Chain of Evidence

held a look of horror. He could see in the young girl’s fear and hesitation that she had indeed been in Lawrence’s lair, had petted those bunnies. A victim.

Attempting to fend off her confirmation-not wanting to hear it-he said impatiently, “Well, you’ve certainly been a big help.” God help him, he would not bring this girl downtown. He no longer cared about Kowalski’s missing pages. Let it go.

But for Abby this was simply another investigation, another case; she had seen dozens of girls like Lewellan Page. She would not allow Dart to close the questioning. “Are they nice bunnies? Cute bunnies?” she asked.

The girl nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Lewellan, did you visit Gerry Law that night?”

“At night? No way. Only when Mama’s at work. Mama don’t like Gerry none. Mama don’t want me seeing the bunnies.” She asked Dart, “You know what happened to them bunnies now that Gerry is dead?”

Dart spun around and left the room, his throat constricted, his vision blurred.

Kill all the Gerry Laws you can find, and there would still be more, he thought. He wanted to change this girl’s life, to turn back the clock.

“Abby,” he called out, hoping to end this.

But he heard her voice from the other room as she asked softly, “Do you think you might recognize this white man if you saw him again?”

Dart didn’t hear an answer. He could picture those thin shoulders lifting into that shrug, the eyes expressive with fear. There was a picture of Jesus Christ on the wall and another of the pope by the door to the bathroom. There was a picture in Dart’s head of Gerald Lawrence hanging at the end of a lamp cord. Cut him down with a pair of wire cutters. Zip him up inside the ME’s black plastic body bag and forget about it. Who cares about him? Why bother to investigate? Kowalski was right: good riddance.

“Abby,” he called again.

“Come in here a minute,” she answered.

Reluctantly, Dart reentered the kitchen.

“Tell him what you just told me,” Abby said, glancing at Dart, and punishing him for his desertion.

“I saw the white man pull the chair out from under him.”

Dart stood there, slack-jawed. For a moment it felt as if his heart had stopped. The rationale that he had formulated in his head-the drug deal, Kowalski chalking up a favor-evaporated.

Several thoughts coursed through him, from how lousy a witness she was: a twelve-year-old victim of sexual abuse; to Kowalski’s missing pages.

The chair. He recalled the photograph: the chair lying on its side, spilled over as if kicked away.

Standing up and glancing out the kitchen window, Abby asked, “Were the shades up or down?”

Dart recognized that tone of voice: Abby didn’t believe the girl. Thank God! he thought.

“The shade was down. Gerry always had the shades down. Said the bunnies didn’t like the sun.” She turned to face Dart and explained, “But it was hot that night, and there was a wind, you know, and the shade blowing back and forth, and it moved once, and I saw that white man pull the chair, and I saw Gerry’s feet … you know?” She glanced over at Abby, and paddled her hands out in front of herself. “Like he was running, you know? Running real fast.”

Dart felt paralyzed. Lewellan Page had witnessed a murder.

To Abby the girl said, “Fritz ran away. That’s my dog. Mama’ll let me have bunnies now that Fritz is gone. Said no bunnies as long as we have Fritz, but Fritz is gone now, gone for good.” She nodded enthusiastically.

Fifteen minutes later Dart and Abby Lang were back in the department-issue Taurus soaking in the air- conditioning. Abby stated strongly, “She killed the dog, or let him go, or gave him away.”

“You think?”

“She wants those rabbits.”

He had a witness now that in many ways he did not want, and yet felt grateful to have. Someone had murdered Lawrence-the same person who killed the Ice Man? he wondered-and no matter who this person turned out to be-even if Walter Zeller-he had to be stopped, and right away. He couldn’t help but think that he might have stopped this killing if back then had he spoken up. He felt cold all of a sudden.

“Why would Kowalski leave her out of his report?” she fired at him.

Kowalski was a big white man; Dart understood what Abby was saying. He objected, “She could be lying about the guy’s color. About any of it.”

Abby kept her attention on the road and slowed for a red light. “I don’t think she’s lying,” she said.

“No,” he said, though he wanted to bury the whole thing. He thought he understood Kowalski now more than ever.

Mistakes compound other mistakes, Dart reminded himself. You overlook something three years ago, and it comes back to haunt you. I did my job, he reminded himself, wondering if a board of inquiry would see it that way, wondering if his career was on the line. He felt like a fuck-up. A fool. He considered a transfer-someplace in the South, away from the winters. People might attribute it to his breakup with Ginny. It was a good time to try.

But the better part of him knew that he could not outrun the truth. Better to stay and fight.

Abby asked, “What exactly is going on with us, Joe?”

Dart felt his face and spine go hot. How could she disconnect from Lewellan Page so quickly? Was that what Sex Crimes did to you, numb you, the way Homicide turned you into a comedian?

She wanted an answer; she didn’t want to repeat herself.

“Let’s forget the ice cream,” he said.

“I’m not talking about ice cream.” Abby found a stray button on her blouse and closed it. She steered clear of a slow-moving truck, turned at the jai alai fronton and crossed over the tracks. She parked in the back of the Jennings Road building, and just before they climbed out of the car, announced, “I know what I know. I know what I’m feeling from you. For you. It’s scaring me a little.”

“You’re good company, Abby.”

“Okay,” she said, accepting this.

But Dart didn’t accept his own explanation. He wanted to say something. She was more than good company; he was interested-the couple of years that separated them didn’t bother him a bit. She was a fighter; a comer. She spoke her mind, and when she met eyes with him he felt it inside.

Whereas she seemed to have faced all of this, to have reconciled herself to the obvious, he could not. Not verbally. And so he said nothing: Another deliberate omission on his part. Would he pay for this one as well?

CHAPTER 9

After weeks of routine work in which it was easy to lose himself, Dart still retained a folder on his desk containing five mug shots that little Lewellan Page had identified as likenesses of Lawrence’s killer. To her credit, the faces appeared similar-renewing Dart’s faith in her as a witness. He stumbled onto the folder on a Wednesday afternoon in early October and decided to do something about the worry that he had been living with since the interview. The only step that he could clearly see was to steal a look at some files that he did not have authority to access. The risk had kept him away from them, but on this particular Wednesday he snapped. He had to do something before another “suicide” turned up.

Dart walked down the hall to Abby’s office, shut her door quietly, and asked her out for an ice cream.

“An ice cream?” she asked, viewing him curiously-as much for the way in which he had shut the door, as his question. “It’s October.”

“Someplace away from Jennings Road is all,” he informed her.

They met eyes and he sensed that perhaps she understood. They agreed to meet in the parking lot a few