need those tapes.”

That’s the first time he called me by my first name. Interesting.

“I know that…”

“If I have to, I’ll get a court order,” Wohl said.

I’ll be damned. He means that. Who the hell does he think he is, threatening the District Attorney with a court order?

The answer to that is that he knows who he is. He’s wrapped in the authority of the Honorable Jerry Carlucci.

“Come on, Peter, we’re friends, we’re just talking. All I’m asking you to do is make sure the chain of evidence remains intact.”

“Detective Payne,” Wohl said. “You are ordered to take the tapes from the case of Officer Kellog from the Evidence Room to the Forensics Laboratory for examination. You will not let the tapes out of your sight. You will see that each step of the examination process is photographed. You will then return the tapes to the Evidence Room. You will then personally deliver to Mr. Callis (a) the photographs you will have taken and (b) the results, no matter what they are, of the forensics examination.”

“Yes, sir,” Matt said.

Wohl looked at Callis.

“OK?”

“Fine.”

“Thank you, Tony.”

“Anytime, Peter. You know that.”

TWENTY-THREE

The Forensics Laboratory of the Philadelphia Police Department is in the basement of the Roundhouse. It is crowded with a large array of equipment-some high-tech, and some locally manufactured-with which highly skilled technicians, some sworn police officers, some civilian employees, ply their very specialized profession.

When Detective Wally Milham walked in at half past eight, he found Detective Matt Payne, who had been in the room in compliance with his orders not to leave the cassette tapes out of his sight, for nine hours, sprawled on a table placed against the wall. He had made sort of a backrest from several very large plastic bags holding blood-soaked sheets, pillows, and blankets. It was evidence, one of the uniform technicians had told Matt, from a job where a wife had expressed her umbrage at finding her husband in her bed with the lady next door by striking both multiple times with their son’s Boy Scout ax.

Amazingly, the technician had reported, neither had been killed.

Matt was pleased to see Milham. He was bored out of his mind. The forensic process had at first been fascinating. One of the technicians, using a Dremel motor tool, had, with all the finesse of a surgeon, carefully sawed through the heat-distorted tape cassettes so that the tape inside could be removed.

The technician, Danny Meadows, was nearly as large as Tiny Lewis, and Matt had been genuinely awed by the delicacy he demonstrated.

And, according to his orders, Matt had ensured that photographs were taken of every cassette being opened, and then of the individual parts the technician managed to separate.

He had been fascinated too, at first, as Danny Meadows attempted to wind the removed tape onto reels taken from dissected new Radio Shack tape cassettes.

And his interest had been maintained at a high level when some of the removed tapes would not unwind, because the heat had melted the tape itself, or the rubber wheels of the cassette had melted and dripped onto the tape, and Danny again displayed his incredible delicacy trying to separate it.

But watching that, too, had grown a little dull after a while, and for the past two hours, as Meadows sat silently bent over a tape-splicing machine, gluing together the “good” sections of tape he had been able to salvage from sections of tape damaged beyond any hope of repair, he had been ready to climb the walls.

He had, at seven-thirty, announced that he was hungry, in the private hope that Danny would look at his watch, decide it was time to go home. A corporal working elsewhere in the laboratory, aware of Matt’s orders not to let the tapes out of his sight, had obligingly gone out and returned with two fried-egg sandwiches and a soggy paper cup of lukewarm coffee.

At eight-fifteen, Matt had inquired, in idle conversation, if Danny was perhaps romantically attached. On being informed that he had three months before been married, Matt suggested, out of the goodness of his heart, that perhaps Danny might wish to go home to his bride.

“No problem,” Danny had replied. “We can use the overtime money. You have any idea what furniture costs these days?”

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” Wally said.

“I’ve been right here, in case my expert advice might be required,” Matt said.

The technician, without taking his eyes from the tape-splicing machine, chuckled.

“I thought you’d like to have these,” Wally said, and handed Matt Xeroxes of 75-49s, “as a souvenir of your time in Homicide.”

Jesus, that’s right, isn’t it? My detail to Homicide is over. I am back to doing something useful, like not letting cassette tapes out of my sight. And rolling around in the mud catching dirty cops.

I’m going to miss Homicide, and it’s going to be a long time before I can even think of getting assigned there. Unless, of course, Our Beloved Mayor and Chief Lowenstein get into another lovers’ quarrel.

“Thank you,” Matt said after scanning the reports. “What I’ll do with these is have them framed and hang them on my bathroom wall, so that when I take a leak, I can remember when they let me play with the big boys.”

Milham laughed.

“Come on, Matt, if you hadn’t taken one more look at Atchison, we wouldn’t have the guns. That’ll be remembered, down the line, when they’re looking for people in Homicide. I enjoyed working with you.”