Chain of Evidence

you? You go through channels from now on.”

Here, Dart realized, was the ultimate in irony: a cop known for his misuse of the system telling Dart that he should play by the rules. The hypocrisy caused Dart to laugh and throw his head back. “You’re too much,” he said.

Then, in a whisper, as if he believed he might be overheard even on a stopped elevator, Kowalski leaned in closely to Dart and said in his coarse voice, “Listen to me, Dartelli, okay? Let’s say that some white guy did do Lawrence that night-hypothetically speaking. A big white guy on the edge of Bellevue Square at night. Let’s think about this … Now how many candidates do we have for this person? Huh?” He held up his meaty hand and raised a single, chunky finger. “One: A junkie in need of a fix. That would mean Lawrence was a dealer, which we have no proof of. That would also probably mean a struggle of some kind. Okay? So where’s the evidence? Two: What other damn fool would be ballsy enough to visit the square after dark? Who but a junkie goes into that area at night? Not even the fucking cabs, for Chrissakes. There’s only one answer isn’t there, okay?” He glared at Dart; neither man was going to say the word that teased their tongues. “I’m not real upset about some pervert like Lawrence ending up hanging from a wire. And I sure as hell am not going to use some twelve-year-old abused and abandoned nigger girl to rip open an investigation that could lead where we both know it could lead. Okay? What’s the point? Let’s just drop it.”

Dart shook his head. “We can’t drop it.”

“Oh, for Chrissakes. Get off of your fucking white horse.”

“We let it go because he’s a sex offender? Is that it?”

“Fuck off.”

“Or because it might involve one of us.”

“I didn’t say that,” Kowalski protested.

“Sure you did.”

The control panel buzzed as someone called the stopped elevator.

Kowalski said, “You think justice is just left to us? That’s bullshit. We’re way the hell down on that food chain.”

“Justice isn’t up to us-it’s up to the courts.”

“Oh, come on!” Kowalski protested. “I mean us: human beings. There’s other kinds of justice, you know. There’s laws of the jungle. You stick your dick in a twelve-year-old and shit happens to you-car loses a wheel on the highway. Fucking radio falls into your bathtub. How the fuck do I know?”

“A cop fakes your suicide,” Dart completed.

“Maybe. Yeah, just maybe. And who the fuck cares, Dartelli? Are you honestly sorry that this maggot ate shit and died? You crying for this guy? Fuck him. Fuck anyone like him.”

“David Stapleton, Harold Payne,” Dart said. And then he realized, by Kowalski’s expression, just how thick the man could be. By all appearances, Kowalski had not made the connection until that moment-one hell of a performance, if that’s what it was.

“Fuck me,” Kowalski said.

“They probably would have liked to,” Dart answered. But in his heart of hearts, he ached. If Kowalski’s surprise was legitimate, then Dart could remove him from suspicion, which left only one other. On some level he knew that the killer could be any one of hundreds-thousands-of people, but that did not register. One face, one name dominated his thoughts: Walter Zeller. He stepped out of the way of the panel.

Kowalski got the elevator moving again. The floor bounced. Kowalski cautioned, “You bring that girl into it, and you’re in for some serious trouble. I’m telling ya.”

Dart nodded. He saw Kowalski, and his possible involvement, in a different light, though he wasn’t sure whether to trust it or not. “Wherever this leads,” Dartelli cautioned, “then that’s the way it is.”

“You want to play Boy Scout, go join a troop.” Being called a Boy Scout was among a handful of the most derogatory labels used among fellow officers. Kowalski added, “Lawrence got what he deserved.” The car stopped moving and the doors opened. Kowalski took one step toward freedom, reconsidered, and turned to face Dartelli. “No that’s not true. He got off light. If I’d done it,” he said convincingly, “I’d have cut off his cock, shoved it down his throat, and let him choke to death.”

Dart didn’t move from the elevator car, thinking: If you had done it, we would have caught you.

Whoever had staged these suicides had done so brilliantly, and again, Dart could think of only one.

CHAPTER 14

As difficult as it was for him to face it, Dart realized that he had to locate Walter Zeller and question him. Informally, he convinced himself-at least at first. He would make it appear that he was seeking Zeller’s advice, the protege returning to the feet of the mentor. But he no longer had any doubt. It had to be done. At least three men were dead. Dart believed he knew why they had been selected. It was time to act before there were more.

For the last few months, the word around the department had been that after a brief stint with a security firm in Hartford, Zeller had been offered a better job in Seattle. Dart had believed all along that, better job or not, it was important for Zeller to move on, preferably as far away from his wife’s murder as possible. Seattle certainly fit that bill.

But try as he did, Dart failed to raise a Seattle phone number for the former sergeant, either through the personnel office, directory information, or through any of the many friends Zeller had left behind. He was able to obtain a Seattle address for Zeller-a box number on First Avenue-and to determine that Zeller’s pension checks were direct-deposited into a First Interstate Bank account, but beyond that, the trail ended: officials at the bank had the same box number, no residential address, no phone number.

None of this came as any great surprise to Dart, or put him off his effort. Most police officers, retired or not, protect themselves from possible revenge attacks by maintaining unpublished phone numbers and using post office boxes for mailing addresses. Zeller, whose desire for privacy was legendary and who had put away dozens of killers, could be expected to take such precautions.

While running an errand on a Tuesday in early November, Dart drove past Sam and Rob’s Smoke Shop on Asylum Street and pulled over a block later. In direct violation of federal import restrictions, Sam and Rob’s sold a variety of Cuban cigars out of their back room to preferred customers. During his twenty years of public service, Walter Zeller had been a regular customer and had developed a friendship with the owners.

The shop smelled of fresh pipe tobacco.

Rob, the older of the two proprietors, had died of lung cancer five years earlier. His brother Sam, in his late fifties, was bald with a brown mustache and red cheeks and high cheekbones. He wore a tattered green apron with the name of the shop embroidered in dull red thread. His shirt cuffs were threadbare, and a button had been replaced on one of them. He had a smoker’s voice and a gambler’s nervous eyes.

He didn’t seem to recognize Dart until the detective mentioned Zeller’s name, at which point an association was made. For years, Dart had wandered the shelves of this outer room, while Zeller had negotiated for the Cubans in the back.

After the introductions were made, Dart told him that he had a difficult investigation on his hands, and that he had lost track of Zeller. “I thought that he might have had you send him some cigars-that you might have an address or a phone number.”

“He went to Seattle,” Sam informed him needlessly. “Vancouver gets all the Cuban brands-Canada, you know; no restrictions.”

“So you haven’t heard from him?”

“Heard from him?” Sam repeated. “He was in here not three weeks ago. Bought