The other reason Gregor liked to work with police departments was that it kept him out of trouble. Here was something else that was unrealistic about crime novels. In real life, an amateur who tried to investigate on his own would end up in court on an obstruction charge. If he did anything that might even conceivably compromise the police investigation, he might even find himself in jail. Cops did not take kindly to interference from outside, even when that interference was well within the law. They didn’t want the Federal Bureau of Investigation “helping” except when they asked it to. They didn’t want the cops of some other jurisdiction getting in their way. They didn’t want anything but to be left alone unless they asked not to be, and they were likely to treat an interloper the way antibodies treated a virus. First they would isolate him. Then they would try to kill him off. Gregor preferred to be asked in. That was why he called himself a “consultant” for police departments, and why he had always steadfastly refused to get his private investigator’s license. He didn’t want to be Philip Marlowe. He didn’t even want to be Raymond Chandler. He only wanted to have interesting work to do that didn’t take up so much of his time that he no longer had a life. Having waited until middle age to chuck workaholism for living, he did not intend to backslide into an obsession about procedures.
In many places, simply having an invitation from the local Catholic Archbishop would be enough to get him an invitation from the police department involved. That would have been true in Philadelphia only fifteen or twenty years ago. Now things were stickier. There weren’t as many Catholics as there had been, and, more importantly, not as many of them were cops. Then there was what Gregor was rapidly beginning to think of as the Personality Problem. The first thing he had discovered, making a few phone calls to set up this meeting, was that the Philadelphia police didn’t like the new Cardinal Archbishop any more than he did.
He checked his watch. He was cutting this very close. He shouldn’t have spent so much time at St. Anselm’s, or walked from there halfway to here. He watched a couple of uniformed officers come out the front doors and head away from him on the sidewalks, both wearing thick coats that were designed to look as much like their uniforms as possible. Then he went through the front doors himself and presented himself to the officer at the desk.
“Gregor Demarkian,” he said. “I’m here to see John Jackman—”
“Right here.”
Gregor looked up and saw Jackman coming toward him, dressed in a suit so well made and so conservative he could have been a banker. What he was, instead, was the deputy commissioner of police of the city of Philadelphia, an appointment he had held now for exactly six months. Gregor had first met him when he was a detective lieutenant in Bryn Mawr. Since then, Jackman had gone from township to township and from township to city, moving carefully and without hesitation toward the only thing that mattered to him. It didn’t hurt that he was Black, and very photogenic, and Catholic into the bargain. Gregor hardly thought he could have done better if he had been allowed to put in specifications with God. At the very least, if they ever decided to make a movie of his life, they would have to get Will Smith to play the part.
The uniformed officer at the desk was a woman. Jackman said good morning to her and took Gregor firmly by the elbow.
“Third floor,” he said, and he pulled them both toward the elevators. “I’ve got somebody waiting for us up there. How are you? How is Bennis?”
“I’m fine. Bennis is Bennis. The execution is set for the end of the month.”
“Shit.”
“That won’t get you the commissioner’s job before you’re fifty.”
“I’ve revised my plans and made it fifty-five.” They were at the elevators, but they didn’t have to wait. Jackman pushed the button, and the doors opened, automatically, as if he had been able to hold the car until he wanted it. He tugged Gregor inside and pushed the button for the third floor. “What were you doing over at Henry Lord’s? Trying to find a way to get a stay?”
“No,” Gregor said. “Not that. We think a stay is probably impossible this time. Bennis wants to talk to her. She doesn’t want to talk to Bennis. I was trying to see if I could arrange something.”
“Shit,” Jackman said again.
The car stopped, and the door slid open. The third floor was slightly less utilitarian than the first, but there was still an air of basic practicality about it. Build solid and build cheap. It was the best of the three possible ways to build a municipal building. The worst was to build cheap, period. The iffy one was to build expensive, with marble and fountains and the kind of thick pile carpet most people only dreamed of having in their bedrooms. On the one hand, you built a monument. On the other, you ended up on the evening news in a story about the waste of the taxpayer’s money.