“More accurately, ‘good morning,’” Martha said. “Jason, this is Mrs. Kellog.”

“How do you do?” Jason said.

Kellog? As in Officer Kellog?

“I’m sorry to have come here like this,” Mrs. Kellog said. “But I just had to.”

“How may I help you, Mrs. Kellog?”

“Jerry Kellog was my husband,” she said.

That’s precisely what I feared. And what are you doing here, in my home?

“May I offer my condolences on your loss, Mrs. Kellog?”

“I didn’t have anything to do with him being killed,” she said. “And neither did Wally.”

Washington nodded sympathetically.

“Martha, I’m sure you’re tired,” he said.

“No. Not at all,” Martha said, smiling sweetly, letting Jason know that even if this was business he wasn’t going to dismiss her so lightly in her own home.

“Wally told me, not only Wally, but Lieutenant Sackerman, too, especially him, that you’re not only the best Homicide detective…”

“That was very gracious of Jack Sackerman,” Washington said, “we were friends for a long time.”

“…but the only cop you know is honest.”

“That’s very kind, but I cannot accept the blanket indictment of the rest of the Police Department,” Washington said. “I like to think we’re something like Ivory Soap: ninety-nine and forty-four one hundredths pure.”

Helene Kellog ignored him.

“That’s why I came to you,” she said. “I didn’t know where else to go.” She looked at him, took a deep breath, and went on: “Jerry was dirty. I know that. And-what happened to him-had something to do with that. They’re all dirty, the whole Five Squad is dirty.”

“Mrs. Kellog, when you were interviewed by detectives investigating the death of your husband, did you tell any of them what you just told me?”

She snorted.

“Of course not. They all acted like they think that I had something to do with it. Or that Wally did. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they were in on it.”

“In on what?”

“Covering up. Maybe trying to pin it on Wally or me. Wally and me.”

“Does Detective Milham know that you’ve come to see me?”

“Of course not!”

“Why do you think anyone would want to ‘pin’ what happened to your husband on you? Or Detective Milham?”

“I just told you! To cover up. To protect themselves. They’re all dirty. The whole damned Five Squad is dirty! That’s probably why Jerry was killed. He never really wanted to get involved with that. They made him! And maybe he was going to tell somebody or do something.”

“By dirty, you mean you believe your husband was taking money from someone?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Did he tell you he was?”

“No. He wouldn’t talk about it at all.”

“Then how do you know?”

“He was getting the money from someplace.”

“What money?”

“All of the money. All of a sudden we’ve got lots of money. You’re a cop. You know how much a cop, even with overtime, makes.”

“And Jerry had large sums of money?”

“We- he -bought a condo at the shore, and there’s a boat. And he paid cash. He didn’t get that kind of money from the Police Department.”

“Did you ask him where the money came from?”

“He wouldn’t tell me. That’s when we started to have trouble, when he wouldn’t tell me.”

“Have you told anything about this to Detective Milham?”

“No.”

“May I ask why not?”

“Because if I did, he would have done something about it. He’s an honest cop.”

“Then wouldn’t he logically be the person to tell?”

“I didn’t want Jerry to go to jail,” she said. “And besides, what would it look like, coming from me? Me living with Wally. I’d look like a bitch of a wife trying to make trouble.”

“Did you come to me for advice, Mrs. Kellog?” Washington asked.

“For help. For advice.”

“If what you told me is true…”

“Of course it’s true!” she interrupted.

“…then the information you have should be placed in the hands of the people who can do something about it. I’m sure you know that we have an Internal Affairs Division…”

“If I thought I could trust Internal Affairs, I wouldn’t be here,” she said. “They’re all in on it.”

“Mrs. Kellog, I can understand why you’re upset, but believe me, you can trust Internal Affairs.”

At this moment, unfortunately, I’m not absolutely sure that’s true. And neither am I sure that what I so glibly said before, that the Department is ninety-nine and forty-four one hundredths percent pure is true, either.

She snorted.

“If I gave you the name of a staff inspector in Internal Affairs whom I can personally vouch for…”

Helene Kellog stood up.

“I guess I should have known better than to come here,” she said, on the edge of tears. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time.” She turned to Martha Washington. “Thank you.”

“Mrs. Kellog, there’s really nothing I can do to help you. I have nothing to do with either Homicide or Narcotics or Internal Affairs.”

“Like I said, I’m sorry I wasted your time,” she said. “That’s the way out, right?”

“I’ll see you to the door,” Washington said, and went with her.

At the door, she turned to him.

“Do me one favor, all right? Don’t tell Wally that I came to see you.”

“If you wish, Mrs. Kellog.”

She turned her back on him and walked down the corridor to the elevator.

Martha was waiting for him in the living room.

“I’m sorry about that, honey,” he said.

“I think she was telling the truth.”

“She believed what she was saying,” Jason said after a moment. “That is not always the same thing as the whole truth.”

“I felt sorry for her.”

“So did I.”

“But you’re not going to do anything about what she said?”

“I’ll do something about it,” he said.

“What?”

“I haven’t decided that yet. I don’t happen to think that Wally Milham had anything to do with her husband’s murder; he’s not the type. I saw him tonight, by the way. That’s where I was.”

“Excuse me?”

“I went to see Matt. We tried to go to the Rittenhouse Club for a drink, but it was closed, so we took a walk, and walked up on a double homicide. On Market Street. And we got involved in that. Wally Milham had the job.”

“You mean, you were involved in a shooting?”

“No. We got there after the fact.”

“What was so important that you had to see Matt at midnight?” Martha asked. “And be warned that ‘police business’ will not be an acceptable reply.”

He met her eyes, smiled, and shook his head.

“We’re conducting a surveillance. Earlier tonight, the microphone we had in place on a hotel window was dislodged. I learned from Tony Harris that Matt climbed out on a ledge thirteen floors up to replace the damned thing.”

“My God! At the Bellvue? When he was here, he was wearing a Bellvue maintenance uniform.”

Jason ignored the question.

“I wanted to bawl him out for that. And alone.”

“So you went to the bar at the Rittenhouse Club?”

“That was after I bawled him out.”

“After you bawled him out, you felt sorry for him?”

“I felt sorry for myself. I wanted a drink, and he didn’t have anything.”

“I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt,” Martha said, “and accept that story.”

“Thank you.”

“Do want something to eat? Coffee? Another drink?”

“If I told you what I really want, you’d accuse me of…”

“Oddly enough, I was thinking along those lines myself,” Martha said. “Why don’t you get one of those champagne splits from the fridge, while I turn off the lights.”

When Detective Wallace J. Milham walked into the Homicide Division, he saw Detective Matthew M. Payne sitting at an unoccupied desk reading the Daily News. When Payne saw him, he closed the newspaper and stood up.

Wally beckoned to him with his finger and led him into one of the interview rooms, remembering as he passed through the door that he had the previous morning given a statement of his own in the same goddamn room.