“By all means,” Lowenstein said smoothly. “I’d like to get Harry’s opinion.”

District Attorney Callis punched his intercom button and very politely asked his secretary to see if she could determine if Mr. Hormel was in the building, and if so, if he could spare a few minutes to come to his office.

A faint smile flickered across Peter Wohl’s face. He was perfectly sure that Hormel had been ordered, probably far less courteously, to make himself available.

“Harry,” Callis had almost certainly said, “don’t leave the office until you check with me. Lowenstein and Wohl are coming over with something on the Inferno murders. I’ll need you.”

Or words to that effect: Mr. Harrison J. Hormel was an assistant district attorney. He had come to the District Attorney’s Office right after passing the bar examination twenty-odd years before and had stayed.

Only a small number of bright young lawyers fresh from law school stayed on. Many of those who did were those who felt the need of a steady paycheck and were not at all sure they could earn a living in private practice. Hormel, in Peter’s opinion, was the exception to that rule of thumb. He was a very good lawyer, and a splendid courtroom performer. Juries trusted him. He could have had a far more lucrative legal career as a defense counsel.

Peter had decided, years before, that Hormel had stayed on, rising to be (at least de facto) the best prosecutor in the DA’s Office because he took pride and satisfaction in putting evil people where they could do no more harm.

And Peter knew that whether District Attorney Callis or Assistant District Attorney Hormel prosecuted Foley and Atchison would not be based on professional qualifications-Callis was not a fool, and was honest enough to admit that Hormel was the better prosecutor-but on Callis’s weighing of the odds on whether the case could be won or lost. If conviction looked certain, he would prosecute, and take the glory. If there was some doubt, Hormel would be assigned. It was to be hoped that his superior skill would triumph. If Foley and/or Atchison walked, the embarrassment would be Hormel’s, not Callis’s.

Callis took his glasses, which, suspended around his neck on an elastic cord, had been resting on his chest, and adjusted them on his nose. Then he leaned forward on his desk and began to read, carefully, the report Lowenstein had given him.

Assistant District Attorney Hormel entered Callis’s office while Callis was reading the report. He quietly greeted Lowenstein and Wohl, then stretched himself out in a leather armchair to the side of Callis’s desk.

Wordlessly, Callis handed him the report, page by page, as he finished reading it. When he himself had finished reading it, he looked at Chief Inspector Lowenstein and made a gesture clearly indicating he was not awed by the report.

Lowenstein handed him another sheaf of Xerox copies.

“The 75-49s on the recovery of the murder weapons,” he said.

Callis again placed his glasses on his nose and read the 75-49s carefully, again handing the pages as he finished them to Assistant District Attorney Hormel.

As he read page four, he said: “Denny Coughlin was a witness to the recovery? What was he doing there?”

“Chief Coughlin did not see fit to inform me of his reasons,” Lowenstein said. “Inspector Wohl suspects that he thought it would be nice to go yachting at that hour of the morning.”

“Oh, shit, Matt.” Callis laughed.

Callis finished reading the 75-49s, and then everybody waited for Hormel to finish.

“There are some problems with this,” Hormel said.

“Such as?”

“What was this Special Operations detective doing surveilling Mr. Atchison?”

“At the direction of the Commissioner, Detective Payne was detailed to Homicide to assist in the investigation,” Lowenstein said.

“I’d love to know what that was all about,” Callis said, looking at Lowenstein. “Was that before or after you threatened to retire?”

“Gossip does get around, doesn’t it?” Lowenstein said. “I didn’t threaten to retire. I considered retiring. I changed my mind. If you’re suggesting I in any way was unhappy with the detail of Detective Payne to Homicide, I was not. He is a very bright young man, as those 75-49s indicate.”

“He was assigned to surveil Atchison?”

“He was ordered to assist the assigned detective in whatever way the assigned detective felt would be helpful,” Lowenstein replied.

“Presumably,” Hormel said, “there was coordination with the Media Police Department?”

“That same afternoon, Detective Payne accompanied Sergeant Washington to interview Mr. Atchison at his home. That was coordinated with the Media Police Department.”

“Jason’s back working Homicide? I hadn’t heard that,” Callis said.

“Sergeant Washington and Detective Payne were the first police officers on the scene of the Inferno Lounge murders,” Lowenstein said. “Inspector Wohl was kind enough to make them both available to me to assist in the conduct of Homicide’s investigation of the murders.”

Callis snorted.

“‘Detective Payne,’” Hormel said, obviously playing the role of a defense attorney, “‘you look like a very young man. How long have you been a police officer? How long have you been a detective?’”

“‘How long have you been assigned to Homicide?’” Callis picked up on Hormel’s role playing. “‘Oh, you’re not assigned to Homicide? Then you really had no previous experience in conducting a surveillance of a murder suspect? Is that what you’re telling me?’”

“And then we get to re-direct,” Wohl said. “Our distinguished Assistant District Attorney-or perhaps the District Attorney himself-approaches the boy detective on the stand and asks, ‘Detective Payne, were you in any way involved in the apprehension of the so-called Northwest Serial Rapist? Oh, was that you who was forced to use deadly force to rescue Mrs. Naomi Schneider from the deadly clutches of that fiend?’”

Callis chuckled.

“Very good, Peter.”

“‘And were you involved in any way, Detective Payne, in the apprehension of the persons subsequently convicted in the murders at Goldblatt’s Furniture Store? Oh, was that you who was in the deadly gun battle with one of the murderers? Mr. Atchison was not, then, the first murderer with whom you have dealt?’”

“That could be turned against you. It could make him look like a cowboy,” Callis said.

“The dark and stormy night is what bothers me,” Hormel said. “We have to convince the jury that the package Denny Coughlin saw them take from the river was the same package Atchison tossed in there. That’s a tenuous connection.”

“The two South detectives saw the package being passed from Foley to Atchison,” Lowenstein said.

“No, they didn’t,” Hormel argued. “There’s room for reasonable doubt about that. And it was a dark and stormy night. ‘How can you testify under oath, Detective Payne, that the package taken from the river by police divers was the package you saw Mr. Atchison carry out of Yock’s Diner? How can you testify under oath that, if the night was as dark as you have testified it was, and you were as far from Mr. Atchison as you say you were, that what he threw, if indeed he threw anything, into the river was that package? You couldn’t really see him, could you? You’re testifying to what you may honestly believe happened, but, honestly, you didn’t really see anything, did you?’”

“Ah, come on, Harry!” Lowenstein protested.

“I’m inclined to go with Harry,” Callis said. “This is weak.”

Lowenstein stood up.

“Always a pleasure to see you, Tom,” he said. “And you, too, Harry.”

“Where are you going?”

“To carry out my orders,” Lowenstein said. “I was instructed to show you what we have. Then I was instructed to arrest the sonsofbitches. Come on, Peter.”

Wohl stood up and offered his hand to Harry Hormel.

“Now, wait a minute,” Callis said. “I didn’t say it was no good. I said it was weak.”