Chain of Evidence

considered common by any means.”

Samantha Richardson joined in, “The Paynes do not have a bald cypress on their property.” Dart had forgotten all about her, she had remained so quiet. She was dressed in blue jeans, a white shirt, and a forest green sweater vest. She was wearing wire-rim glasses. It was the first time that Dart had seen her in glasses.

“Sam followed up on this at my request,” Bragg informed him.

“Why?”

“We both know why, goddamn it,” Bragg answered angrily. “Lang made all that stink about the Ice Man- Nesbit-and although that got nowhere, Haite sees the unusual number of suicides, and he’s looking for a possible connection. It’s Lang’s fault, not mine. Don’t blame me.”

“Or me,” Samantha chimed in.

“I got bigger fish to fry than this,” Bragg complained. “But he wants each and every piece of evidence on every one of these suicides followed up on. If there is a connection, he wants it. Don’t blame me! Christ, he’s got Kowalski running around like … like …”

“A fox in a henhouse.” Dart completed.

“Fuck off.”

“Thank you.”

“So we’re reworking the Lawrence evidence, the Nesbit stuff, Stapleton, Payne-it’s a shitload of work.”

Mention of the Ice Man-Nesbit-caused Dart a flash of panic, but he concealed it. Bragg’s explanation was filling in some gaps. Haite had sent Dart a memo inquiring about a complete blood workup on Payne. So far, Dart had avoided an answer.

“And this is about the only unexplained trace evidence at the Payne suicide,” Richardson completed.

Bragg added, “And Haite-like me, like you-sees the possibility that these bald cypresss might have been left by a visitor, and he-like me, like you-wants to know who that visitor might have been and what the fuck he was doing there.”

“I see,” said Dart, thinking, I know who it was. I know what he was doing there. But Haite, of all people, is not going to believe it without a hell of a lot more evidence.

“No bald cypress there,” Dart said to Richardson.

“Not at the Paynes’, no.”

“Which is where you come in,” said Bragg. “’Cause there’s only the two of us here, and I got other fish to cook.”

“To fry,” Dart corrected.

“Fuck off.” To Richardson, Bragg said, “Tell him.”

“HHS has a listing of all bald cypresses in Hartford, East Hartford, and West Hartford.”

“HHS?”

“The Hartford Horticultural Society. They keep track of rare species.” She reached back to the counter and handed Dart a fax. “Only eleven in the area.”

“Which is where you come in,” Bragg repeated.

“You want me to go hunting down trees?” Dart asked, perplexed.

“Trees, rock salt, and potting soil,” Bragg reminded. “We lifted all three, in combination. It’s a definite signature. And it’s not me,” Bragg objected, “but your wonderful Sergeant Haite who wants this. You want to take issue, take it upstairs.”

“No, thanks.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“I could help after work,” Richardson offered Dart.

“No, you couldn’t,” Bragg countered.

There was something in the woman’s eyes that said this had nothing to do with bald cypress leaves, and Dart felt it clear to his toes. “I’d like that,” he said, not knowing where his words came from.

“Good,” she said.

“Not good,” Bragg complained.

“Fuck off,” Dart said, though in good humor, and Bragg cracked a smile.

The detective folded the fax neatly and slipped it into his pocket. He could feel Richardson’s eyes still boring into him as he left the lab.

It felt good.

CHAPTER 23

At seven-thirty on a cold November night, an hour and a half after the day shift ended, Dart and Samantha Richardson were out hunting down the registered locations of bald cypresses. Sam took East Hartford, and the greatest concentration-seven-of the trees. Dart took the city.

Residents at the first two of Dart’s four locations politely explained that they had never heard of the species and offered for Dart to look around, which he did. As it turned out, there were no bald cypresses at either location. He reached Sam by cell phone and was told, with reluctance on her part, that the horticultural list had been compiled some seven years earlier. Many of the trees could now be dead, and worse, others might have been planted within the last few years and not be included on the list.

The door of the third location was answered by a matronly woman with bluish hair and substantial girth. Closer to East Hartford, this was a decidedly nicer house than Dart’s first two attempts. There was a small backyard with a bird-bath, but the bald cypress was to be found inside the house, making Dart skeptical about the possibility of this leading him to Payne’s visitor. The futility of this search began to wear on him. He felt depressed and stretched thin-nothing about these cases ever seemed to connect; he worked on hunches, but with so little evidence. Here he was, chasing a tree! He felt like an idiot.

At 9:00 P.M., Dart once again connected by phone with Richardson, who was having equally bad luck, and she informed him that she intended to head home and try again tomorrow. Dart had promised himself one last try, but he too gave it up.

After work the next night, at a few minutes past 7:00 P.M, Dart drove over toward Pope Park South to search the last of his four locations. Although a scant few blocks from the Trinity College enclave, the Hamilton Court address was unfamiliar to him and not the kind of place that Dart felt easy visiting alone at night. It was a tough neighborhood, and the proximity to Pope Park made for some tension as it doubled as a needle park after dark. On the park’s northern boundary, Park Street ran east-west and was the most dangerous of any street in the city at night. Anything and everything was available there, from crack cocaine to teenage boys-the weapons count was astronomical. If a patrol car cruised Park Street, it did so with a team, heavily armed and ever alert.

Hamilton Court turned out to be a filthy, narrow alley less than fifty yards long that bisected a steep hill and connected Hamilton Street with Park Terrace. Dart turned onto the street and kept on driving, reluctant to park or even to slow down. Four decrepit clapboard buildings lined the alley, two on each side, surrounded by broken and decaying chain-link fences.

Driving past, Dart hoped the entrance to these houses might be on Zion, at the top of the hill, but he made a pass through the alley twice and determined that their only access was off Hamilton Court. Number 11 was pale yellow, the windows of the ground floor alit. The rotting wood trim had once been white.

Dart parked and locked the car with the engine running, thankful that he kept two car keys for just this purpose. He removed his police identification card and slung it’s chain around his neck, hopeful that a shooter would think twice before dropping a cop. Cop killers had short lives once inside Hartford jails. He walked over to the sagging stairs and climbed them quickly with sharp, quick movements as he kept an eye on everything around him. Stupid time of night to be here, he thought to himself, heart pounding, his hand ready to draw his weapon. This was a shoot-first-ask-questions-later-neighborhood-a concept that didn’t sit well with Dart, but one he understood.

He knocked sharply and waited. No one answered. Fine with me, he thought as he