"We asked the local authorities to locate and identify, not apprehend," Leibowitz said. "We want the Chenowith Group alive, taken into custody without the firing of a shot. The last thing we want to do is kill one of them and make a martyr out of him," Leibowitz said, "or, especially, one of the females."
"But aren't these photographs enough to pick up the Reynolds girl?" Denny Coughlin asked. "Charge her with aiding and abetting? Accessory after the fact? Lean on her hard?"
"After we get the Chenowith Group, Chief," Leibowitz said, "I'm sure the U.S. Attorney will go after her. But the priority is the apprehension of the Chenowith Group."
"I understand," Coughlin said.
"Once we had these pictures, and identified Chenowith and Ollwood, we put the premises under surveillance, of course," Leibowitz said. "And the to-be-expected result of that, of course, was that they never went back to the Poconos."
"They spotted the surveillance?" Peter Wohl asked,
"That's possible, of course," Leibowitz replied. "But we think it's equally possible that they simply suspected they had been using that rendezvous point too often. Whatever the reason, they never went back to the Reynolds summer house."
"What's the purpose of the rendezvous?" Matt asked.
"I was about to get to that," Leibowitz said. "First of all, we think it has to do with money. We believe that since we have been looking for them, the Chenowith Group has been involved in as many as four bank robberies. We have surveillance-camera proof that Chenowith and Ollwood have been involved in two bank robberies. A total of $140,000, in round figures, has been taken. One of them was a very recent case."
The lights went out and several surveillance-camera images of a female with a kerchief on her head wearing a raincoat and large dangling earrings appeared on the screen.
"That's Ollwood?" Detective Wee Willy Malone asked doubtfully.
Leibowitz chuckled. "That's Mr. Chenowith," he said.
"My God, the very ugly white woman with hairy legs," Wohl said, laughing. "The Girard Bank job in-where was it?"
"Bucks County. Riegelsville," Leibowitz furnished.
"I'm missing the point of the humor here," Chief Coughlin said.
"Mickey O'Hara wrote a hilarious story about it," Matt said. "The guy in the bank described the bandit as a very ugly white woman with hairy legs."
"That woman is Chenowith?" Coughlin asked.
"The lab did some interesting stuff, comparing the nose, hands, ears, and so on, of the 'woman' with Chenowith 's features. That's him, Chief."
The news did not seem to please Coughlin.
"So they're wanted on bank-robbery charges, too?" he asked.
"In a sense, Chief," Leibowitz said. "We have not charged any of them with bank robbery. We don't want them to know we know they're involved. Our thinking here-the thinking of the attorney general-is that once we apprehend them, we can quickly bring them to trial in Federal Court and get a conviction, using the surveillance-camera footage as proof. There is very little sympathy for bank robbers, and the evidence for the two bank jobs where we have surveillance-camera footage is not circumstantial. Their defense cannot bring up the morality of using animals in medical research, et cetera. And once they are convicted, then we can try them on the University of Pittsburgh bombing charges."
"Public relations, huh?" Coughlin said in disgust.
"Unfortunately, that has to be considered," Davis said.
"Now, our thinking is that they are thinking that since we are not searching for them on the bank-robbery charges we may not know about the bank robberies. Consequently, if we should get lucky and get them into custody, they don't want to be found in possession of a large sum of money that even the none-too-bright FBI might decide came from unsolved bank robberies."
"You mean you think Reynolds is holding the bank loot for them?" Matt asked.
"Yeah," Leibowitz said. "And dispensing it as needed to pay their expenses. Being a fugitive is expensive."
"I thought she might be getting money to them," Matt said. "Not the other way around."
"In a sense, she is, Payne," Davis said. "But I see what you mean."
"And even if you could get a search warrant," Wohl said, "the question would be where would you search?"
"Precisely, Inspector," Leibowitz said. "If we'd tumbled onto the Reynolds woman's connection to the Chenowith Group earlier, maybe we could have done something. And, of course, the minute we would serve a search warrant on her, that would be the end of any meetings with any of them."
"Yeah," Wohl said thoughtfully.
"So what we have to do is find out where the Reynolds woman is going to meet with the Chenowith Group, or Chenowith individually, in sufficient time to set up an arrest that can't possibly go sour. We don't, to repeat, want to have to shoot any of these individuals and turn them into martyrs."
"If we winged one of them in the arm," Jernigan said. "Their defense counsel would wheel them into the courtroom in a wheelchair, in a body cast, with intravenous tubes feeding him blood, an innocent college student showing his-even worse, her-grievous injuries suffered at the hands of the American Gestapo."
"That bad?" Coughlin asked.
"We think that's exactly what would happen. We want to take these people without giving them a bruise," Davis said. "So that, Payne, is where you come in. Get close to the Reynolds woman; make that happen."
"When I call 'the Reynolds woman,' " Matt said, "she's liable to tell me the same thing she told me when I tried to get her out of the Nesbitt party. 'I told you once, fuck off!' "
"Did she really say that?" Davis asked.
"What she said was, 'I'm sure you're a very nice fellow, but I'm just not interested.' "
"I still think it's worth a try," Davis said. "Two or three tries. She's our best shot at the Chenowith Group."
"Okay," Matt said. "I'll give it a shot."
"We don't expect her to lead you to the rendezvous, Payne," Leibowitz said. "We don't even expect you to find out where she's meeting these people. All we want from you is to call us-which means Special Agent Matthews-when you have reason to believe she is going to meet them. Just tell us where she is at that moment. We'll take it from there."
Matt's mouth ran away with him.
"Tail her, you mean? The way you tailed me? If she spots you as quickly as I did-and I suspect she'd be looking for a tail, and I wasn't-this is all going to be an exercise in futility."
Davis glowered at him. Wohl looked amused.
"We will have assets in place, Detective Payne," Leibowitz said, "that will permit us-providing you give us enough time to deploy those assets-to keep the Reynolds woman under surveillance without being detected."
"I hope so," Matt said.
"Matty," Chief Coughlin said. "I hope you heard what Mr. Davis and Leibowitz said about how they want to arrest these people?"
"Yes, sir."
"They don't want to run any risk of these people being injured, or their resisting arrest," Coughlin went on. "You understand that?"
"Yes, sir."
"Consider that an order from me," Coughlin said. "If you should run into this Chenowith fellow and the other man and the two women skipping down North Broad Street at high noon, all you are to do about it is tell the FBI. You take my meaning?"
"Yes, sir."
If I see any of these scumbags, Detective Payne thought, his mind full of the faces of the eleven innocent people who had been killed, and I think I can put the arm on one of them-or all of them-without getting myself hurt, I will, and no one will ever remember that I got that order.
ELEVEN
When Matt rang the bell at Number 9 Stockton Place, it was opened by a muscular man in his late thirties. Matt was startled, not so much by the man opening the door instead of Daffy herself, or one of the ever-changing parade of maids, but because the man smelled of cop. That instant reaction was immediately confirmed when Matt saw the unmistakable bulge of a pistol in a shoulder holster.